Elon Musk Goes Full Conspiracy Theorist, Blames Big Oil for Tesla's Negative Media Coverage

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

3 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

... Hey, should work.

This thread just keeps on amusing me.

Great response, Jan.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

There is a sad part to the Musk carnival.  He keeps on getting vast mounds of cash due to the dismal state of science teaching in our schools.  Anybody who has ever studied physics, or chemistry, or even simply math can rapidly figure out that Musk is selling snake oil. If you are technically illiterate then you start clinging to the skirt of the salesman who promises you relief from 103 ailments by drinking the product inside that elixir bottle down at the carnival.  Multiply that by several million and you have the Muskers. 

Edited May 28, 2018 by Jan van Eck

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Yep, in case it's not yet obvious, I generally view Elon Musk as a snake oil salesman.  Who is pretty darn good at acquiring government money.  Drink the Kool Aid at your own risk.

[DanilKa + 443]

Rob Mauer runs “Tesla daily” unofficial podcast - the only bullish #TSLA guy I know. For opposite view, check Mark Spiegel interview for “Adventures In Finance” (RealVision TV; they also interviewed Rob) or Hidden Forces and his recent presentation https://youtu.be/fCMTxtUz-O8

Blame the frackers, Elon. Just take a number...

[Bhimsen Pachawry + 72]

Tesla is a big company mainly because of state support. Musk got money from the government mainly because USA tried to end its reliance on oil by trying out an alternative. Since USA consumes 20MBPD liquid fuel, it is under tremendous pressure to seek alternatives. Tesla was just a desperate attempt at freeing from oil dependency. But that failed miserably.

The main problem with Tesla is that EV technology is not fit for running cars. The frenzy created by media hype and addition of useless features like touch screen and some funny digital gadgets can't last forever. With the arrival of social media and the discovery of various Tesla problems, the good publicity eventually turned to bad publicity.

Musk was always a snake oil salesman but so is the "American dream". The whole American dream was always about petroleum exploitation and overconsumption. It will come to an eventual end

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 hours ago, Bhimsen Pachawry said:

The whole American dream was always about petroleum exploitation and overconsumption. It will come to an eventual end.

Actually, probably not  (come to an end).  There is an awful lot of oil out there.  At best,we have consumed perhaps 18% of the planet's oil. 

And there are large savings in oil use for transport to be had.  I invite readers to consider the Interstate linking the Port of Baltimore to the city of Morgantown, West Virginia. That run is about 212 miles and a major truck route into the Midwest from the Port. I did a little study on that route and discovered that some 40% of the fuel burn was over only 30,000 feet of Interstate 68.  Now, how is this?  Take a look at an elevation map and you will see these six giant ridges that the road goes up and down, then go stand on the roadside and listen to those big truck engines just groaning in low gear and they try to mash their way up those grades.  The fuel flow is a total river at that point. 

OK, so now what the govt does is build tunnels, with an internal grade of no more than 0.9%, so those heavy trucks can run in top gear at 55.  Instead of blowing fuel going up and down, now you just coast along.  Build 100 tunnels through the 100 highest-volume mountain grades and there goes some 40% of America's road transport fuel use. 

What does that cost you?   Figure on a billion a tunnel using those big tunnel-boring machines, the stuff they used to dig from England to France.  For a CAPEX of 100 billion you are all done and out from underneath importing one drop of foreign oil. Hey, it is entirely doable, if you have the political will.  And that also collapses the world oil price back down to about $22.  Just saying. 

[Rodent + 1,424]

14 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

 Now the problem with Reno is: (1)  the workforce has no industrial experience.  If you want to build cars or batteries or anything else on a production line then you go where there is generational and institutional knowledge, or you start spending North-Slope type cash for your production. What's wrong with Ohio?  What's wrong with Michigan?  I mean, come on - go where the trained workforce is. That Reno plant is a gigantic mess.   

I hear Flint has an industrial workforce at the ready, courtesy of GM.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Just now, Rodent said:

I hear Flint has an industrial workforce at the ready, courtesy of GM.

Sure does, but the city is now beyond repair, at least by private money.  You could try Lansing, though. Or Janesville, Wisconsin, the old GM plant there.  Or the abandoned plants in Canada for that matter  (if you have the guts to take on the loony govt in Ontario, might not be doable at this point).  Indiana would work. Lots of industrial workers in the old MidWest.  

When you hear the horror stories coming out of the Reno operation, it shakes you. They hire guys to be technicians who show up with those adjustable wrenches instead of a decent socket set.  Then they strip the heads off bolts on those battery machines trying to take them apart. Now those parts including the bolts are all "special" and have to be flown in from Japan.  So in desperation the managers were bringing in Japanese techs to fix the stuff the Reno guys had wrecked. And the Japanese guys spoke no English so the tech knowledge could not be passed on - to guys who had no idea what they were doing in the first place.  How in blazes do you run a plant like that? 

And you cannot even bring in workers from the MidWest to take over in Reno.  There is no housing. There is no grass. The place is a baking desert. It has no infrastructure, no schools for the kiddies. You can never get a workforce to go live there.  You would have to bring in prefab trailers.  Are the workers from Ohio prepared to move their families into some trailer park in the desert? What on earth was Musk thinking?  Unreal thought process. 

[Jason Lavis + 55]

On 24/05/2018 at 8:22 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

Presented without comment.

(I'm laughing like a hyena, but that's not really a comment).

Elon Musk Goes Full Conspiracy Theorist, Blames Big Oil for Tesla's Negative Media Coverage

Elon Musk's list of people responsible for Tesla's shortcomings - now inclusive of the NTSB, internet trolls and the financial media - and notably not inclusive of Elon Musk, continues to grow. Today's addition? The conspirators running the big oil companies.

It appears that billionaire CEO Elon Musk is convinced that big oil executives have taken time out of their perversely cash generative work days to pin the financial media against him and his cash incinerating company. 

The latest surprising, yet oddly not surprising, news from the world of the Tesla media relations dumpster fire comes courtesy of Elon Musk once again taking to Twitter and raging about the powers that be who are holding Tesla back from its inevitable glorious zenith as the green energy company that will save the world.

...

Tom, I think that you and Tyler are being a bit unjust in your estimations of the content in Elon's Tweets. I don't see anything in them that seem crazy, or in the realms of conspiracy theory at all. If we ignore the headline, and the comments from you and Tyler, the Tweets themselves seem fairly accurate and factual? (Or at least very commonly held opinions).

Help me out here buddy  which Tweets are conspiracy theories?

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

21 hours ago, Jason Lavis said:

Tom, I think that you and Tyler are being a bit unjust in your estimations of the content in Elon's Tweets. I don't see anything in them that seem crazy, or in the realms of conspiracy theory at all. If we ignore the headline, and the comments from you and Tyler, the Tweets themselves seem fairly accurate and factual? (Or at least very commonly held opinions).

Help me out here buddy  which Tweets are conspiracy theories?

Understood your concern.  This is probably a rabbit hole that most don't want to go down.

Briefly, my opinion is that Elon Musk is a snake oil salesman (a pretty darn good one) who extracts money from others.  I also view Elon as a black hat, who does not have good intentions.

Please feel free to message me for more about this if you wish, otherwise this will likely veer off into some dark territory, which is not suitable for a forum dedicated to oil & gas.

[Jason Lavis + 55]

11 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Understood your concern.  This is probably a rabbit hole that most don't want to go down.

Briefly, my opinion is that Elon Musk is a snake oil salesman (a pretty darn good one) who extracts money from others.  I also view Elon as a black hat, who does not have good intentions.

Please feel free to message me for more about this if you wish, otherwise this will likely veer off into some pretty dark territory, which is definitely not suitable for a forum dedicated to oil & gas.

I've been an anon activist for many years, since ye olden days of usenet, and don't wish to subject innocent Oil & Gas readers here to my admittedly minority views on international politics, government corruption, and other nefarious topics.  I generally reserve writing about those topics on *other* forums, where there are no rules or moderation, and where anything goes.

Here, have some Iggy Pop instead.  It's got a good beat, and you can dance to it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_lJqBsrShys

I'm familiar with and agree with many of your 'controversial' views, but not sure if you have a blind spot here with Elon Musk. I'm happy to not go into it here and now, but I see him as the opposite of you. (Comparable with many great minds such as Eddison, Ford, Jobs, and Bezos).

We've obviously been reading different information about some of his achievements such as founding Paypal and trouncing government-funded space research. 

We can beg to differ here, and you can private message me if there's something that I've been missing.

Cheers.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

19 hours ago, Jason Lavis said:

I'm familiar with and agree with many of your 'controversial' views, but not sure if you have a blind spot here with Elon Musk. I'm happy to not go into it here and now, but I see him as the opposite of you. (Comparable with many great minds such as Eddison, Ford, Jobs, and Bezos).

We've obviously been reading different information about some of his achievements such as founding Paypal and trouncing government-funded space research. 

We can beg to differ here, and you can private message me if there's something that I've been missing.

Cheers.

Message sent.  You know me, Jason, we've discussed many topics over the years.

Up to you if you wish to pursue this, but I choose not to discuss too much about this publicly.  My views are decidedly minority, and I don't wish to derail my intention for this forum - which is to help build the Oil Price forum into the most active, most discussed forum dedicated to Oil & Gas on the internet.  A proper replacement for Oilpro.

A suggestion, how about we keep this detour abour Elon private, in private messages.  I don't want to scare off lurkers and new members with my own personal views.  

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

9 hours ago, Jason Lavis said:

I'm familiar with and agree with many of your 'controversial' views, but not sure if you have a blind spot here with Elon Musk. I'm happy to not go into it here and now, but I see him as the opposite of you. (Comparable with many great minds such as Eddison, Ford, Jobs, and Bezos).

We've obviously been reading different information about some of his achievements such as founding Paypal and trouncing government-funded space research. 

We can beg to differ here, and you can private message me if there's something that I've been missing.

Cheers.

Here ya go:

Elon Musk, Crony Capitalist

At first glance, Elon Musk appears to be a quintessential capitalist success story. The South African born-American technology magnet, lead designer of SpaceX, and product architect of Tesla, Inc. is now ranked 25^th on Forbes Magazine’s list of the World’s Most Powerful People, and as of February 2018, Forbes has Musk listed as the 53 ^rdrichest person in the world.

One might conclude that Musk’s staggering wealth was produced via faithful adherence to the timeless and inexorable principles of laissez-faire capitalism, where personal wealth is accrued through the federal government leaving commerce alone and staying outside the affairs of private industry. However, this perception of Elon Musk’s economic independence from government interventionism is largely a fabrication and carefully manufactured distortion since Musk has personally enriched himself through a whole lot of government favoritism and statist interference in the private sector economy.

At this point, Musk has received well over $5 billion in government support. Previous reports have shown over 80 percent of SpaceX’s contracts come right from Uncle Sam. 

[JunoTen + 118]

How is it a problem if SpaceX's contracts come from the US government ? It's simply because he's cheaper than NASA.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, JunoTen said:

How is it a problem if SpaceX's contracts come from the US government ? It's simply because he's cheaper than NASA.

A lot, actually.  Will message you.

[Jason Lavis + 55]

Yes, my opinion of Musk has been tainted by his entrepreneurial story regarding Paypal and the early days of Tesla and SpaceX. On top of that, I felt that the missions of pushing EV progress forward, and colonizing Mars were audacious and admirable. 

After reading the crony capitalist + overpromise/underdeliver article on mises.org I must say that my opinion needs re-examining. It looks like the typical character devolution that powerful people tend to go through. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

On 5/27/2018 at 10:07 AM, Jason Lavis said:

It looks like the typical character devolution that powerful people tend to go through. 

For consideration, a look at some of the over-hype about Mr. Musk:

When Hero Worship Is Taken Seriously

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

On 5/24/2018 at 9:17 PM, Rodent said:

I was chatting with a colleague today and discussing a possible Twitter showdown between Musk and Trump. I'd like to see that.

I'm sure it wouldn't take much to push them in the right direction. I'll bring popcorn.

[Bharath + 12]

On 5/25/2018 at 7:56 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

I tend to get amused when people get upset about my inane comments.  Go for it, feel free to comment whatever the heck you like, I *encourage* people to speak their minds. 

LinkedIn sent me an email alert that someone (who shall remain un-named) had written a comment about my comments to this article over on LinkedIn (I had posted my exact same opening comment for this Elon article over on LinkedIn).

Unfortunately, this person deleted their comment on LinkedIn before I could respond : (

Here's a screencap of the deleted comment on the LinkedIn thread, from the email alert (I covered up the name and job title)

these comments are personal attacks on you tom. but honestly, i think tesla withstood big oil's lobby. Initially, media is with Tesla, but it seems now media is bought by big oil companies and giving negative media coverage for tesla.

i think its a good thing that tesla wants to start a media rating site. media shud be accountable, otherwise it will be a monster with uncontrollable power

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Bhareth, mainstream media has long been an uncontrollable monster.  Just Google Operation Mockingbird.

As for the LinkedIn comment, I just find it amusing - too bad he deleted his comment.  Because then I could have wound him up just a little bit more to see the kneejerk reaction.  (I'm not a moderator over on LinkedIn, so I don't have to behave there.)

[Kamapua'a + 4]

“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."

”Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone."

Frédéric Bastiat  (1801-1850)

Musk may be a genius or a charlatan, but modern industrial economies would not exist without pervasive subsidies.  So that Musk's enterprises receive subsidies of various kinds is not an argument one way or another  - genius or charlatan.  

https://www.iea.org/statistics/resources/energysubsidies/

Keep up the good discussion folks - this is one of the more interesting corners of the web!

[Oily + 2]

Tom, you naughty man, you!

Tossing conversational Molotovs like that. Tsk, tsk.

Leave some for the rest of us, brother. ;-)

[Tom Blazek + 38]

While I don't know much about Musk, Tesla or Space X, Still I admire him and them. I saw Space X's booster rockets come back to earth and land vertically under their own power. I had never seen anything like that before, in my life. While GM was crushing their first attempt at the electric car, against their users desires, Musk took the idea and ran with it. Like him or hate him, Musk is a pioneer, he's like Christopher Columbus saying the world is round not flat, and I can get to the east by sailing west. Whoever herd of such a stupid idea, I bet they laughed at him too. Columbus never got to the East Indies as he said or desired, but he did open the door to an entirely new, unimagined new world. Musk is working on a new and better world, less pollution if you can accept that, while our illustrious oil industry is fighting anything that could improves its fuel and reduce air pollution like ethanol. (Oil is fighting for market share, not a better future for its customers. Look at all the refiners lining up for wavers to not blend ethanol into their fuel. They would rather sell you their Carcinogenic Benzene for Octane instead. It's all about the bottom line at big oil, not a better world.) So who are you going to bet on long term, the people with imagination like Musk, trying to make things better, or people like the oil industry who are trying to cling to yesterday. I bought 5 shares of Tesla some time ago at about $240. per share, because I wanted to be a part of the future. I hope Tesla succeeds, I think we all need them to, if we want a better less polluted world for our Children and Grandchildren. I'm glad the Lord gave us Christopher Columbus, I'm glad He gave us Musk too.

Edited May 30, 2018 by Tom Blazek

[Tom Blazek + 38]

"It doesn't really matter what happens to Tesla, since all American and European majors have announced plans to further their EV catalogue and focus on EVs and autonomous mobility. Big Oil is indeed in trouble and should start "conspirating" if they haven't yet..."

They have been Conspiring for the last 13 years, to fight ethanol, the clean burning, pollution reducing, economical, high octane blending agent that could help them compete with the electric car. Oh the Brilliance of the API.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

8 hours ago, Kamapua'a said:

Keep up the good discussion folks - this is one of the more interesting corners of the web!

Yep, this Oil Price forum is only 3 months old, but it is developing nicely.  Some of the threads here can branch off into some pretty interesting and unexpected topics. 

And as members here get increasingly familiar and comfortable with posting comments in the forum, the tangents that evolve should get interestinger (yes, I know, that's not a real word, just humor me).