Corporate Integrity Project

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, seems to have reached cult status with green ideologues, as well as with many in the media. Musk’s name often goes hand in hand with descriptive monikers like “visionary” and “genius.” Of course, what Musk is really a genius at is getting politicians to fund his private businesses ventures with taxpayer money so they don’t have to make a profit.

It might be time to step back and ponder just how genius Musk’s latest idea is; which is for Tesla to compete with Ford’s best selling F-series trucks by offering up an electric pickup truck.

According to Businessinsider.com, Musk claims that Tesla may have an electric pickup truck to compete with Ford’s F150 in five years. Musk’s bold dream comes to light at just around the same time as his even bolder dream of developing an electric, supersonic jet. Neither of Musk’s two latest visions seems … Read More ➡

Fires, faulty drive units, financial losses and stock price deflation marked Tesla Motors news in a week that seemed as bad as the last couple of years were good.

Fortunately for CEO Elon Musk and his support staff he’s mastered the art of celebri-preneur showmanship that he’s built enough standing with the media to endure a really bad week. The multi-billionaire who’s dazzled with innovation at Paypal, SpaceX and SolarCity will be permitted his stumbles because of his track record and his self-assurance. Henrik Fisker, whose taxpayer-backed luxury electric auto company didn’t get nearly the same favor, must be jealous.

But even Fisker Automotive didn’t suffer three vehicle fires in the space of six weeks, like Tesla’s Model S just did. The latest occurred Wednesday afternoon near Nashville.  The Tennessee Highway Patrol told Associated Press that the car’s driver ran over a tow hitch on Interstate 24. … Read More ➡

General Motors had another disappointing month of sales for its much-hyped green wonder-car in October. Sales for the Chevy Volt plunged over 31 percent from last year, down to 2,022 units for the month. To put that number in perspective, Toyota sells that many Toyota Camrys in about two days. Or, GM is selling less than one Volt per Chevy dealership per month.

Despite the dismal sales figures, the loss to taxpayers for federal tax credits of $7,500 per vehicle that go to the wealthy buyers of Volts tallies out to $15,165,000 in October. If GM had come anywhere close to its initial lofty sales goals for President Obama’s favorite car (remember, he’s promised to buy one in three more years!) the tax bill would have been ten times the amount. I guess this is one instance where taxpayers can be thankful that GM’s false hope for the Volt did … Read More ➡

Entrepreneurs in industries tied to the energy efficiency gambit, justified by the climate change House of Cards, all have the same false bravado: they are “game changers” and “market leaders” (for products nobody wants); all their squandered revenues are “investments;” their technological breakthroughs are always “just around the corner;” and it just takes one more round of mandates/grants/loans/tax breaks to achieve viability in the free market.

It’s true of renewable energy and electric vehicles, and as Cree Inc. CEO Chuck Swoboda (in photo with President Obama) revealed last week, it’s true of the alternative light bulb industry too. In a shareholder meeting at the company’s Durham, N.C. headquarters, he boasted about his marketing acumen that he says will persuade the public to embrace Cree’s light-emitting diode (LED) technology and abandon the traditional light bulb – which consumers will soon have no choice about. The meeting featured some new Cree television … Read More ➡

Tesla’s once-Teflon Tony Stark Elon Musk, the adored Paypal/SpaceX/electric-car innovator who’s been showered with unmitigated media praise and highly inflated stock values, has another lithium ion battery fire to explain.

This one happened after a Model S crash in Mexico. The last one happened less than a month ago in Kent, Wash. Since then Tesla’s share price has fallen from $193.90 on Sept. 30 to $160.58 this afternoon. The irrational exuberance that made the electric automaker the darling of Wall Street has now become merely excitable, although still unjustifiably so. Even Musk himself told Bloomberg last week, “The stock price that we have is more than we have any right to deserve.”

While the fanboy fave exhibited a measure of humility about Tesla’s stock market prestige, the two fires have not moved the needle in that respect. The official stance the company took in both cases … Read More ➡

Last month, I wrote about pressure on state pension funds, many of which are underfunded and are facing immense pressure to chase higher returns. I profiled a $125 million investment made by the New Mexico Educational Retirement Board (NMERB) into Gramercy, a Connecticut-based hedge fund.

As we showed last month, there were some gaps between what Gramercy disclosed to NMERB and what we found in official records. Now Gramercy is making big news as a potential facilitator of a settlement between Argentina and holdout creditors.  According to news reports, Gramercy and other bondholders who took Argentina’s 2010 bond exchange are pushing a settlement.

Apparently this has been in the works for a while, according to a presentation Gramercy made to New Hampshire’s retirement fund in 2012. Click here to download a 47-page pdf version. We obtained this via New Hampshire’s Right-to-Know law. Note the detail on page 22 on Gramercy’s … Read More ➡

The past month has brought much confusion and concern for General Motors’ shareholders regarding the most important and profitable segment of sales for the company. As the company prepares to report earnings for the third quarter this week, media reports are still unclear on just what is going on with GM’s new truck lineup; specifically pertaining to the reasons behind the disappointing sales figures that were reported for the month of September when Ford’s truck offerings left them in the dust.

While GM’s Obama-appointed management spun the story (claiming supply could not keep up with demand) to some in the media who are gullible enough to print the misinformation without question, some GM dealers were more honest with their assessment.

GM’s management has lots of experience when it comes to trying to deceptively explain away poor sales of much-hyped vehicles. The Chevy Volt has never lived up to … Read More ➡

Last week it was Walmart CEO Mike Duke’s duty to find an explanation for continuing declines in same store sales, as the company hosted its 20th Annual Meeting for the Investment Community on Tuesday.

Despite the fact that the most recent quarterly report ended in July and brought a surprising (to analysts) .3 percent drop for the second quarter, when a one percent gain was expected, Duke cited the two-week old government shutdown and a “tough and unpredictable global economy” as reasons for the poor performance.

“It should come as no surprise that the government shutdown is on the minds of our U.S. customers,” Duke told his audience. “As you would expect, we’re following the situation very closely.”

Of course the shutdown came long after the second quarter reports, so there had to be other explanations.

“The competition is also tough,” Duke said. “I see it when I … Read More ➡