Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times describes Elon Musk as full of brio and spin:
“He’s done amazing things, but at the same time, he’s not a straight-shooter,” says Darryl Siry, Tesla’s former senior vice president for sales and marketing. “It’s a reality distortion field and it’s a powerful one. He gives the facts to fit the narrative he wants out there.”
When your sales & marketing guy is uncomfortable with how far you stretch the truth, well, you’re probably taking things too far.
Tesla isn’t making money, and it’s not clear when it’s going to start:
In 2009, Tesla lost $55.7 million on revenue of just $111.9 million. It faces a period without significant sales revenue because it plans to stop selling the current version of the Roadster in 2011 and will not start selling the next generation until at least a year after the Model S is out.
Elon’s brother, Kimbal, calls him the double-down king:
In addition to his Tesla investment, Mr. Musk says he has funneled $100 million into SpaceX and $10 million into SolarCity; the total of $185 million is nearly all his proceeds from the sale of PayPal to eBay. (He sold $24 million worth of his Tesla stock, in part, he says, because he recently ran out of cash.)