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Forbes: Tesla Green Car Production Circus Distracting From Solar City Woes

By Eric Worrall | Watts Up With That? | June 22, 2018

As Elon Musk ramps up the hype over whether Tesla will hit its Model 3 production targets, another financial disaster may be unfolding at Tesla’s subsidiary Solar City.

Tesla’s Constant Turmoil Can’t Hide The Fact That SolarCity Is Dying

Jim Collins
JUN 22, 2018 @ 03:07 PM

I am convinced that the financial media will never end its fascination with Tesla and this week has been even more rife with intrigue than most. While the actions of self-proclaimed whistleblower Martin Tripp—including his extraordinary email exchange with CEO Elon Musk—have garnered most of the headlines, there are more relevant news items for investors.  Thursday’s Reuters article has the details of Tesla’s abrupt shutdown of a major part of its SolarCity sales network, and the ending of the company’s partnership with Home Depot had been announced last week in the press release detailing Tesla’s workforce reductions.

As Tesla’s struggles to perform the most basic assembly tasks at its Fremont car plant grab the headlines, the SolarCity news is signaling to the market a reality of which I have been convinced for some time: SolarCity is worthless. So, now the focus has to shift to that transaction, in which the former Tesla Motors paid 11 million shares of its stock to a company that was also chaired by its chairman and CEO and run on a day-to-day basis by his cousin (SolarCity’s former CEO Lyndon Rive.)  The conflicts of interest were so obvious then, and even though most of Tesla’s Board members recused themselves from the SolarCity acquisition process, the simple fact is that Tesla picked up a lemon when they drove SolarCity off the lot.

How would the market perceive such a write-off given that Tesla is contractually obligated to spend $5 billion in capital in the ten years following the completion of the currently-in-construction (also being built by Panasonic) Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo?  I am terrible at predicting Tesla’s share price movements over the short-term, but over the long-term, SolarCity will be a huge drain on the value of a car company that has been massively overvalued for years.

Full article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcollins/2018/06/22/teslas-constant-turmoil-cant-hide-the-fact-that-solarcity-is-dying/

How different things would have been had Hillary Clinton won. Hillary Clinton pledged to install five hundred million solar panels during her presidency. Solar City would likely have been front of the queue to supply those solar panels, and Elon Musk would likely have pocketed billions of dollars of taxpayers cash helping Clinton fulfil her solar pledge.

Perhaps a Clinton victory is what Elon Musk had in mind when he bought out Solar City, and signed binding deals to build those extravagant Gigafactories.

June 24, 2018 Posted by | Corruption, Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Elon Musk’s Financial Woes Begin to Mount

Sputnik – November 5, 2017

The business empire of Elon Musk, built with the help of government subsidies, is suffering considerable financial losses as certain ventures of his appear to be unable to meet the previously declared expectations.

Elon Musk has long been hailed by as a genius entrepreneur and a pioneer of technological advancement.

However, the financial problems that befell many of his enterprises appear to cast doubt upon Musk’s business acumen.

Earlier Tesla Motors reported a record $671 million quarterly loss while the company proved unable to meet its production goal (5,000 cars per week) for the Tesla Model 3, according to The Verge.

Also, the new tax cut proposed by Republicans threatens to deal a serious blow to Tesla Motors as it would strip the company of its $7,500 per vehicle federal tax credit.

And it appears that Tesla Motors, SpaceX and SolarCity were built with the help of almost $5 billion worth of government subsidies, making it look like “Musk and his companies’ investors enjoy most of the financial upside of the government support, while taxpayers shoulder the cost,” as the Los Angeles Times put it.

Interestingly enough, Tesla sales in Hong Kong and Denmark stalled after both areas did away with tax breaks for electric cars.

And it appears that, so far at least, Musk’s Hyperloop project has failed to produce a single model capable of reaching the speed of 400 km/h, let alone the promised 1,200 km/h.

November 5, 2017 Posted by | Economics | , , , , | Leave a comment