The "fuss and noise in the media" lately has been exclusively about Elon himself, not Tesla as a whole.
⇒ 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.
The tech media has completely wiffed on paying attention to these, so you could be forgiven for thinking it's all about Elon.
"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!"
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.
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.
Maybe it's subjective.
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.
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.
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?