Is Musk a con artist?

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  • spec4

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    It seems this guy is constantly coming up with new sensational press. Today I read about a semi tractor he introduced and a sports car that goes zero to sixty in less than two seconds.

    Meanwhile he has thousands of customers who put deposits on cars that for some reason he can't produce.

    He has had heavy government subsidies and his company hasn't ever shown a profit.

    My antenna tells me this is, at some point, going to all come crashing down. Am I alone in this thinking?
     

    Leadeye

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    People want to believe, and leadership wants to look stylish.

    Get enough invested in a scam and people will defend it and leadership will pour in more money rather than confront the possibility that they made a mistake in the first place.
     

    87iroc

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    Cummins took him serious enough to run to release an electric semi. I do wonder if he quit developing and spending money on new bling if he would turn a profit.

    That aside...releasinf both a roadster and a semi the same day...wonder what he didn't want people to see in the semi.
     

    A 7.62 Exodus

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    It seems this guy is constantly coming up with new sensational press. Today I read about a semi tractor he introduced and a sports car that goes zero to sixty in less than two seconds.

    Meanwhile he has thousands of customers who put deposits on cars that for some reason he can't produce.

    He has had heavy government subsidies and his company hasn't ever shown a profit.

    My antenna tells me this is, at some point, going to all come crashing down. Am I alone in this thinking?
    Imo, you’re crazy to think this. Tesla was going no where for the longest time. It appeared to be a fad that was dying off, so Elon turned his attention to SpaceX. SpaceX is genuinely changing the game when it cones to space travel/launches, and this is where the money is going to be. Elon knows that, so that’s where the time and resources are going. Tesla is an afterthought, and is getting the kind of attention afterthoughts do.

    Is he a con artist? Absolutely not. Is he bad at managing multiple companies? Absolutely
     

    GodFearinGunTotin

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    Mitchell
    Imo, you’re crazy to think this. Tesla was going no where for the longest time. It appeared to be a fad that was dying off, so Elon turned his attention to SpaceX. SpaceX is genuinely changing the game when it cones to space travel/launches, and this is where the money is going to be. Elon knows that, so that’s where the time and resources are going. Tesla is an afterthought, and is getting the kind of attention afterthoughts do.

    Is he a con artist? Absolutely not. Is he bad at managing multiple companies? Absolutely

    Isn't that what con artists do--go where the pickings are easy?

    He's no dummy and he's accomplished quite a bit but withoutthe .gov, would he still be in business(es)?
     

    injb

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    It seems this guy is constantly coming up with new sensational press. Today I read about a semi tractor he introduced and a sports car that goes zero to sixty in less than two seconds.

    Meanwhile he has thousands of customers who put deposits on cars that for some reason he can't produce.

    He has had heavy government subsidies and his company hasn't ever shown a profit.

    My antenna tells me this is, at some point, going to all come crashing down. Am I alone in this thinking?

    So do his fossil fuel competitors. Between massive bailouts, oil subsidies and state governments denying people the freedom to buy cars directly from Tesla, it's not a level playing field to begin with.

    In Musk's defence, he has been very consistent in publicly saying that making a profit isn't even his primary goal with Tesla. It's a ballsy thing for the CEO of a pubic company to say - and maybe he's just trying to create a philanthropic image of himself - but one way or another we can hardly criticize him for not making a profit yet. His stated goal was to accelerate the move to electric cars - and he has a pretty plausible claim to have succeeded in that. Pretty much every major car maker in the world is now committed to this, and Tesla spearheaded that.

    I don't think he's a con artist. He's ridiculously ambitious, but he has done most of what he claims to have done. He said he would create a reusable rocket, and that has happened. NASA's solution was to just keep blowing money on the ridiculously expensive disposable rockets, because hey, the government's never going to run out of money right? Some people said similar things about Howard Hughes but history has remembered him in a positive light.
     

    Heavy

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    I read an article around a year ago that he was developing a roofing “shingle” that would resemble asphalt shingles in size and shape, but would be small individual solar cells that were independent of the others. According to the article, the solar shingles would be much stronger than traditional asphalt roofing and would be competitively priced to boot, much less the added savings from the solar capabilities. I thought this sounded interesting and have been waiting to hear more about this development.
    Edit: I looked it up and it’s a go. You can get your Tesla solar roof reserved today! They’re made of high tempered glass tiles. I can’t figure out how to add a link from my iPhone, or I would...
     
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    BehindBlueI's

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    No, he's a long ball player who can absorb losses today to move that ball. He's sort of a (mostly) private sector DARPA. Tesla isn't a car company, it's a testing grounds and proof of concept for battery technology that just happens to sell cars to do that. The fact he's good at PR and marketing doesn't make him a con.
     

    Heavy

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    Ok I did some more reading and this doesn’t sound so good in reality, as far as cost goes. It is definitely not competitively priced. About $16 more a square foot. It Appears a typical add on solar panel system would be cheaper in the long run. Unless you want a seamless looking roof, and have $50k, then one would want the Tesla shingles.
     

    GodFearinGunTotin

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    Mitchell
    Ok I did some more reading and this doesn’t sound so good in reality, as far as cost goes. It is definitely not competitively priced. About $16 more a square foot. It Appears a typical add on solar panel system would be cheaper in the long run. Unless you want a seamless looking roof, and have $50k, then one would want the Tesla shingles.

    They were probably including taxpayer funded subsidies...that's how much of the expensive energy appears relatively cheap.
     

    Spear Dane

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    Anyone thinking he is a scam artist isn't paying much attention. Tesla is selling cars faster than they can be made and Space-X has changed the near earth space game almost completely.
     

    snapping turtle

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    I have rode in and drove the Tesla sedan and all I can say is it was as nice or nicer than the caddy CTX of my mother’s.
    To change the headlamp in the Tesla you did not have to take it to the dealer to almost remove the fender to do so.
     

    Big Hank

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    I'm not sure if they are on YouTube but Elon does multiple TED Talks that I've watched on Apple TV, and I found them to be pretty darn cool. The guy is a good example of someone with tons of money and he is actually playing with it, chasing some dreams, maybe making a better future, etc... Something that really caught my ear was his explanation of Coal efficiency when charging batteries vs fossil fuels being burnt directly in an automobile engine. And his little side project called the Boring Company is cool too. I can't say how much he's pocketing, but he certainly sells his dream well.
     
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