That wasn't what the SEC proposed in their no-guilt settlement. It was Elon giving up the Chairmanship and appointing two independent directors. That isn't crazy. It wasn't dethroning the king. It was adding sensible checks to a situation that screams for them.
That offer was rejected. The SEC's response is to hem to the statutory punishment for public, material misstatements in a corporate announcement by senior officers.
He might have a vision, but that doesn't mean you're good at running a business
However, the settlement doesn't sound like a "Kick Out" so much as a 2-year semi-hiatus. I see no reason why it couldn't be agreed ahead of time that he'd be right back in the saddle afterwards, he's remain a major shareholder, and could give his views known even if he had no actual executive power. Two years isn't nothing but it's also frankly just not that long, Tesla at this point shouldn't implode without him for such a short period, in fact it shouldn't even mess up the vision thing either, they've got plenty of very good challenging long term gigantic market stuff to execute on for a few years, hell for five years. It's only longer term that the innovation would become more of an issue.
If anything I really think a forced few years of stepping back from the day-to-day hustle might really do him so genuine good, and it'd have to be forced because that personality type can never stop on their own. Steve Jobs, with a much longer forced outing for real, came back and vastly stronger leader, still with plenty of drive and acerbicness but some of the most impulsive rough edges sanded down a bit as well. From the sound of it under the settlement Elon would merely be on a 2 year break freed from the daily stress and could have a guaranteed return, so free to really work on the vision and plans to bring back with him. Or just go hike and travel a bit and destress a little? That could help too. He's not an old man obviously, he has lots of time, and with no formal legal admission of guilt the long term consequences should be minimal. Plenty of people recognize his accomplishments and wouldn't mind writing off a lot of his current behavior after a brief time.
Maybe doubling down here is itself also an unavoidable part of his personality, and anyone who has dealt with startups much has probably seen plenty of maverick founders who are incredible founders but can't transition as well to different life-stages of a business. It doesn't make them bad, it's just another set of strengths and weaknesses. But I think it's also a genuine blunder which is kind of sad. The SEC is a scary opponent, and here it looks like they really didn't want to bring down the hammer, they offered a disciplining for a genuine fuckup on his part that CEOs just cannot do, never have. And the potential penalties for actual conviction are severe, including not just prison but possibly lifetime bans from C-positions in the related area of business, and Elon would not be able to just wave that away.
Exactly. During that time, let two competent replacements get Tesla back into shape. Get help, then come back if you really must. How is that not a win.
So the fact that he may be a fraudster is irrelevant to you?
By the way, he didn't start Paypal or Tesla.
Indeed, this is important to remember - he actively rewrites history to make it seem he founded Tesla, he even bought out the actual founder(s) of Tesla (Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning) so they wouldn't keep bugging people about the fact he / they founded it.
Yeah, he absolutely did start PayPal which came out of merger between X.com (the company he founded) and Confinity (the company Peter and Max founded).