As for the financials of Tesla, have you looked at them? They're shocking! Tesla had a lot of optimism surrounding it when it was new because it had first mover advantage etc at a time when EVs were all the rage. Now they still can't come anywhere near turning a profit but all the hype is gone. If you want a demonstration of what Musk thinks of Tesla, he has been dumping his own shares and is trying to give himself a massive bonus about the equivalent of $10,000 for every car Tesla has produced so far. The economics for Tesla are absolutely hideous and Musk (who promised he would never sell any shares) is voting with his sale of his holdings.
As for prison time, he has committed so much absolutely blatant fraud that it is far beyond what would land all but the richest few people in the world in prison. It's not suspected fraud or technical fraud or arguable fraud, it's balantant, outright, transparent, extreme fraud. Quite likely his wealth and status will keep him out of prison, but he has done many many times more than what would land a regular person in prison. He has consistently made absolutely unambiguously false statements about Tesla (and other companies), lied about his own actions in absolutely price-sensitive matters, etc. He is one of the best examples in the world of some people being above the law, but when Tesla inevitably fails (or changes hands and is completely restructured) and more of his other companies fail (many of them are pure vapourware like the hyperloop nonsense, or are clearly non viable to anyone who bothers looking at them in any more depth than viewing his promotional material, like SpaceX, The Boring Company, etc, which all chew up huge amount of money handed over by investors based on blatantly false promises which Musk absolutely, unambiguously and provably knew to be false), he might be brought to task. He is certainly painting a target on his own face when he does things like selling out of Tesla around the peak after promising he would never do such a thing, and laying off huge numbers of Tesla staff in very nasty ways right before putting his hand up for a bonus around half the value of the company when the company has never come anywhere near turning a profit and never would, and that's just Tesla which is arguably his most "successful" current company.
Tesla's newer vehicles have been extremely slow to production, surprisingly low quality (look at the cyber truck and the semis for example) and still very expensive to produce. Tesla initially produced great quality vehicles when it had first mover advantage, was pouring in massive amounts of money and could ask for crazy high prices due to lack of alternatives, but the 'burn cash now to make money later' model isn't going to work when competitors with far far more experience and ability come into existence, which is now the case. As time goes on and fewer people are willing to throw money into the Tesla cash bonfire, this business model will collapse.
It's quite surprising that this situation can be so clear and obvious with so few people being aware of it.
I'm certainly not guaranteeing that Tesla will collapse, but the only thing which could save it beyond the medium term is a massive restructure. Musk does have a lot of diehard fans so who knows what he may be able to pull off? As for prison, hey, if OJ Simpson could stay free, Musk very well might too.
If you're really interested in the topic, send me an email (
[email protected] ) and I'll give you some links.
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