Because he's Elon Musk and he doesn't care about investor returns, he wants to build rockets, cars, tunnels, and explore space.
No matter what he does he'll more than likely be fine on the money side.
No matter what he does he'll more than likely be fine on the money side.
Then he shouldn't be the CEO of a public company which continues to sell stock and debt to investors on the promise of a return.
Also, Elon Musk very much does care about returns. He has a great track record in that department. He's just learned it's not something that's healthy to focus on in the short-term. Unfortunately, running out of cash forces the compression of time horizons. The latter is what investors are rightfully worried about.
I am so sick of the cult of Elon. There is no defending his behaviour here.
What he's done is remarkable. But he should step down, assign himself a founder/chief scientist title, and move forward with "fixing" his company. No fear of ejection; I suspect he's a major shareholder.
A crazy high valuation is no guarantee that a company can not go bust at some point, though in Tesla's case if they run out of money all that will likely happen is that their next round will be one at a lower valuation and with a group of investors that cares less about the short term.
Elon made the decision to play on Wall Street, that decision comes with some responsibilities and it is downright strange to see him literally bite the hand that feeds him. Without the cash he picked up through the IPO Tesla would be in a completely different position. He's made a couple of boneheaded moves (such as rolling Solar City in with Tesla), which have so far been accepted because of the halo and the promises. But there is a limit to how far that will stretch and I'm confused why he would stretch that on purpose if he has other alternatives (such as simply answering the questions). If he doesn't have any answers, which is one way to interpret his refusal, then Tesla is already in trouble.