Posts

Elon Musk Has Reached a Settlement, but Tesla’s Troubles Are Far From Over

/0 Comments/in , /by

A federal judge has approved a settlement between the Securities Exchange Commission and Tesla’s Elon Musk after he tweeted in August that he had secured funding to take the company private at $420 a share — a claim that proved not to be true and has cost the company and investors about $12 billion in valuation, according to MarketWatch.

U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan signed orders on Tuesday requiring Musk to step down from his role as Tesla chairman and to have a lawyer oversee and approve all tweets about Tesla to ensure he does not tweet misleading information again. The settlement also requires Musk and Telsa to pay $20 million each to investors who lost money because of Musk’s tweets. Musk still gets to retain his position as Tesla’s CEO, but Tesla’s troubles are far from over.

The SEC is reportedly still investigating the car company to determine whether they misled investors about the reason for and extent of their Model 3 production delays. In 2016, Musk predicted that “as many 200,000 Model 3s would be made in the second half of 2017,” but this was scaled back to 20,000 models. The company fell short of the reduced amount, producing a mere 2,700 cars in 2017. . .

In July, Tesla told investors it had met its goal of assembling 5,000 per week, although the company has been plagued with delivery troubles. Customers who purchased a Model 3 months ago are still waiting.

Musk claimed many of these cars have already been built, but the company is having difficulties handling the logistics of delivering them. Last month, Tesla asked volunteers to deliver cars to customers for free and walk them through some of the features, which makes one wonder if the company has the cash to deliver cars customers have already paid for. (Read more from “Elon Musk Has Reached a Settlement, but Tesla’s Troubles Are Far From Over” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Furious Liberals Lash out at Elon Musk After His Significant Republican Donation Uncovered

/0 Comments/in , /by

Celebrities, liberals, and media members are voicing their frustration with billionaire Elon Musk after his significant donation to a political organization loyal to the Republican Party was uncovered.

Despite considering himself a “socialist” and supporting many liberal views, Musk’s critics blasted him for seemingly being a hypocrite on issues such as climate change.

According to election filings published by ProPublica, Musk donated $33,900 last quarter to Protect the House, a PAC dedicated to maintaining Republican control of the House.

The PAC raised more than $8 million in the second quarter, data shows. Robert McNair, owner of the NFL’s Houston Texans, and businessman Sheldon Adelson were the PAC’s largest donors, each contributing $371,500.

They alleged Musk’s donation proves he is not an ally of progressive causes, and instead shows he is a closeted conservative.

(Read more from “Furious Liberals Lash out at Elon Musk After His Significant Republican Donation Uncovered” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Elon Musk Just Exposed the Oil Oligarchy’s Control Over Mainstream Media in Epic Rant

/0 Comments/in , /by

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, Space-X, and PayPal, recently posted a series of Tweets pointing out how media organizations have an obvious incentive to give bad press to electric cars and alternative energy in general.

Musk was unforgiving towards the mainstream media in his epic Twitter rant, calling them hypocrites and saying that the public no longer trusts them. He said that he doesn’t advertise for Tesla, his electric car company, which means that he contributes no money to the media, who depend on advertising dollars to stay in business.

On the other hand, the traditional auto industry and fossil fuel companies are among the world’s largest advertisers, meaning that they are one of the primary industries keeping the mainstream media in business. When it comes time to cover a story that involves these industries, journalists, and media organizations have an obvious bias and conflict of interest that will influence their coverage of the story even if they were not given explicit orders to create propaganda.

“The holier-than-thou hypocrisy of big media companies who lay claim to the truth, but publish only enough to sugarcoat the lie, is why the public no longer respects them. Problem is journos are under constant pressure to get max clicks & earn advertising dollars or get fired. Tricky situation, as Tesla doesn’t advertise, but fossil fuel companies & gas/diesel car companies are among world’s biggest advertisers,” Musk said.

One of the dark secrets of the advertising industry is the fact that commercials are not always intended to sell something, but are sometimes an undercover bribe, which corporations use to control the narrative on the sponsored news sources. An obvious example of this is how military arms suppliers like Boeing or Lockheed Martin will advertise on major networks despite the fact that their products are not available for sale to the people watching the advertisements.

It is no coincidence that international stories are covered with a pro-war slant on every major media platform when the arms dealers are advertising on each one—in fact, that is the very reason they advertise. The same goes for recruitment ads for the military, these serve the double purpose of recruiting and also controlling the narrative of the media outlet by becoming their sponsor.

Next, Musk announced that he was planning on creating his own media ranking website that would rate the credibility of journalists by crowdsourcing reviews from readers. He also put up a poll asking his followers if it would be a good idea, or gave the sarcastic option of “no, media are awesome.”

Musk suggested that he would call his site “Pravda,” and while it would seem that these were thoughts coming off the top of his head, one Twitter follower pointed out that one of Musk’s agents “incorporated Pravda Corp in California” in October 2017.

As opposed to centralized fact-checking sites like Snopes or Politifact, which have an obvious bias, a site that allowed the public to decide who they trusted could be an interesting way to rate journalists. Of course, any type of rating system is dependent upon the opinions of the masses, which can sometimes be wrong, and are almost always controversial. However, this seems to be the best model that has been proposed thus far, and it does not seem to favor the mainstream media as other popular “fact checkers” do. (For more from the author of “Elon Musk Just Exposed the Oil Oligarchy’s Control Over Mainstream Media in Epic Rant” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Elon Musk Says Spaceships Will Be Ready for Mars Next Year

/0 Comments/in , /by

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk told an audience at South by Southwest that his timeline for sending a space vehicle to Mars could mark its first milestone early next year.

The privately-funded venture, announced in September 2017, aims to send a cargo mission to the Red Planet by 2022. SpaceX’s ultimate objective is to plant the seeds to put a human colony on Mars.

Musk held a surprise question and answer session at the annual technology and culture festival in Austin, Texas on Sunday. The billionaire told attendees that “we are building the first Mars, or interplanetary ship, and I think well be able to short trips, flights by first half of next year.”

Mindful of elevating expectations too high, Musk hedged a bit. “Although sometimes, my timelines are a little, you know…” he said to laughter.

SpaceX’s BFR rocket system is expected to have capabilities for interplanetary travel, and be fully reusable. A flight will cost less than the initial Falcon 1 flights, which Musk pegged in the $5 to $6 million range. (Read more from “Elon Musk Says Spaceships Will Be Ready for Mars Next Year” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.