There have been a surprising number of hit pieces by a number of news companies against musk and his companies lately. I think I've seen more negative news articles concerning elon musk in the past 4 months than the 4 years before that.
There seems to be a pattern that whenever someone challenges journalists or their industry, they gang up and pile on.
I think it's going to be an interesting couple of months for elon musk as I think these journalists are just getting warmed up with their anti-musk hit pieces.
Elon is attempting to maneuver Tesla through a tight operating and financial envelope. He is doing so with public funding. Of course you're going to have a lot of debate about what he's doing. Journalists being critical isn't them launching a war, it's them attempting to leave no stone unturned.
He's been attempting that maneuver for more than a decade.
> He is doing so with public funding.
You mean private funding? Raising money on the stock market isn't public funding.
> Of course you're going to have a lot of debate about what he's doing.
That's my point. He's been doing everything you've said forever. It's just the past 4 months where journalists have started to write hit pieces. How come they were so quiet in the past?
> Journalists being critical isn't them launching a war, it's them attempting to leave no stone unturned.
No. Considering some journalists have openly asked their fellow journalists on twitter to come forward with sex abuse or negative stories on elon musk after musk criticized the media, I don't think your argument holds much water.
It's obvious musk despises the news media ( he openly stated so ). And it's obvious journalists hate criticism and will lash out at anyone. The question is whether vindictiveness on both sides will subside. I highly doubt it will from journalists considering their terrible track record and of course their desire for ratings. So I expect a lot of hit pieces on musk and tesla. The question is will elon musk back down. My hope is that he will focus on his companies and his goals rather than being dragged into a neverending petty argument with journalists.
When you only do your job some of the time, it's reasonable to question your motivation. We've had years of Tesla and Musk puff-pieces and it's only in the last few months that journalists have decided to leave no stone unturned en masse.
You're complaining about the disease and then complaining about the cure. When Tesla was flush with cash and the recovery was young, the operating and financial envelope was wide. Tesla had the room (i.e. capital and investors' patience) to screw up.
Elon has said he won't raise more capital. He has more investors than before. Many of them have been holding for years. In that midst, he has announced ambitious (i.e. expensive) schedules. That combination creates a precarious envelope. Combine that with being later in the economic cycle, and heightened attention is warranted.
In the ebbs and flows of positivity/negativity frequency, all flows look like cures for ebbs. Really, it's just the another symptom of the same disease that there are intentionally large peaks and valleys at all (unintentional is a different matter of course).
I'm not, I'm saying when someone treats you badly for ten years then suddenly changes their attitude, it's reasonable to wonder what motivated the change.
Tesla stopped being flush with cash and the recovery stopped being young years ago. He's announced ambitious production schedules (and missed them) multiple times. The 'we won't need more capital' thing? He first said that in 2011. Since then he's come back to raise money several times.
The real difference I see this time is a perceived closeness with Trump and general misbehavior on twitter.
Hmm, seem to have struck a chord here. Anyone want to actually say what you disagree with so strongly?
Financial markets aren't known to be sensitive to leaders' political proclivities. Yet the bonds are down and stock's volatility up.
Could part of the negative coverage be motivated by Elon's personality and politics? Sure. But the risk profile of the company changed with the SolarCity acquisition and Model 3 announcement in 2016, bond issuance in 2017 and CAPEX and production delays in 2018. One representation of this risk profile is runway, i.e. TTM operating burn + CAPEX / Cash on hand. It is compressed. That concerns existing investors, excites bankers (who might get a stock or bond offering out of it) and entices new investors. Increased attention + narrow envelope leads to concerned/cautious/negative coverage.
(It is also difficult to disentangle the increased `general volatility in the markets post-tariffs from Tesla's inherent volatility, which is also linked to the tariff discussion.)
If you look at their cash burn in Q4 2016 and Q2-Q3 2017, it doesn't fit with the press on the company or its stock performance at the time. Instead, the price hit all-time highs over that period and press was glowing.
I get that as the production numbers didn't increase along with capex there's a crunch in Q1-Q2 2018, but it doesn't seem to me that this is the reason behind tech news' change of heart.
It's not crazy to point out that the press hates Donald Trump, and that Donald Trump loves Elon Musk. It's also not crazy to point out that there's a general cooling of the public's feeling towards tech, and that journalists, particularly hacks, just go where the wind is blowing. It's not due to them suddenly doing their jobs, and it doesn't make them anymore correct now than they were six months ago. Elon Musk is now an easier target, that's all, and he's done them a service by provoking them at the same time.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-per...
https://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/nation-now/2017/12/20...
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/31/trump-bet...
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-12-21/donald-tr...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/billwhalen/2018/05/05/if-not-fo...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-perspec-z...
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/16/politics/trump-tweet-putin/in...
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/pu...
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/13/donald-trumps-...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-worst-moment-...
https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-worst-week-yet-will-...
Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel rather dirty and I need to go take a shower.
It's not changing the goalposts to point out that these are not journalists, and they themselves would not call themselves journalists.
Using the true scotsman example, this is more like you brought me an example of a welsh person in Scotland.
What? You asked “could you easily find 5 articles or clips that are genuinely supportive and praising Trump?”
You never mentioned whether they had to be written by journalists or not.
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All I did was search for “positive Trump articles” in Google and this came up. I spent all of 5 minutes.
How about this, you find me 5 articles written by 5 “true” journalists at Breitbart and Foxnews supporting Hillary Clinton and I'll find a way to say you didn't do as I asked.
No evidence for the press hating Trump? Have you been alive for the past year and a half? Multiple journalists have compared him to Hitler and Stalin. I don't remember that happening before. It's understandable and clearly mutual in this case, though - check out how many places talk about his 'war on the press.'
No evidence for people souring on tech? Maybe you haven't been seeing the same things I have, but the narrative went from 'criminals are using facebook to target grandma' to 'facebook is criminal and rigging elections, and your apps might be too.' There's a reason for this and it's pretty justified, but it should really have happened years ago, when every startup was collecting every bit of data it could without any protection or thought to what they would use it for.
When tech started dominating the S&P 500, it went from being the land of outsiders and upstarts to the new robber barons. Check out how many articles talk about a new gilded age now.
No evidence for Musk provoking journalists? Just look at his twitter.
The closest I've ever come to that is people I know who actually work in oil drilling that defend fracking...
Aside from that, there is the crowd that wants more nuclear power if people are serious about getting off of fossil fuels...but I really can't say I've ever met somebody who was ANTI "energy sources".
Why is he a saboteur re-branded a whistleblower, and not a whistleblower re-branded a saboteur? Because Elon said it?
Why on earth do you think the world is out to get Tesla? Because Elon said it?
I got 5 downvotes for mentioning that tech companies are working their employees like dogs.
Oh, they're here, no doubt about it.
It's going to be 10 times funnier than the iamverysmart crowd here who told us we didn't like Theranos because it was run by a woman.
Apart from that, I also don't get the 'baby boomers against Tesla' argument.