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Company Update

tesla.com

93 pointsminimaxir51 comments

> We are about to have the most amazing quarter in our history, building and delivering more than twice as many cars as we did last quarter. For a while, there will be a lot of fuss and noise in the media. Just ignore them.

The "fuss and noise in the media" lately has been exclusively about Elon himself, not Tesla as a whole.

Last quarter, they produced 53,339 https://electrek.co/2018/07/02/tesla-official-model-3-produc...

⇒ If they pull that of, they will have produced over 106,000 cars in the quarter, or over 8,000 per week (across all models). That’s about 1,000 more than in last quarters last week sprint. I hadn’t expected that.

And if they don’t, the SEC probably will have more to talk about with them, but I would think that, after the last few weeks, they wouldn’t be that stupid.

Ehh not sure I agree, the media has tied both up inextricably

"Musk calls diver pedophile - what does the board of Tesla have to say about it?"

"Musk smokes weed on Joe Rogan podcast, Tesla stock goes down!"

Elon stoned and drunk has an oddly soothing voice. He should narrate the "cow jumped over the Moon" book to small children. I was listening to that podcast today and it was a strangely relaxing experience.

He wasn't stoned. He took one puff into his mouth, held it for half a second. That does absolutely nothing.

I really wish Tesla had more people as public-facing representatives of the company. Their image would improve dramatically if they were actually viewed as a corporation, and not just as Elon's little project.

Tesla really needs a Gwynne Shotwell (President and COO at SpaceX). She is a great counterbalance to Elon's reckless energy (and a _huge_ part of why SpaceX is a successful business).

Not just about, but caused by!

I can't be sure, but it seems like a lot of the negative press about Elon recently is... engineered. I mean, he smoked pot with Joe Rogan while recording a shitty podcast - so what? This is not 1950 anymore.

There's a lot of people who want to see Elon fail, and they surely can afford to manufacture some articles broadcasting their own point of view.

You believe that short-sellers engineered Musk's appearance on Rogan's show last night, as well as the announcements of the two senior executive departures this morning?

ROTFL

Are you serious? What Elon does is his business alone. What the PR machine can do afterwards is spin the facts whichever way seems beneficial to them.

He's CEO of one of the most highly-valued and prominent tech companies today. For better or worse, what he does ends up being the interest of many people outside his personal network. But ignoring the pot-smoking, what would non-"engineered" press look like when it comes to the departure of the two senior executives this morning?

I was not referring to any single event in my initial comment. I'm just looking at all the press I've seen in recent months (maybe years) and I can't resist the impression that there's this negative undertow that seems manufactured.

Maybe it's subjective.

Except that the overwhelming majority of press surrounding Musk over the past couple years has been sewn with hyperbolic praise.

If we consider a timeframe of more than just this year, then you have even less of a case that media coverage has been engineered toward negativity by ulterior forces. Tesla itself brags in its annual reports that it doesn't need to have an ad budget because of the positive media coverage it gets:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-admits-media-coverage-...

> "Historically, we have been able to generate significant media coverage of our company and our vehicles, and we believe we will continue to do so," the company wrote. "To date, for vehicle sales, media coverage and word of mouth have been the primary drivers of our sales leads and have helped us achieve sales without traditional advertising and at relatively low marketing costs."

> Tesla has included those sentences or a variation on them in each of its annual SEC filings dating back to its 2010 initial public offering.

> I mean, he smoked pot with Joe Rogan while recording a shitty podcast - so what?

SpaceX holds large federal contracts. Federal contracts above a certain amount requires companies to follow federal drug laws. It doesn't matter that MJ is legal in CA, SpaceX could lose all of its contracts.

If Tesla has any large government contracts (no sure it does) then it would apply similar.

> This is not 1950 anymore.

There seems to be a lot of confusion over his podcast appearance and people are focusing too much on the cannabis debate. It's not about that.

Consider for a moment this hypothetical scenario instead: How professional would it look for Musk if Rogan had instead offered some kind of binge-drinking shots challenge (maybe with some legal sleeping pills too), and Musk immediately accepted despite Rogan asking if shareholders might get upset?

Even aside of that, how professional did that entire interview look across the whole two and a half hours? Was it focused, and representative of someone who works very hard average up to 70-120 hours per week?

Would it be something that would have been appropriate for a non-exec worker representing a Tesla's interests (for example), or is it okay simply because Musk has the hero worship?

Now, I assume this is all okay for a large number of people so consider this last question: where to next for Tesla - is Musk the genius everyone claims him to be (which he doesn't seem to refute in any way, not even by deferring to other geniuses around him), and will he be the saviour once more? How long will those around him (exec level and otherwise) continue to put up with these antics?

Not really, there is endless fuss and noise about the Model 3 not being very high quality, as well as demand for it drying up. Then there is the whole looming debt payments issue.

The tech media has completely wiffed on paying attention to these, so you could be forgiven for thinking it's all about Elon.

> For a while, there will be a lot of fuss and noise in the media. Just ignore them.

Please take your own advice Elon.

Sincerely, Someone who wants you to succeed

"I know I've been really busy trying to get myself embroiled in a defamation lawsuit, and when presented an opportunity to back down I doubled down instead, and I know our plants are constantly catching on fire because of our unsustainable approach to manufacturing, but everything's fine!"

For one, I really appreciate his public image. His one of the few people, let alone billionaires or CEOs, that are sincere and communicate without layers of legal and PR departments. If only more billionaire CEOs were like that, I think we'd live in a much better word.

Edit: Keep talking Elon, you're the only one we (the world) have.

It's useful to consider Chesterton's Fence here. There's a reason why the norms of professional communication have developed into what we have today.

Because of lawsuits. Same reason why doctors do unnecessary procedures and exams and surgeries, wasting people's money and wellbeing in the process.

He’s a man in desperate need of someone in his professional life who can tell him to shut up, and make it stick. He’s inflicted so many pointless wounds on himself and Co lately it’s really crazy, and it was all totally avoidable by just not talking so damned much, leaving the press to someone capable, and getting the jolly fuck off Twitter.

I’ve come to the conclusion) however that if he were capable of such a rational decision he would have already made it, and instead he’s doubling down. It was a “whaaaaat?!” moment when he called that guy a pedo, but truly shocking when it turned out he’s still besting that drum. It was a firing offense for anyone with an independent board to bring an SEC investigation down on their heads with that “funding secured” Tweet. Talking to the NYT, talking to Joe Rogan, just... stop talking Elon. Get some sleep, focus on the business, and stop talking.

Highly recommend listening to the entire 2.5 hour Joe Rogan podcast[1]. It really does give a nice glimpse into his mind, and at times he appears to almost start choking up talking about fossil fuels and climate change. Once they get into the whiskey it actually gets more interesting, from evils of AI, to life being a simulation, to thinking positive and asserting as a whole judges, police, and military are some of the finest people we have. You can tell Elon is fed up with the constant negativity toward people and pervasive pessimism fueled by social media. I also honestly think he is probably dealing with depression, as you can almost see it in his face and speech.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPr5-27vSI#

Honestly, Tesla sounds crazy to me.

I have a buddy who's worked at the factory in Fremont on one of the assembly lines. They sound very overworked. Despite getting "overtime" pay, they're basically required to work many days a week, and sometimes crazy shifts, like 10 hours, plus a day on the weekend. Definitely over 40 hours a week.

The employees from Engineer to Line worker are worked like dogs.

The pay wasnt even impressive.

> The pay wasn't even impressive.

Famous companies that people intrinsically want to work at don't have to offer extrinsic market rates for labor.

Alternatively, companies who want to exploit workers can offer lower-than-expected wages, to make sure they end up only with employees who can be talked into going along with bad situations.

A good friend who graduated with me is at Tesla in a factory engineering role. His hours? 6PM-6AM Wednesday-Sunday.

So a 60 hour work week. That isn't terrible, especially if they are well compensated... Many of us salary employees end up working that much, if not more.

They’re salaried and the compensation is good but not good enough in my opinion when you do the per-hour math.

IMO, working for free for 20 hours a week is pretty terrible.

Why do people still think the work week is 40 hours, and no more? Sure, it's the legal definition of a "full time, non-exempt employee", but are there really that many high paying, high skill jobs that are like "well, you put in 40 hours this week, see you next calendar week! :D". I can't think of any.

My first engineering job out of university was 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, 3 weeks on 1 week off. And it wasn't even a endeavour I particularly believed in, and it wasnt in a location I particularly wanted to live. I don't regret the time I spent there, and would certainly consider doing something similar again if it was somewhere I wanted to live and something I wanted to do. With a company like Tesla, there is so much talk about the work hours, I don't think anyone can honestly take the job and be surprised they end up working more than 40 hours a week.

This sounds pretty similar to every other auto manufacturing job I've come across. They all work long hours. That's part of the reason why they are often highly sought after jobs. An opportunity to make a lot of money with very relatively little skill or training, the trade off being personal time.

The whole motor industry is quite crazy if anyone stops to think about it. Changing the fuels and technologies used still doesn't remove much of the irrational craziness that's inherent. Going further, building multilayered tunnels right throughout LA as a 'best solution' to excessive single occupancy vehicle use is also not all that rational.

> will report to both Kevin and me

Either I don't trust Kevin or X doesn't trust Kevin. Poor Kevin.

Kevin was just promoted to arguably the most important leadership position for a growing company. It's likely Elon wants a little oversight.

How many direct reports does Musk have? Looks like he just got a few more, which might not be so great for a (reportedly) overworked schedule.

Are you referring to Elon's schedule as overworked? If so, I think having a few more direct reports would allow him to delegate some of his efforts.

Each of those direct reports only adds more demands on his time. The only way delegation would help is if he delegated tasks to his current direct reports.

> Even the Ford Model T, which held the world record for the fastest growing car in history, didn’t grow as fast in sales or production as the Model 3.

Does anybody know what the relevant numbers are?

For the Ford Model T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T#Price_and_product.... About 16 times as much in 1913 as in 1909 (170,211 vs 10,666), so about a doubling per year in that period.

We would need per quarter data for he Model T, though.

Slight aside, but how do people make the distinction between a Director and a VP? What's the clear (if any) delineation of job descriptions?

VP = head of a function or business unit. Director = head of a very large team. For Tesla, engineering head would be a VP, but head of Autopilot will most likely be a director. Doesn't always hold up though.

There is no clear delineation. VP is usually higher than Director, although some companies have it the other way, and VP titles can have many levels like AVP, SVP, EVP, etc. In some companies there is a Managing Director instead of a CEO.

All of those people with double reporting? I feel for them.

Elon needs to get his act together

Awesome, just bought a few hundred TSLA shares this morning. :)

That was poor timing.

It’s not down from where it opened this morning.

That bounce back in April down to $252 had me thinking about being a buyer at $254. Curious to see what happens on Monday but I have a feeling I’ll have missed the $263 low.

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