How does SpaceX explosion impact Tesla Motors?

[fallen888]

I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on how the SpaceX explosion could possibly (if at all) impact Tesla Motors.

This may be a pretty dumb question, given that the two are separate business entities. But I still wonder.. want to hear some thoughts.

 

[GoTslaGo]

No effects if you're a customer.

As an investor it seems there maybe "collateral" damage, so to speak. I haven't done an exhaustive analysis and tracked the share price with successful and unsuccessful launches, but IIRC it seems to be buoyed when spaceX does well in the recent past (as far as I've followed it). Now it seems, we see the opposite.

Just glad no lives lost.

 

[fallen888]

Just glad no lives lost.

For sure.

 

[azred]

I'd be interested to hear everyone's thoughts on how the SpaceX explosion could possibly (if at all) impact Tesla Motors.

This may be a pretty dumb question, given that the two are separate business entities. But I still wonder.. want to hear some thoughts.

It's not a dumb question at all. Musk is burning the candle at both ends already and this event will surely cause him to redouble his focus on SpaceX, which can't be helpful to his other ventures. If he wasn't such a hands on CEO, perhaps it wouldn't be very relevant.

 

[hockeythug]

I guess you can bring up the Musk time issue but other than that, no connection at all.

 

[malcolm]

It's playing havoc with his golf - sorry blog:

Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[ecarfan]

No impact on Tesla.

SpaceX will identify and solve the issue that caused the explosion, and continue. There will be a temporary delay in launches.

 

[Garlan Garner]

I think its a great question. This explosion brought out something to me....and that is this.

Both Tesla and SpaceX are huge companies. The same person appears to run both of them.

There is an update that was destined for Tesla owners. Because of this explosion in SpaceX - the Tesla update is briefly postponed.

I think that's interesting that an event in one company pauses something in another company - simply because ONE person runs both.


My question is - Why does ELON have to be available for an update in Tesla? Does he not have someone that can announce this for him? Or does he have to do it all?

__________________________

Lastly - and more importantly in my opinion. Let me start this with a question? Did anything go wrong yesterday in Tesla? Did Tesla miss some production target or delivery target? I don't remember one. Was there some kind of public meeting or something?

Why did Tesla's stock go down yesterday? Nothing happened in Tesla. Teslas stock seemed to go down at the same time that the rocket blew up in SpaceX.

Wait... I thought they were 2 different companies. Oh yeah....that's right.....they have the same CEO. That's right....that's the bridge that causes SpaceX issues to propagate over to Tesla. My bad.


Good news for me though - My buy orders kicked in - Now I have more Tesla stock @ $201.20

 

[electracity]

It calls into question Spacex's low cost thesis. If Musk is fundamentally wrong about making rockets, is he right about making money selling lots of model 3?

I had a engineer relative recruited and employed by SpaceX in 2015 for his particular manufacturing skills. There is not the slightest chance that anyone who knows him would be willing to ride on a spacex rocket into space. The disorganization, as well as the ad-hoc engineering decisions made by non-engineers, is completely unacceptable. Spacex was recognizing these deficiencies in 2015, and hopefully this situation is improving. But it is hard to improve without a stable base of talented employees.

If Musk can't hire and retain the right talent, and let those people make decisions without his frequent interference, there is no chance that Tesla will become a large manufacturer. It is all connected. A rocket exploding is just more dramatic than dive unit replacement on a model S.

 

[Woody17]

Why did Tesla's stock go down yesterday? Nothing happened in Tesla. Teslas stock seemed to go down at the same time that the rocket blew up in SpaceX.

Good news for me though - My buy orders kicked in - Now I have more Tesla stock @ $201.20

With all due respect, if you don't know why Tesla's stock price dropped yesterday, you shouldn't be an investor in the stock market.

 

[ccutrer]

My question is - Why does ELON have to be available for an update in Tesla? Does he not have someone that can announce this for him? Or does he have to do it all?

There is no evidence that software 8.0 has been delayed (due to the Falcon 9 explosion). Yes, Elon's blog post about 8.0 has been delayed (but really, when is Elon ever on time?! Master Plan Part Deux was quite late, without any problems at SpaceX). More than likely, the update will go out as planned, and Elon has simply reserved the writing of the blog post about it to himself, as a way to relish in what his company has produced. The length of time after the blog post to release will now be shorter.

 

[Garlan Garner]

With all due respect, if you don't know why Tesla's stock price dropped yesterday, you shouldn't be an investor in the stock market.

Oh stop it. I know why. I was being facetious.

 

[Grendal]

The long term effect is nothing. The short term effect we've seen. The stock will flutter because SpaceX is an Elon company and Tesla is an Elon company. Elon's time will taken up by working on understanding what went wrong. Historically, Elon considers both companies important to the future and are part of his personal goals. Elon will eventually step down as CEO of Tesla to focus a little more of his time on SpaceX. That is the future and his integrity would prevent him from favoring one company over the other.

SpaceX and Tesla are large teams of people working on goals. Elon is the person driving the companies and keeping everyone's focus on the larger goals. From everything I've ever seen he is very good at it. There are thousands of people doing the hard work to get things done.

 

[SuperDragon]

Spacecom tells SpaceX after blast: 'You owe us $50 million or a free ride'

Elon should go double or nothing and reuse a falcon 9 for the first time

 

[larmor]

Rocket science:

Bored Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[bxr140]

If Musk can't hire and retain the right talent...

Elon is trying to capitalize on the 'cool' factor of working there to counter the crazy work environment (hours) and has an open door policy for anyone who doesn't want to maintain that pace. Like, an "I get 5000 resumes a week, you can leave anytime" kind of open door policy. Like, call a team into a meeting to tell them that kind of policy.

The space industry is littered with good managers, engineers, and technicians that simply burned out trying to maintain Elon's pace.

 

[roblab]

__________________________

Lastly - and more importantly in my opinion. Let me start this with a question? Did anything go wrong yesterday in Tesla? Did Tesla miss some production target or delivery target? I don't remember one. Was there some kind of public meeting or something?

Why did Tesla's stock go down yesterday? Nothing happened in Tesla. Teslas stock seemed to go down at the same time that the rocket blew up in SpaceX.

I keep telling my wife to stop looking at the stock. It goes down because people (shorts) are betting on it to go down, writing articles (FUD) to make it go down, doing low volume sells below market, so they make money. Tesla can have a dozen neat things show up, and the stock goes down. Tesla can meet goals, and the shorts say, "Oh, we were expecting that", and it goes down. Tesla plows all its profits into making more new things, cheaper batteries, more advanced AP, and the stock goes down.

It's not SpaceX. It's gamblers playing with a crooked deck.

 

[thegruf]

... the Tesla update is briefly postponed....

What Elon said on Twitter was "Finishing Autopilot blog postponed to end of weekend"

So that is just the blog post, and not the software update as I read it.

and to be fair he doesn't even specify which weekend!

 

[Clomer]

There's no direct effect that I can see (aside from Elon needing to spend more time away from Tesla so he can handle the fallout at SpaceX), but there is an indirect one - when SpaceX fails, it affects investor confidence in Elon Musk, which in turn causes them to question whether he can deliver. This could make it more difficult for Tesla to procure investor funding.

 

[jkn]

Same owner(s?) might sell Tesla shares to get money for Spacex.