Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[viper37]

For Columbia I once read a long writeup about whether or not they could have saved them had they known about the damage incurred during the launch. Essentially--yes maybe. The plan would not be try to intercept ISS (they had nowhere near the delta V required to change orbit so dramatically), nor did they have a backup shuttle ready to go. Instead, the plan would have been to just keep the shuttle in orbit, where it had about 30 days of food. They believed with rationing they could extend that out to maybe 45 days, and in that window they believed NASA could probably rush a supply rocket to intercept and extend their time. The end goal would be to rush the next planned shuttle launch up (which was a few months out), to rescue the stranded shuttle crew with the other shuttle.

From the link I posted:
Cain's review did not address the possibility of launching an emergency shuttle rescue mission. But engineers say they do not believe it would have been possible to get the next shuttle in the launch sequence - Atlantis - into orbit before Columbia's crew ran out of carbon dioxide-scrubbing lithium hydroxide.

I believe after that they kept Atlantis on standby to rescue stranded astronauts during missions.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/

Interesting read, thanks!

[celedhring]

I think it is interesting the reaction all this is getting from predominantly Republican fans.  Even people I know were laid off and wound up in sad financial straits as  result are gloating over all this. 

It owns the libs I guess.

As I said many pages before, there's still a semi-good outcome here where owning a Tesla substitutes "rolling coal" as a way to own the libs.

[Josquius]

The trouble there is the sort rolling coal are not the sort this kind of edgelordy shit really appeals to. Its a different branch of fascism he's appealing to.

[Valmy]

I think it is interesting the reaction all this is getting from predominantly Republican fans.  Even people I know were laid off and wound up in sad financial straits as  result are gloating over all this. 

It owns the libs I guess.

As I said many pages before, there's still a semi-good outcome here where owning a Tesla substitutes "rolling coal" as a way to own the libs.

That was a wishcast I had as well.

Of course Tesla stock is taking a beating...whatever that means for the future.

[The Brain]

What's the QAnon Nigeria angle? I hear that Twitter named some official Norwegian government accounts Nigerian. Twitter claimed that it was a mistake but since Twitter has zero credibility...

[The Larch]

Of course Tesla stock is taking a beating...whatever that means for the future.

For now it means that Elon is cashing in on his shares:

Elon Musk sells new $3.6bn tranche of Tesla shares

Latest selloff takes total sale this year to $23bn and follows loss of world's richest man title

I knew he lost the "world's richest man" title recently, but was not aware that it was to the owner of Louis Vuitton.

[mongers]

I knew he lost the "world's richest man" title recently, but was not aware that it was to the owner of Louis Vutton.

Will a certain notable poster here be along shortly to proclaim the genius of this person and how much humanity is benefitting from designer leather goods? 

[Josquius]

At least I can see a value in musks cars and rockets. Vutton number 1?really?

[The Larch]

At least I can see a value in musks cars and rockets. Vutton number 1?really?

It's a massive luxury goods corporation, not just fancy handbags.

LVMH controls around 60 subsidiaries that each manage a small number of prestigious brands, 75 in total. These include Christian Dior, Fendi, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Loewe, Loro Piana, Kenzo, Celine, Sephora, Princess Yachts, TAG Heuer, Bulgari, and Tiffany & Co. 

[Gups]

At least I can see a value in musks cars and rockets. Vutton number 1?really?

It's a massive luxury goods corporation, not just fancy handbags.

LVMH controls around 60 subsidiaries that each manage a small number of prestigious brands, 75 in total. These include Christian Dior, Fendi, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Loewe, Loro Piana, Kenzo, Celine, Sephora, Princess Yachts, TAG Heuer, Bulgari, and Tiffany & Co.

Lots of top end wineries as well - Moet et Chandon, Krug, Veuve Cliquet, Dom Perignon, Cheval Blanc, Yquem and others

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yah, LVMH has steadily grown through mergers and acquisitions over the last 30 years. I know they bought Tiffany--I was actually a moderate beneficiary of that deal as I had been a Tiffany shareholder and cashed out when their stock surged on the merger announcement. LVMH actually later tried to bail out on the Tiffany deal I believe for money reasons, but I think were forced to carry through.

[Sheilbh]

Feel like when forced to buy a company against your will, that it is one you understand and that fits in with the rest of your businesses is maybe part of why Arnault is the world's richest man and Musk isn't.

[Gups]

Worth noting that Tesla is substantially bigger than LMVH (by market capitalisation), it's just that Arnault owns much more of LMVH than Musk owns of Tesla

[OttoVonBismarck]

LVMH is a lot closer to its fundamentals than TSLA too--LVMH PE ratio in the mid-20s is high, but not totally unusual for a luxury goods maker which often seem to have higher PE ratios. LVMH has a similar total revenue as Tesla with a gross margin of almost 70%.

Tesla with its nearly 50 PE ratio is totally wild for a company in a very well-established market (auto manufacturing), and with a much lower gross margin (which is entirely normal for manufacturers of consumer autos.)

Tesla has benefited tremendously from very sustained and enthusiastic speculation in its stock, which has allowed Elon to hold multiple secondary offerings to raise more cash and largely funded the company for the decade or so during which it never turned a profit. I do think there is just a bit of cold water of reality going on though, we're at a point now where you either believe the speculative price premium on Tesla will continue forever (which is generally not supported by historical trends in such stocks) or you think Tesla is going to grow to be a bigger car manufacturer than Ford and GM combined (which would be required for its valuation and fundamentals to be close to aligned.)

I think Elon doing things that break the illusion of genius around him is perhaps causing some people to look at the stock with more scrutiny--especially in an era when many similar stocks (Amazon, Google, et al) are being scrutinized more now that it seems like the era of endless speculative gains may be winding down.

[celedhring]

Tbf, Musk leveraging Tesla's stock price to buy himself another company before TSLA comes back to Earth is a smart move. Just not twitter.