You can't get around Bloomberg's with just incognito, but if you block cookies from bloomberg.com it can't count how many articles you read and gets stuck at 9 articles left.
incognito doesn't allow cookies to be stored after exiting incognito, so in fact it does allow you to read as many articles as you wish simply by closing and re-opening the incognito tab. As another poster noted, FF incognito doesn't track cookies across tabs.
“Investor support is confirmed. Only reason why this is not certain is that it’s contingent on a shareholder vote.”
This certainly means that if you only need a shareholder vote then you have everything else in place. "Only reason" by definition means there is no other reason this couldn't be.
If I offer you money for a thing, you have a board you know agrees with a deal to sell, you do no anticipate any due diligence hiccups, isn't the only uncertainty about the sale the vote of you other co-owners of the thing I am trying to buy? Note he didn't say the only step, he said the only uncertain thing that could stop the deal are the share holders.
Yes, precisely what I am saying. That he has no reason, we can reasonably deduce from his statements, to think due diligence, etc might be the reason why the deal doesn't go through.
So again, just for clarity, he didn't say the only to be done is the vote, he said the only reason why he currently expects the deal might not happen is if rejected by share holders.
'Funding secured' has a very specific meaning in finance. And it definitely implies that he has a party that, contingent on a shareholder vote, has a legal obligation to buy out all existing shares (if necessary).
I really still don't understand why the whole world seems to be ignoring the first part of that "Funding secured" tweet that clearly says this entire thing is something simply under consideration by Musk himself.
Why are all you ignoring the words in the same tweet proceeding "Funding secured" to interpret is as a statement meant to indicate the existence of a done deal on the side of Tesla the company or the investors.
"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured."
The first half suggests that he might go through with the transaction of taking Tesla private, meaning, acquiring sufficient stock for cash that it falls below the SEC reporting thresholds and delisting it from stock exchanges.
The second half of the statement states that, whatever he decides, he has already lined up the funding necessary to carry out contemplated action in the first statement.
People don't interpret the "funding secured" to mean that he has a going-private deal locked up. They do interpret it to mean that he has locked up whatever financing he would need to go private, were he to choose to do so. And the problem is that his follow-up blog post, tweets, and Tesla statements indicate that neither the going-private transaction, or the funding for such a transaction, has been finalized--or even has progressed to the point of concrete terms being discussed.
The first part of the tweet is entirely irrelevant, since whether or not it was true is unknowable. The second statement, on the other hand was a material statement of fact. Literally the only thing that matters is whether or not the statement 'Funding secured' was true at the time of the tweet.
If it was, then nothing happens (except a strongly worded letter from the SEC on proper disclosure methods). If it wasn't, however, then at the very least he's going to have to pay restitution to all the investors (both long and short) who lost money as a result of the tweet. At worst he's going to prison.
If he had just left it at "considering," this would be a very different conversation. Funding "secured" means that it definitively exists, i.e., there is an actual agreement from some investor(s) to fund the operation.
The only accusation here, then can be that he wrongly assumed the should be able to parse him saying "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." to not mean Tesla the company has already finish due diligence and agreed to sell and that Tesla the company has secured funds from the buyers already.
The only reasonable interpretation of the above tweet, is to qualify the second sentence with the first, i.e he personally is only considering a buy offer and that he is secure in the funding ability of the buyer.
Choosing your interpretation, what he said in the second sentence, clearly contradicts the first sentence in the same tweet. So why are you choosing the clearly inaccurate, as due diligence is now taking place, narrowly legal interpretation of two words, over all the other context that suggests your narrow legal reading of those 2 words are not what could possibly have been meant by him.
You are the one taking it out of context. You are forgetting the rest of his tweet stream where he says "the only" thing in the way is a shareholder vote. High level discussions about possible billion dollar business deals happen every day. Without an agreement (e.g., term sheet), they mean nothing and certainly don't mean "funding secured." If Musk had come back immediately and said "I meant funding to be secured." It would have been a much smaller deal, but instead he doubled and tripled and quadrupled down. And now we know for certain that funding was most definitely NOT secured.
I find it hilarious that Bloomberg thinks it knows whats going on at Tesla. They are desperately trying to give tesla one last black eye before it goes private.
This isn't 'Bloomberg'. It's Matt Levine's Opinion, and his opinions (which always come with ample justification, unlike yours) are very highly regarded.
It's not knowable at this time why Musk made his comments. As a writer the best Levine can do is contextualize the situation and how it compares to norms of corporate finance, try to probe at possible plausible explanations for Musk's behavior, and evaluate the relative likelihood of each as well as the potential pitfalls. Of course none of the proposed explanations are really tenable. It isn't Levine's task to explain why Musk made the comments -- that falls rather squarely on Musk, or, perhaps, the SEC.
Two people familiar with the chain of events said that in a conversation with an informal adviser about the mess he had gotten himself into, Mr. Musk said he had taken to Twitter impulsively. He said he had done so because he was not the kind of person who could hold things in, and was angry at the company’s critics. [0]
He's a bloomberg opinion writer. He is a bloomberg staff member. So it is bloomberg. There are people who highly regard matt levine. But there are also plenty of people who have a low opinion of him. Not sure why you attacked the guy for giving his opinion.
>He's a bloomberg opinion writer. He is a bloomberg staff member. So it is bloomberg.
That's only your opinion of what it means '[to be] bloomberg'. If you have a good argument for why that is the case, then give it. But unless you do, I'll stick with the definition of an oped[1], and that Matt Levine himself took the job because Bloomberg gave him the creative freedom to write what he'd like to write in the manner that he likes to write.
>Not sure why you attacked the guy for giving his opinion.
I didn't attack him. I just noted the large difference in how much support Matt Levine gave for his opinion, and how little the poster gave for his.
[1]"An op-ed ... is a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which expresses the opinion of a named author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board." (wiki)
> That's only your opinion of what it means '[to be] bloomberg'.
No. It's a matter of fact. He works for bloomberg. He gets paid by bloomberg. Hence it is bloomberg. Now if it was an non-bloomberg employee wrote an op-ed piece for bloomberg, nytimes or any other publication, then you would be correct.
> But unless you do, I'll stick with the definition of an oped[1], and that Matt Levine himself took the job because Bloomberg gave him the creative freedom to write what he'd like to write in the manner that he likes to write.
Right. He works for bloomberg. He represents bloomberg. He is a bloomberg employee.
> [1]"An op-ed ... is a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which expresses the opinion of a named author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board." (wiki)
That's my point. Matt Levine is affiliated with the editorial board. He is affiliated with the founder of bloomberg itself - michael bloomberg, who pretty much handpicked his op-ed staff. You do realize that michael bloomberg himself writes op-eds for bloombergview right? Are you saying that doesn't represent bloomberg?
Yes. If an op-ed is written by Dimon or Tim Cook or anyone not affiliated with bloomberg, then you are right. It isn't bloomberg. But someone who works for bloomberg writing an op-ed is bloomberg.
Maybe they’re running out of money faster than anyone realizes and this is a desperate Hail Mary? That would explain the erratic and possibly illegal nature of the announcement.
Funding is likely a major concern but as others have pointed out on these threads Tesla could likely raise at least operating capital into foreseeable future without a major problem.
I think what this is a case of is further evidence that shareholder agreements should require corporate oversight of twitter accounts for CEOs :)
I think a more likely explanation is Elon's ongoing annoyance and anger toward anyone who questions the eventual success of Tesla, and especially anyone shorting the stock.
There's no way he would ever admit this, but I bet one of his motivations for posting that tweet was to move the stock and hurt the shorts.
Musk seems to be one of those classic "force of nature" founders, whose will to overcome obstacles and prove everyone wrong is essential to getting off the ground, but could be a liability in a mature company.
"Oh, yeah? Try and stop me!" works great until you run up against someone who can actually stop you (often, the government).
Don't recall any articles from earlier this year saying that Tesla had a 99% chance of going bankrupt within 3 months, and I read almost all of them. You got any links?
(The money was on Tesla either blowing it out of the park, or going broke in 2019/2020.)
Just reread all 3 articles. The first and third don't have a timeline, but posit that it will occur after the Model 3 has begun sales, so 2019. Seeking Alpha says Tesla is on track for bankruptcy, and posits that it might be by the end of the year (i.e., 12 months from the date of the article) but is otherwise anticipated for 2019 based on the numerous cash flow models in the article (assuming no stock offering or new debt issuance).
In other words: 3 months ago no one was saying Tesla would be bankrupt by August/September.
And here's the thing: if Musk was truly honest about Tesla not seeking financing or offering new stock in 2018, they are on track for bankruptcy by the end of the year based on currently available investor documents re expense, cash flow, assets, etc.. If those documents are wrong, it's incumbent on Tesla to update them, not on the rest of us to assume voodoo financial magic will save the day.
Intent is not required for regulatory violations. Moreover, the text of 10b-5 does not require any specific intent, only that the false statement or omission be made in connection with the transaction of a regulated security.
> John Reed Stark, a former longtime lawyer at the S.E.C. who specialized in investigating internet fraud cases, said that commenting online about the prospects of taking the company private was inadvisable at best. But he said that a case of market manipulation would come down to Mr. Musk’s intent.
> “These are very difficult cases to prove,” said Mr. Stark, who runs a cybersecurity consulting business.
This really is the core of the matter. Some founders are capable of largely ignoring the peanut gallery and don’t view external negativity as an existential threat. Musk is not among them.
He is only really annoyed with the shorts because there is truth in what they are saying. If he really was crushing it, and his company was raking in the money, he wouldn't care much about what the shorts are saying. As it is, his company is hemorrhaging cash and he doesn't know where the next cash infusion is going to come from.
On the flip side, he wants to build cars without having to play stupid financial games to satisfy investors each quarter. Tesla are going gangbusters, they will pay back debts and become a real company (ie: making profit) but the financial games where certain expenses are pushed or pulled between quarters to make the books look interesting get in the way of actually ramping up production.
Moving expenses from one to a quarter affects profit and loss, but it's a distinct thing from cash flow. The latter is the one that looks gloomy.
No matter how rosy your income statement, if you run out of cash, the GAME OVER screen comes up and people laugh at the glowing biographies folks wrote about you and your company in $PREVIOUS_DECADE. And while your accounts payable will often deal with being fobbed off for a bit, it becomes harder to do this. And certain folks expect cash, now, and can force you to cough it up: foremost being the government, but also employees (hard to do things when people quit en masse) and key suppliers (if the electricity goes off, or the parts don't arrive, you have to shut down the line).
Again though - these aren't things imposed by the markets. Time and again these impositions are imposed by Musk himself. He set the 5,000 car per week target, he missed it. The markets reacted when he set it, and they reacted every time he missed it. He also made the public statements about being cash flow positive and about taking on more debt.
If you look at the real market the trend is clear: There has never in the history of the stock market ever been a time when investors were more willing to invest in money-losing companies to gamble on them hitting it big. Tesla is valued by the stock market as twice as valuable as the Ford Motor Company.
You do understand that as a public company we have pretty close insight in how they are doing, specially because we can also count how many cars they actually sell.
You would have to be suggesting that the whole board of Tesla has totally lied about every aspect of the business (expert sales numbers) to hid some kind of desaster.
That seems incredibly unlikely.
Furthermore, we have always known that he wants to go private. He has been talking about it and mentioning it for years. He clearly has liked the SpaceX model better. Did he prepare this evil plan for the last 5 years?
TSLA market cap is like 3 years of Toyota's net income. Toyota also has enough liquid assets that it could take Tesla private with cash using Musk's plan. It would be no sweat decision if they would value the business $420 per share.
I highly recommend reading "The Paypal Wars" - I think Musk learned a lot from his mistakes at Paypal, but I also think there are elements of his personality that are still problematic for managing a going concern.
Nonetheless, I personally like the guy and wish him the best, we need more like him.
Which one are landing orbital class rockets again?
FYI, Blue Origin has been at it longer that spaceX has existed. But SpaceX, spending at least 5X less money is landing orbital class rockets and whilst Blue Origin is doing suborbital flights.
not to argue, but both Blue Origin and SpaceX are private and don't disclose ther financial information, to my best knowledge. So where is this number coming from?
For Blue Origin, they don't have any customers yet, so no income there. And it is public that Bezos just sold what, about a gigadollars worth of Amazon stock, presumably to dump into Blue Origin (which I think he's done about once a year?).
> For Blue Origin, they don't have any customers yet, so no income there.
You couldn't be more wrong. They've had payload customers for their test flights. They also have 4 large customers signed up for their New Glenn rocket (in development).
I think more precisely, plenty of billionaires put money into these things, but it’s too often to little effect due to lack of direction/clarity in the organizations the money is being poured into, too little money being put in, or both. What makes Musk (and Bezos) different is the laser focus and zero hesitation to commit huge amounts of cash to said goal. Where others would be happy to say, “oh well, maybe tomorrow” Musk is always asking, “why didn’t this happen today?” and acting on the answer for better outcomes in the future.
He started 3 billion $ companies and was involved in basically creating another one. All of these companies are doing pretty good things at least compared to the alternatives.
The space industry was terrible state and he disrupted it in many ways and is leading the charge on a new space industry totally chaining not just industry, but basically forcing change down governments throats including DoD, NASA and others.
Much the same could be argued about the car industry.
He simply thinks about problems differently. Listen to the interviews with the people that work with him, specially engineers.
Could you talk more about what makes him an appealing "guy?" His use of twitter would be a flag for most boards, so trying to see if there is some sort of Brittney Spears allure.
Because he thinks in first principles out loud and he has balls. The number of engineers that do the math on how something is possible but never do anything about it because they can't find the funding or risk their own is too damn high. Musk risks it all to achieve something great. I've my own reservations about him, but at the end of the day he's still trying to make a difference and he isn't letting stuffiness suck all the fun out of it.
Look at everyone else that is rich. At best, they donate their money helping poor people around the world. At worst, they use their wealth to buy lobbyists and lawyers to minimize their taxes.
Musk is doing something different. He's funding low-orbit satellites, rockets, electric cars, self-driving tech (and open sourcing the security side and patents to boot!), hyperloops, tunnels, solar panels, battery packs. I'm worried about some of it[1] but at least he's trying. It feels like everyone else in the world has this slow-moving kludge about them.
[1] I think autonomous devices should be highly regulated due to the risks of mass weaponization via cyber attack, for example.
Musk has been risking other people's money for all of his endeavors...public investors for Tesla (and banks), and government money for SpaceX and SolarCity.
Other billionaires are trying to make a difference in things that actually matter, like curing diseases or eliminating pollution. Hell, some of them are doing the same things that Elon is, but aren't so self-aggrandizing about it.
And their are others that recognize that hyperloops are a solution in search of a problem, that the hard part of tunneling isn't the boring but the post-boring activities (i.e., tube construction), and that self-driving isn't something you can solve in 6 months.
> Musk has been risking other people's money for all of his endeavors...public investors for Tesla (and banks), and government money for SpaceX and SolarCity.
Yes and all his companies are growing and have a good return on investment. The public loans have been payed back.
There are so many companies who live of the government tit and rarely get called out because of it.
> Other billionaires are trying to make a difference in things that actually matter, like curing diseases or eliminating pollution. Hell, some of them are doing the same things that Elon is, but aren't so self-aggrandizing about it.
I agree that other people are doing good things also (the minority) but Elon is not really doing that. The reality is that society has aggrandized him. Every tweet of his causes a massive storm of tech blog entries, news articles, stock analysts and so on.
Elon for the most part like to make stupid insider jokes do stuff without technology. Everything else seems to be a sort of secondary less interesting things.
Elon delivers. That’s why people write things and there are fanatics.
He did something almost impossible with SpaceX and Tesla. Boosters that go up and land back again? That’s nuts. Doing it at a peanut of existing cost. That’s takes some entrepreneurial and engineering skill. A high end pure electric car? That seems like a suicide business. It is however a very highly desirable car. It drives on highways by itself is just science fiction brought closer to reality.
Sure the guy says a lot of crap, sometimes his timelines are way off, he could be a bit sexist too. The world probably puts him on a pedestal.
You can’t however take away his accomplishments. He’s putting his money where his mouth is and trying to push the world towards sustainable energy/transport and first steps towards possibly another earth.
> He did something almost impossible with SpaceX and Tesla. Boosters that go up and land back again? That’s nuts.
I'm trying to gauge whether "almost impossible" is literal or figurative here, given that (the) Eagle did the same sort of thing on the moon in 1969 without refurbishment between landing and take-off. Also, Blue Origin is relatively close in competition to Space X even though it might not seem like it to many. Almost impossible?
> [Cost of compliance] is a more common complaint from small companies than from giants like Tesla, though; Tesla can afford some lawyers. Also I am sorry to be rude but given Musk's Twitter proclivities I feel like they are maybe not spending all that much on securities lawyers?
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[ 5.6 ms ] story [ 113 ms ] threadNo, he would not need to buy all the shares.
No, he was not suggesting a "firm offer to the board" was imminent.
No, he did not imply "having agreements".
This certainly means that if you only need a shareholder vote then you have everything else in place. "Only reason" by definition means there is no other reason this couldn't be.
So again, just for clarity, he didn't say the only to be done is the vote, he said the only reason why he currently expects the deal might not happen is if rejected by share holders.
The first half suggests that he might go through with the transaction of taking Tesla private, meaning, acquiring sufficient stock for cash that it falls below the SEC reporting thresholds and delisting it from stock exchanges.
The second half of the statement states that, whatever he decides, he has already lined up the funding necessary to carry out contemplated action in the first statement.
People don't interpret the "funding secured" to mean that he has a going-private deal locked up. They do interpret it to mean that he has locked up whatever financing he would need to go private, were he to choose to do so. And the problem is that his follow-up blog post, tweets, and Tesla statements indicate that neither the going-private transaction, or the funding for such a transaction, has been finalized--or even has progressed to the point of concrete terms being discussed.
If it was, then nothing happens (except a strongly worded letter from the SEC on proper disclosure methods). If it wasn't, however, then at the very least he's going to have to pay restitution to all the investors (both long and short) who lost money as a result of the tweet. At worst he's going to prison.
The only reasonable interpretation of the above tweet, is to qualify the second sentence with the first, i.e he personally is only considering a buy offer and that he is secure in the funding ability of the buyer.
Choosing your interpretation, what he said in the second sentence, clearly contradicts the first sentence in the same tweet. So why are you choosing the clearly inaccurate, as due diligence is now taking place, narrowly legal interpretation of two words, over all the other context that suggests your narrow legal reading of those 2 words are not what could possibly have been meant by him.
Or marketing company.
How is Tesla any different from any other company out to make money?
I sort of wish many of the places i worked/work at went private... the market is a joke.
It doesn’t take a genius to think, as the CEO of a public company, saying you have funding confirmed when you don’t might land you in hot water.
So the most likely scenario is he understood all of this and said it anyway.
Why?
Two people familiar with the chain of events said that in a conversation with an informal adviser about the mess he had gotten himself into, Mr. Musk said he had taken to Twitter impulsively. He said he had done so because he was not the kind of person who could hold things in, and was angry at the company’s critics. [0]
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/business/dealbook/tesla-e...
That's only your opinion of what it means '[to be] bloomberg'. If you have a good argument for why that is the case, then give it. But unless you do, I'll stick with the definition of an oped[1], and that Matt Levine himself took the job because Bloomberg gave him the creative freedom to write what he'd like to write in the manner that he likes to write.
>Not sure why you attacked the guy for giving his opinion.
I didn't attack him. I just noted the large difference in how much support Matt Levine gave for his opinion, and how little the poster gave for his.
[1]"An op-ed ... is a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which expresses the opinion of a named author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board." (wiki)
No. It's a matter of fact. He works for bloomberg. He gets paid by bloomberg. Hence it is bloomberg. Now if it was an non-bloomberg employee wrote an op-ed piece for bloomberg, nytimes or any other publication, then you would be correct.
> But unless you do, I'll stick with the definition of an oped[1], and that Matt Levine himself took the job because Bloomberg gave him the creative freedom to write what he'd like to write in the manner that he likes to write.
Right. He works for bloomberg. He represents bloomberg. He is a bloomberg employee.
> [1]"An op-ed ... is a written prose piece typically published by a newspaper or magazine which expresses the opinion of a named author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board." (wiki)
That's my point. Matt Levine is affiliated with the editorial board. He is affiliated with the founder of bloomberg itself - michael bloomberg, who pretty much handpicked his op-ed staff. You do realize that michael bloomberg himself writes op-eds for bloombergview right? Are you saying that doesn't represent bloomberg?
Yes. If an op-ed is written by Dimon or Tim Cook or anyone not affiliated with bloomberg, then you are right. It isn't bloomberg. But someone who works for bloomberg writing an op-ed is bloomberg.
Hope that clears it up for you.
I think what this is a case of is further evidence that shareholder agreements should require corporate oversight of twitter accounts for CEOs :)
Save for the fact that he explicitly insisted in conference calls and other places that Tesla doesn't need to raise money in 2018.
It surely has to bring into question Elon Musk's judgement to be involved with her.
There's no way he would ever admit this, but I bet one of his motivations for posting that tweet was to move the stock and hurt the shorts.
Musk seems to be one of those classic "force of nature" founders, whose will to overcome obstacles and prove everyone wrong is essential to getting off the ground, but could be a liability in a mature company.
"Oh, yeah? Try and stop me!" works great until you run up against someone who can actually stop you (often, the government).
Sounds like a violation of SEC rule 10b-5 and possibly illegal.
because, based on rational math, if you add this expense and minus that, the result is 0 in 3 months. QED
now that bankruptcy sounds unlikely, all the news articles are focusing on how a tweet could be illegal
(The money was on Tesla either blowing it out of the park, or going broke in 2019/2020.)
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4135995-teslas-coming-bankr...
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tesla-is-just-months-away-...
just look on Seeking Alpha
In other words: 3 months ago no one was saying Tesla would be bankrupt by August/September.
And here's the thing: if Musk was truly honest about Tesla not seeking financing or offering new stock in 2018, they are on track for bankruptcy by the end of the year based on currently available investor documents re expense, cash flow, assets, etc.. If those documents are wrong, it's incumbent on Tesla to update them, not on the rest of us to assume voodoo financial magic will save the day.
The point is, all the articles raising alarm bells saying Tesla is going bankrupt SOON, it will run out of funds, it will collapse. Because math.
Now, all the articles are focused on SEC rules for a tweet.
Well, yeah, and there are already lawsuits charging that.
> “These are very difficult cases to prove,” said Mr. Stark, who runs a cybersecurity consulting business.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/business/dealbook/tesla-e...
No matter how rosy your income statement, if you run out of cash, the GAME OVER screen comes up and people laugh at the glowing biographies folks wrote about you and your company in $PREVIOUS_DECADE. And while your accounts payable will often deal with being fobbed off for a bit, it becomes harder to do this. And certain folks expect cash, now, and can force you to cough it up: foremost being the government, but also employees (hard to do things when people quit en masse) and key suppliers (if the electricity goes off, or the parts don't arrive, you have to shut down the line).
If you look at the real market the trend is clear: There has never in the history of the stock market ever been a time when investors were more willing to invest in money-losing companies to gamble on them hitting it big. Tesla is valued by the stock market as twice as valuable as the Ford Motor Company.
It baffles me why he publicly listed Tesla in the first place if he didn't want to "play stupid financial games".
Ok so he wants to take it private - is funding secured or not?
I would highly recommend not to admit this, because it's illegal as hell.
You would have to be suggesting that the whole board of Tesla has totally lied about every aspect of the business (expert sales numbers) to hid some kind of desaster.
That seems incredibly unlikely.
Furthermore, we have always known that he wants to go private. He has been talking about it and mentioning it for years. He clearly has liked the SpaceX model better. Did he prepare this evil plan for the last 5 years?
:)
Nonetheless, I personally like the guy and wish him the best, we need more like him.
Not Musk bashing, I am genuinely curious as to why you think that?
Also, Bezos has Blue Origin.
FYI, Blue Origin has been at it longer that spaceX has existed. But SpaceX, spending at least 5X less money is landing orbital class rockets and whilst Blue Origin is doing suborbital flights.
not to argue, but both Blue Origin and SpaceX are private and don't disclose ther financial information, to my best knowledge. So where is this number coming from?
BO has never reached orbit, and doesn't say much about how much they've spent, so no one knows what their costs will be.
You couldn't be more wrong. They've had payload customers for their test flights. They also have 4 large customers signed up for their New Glenn rocket (in development).
Blue Origin is also developing VTVL rockets.
BO is expecting to have passenger flights by the end of 2018.
The space industry was terrible state and he disrupted it in many ways and is leading the charge on a new space industry totally chaining not just industry, but basically forcing change down governments throats including DoD, NASA and others.
Much the same could be argued about the car industry.
He simply thinks about problems differently. Listen to the interviews with the people that work with him, specially engineers.
Look at everyone else that is rich. At best, they donate their money helping poor people around the world. At worst, they use their wealth to buy lobbyists and lawyers to minimize their taxes.
Musk is doing something different. He's funding low-orbit satellites, rockets, electric cars, self-driving tech (and open sourcing the security side and patents to boot!), hyperloops, tunnels, solar panels, battery packs. I'm worried about some of it[1] but at least he's trying. It feels like everyone else in the world has this slow-moving kludge about them.
[1] I think autonomous devices should be highly regulated due to the risks of mass weaponization via cyber attack, for example.
Other billionaires are trying to make a difference in things that actually matter, like curing diseases or eliminating pollution. Hell, some of them are doing the same things that Elon is, but aren't so self-aggrandizing about it.
And their are others that recognize that hyperloops are a solution in search of a problem, that the hard part of tunneling isn't the boring but the post-boring activities (i.e., tube construction), and that self-driving isn't something you can solve in 6 months.
Yes and all his companies are growing and have a good return on investment. The public loans have been payed back.
There are so many companies who live of the government tit and rarely get called out because of it.
> Other billionaires are trying to make a difference in things that actually matter, like curing diseases or eliminating pollution. Hell, some of them are doing the same things that Elon is, but aren't so self-aggrandizing about it.
I agree that other people are doing good things also (the minority) but Elon is not really doing that. The reality is that society has aggrandized him. Every tweet of his causes a massive storm of tech blog entries, news articles, stock analysts and so on.
Elon for the most part like to make stupid insider jokes do stuff without technology. Everything else seems to be a sort of secondary less interesting things.
He did something almost impossible with SpaceX and Tesla. Boosters that go up and land back again? That’s nuts. Doing it at a peanut of existing cost. That’s takes some entrepreneurial and engineering skill. A high end pure electric car? That seems like a suicide business. It is however a very highly desirable car. It drives on highways by itself is just science fiction brought closer to reality.
Sure the guy says a lot of crap, sometimes his timelines are way off, he could be a bit sexist too. The world probably puts him on a pedestal.
You can’t however take away his accomplishments. He’s putting his money where his mouth is and trying to push the world towards sustainable energy/transport and first steps towards possibly another earth.
I'm trying to gauge whether "almost impossible" is literal or figurative here, given that (the) Eagle did the same sort of thing on the moon in 1969 without refurbishment between landing and take-off. Also, Blue Origin is relatively close in competition to Space X even though it might not seem like it to many. Almost impossible?
Musk executes on ideas. I think he gets too much credit for having all the ideas. Similar to Jobs in that sense.
Laughed out loud at this.