Elon guts three critical divisions at Tesla

[thewayne]

To say this makes no sense overstates the obvious.

He fired the director of new car development. And everyone in that division.

He fired the director of the Supercharger network. And everyone in that division.

And remember how he's been saying that Tesla's big new thing was going to be the robotaxi? He just eliminated the entire public policy team. Funny thing: when you're dealing with the federal government, one thing that's very useful is a public policy team.

Two cars in their four car (plus the Cyber alleged Truck) are in desperate need of refreshes. And there's no longer a new car development group. Demand for the Supercharger network is going to grow like gangbusters as most every car maker in North America is adopting their plug standard. And now that division is gone?! It had the potential to be hugely profitable!

Unless he has a really extraordinarily amazing rabbit to pull out of his hat to reveal some master scheme to offset these division axings, somehow I don't think his massive pay package is going to get passed at that upcoming shareholder meeting. In fact, I'd be REALLY seriously looking at shorting Tesla stock.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/04/tesla-to-lay-off-everyone-working-on-superchargers-new-vehicles/

Comments

[disneydream06]

I always thought he was a turd, but now I am pretty sure he's an idiot too. :o
Hugs, Jon

[dewline]

At least the first of those could be used for crop fertilizer.

But this guy wants so much to be a feudal fascist aristo-techbro, doesn't he?

[disneydream06]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At least he would finally have a use in life. :p

[armiphlage]

I might not be a financial genius, but I believe I could make better decisions than him. A POTATO could do a better job, as it would just sit there and not cause any harm.

[bibliofile]

I would give money to a potato before I would give money to the Musk melon.

[rain_gryphon]

The federal government are leaning hard on Tesla to open up their charging system to make it compatible with rival systems. I think they're giving in. It's no longer worth spending money on a charger network if they're going to become generic.

[arlie]

I sure dodged a bullet when I did not buy a Tesla several years ago after my aged Toyota Corolla died unexpectedly. (The insurance company declared it totaled, after what sure felt like a minor fender bender from inside.)

I really wanted to go electric, but on the one hand, very few cars had the range I needed for my then-regular activities. And on the other hand, I was carless, needing to move fast and my garage probably needed significant work before I could installation a charger. I also hadn't gotten around to installing solar panels, and my investigations discovered that the local power company had arranged pricing to be based on usage data 2 years before solar installation - i.e. I'd never get any credit for power sold to PG&E beyond my usage pre-electric-car, unless I bought the car and charged it with their electricity for 2 years before finally installing solar. (I still haven't installed solar power; it's a big complex project and while it would now be cost effective, until PG&E changes their rates yet again, I'm short on Round TUITs.)

There was also the problem of cost. I instead bought a new, gasoline-powered econobox, for (at least) $20K less than the cheapest then-available electric car that would have been minimally acceptable to me.

All this was before the MuskBrat publicly demonstrated his psych issues by accusing a rescue diver of pedophilia when the rescue team refused the Brat's offer of a mini-sub to help with a rescue project.

[thewayne]

The dude really needs to cut back on the Adderol and coke and get some rest.  He lost so much institutional knowledge when he sacked those divisions that he's lobotomized the company, I don't know if it'll survive much longer.  A friend of mine had the original Tesla Roadster, absolutely loved it.  But I told him about a problem that every Tesla has: the computer/LCD is going to fail from the flash ram dying because they log so much data that the ram is constantly being overwritten, and flash ram has a limited overwrite life before it starts failing.  And they didn't design the LCD control panel so that the flash ram could be easily replaced: multi-thousand $$$ service.  Many of the older and high mileage Teslas were beginning to die from this, and his was one of the first generation ones.  He sold it and never looked back.  Got himself a fully tricked out Toyota Avalon Hybrid and is blissfully happy with it, says it's infinitely higher tech than any Tesla.

[silveradept]

At a certain point in time, the shareholders are going to vote him out. The remaining question is whether their shares are going to be worth more as shares or as novelty devices.

[thewayne]

Can the shareholders do that, or is that strictly a board function?  The entire board is pretty much beholden to him, I think it would take a major shareholder uprising - fostered by the institutional holders - to revamp the board to force him out.  Right now, Tesla's profits as a percentage are below that of the Big 3.

[silveradept]

It depends on the bylaws, I'm sure, but I would very much like to believe the shareholders will want to start putting in new executives shortly.