The father of an 18-year-old Tesla driver who died in a fiery crash in Fort Lauderdale has filed a lawsuit against the California car manufacturer, faulting the batteries used by the company.
“Barrett Riley was killed by the battery fire, not by the accident,” the 16-page lawsuit says.
The defamation lawsuit is far less important than the 40% drop in US sales, the lack of a manufacturing license in China and the Solar City lawsuit. The company is way over valued.
Musk was combative with the lawyer asking him questions about SolarCity's health at the time, Randy Baron, even calling him "reprehensible" when he questioned whether SolarCity was a viable entity.
Musk continued in the deposition, saying to Baron: “You seem like a very, very bad person. Just a bad human being. And I hope you come to regret your actions in the future, but you probably won’t. And that’s sad.”
When asked if he "bailed out" SolarCity, Musk said to Baron: “Advancing solar is absolutely good for the world. Do you just think about money? What is your purpose in life?’’
“SolarCity would have done just fine by itself and Tesla would have done just fine by itself, but in the long-term, they are better together. And that is what the future will show. That is why I think you should stop wasting your time now,’’ Musk said at one point.
Last week, Tesla introduced its "Version 3" of its solar roof. It’s been quite hard. Roofs need to last a long time. When you add electrification to the roof, it’s a fair bit of complexity, Musk said about the product.
Almost All Of Elon Musk's Merger Promises Were "Misleading Or False" Thousands of pages of documents released via the lawsuit "show that the CEO’s promises about SolarCity were misleading or false."The move was called a catastrophe for Tesla, a $2 billion-plus bailout of a debt-saddled company of which Musk himself was chairman and the largest shareholder. The merger was pitched a different way to Tesla shareholders. Elon Musk called it "blindingly obvious" and a "no brainer" at the time.
Tesla's board - and Evercore, who the company hired to evaluate the deal - both thought it wasn't a good idea. But Evercore, like everyone else involved in the public markets, gave way to Elon Musk's decision making. It’s Elon’s world. We just live in it, an Evercore banker wrote in one email.
Even Tesla's CFO spoke out against the idea: We have Model 3 happening. We have a lot of things going on. We ourselves have a large debt load. Why do we need to do this now, Elon?
On top of that was the obvious conflicts of interest:
Besides his cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive running SolarCity, its board and Tesla’s had complicated overlaps. Six of Tesla’s seven directors were Musk associates (including his brother, Kimbal) with SolarCity ties. Antonio Gracias was on the board of both companies. What’s more, Musk had used his other entities to raise capital for SolarCity: SpaceX, for example, had purchased $255 million of SolarCity bonds. Musk bought $65 million worth. Tesla’s directors had to grapple with this apparent self-dealing as Musk pushed them to reconsider the acquisition in May 2016. Musk said he recused himself from these deliberations, but court filings indicate he remained actively involved, even advocating for the move directly with bankers and investors.
But this didn't stop Musk from coming up with the (debunked) idea of the Solar Roof to try and win over shareholders. Musk showed off the product in 2016 to an impressed audience but it was later revealed the demos weren't functional. Regardless, the acquisition received approval several weeks later.
The roof was supposed to be central to the merger, but Tesla has still failed to develop a mass market version of the product and high volume manufacturing has been delayed several times over the last few years. Tesla and SolarCity Director Antonio Gracias said there were only “50 to 100 of these things operating today in tests on people’s roofs.”
Meanwhile, last year, the company's head of energy, Sanjay Shah, said he had "high confidence" they were on track to ramp up solar roof production in 2019. He said if more delays came up, we will be more transparent than ever before to make sure you guys hear from us why. We can't wait for that explanation. ..
Musk seems ready to go to trial. I can’t wait. It will be great. You’re going to lose, he told the plaintiff's counsel.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-13/elon-musk-s-solar-deal-has-become-top-threat-to-tesla-s-futureGood thing that Elon is moving on to Germany to mix up the German Automotive industry.
That should be interesting to watch.
If you think it can't get more stupid anymore:
This is the dumbest car design I have ever seen.
Anybody in a car design school like the Art Center would be kicked out if they would deliver that.
