Musk’s Money Mystery Intrigues SEC

The mania isn't in having more than one article on the front page at a time (though that happened repeatedly yesterday). It's in rehashing the same cartoonish argument over and over. Elon is a superhero! vs. no way he's a supervillain!

That monster has been bred, of course, by the hyper feedback loop between Musk and the media. A hyperloop, you might call it. But we've passed the point at which it's all noise. Our kingdom for some signal.

I appreciate Matt Levine's columns too, but the amount of information needed is relative to HN's capacity to discuss a topic substantively. In this case that capacity is unusually low, so the amount of substantiveness the article needs to provide is unusually high. The proof that this one didn't get there is in the pudding of the discussion that resulted.

Either of those articles would make a better post, if you'd care to submit one. Email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll keep an eye on it and turn off flags if the discussion is substantive.

Normally we'd change the URL on this submission, but this thread is past redemption.

I wonder why the media new cycle keeps making him say outlandish stuff! What do the majority of other company CEOs have over the entire industry and Twitter to somehow appear to be quietly doing their job?

I expect to see that demand shrink. If I find his behavior lately to be weird, I think that other people will as well. I'm also perfectly happy to vote with my dollars.

I don't think davesque's comment said anything about "fault".

He said he's gotten tired of all these stories about Tesla and Musk, so he's unlikely to buy a Tesla now.

That's a statement about davesque and how his frustration is souring him on the brand. Fault doesn't really play into it.

Musk is not 12. I can't believe somebody would seriously try to justify his pedo insult...What's next? justifying Trump?

He's a CEO, not a 12 year old boy, FFS.

Musk didn't seem to mind when the media cycle fawned over him endlessly.

Hype comes with scrutiny. Nobody put a gun to Musk's head and told him to appear on talk shows, to cameo in Hollywood blockbusters, etc. If he wasn't prepared to make that tradeoff he shouldn't have done it.

How could "but it was just a generic racial slur aimed at a whole nation!" make this any better? The correct line of defense would be "Musk said something stupid, move on".

He's clearly not sick of using his Twitter account!

From yesterday's article by Matt Levine:

Now I do not mean to be rude, but is it possible that a CEO who is constantly tweeting attacks on journalists and jokes about bankruptcy, who is also busy running two other companies, who built a mini-submarine and jetted off to Thailand to try to rescue those boys in a cave and then tweeted slanders about someone who actually helped rescue them, and who runs around distributing flamethrowers, might be … distractible? A distraction? Both? Plenty of CEOs go around mouthing very serious platitudes about how public markets and quarterly earnings are a distraction from the important business of running their companies, and you kind of have to take them at their word that were it not for the demands of earnings releases they would be laser-focused on operations, but … Musk … like, we can see him tweeting! Twitter is public! The distraction is coming from inside the house! Does he think that “going private” means “getting off Twitter”? You can just get off Twitter! It doesn’t even require any financing!

I bet he thinks he is sick of it. But that doesn't excuse his behavior. Call me old fashioned, but someone with so much power and privilege should not be acting the way that Musk has been lately. These are just the basics we're talking about here. One wouldn't tolerate that kind of behavior from one's child, so why is it okay when our captains of industry do it? Part of being an adult, let alone one of the most successful people in the world, is accepting the fact that life is not always fair. Musk needs to grow up and get off of Twitter. Simple as that.

I also can't help myself from reading opinion pieces from Matt Levine most days of the week.

And Mr. Levine's writing is highly entertaining, in addition to giving a clear explanation that the layman can understand of the story. And the entertainment value is because the situation is actually ridiculous to begin with.

I find an ultra powerful visionary being childish and making fart jokes very funny.

Maybe the "hero" shouldn't be throwing insults on twitter like a child. I thought the insult was well considered because, in context, the diver was going after kids. It's a sly kind of funny that someone from another country might think is very funny.

Do you think it make sense to judge the entire work/life of someone by an affirmation made at some point in the past on a public forum ? From a moral point of view people are not black and white, there are infinite shades of grey in between.

If you dig deep enough you will find morally questionable things in everybody's past.

That being said, that tweet was a bad idea.

Personally, I think it was very offensive. I also found the hero's comment on the Musk submarine "to stick it where it hurts" very crass and offensive too.

He even made a public comment "Ford is trying to kill SEX"

https://jalopnik.com/ford-killed-sex-1585513454

Lol, a private company CEO should be more serious than USA president?! At least I didn't see from where Trump is not serious about his tweet.

> Probably because it's not quite an opinion piece.

Then why is it published on the "opinion" section of the website? https://i.imgur.com/qjmJqaK.png

Its an opinion piece. A writer from Bloomberg offers their opinion on an issue, as opposed to the facts. Its very important to know when you're reading an opinion vs reading a journalism post.

Most media (even Fox), does a decent job with the journalism pages. Its the opinion pieces where all the bias comes in. Still, opinion pieces are useful to see what people out there are thinking. Its important to know what the viewpoints are.

But most opinion pieces "dress up" the facts to suit their argument, as opposed to reporting precisely on the facts.

Larry Page is on record a few years back saying he'd give his fortune to Musk rather than donate it to charity [0].

I imagine Musk has a handful of billionaire friends he could probably hit up for cash. Throw in some money from SpaceX, and he could probably make the buyout price.

0: https://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-elon-musk-2014-3

Norway. They've got a trillion dollars in their sovereign wealth fund and like to imagine they are rehabilitating their reputation as not being bad for the environment even though the basis of their wealth is oil extraction.