Tesla CEO Musk Says Company Is Flattening Management Structure in Reorganization
wsj.com
wsj.com
They also point out that those executives left behind their option packages which is somewhat of a red flag and begs the question what is going on behind the scenes.
We'll see.
I wouldn't necessarily take this as a sign he is planning to jump ship.
I cant even imagine.
From the outside it looks like a house filled with Christmas lights! But... there looks to be a massive fire inside consuming all that was beautiful....
The steps they are taking sure seem to look more like optimize cash-flow after the R&D is done, rather then a continue full-build to get to max capacity.
Edit since some are downvoting:
Report from Freemont on Model 3 Production line 5/13/2018 (midday):
* 4290- Last 7 days production of M3 * 638- Last 24hrs production of M3
The last line shutdown/retooling had a significant improvement on the speed of the M3 line. Everything is working in conjunction like intended and no bottlenecks anywhere. The upcoming May line shutdown for retooling is going to be much shorter than past, and currently scheduled for May 26-27th weekend. Shutdown could get moved up if production continues to increase at its current rate. The sentiment from the line is 5k sustained is pretty much guaranteed and 6k before end of June is very likely. Bottom line is I was told this is as good as Tesla employees have felt about the M3 production since production began.
According to Tesla...
Their numbers this entire year have been highly highly questionable.
Bloomberg is also projecting near 4k/week.
it's so fucking annoying.
You can't blame the news though. If the news headline was "Toyota Camry rear ends truck" you would not have clicked on it :)
I've got journalist friends with stories to tell but are stuck because they've got a quota of 10 more trump stories and 5 more musk stories to write first.
It won't be long and they'll be gone.
Tesla actively sought this attention
let's be real. it is sensational journalism that is at work here. It's NOT masterminded by a corporation spending zero dollars on marketing.
Just because you don't see banner ads for Tesla on the subway doesn't mean they spend zero dollars on marketing.
Ironically, the entire myth that Tesla has a "$0 marketing budget" is the result of, you guessed it, good work from Tesla's marketing department. Marketing/advertising is much, much more than just commercials and billboards.
1: https://electrek.co/2018/05/15/tesla-model-x-electric-towing...
Advertising budget is what you use to bypass media coverage decisions, not how you drive “free media”.
Well, other than the $75MM it recorded in its last annual report for 2017 for advertising and marketing...
I’m calling shenanigans.
As Autopilot has had prior issues with detecting trucks, resulting in at least 1 fatality, there is significant concern that Autopilot was responsible in this case.
Plus, if they pay a company to write a negative article, its not 'really' negative.
It might look like a negative article, but the words are to convince you that it really isnt bad.
Not surprisingly, people are interested in seeing how that mould-breaking is going
Eh, I cant tell if this is organic, or paid shilling by Tesla Marketing.
They have been caught shilling reddit, so I wouldnt be surprised if they are paying for articles written by major news outlets.
Does that interest translate to a normal rear end crash? Nope.
They have bonds out, a record short interest and will need to raise capital later this year. Tesla is of immense interest to bond holders, equity investors, stock lenders and investment bankers.
EDIT: for clarification, I fully support paying for journalism, I am a subscriber of two online news outlets myself. My suggestion is provided "as is" without moral blessing of any kind, express or implied... ;)
It the post-truth world, I have no problem supporting these news organizations whose content I regularly consume.
The one I usually go with is by pasting the link into the search box on archive.is
Sneaky but it works!
Edit: Downvoted for this lol. Can't believe paying for the content you want to read is such a controversial opinion.
Meanwhile Netflix allows you to sign-up, cancel, or even temporarily pause your service without a single moment of hassle.
Nice bit of mental gymnastics going on in the DMCA page and in their Terms of Service - you, the user, are considered to be the publisher of this material. That way their hands stay clean! How could they possibly know you're NOT the publisher of Bloomberg and the WSJ?
https://www.outline.com/dmca.html
"If someone else might own the copyright to it, don't submit it. Outline is for reading pages that:
you own the rights to,
is in the public domain,
constitutes fair use, or
you have consent of the copyright holder.https://www.outline.com/terms.html
'“you” or “publisher” means the individual or entity using the Services'
* Be a sponsor's mouthpiece. This works pretty well if you're OK with your news being nothing more than someone's PR department.
* Advertising. This, as you say, hinges entirely on tracking users.
* Subscriptions. Also hinges on tracking users.
In short, you're absolutely right! There could be a better way! I just don't know of any and can't think of any.
I'm 100% convinced this failure of imagination is just my personal failing, through. I'm very interested in knowing what this better way could be, and I'm sure the news industry would similarly be deeply curious. What do you have in mind that's practical, workable, reliable enough to build a business around, and in no way, shape, form, or manner involves tracking users?
A workable model might be something akin to a subscription service wherein you get 200 articles a month from WSJ/NYT/Bloomberg/Whoever for $10 and the revenue is distributed equitably after the provider cut.
However, they are probably concerned about cannibalising their own subscriptions too much to do it, which sucks.
I actually think a paper might as well charge $10-50 per article because they won’t make anything charging little enough to attract tire-kickers, and above $1 they won’t get many to pay besides people who have a strong interest in the content and people using the company card.
The problem that Lightning network hopefully solves is exactly the system that the media industry needs. And they are so hyper consolidated, it should be viable to create some type of system.
Alternatively, maybe Americans need less news and information.
However, one possible wrinkle springs to mind. That is, all the sectors what per-item media payment works well for are long-form. There's an active review and feedback ecosystem around them, allowing consumers to judge quality before paying. This performs the critical function of enabling consumers to de-risk their purchases.
Once again, I'm completely sure this is just a personal failing, but I'm struggling to find a way to construct such a system around newspapers. Reviews only work well when the desire form immediate access is low and the time-cost of the review is a small percentage of that of the content being commented upon. Newspaper articles would seem to fail both tests!
Please, help me with my failure of imagination and comprehension.
The most obvious answer is that Tesla becomes a division of Apple and Tim Cook helps scale Tesla, as he helped Steve Jobs scale Apple.
That said... if we’re hypothesizing then yeah, it’s a good ideological fit at least.
How many are converting? Elon would not say on the call. Why?
I suspect the reason why is because Tesla is only targeting the highest end model 3s right now, and people who have put down deposits are waiting to see what the federal tax credit situation is like, and if I can manage to hold out for the base model since I don't need the 300mi upgraded on (but can afford it, if I wish). Tesla is going after the high margin cars right now (as they should). within the next month (if current tends hold) they will bass BMW, Mercedes and Audi in the premium sedan market with that strategy, all while trying to maximize incoming revenue.
On the other hand it could be a conspiracy to shaft Short Sellers, who are owed a complete collapse of the stock, bankruptcy of Tesla, and Elon being led away in chains.
More to the point, there have been discussions in the past. Apple apparently started discussions back in 2012.
This is because you don't have a guy with product vision at the top. Instead you have someone who is great at optimization.
So yes to Tim Cook. No to running Tesla.
Isn't operations what Tesla needs right now?
You can hire and define operations, you can't do the same for product vision.