General Discussion: 2018 Investor Roundtable

[Intl Professor]

Two observations about the Musk/media kerfuffle. 1) There's an old saying, "there is danger entering a public fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel." Don't read this will just make you mad but is a real hatchet job.

Why Is Elon Musk Attacking the Media? We Explain. (Also, Give Us a Good Rating!)

2) I'm thinking about writing the Times about terminating my online subscription because they do not spell bankwuptcy correctly. Apparently the Old Grey Lady has no sense of humor.

 

[Drumheller]

I'm actually surprised by how many people here are upset over Musk's media comments. I would guess that most of you are older and wealthier than me. Have you not traveled outside of the USA? It's been obvious to me for 12 years that the media in the USA, as a whole, is terrible. It does more harm than good. I'm fully in agreement with Musk's assessment of US media.

I also think many people still don't "get" why Trump is President. It wasn't that half of this country thought he would be a good President. It's that half of this country is completely tired of media manipulation, corruption, and didn't want to vote for the poster-child of political corruption. Many votes weren't "for" Trump. They were a vote against the establishment.

If more people would stop watching TV news, stop reading garbage from CNN, Fox News, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc, I think we'd see more rational thinking.

 

[Waiting4M3]

I'm actually surprised by how many people here are upset over Musk's media comments. I would guess that most of you are older and wealthier than me. Have you not traveled outside of the USA? It's been obvious to me for 12 years that the media in the USA, as a whole, is terrible. It does more harm than good. I'm fully in agreement with Musk's assessment of US media.

I also think many people still don't "get" why Trump is President. It wasn't that half of this country thought he would be a good President. It's that half of this country is completely tired of media manipulation, corruption, and didn't want to vote for the poster-child of political corruption. Many votes weren't "for" Trump. They were a vote against the establishment.

If more people would stop watching TV news, stop reading garbage from CNN, Fox News, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc, I think we'd see more rational thinking.

Another thing to add to this dumpster fire of a media fight, media is also like the electoral college system where a select few of us control the voice of the masses. If we truly had a popular vote election, Trump would not have been president. Media has robbed people of their voice, just as the electoral college has robbed people of their choice.

 

[bdy0627]

Tesla fixes Model 3 battery/chassis marriage bottleneck, builds 500 units/day for clearer path to 5,000/week

There has been discussion about Tesla taking control of the narrative again. It seems to me that is what they are doing with these regular email leaks. They are apparently making progress on the ramp and letting the world know it. Given the current FUD cycle, I think this is very helpful. I know I like hearing about it rather than trying to piece it together from VINs and pictures of parking lots.

 

[Intl Professor]

I'm actually surprised by how many people here are upset over Musk's media comments. I would guess that most of you are older and wealthier than me. Have you not traveled outside of the USA? It's been obvious to me for 12 years that the media in the USA, as a whole, is terrible. It does more harm than good. I'm fully in agreement with Musk's assessment of US media.

I also think many people still don't "get" why Trump is President. It wasn't that half of this country thought he would be a good President. It's that half of this country is completely tired of media manipulation, corruption, and didn't want to vote for the poster-child of political corruption. Many votes weren't "for" Trump. They were a vote against the establishment.

If more people would stop watching TV news, stop reading garbage from CNN, Fox News, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc, I think we'd see more rational thinking.

Actually, we're seeing more rational voting in part because of the non-garbage reported even by the Wall Street Journal. Although grass roots organizing is probably more important, it is hard to measure media influence. It is huge, but effective on those who can read objectively, as well as the Booboisie.

 

[sundaymorning]

Confirmation on 500/day extrapolates to 3,509 burst. I’m buying a small badge on every new confirmation we get wonderful news.

 

[adiggs]

I don't know but I think the " Pravda " site where people can vote on journalists and media, editors etc. is actually a good idea.

A crowd sourced view of journalists, media, editors, without also having Wikipedia quality moderation, sounds like an excuse for Internet survey ballot stuffing by whoever is currently doing the best "get out the vote" job among their minions.

About the only thing that I can see as a change on Tesla's part that I can think of as positive, is to hire a group of more active bloggers / socializers / communicators (which will also mean lawyers and PR people), who's task is to provide the facts of different situations that start to show up in the media with regularity.

If nothing else, anybody pretending to be a journalist would have to provide a link / quote from Tesla's view of each situation somewhere in the body of their article in order to demonstrate their balance.


So the wild headlines about Tesla's imminent bankrutpcy or need to raise capital this year, will also include a Tesla statement that as of <date>, current line of sight is for no need to raise capital this year. Or crash du jour, accident, etc... And make the statements blog posts that are readily linkable, so that a lot of those articles don't just include the quote - they include a link to the blog post (Tesla can make that their "statement").

Way too much activity for Elon to do by himself, and I think better if we hear from more than just Elon. As a shareholder, I'd like to believe that senior executives are developing into CEOs or at least business unit heads and that there are multiple people that could step in for Elon if he's out for awhile.

 

[mongo]

Confirmation on 500/day extrapolates to 3,509 burst. I’m buying a small badge on every new confirmation we get wonderful news.

Raw burst data from the article is 32 units per hour (body mating cell). That extrapolates to 500 day at only 16 hours. >5k/ wk at 24/7, IF sustainable and IF other sections are all that fast.

 

[SteveG3]

Two observations about the Musk/media kerfuffle. 1) There's an old saying, "there is danger entering a public fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel." Don't read this will just make you mad but is a real hatchet job.

Why Is Elon Musk Attacking the Media? We Explain. (Also, Give Us a Good Rating!)

2) I'm thinking about writing the Times about terminating my online subscription because they do not spell bankwuptcy correctly. Apparently the Old Grey Lady has no sense of humor.

two points re the NY Times,

1) that piece out today where they "explain" Elon's media tweets, note how they do not offer a comment section for the public on that "article." NYT's enormous megaphone, as the "explainer" of Elon for the public. no need for discussion among the public, or, rather, no risk of engaging in public discussion for the NYT. kind of makes Elon's point for him that we could really use a feedback mechanism that moves us more towards journalism.

2) re that saying, about not having a "fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel," in the midst of rebutting John Broder's fundamentally flawed NY Times article panning the Model S in 2013, Elon did an interview where he described someone offering that very same advice to him... to which he replied, "to hell with that." Took a quick but unsuccessful look for that video for you.

 

[Starno]

I think he’s right for calling out the media, but the Pravda version 1 is called twitter and it’s not working.

Actually that's kinda the opposite of Twitter. With Twitter it's everyone who is doing the role of a " journalist " and giving his own opinion without any checking.

 

[bro1999]

I don't know but I think the " Pravda " site where people can vote on journalists and media, editors etc. is actually a good idea.

Do you know that "Pravda", while meaning truth in Russian, also was the name of the official newspaper of the Soviet Union, and is currently a Russian news website? Linking truth to Communist/Russian news...that sounds like a splendid idea, Elon.

 

[Todd Burch]

I'm actually surprised by how many people here are upset over Musk's media comments. I would guess that most of you are older and wealthier than me. Have you not traveled outside of the USA? It's been obvious to me for 12 years that the media in the USA, as a whole, is terrible.

I'm not sure anyone here is arguing that at all. I imagine most if not all here agree that the media as a whole leaves much to be desired.

I think there's more disagreement about the way in which the comments were communicated, or the proposed solution (popular vote for the "most accurate news source".)

 

[Menifeer]

Do you know that "Pravda", while meaning truth in Russian, also was the name of the official newspaper of the Soviet Union, and is currently a Russian news website? Linking truth to Communist/Russian news...that sounds like a splendid idea, Elon.

Agreed. I don't think Elon put enough thought into his choice of a name.

 

[Starno]

I'm not sure anyone here is arguing that at all. I imagine most if not all here agree that the media as a whole leaves much to be desired.

I think there's more disagreement about the way in which the comments were communicated, or the proposed solution (popular vote for the "most accurate news source".)

I think it's not necessarily a popular vote for " most accurate news source " . But more in the sense that if the articles are presenting distorted facts, it will be called out, and known. If the journalist, media, editor etc. keep doing the same their rating will get worse and worse, and people will know that they're mostly lying, and so shouldn't be trusted.
I mean that's how I understood the idea.
There won't be a ranking, it'll be like Uber ratings. The reason Uber is working and you get a better experience riding a Uber is because the driver is rated. If he doesn't work well, his ratings will downgrade, and he'll be less trusted, have less customers...
Taxi drivers don't have any ratings and so they don't really care and so the experience is way less good, in general, with taxi drivers (in the US).

 

[mongo]

Agreed. I don't think Elon put enough thought into his choice of a name.

He registered a company "Pravda" months ago... I think he put in some thought...

 

[TradingInvest]

I'm not sure anyone here is arguing that at all. I imagine most if not all here agree that the media as a whole leaves much to be desired.

I think there's more disagreement about the way in which the comments were communicated, or the proposed solution (popular vote for the "most accurate news source".)

Elon did not propose "popular vote for the most accurate news source". That approach is useless and he certainly understands it.

He didn't explain in details. He only talked about the principles, which I agree. Today's media need some fact checking. Special interest and corruption money has drove media into a big mass, it's really bad for the society.

I think there will be lots of creative ideas once the real work starts.

 

[BioSehnsucht]

Letting people vote on truth would be horrible. Look what they did in the last general election! (granted the options were terrible, but so far a large portion of the population has been accepting lies for some time as truth)

I think more interesting would be a site that was well researched with information vetted by professionals, with references etc, (something like Snopes but for news) but before you got to see the answer to whether the thing was true / accurate / whatever, you had to vote (anonymously) what you believed... then those who were misled can see just how many others were misled too, that they're not alone, and it's a big problem.

 

[Waiting4M3]

Letting people vote on truth would be horrible. Look what they did in the last general election! (granted the options were terrible, but so far a large portion of the population has been accepting lies for some time as truth)

I think more interesting would be a site that was well researched with information vetted by professionals, with references etc, (something like Snopes but for news) but before you got to see the answer to whether the thing was true / accurate / whatever, you had to vote (anonymously) what you believed... then those who were misled can see just how many others were misled too, that they're not alone, and it's a big problem.

It's not exactly voting for truth, but voting for who we want to see reporting it

 

[Intl Professor]

two points re the NY Times,

1) that piece out today where they "explain" Elon's media tweets, note how they do not offer a comment section for the public on that "article." NYT's enormous megaphone, as the "explainer" of Elon for the public. no need for discussion among the public, or, rather, no risk of engaging in public discussion for the NYT. kind of makes Elon's point for him that we could really use a feedback mechanism that moves us more towards journalism.

2) re that saying, about not having a "fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel," in the midst of rebutting John Broder's fundamentally flawed NY Times article panning the Model S in 2013, Elon did an interview where he described someone offering that very same advice to him... to which he replied, "to hell with that." Took a quick but unsuccessful look for that video for you.

I remember that review and did write an immediate stinging reaction. In that case Musk's best response was just to report what Tesla's records showed documenting all the efforts Broder took to drain the MS battery. In a sense, what the Times did today was similar to what Elon did then, they reported the tweets. In this case their journalistic malfeasance was correcting the spelling of bankwuptcy.

The Broder case, on the other hand, just shows the influence of big oil and big journalism in a conspiracy against Tesla as he was later identified as a specialist covering the energy sector. Hence, early on, Elon exposed the conspiracy he now protests.

To modify a common phrase, "another hoistment by their own petard." And so it goes.

 

[RobStark]

Agreed. I don't think Elon put enough thought into his choice of a name.

I don't think you have thought enough about the choice of "Pravda."

It has double,triple and quadruple meanings.