I don’t really see the problem with the pot smoking honestly, why is anyone wound up about that? Do you care if he drinks or smokes cigarettes? What about his workout routine?
I don't have a problem with drinking and am sure most CEOs drink at networking events considered part of their job, but I'd think a CEO showing off by downing a couple of shots on a comedian's podcast was a bit of a liability, even if it wasn't his idea. More so if their leadership was already under scrutiny and one of their businesses was entirely reliant on the patronage of an abstinence-obsessed government that wouldn't let their contractors' staff anywhere near their projects if they'd been known to have touched alcohol recently. And there's no defending the lame 420 joke which fits in the same bracket (the sort of joke that was a pretty pathetic way of getting lunchtime detention as a teenager, never mind a hefty fine and stripped of a measure of control of one of your companies). You can be 100% pro legalisation and in favour of CEOs smoking pot every day if it works for them and still think Musk's acted like an absolute idiot over it.
>I'd think a CEO showing off by downing a couple of shots on a comedian's podcast was a bit of a liability.
You need to lighten up. Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone, if anything he garnered interest for selling more cars to the 18 million people that watched that podcast. If the CEO of <any fortune 500 company> was on the same podcast, do you think it would have been anywhere close to as entertaining?
> Musk doesn't owe anything to anyone, if anything he garnered interest for selling more cars to the 18 million people that watched that podcast
He owes a lot to his shareholders, and wiped 9% off the value of Tesla with that podcast. If he has to be entertaining as well as reassuring them he's also laser focused on solving production challenges - and CEO of an engineering company is definitely a job description where being dull is no disadvantage - there were certainly better ways of doing it.
No he doesn't owe anything much to the stock holders either. They put in money knowing he was at the helm now if they have problem with how he behaves they can take out their money or buy enough voting shares that they can remove him.
More relevant to SpaceX: It was notable that the CEO of a defense contractor publicly uses drugs, since that sector is fairly strict about these things. Smoking weed is a problem for security clearances etc?
Even though the acts themselves aren't that different, smoking a cigarette on camera doesn't potentially cause him to lose his security clearance (which could make him less effective at his job).
Regardless of how you feel about smoking pot the CEO of a publicly traded company is expected to be prudent enough to avoid doing things that are federally illegal on camera with the beforehand knowledge that the footage will be made public.
I personally don't care what Elon, or anyone does in his spare time but smoking pot on TV (or podcast, basically the same thing since both are going to be broadcast to viewers) shows a willingness to take risks with the wrong amount of upsides relative to their downsides and wall street doesn't like that.
The part of it in discussion was, because of its content.
Everything that is recorded and available outside of a narrowly controlled group is effectively national TV, in that if you do something that would be newsworthy, that's where it's going to end up.
Anyone in a PR-sensitive role, including any CEO, ought to be aware of that.
The comment I replied to was edited after I replied. Musk didn’t smoke weed on a national broadcast but I agree he should be aware his actions anywhere could be reported at a national level.
Perhaps the coke/stripper parties and Insider Trading on Wall ST would have been a better approach. I'm sure the SEC would have found that more appropriate and acceptable.
