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Tesla CEO Wrong About Model S Timeline? $1,000,000 Says Yes 138

Posted by timothy from the $1,000,000-also-says-no dept.
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.
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Tesla CEO Wrong About Model S Timeline? $1,000,000 Says Yes More

Tesla CEO Wrong About Model S Timeline? $1,000,000 Says Yes

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  • How it should work (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hairyfish ( 1653411 ) on Saturday August 27, 2011 @01:31AM (#37225712)
    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.

    • Re:How it should work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Saturday August 27, 2011 @01:44AM (#37225742) Journal

      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

      You are probably (certainly?) right the case of most CEOs. However, Elon Musk has invested a lot of his own money in Tesla and if it fails, he stands to lose that investment -- far, far more than he has likely received from Tesla in his position as CEO.

      • Re:How it should work (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 27, 2011 @02:02AM (#37225788)
        And let's not forget, we're not talking about a typical car company CEO. This is a capable engineer and businessman that, as another project, built a successful aerospace company that designed and built capable launch platforms in fractions of the time it would take NASA... who then contracted him for large cargo lifts and future manned spaceflight.

        Bold, yes. That's his style. But if anyone can deliver on crazy-bold statements, it's probably him.

        • Given his history, if he's wrong, it will be because some other party stepped in and took a gigantic shit on his plan. The Big 3 would still love to squish him.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by strack ( 1051390 )
        yeah, elon musk is what billionaire ceos should be damnit.

      • Shh.
        Don't ruin the all rich people and all business people are evil and should be burned.
        Kill the rich, Burn the corporations!
        Then all will be ... Ummm .... Great!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by CODiNE ( 27417 )

        It's an interesting thought experiment though. If someone wagered $1,000,000 and lost would you be able to take their life's savings away from them?

        If you imagine two people and a one on one transfer of money it makes the concept of gambling seem a lot more harmful than when the money is spread out among many gamblers.

    • Re:How it should work (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GodfatherofSoul ( 174979 ) on Saturday August 27, 2011 @02:13AM (#37225814)

      The problem is that culturally we look at CEOs as corporate superstars and not just employees. The attitude is that the company is an extension of the CEO which is probably only true in rare cases (like Jobs). So, the storyline becomes "we have to pay for talent" and not just another cog in the corporate wheel (upper management). I'm sorry, but running a corporation doesn't take billion-dollar bonus talent.

      Interestingly, we used to have our tax code structured (via extremely high top-end tax rates) to prevent this precise thing from happening. It used to be 90%! Law makers were pragmatic enough to know that in the absence of some regulatory brake (disincentive by reduced net wages for CEOs), upper management would eventually get smart enough to bleed their respective companies dry. Of memory, I think it was Dick Grasso who was the CEO of NASDAQ years ago. The company made $800 million one year and he got a $200 million bonus!

      Now that's the CEO. Don't forget about all the VPs underneath them and what they're getting as well.

      • 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

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by waives ( 1257650 )
          Oh wow 50+ hours.. who the fuck cares. There's 168 hours in a week, the most you could possibly put in is 4.2 times the standard working week. Explain how anyone can possibly merit a salary hundreds or thousands of times that of their employees as a result of the effort they put in?

      • They are superstars that employ hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of high paid workers. Where would the world be without silicon valley. We should celebrate what they have created.

        They never paid 90% in taxes ever (there were lots of ways to have deductions), and if you want them to leave the country in droves, that's definitely the path to take.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pope ( 17780 )

          They are superstars that employ hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of high paid workers.

          They don't employ anyone. The company does.

      • It's not at all clear that tax is the reason CEOs get paid a lot. What's the connection between lower tax and higher CEO pay, other than coincidence with the mood of the times (CEO as rockstar, every man as the architect of his own destiny)?

        IMO the problem is big organisations. They tend to have enough resources that a huge sum like those you mentioned are just a drop in the ocean of revenue. It makes any amount of money seem justifiable.

        And you're right about the superstar thing. There's probably a tendenc

    • win, lose or draw

      Generally, if theyve lost, theyre not big CEOs, and their company fails. If Tesla Motors doesnt deliver and fails to have a workable business plan, the entire design of capitalism dictates that they will either be a gigantic drain on some investor's wallet (and Im sure the economy thanks them for their donation), or the company will crumble and Musk will be out of work.

      Someone has to lose, and right now that is the rest of us.

      Im not clear, how are they taking my money?

      • Do the words "bailout" and the phrase "too big to fail" ring a bell?

        It might not apply in this very special case, but if the company you run is big enough, you just CANNOT lose. Go all in, there's no risk involved. If you win, fat bonus. if you lose, bailout.

        • Do the words "bailout" and the phrase "too big to fail" ring a bell?

          So, capitalism is broken right now because the government is stupid?

          Sounds more like government is broken - maybe we should work on fixing that first.

          • A government which doesn't give bailouts probably has to be one which doesn't allow bailouts to become necessary - which, to me, implies some regulatory intervention that few people are really going to relish.

            • A government which doesn't give bailouts probably has to be one which doesn't allow bailouts to become necessary - which, to me, implies some regulatory intervention that few people are really going to relish.

              Umm, we managed to avoid giving bailouts for the first couple centuries of our existence just fine, thank you.

              A common misconception about "too big to fail" and "bailouts" is that a company entering bankruptcy just stops. It doesn't. Business proceeds as usual, with the bankruptcy court trying to ar

              • Umm, we managed to avoid giving bailouts for the first couple centuries of our existence just fine, thank you.

                It wasn't "just fine," after the end of agrarianism it was pretty awful for most people, until it reached the point in the 1920's where a few people owned everything, and by the 1930's millions of families couldn't put food on the table. At that point the system was doomed, and the choice was between peaceful, incremental change (which is fortunately what happened), or a turbulent, risky lurch i

                • It wasn't "just fine," after the end of agrarianism it was pretty awful for most people, until it reached the point in the 1920's where a few people owned everything, and by the 1930's millions of families couldn't put food on the table.

                  We have 45.8 million people on food stamps [cnn.com], unable to put food on the table. That's 15% of the US population. Apparently the regulation you'd like to see hasn't done any better, but it sure has blown our debt and deficit all to hell...

                  • Food stamps are the most stimulative spending the government can do. $1 in food stamp spending generates $1.73. It is good for the economy, good for the government's finances. If you want to worry about debt and deficit, look to things like military spending where there is less economic return, or permanent tax cuts where there is negative return.

                    • Two things:

                      .
                      1. That is irrelevant to the GP's point and my response.
                      2. If you believe food stamps are a good stimulus, then why don't we put everyone on food stamps and really get the economy revving? There's something lost in the Government's analysis and that's called the lost opportunity that makes it a net loser to the economy as a whole. How else can you explain increasing food stamp expenses and a GDP that's crashing back to recession?

                • But it would have been terrible for the US.

                  Propping up a bad, unable-to-hold-its-own company is better?

            • A government which doesn't give bailouts probably has to be one which doesn't allow bailouts to become necessary

              Thats a lot easier to do when it never considers "bailing out a failing, faulty company" an option. All a bailout did was validate a bad model as workable.

              Whatever pain it may have caused-- and Im not sure the full extent of how bad it could have been-- part of me still thinks we should have let all the big companies fall, and let that be a lesson about "bad practices" to the companies remaining. That is of course only half-serious, as I dont really understand what the implications would have been.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by angeli ( 1566097 )

      Not necessarily directly at parent above, but don't you just love how anyone attempting to do anything beyond the norm, particularly if they attempt to do it with style and flair, attracts waves of these Internet plageules suffering from orifice confusion regarding excretory function, provoking them to effluv from their apparently boundless witless reservoirs.

      Meanwhile Boeing, which has in fact been in the airline business their entire life can't seem to hit a 787 delivery date to literally save their lives

      • 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

        • 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?

          SpaceX gets a $1.6B contract to deliver supplies to the ISS, you mean? With no payment if those supplies aren't delivered?

          Yah, that's pretty much how we do things without taking money from your pockets

          They provide a service we need, we pay them for it. They fail to provide the service, we fail to pay them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Artifex ( 18308 )

      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?

      Some probably do have goal-based bonuses. However, I think in aggregate this could actually render executives less effective, because it renders them less flexible to look at long term issues in pursuit of short term gains.

      Let's say you're CEO of a company that makes widgets. You get a bonus at the end of the year if you meet your target revenue. That's all good, except your factory is down the street from one of the Japanese reactors that's now in trouble. Do you still try to meet your goal, doing whatever

      • Don't link their entire bonus to the situation when they leave the company. Instead give them a small percentage then, and the rest in stock options that they can't use for a few years.

        If the company does well in the future, then they get their bonus. If it fails then they don't.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fnj ( 64210 )

          Let me get this straight. You propose penalizing the retired/resigned CEO when because some slimeball moves in after him, takes his success, and runs it into the ground?

          • He's not being penalized. He got his bonus when he stepped down. Any additional bonuses were contingent on the company continuing to do well.

            Right now the CEO doesn't care what happens to the company once they leave. So there is no incentive to either ensure long term growth or even to stay in the company for the entire duration of their contract, if an early dismissal means they can get their bonus and disappear before shit hits the fan.

            Why not treat the bonus as a BONUS. Something they might earn if they

            • He's not being penalized. He got his bonus when he stepped down. Any additional bonuses were contingent on the company continuing to do well.

              Yes, he's being penalized.

              If the next guy is an idiot (remember, that next guy isn't chosen by the outgoing CEO), then the former CEO loses out on his bonuses.

              Setting MY pay based on someone else's performance is a wonderful way to make sure I don't give a crap....

              • Comment removed based on user account deletion

              • The CEOs PAY (salary) isn't affected. The bonus is an additional amount that reflects that they did a good job. So how can you measure that? Stock prices can often be inflated, especially of a company wants them to be (inflated numbers, press releases about brand new products that may never happen).

                BTW is your pay truly only dependent on your performance? If your CEO drives your company into bankruptcy do you thing you'll be getting a bonus? Or even your last few paychecks?

                • The bonus is an additional amount that reflects that they did a good job.

                  Yep. And measuring whether they did a good job based on the performance of the next guy to fill the position is just silly.

                  It's pretty easy to argue that the standard system (stock price on the day the CEO quits, or whatever) is a bad system. It's also pretty easy to argue that basing his bonus on the performance of the next CEO is silly - you might as well base it on the result of the fifth race at Pimlico the first weekend after t

                  • How about not basing it directly on the stock price, but on an separate appraisal of his effect on the company?

                    Let's say that 2 years after the CEO steps down the board reviews the effects of his decisions on the company (as independently from new leadership as possible) and award the bonus then? For example a CEO that made record profits during his time on the job, but left the company completely unprepared for the future can expect no bonus.

      • I got a simple idea:
        If a company is bankrupt or starting to aquire negative revenue, the company have a full right to get all money that anybody has earned from them via stock trade, or bonuses to anybody in managment position, over the last 10 years.
        This also applies to unnatural large revenue surplus that does not fit with the companies growth. That would mean everything that the company earns on firering massive amount of workers and attempting to outsource could still be gotten back from the inv

    • Re:How it should work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by GauteL ( 29207 ) on Saturday August 27, 2011 @04:20AM (#37226118)

      This sounds to me a rather simple idea. Corporation CEOs are rich people. And as a condition for taking up their position, they should be required to make a substantial investment in the company. Nobody should trust a Fortune 500 / FTSE 100 company to a CEO who isn't willing to bet some of his/her own money on their own skill as a CEO. And they should be required to keep this investment until at least 2-3 years after they step down.

      This way they will win or lose depending on how the company performs over time, not last quarter.

      • This is exactly right. Unfortunately, it's not the cultural norm in the real business world. By "real", I mean companies who make real products and services.

        Myself, I'm in the investment industry. Investors ask us as part of the due diligence process how much of our own net worth is invested in our products. You can't get around this. It is the only way to make sure people are acting in your interest. If they ask me how they know my interest is aligned with theirs, the answer is "four fifths of everything I

    • Nobody in their right mind would want to do it. People in general can't stand the chance of losing something, even if that chance is very small.

    • 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.

      Yeah, that's what we need: MORE incentive to make corporations more greedy and profit-centered than they already are.

      Genius.

  • 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.

    • Re:Legal? (Score:5, Informative)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Saturday August 27, 2011 @01:41AM (#37225732) Journal

      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.

      I'm pretty sure these terms are legal in just about any state:

      (1) Series production models of the Tesla Model S have to be delivered to paying customers before the end of 2012. (It was originally 2011, but Neil concedes that Tesla said it wouldn't make that date fairly early, and has since stuck to its 2012 date.)

      (2) The Model S has to have seven passenger seats, certified as such by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and earn a 4- or 5-star safety rating from the NHTSA.

      (3) It has to have a battery pack that allows en-route swapping at a highway roadside station, similar to the Better Place battery swapping scheme.

      (4) Model S prices must remain at the levels Tesla and Musk announced: $57,400 for the version with 160 miles of range, $67,400 for the 230-mile version, and $87,400 for the top-of-the-line 300-mile version (which will comprise the bulk of early production). All prices are before any Federal or other incentives.

      If Tesla misses any one of those targets, Neil says, he wins the bet and Musk must donate $1 million to Médecins Sans FrontiÃres (Doctors Without Borders).

      But if Tesla does what it said it will, Neil loses, and--being a journalist, not a multimillionaire entrepreneur--he will donate $1,000 to the same group.

      • Re:Legal? (Score:4, Funny)

        by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Saturday August 27, 2011 @01:52AM (#37225762)
        You know, usually about this time on a thread about companies overpromising and underdelivering, we would have already had a good joke or three about Duke Nukem Forever. Sigh.
        • Sadly, that product shipped. It's just not the same anymore :(

        • You know, usually about this time on a thread about companies overpromising and underdelivering, we would have already had a good joke or three about Duke Nukem Forever. Sigh.

          An additional term of the wager that was considered too risky for the participants was that the loser would have to play through the entire of the recently released Duke Nukem Forever. Twice.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        it's not a game of chance or a sporting event, so making a contract for penalty/bonus payments should be quite legal.

      • Big of him to make bold claims backed by other people's money. This whole thing reeks of some two bit hack trying to gain some fame on the back of the Tesla.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bitt3n ( 941736 )

        If Tesla misses any one of those targets, Neil says, he wins the bet and Musk must donate $1 million to Médecins Sans FrontiÃres (Doctors Without Borders). But if Tesla does what it said it will, Neil loses, and--being a journalist, not a multimillionaire entrepreneur--he will donate $1,000 to the same group.

        so basically Musk has ensured a bunch of starry-eyed doctors will shortly be skulking around the Model S factory, attempting to sugar all the gas tanks.

      • If Tesla misses any one of those targets, Neil says, he wins the bet and Musk must donate $1 million to MÃf©decins Sans FrontiÃfres (Doctors Without Borders).

        But if Tesla does what it said it will, Neil loses, and--being a journalist, not a multimillionaire entrepreneur--he will donate $1,000 to the same group.

        Sounds like he's really confident in his prediction of failure, when he's betting $1 on it failing for every $1000 that Elon is betting that it'll succeed.

    • He's a CEO. A million IS a token sum.

  • ...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.

  • 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 [intrade.com]

    The value of the contract can be interpreted as the market's perception of the probability of the event.

  • What? (Score:2)

    by PCM2 ( 4486 )

    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 [nytco.com] 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.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by JordanL ( 886154 )
      Also strange is the title... there is $1,000,000 saying the Tesla CEO is NOT wrong about his timeline. There is $1,000 saying he is.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by fnj ( 64210 )

        It's not just strange. It's WRONG in any universe. It should say "$1,000,000 Says NO."

  • 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/ba
  • Electric Cars, are so 1900's, silly Elon, trusting the green jobs hoopla. SpaceX [spacex.com] (Another company Elon owns) put a capsule in orbit and brought it back on target. Has any other company achieved that?

  • Incorrect title! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Read the article! It's not a symmetrical bet. $1,000 says yes, $1,000,000 says NO!

  • 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'.

  • $1,000,000 Says Yes? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by feepness ( 543479 ) on Saturday August 27, 2011 @04:20AM (#37226120)
    That is completely incorrect. $1,000 says yes.

    If the wager is accepted $1,000,000 would be saying NO, he is NOT wrong.

  • Leave Britney Alone! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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 #billionaire

    • No kidding. I work in the D part of R&D. It is very interesting but most of the time you don't know exactly what you are doing. You have set backs and great leaps forward. The budget and scheduling meetings are always funny. It's like "so when do you expect your breakthrough?". Are you serious? Then the facilities group gets kudos because they came in only slightly over budget and schedule doing the office renovations which we could have easily done on budget by getting a fixed price bid.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I seriously hope that is sarcasm. Sometimes the only thing keeping an entrepreneur going is optimism.... As an entrepreneur, I hope that I missed the WHOOSH

  • 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.

    Ain't that the truth.

    Anybody remember DiamonDisc?
    http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/11/13/019202/Synthetic-Stone-DVD-Claimed-To-Last-1000-Years [slashdot.org]

    The guy that wanted to make that available to market is now little more than a SEO/PR chap.
    http://www.cranberry.com/ [cranberry.com]

    With zero mention of the DiamonDis

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • 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

  • Oh, right, it's one of those "figurative" bets.

  • 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 con

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.
  • 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.

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