Daily Archives: November 11, 2021

Austin Mayor Steve Adler on Tesla moving its headquarters to the city, why its a desirable place and his meeting with Elon Musk.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned Sunday against turning the city of Austin, Texas, into a "San Francisco copycat."

"Austin should be its city, not a San Francisco copycat," the billionaire tweeted.

ELON MUSK ANNOUNCES TESLA IS MOVING ITS HEADQUARTERS TO AUSTIN

Musk was responding to a Fox News report earlier Sunday about the proposal in Austin to bulk up the citys police department and a series of reports on the city's record number of homicides in 2021.

Proposition A, a ballot measure for the Nov. 2 election backed by the group Save Austin Now, would require at least two Austin police officers for every 1,000 residents and would provide officers with an additional 40 hours of police training each year on topics such as weapons proficiency and active shooter scenarios.

It comes after the Austin City Council voted in the wake of the George Floyd protests last year to cut up to $150 million from its police department budget a little more than a third of its total budget and reinvest that money into other public services.Since then, the city has experienced a nearly 71% increase in homicides.

FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2020, file photo, SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer media award, in Berlin. Tesla says it has invested more than $1 billion in Bitcoin and will accept the digital currency as p (AP Newsroom)

Musk made headlines earlier this month after he announced Teslas headquarters will be moving to Austin from Fremont, California, in part because of the cost of living.

"I'm excited to announce that we're moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas," Musk said during Teslas annual stockholders meeting on Oct. 7.

He said the electric car maker will "continue to expand in California, significantly but even more so here in Texas."

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FILE PHOTO: SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk visits the construction site of Tesla's gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Michele Tantussi/File Photo (REUTERS/Michele Tantussi / Reuters Photos)

"Its tough for people to afford houses and a lot of people have to come in from far away," he said. "Weve taken it as far as possible buttheres a limit to how big you can scale it in the Bay Area."

"Here in Austin, our factorys like five minutes from the airport, 15 minutes from downtown, and were going to create an ecological paradise here because were right on the Colorado River," he added. "Its gonna be great."

Fox News Breck Dumas contributed to this report.

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Elon Musk warns Austin, Texas, not to become a 'copycat ...

Washington D.C., Sept. 29, 2018

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that Elon Musk, CEO and Chairman of Silicon Valley-based TeslaInc., has agreed to settle the securities fraud charge brought by the SEC against him last week. The SEC also today charged Tesla with failing to have required disclosure controls and procedures relating to Musks tweets, a charge that Tesla has agreed to settle. The settlements, which are subject to court approval, will result in comprehensive corporate governance and other reforms at Teslaincluding Musks removal as Chairman of the Tesla boardand the payment by Musk and Tesla of financial penalties.

According to the SECs complaint against him, Musk tweeted on August 7, 2018 that he could take Tesla private at $420 per share a substantial premium to its trading price at the time that funding for the transaction had been secured, and that the only remaining uncertainty was a shareholder vote. The SECs complaint alleged that, in truth, Musk knew that the potential transaction was uncertain and subject to numerous contingencies. Musk had not discussed specific deal terms, including price, with any potential financing partners, and his statements about the possible transaction lacked an adequate basis in fact. According to the SECs complaint, Musks misleading tweets caused Teslas stock price to jump by over six percent on August 7, and led to significant market disruption.

According to the SECs complaint against Tesla, despite notifying the market in 2013 that it intended to use Musks Twitter account as a means of announcing material information about Tesla and encouraging investors to review Musks tweets, Tesla had no disclosure controls or procedures in place to determine whether Musks tweets contained information required to be disclosed in Teslas SEC filings. Nor did it have sufficient processes in place to that Musks tweets were accurate or complete.

Musk and Tesla have agreed to settle the charges against them without admitting or denying the SECs allegations. Among other relief, the settlements require that:

The total package of remedies and relief announced today are specifically designed to address the misconduct at issue by strengthening Teslas corporate governance and oversight in order to protect investors, said Stephanie Avakian, Co-Director of the SECs Enforcement Division.

As a result of the settlement, Elon Musk will no longer be Chairman of Tesla, Teslas board will adopt important reforms including an obligation to oversee Musks communications with investorsand both will pay financial penalties, added Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SECs Enforcement Division. The resolution is intended to prevent further market disruption and harm to Teslas shareholders.

The SECs investigation was conducted by Walker Newell, Brent Smyth, and Barrett Atwood and supervised by Steven Buchholz, Erin Schneider, and Jina Choi in the San Francisco Regional Office and Cheryl Crumpton in the SECs Home Office.

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SEC.gov | Elon Musk Settles SEC Fraud Charges; Tesla ...

Twitter/Screenshot by NPR

Twitter/Screenshot by NPR

The Twitter showdown between Elon Musk and the head of the World Food Programme has made headlines around the world.

In October, David Beasley, head of the U.N. food agency, tweeted a cheeky congratulations to Musk for reportedly earning $36 billion in a single day. "1/6 of your one-day increase would save 42 million lives that are knocking on famine's door," he wrote.

A few days later, Musk tweeted: "If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it."

While Beasley quickly clarified that his earlier tweet referred to feeding "people on the brink of starvation" and not solving world hunger, he invited Musk to meet "anywhere Earth or space" to discuss the potential donation.

So far, Musk has made no commitments to the agency. Still, the conversation prompts the question: How much of a dent would $6 billion make when it comes to feeding millions? After all, WFP raised $8.4 billion last year, yet the global food crisis has only worsened.

In fact, since Musk and Beasley first started their Twitter conversation, the total number of people at risk of famine has risen to 45 million, along with the cost to help them, which now stands at $7 billion, according to the WFP.

"Tens of millions of people are staring into an abyss. We've got conflict, climate change and COVID-19 driving up the numbers of the acutely hungry," said Beasley in a statement this week.

We asked experts in humanitarian aid and global hunger to give their perspective on the $6 billion debate.

Was it fair for Musk to ask the WFP to explain how it planned to spend the $6 billion?

Yes, say the specialists we spoke to. "Although some may see the exchange as frivolous, Musk is right to expect WFP to have a plan for putting the money to good use," says Ian Mitchell, a senior fellow at the think tank Center for Global Development. "International organizations should have specific plans that are clear about the outcomes they will achieve."

Researchers are confident that WFP, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its work, can offer a thorough answer to Musk's query.

"What WFP does, and is good at, is dealing with food crises, emergencies and, if it ever gets that bad, famines," says Steve Wiggins, a research fellow who focuses on humanitarian policy at the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI),

Last year, WFP said it helped provide emergency relief to 115.5 million people in 84 countries. It did so with a massive delivery fleet of 5,600 trucks, 30 ships and 100 planes, owned and operated by WFP, which transports food, workers, storage supplies and other supplies needed to coordinate and execute the operation.

Its 60-year experience in delivering aid helps the agency reach some of the world's hardest-to-reach places. In a May study, Wiggins and Levine looked at what was done to help people in the biggest, most drawn out conflicts over the last three decades from the conflict in northern Uganda, which ended in 2006, to current conflict in Afghanistan.

They concluded that WFP made a difference in these situations but only up to a point. "The scary thing is that so little was done," says Levine but when there was emergency relief, it came in the form of food aid, mostly from WFP.

This assistance, wrote the authors in the paper, "probably protected recipients from unacceptable hardship."

In response to Musk's request for details, Beasley tweeted him the math: "$.43 x 42,000,000 x 365 days = $6.6 billion."

That's how much it would cost to provide one meal a day for one year to this population in need, says WFP. The agency would deliver this "meal" in the form of food aid, cash or vouchers.

The food aid, says WFP, consists of commodities such as rice, maize and high-energy biscuits.

But there's more to food aid than a plate of food.

Keep in mind, says Simon Levine of ODI, it's not entirely accurate to think of 43 cents as just the price of one meal per day per person for a year.

It's the per capita calculation that WFP has made of what it needs to pull off this operation, he adds. So, in addition to the actual food, cash or vouchers, it would likely cover the cost of what it takes to make sure the aid is going to the communities that need it the most and monitoring to make sure the money is well spent.

When you look at the figures this way, says Mitchell, it makes you realize "just how little income the world's poorest have. Half a dollar per person per day can make the difference between life and death."

Some experts want to move away from delivering short-term emergency relief altogether. "WFP says they want to feed 42 million with a meal a day for 365 days," says Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, a professor, director and chair at the African Research Universities Alliance Centre of Excellence in Food Security at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. "What about on Day 367?"

Sibanda argues handouts can make countries overly dependent on aid. Instead, she says, large donations should go toward long-term solutions that address the root causes of famine and hunger for example, teaching farmers better techniques, encouraging average folks to grow nutrient-dense crops for themselves and to sell as well and making sure countries have a stronger social safety net to meet food needs in times of crisis.

Such systemic changes will cost much more than $6 billion, or even the $8.4 billion WFP raised last year. "We've had governments [together] spending upward of $100 billion a year on extreme poverty and hunger, with everyone agreeing it's nowhere near what we need to tackle this problem," says Mitchell.

Despite the debates over the best way to help people on the brink of famine, our sources all agree that $6 billion from Musk could do a lot of good.

For one, it's a pretty impressive amount. "$6 billion would be a very significant single-year charitable contribution for an individual, certainly one of the largest ever," says Mitchell and targeting that sum to assist the world's poorest and hungriest "would likely make the biggest difference to human welfare."

Now, if other billionaires could get on the bandwagon, that would be great, says Levine. "If Jeff Bezos stumped up another $6 billion, that'd be $12 billion, and we could do twice as much."

Joanne Lu is a freelance journalist who covers global poverty and inequity. Her work has appeared in Humanosphere, The Guardian, Global Washington and War is Boring. Follow her on Twitter: @joannelu

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How $6 billion from Elon Musk could make a major dent in fighting global famine : Goats and Soda - NPR

Oh, what fun he has on social media. Photo: Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images

Elon Musk is once again trolling on Twitter and once again, his shenanigans are affecting both his and his companys bottom line. On the latest Pivot podcast, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss the magnates latest strange social-media antics and what might be the motivating force behind them.

Scott Galloway: So my Twitter started blowing up last night. And our producer Lara is the one who gave me the heads-up I went on, and Elon had called me an insufferable numbskull. And I looked up numbskull because I wasnt entirely sure what it meant. It means foolish and stupid. And I think I want your opinion here. I think Im more foolish than stupid. What do you think?

Twice weekly, Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher host Pivot, a New York Magazine podcast about business, technology, and politics.

Kara Swisher: Oh, thats a hard one.

Galloway: Thats a tough one? I think its an easy one.

Swisher: Foolish, for sure.

Galloway: 100 percent.

Swisher: You have said you were stupid about Tesla stock, and Ive pointed it out several times. Like, you were wrong, not stupid.

Galloway: I didnt understand, quite frankly, what was going on. I didnt understand why he and his army of flying monkeys were coming after me.

Swisher: He gets it into his head sometimes.

Galloway:I had put out what I thought was a fairly innocuous tweet saying that a page out of the CEO big-tech playbook is they never want to take responsibility for their actions, including selling stock. And I think whats happening here is that so Elon Musk now has, I think, about $200 billion of Tesla stock. He was given so many options as part of his comp package that when they expire, hell exercise them because theyre hugely in the money.But that triggers a taxable event. The delta between the strike price and what the stock is trading at means he will probably have somewhere between a $5 and $10 billion tax liability. And what he could do easily is borrow against his holdings $10 billion at probably 0.5 percent to pay his tax bill. So he could basically borrow money for free to pay his tax bill.

But heres the thing: Some very smart people who manage his money have said to him, Look, if your stock got cut by 90 percent, Tesla would still be worth more than General Motors and Ford. So we have to model out the possibility that just as your stock has gone up ten times in the last 24 months, it could get cut by 90 percent. And if you had all of this money, and hes probably been borrowing against his money Im sorry, borrowing against the stock for a while if you have $20 billion in debt in your holdings, go from being worth $200 billion to $20 billion, this could be a really, really ugly scenario. So theyve modeled it out. And hes obviously decided and by the way, its the smart thing to do, and its his stock. Hes entitled to sell it. But instead of taking responsibility for saying I want to diversify; I need to pay some taxes, he says, Twitter, you tell me what to do.

Swisher: Yeah. Over the weekend, he put out a Twitter poll asking if he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock. Scott, you tweeted that hes using the Twitter results as a cloud cover to monetize Tesla at prices that he knows arent sustainable without outright telling the market hes lost faith in its valuation although he has said that somewhat. This has happened before. Ive seen it happen before many times.

Galloway: So Lara pointed out and lets just call out the elephant in the room: The sexual tension between the two of us is palpable. Its palpable, I got to be honest. Last night, I did have a sex dream about Elon. I was running my hands through his chest hair. We were in a hermetically sealed container, 30 feet below the Martian surface, recognizing that we were about to die a horrific death either from asteroids or increased radiation or gravitational pull that was melting our bones and neurons. But you know what? We had each other, Kara. We had each other.

Swisher: Im going to take over. Wait a sec. Im going to get away from the weird sex dream you had about Elon. Heres what Elon told me last month hes talking to me, though probably not now. Heres what Elon told me last month at Code regarding his Tesla stock And by the way, Im not Elons mom. He does whatever he wants, so dont blame me.

Audio of Elon Musk clip: I have a bunch of options that are expiring early next year, so Ive got a huge block of options Ill sell in Q4 because I have to or theyll expire. And my top marginal tax rate is 53 percent.

Galloway: Well, okay. But heres the problem and again, another page out of the playbook. Just in time to monetize the wealth of the wealthiest man in the world, hes decided to peace out to Texas. Hes no longer a California resident. He became a resident of Texas in October, just in time to start selling some of that $200 billion. So thats just not true. But you know what happened? I thought my Twitter was going to absolutely go crazy and the trolls were going to come for me. But he decided to take another ten milligrams of CBD. And did you see the tweet he put out to Ron Wyden?

Swisher: That was something else.

Galloway: Okay, so Senator Wyden basically said, well, something along the lines of Maybe you should just pay your taxes.

Swisher: Which is common among politicians. They do that all the time.

Galloway: And you know what? He wrote back Why does your PP look like you just came?

So heres a little bit of color on Senator Ron Wyden. His father fled Nazis. Senator Wyden was a scholar-athlete, which means he is very disciplined and in amazing shape, and he has been reelected four times to the greatest deliberative body on this planet or any other planet. So, Elon, shut the fuck up.

Swisher: Yes, that was not in good taste, I would say. But Twitter is not in good taste.

Galloway: Hes in bad taste. This is not Twitters fault.

Swisher: Nope.

Galloway: What do young people think of our connective tissue, our government, when the wealthiest man in the world starts tweeting at the head of the Senate Finance Committee, which I would argue, on a risk-adjusted basis, isnt great for shareholders, saying, Why does your PP look like you just came? America, everybody. Thats our role model.

Pivot is produced by Lara Naaman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

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The Reasoning Behind That Elon Musk Twitter Poll - New York Magazine