Blaze It More Like Faze It
Elon Musk—commonly known as the chairman of the billion-dollar company Tesla—was forced to step-down from his position and pay a $20 million dollar settlement. The reason? The twitter tweet he uploaded on August 7th was illegal because "it's illegal for a director of a public company 'to knowingly or recklessly make material misstatements about that company,'" according to a Harvard Law School professor (Quinn).
Click here to read more about the illegality of his tweet.
Elon Musk appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast earlier this September for a casual interview. About two hours and ten minutes into the podcast, Elon Musk can be seen smoking marijuana inside tobacco, after Rogan tauntingly asked him if he couldn't do that "because of stockholders". This was legal at the time because their interview took place in California, a state that legalized the recreational use of weed earlier this year. Consequently, this stirred a lot of chatter on the internet, to which Elon Musk replied on Twitter with: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." "420" is a reference to smoking weed at 4:20pm. Musk was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission, an agency of the United States Federal Government for "misleading" investors (click here to read the full article). He settled upon $20 million but was forced to step-down as chairman of Tesla. The company also had to pay $40 million in reparations to harmed investors.
Social media can be a beneficial tool for reaching out to large audiences, but it can also have detrimental consequences when used negatively. Is Elon Musk trying to relate to people by referencing 420? Why or why not? At the same time, how is he impairing the bridge between his fellow investors? Do you think this is a fair punishment for Elon Musk? Do you think he had fair intentions when tweeting this amidst the chatter and debate concerning his actions?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI think Elon Musk wasn’t trying to relate to people by referencing 420 and Elon was as just doing that as a joke which had major consequences. Elon Musk is impairing the bridge between his fellow investors by mentioning the company may go private in a joking matter. This hurts the reputation of the company by mentioning a 420 joke, also this may scare some of the investors about the company going private making a border between him and his investors. I still think the consequences were very large but Elon Musk needs to realize that the position he is in with Tesla requires being mature a lot of the time.
ReplyDeleteSender, I really like this post. I think this adds great conversation about issues going on today in our society. First I do not think he is trying to relate to people by referencing 420, he was more doing this as a joke and to impress a girl, I read about this. I think that many people do not think that he is being a serious worker and business owner when he can so carelessly almost wreck his whole past. I think that his punishment could have been a lot worse than 20 million but he is stepping down which shows a sense of change for his company. Hopefully whoever takes his place will change what has happened with Elon.
ReplyDeleteI think that Elon has made some bad decisions and that he is paying in a fair way. However i do see why he did it, Tesla has had an extremely rough year and I think that Elon may have given up a little bit. I think much of what he said was because he was angry, and social media made everything he said a bigger deal. We can see he is acting abnormally because Elon hasn’t done any thing like this when talking about SpaceX or Boring company. I think he has learned a valuable lesson and hopefully won’t make the same mistakes again.
ReplyDeleteI think that Elon Musk was not trying to relate to people by referencing 420. He was being careless and not thinking about what he was saying, rather he was trying to impress his peers. The punishment he is facing I do believe is fair because he could have lost the entire company for one careless comment. Instead, he is only stepping down and opening up the company to a new leader who can hopefully redirect and advance the company further. I think he also learned his lesson about how careful he has to be when he has lots of people watching what he does.
ReplyDelete