Elon Musk vs. Short sellers

[AWDtsla]

One such incident is enough to stop production for weeks, instill fear in employees for their lives and safety. Even if the perpetrator is caught days or weeks after, the damage is done and the shorts would have made big bucks.

Repeat of fairfax.

 

[SW2Fiddler]

in war you stop thinking and everyone who is not with you, is against you (I believe that's what a US president once said...).

It was “Either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists” and instantly became one of the misquotedest counterproductive fallacies ever speechificated!

I will relentlessly fight against misquotes. Get the words right if words are the weapon. Otherwise why even gibble gabble blork freen.

 

[bhzmark]

Perhaps it would be good for us to discuss counter-strategies.

I wonder if parodying (perhaps covertly at first) the shorts would be effective if not at least amusing.

The parodies could create a bunch of twitter accounts that post increasingly absurd and bizarre and implausible short theses and retweet the other shorts with their own parodical reductio ad absurdum addition to the original tweet in the retweet.

It might even be more effective to first make more plausible posts first, or least just repeating current short themes, and then, perhaps as you get a short following, make increasingly absurd and exaggerated short theories --- the theory of the parking lots with Model 3s is itself almost a parody -- and yet in this case it is real. . . .

I wondered about the effectiveness of parodies at undermining their target in the eyes of others. For instance you would have thought that SNL's relentless parodying of Trump might have done him in -- but apparently not.

Someone wrote a dissertation on the effect of SNL Tina Fey's parody of Sarah Palin. http://udspace.udel.edu/bitstream/handle/19716/4733/Esralew, Sarah.pdf;jsessionid=53E7BDE3C2CD05D9C2101AF30CF59DF0?sequence=1

The author found that the parody did in fact undermine the audience's view of Palin on the "ICE" dimensions (Intelligence, Competence and Experience) -- but, hilariously, the parodies had the same effect as the actual interviews of Palin, which affected the audience's view roughly the same.

So I still don't know if parodies are effective at anything other than humor

 

[dc_h]

The only way to counter bad behavior, and that’s really what we’re talking about here, is through consequences. As long as there are no consequences for ie., Mr. S and those of his ilk, they will continue as they have nothing to lose.

Linette Lopez was rendered ineffective when her articles were responded to with hundreds of i love my Tesla replies. Most of the lies can be handled the same, the finance discussions need repliesnwith margins and demand stories.
Trolling back maybe what caused Dana Hull to become disaffected and I think the idea that some shorts have created fake pro Tesla twitter accounts to create the mean Elon army meme.
Infind most Tesla fans are pretty cool and most haters like Spiegal are jerks that could probably never work in a professional environment with harsh and bullying comments. Getting in the trenches with them is their goal.

 

[woof]

troll versus troll.

Hmm...

 

[Krugerrand]

Given how vicious some of the shorts are in spreading lies and the zeal they have to kill the company, I have a suspicion that at the height of desperation it is not beyond them to embark on to the next step - criminal activities.

I am not talking about white collar crimes like what Tripp did. That is just the first salvo. I am worried about physical damage to the factory, employees or the man.

One such incident is enough to stop production for weeks, instill fear in employees for their lives and safety. Even if the perpetrator is caught days or weeks after, the damage is done and the shorts would have made big bucks.

Don’t be giving them any ideas, please.

 

[Electroman]

The parodies could create a bunch of twitter accounts that post increasingly absurd and bizarre and implausible short theses and retweet the other shorts with their own parodical reductio ad absurdum addition to the original tweet in the retweet.

I am pretty sure that would work. I came up with a bunch of 'Onion' type headlines and posted it somewhere in this forum. I will dig it up. For the naive those parodied headlines and the ones the shorts and CNBC or Anton in Seeking Lies comes up - are not much different.

Here is one:

http://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-feeding-live-babies-to-robots-2018-5?r=UK&IR=T

Tesla engineers feed live babies to Robots in Gigafactory

In an effort to speed up the manufacturing of batteries, an employee told Business Insider that he was asked to feed live babies to Robots. When Business Insider reached out, Tesla declined to comment, but instead pointed out to a statement in the recent investor letter which said, ‘Tesla will achieve its production goals by all means’.

 

[WarpedOne]

The problem with parody is it only works for audience with intelligence above X.
IQ of 100 is very lowbar, and half of population is even below that ...

 

[lolachampcar]

Assume there is lots of money to be made having Tesla fail (or even significantly falter for a bit), why would someone without scruples just remove the Elon? Tesla would still be there but without (almost all) of its muchness.

 

[Mader Levap]

Financial world is world of criminalists in white gloves. Murder is not their style.

 

[UnknownSoldier]

Financial world is world of criminalists in white gloves. Murder is not their style.

Murder is Putin's style though and anyone who doesn't think Russia has an interest in preventing the adoption of electric cars isn't paying attention.

 

[neroden]

Given how vicious some of the shorts are in spreading lies and the zeal they have to kill the company, I have a suspicion that at the height of desperation it is not beyond them to embark on to the next step - criminal activities.

I am not talking about white collar crimes like what Tripp did. That is just the first salvo. I am worried about physical damage to the factory, employees or the man.

One such incident is enough to stop production for weeks, instill fear in employees for their lives and safety. Even if the perpetrator is caught days or weeks after, the damage is done and the shorts would have made big bucks.

Tesla is hiring better computer security, but frankly they probably need better physical security too. I also expect actual sabotage attempts.

 

[Electroman]

I also expect actual sabotage attempts.

Every such attempt will take some amount of time before it can be conclusively proved as sabotage. The shorts will spin that as poor security provided due to cost cutting measures. WSJ will spin a story: "Tesla keeps profitability above employee security"

 

[Electroman]

Good Morning, Tuesday - The bankrupt-Tesla-at-any-cost factory has cranked its first negative Tesla article for the day. Bloomberg has taken the lead for today. More articles to come as the day rolls on.

Norwegians Quietly Revolt Against Tesla

For good measure they make sure there is reference to WSJ hit piece from yesterday.

Musk has struggled to ramp up production of a cheaper sedan, the Model 3, and the company is said to have pressed suppliers to return cash paid for components.

 

[jhm]

Good Morning, Tuesday - The bankrupt-Tesla-at-any-cost factory has cranked its first negative Tesla article for the day. Bloomberg has taken the lead for today. More articles to come as the day rolls on.

Norwegians Quietly Revolt Against Tesla

For good measure they make sure there is reference to WSJ hit piece from yesterday.

The title is slanted, but the article is not so bad. Sales have doubled in recent year, and service capacity struggles to keep pace. Customers understand this as growing pains. This is not a customer revolt, certainly not a revolt AGAIST Tesla.

 

[jhm]

I think that article also reveals something about how journalists perceive Tesla. They perceive that Tesla is not longer the underdog as it is becoming the front runner. Journalists will frame stories much more sympathetically for underdogs. But front runners take all the heat for an industry.

I think it would be best for Tesla and its fans to accept the mantlenof front runner. Tesla is the company that puts the face on all things EV. Even Jaguar makes for a new underdog trying to catch up with Tesla. That's where the drama of the story goes now. "Can other automakers catch up with Tesla?" So good on Jaguar to have a crossover with more range than the short range Model X. That puts them in the race, even though compared to the long range X version, Jauguar has no lead. Bit in this race they are the underdog, so if they get within a nose of Tesla that's where the drama is.

Everybody takes shots at the front runner. We should get used to that and take pride in our new found stature.

 

[Cobos]

The title is slanted, but the article is not so bad. Sales have doubled in recent year, and service capacity struggles to keep pace. Customers understand this as growing pains. This is not a customer revolt, certainly not a revolt AGAIST Tesla.

And the reality is pretty bad and has been like that the last 3 years. The Bergen SC doesn’t answer phone or email and won’t even set up service appointment unless the car is undrivable. Due to very many angry customers and being overworked, sick leave is through the roof etc.
Oslo SC handles information back and forth to customers, mostly. But my car has been in the shop since 31 of may, I’m still waiting for a replacement MCU and their ETA is “we have no idea”. So yeah there’s been around 10 articles in all business newspapers and some none business ones about the same issue. All in all the Bloomberg article was fairly balanced actually.

 

[Mario Kadastik]

Tesla does have a parts issue. They even confirmed it to me when I escalated through the My Tesla page to higher ups. They said they are putting in a new supply chain and parts management system for EU as it's indeed sucked, but it's now been 4+ months and we still have cases where cars are waiting month(s) for a single part that is on backorder and they are often times stupid small things, but really really necessary parts.

So this is by far in EU the strongest weakness and causing the biggest anger from customers. We have 13 Teslas, there are issues that need parts and having a car stand in a garage for 2 months actually costs me money as I operate it commercially. It costs thousands and thousands of € in lost revenue. At some point I calculated that due to parts delays I've lost tens of thousands of € in revenue as I couldn't operate the cars. I seriously hope this gets better, but I'm afraid with Model 3 it might first get worse

 

[bdy0627]

And the reality is pretty bad and has been like that the last 3 years. The Bergen SC doesn’t answer phone or email and won’t even set up service appointment unless the car is undrivable. Due to very many angry customers and being overworked, sick leave is through the roof etc.
Oslo SC handles information back and forth to customers, mostly. But my car has been in the shop since 31 of may, I’m still waiting for a replacement MCU and their ETA is “we have no idea”. So yeah there’s been around 10 articles in all business newspapers and some none business ones about the same issue. All in all the Bloomberg article was fairly balanced actually.

Good info. I think we are getting more understanding into why so many executives have lost their jobs. Job performance has been lacking.

 

[bdy0627]

Tesla does have a parts issue. They even confirmed it to me when I escalated through the My Tesla page to higher ups. They said they are putting in a new supply chain and parts management system for EU as it's indeed sucked, but it's now been 4+ months and we still have cases where cars are waiting month(s) for a single part that is on backorder and they are often times stupid small things, but really really necessary parts.

So this is by far in EU the strongest weakness and causing the biggest anger from customers. We have 13 Teslas, there are issues that need parts and having a car stand in a garage for 2 months actually costs me money as I operate it commercially. It costs thousands and thousands of € in lost revenue. At some point I calculated that due to parts delays I've lost tens of thousands of € in revenue as I couldn't operate the cars. I seriously hope this gets better, but I'm afraid with Model 3 it might first get worse

I sincerely hope Elon understands how bad it is. Judging by the recent mass firings, I think he probably does. They need to get this cleaned up ASAP.