Elon Musk does "Ask Me Anything (AMA)" session on Reddit

[RobStark]

Elon is not involved with Hyperloop. He gave it to the world. He said if no one else starts a project within five years he may start a new company.

He said his time spent on SolarCity is showing up to the board meetings to hear the good news. His cousin runs that company.

He has said he spends about 2/3 of his work hours on SpaceX and 1/3 Tesla depending on the interview. Sometimes he adjust those numbers but spends more time on SpaceX. With JB getting more face time with the press looks like he is being groomed for CEO. Elon has said he will remain Chairman and still be involved in the day to day runnings of the company with a title like Chief Product Architect.

He does not need to spend time with Justine Musk(yes, she kept the name after the divorce). I am sure his personal assistant can coordinate schedules for time spent with the kids. Most kids of very powerful people don't have many fond memories of their parent taking them to soccer practice and watching them at the school play. There are usually other perks to go with the downsides. Elon has recently recanted on bequeathing all his money/shares to charity. He has said the Ford family has had good stabilizing influence that prevented bankruptcy of Ford Motor Co. relative to what happened at GM.

 

[GreenT]

What I am getting at is ... spending time with 5 kids cannot be delegated.

And somewhere in all that, Justine figures in. Coordinating time. etc.

A recent article (no idea where) strongly suggested Musk is involved to some degree with the Hyperloop company.

And .. if I were him and needing a new "companion", I'd be calling one of the reporters / interviewers who couldn't get her questions straight she was so infatuated. Brunette from a year or so ago.

Just sayin'

 

[chickensevil]

Regarding cash flow positive it was previously stated that Q3 would be that point. This was before they said they were pushing back the Model X so if not Q3 then should be shortly after as Model X ramps up.

 

[TSLAopt]

Three questions I'd like to be asked:

1)will Tesla bring any new information or product to the North American Auto Show?

2)would it make sense to give every Tesla vehicle it's own unique SMS address at some point so that owners could text all kinds of commands to the autonomous cars they own? (E.g. Come pick me up, drive to Johns house to pick up package and come home, alert me when charge is up to 150 miles of range, at 8am tomorrow heat to 70 degrees and be 100% charged)

3)if you were in the shoes of a TSLA investor who is constantly hearing FUD from the media, what 1 or 2 questions would they get the most valuable information out of asking you right now? And can you answer that question?

 

[vgrinshpun]

Regarding cash flow positive it was previously stated that Q3 would be that point. This was before they said they were pushing back the Model X so if not Q3 then should be shortly after as Model X ramps up.

I think that statement you refer to was about cash flow positive, not free cash flow positive. Free cash flow positive includes capex, while cash flow positive excludes it. It is my understanding that 32no's question is about free cash flow, not cash flow. With the further factory upgrades and expenses for GF ramping up, it is unlikely that TM will reach free cash flow positive status for some time...

 

[SteveG3]

Tesla related, I'd want to know,

could you describe the challenges, potential, and probability of implementing each of these possible improvements to the long distance trip capability of Tesla's vehicles: 10 minute SuperCharging, battery swap, addition of a metal air range extender, or "other" card that's not been shown yet.

of course, I wouldn't want him to say anything he thought it was not in shareholder interest to disclose. that said, I think a major advancement in any of these would be a tremendous lever in removing many people's last mental barrier to EVs. Tesla would still have the challenge of ramping up production, but I think the kind of enthusiasm for Tesla's and EV's emergence we see here on TMC could very well become mainstream.

 

[Auzie]

I am most curious about this:

 

[MartinAustin]

Pretty simple...

* When will we see Model X ?
* When will we see Model 3 ?
* Are you still confident about the 200 mile range and $35,000 starting figure for Model 3 ?
* Are you still confident about the end-of-2016, beginning-of-2017 launch for Model 3 ?

 

[yobigd20]

"What happened to the developer SDK? Is that still in the plans? When will it be released?"

 

[yobigd20]

Pretty simple...

* When will we see Model X ?
* When will we see Model 3 ?
* Are you still confident about the 200 mile range and $35,000 starting figure for Model 3 ?
* Are you still confident about the end-of-2016, beginning-of-2017 launch for Model 3 ?

These are the questions that I find most annoying. Why? Because they get asked ALL the time and the response is always the same and usually just BS as they don't know for sure. Too many various factors. The best answer you'll get is a ballpark estimate which is unreliable hence a total waste of time for everyone. I hate it when these questions are asked during those shareholder calls and interviews.

 

[StapleGun]

As an avid Redditor I can shed some light on how the AMA will work and hopefully help everyone get the most out of it.

The "I am Elon Musk, AMA!" post will go live right at 9pm EST. There will immediately be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of questions posted. Users will be voting up/down these questions and the more popular ones will bubble up to the top. Unfortunately a great question that gets posted even a few minutes too late will probably get buried and have a slim chance of getting answered. Elon (or an assistant) will generally wait a little bit and the start answering the top voted questions.

If we as a group can settle on a question(s) to be asked, we can have one person post the question right at 9:00 and then post the link here so others can upvote it. If it's well organized we should be able to get it near the top and improve our odds of having it answered. Also, as aznt1217 said you should not bunch up questions as it lessens your chance of getting answered. Short concise questions work best in this format.

Lastly, prepare for a lot of fluff questions like "How did you decide to start a rocket company?" to be near the top. The majority of the audience will not be Tesla/SpaceX nerds like us so they won't realize what is already public knowledge. I would highly recommend everyone sign in or create an account (it's super easy) and try to upvote the good and downvote the bad questions early on to improve our chances of extracting some new information from this AMA.

 

[eepic]

A few things for those who don't frequent reddit.

Here are some of the most popular AMA's in the past, feel free to browse them for a feel of what to expect:
IAmA: search results

Also, here are the posts in the TeslaMotors and SpaceX subreddits (think of them analogous to subforums within reddit) discussing questions:
Official /r/TeslaMotors Questions for Elon Musk's AMA : teslamotors
Elon Musk is doing a AMA tomorrow (jan 5) : spacex

 

[aznt1217]

My question would be. If there was one thing you feel Tesla Motors should improve on as a company, what would it be and how would you go about improving it?

This would immediately get the FUD Spinners to work but I'm really curious to know what he would say. I won't be on the AMA till later tonight so if someone asks that... that would be awesome.

 

[Benz]

As an avid Redditor I can shed some light on how the AMA will work and hopefully help everyone get the most out of it.

The "I am Elon Musk, AMA!" post will go live right at 9pm EST. There will immediately be hundreds, perhaps thousands, of questions posted. Users will be voting up/down these questions and the more popular ones will bubble up to the top. Unfortunately a great question that gets posted even a few minutes too late will probably get buried and have a slim chance of getting answered. Elon (or an assistant) will generally wait a little bit and the start answering the top voted questions.

If we as a group can settle on a question(s) to be asked, we can have one person post the question right at 9:00 and then post the link here so others can upvote it. If it's well organized we should be able to get it near the top and improve our odds of having it answered. Also, as aznt1217 said you should not bunch up questions as it lessens your chance of getting answered. Short concise questions work best in this format.

Lastly, prepare for a lot of fluff questions like "How did you decide to start a rocket company?" to be near the top. The majority of the audience will not be Tesla/SpaceX nerds like us so they won't realize what is already public knowledge. I would highly recommend everyone sign in or create an account (it's super easy) and try to upvote the good and downvote the bad questions early on to improve our chances of extracting some new information from this AMA.

That's a good idea.

- - - Updated - - -

Elon Musk is scheduled to have an AMA session on Reddit tomorrow at 9 PM.

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with Reddit, an AMA is a popular "ask me anything" thread on Reddit where people ask questions to famous or interesting people. All of the AMAs are supposedly confirmed by moderators, so this is probably not a hoax. I think some of us investors and owners have some various questions that are yet to be answered and since this is Elon Musk, he is probably the most capable to answer our questions. We can discuss possible questions and the answers he provides in this thread.

The AMA will take place at 9 PM Eastern on January 5, 2015


Link to first post related to the AMA

Link to the AMA schedule

Link to AMA question suggestion thread for those who will not be awake

LINK TO AMA SUB-REDDIT (THIS IS WHERE THE AMA WILL TAKE PLACE)

Does anybody know how much time Elon Musk will be spending on this AMA session? 1 hour, 2 hours, or even longer? Is there some kind of a format for these AMA sessions?

 

[austinEV]

Three questions I'd like to be asked:

1)will Tesla bring any new information or product to the North American Auto Show?

2)would it make sense to give every Tesla vehicle it's own unique SMS address at some point so that owners could text all kinds of commands to the autonomous cars they own? (E.g. Come pick me up, drive to Johns house to pick up package and come home, alert me when charge is up to 150 miles of range, at 8am tomorrow heat to 70 degrees and be 100% charged)

3)if you were in the shoes of a TSLA investor who is constantly hearing FUD from the media, what 1 or 2 questions would they get the most valuable information out of asking you right now? And can you answer that question?

3) the answer is 42. The question is much, much harder.

 

[Matias]

Reddit is not official channel for Tesla investor relations. That means, that he can't give out any information, which could have effect on TSLA.

 

[chickensevil]

Reddit is not official channel for Tesla investor relations. That means, that he can't give out any information, which could have effect on TSLA.

It is being done in the after hours and all they need to do to cover all bases is post a link to in from their website blog. Then it should be fair game.

 

[larmor]

I would want to ask if blind spot warning will be coming to the MS? Have it on a gl550 and works great. Autopilot and auto lane change may be a way off?

 

[AlMc]

Question: 'Do you see another Tsunami of Hurt coming in the next 3-6 months for people shorting TSLA?'

 

[MartinAustin]

Elon just tweeted Ask me anything at 9pm Florida time (focused on tomorrow's 6am rocket launch).

Sounds like he doesn't want it to focus on Tesla.