Elon Musk admits Tesla was far from dying – 13 questions he must now answer – Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA)

Just when you thought the Tesla Story (TSLA) could not become more extreme, CEO Elon Musk takes a notch. Unexpectedly, in an interview with Axios, he admits that Tesla was a few weeks away from "death" earlier this year: here.

To set the table, let's start with what Musk and CFO Deepak Ahuja said about the call for results in the second quarter of 2018:

"Elon Reeve Musk – Tesla, Inc.

And as the logical question is: do we have a low budget balance in the bank? The answer is no, we – we are not – we are not at all in need of cash.

Deepak Ahuja – Tesla, Inc.

Yes, it's a simple answer.

Elon Reeve Musk – Tesla, Inc.

Are we short of money? The answer is no."

Reference: here.

What Musk said in this interview with Axios published Sunday night, November 25, is therefore a serious statement, which raises at least 13 critical questions:

1. Did Musk tell the truth in this interview? In other words, he was not content to reconcile it, as was the case with August's famous tweet, "$ 420 Guaranteed Financing," right? I mean, has not he recently reached an agreement with the SEC promising to stop repeating false statements?

2. If he told the truth in this interview with Axios, exactly when in 2018 did this imminent death situation occur? It is essential that we know it. That said, he said exactly when.

3. When did the imminent death experience occur, did he inform the board of directors? When exactly?

4. Who else was in it? Who else in the company did he know that society would be a few weeks away from this "dead" situation? Did the CFO know?

5. Did Musk notify Pricewaterhouse Coopers of Tesla's auditors? If so, what did they say?

6. Within a few weeks, it was by definition a quarterly financial report, a production / delivery report and the filing of a 10-Q or 10-K with the DRY. Why has nothing in this imminent death experience been mentioned?

7. Why is there no continuity language in Tesla's financial reports filed with the SEC? Can the Tesla Auditor – Price Waterhouse Coopers – answer this question?

8. Aside from Musk's famous "Bankwupt" joke on April 1, has he ever warned anyone on Twitter that Tesla was just weeks away from "death"? Or was the one from April 1st hardly a joke after all?

9. Did Tesla at one point warn his suppliers that he was a few weeks away from "death"? If so, what did they say about it?

10. In the ongoing private negotiations with the Saudis, which Musk wrote in his August 13 blog had already begun in early 2017, had he ever mentioned in 2018 that he was at "a few weeks of death" or had he kept this secret from the Celts? ?

11. Did Musk tell his investment bankers, including Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, that he was just weeks away from "death" in 2018? If so, how did they react? Did the investment bank analysts covering the company learn that Tesla was "a few weeks from death"?

12. Did Musk tell Moody's or the other bond rating agencies that he only had "death" left?

13. Did Tesla hire a restructuring company such as Alvarez and Marshal to prepare contingency plans if this "death" were to go from weeks to just days?

After Musk, Tesla and their listeners have found the time to answer these fundamental questions, investors should also ask themselves an important question: how much did Tesla's situation really change over the course of 1-2 years? Last 3-4 months? We did not know when Tesla was about to "die," as Musk said.

But nevertheless, how much has really changed? Is the debt gone? We know that the company made a profit in the third quarter. How can we believe the accounting behind this quarter, now that Musk told us that he was in a few weeks of "death"? Can we trust those numbers?

Musk said in the interview with Axios another thing of less importance that should also be checked as to its accuracy: his affirmation to work seven days a week in the factory. You can see the one-minute video clip embedded in this article from Jalopnik: right here.

We know that having worked seven days a week, almost 24 hours a day, seems fine, but how many days and how many consecutive days did Musk really spend at the Tesla factory? It may sound like a thin hair, but the person following the private jet movements of Musk says that Musk spent five days running in the area around the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, in mid-September: Right here.

"For the record: to my knowledge, no one in the media has ever questioned Musk or Tesla about his statements regarding the" 120-hour workweek ". 120 hours, it is five days. With one possible exception in mid-September, his plane never spent five days at NorCal during the third quarter. That's all. "

Musk lives in Bel Air, in Southern California, near Van Nuys Airport (VNY). It performs daily flights to the airport of San Jose. If you say that you work 24 hours a day, taking your private plane for the one hour flight to get home does not really count as a 24 hour job, is not it?

I have no doubt that Musk works long hours, even though he can post something on Twitter, often in the middle of the night. But it's not the same as giving the impression that you're in the factory more than six days in a row. The logbooks of the private plane of Musk apparently tell a different story, based on the stories of this type on each take-off and landing of each Musk plane: right here.

What Musk said in this interview with Axios was a stunning one. We now need answers to these questions and investors need to do a thorough review.

Disclosure: I am / we are short TSLA.

I have written this article myself and it expresses my own opinions. I do not receive compensation for this (other than Seeking Alpha). I do not have any business relationship with a company whose actions are mentioned in this article.

Additional disclosure: At the time of submitting this article for publication, the author was short TSLA. However, positions can change at any time. The author regularly attends press conferences, the launch of new vehicles and equivalent courses, organized by most major car manufacturers.