Elon Musk is said to be calling the bosses of noted Tesla critics and voicing his displeasure with their negative opinions online about the company. At least, that is reportedly the case today with one of the company’s most well known critics, the (for now) anonymous “Montana Skeptic”.
Montana Skeptic has been one of the most vocal critics of Tesla and Elon Musk for the better part of the last couple of years. So when he disappeared from Twitter today without explanation, it set off red flags to many Tesla skeptics.
That was until this Twitter post from Quoth the Raven, who has hosted Montana Skeptic several times on his podcast. He tweeted:
Guys – I’m beside myself & before you ask, this is NOT a joke – I just got off the phone with Montana Skeptic. He told me that he voluntarily deleted his Twitter account after Elon Musk personally called his boss to complain. I asked for Montana’s permission to Tweet this. $TSLA
— Quoth the Raven (@QTRResearch) July 23, 2018
The “skeptic” recently appeared on the Quoth the Raven Podcast to voice his skepticism of the company in a debate with HyperChange TV’s Galileo Russell, a well known Tesla bull and investor in the company:
Skeptic has also written a multitude of articles on Seeking Alpha covering the story from a bearish standpoint. Naturally, he has disclosed numerous times that he is short Tesla by owning long-term puts in the name.
If this story is true, it brings fresh attention to Musk’s emotional state and (in)ability to handle criticism. His conduct is totally unbecoming of a $50 billion company CEO and in light of recent grumblings by TSLA shareholders, this move – more appropriate of a Chinese fly-by-night fraudcap CEO – may lead to more harm than good.
The news comes after this weekend’s blockbuster report from the Wall Street Journal, claiming that Tesla was calling suppliers and asking for refunds.
Throughout the past few months, as Elon Musk has been lurching from one PR fiasco to the next (having a meltdown on the Q1 earnings call, calling a Thai sub rescuer a pedophile , being exposed as a donor to a key GOP PAC), amid an exodus of key Tesla executives…
… during which time the Tesla CEO has been far more obsessed with tweeting than “sleeping on the factory floor“…
.. and which has – so far – culminated with an article in which for the first time, a journalist dared call Musk “a total fraud“, investors have been increasingly concerned that Musk’s erratic behavior has been the result of a mounting liquidity crisis for the company which currently is burning roughly $12 million per day…
… even as Tesla’s debt grows and grows and grows.
All those concerns became far more acute following a WSJ report that the company, seemingly facing a liquidity crunch, has asked some suppliers to refund a portion of what the electric-car company has spent previously, an appeal which the WSJ notes “reflects the auto maker’s urgency to sustain operations during a critical production period.” Which is especially odd in light of Musk’s vows that Tesla will “at least be profitable in Q3 and Q4.”
In any event, now that the details of Montana Skeptic’s Twitter departure are known, we wonder if the mainstream media will have anything to say about this.
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