Where will the Musk toast fall? It’s a fascinating moment in American economic and political history: how will the crazy legend of the world’s richest man end? Just two weeks ago, the media rushed to the monster, attracted by the smell of blood: Elon Musk was on the brink of explosion, his fickle billionaire antics would end in a joy. Tesla engages in free fall, taking on Twitter that looks like a shipwreck, disgruntled shareholders, lawsuits, allegations of sexual harassment … The king is naked.
Or not. Within days, Tesla stock rallied 19% from its low on May 24. Twitter’s acquisition is regaining credibility, after Musk indicated that he no longer plans to use Tesla stock-backed margin loan to fund the deal. And Musk, who is more fancy than ever, continues to mock everyone, starting with Joe Biden. As a person on earth, we see better!
What happened? And more importantly, what will happen? Impossible to say, so the man is unpredictable. And how cold to analyze the works of a man elevated to the rank of myth? Elon Musk is not just a CEO, he is a magnet, a living god for millions of fans, a serial tweeter whose most worldwide message (“Politics is a generator of grief”) attracts 531,400 “likes”, 63,500 retweets and 26,300 replies. However, we must ask ourselves: Elon Musk is not just a unique, extraordinary CEO, he is a Rorschach test of America today.
Two possible scenarios
Two scenarios are possible. Initially, the infernal saga of the founder of Tesla and SpaceX ends in a crash. One way out. An explosion. At SpaceX, there is no big cloud on the horizon, other than publishing information according to which the company paid $ 250,000 to a flight attendant in 2018, to resolve a complaint for urgent request from the CEO. to receive a massage … supported (“completely untrue” accusations, Musk replied on Twitter). At Tesla, on the other hand, concerns are piled up. Production logistics problems and slowing demand in China, series of accidents of vehicles using the Full Self-Driving assistance system (the last crash, on May 12 in Newport Beach, California, killed three riders of the car and injured several construction workers), the proliferation of competitors ’electric vehicle models, such as Ford’s F-150 pickup truck, is increasingly moaning from Tesla shareholders because of the main“ distraction ”of Twitter Takeover attempt …
Twitter, certainly, is another source of problems for Elon Musk. The stock price fell like a puff because no one believed in a buyout at the price agreed upon by Musk and Twitter’s board. The acquisition is “on hold”, announced the billionaire, who intends to renegotiate the deal at a lower price. Twitter employee morale is at an all -time low, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is looking into possible violations in Musk’s stock purchases, a class action lawsuit by Twitter shareholders is in the tips in California, and press articles are much on musk’s naïve, or simply amorphous, concepts of “freedom of expression”.
Each of these problems, taken in isolation, cannot be solved. But Elon Musk was not only faced with a series of difficulties – he created them. Furious at being snubbed by a Democratic president who favors builders who are open to unions, he suddenly changed his cuti from a politically unclassifiable libertarian to a Republican. A tweet on May 18 set the tone, in which Musk called the Democratic Party a “party of division and hatred” and announced that he would vote Republican. He also announced that in case Twitter is hijacked, he will end the eviction of Donald Trump on the social network. At the same time, he escalated provocations against the administration, which went on for example to ridicule the SEC or the Federal Trade Commission, another government agency.
Ingratitude
Stop. On the side of public authorities, Elon Musk’s relentless provocations may cause him some concerns. As mentioned by Sebastian Mallaby, of Washington Post“The United States remains the most powerful economy in the world because it has found the balance between glorifying and restraining its titans (…). When the behavior [de Musk] becomes too erratic, combining institutional and legal forces to pin him down. ”But both public authorities allowed Tesla to leave, especially thanks to a low-interest loan of 465 million dollars provided by the Obama administration’s Energy Department in 2010, or even California State’s “zero emissions” vehicle program, which allowed Tesla to sell several billion dollars of gas “emissions credits” on the greenhouse effect in other manufacturers.Without this massive help, Tesla probably would not have survived, and in a regulated industry such as automobiles, Musk may find that his ingratitude now has value.
The second danger, perhaps even more real, is to see Tesla’s image deteriorate to the point of breaking the “Musk legend” that justifies Tesla’s incredible stock market analysis. The danger is evident in California, by far the most important market for Tesla in the United States, and a Democratic state that Musk is now criticizing all the time. The CEO said he’s not afraid California drivers won’t like him: “I’m confident we’ll be able to sell all the cars we can,” he boasted recently. “Right now the delivery time for an ordered Tesla is ridiculously long, so our problem is not demand but production.”
Reality? The rapid rise of electrification among Tesla’s competitors threatens to make the carmaker the electric pioneer like everyone else. Sign of the times: Musk’s relentless promises about future innovations, such as autonomous driving “for two years”, are now regularly preceded. These threats will guarantee double attention from the CEO, as opposed to his antics on Twitter and elsewhere. As entrusted to Hours Daniel Ives, one of Tesla’s most well -known financial analysts, “seems like the pilot of the plane was watching a show on Netflix as we went through a massive storm.”
“He’s a swindler”
The impression was fueled by the Twitter capture attempt. After weeks of about face, criticism or insult against the management of Twitter and various and various provocations, Elon Musk “then the truth has transformed into a hostile take on what above all, in the beginning, a friendly deal “, notes Lauren Hirsch, specialist in mergers and acquisitions at New York Times. “His actions have left Twitter, regulators, bankers and lawyers confused what his next step is, and the possibility of closing the mega-deal.” Others are more critical, not just of Twitter’s operation but of Musk’s personality in general. “He’s a fraudster,” Jackson Palmer, co-founder of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, accused in an interview with an Australian site. “He’s selling a vision hoping that someday he’ll fulfill his promises, but has no idea of their chances of coming true. He’s just very good at making people believe he knows. This is especially evident in Tesla’s promise. .of driverless vehicles. “
Add to this long list of problems and criticisms a series of diverse and varied legal complaints, or even a distress among Tesla executives that led to many departures: the accumulation of all the dark clouds this on the horizon could be a deadly storm or, to take a completely different image, the burning of an Elon-Icarus that has finally taken himself for the solar star.
But there’s another scenario, unlikely: Musk’s success. Imagine. The acquisition of Twitter ended at a lower price, thanks to the support of shareholders like Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, and the fact that the company’s future, in the absence of buyer Musk, looks very bleak. Tesla, which is constantly evolving in many areas, is combining its dominance and becoming an automotive giant, offering models accessible to ordinary drivers. SpaceX continues to dominate the space industry. And Musk continues to taunt government agencies, not even being treated with fines whose value – several hundred thousand dollars – makes him howl with laughter. Still rich but now protected by Twitter’s control and the incredible power it gives him, he becomes politically untouchable.
This situation will not only signify the success of Elon Musk. It symbolizes the success of billionaires, richer and more powerful than America thought.