The Tesla saga continued on Monday afternoon, and it now appears that an increasingly frazzled Elon Musk will be putting his Mars colonization plans on hold.
Just before the close, the Information’s Amir Efrati reported that amid the ongoing Model 3 production woes, Tesla is shuffling its leadership after once again missing Model 3 production targets, which Jalopnik earlier reported would be just above 2,000, well below both the original and revised production estimates of 5,000 and 2,500 respectively.
As a result, Tesla CEO Elon Musk – perhaps bored of tweeting April fool’s jokes or dressing up as Ironman – has taken charge of production of the company’s flagship electric sedan, pushing aside former Apple executive Doug Field. Field, Tesla’s Senior Vice President of Engineering, will instead focus on “vehicle engineering” in what appears to be a demotion, while Musk focuses on Model 3 production.
“Model 3 production is the highest priority at Tesla, so Elon is focusing his time there while Doug focuses on vehicle engineering,” a Tesla spokesperson told the Information.
And this is where it turned bizarre, because moments after the report, Musk tweeted at Efrati “Can’t believe you’re even writing about this. My job as CEO is to focus on what’s most critical, which is currently Model 3 production.”
In fairness, with his recent behavior, Musk – who has been far more focused in recent days on the occasional SpaceX launch and colonizing Mars – could have fooled anyone. The CEO continued: “Doug, who I regard as one of the world’s most talented engineering execs, is focused on vehicle engineering.”
Can’t believe you’re even writing about this. My job as CEO is to focus on what’s most critical, which is currently Model 3 production. Doug, who I regard as one of the world’s most talented engineering execs, is focused on vehicle engineering.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2018
So how does Musk envision his role in the immediate future?
Conveniently, he answered in the very next tweet, in which he said that while Doug’s job now is to focus on the engineering side of things, “so we don’t design cars that are crazy hard to build” Musk will, in the spirit of “divide & conquer” get “back to sleeping at factory. Car biz is hell …”
About a year ago, I asked Doug to manage both engineering & production. He agreed that Tesla needed eng & prod better aligned, so we don’t design cars that are crazy hard to build. Right now, tho, better to divide & conquer, so I’m back to sleeping at factory. Car biz is hell …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2018
Meanwhile, Efrati got also involved, and in response to Musk’s original tweet, asked “How about we set up an interview and you can tell me, among other things, what you think is worth writing about?”
At this point, the tweeting CEO had a quick response: “Uhh, hello, I need to build cars”
Uhh, hello, I need to build cars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2018
This, from the CEO who in just the past 24 hours has tweeted around 20 times, and sparked shareholder outrage with an “April Fool’s joke” in which he made fun of Tesla going “bankwupt“, and which was one of the numerous catalysts for the today’s price plunge in both Tesla stock and bonds.
Predictably, one of the responses to Musk’s rhetorical question was the following:
then why are you tweeting
— Ryan Mac (@RMac18) April 2, 2018
A more serious response did emerge: “Time for a COO?”
— Christian Prenzler (@clprenz) April 2, 2018
For the benefit of TSLA shareholders, who are suddenly realizing that in addition to his creative genius, Musk also carries the pernicious seed of his own self-destruction in him, we hope the company considers this proposal.
Until then, here is Musk’s own impression of what “sleeping at factory” will look like.
via RSS https://ift.tt/2In01Zn Tyler Durden