Automotive industry insiders question Elon Musk's leadership, amid a bizarre rant about the Thai bailout



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Tesla CEO Elon Musk is known to be opinionated, highly motivated and even eccentric. But Twitter's recent comments on a British savior to be a pedophile could be the beginning of his defeat, say industry experts.

Musk unleashed a flame war with British diver Vernon Unsworth, who had rejected Musk's offer. send a submarine the size of a child to help save a football team trapped in a flooded Thai cave. In a series of increasingly severe tweets, Musk weighed in by calling Unsworth a "pedo guy". He then made matters worse when he was criticized by a Twitter follower, replying, "Bet a Signed Dollar, That's True."

"Your Behavior Stokes an Unnecessary Perception of Your Leadership – thin-skinned and angry, "Gene Munster, a managing partner of venture capital firm Loup Ventures wrote this week in an open letter to the CEO of Tesla.

Musk has since apologized for his words – one of the few cases in which he resumed his words and

Musk wrote that despite initial criticisms of Unsworth, "his actions against me do not justify my actions against him, and for that I apologize to Mr. Unsworth and the companies. I represent as a leader, the fault is mine and mine alone. "

While constant use of Twitter by Musk has gained a loyal following – and helped to develop demand for Tesla products – critics worry that it is starting to hurt its and the image of his company.

The fallout of the battle was not limited to the Twittersphere. Investors first fired on Tesla shares, and shares continued to yo yo this week.Of course, Tesla shares rolled on a rollercoaster for much of last year, largely because of the problems the company has encountered in making its battery sedan critical. 3 a high-volume production.Musk, a native of South Africa, who has devoted much of his fortune to society and has spent most of the last few months sleeping in the factory. badembly of Tesla in Fremont, California, hoping to put the things in place.

The $ 7,500 tax credit will soon begin to disappear – which will drive up the cost of a Tesla by 21%.

Production ultimately reaches the targeted 5,000 per week by the end of June, but Musk has yet to demonstrate that this is enough to generate the profits and positive cash flow that he has pledged for the second half of 2018. Even then, a study released by the SecondMeasure.com search site last month indicated a quarter of the roughly 400,000 early bookings Tesla had taken for Model 3 were canceled due to production delays.

Now, Tesla could see even more buyers ponder twice after confirming that it had reached global sales of 200,000 vehicles in the US market. It's more than a milestone. This is also the threshold from which buyers of $ 7,500 federal tax credits will receive a phased withdrawal. They will be cut in half next January and reduced by 50% in mid-2019 before disappearing completely at the end of the year.

For buyers, losing credits would result in a 21% price hike, something that could still challenge Tesla's bid to become a global manufacturer.

Indeed, Musk has been engaged in battles on a number of fronts in recent months:

  • The CEO echoed Pres. Donald Trump repeatedly questions the accuracy and honesty of the media, even threatening to create a website to challenge journalists
  • After the death of a Tesla Model X owner in an accident March in California, Musk focuses on the behavior of the owner. with the autopilot system of the car that was the subject of a federal security investigation
  • Musk attacked the National Transportation Safety Board, the agency responsible for this investigation
  • In a letter sent to Tesla employees last month, Musk, a former sabotage worker, ordered the company's lawyers to sue him in federal court. But it is unclear whether the punctual employee was in fact a saboteur or simply a whistleblower that Musk wants to discredit.

As investors recoiled from some of these incidents, they quickly returned, bouncing action. But Musk can not continue to take such risks.

"It jeopardizes the opportunity" to become a profitable game changer, said Munster. [ad_2]
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