This most recent hullabaloo may prove to be nothing -- companies overestimate projections all the time -- but if they wildly overestimated projections in a way they knew was misleading, that's an issue. "People have been telling Elon his dreams are crazy forever" is true, but it's not necessarily a solid defense.
> Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company?
To me, the simple answer is that there's basically a Newton's Third Law for PR. Imagine Musk had done PR in the style of GM or Ford. That any public pronouncements were quiet and modest. That results mainly spoke for themselves. Had he done that, I don't think he'd have picked up nearly as many critics.
But Musk has hyped Tesla to the heavens, creating an army of dedicated believers. This has given him great access to cheap capital, and an incredible amount of free media attention. But it also means that there are plenty of reasonable people who think that Tesla is not all that, and are tired of hearing about it.
That also explains the shorts. GM's short position is 1/10th of Tesla's. For every dollar Musk's PR efforts push up Tesla's stock price, that's a dollar that could be made by somebody who thinks Musk is overoptimistic.
If the people who are doing it tell him it's impossible and he reports that it is support to his shareholders that could very well be a crime because it may not be realistic. Misleading shareholders is a big deal.
> Why are people so hellbent on attacking this wonderful innovative company?
Possibly breaking the law has consequences and it needs to be investigated? I don't understand why so many in tech simply give Musk a pass just because he's done some really cool stuff.
Let's not make a mockery out of our selves to come to someone's defense who may or may not deserve it. Wait and see what happens.
Why are people so hellbent on defending this company no matter how many idiotic things they (Musk mostly) do? Almost 100% of these problems are caused by Musk himself.
And nobody is attacking Tesla for the sake of it. They are doing it because his behaviour is sometimes abhorrent, childish, unethical and it often encourages others to do the same. And just like with Theranos entrepreneurs should be doubly critical of others who drag us all down.
So, Elon Musk is the tech-Jesus? He died on the SEC to take us to Mars?
Musk is not the lynchpin to getting to the future. His antics are actively hurting his ability to deliver EVs, including wasting company resources on avoidable legal troubles because he’s mad at short sellers.
Killing yourself for your company is not admirable.
and make insane amounts of money. Which is perfectly fine in my book, but lets get off this hero worship. Giving people a pass on acting poorly because of who they are is never okay.
(HN has no sense of humor. It's a comment about his extreme optimism and success against what others think impossible.)
You kick over a hornets nest, you better have a lot of raid on hand.
That said, the NYT has been consistently brutal to Tesla and SpaceX. Part of it is that they leave themselves open. They are being candidly honest and aggressive, and don't always make their goals..
But they shoot for the moon. If they miss, at least they make orbit, as opposed to plummeting back down to the ground.
Also just because they're innovative and are solving climate change doesn't mean we all just have to look away all the time.