Its not like the courts are investment banks with an evaluation arm. They are just judging if anything reaches the point where shareholders were legally harmed, which still gives a lot of gray area to the acquiring company.
Lawsuits can fail for lots of reasons without a decision on the merits. It seems relevant that the reason the lawsuit failed is because the court looked at the fairness of the transaction and determined that Tesla paid a fair price.
The commenter you are responding to is explicitly intending to place more emphasis on the reason why the lawsuit failed. That is why they used the phrase “burying the lede” in their initial comment.
Hold on, I feel like everyone's missing that theres a real argument here. I think the key point was:
>They are just judging if anything reaches the point where shareholders were legally harmed, which still gives a lot of gray area to the acquiring company.
This distinguishes the lawsuit failing from the idea that a fair price was paid. The competing contentions are (a) fair price vs (b) unfair but beneath threshold of legally punishable harm.
Note that this is a civil suit, so the concept of a “threshold of legally punishable harm” doesn’t apply. There’s no “punishment,” and the plaintiff doesn’t need to meet the high standards (proof beyond a reasonable doubt, etc.) for imposing a punishment.
Under Delaware law, there’s two standards for evaluating this kind of claim. When there is no conflict of interest, the court applies the “business judgment rule,” which is similar to what you seem to be thinking—it gives corporate officers wide latitude.
But when there is a conflict of interest, the court applies the “entire fairness” standard, which requires both fair dealing and a fair price. And a fair price means what it sounds like—it’s what an objective businessman would consider a fair price under the circumstances. It doesn’t need to be the best price, but it must be within the range of fair. And to establish a fair price, the court relies on evidence from financial valuation experts. It’s a rigorous standard that’s hard to meet.
> And to establish a fair price, the court relies on evidence from financial valuation experts.
I generally find expert testimony to be suspect. Anyone can be trotted forward as an expert, rattle off their credentials, and say whatever they feel like saying, depending on who is paying them to testify. And financial valuation is not a science; there is of course plenty of math involved that takes into account hard, objective numbers, but a good chunk of it is opinion, too, as no one an know the future.
Having said that, the Delaware Chancery Court of course has more experience in these matters than any other state's courts, so I am of the opinion that they're less likely to be duped by "experts", but sill... it can and does happen.
I agree with you to a degree about expert testimony. But I’d argue that a Delaware Chancery Judge reviewing expert opinions from major investment banks is more likely to come to an accurate assessment than many other people offering view on the transaction. The legal ruling isn’t definitive for anything more than the case that was before the court, but I think it should be heavily weighted by anyone trying to inform their views about what happened.
I’d also point out that, in the legal industry, Delaware’s entire fairness standard is seen as a rigorous standard that typically results in victory for the plaintiff. The Chancery Court ruling resulted in various law firm updates using the case as an example of how the entire fairness standard isn’t always a death sentence for defendants.
NCEES has brought back the controls systems professional engineering licensure. This is the same license that civil engineers use to stamp designs for example.
Of course, the license doesn’t mean anything if everyone falls under an industrial exemption. I’d be in favor of safety-critical software requiring a PE stamp.
I have two feelings on this. One of which is alarm because it is a sentiment like this which is the backbone of misinformation believers and spreaders and we're in the worst era of misinformation I think that we've been in in a long time. Certainly the worst since the dawn of the digital age. Experts are right about vaccines. Right about building your savings with a 401k. They're right about using sunscreen. They're right about not ingesting too much sugar. They're right about reading to your kids from an early age and right about the impacts of tariffs on the economy. They're right about climate change. They're right about the Higgs Boson, etc. etc. In almost every case, the people going against the experts on these things are cranks, frauds, or confused conspiracy theorists.
But my other feeling is one of agreement in a very qualified sense. I believe that within the U.S. legal system, people who are presented as experts in certain forms of science, are able to invoke an unearned professional authority and legitimacy that has nothing in common with genuine expertise. When we talk about pseudoscience in the modern age, a lot of the time it's about new age crystals or evolution denial, but I think expert witnesses presented as authoritative in courtrooms have been responsible for generations upon generations of pseudoscience of various types. Everything from penmanship analysis to bite mark analysis to body language experts to, rather remarkably, supposed 911 phone call tonality analysis experts Who can include that wrongly timed emotional tremors or presence or absence of emotions prove the callers involvement in a crime.
And while it might be a gray area, I suspect there's at least a fair amount of crankery or motivated reasoning with hired gun economic experts summoned to Delaware courts to testify in favor of major corporate acquisitions.
I feel like this fixation on "punishment" as a legal term of art is not strictly necessary and my point can be reinterpreted in a charitable way that restates the same thing using different but functionally equivalent magic words.
So swap out "punishable" and instead say "legally actionable" (or other preferred synonym) and you nevertheless have an assessment that falls under what you noted is the entire fairness standard and the upshot is the same.
Also my understanding is that courts defer to the experts of the acquiring company. And if those experts are predisposed to have a favorable interpretation that favors the acquiring company, the valuation is in the less than optimal range of a range of values produced even by them, and they, by contrast to an actual market, might be much more lenient than a market would be in determining the price. So there's a convergence of variables that underscore the difference between fair as we conventionally understand the term (which is what we were all interested in here) and whatever it means to have survived legal scrutiny in Delaware.
Which again I would say means that this debate has real teeth and it's more than semantically equivalent differences in emphasis.
(c) no fair price can possibly be determined but the burden of proof lies with the claimant
(d) a court has no idea what a fair price would look like but made a finding of fact based on expert testimony despite being poorly situated to evaluate it
That’s generous. One party is stubbornly missing that the Delaware court’s ruling is weak evidence of a proper valuation having been done, but wants to parrot an irrelevant textbook understanding that obfuscates that conclusion.
It's worth pointing out (IMHO) given the other comments that it's actually more than that - the fairness standard requires they prove the process was fair as well (IE a fair process that generated a fair price), which the court found they did as well.
(As you know, but others may not - this is not always the standard vs the business judgment rule, but is the standard here)
You joke, I think, but I do think a solid welfare state delivers benefits that a mainstream economist would recognise. I fancy the long-term prospects if a country with a safety net higher than one without, all other things being equal. I see more inherent value in the public sector than the private.
Unfortunately the private sector has dominated the zeitgeist for decades; a kind of meta-regulatory-capture, if you will.
I can't trust that there will be a state pension waiting for me. So I'm in the private sector. Got some bonds in my mix, at least.
This is true but it's not as far off as you think.
In this case, the court doesn't have to just find it was a fair price, but a fair process as well.
That is, the standard the defendants have to meet (not the plaintiffs, the burden is actually on tesla here despite having been sued) is that the transaction was entirely fair to the corporation and shareholders- the process was a fair one, the price was a fair one, etc.
I have trouble thinking of a case where you can prove all this[1] but the market would have come up with something different. Almost by definition, if the market would have decided to pay a lower price, either the price or the process was probably not fair.
[1] Which again, you have to do affirmatively. You aren't just rebutting plaintiff evidence, the burden is on you to show the fairness
Even if there was a market, any market naturally requires adversarial decision making in the negotiation of a deal to have economic calculation (what we generally view the benefit we derive from a market in the first place).
When the same people are making the ask as making the buy, you literally cannot decouple the decision-making in a way that objectively eliminates cooperation.
A market cannot exist when the entities involved abandon adversarial decision-making and cooperate. One's priority is always suborned by one or the other.
And what happened to Tesla solar roofs? Haven’t heard about those since like 2020. Who actually has one? And Tesla trucks? And full self-driving? And robotaxis? And the private venture around the moon?
It’s like everyone just forgets Musk’s announcements that never get delivered on.
Solar roof installs are continuing to grow. Slower than they hoped, but growing.
The semi factory will be finished late this year.
FSD gets better each month. Obviously there is massive debate if it will be “done” in 1, 2, 5, 10 or never years
Robotaxis were announced recently, the plan as announced is for them to be sold in 2026. That has not changed.
Looks like they’ll have some kind of driverless taxi service running this year with remote operators like Waymo.
Private moon mission was canned.
I think it’s pretty strange to say Musks promises never get delivered on when Tesla sells the most popular car on the planet two years running, spacex launches more to orbit than the rest of the world combined and a ton of other stuff.
Obviously he’s utterly nuts, and doesn’t deliver everything he talks about, and is very late on many things. But you have to be blind to say he never delivers anything.
No, a self driving car can be either supervised or unsupervised.
I'm required to supervise my car while it drives me to work, but it is by definition fully self driving, controlling all aspects of the vehicle while I sit with hands off the wheel watching
[2017] The sensor hardware and compute power required for at least level 4 to level 5 autonomy has been in every Tesla produced since October of last year.
[2017] I think that [you will be able to fall asleep in a Tesla] is about two years
[2018] Probably technically be able to [self deliver Teslas to customers doors] in about a year then its up to the regulators
[2019] We expect to be feature complete in self driving this year, and we expect to be confident enough from our standpoint to say that we think people do not need to touch the wheel and can look out the window sometime probably around the second quarter of next year.
[2020] Robotaxis release/deployment... Functionality still looking good for this year. Regulatory approval is the big unknown
[2020] I am extremely confident that level five or essentially complete autonomy will happen, and I think, will happen very quickly, I think at Tesla, I feel like we are very close to level five autonomy. I think—I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level five autonomy complete this year, There are no fundamental challenges remaining.
[2020] I'm extremely confident that Tesla will have level five next year, extremely confident, 100%
[2021] FSD will be capable of Level 5 autonomy by the end of 2021
My understanding is that the solar roofs are basically dead. They're more of a vanity project than a real product. The total production of the tiles is enough to cover like 10-20 houses a week and the full system price is around 5 times what a regular solar install costs, even when you factor in replacing the entire roof before doing the solar install.
The project was unilaterally cancelled by the client, Yusaku Maezawa, in May 2024. Starship development had fallen significantly behind the original SpaceX aspirational date for the flight in 2023, and Maezawa's net worth had also halved since venture was announced in 2018.
How many children with how many women? How many disowned? False accusations of pedophilia against people he doesn’t know? Free speech absolutist who gleefully bans speech? Corporate acquirer who accidentally fires key people, and then makes the exact same mistake as a coup leader?
He is batshit. He is also smart and has accomplished some impressive things. The two are not incompatible.
> How many children with how many women? How many disowned?
That's common human behavior.
> False accusations of pedophilia against people he doesn’t know?
Against a single person who had just called him "insane" on TV. Not nuts at all.
> Free speech absolutist who gleefully bans speech?
Not all speech is free speech - you cannot advocate for hits on people, for example. Besides, it's perfectly legal to censor speech on his platform. Not nuts at all. Musk has made no attempt to suppress speech on Bluesky, Facebook, Reddit, Tiktok, etc.
> Corporate acquirer who accidentally fires key people
That's not how it worked. Twitter was losing money at an astonishing rate, and he had to cut expenses immediately. It is the fastest way to determine who was actually needed and who wasn't. Then hire back the ones who were actually needed.
> makes the exact same mistake as a coup leader?
It's the only way to do it when time is critical. It's also the only way when the agencies are doing everything possible to not cooperate with DOGE.
When a criticism sounds like a substitute for the real reason a person hates Musk, it is totally unfair.
For example, where was the disgust at the person who publicly called Musk insane first? A fair criticism would have included that. A fair person would also be aware that there is not a single person on the planet who has not called someone else a nasty name.
Ah, so Musk must have X systematically taking down calls for public execution of his political enemies, then? This is a legit exception to free speech absolutism and he is just asking Reddit to do the same thing he does on his platform.
I’d argue he offsets his risks (but not profits) to the taxpayer. His high-risk bets have largely been buoyed by government contracts, subsidies, and borderline crony-capitalism. In many respects, that’s not always bad for the taxpayer when he delivers, but it’s not the same as being a free-market risk taker.
I recommend reading a biography of him. He did not offset risks to the taxpayer. SpaceX, for example, got contracts from NASA. He delivered on those contracts. If he hadn't, he would have gone bust, not the taxpayer.
At one point with Tesla he was within hours of business and personal bankruptcy, before making a deal with an investor. The investor wasn't the government.
You may want to familiarize yourself with counter examples from Musk biographers, like Seth Abramson.
Musk said himself SpaceX would’ve gone bankrupt without NASA contracts. He needed those contracts because Spacex was too high of a risk at the time for private business. NASA is self-insured. This is the the way the government supports high-risk nascent industries, because they are the only institution capable of shouldering that risk.
It’s well-established that the solvency of his companies are tightly coupled, just like TFA. Further, Tesla is made competitive by subsidies for EVs and manufacturing. Not necessarily bad, but the success isn’t occurring in a free-market vacuum. When companies accepting subsidies go under, the govt doesn’t typically get that money back, at least not in full. (See the faux Solyndra “scandal”)
I know that doesn’t fit the preferred narrative of the mythical free-market iconoclast succeeding in spite of the govt, but that’s reality.
On the profit side, I should have said he gets a disproportionate amount of profit and the taxpayer gets a disproportionate amount of risk.
“And he wasn't paid until he delivered, like any contract with a business”
I don’t know the specifics of these contracts, but I very much doubt it based on my experience. That’s not how any Government development contract I’ve ever worked on has worked… There are startup payments, payments for milestones (including many at the start for various design stages before anything was built), payments at varying levels of build, etc… - often more than half (sometimes more than three quarters) of the contract value was paid before the final product was delivered.
We did some pretty cool things too (this was in defence satellite communications) but various Government customers took like 80% of the risk on the development most of our big products (obviously we had already proven our design abilities with smaller components but much smaller scale), which we would then sell to them and other Governments.
I’d implore you to research more about how the CCP is administered. There are payments before any astronaut gets a ride. Meaning if the company goes out of business beforehand, the taxpayers lost that money without receiving the actual service intended. That’s also why NASA selected two CCP contractors, it distributes the risk. Maybe you think socializing risk to the taxpayer makes him a smart businessman, I just wish people would comes to terms with the fact that his wealth is inextricably linked to taxpayers. Like I said before, it’s not even necessarily a bad thing but call it what it is. I personally think the hybrid public-private arrangement works well when it’s not being abused.
Regardless of all that, the point was that Musk is not a paragon of free-market capitalism. Nothing you’ve pointed out negates that point, yet people still cling to that narrative for…reasons. I suspect it has more to do with cognitive biases than reality.
My house was built to my specification. The general contractor required that I make progress payments. He wanted to be sure he wouldn't be left holding the bag for all of it after I moved in (and he also needed cash to buy supplies and hire subcontractors). I took a risk he didn't just disappear with the up front payment.
When I had the roof replaced, I had to pay half up front.
And so on. This is normal business practice.
There is nothing not free market about progress payments.
(Besides, if NASA was fronting all the money, SpaceX wouldn't have gone bankrupt if the rocket blew up. But what I've read was Musk bet the company on it not blowing up.)
I decided to check one detail. The EV subsidy came in the form of a tax credit to the buyer, it is not paid to the car manufacturer. Musk had nothing to do with it.
> I suspect it has more to do with cognitive biases than reality.
Imagining oneself as dealing in reality rather than cognitive bias is yet another cognitive bias. Everything written about Musk is subject to cognitive bias one way or another.
You order an uber. You aren’t expected to make progressive payments so the driver can buy the car, get gas, etc. That’s the more appropriate analogy. As I said, CCP is a service contract, not a product. A house is a product so it even if the contractor goes out of business, you still have the foundations, studs, etc. ie your payments cover the partial product you are actually contracted to receive. A house is a misapplied analogy that belies some ignorance on the commercial crew program.
Businesses can leverage POs to fund operations. That’s why the NASA contract matters.
Yes, the EV subsidy goes to the buyer. The point was it makes the product more competitive at its price point. That point still stands. Besides, Tesla also benefited from multiple other taxpayer benefits. For example, they get hundreds of millions in tax incentives for their factories. Again, their profitability is propped up by taxpayers.
I’ve never claimed to be completely unbiased. However, we do have the benefit of testing out narratives with facts. The mental gymnastics needed to deny that these ventures/profits are somehow not related to taxpayers is, in a word, “nuts”
> You order an uber. You aren’t expected to make progressive payments so the driver can buy the car, get gas, etc. That’s the more appropriate analogy.
It's utterly inappropriate. First, your card is submitted and approved prior to you getting the ride. The uber is going to get that payment, you have no choice. Second, I wouldn't be surprised if the amount is put on hold with the credit card company before the ride begins - I know gas stations do this. Third, it's a trivial amount of money compared with buying a house. Fourth, the uber driver cannot operate if he hasn't already bought the car and the gas.
> That point still stands.
Musk had no control over it. The tax credit was given to the consumer. It also was for all EVs, it was not targeted at Musk.
> they get hundreds of millions in tax incentives for their factories. Again, their profitability is propped up by taxpayers.
A tax abatement is not a subsidy. A subsidy is a payment. Tax abatement is not "propped up" by other taxpayers, they did not get their taxes raised by it, and the company was not previously paying taxes for that location.
I'm curious why you (apparently) think that anyone could have done what Musk did? Why didn't you (or anyone else) get those subsidies and tax credits and contracts and create Tesla and SpaceX? I've read that Musk is an imbecile who somehow failed into being the richest entrepreneuer on Earth?
Tesla + SpaceX is worth about $1.2 trillion dollars. If the government started it with a billion dollars, consider all the taxes Tesla + SpaceX + Musk + employees + investors has paid since. Wow what a return on investment! And as a bonus, NASA gets to shoot off rockets that cost only 10% of NASA-built rockets.
C'mon, this is bordering on a disingenuous argument. You can't acknowledge the different between a service and a product. That's literally the novelty of the CCP. In general practice, you don't pay for a service until after its rendered. But not the case in the NASA contract. If your Uber doesn't show up, you'll get reimbursed whatever small hold they put on. You're only out the service. If SpaceX went belly-up, NASA isn't getting milestone payments back and they don't get their ride. They're out payment and service.
>Musk had no control over it.
Are you claiming that subsidies don't get factored into a business plan? Again, the point is government action makes the business more competitive/profitable. Subsidies to the consumer absolutely impact that. Tesla's own filing acknowledge this point. E.g., they mention regulatory credits add $2.7B to their revenue. They also mention how consumer subsidies impact consumer demand for their cars, and how tax abatements are fundamental to projected operating expenses and financial obligations. Their own statements run afoul of the narrative you're defending.
>they did not get their taxes raised by it, and the company was not previously paying taxes for that location.
Correct. We agree the taxpayers are losing an income stream. If your house was built in a location, do you think you could claim "well there was nothing here before, so not paying income taxes is of no consequence"? It's a weird take if you think the public isn't offering something of value with beneficial tax breaks. If they are offering something of value, they are helping the business. I also agree the taxpayers can benefit from it, I don’t think they have to be in conflict, just acknowledged.
>I'm curious why you (apparently) think that anyone could have done what Musk did?
I've never claimed that, you seem to border on fanboy admiration of him. I think Musk is a once in a generation entrepreneur. I also think his business MO is heavily reliant on government contracts and special treatment. Those two aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. But the latter is contradictory to free-market ideals. That's the point that you're constantly side-stepping. Worship him if you want, but also acknowledge his success is tightly coupled to governmental help.
SpaceX has done amazing things. Buit I'm going to venture we have different opinions why. IMO, t's because they get to operate under different rules. I think the main advantage that NASA is buying is a plausible way to skirt a lot of the rules (political and technical) they must abide by. CCP does not, and that's largely why they can do things differently. That's not a guarantee of success (see: Boeing) but it sets the table.
You may not realize it, but we've had this same tired discussion a while ago. At that time, I said we will see Musk's business acumen with what he does with Twitter. Apropos of TFA, that doesn't currently put him in good light. 6 months ago it was valued at $9B, and then shortly later valued at $45B so that he could essentially sell it to himself at that valuation. At the very least, that indicates a lot of uncertainty. That is a suspect valuation, but to be generous there are some differential outcomes: 1) xAI becomes profitable largely due to the synergies from the sale of Twitter/X, 2) xAI is profitable in spite of the purchase, 3) xAI does not become profitable. It will be interesting to see, and I will be interested to see if we'll ever get insight into the private company to find out. It will also be interesting to see if future success is still coupled to government/political help; I suspect that's a drug hard to break from.
> his business MO is heavily reliant on government contracts and special treatment
He sells rockets to the government at 10% of what it would cost the government to buy them elsewhere. It's clearly Musk helping the government. Besides, Musk did not get subsidies for SpaceX nor special treatment.
> Are you claiming that subsidies don't get factored into a business plan?
No, I claimed that Musk had no control over the EV subsidy, which was given to buyers of electric cars from any company.
> acknowledge his success is tightly coupled to governmental help
Making a better, cheaper rocket is helping the government save tens of billions of dollars.
> contradictory to free-market ideals
The government keeps taking our economy farther and farther from the free market. Government taxes, subsidizes, and regulates. It isn't really possible to run a free market business in the US.
I know it's cool these days to dump on Musk and denigrate his achievements with "you didn't build that" (as if anyone else could have done it), but history will show him to be the greatest entrepreneuer the world has ever seen.
The government has subsidized other companies. None of them succeeded like Musk did. Not remotely. The idea that the government created Musk is just nonsense.
> buoyed by government contracts, subsidies, and borderline crony-capitalism
What you're describing is Lockheed, Boeing, Rockwell Collins, etc. SpaceX is the opposite--it provided NASA a service that was necessary for NASA to operate, at a fraction of the cost of competitors: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20200001093.
The fact that NASA makes interim payments on the contracts doesn't turn a purchase of services into a subsidy. "Free market" does not mean "off the shelf." It's extremely common in B2B settings for buyers to shoulder some up-front costs to develop products or services that aren't available in the market. For example, Apple made a large up-front payment to a supplier to speed up development of sapphire glass: https://www.cultofmac.com/apple-history/iphone-sapphire-glas....
Buyers take-on some risk when they do that, but that doesn't make it a subsidy. In Apple's case, they take on the risk in return for the bet that a supplier can provide them with huge volumes at a low price. In NASA's case, it took on some development risk because SpaceX promised a large reduction in launch costs.
I agree it applies to other contractors. My point is that the success is tightly coupled to the willingness of taxpayers to fund the operations.
You’re muddling points. I’m not saying the NASA contract was a subsidy. Tesla is a better example of subsidies.
No private capital was willing to contract to SpaceX until the risk was lowered. They’ve succeeded in doing so and deserve credit. However, they would have never gotten to that point without taxpayer dollars. Governments were the only institutions capable and willing of taking on that high initial risk. That point still stands. It’s odd that your stance denies that when Musk himself has admitted it.
You seem to be bent on have an altogether different discussion because you’re continuously missing the point. It’s exhausting, boring, and goes against HN guidelines about fostering a curious conversation.
> been buoyed by government contracts, subsidies, and borderline crony-capitalism
The government pays spacex to complete contracts. They pay tens of thousands of companies the same way - defence, bridges, trains, roads, etc. in fact, every government does this.
It’s also worth pointing out spacex have completed those contracts much cheaper than competitors who have not delivered (ie star liner). As far as the gov giving out contracts for space stuff, spacex are literally the best option, and directly save taxpayers money.
Tesla gets subsided because the government wants to encourage EVs. Oil extraction and refining, corn, education, healthcare, defence and literally thousands of other sectors are also heavily subsidized. Again, every government in the world does this for sectors they want to encourage.
You are so hell bent on your “Musk bad” line you didn’t realize it has nothing to do with him or his companies. You are angry at how governments around the world pay for and subsidizes sectors every single day.
No, the Commercial Crew Program is fundamentally different than the way NASA has previously done business. They are buying a ride, not a rocket. Because it’s a service contract, it’s much more hands-off.
We agree the government supports sectors they want to encourage. See my previous comments about supporting high-risk nascent industries. That’s a different point than the one I was making, which is that support is a large part why those industries can exist during their initial high risk phase. My point is he is not a paragon of free-market capitalism because they rely on government support during high-risk stages. Both points can coexist. It also doesn’t imply I think he is “bad”.
You are trying to shoehorn a different discussion. I’ve never said Musk is bad. In fact, I’ve said he’s a once in a generation entrepreneur and that his companies have delivered wonderful things to the taxpayer. My claim is that his success is not the free-market ideal because it relies on government largesse. In your head, you appear to view it through a completely different lens because you seem to want to construct this “good vs bad” false narrative. The fact that you are bypassing the points reiterated multiple times isn’t conducive to a curious, nuanced, and thoughtful discussion
You still missed the point because you want to force this into a “SpaceX vs Everybody” narrative. I’ve already addressed the Boeing point. It still doesn’t negate the point about the industry needing government help/contracts to survive its early stages.
I don’t know why it’s difficult to actually read and critique the point being made, rather than constant digressions into others, but it makes for boring conversation. If you have a point that SpaceX didn’t need government contracts early, then make it. I’d be curious to hear it, but I don’t think the data supports it.
What part of defence contractors or train line builders or oil refineries or corn or sugar growers didn’t need government contracts and subsidies early?
You’re making out like SpaceX are doing something unique or morally wrong, when what they are doing is perfectly common, and the government couldn’t function without companies doing what spacex are doing.
Your message makes no sense. This is everyday stuff across the entire economy.
The only story Is that spacex saved the government (taxpayers) billions compared to paying Boeing who can’t even deliver.
Also show me when I say SpaceX was doing something unique or morally wrong. Was it when I said other contractors do the same? Was it when I pointed out Boeing’s shortcomings? How any when I said SpaceX has done wonderful things for the taxpayer? Or how the public-private partnership works well?
Why do you insist on ignoring all the things we seem to agree on to fabricate an argument? Is it because you are incapable of admitting sometimes the government does good things? You are tilting at windmills, my friend.
It’s all there in the OP. But since reading comprehension seemed to take a hit due to the need for arguing, I’ll reiterate:
His high-risk bets have largely been buoyed by government contracts
SpaceX wouldn’t have survived without govt intervention. I think the same can be said of Tesla to a lesser extent. That’s not bad, it’s the way things work with high-risk nascent industries.
No. It's blindingly obvious. You can be utterly incredible at delegation. You can be incredibly productive. You can also be utterly nuts. The utterly nuts part is self-evident to people who aren't temporarily impoverished billionaires and don't want to kiss his ass and be him. In my experience, that tends to include people who need it "explained". No disrespect.
What are you talking about? How about you spend like 2min doing research? Tesla solar roofs exist and are being deployed. Its just not the extreme growth market that Musk hopped for. And the trucks exist too.
The private moon mission is off because the costumer pulled out. But Starship is still in development and is contract with NASA for a moon mission.
Aren't Cyber trucks by Tesla? And FSD is basically here which means robotaxis are basically here. Now there are just regulatory hurdles and the long tail.
"""“I feel very confident predicting autonomous robo taxis for Tesla by next year. Not in all jurisdictions, because we won’t have regulatory approval everywhere. But we will have regulatory approval at least at some point next year,” Musk said toward the end of the presentation. “From our standpoint, if you fast forward a year, maybe a year in three months, but next year for sure, we will have over a million robo taxis on the road.”""" - Musk, April 2019
GP is referring to Tesla's promise to build electric semi trucks, not the pickup truck that Cybertruck is.
> And FSD is basically here which means robotaxis are basically here. Now there are just regulatory hurdles and the long tail.
AIUI, Tesla FSD is at best Level 3 automation (probably more like Level 2), which means it requires constant driver supervision to keep the car from committing suicide. That's pretty far from being "basically here", especially since Tesla seems extremely loth to accept any responsibility for FSD-related crashes.
In what sense of the word "basically" are the FSD and robotaxis "basically" here? Tesla FSD is a level 2 autonomic system that requires constant supervision, robotaxis would require level 4/5 autonomy. That's not even close to becoming reality.
"Basically here" and "actually here" tend to be decades apart ... especially in Musks case. Tho, I think another company can be actually capable to make them actually working.
Quite a claim. FSD in practice is nowhere close to actually being able to do robotaxi operations. So its not really a regulatory burden, other then regulatory actually checking if it works.
Exactly why do you believe a court that does exactly this kind of judgement all the time is not capable of it?
They issued a 127 page supporting decision on why they found it was a fair process that generated a fair price.
Want to say which part you take issue with that shows it was not capable of the judgement?
FWIW - I actually hate tesla, i just also hate the sort of drive by shitting on other fields that HN seems to do sometimes. If there are concrete reasons to believe they aren't capable, let's have that discussion. Otherwise, there's no need to denigrate others capabilities without evidence based on our feelings :)
you hate the company or the product? How does someone hate a company the open sourced all of their patents which resulted in creating a ton of competition in a previously dominated market?
Some people don't ignore the fraud, the terrible working conditions, the anti-competitive business practices, the unfulfilled promises, the stock price manipulation, and the cult of personality of a highly controversial leader just because of a marketing stunt from more than a decade ago which even Elon admits was not altruistic.
I'm a fan of Tesla's patent strategy. However, calling it "open source" isn't strictly correct. Patents are only free to use as long as you also give Tesla rights to all your patents.
copy-left is referred to as open source and some even claim it's _more_ open source, but thanks for the information, I wasn't aware of the that detail.
edit: oh it's not copyleft, but specifically quid pro quo so tesla gives you their patents if you give them yours
A copy left style arrangement would require you to not enforce your patents against anyone who signs and upholds the agreement, not just with Tesla. If that was the case, I probably wouldn't have quibbled with the term "open source" being applied.
Quite the opposite. You were the one who brought up how many words they wrote, when we can just look at the glaringly obviously results which were there solar city failed.
I can just point to that huge failure that we can see right now.
?
You still haven't pointed out a single thing the judge got wrong, and literally just relied on a bare assertion of your feelings about how it went later, which is, of course, almost totally irrelevant to whether it was fair at the time of purchase
Companies eventually failing does not mean they were bad deals at the time (or even a bad deal later). Not everything succeeds.
The question is not "did anyone successfully predict the future" or even "was it a good thing to buy" but instead "was it a fair price and a fair deal at the time they bought it". So i have no idea why you keep bringing up what happened later as it it's relevant at all, and won't tell anyone why you think it's relevant to the past.
Given you refuse to read and cite a single thing that the judge actually got wrong and keep citing the end of solar city as if this somehow changes the past about whether it was fair deal for a fair price at the time, it's hard to believe you are really doing this in good faith, so i'm out.
(FWIW - i was the first solarcity customer in maryland, and given my experience i certainly have no love for them, but you aren't presenting any coherent argument here)
They are, but in the relevant Delaware law the latter point matters when there is a potential conflict of interest, so the Delaware court ruled on that.
The "fair price" standard and ruling is about both the process and the price. And the standard is likely not what most people would assume it to be, particularly as stated by the OP, resting on matters such as "was and is the transaction synergistic to Tesla?" It's also notable that the court found several process flaws created by Musk but ultimately determined the Tesla board was independent enough that it was likely fair.
Was it actually fair as evaluated by any outsider on first principles? Probably not. Was it criminally unfair? No.
It wasn’t a criminal case, and plaintiffs didn’t need to meet a high burden of proof. And Delaware’s entire fairness standard is a two-prong test that includes both fair dealing and fair price: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weinberger_v._UOP,_Inc.
The court ruled:
> Even assuming (without deciding) that Elon was Tesla’s controlling stockholder, the Tesla Board was conflicted, and the vote of the majority Tesla’s minority stockholders approving the Acquisition did not trigger business judgment review, such that entire fairness is the standard of review, the persuasive evidence reveals that the Acquisition was entirely fair…
> Equally if not more important, the preponderance of the evidence reveals that Tesla paid a fair price—SolarCity was, at a minimum, worth what Tesla paid for it, and the Acquisition otherwise was highly beneficial to Tesla. Indeed, the Acquisition marked a vital step forward for a company that had for years made clear to the market and its stockholders that it intended to expand from an electric car manufacturer to an alternative energy company. The Court’s verdict, therefore, is for the defense.
"The court made 11 factual findings showing that Musk had participated in the deal process to a degree greater than he should have."
"The trial court noted that these “process flaws flow[ed] principally from [Musk’s] apparent inability to acknowledge his clear conflict of interest and separate himself from Tesla’s consideration of the Acquisition."
"Upon recognizing these process flaws, the court then turned to what it identified as the strengths. It found six."
"Regarding fair dealing, the trial court noted that the road leading to the Acquisition was not entirely smooth. The court found, however,that the “Tesla Board meaningfully vetted the Acquisition” and Musk “did not impede the Tesla Board’s pursuit of a fair price.”Although Appellants assert that the court failed to make a finding of fair dealing, the court’s opinion can only reasonably be read and understood as concluding that the flaws did not overcome the findings of the process strengths and that the process, overall, was the product of fair dealing."
What’s that got to do with the court’s ruling that Tesla paid a fair price, which is what I said in my OP? This is the relevant part of the opinion:
> In instances where there are process infirmities, the Court is obliged to study fair price even more carefully. I have done that here. After careful consideration, I am persuaded Elon presented credible evidence that Tesla paid a fair price for SolarCity. Plaintiffs answered by proffering incredible testimony that SolarCity was insolvent, and then provided some “also ran” theories on value that their experts did not ultimately endorse, or at least not persuasively so. Given this, I have no credible basis in the evidence to conclude that a “fairer price” was available, and therefore, no basis to conclude that the price paid was not entirely fair. Indeed, the price was, in my view, not “near the low end of a range of fairness,” but “entirely” fair in the truest sense of the word.
The ruling is based on price _and_ process by your own reference. You keep moving the goalposts. Which end do you want to play from? I thought not burying the lede was the scheme here?
Grandparent is not correct, you can’t just assign “whatever” value in self-dealing transactions.
The SEC and IRS weren’t born yesterday. It reminds me of people who come up with basic self-dealing transactions with some tax benefit and act like the idea wasn’t around 100 years ago and that regulations aren’t already in place.
Regardless of the faith you have in the courts assessment time has shown the more critical opinion to be true. Solar City was a dead company, none of the promises they made has amounted to anything, they aren’t producing any products or revenue, and the deal has been shown to be self dealing in order to bail out his brother.
Where are the solar roof tiles? What’s happened to the tax payer funded factory in NY?
They’ve been here for ages but you can basically see what happens when you self-identify with a party rather than principles and put your intellect to work rationalizing positions selected by other people. I miss their contributions of a decade ago.
> what happens when you self-identify with a party rather than principles and put your intellect to work rationalizing positions selected by other people
This is a problem for a lot of people, regardless of political spectrum.
When your identity is tied to a political group, criticism of that group transfers to criticism of self, and there aren't many people that enjoy that.
Yes - it’s a cognitive pitfall humans are prone to. You can see it with any group membership - here on HN, how many comments have we seen where someone is defensive about legitimate criticism about their favorite programming language or style – but it can be especially bad with politics because it can be weaponized by people acting in bad faith with significantly more negative consequences.
That has certainly been the case for the past few decades and I, personally, think we may have reached some sort of breaking point. The other day on a somewhat popular radio show catering to a specific group typically associated with one US party the calls to divest from political affiliation to a Party as a deciding factor were a lot more common and urgent in tone. I know what I think and I do think US 2 party system is part of its current set off issues, but it was odd to hear some of those thoughts expressed in the wild.
Don't get me wrong, the tribe mentality is absolutely still there, but for the first time in a while I am hearing something akin to 'fuck it'.
When I read your comment, what I see is "I checked through their comment history. They disagree with my political viewpoint, so I'm going to use the popular talking points from my in-group to attack them."
I glanced through your comment history as well, and I'm convinced that you are a lot smarter than that, and can add more to the conversation.
> popular talking points from my in-group to attack them
Pointing out that we're currently being de facto ruled by a circle of wealthy billionaires and millionaires is not a "talking point". This comes across as projection.
> I'm convinced that you are a lot smarter than that
Thank you. I'm not sure what you're looking for me to add to the conversation however, I just plainly said what I saw, which was them to bat for several oligarchs who are currently making a mockery of our country.
If you are heavily invested in early Tesla stock you should've cashed out, unless people are so greedy and irradiated that a 50x/10y RoI isn't good enough.
