Trump Feud a ‘Disaster' for Musk, Ross Gerber Says
Live on Bloomberg TV
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00:00Ra ra. You know, there's a lot of talk and I know we're going to have a lot of fun, of course, with this public spat, but there is material damage here when you look at what happened to the shares and more importantly, you saw the bids higher and some of that, I guess the potential would be competitors, not necessarily the Tesla, but the StarLink and Space X, like AC, like EchoStar. What do you make of this? Yeah, this is a disaster for Musk. I don't know if I can spin it in a positive way because it's just so beyond any intelligent businessman's behavior would be. I can't imagine after putting Trump in there that he would then turn Trump into an enemy of all things because he's still the president of the United States. And Elon just tweeted something like, Well, I'm going to be around for another 40 years and he'll only be around for another three and a half. And I think that's really ignorant thinking because, you know, Trump is president of United States, whether we like it or not. And and Elon's going to have to live with this for quite some time, and it could be very detrimental to his companies. And this brings up a good question or just about leadership in general. There's been a lot of talk when, you know, with this new administration how CEOs were able to navigate. And we've seen a lot of CEOs do it. Well, you know, for better or for worse, a lot of them have gotten pats on the back for the way that they've courted this administration. Understand that for better or for worse, these are the people in power and you have to at least appease them to some extent. And I do wonder about the leadership at Tesla and the idea that he's making this much more personal and not understanding that he has a duty not just to himself, but to all the stakeholders in his companies to find a way to be cooperative with this government in some way or another, particularly given how much his business depends on government contracts. Correct. And obviously Elon isn't functioning to the benefit of his shareholders and hasn't been for many years. And you know, you can take it any way you want, whether it's the purchase of Twitter, the, you know, A.I. and now this whole political disaster. None of this has been good for Tesla shareholders. And I've been saying this now for years. The board of directors is so bad at Tesla. And let me tell you, there was just a letter that's as many shareholders from institutions and pension funds had written the board of directors about Elon Musk and reigning in this kind of behavior. And I can't assume that this isn't going to lead to massive shareholder lawsuits against the Board of Directors and Tesla for the loss in value from this behavior, which is clearly detrimental to its shareholders. Why not make the change? Look, I understand that he has kind of a singular identity with this company, but why not just move him to like a chairman role or something and bring in a real operational person? I mean, you think about the success that Space X has, and a lot of people talk about that primarily because he's not really in there making the day to day decisions. He actually has someone competent running that. And I think that's why a lot of people, quite frankly, are champing at the bit for that company to go public. Isn't it now time he's been at the helm of Tesla for so long and you've seen the damage over the last couple of years, why not just make that switch now? Yeah, well, the next is going to be the damage to space X because status X relies almost 100% on governments around the world and the US government to fund it. And this is an easy target because we don't need to go to Mars, that's for sure. And so who's going to pay for all this stuff? And you know, the truth is that Space X valuation was probably cut in half today because of this behavior. Whether Space X investors will realize that on the short or medium term, because it's a private company, it's insulated from the stock market. But this is, you know, devastating to Space X as well. Hey, I'm so sorry. I just cut you off. Yeah. We're actually getting some additional news on Tesla right now. The share is extending their drop out of the cash session. Now in after hours trade down 2%. The headline is that SpaceX X will begin decommissioning Dragon spacecraft. And Elon Musk in a post on X is saying, and I'm going to quote him directly in light of the president's statement about cancellation of my government contracts at SpaceX X, we will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately. I'm actually a little stunned by this, not just that he did it, but why do this so quickly right now? I mean, this is all just transpired over a matter of hours. And now you're basically saying he's decommissioning one of their flagship projects. Am I missing? Somebody is needed. Somebody needs to come in and get him off the phone and get him to stop tweeting. There's clearly no, you know, control over what's happening to the what is the dismantling of the musk empire in real time as we're watching it? This somebody needs to stop this guy, whether I'm not going to assume he's on drugs or not on drugs, but somebody has got to stop it. Yeah, well, let's not go there. But. But who's going to stop him? I mean, I'm looking at the board. Nine people on this board, at least two of them are. Well, one's him and obviously his brother. You got Murdoch. You've got a couple of other people like Kathleen Wilson Thompson, and you got, of course, Jeff Straubel on there. You have a couple of respected names here, but I. I just wonder, is this the type of board that can actually push back? Where is the pressure going to come from? No, no. The board of directors of Tesla is the weakest group of individuals that have ever stepped foot on a board. Okay. I can't be more direct about the fraud that this board is. You know, it's just embarrassment to public companies across the globe that it exists in this manner. And this Chipotle, the guy who just got on the board the other day, poor guy. You know, I realize that when I was thinking about running for the board, what a bad idea that was. So, like, I reversed that idea, you know, pretty quickly in dealing with what was going to be dealt with. So the board is going to do anything. Nobody's going to protect Tesla shareholders. And and the way you protect yourself is by selling stock. And that's I personally sold some Tesla stock today. And and you know we're been sellers for years and continue to be sellers of Tesla.
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