• barneypiccolo@lemm.ee
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    13 hours ago

    I’ve been expecting this, and it isn’t the only thing coming.

    Before the recent earnings call, which was far worse than we even expected, we hadn’t heard much from him over the previous few weeks. He knew that terrible call was coming, and had been laying low, probably hoping things would improve some before making what he knew would be a disastrous earnings call. It was the equivalent of watching your diet 3 days before a doctor’s appointment, hoping your weight gain and cholesterol increase won’t be as bad as you know it is.

    Also, it was a safe bet that his board of directors was livid, and that he had been ordered by his board to get back to work, or be removed as CEO of Tesla, and now it looks like they are moving toward with firing him. So why that decision?

    The probable reason is that now that the earnings call confirmed what everyone suspected, there is almost certainly a shareholder class-action suit brewing over his reckless and irresponsible behavior over the last several months, which has directly caused severe, and probably irreparable damage to the company’s brand image AND it’s sales around the world, as well as tanking the stock price, an unforgiveable sin in the investing world. Now that the bubble has popped, it will never inflate again. As future earnings reports are released, and sales continue to slide, the stock will continue to decline, and the cycle will continue until bankruptcy. And it is all traceable to Skum’s self-indulgent, egotistical behavior.

    The only question is will Skum be the only defendant, or will the lawsuit also name the individual members of the board, for not reigning him in, or firing him. They don’t want to be sued alongside him, so they are forcing him to get back to work saving Tesla, or even getting rid of him altogether, thus letting them off the hook for legal liability.

    Its doubtful Skum, or anyone else, will be able to save Tesla at this point, its almost certainly too late. It is also probably too late to avoid a shareholder lawsuit. Investors have lost millions of dollars, not due to the vagaries of the market, but due to Skum’s outrageous behavior, like throwing up celebratory Nazi salutes on national TV, which, as CEO, he should have realized would damage his company and its investors significantly.

    And arguing that he didn’t recognize the danger in advance is no excuse at all for a CEO, who should have been able to predict the response to his self-indulgent ego bender.

    Shareholders have lost many millions, and they won’t just let that go with an “Oh well.” He’s likely going to get sued, and the board is just making sure they don’t go down with him.

    • Seleni@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Yeah, except he and his brother own majority shares in Tesla and pretty much hand-picked the board. I bet this is nothing but performative; they get a new ‘face’ for the company while he still runs Tesla from the background, Wizard of Oz style.

      • Oderus@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        As of February 28, 2025, Elon Musk owns approximately 12.8% of Tesla

      • Raltoid@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        He was ousted as CEO once, and he’s put in preventative measures in every company since.

        If they’re replacing him, it’s with his blessing specifically to try and prevent losses. And you can bet your ass that he’ll be a “special employee/consultant” that has the power to veto the new CEO.

        • Seleni@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          Oh, he runs it. Just not well. He sucks at real CEO work like he sucks at everything else in his life.

          • lobut@lemmy.ca
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            5 hours ago

            I would have thought he just invested in companies and never really ran them. Then I saw the CyberTruck and I was like: “oh yeah, that’s definitely him”. I mean also Twitter is a shitshow and that’s obviously Musk too.