Musk is a master, as are many of those who made billions on the Internet Bubble, of misdirection. There have been, and are, many scams in the green business. Solyndra was a no-brainer. No one builds a semiconductor manufacturing plant in Fremont. The moment I saw it, knowing a fair amount abour solar electric conversion, and in the semiconductor business, I got the smell as well. A half million square feet of new building when Silicon Valley is becoming a ghost town is too obvious a fraud. The whole solar electric business is mostly a fraud. Too few understand how little recoverable and convertible energy their is in each square meter of incident sunlight - 5 to 10 watts after losses, considering that about six hours of each day's sunlight is useful, on clear days.
Tesla, which was to have moved into the enormous plant Toyota abandoned in Fremont, the NUMI plant, is also an obvious fraud. But the investors are being protected by Obama’s cabal, and will get out just before the whole thing collapses, which may be after November, if voter fraud doesn't offset the clear preference indicated by the first debate, or if Obama doesn't only give away cell phones, but promises everyone on government assistance a new Tesla, and a rebate to cover the enormous jump in electric utility bills.
I'm sure the CFO has his bankruptcy court documents ready, and that all the investors are well acquainted with the terms. After Tesla fails, formally, Musk will get his half million or so termination bonus as Solyndra’s bundler/CEO did, and the terms of the loan contracts will limit the damage to investors, or they wouldn't have invested. It is clever redistribution of wealth among the wealthy. Obama doesn't care; he's got Penny Pritzger buying him the 36 million dollar estate in Hawaii. Obama has shown himself to be a world-class con man, but the 'marks' are getting tired, and too poor to milk for much longer.
....and a cult of personality.
The MSM has been churning out one hyped "Elon Musk is a genius" glowing puff piece after another. Now they're beginning to look a bit closer, and though subtle, telegraphing caution to investors and buyers.
It’s an amazing economic strategy....pick up a loser company...make it look possible...put money with political figures...get them to give you government loans...prepare for default and bankruptcy....walk out the front door with five to ten million in your pocket. It’s amazing now that this is such a common practice.
Thanks for those details. I have great respect for people with new ideas and especially willingness to risk all their own money and put all their time and energy into a new business. But that’s mostly not what we are seeing. Normally the market sorts out the scammers, but now the government is backing them. My impression is that these “investments” are simply shenanigans by wealthy Californians who figured out how to get the government to assume most or all of the risk.
It’s obvious that Elon Musk is about to sell Tesla Motors to Toyota, since Toyota could use the technology to develop more advanced plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV’s) and eventually long-range battery electric vehicles (BEV’s). Musk will now concentrate on SpaceX, which is a venture with a much higher financial payoff in the long run.