Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

Ah, love the smell of techbro's petulance. While the Republicans took the seat in Florida, which was the other major election Tuesday, that one was unlikely to flip, though it was a possibility. The Wisconsin seat maintains the balance of power in WI, at least it will make gerrymandering more difficult for the R's and gives the Dems a bit of hope for the next election cycle.

Leon spent over $20 mil in the state to sway the election, most likely breaking election laws, but apparently no one is concerned about such things unless Dems were to attempt it.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/liberal-judge-wins-wisconsin-seat-defying-musks-millions_n_67ec4ef4e4b0923ef8b46e24

I've been waiting for this one to be filed. The Muskbrat diverted a hundred or more Nvidia H100 AI CPUs from Tesla to Twitter and xAI without paying Tesla for them. He's also poached a dozen AI workers from Tesla for xAI. A group of Tesla stockholders have filed suit in DELAWARE Chancery Court over this.

The root problem, of course, is that these are independent corporations, not The Muskbrat's personal playgrounds, regardless of how he views and treats them. If Twitter and xAI were subsidiaries of Tesla, there would be no problem - you're just moving resources from pocket A to pocket B in the same jacket. But these are independent companies nominally controlled by one person: The Muskbrat. So he effectively stole scarce resources (the AI CPUs are in very scarce supply and extremely high demand) from Tesla and gave them to another company that is not financially tied to Tesla.

The suit also cites the board as being negligent in not preventing The Muskbrat from poaching talent and theft from the company. Two members of the board are his brother and a long-time friend, who were just re-elected to the board.

In other Tesla news, The Muskbrat's ridiculous compensation package was overwhelmingly approved by Tesla stockholders. HOWEVER, and I do so love that word in this context, we're in unknown ground regarding whether or not a shareholder vote trumps a judge's decision! We're in Wonderland here, and no one knows what will happen next. The shareholders also voted to approve the reincorporation of Tesla in Texas, but that won't eradicate the judge's ruling.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/tesla-investors-sue-elon-musk-for-diverting-carmakers-resources-to-xai/

Everybody's favorite game show!

In previous weeks we've seen the Supercharger division shown the door, the new car design group booted, lots of people pink-slipped.

And now?

HUMAN RESOURCES!

EVEN MORE ENGINEERS!

And.... drum roll please....

SERVICE ADVISORS!

So let's see. There have already been reports of service appointments being cancelled for CyberTrucks, and this is BEFORE the number of service advisors were reduced. And now everyone who really knew the Supercharger network is gone, but that's last weeks news, that's going to start crumbling as the techs who service that start getting overstretched and quit. Oh, wait. What techs? Engineers are going away, which probably includes some of those techs. And since we've sacked the HR department, apparently there's absolutely no plans to replenish any of these slots being eliminated. The PR department went away ages ago because there wasn't much of a need to promote Tesla cars, reporters have frequently groused that there was no way to get additional information from the company when 'events' happen. Well, this is one heck of a series of events!

When you lay off X% of people, there are Federal labor laws that come into effect. They're probably well over that number. Things like 60 days notice. Unemployment compensation. Insurance bridges. Trivial things that the super rich don't really bother with.

Lawsuits are going to be piled pretty deep and pretty soon. You can't go around slashing people from a big company like this. When the Big Three automakers announce layoffs, they announce them and then begin working with the unions to comply with the law to do them properly. I guess a certain person thinks that since he hasn't let his workforce unionize that he doesn't have to do anything regarding government law.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/05/tesla-announces-fourth-round-of-layoffs-in-four-weeks/


So, the additional stupidity.

I'm not going to link the article, but the stupidity is truly monumental. It's on the Gizmodo site if you want to look for it. And it involves a CyberTruck.

This idiot - and the idiocy is on both sides, the truck owner and on Tesla - films a video of the frunk (front trunk) closing on a stick and breaking it. Commenters on the video say he did it wrong and it wouldn't break a finger.

So he redoes the video.

And it breaks his finger.

Now here's Tesla's idiocy, aside from it not having safety features to prevent a broken appendage.

If the frunk lid is closing and encounters resistance, most people would think that the sensible programming choice would be that the sensor and computer would say 'I have encountered unexpected resistance and something is preventing me from closing properly! I should reverse and open the frunk lid!'. Nope. It thinks there is a big bag/piece of luggage, and it INCREASES FORCE.

I have no words.

Let's get a drunk person half-in there and see if it'll cut them in half. That'll get some clicks.

Yay social media wannabe influencers!

As expected, in light of the Delaware Chancery Court shooting down The Muskbrat's compensation plan, he's following through on his threat to put reincorporating Tesla in Texas up to a vote. Tesla is having its annual shareholders meeting, where such things are voted on, in mid-June, so such things are filed and announced now. Also up for vote - his pay package of $56 billion! YAY!

Now, the amusing bit was that the reincorporation and pay package were decided by a "Special Committee" which consisted of ... drum roll please ... one person. An attorney who joined the board late December 2018, Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. She is a qualified attorney, at least in terms of degrees and such, and she received over $7,000,000 in stock and compensation the following year for serving on the board.

The Chancery Judge threw out The Muskbrat's compensation package because the Board, in the Judge's words, 'were beholden' to him. How is receiving seven mill in pay and stock not beholden?

It'll be interesting to see if the votes pass. While lots of stockholders are fan bois, there are also large blocks owned by institutional investors, and they're a lot more conservative about things.

And one other thing. He's PO'd about the Chancery Judge shooting down his compensation, also about the Chancery Court forcing him to buy Twitter after he promised to. Those are the main forces behind reincorporating in Texas. But here's the thing: Texas is creating a system very much modeled on the Delaware Chancery Court system! Aside from travel costs, is he going to be gaining very much?

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/04/tesla-asks-shareholders-to-approve-texas-move-and-restore-elon-musks-56b-pay/

A second article on the incorporation move has some very interesting information about Egon's, err, Elon's companies dealings with each other, and this interesting paragraph:

Over eight weeks, Wilson-Thompson’s committee met 16 times for more than 26 hours, and Tesla says she personally spent “more than 200 hours” working on the matter. The Sidley lawyers spent “more than 600 hours each” on the matter and were supported by “more than 40 other Sidley lawyers.” Through this process, seven board directors and five members of Tesla’s management were interviewed.

THAT is a LOT of billable hours!

A paragraph preceding stated that they found that most corporations incorporate where they're located or in Delaware. Geez, pay me $100k and I'll tell you that! Look at how much money you'd save!

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/17/tesla-x-advertising-musk-stock-package-delware-texas/


Tesla CyberTruck owners: manufacturing has been suspended while Tesla deals with problems regarding the accelerator peddle. There have been reports of the peddle coming loose, including parts of it jamming itself under trim panels and unintended acceleration, including one owner slamming into a light pole! Tesla's taking some time off to implement fixes.

Honestly, they have LOTS of fixes to implement with people complaining about fit and finish, not to mention the rust problem of stainless steel that doesn't have a clear coat applied.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/04/tesla-stops-cybertruck-deliveries-accelerator-pedal-may-be-to-blame/


And finally, Tesla is getting ready to axe TEN PERCENT of its workforce! Now, when numbers like that are about to get the RIF, I think you're at the point that the Feds are involved as that's a major labor market disruption, we'll see what happens.

Tesla's stock has been underperforming of late. While it's up over 600% since 2018, it's down over a third this year to date, and we're only a third into the year. The CyberTruck (AKA the Incel Camino, not my creation) has been a major thorn in its side, the constant price-cutting has really hurt its margins, and now the Model 2 has been axed in favor of a 'Robo Taxi' that hasn't been seen - and with the amazing success of its Auto Pilot, may never be. The Model 2 was supposed to be an actual low-cost model, but rumor has it would not be sold in the USA.

Let's see. CyberTruck: ugly design and bad manufacturing, own goal. Constant price-cutting to prop up market share, own-goal. Dropping a product line in favor of what seems to be vaporware that will run on vaporware, own-goal.

I think I see a trend here.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/04/tesla-to-lay-off-more-than-10-percent-of-its-workers-as-sales-slow/


Oh, and Egon says he'll debut the RoboTaxi on August 8. Set your sundial!

https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/05/elon-musk-says-hell-unveil-a-tesla-robotaxi-on-august-8/


In other news, for which I don't have a link handy, Tesla is trying to push sales of Autopilot by giving every Tesla owner a free 30 day trial every time you take your car in for service with a requirement that a salesman shows you how utterly spiffy it is! I'm just wondering if it will automatically charge your credit card X thousands of dollars if you don't cancel it before your month is up.

Last week Tuesday a Delaware Chancery Court Judge voided a compensation package for The Muskbrat that would have awarded him over a billion dollars PER WEEK for working for Tesla. Keep in mind he's also theoretically drawing pay checks from the former Twitter, SpaceX, Neuralink, whatever his AI project is called, and who knows what else.

Naturally he took this in good grace and accepted the judge's ruling and promised to assign an independent compensation panel for a more fair package to be decided upon.

HAH! KIDDING!

Adderall (and who knows what else) Boy took to The Social Media Site That Shall Always Be Known As Twitter, and posted a poll asking whether or not Tesla should be reincorporated in Texas. 87% said yes! Vox populi, the people have spoken! Of course the number of those voting in the Twitter poll were probably a vanishingly small number of actual Tesla stock holders. But never mind that. It was enough for The Muskbrat to get up on his high horse and proclaim that the question shall be put to Tesla shareholders whether or not to reincorporate in Texas.

Now, there's a lot of important things to consider here. According to TaxFoundation.org, "Texas does not have an individual income tax. Texas does not have a corporate income tax but does levy a gross receipts tax. Texas has a 6.25 percent state sales tax rate, a max local sales tax rate of 2.00 percent, and an average combined state and local sales tax rate of 8.20 percent. Texas’s tax system ranks 13th overall on our 2024 State Business Tax Climate Index." Delaware rates 21st with an 8.7% corporate tax rate.

But what he's really peeved about is the Chancery Court. They're the ones who forced him to buy Twitter, a stupid boast he made late one night that the Court took in earnest and made him follow through. And it's cost him a lot of money out of pocket, and a lot of shares of Tesla stock that he's trying to recover (previously discussed). The Chancery Court is a pretty cool thing, these judges are specialists in business law, it's hard to get tricks past them as Elon learned. If a deal is bound by Delaware law, it's going to remain bound by Delaware law.

So he's going to try to move Tesla's incorporation to Texas!

Is that a good thing?

You see, Texas just created its own form of a Chancery Court. It goes live later this year. Odds are that they're going to be every bit as hard-nosed about adhering to the law as the Delaware judges are, I tend to doubt, or at least hope, that they're not going to cut him any slack because "He's ELON!" He seems to want judges to be on his side because he's rich, and he's finding out in many cases that judicial systems don't seem to work that way.

Bear in mind that Elon did not invent Tesla. The guys who invented the Tesla Roadster incorporated in Delaware in 2003 for tax purposes and it's easy to incorporate there. The Muskbrat was an early large investor, and eventually effectively turfed the inventors and seized the company. Ever since then, he's more or less run the company as his personal fiefdom since then. He's stuffed the board with friends and family, there's little chance they'll gainsay him on any significant issue. Anything that actually comes to a stockholder vote? Well, we'll see about that.

To give you an idea of how popular it is to incorporate in Delaware, here's this little bit of tid: "The Delaware government says that over 68 percent of Fortune 500 companies are registered in the state, and 79 percent of US-based initial public offerings in 2022 were registered in Delaware." Yeah. Sort of says it all.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/elon-musk-proposes-tesla-move-to-texas-after-delaware-judge-voids-56-billion-pay/

Elon is unhappy. Boo and hoo. Since he made his horribly ill-advised offer to buy Twitter and was forced to follow through on the purchase, he's had to sell a lot of his shares in Tesla to keep himself and Twitter afloat: he now holds about 13% of its shares. He wants to remedy that, and his method is to whine to the Board of Directors of Tesla that if they don't award him another 12%, that he might take his toys and go elsewhere. Or invent his new toys elsewhere. Something like that.

This can go three ways, IMO. The board caves and awards him the additional shares. Now, the problem is that the board has troubles of its own, having faced lawsuits and government inquiries that they've been a little too free with giving themselves money. This might look like more of the same and could land them in more hot water. In fact, some board members are banned from taking any compensation for multiple years!

Or they could say no bueno. In which case the Muskbrat walks. Or he doesn't. I expect he has additional remunerations with Tesla that vest over time. If he walks, he'll lose that. So walking wouldn't be in his best interest. And if he walks, and they bring in someone who actually knows how to run a car company who brings in some good managers and innovators who make some serious improvements there - and lord knows they need 'em! - he's going to look like the buffoon that he is.

If he stays, and doesn't get his shares, it's an empty threat. He just lost any leverage opportunity with the Board for negotiating in the future. Which could have some interesting consequences as time goes by. Now, the thing is, it's a Musk Family Crony Board. They probably lean towards caving, or at least negotiating, but there's that whole 'enrichment' investigation stuff fresh in their minds and still hanging over them.

Not a good time! Well, a good time for the popcorn-munching fans of slow-moving disasters, perhaps. :)

https://gizmodo.com/elon-threatens-to-build-products-outside-of-tesla-unles-1851168957

He literally said this, on camera, in front of a live audience, in an interview at the New York Times DealBook Summit.

The event in question: ''On November 15, Musk replied, "You have said the actual truth" to an X post that said Jewish communities are "pushing hatred against whites."

Many major advertisers immediately suspended advertising on the platform or flat-out cancelled contracts due to this on-going shit by the head shit-gibbon.

In the Ars article, he goes on to say "he regretted making the post that kicked off the advertiser boycott. "I should in retrospect not have replied to that one person and should have written in greater length what I meant," Musk reportedly said. "But those clarifications were ignored by the media and essentially I handed a loaded gun to those who hate me and arguably to those who are antisemitic. And for that I'm quite sorry, that was not my intention."

Musk also called it "one of the most foolish—if not the most foolish—thing I've done on the platform."

Well, yeah. We know you're an idiot. You're embracing Nazis, Pizzagate apparently, and you're not doing much to deny or shut down such trolls. And you're wondering why advertisers are fleeing your site?

I appreciate what he's done with SpaceX, it has truly revolutionized space flight, though the concept of colonizing Mars is really idiotic. The only thing that impresses me about Tesla is the nation-wide charging network, the build quality of their cars has massively plummeted. And the fact that he kicked out the guys who invented the car from the corporation just plain sucks. But that's the kind of asshole that he is. He thinks because he was born with a gold spoon in his mouth that he's brilliant. The problem is, he's not as smart as he thinks he is and doesn't appreciate how much privilege his money has brought him, especially that his starting money came from daddy's opal mine in South Africa.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/elon-musk-on-x-antisemitism-controversy-dont-advertise-go-f-yourself/

All of these suits are just for failure to pay for services rendered or contracts in place. In several cases, the suits have been withdrawn by the plaintiff, potentially indicating a settlement.

Absolutely ridiculous. It also details the evictions.

I'd love to see these companies get court approval to file liens against other Muskbrat properties, like Tesla and SpaceX factories and lands.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/musks-unpaid-bills-dozens-of-lawsuits-try-to-force-twitter-aka-x-to-pay-up/

This is amazing. Tesla has wireless entry through their smartphone app, or you can wave a bar code under a scanner built in to the driver's mirror. They might also have a fob, I'm not sure. Anyway, Driver A walks up to Car B, it unlocks and starts for him. And he drives off. Then he notices a huge crack in the windshield and his phone charging cable isn't there!

Driver B walks up to Car A, it unlocks and lets him start it. He drives off, notices the crack in his windshield isn't there and there's other stuff in his car that he didn't recognize!

Fortunately Driver B found a piece of paper with A's name and phone number, called him, and eventually they got together, exchanged cars, and had a laugh and lots of puzzlement. They contacted the police who said 'no harm, no foul' and to go away.

But guess what. Now that this flaw is known, every criminal hacker is going to be probing for how to exploit it. And they will succeed.

The ridiculous thing about this is that it was so easily preventable. Presumably Tesla has some sort of an encrypted key exchange going on to try to prevent it, and clearly failed. All they had to do was add the VIN to their secret key and you'd be largely guaranteed that only people whom you wanted to have access to your car would be able to unlock it and drive it.

I sent this article to a friend who had one of the first generation Tesla Roadsters, back before the Muskbrat turfed the inventors. He sold it after I told him about a serious flaw that was threatening all Teslas, which would cost him probably $4,000 or more to remedy. He bought a maxxed-out Toyota Avalon Hybrid, which he absolutely loves. It has a very interesting security feature: lock the door with a key, and the wireless remote won't work!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/canadian-motorist-unknowingly-opens-wrong-tesla-allowed-drive-away-rcna74872

Last week, The World's Richest Man, which I guess makes him think that he must also be the world's smartest man, which he clearly isn't based on his behavior, started tweeting smack about Twitter and the amount of spam bots on the site.

There's a problem with this. There is a specific clause in the purchase agreement that he will not disparage the company while trying to purchase it. Something that he has done repeatedly. He already has one shareholder lawsuit against him for manipulating the stock price, plus an FTC investigation against him. The man is a moron, or thinks that his wealth makes him immune to investigations and lawsuits.

Since he announced his intention to buy Twitter, the world economy has taken a bit of a nose-dive, and the stocks of Twitter and Tesla have tanked. Both are worth a lot less. But he has a signed agreement to buy Twitter at $54 per share. A lot of people are wondering if he actually has the backing to conclude the deal at this point, what with the stock price reduction of Tesla, which is one of Elon's major sources of wealth. People are also wondering if he even wants to go through with it at this point, and whether his derision of Twitter is a way of announcing he wants out, hoping THEY will cancel the deal, because of the cancellation clause. If the deal fails to be consummated, the side which fails pays the other a cool $1 billion. That's supposed to be a solid inducement to get the job done, which Twitter's board wants to see.

Elon? Who knows what he wants.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/twitter-board-tells-elon-musk-we-will-not-alter-the-deal/