I get a lot of emails. 99% of them are spam, typically wanting me to put up “promotional” posts on Slope (I never do, so, you’re welcome) or pushing some service on me. As for the others, they typically are informative or friendly, but once or twice a year, I get something snarky or mean.
Earlier this week, I got one of those. It wasn’t anything too nasty; indeed, it was an empty email! The only content it had was the subject line itself, which read, in its entirety:
Subject: How can you support a guy like Elon Musk by buying a Tesla? Thanks
Now, this chap wasn’t a Sloper. I’m guessing he saw me mention owning a Tesla on tastylive, or maybe he read it on Slope and wasn’t a registered user. In any case, he knew I owned a Tesla (I actually own two) and, evidently being no fan of Elon Musk, he demanded that I explain myself.
I will preface this by saying that I don’t normally base my buying decisions on the behavior of the CEO. Over the course of my family’s lifetime, we have bought literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of product from Amazon. We probably get ten to twenty boxes of stuff every week, so the Knight household is definitely a valuable customer for AMZN. What do I think of its founder, Jeff Bezos? Well, I’m not exactly shy about it. Just this morning, regarding the man’s embarrassing, nonstop midlife crisis, I said……….
And yet I continue to cheerfully be an Amazon customer.
Anyway, let’s get back to the chap who emailed me. I consider ignoring an email, even a provocative one, to be rude, so I replied, “I am interested in hearing your objections to the man. My question is sincere!” I wanted to be clear I wasn’t upset and wanted to engage in dialog. He prompted replied with another email, this time with more than just a subject:
I thought you would be aware of all the things he has said publicly over the last few years on his Twitter account. I thought you were a very well-read individual, but I guessed wrong. I believe in free speech, but I also believe I have the right not to support such a sick individual in his public life and personal life and executive life. And yes, I am a republican and former hedge fund mgr who has a moral compass. Thx
So, as the saying goes, let’s break this response down. Apparently:
- He’s implying that I’m so clueless, I am not aware of Elon’s behavior (I would note that I read CONSTANTLY and consider myself to be pretty much on top of things);
- He points to Elon’s tweets as the basis for his condemnation;
- He declares I am, to his consternation, not well-read;
- He believes in free speech (as if I don’t…….) and that Elon is “sick” his personal, public, and business life;
- And just to make clear he’s not some dope-smoking hippie weirdo, he offers his bona fides of being a Republican and not just a hedge fund manager, but one with a moral compass, which, it seems, is a tool which I lack.
It was clear that this wasn’t going to be an even-handed discussion, so I just filed it away in an email folder called “Unfriendly” and didn’t bother with a reply.
I’ve known of Elon since the 1990s, which is when I first met the man one-on-one. He isn’t perfect, but frankly, considering the insane success he has had, he has job an amazing job of staying level-headed. As much as I love Steve Jobs, I think that, in the end, Elon will be correctly perceived as even more important and influential. I would also state that, as mentioned earlier, my decision to buy a Tesla was based on the car, not the founder.
I mention this because I wanted to say something about the big news in Elon’s world this week:
Simply stated, I think this is madness. Some thrash-metal drummer with 9, yes, 9 shares of TSLA, found some ambulance-chasing lawyer and commenced a lawsuit against Tesla, whining that his compensation package was unjust and should be undone. Literally almost half a decade after the package was put into place, some pin-headed “Chancellor” in Delaware agreed and demanded that Tesla undo the package.
Wrong, wrong, wrong! When Elon put this deal together, Tesla had a market cap of like $60 billion. The compensation package was, at the time, considered batshit insane, because the numbers Elon would be required to hit in order to get the stock were considered laughable and impossible. The fact is that he achieved (over-achieved, actually) all the goals and, in turn, was properly compensated.
Let’s take a moment and pretend that he decided to take his robot, the Optimus, and make it its own company. The quantity of these things sold is 0, but let’s just say that he made an arrangement with his board that, if in the next ten years, he turned Optimus, Inc. into a half trillion dollar company, then he would get a $5 billion bonus (that is, 1% of the company’s stock). If he achieved it, would he deserve it? Hell, yes!
My point here is that you can’t change the goalposts after the game. I think the level of corruption and wrongdoing in the world is vast, and what happened between Elon and his board doesn’t even come close to qualifying. Added to which, I am highly confident that, in the end, this entire will be settled in Elon’s favor, although the dipshit lawyer who filed the lawsuit will surely get millions in compensation for this shake-down.
And that’s all I’ve got to say about that. The whole situation is just plain ugly.
