By Cole Aristone

When you hear the name Elon Musk, what comes to mind? You might think of yet another slightly awkward genius who was able to convert a crazy idea into a billion dollar company. You might even think of the billionaire who created the Boring company to dig tunnels under LA because he didn’t like the traffic. For most, however, this household name brings to mind the Tesla luxury electric car company. Elon Musk is tied to the brand he co-founded, and recently, his outlandish comments have tarnished both his and Tesla’s name.

He has made two main accusations which have left me scratching my head due to the lack of evidence behind them. Firstly, he accused one of the divers who saved the Thai soccer team of being a pedophile. On top of this, he fabricated the idea that Tesla shares were privately secured at $420. Elon Musk is a billionaire tyrant who fails to see the consequences these massive claims have not only on him, but the Tesla brand name he is attached to.

One of Musk’s first main mistakes was his “child bride” accusations against Vernon Unsworth, a British diver who helped rescue the Thai soccer team that was trapped in a cave. Like most accusations, it all started with a tweet from Musk referring to Unsworth as “pedo guy” after boasting his mini-sub pod could have saved the soccer team. He has recently ‘backed up’ these claims by saying the area Unsworth moved to in Thailand was known for “child sex-trafficking”and he was there to marry a girl who was 12 at the time. Musk is now being sued by Unsworth for defamation in hopes that there will be repercussions for these mindless accusations. One of my main problems with the allegation is that he did so out of emotion and not factual evidence. It is clear that Musk acted out because his mini-sub was refused for the mission. This simply proves that Musk connects his personal feelings with business, a quality that no CEO should have.

Another, more costly claim Musk has made came from yet another tweet that if Tesla were to go private it would be priced at $420 a share and that there was funding secured. The SEC did an investigation into the logistics of the financial transaction and found that there was no basis to the claims. The SEC announced the punishment for these claims on September 29^th. Musk and Tesla have to pay $20 million each for the claim which caused Tesla’s stock to jump 6 percent on August 7^th. On top of the financial repercussions, Musk has been forced to step down as Tesla’s Chairman and he cannot be re-elected for the next 3 years. Not only does Tesla have to find a new independent chairman and two new directors, but they also have to appoint a board committee to regulate and control Musk’s communications to prevent something like this from happening again. This action by Musk has not only caused financial troubles for Tesla, but it has also forced them to reconstruct the management of the entire company.

A common argument against this viewpoint is that although Musk has made some mistakes recently, they have not affected the Tesla brand. The securities fraud situation cost Tesla $20 million, a small fee for the multibillion-dollar company. As well, Musk is still the CEO of Tesla and has not been removed from the company entirely. It is important to note, however, that the SEC had originally wanted to ban Musk from running Tesla. It is not impossible to imagine that if Musk has another slip up he could be separated from Tesla resulting in massive damage to the company. While I agree that the financial cost from the fraud is not large for Tesla, it is the loss in brand name value that cannot be calculated. Musk is tied to Tesla’s brand name, so any mistakes he makes are ultimately the mistakes of Tesla.

Overall, Elon Musk has proven to be yet another billionaire using Twitter as the medium to project the first thing that comes to mind into public view. Musk should stick to what he is good at, making cars and flamethrowers, while leaving a PR team to deal with his social media statements. If he does this, then Tesla will continue to be prosperous and will no doubt grow in the future. If, however, Musk continues to act as he has in the past months, I see a very different story for the Tesla Automotive company. Elon Musk is a toddler with a loaded handgun, which if fired for yet a third time, could lead to the downfall of Tesla.