As the title says, you either love this guy or hate him. To me, he’s gotta be the funniest/cheekiest CEO of our time. The amount of cheeky, snide comments he makes is just hilarious and he ends up roasting interviewers through his sheer intellect. Some people think this is D-bag behaviour, but I find that it makes him more entertaining and likeable than other CEO’s. Apart from that, he is a living Tony Stark, he is an engineer, physicist and entrepreneur. Can a human become more talented? I think not.
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I think there's little to say on the man outside of what you said, though I'm wary of heaping such outstanding praise unto anyone. Obviously talented, has excellent ideas, seems to genuinely want to make the world a better place but most importantly he understands the mechanisms by which he can do so. Plenty of non-profits, not-for-profits, entrepreneurs, philanthropists etc. have great vision but are too naive to make anything of it, and wind up being corrupted by the inexorable influence of our civilization's in-built profit motives. I would indeed say he's the closest thing to Tony Stark we have.
Yeah I think there are two ways of looking at him, he definitely wants to make the world a better place and has genuine intentions to do that which I must give him credit for. At the same time he loves berating people during interviews, speeches, and his personal favourite twitter. To be honest, if he is doing such great things for the world, his cheekiness should go amiss. And his crazy gadgets totally make him seem like Tony Stark, all he needs is the suit.
Not to diminish the man's business career, but he seems pretty fucked up. He does like to compare himself to Tony Stark, but he seems to reflect the Tony prior to Iron Man 1. His first wife:
"Still, there were warning signs. As we danced at our wedding reception, Elon told me, "I am the alpha in this relationship." I shrugged it off, just as I would later shrug off signing the postnuptial agreement, but as time went on, I learned that he was serious. He had grown up in the male-dominated culture of South Africa, and the will to compete and dominate that made him so successful in business did not magically shut off when he came home. This, and the vast economic imbalance between us, meant that in the months following our wedding, a certain dynamic began to take hold. Elon's judgment overruled mine, and he was constantly remarking on the ways he found me lacking. "I am your wife," I told him repeatedly, "not your employee."
"If you were my employee," he said just as often, "I would fire you."
...
"In the spring of 2008, eight years after our wedding, a car accident served as my wake-up call. The moment of impact seemed suspended in time: The details of the other driver's face, looking at me in horror as she held a cell phone to her ear, were so clear it was like the distance between us didn't exist. There was a crunch of metal as her car plowed into mine, and when we skidded to a halt, my first thought wasn't, Thank God nobody's hurt. It was, My husband is going to kill me. And in my mind's eye, I could suddenly see myself: a woman who'd gotten very thin, and very blonde, stumbling out of a very expensive car with the front-left wheel smashed in.
I barely recognized myself. I had turned into a trophy wife — and I sucked at it. I wasn't detail-oriented enough to maintain a perfect house or be a perfect hostess. I could no longer hide my boredom when the men talked and the women smiled and listened. I wasn't interested in Botox or makeup or reducing the appearance of the scars from my C-sections. And no matter how many highlights I got, Elon pushed me to be blonder. "Go platinum," he kept saying, and I kept refusing."
Edit: oh yah and he lashes out on twitter - calling people pedos and getting himself investigated by the SEC because investors believe companies should be profitable. Hes got some big flaws.
Are you trying to marry him? Why do you care what his ex-wife thinks of him? Being that this is a finance forum (I think - who knows nowadays), I'd say his personal life is irrelevant. Who's to say any of us aren't just as or more fucked in the head? How many total morons post on this site? Would you trust Monaco Monkey with billions?
Nah man I largely agree with you, I respect his achievements. But some people more easily seperate personal and work life, and this dude seems on the edge right now. Tweeting out about the largest buyout in history before discussing it with the board - in a company he is a 20% owner of no less - just to spite some short sellers is pretty out there.
He is quoted as saying he cant be happy unless he is in love, and that kind of volatility has the potential to impact professional performance.
The same insatiable drive (from ego, insecurity, wealth, altruism, or whatever) also has downsides is my point.
He's an emotional nutcase, that's what you take from it.
I was not expecting a biography of his life lmao but it's maybe more of his personal side rather than anything else. I guess a lot of people have problems in marriages and stuff but thats his business, he is definitely the dominant BDSM kinda guy for sure though.
Fifty Shades of Elon..
smh we all know Elon is secretly a sub
If you don’t think the guys emotional state matters or that it bleeds over into his work, you’ll (hopefully) never sit on the board of any company I choose to invest in.
As it is, I don’t own TSLA so it’s all entertaining to me. I don’t worship people for being smart or wealthy, although yes that is apparently the objective of WSO according to some of you.
tl;dr: he's not jamie dimon
Wowwwww
He's brilliant but I wish more people would give him credit for being one of the best stock promoters of all time. Love how all in he goes too...
Also re: the comment above. No shit a self made billionaire isn't "well adjusted".
He honestly is so cunning in that respect, that tweet about the LBO must have sent short sellers to the hospital.
He's amazing
Like him or hate him you have to respect his achievements
Agreed
I love his recent attacks on the short sellers. Enjoyable to see from the outside without skin in the game.
Hahah me too, honestly I love watching him roast people but I feel like I would be destroyed in an interview if I had one with him, he would just outsmart me at every turn and make fun of how inferior everybody is to him. Fun to watch from third party.. not first
I disagree. I also don't have any skin in the game btw. I think its kind of asinine how he interacts with analysts on calls and the general public on twitter, then whines about short sellers and people who doubt his leadership/vision. I understand that part of his appeal is that he's a non-traditional CEO, but I don't think you have any right to act like that when your company appears to be in as bad of a financial shape as TSLA has
I respect his business achievement but would never want to work with him or for him, or be his friend, or interact with him at all.
Yeah basically agree, like my comment above^I wouldn't wanna be in an interview with him across the table.
I nothing him, idk the man. I do know that Tesla appears to be a horribly run company though. With that said, I respect his career (but that doesn't make a man, despite what this forum will tell you).
He is terrible at public speaking. Cannot stand hearing him talk. The products do kind of speak for themselves, but imagine where Tesla would be if he had a Steve Jobs like partner that could deliver his vision smoothly.
Yeah I've noticed that in his talks aswell he seems to stutter and his voice isn't fluid at all. Is this a speech impediment or something?
name one genius that aint crazy
I think that actually works in Musk's favour. It makes him more human and even more relateable as well. Out of everyone's opinion in the world (bar my family) I pay attention to him and Dalio's the most.
I'm a straight male, and I'm romantically in love with Elon Musk.
I mean, he is a great guy, and I really think that his entrepreneurship is incredible. He has put together many companies and great ideas and has shown great ability in many of those. He is obviously incredibly smart and capable. And his confidence and investment in his own ventures (investing all the money of his paypal sale into new ventures) is admirable.
Sadly, with Tesla, the markets have screwed him over a bit (with ridiculously high valuations), and he himself has too. Several of his decisions were not as much business but personal wish (i.e. wing doors of model X which are costing them shit tons in warranty) or the introduction of a semi when still having issues with getting car production in line. First day in my last internship I was told to never overpromise to a superior, and even less to a client. Elon has not learned that lesson, and in a game with such high stakes people dislike that. All this has worn on him, and I think he, and possibly Tesla would be better off with a COO that is experienced in the car industry, or even a CEO that is not Musk (he can remain chairman, and focus on his other ventures). The problem is, that is unlikely to ever happen, for the same reasons musk has been so incredibly successful.
With that being said, he has not acted strategically in the recent past, and that has cost him much admiration.
Why not a COO that is experienced in the Tech industry? After all, every moron that beats it over this stock likes to call it a "tech" company.... lol
I don't care what you want to call it. The main problem at the moment and the problems I listed up there do not arise due to them not being tech savvy, but due to lacking knowledge of cars (i.e. manufacturing, wing doors, car types, car demand trends)
Don't hate the guy personally, just think his business is massively overvalued and his "funding secured" tweet completely crossed the line. I actually like his douchebag behavior, and it's refreshing from all the namby pamby virtue signalling you see nowadays.
As someone who would like to go to the moon, hope he succeeds. As an investor, I’d rather short everything he touches than be a shareholder
This is either a troll post or a college freshman, because no intelligent grown man/woman in finance would worship a sociopath like this "Can a human become more talented? I think not" Are you kidding me? Get off your knees and act like a normal person
Hate to say it but I saw a lot of MBA students in their mid twenties who are totally like this. I agree with you though.
If I had a dollar for every time Elon musk got mentioned on this forum, I could probably buy a Tesla
I've noticed a strong correlation in emotional maturity and one's opinions on Musk. Seems like the "BSD hardo" set thinks he's the greatest thing ever.
He's a very smart and talented engineer but he's in way over his head when it comes to actually scaling and institutionalizing ideas, not to mention doing all the things required of a public company CEO. His "cunning" LBO tweet was illegal market manipulation, not cunning. If he were anyone else we'd be calling for him to go to jail.
And he's an asshole bully.
I would not write the SEC off yet.
stocks are for pussies but musk is a bad motherfucker
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