Just like Trump, Musk deliberately does not pay his bills and regularly rips off small vendors. This pattern of behavior has been outlined in great detail over time in the Politics forum. This issue with Musk not paying his bills extends to Tesla. Since Tesla is a public company this should be of concern to shareholders. Oil and gas supplier says Tesla is ‘refusing to pay’ $2 million in past-due bills – and that chaotic staffing has only made it worse https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...ly-made-it-worse/ar-AA1E4tzX?ocid=msedgdhphdr A Texas-based energy supplier says Tesla is “refusing to pay” over $2 million it owes for fuel deliveries to its Austin manufacturing plant – with some transactions dating to more than two years ago – and that the electric carmaker’s chaotic internal processes have only served to make matters even worse. Sun Coast Resources, which is headquartered in Houston and operates in 49 U.S. states, accuses Tesla of having floated “a myriad of procedural reasons it has not paid,” according to a breach of contract lawsuit obtained by The Independent. “Tesla's only reason for not paying Sun Coast is that Sun Coast has allegedly not complied with its requirements for invoice submittals,” the company’s complaint states. “To the contrary, Sun Coast has jumped through all of Tesla's proverbial hoops and provided all the documentation Tesla has requested, often multiple times, and Tesla continues to delay and make excuses as to why it has not paid for products that it knows it received.” Adding to Sun Coast’s ongoing frustration, the complaint says Tesla “has had constant personnel turnover and passed Sun Coast off from person to person who only conjures up some new reason as to why Tesla has not paid.” Still, according to the complaint, which was filed April 16 in Harris County Circuit Court, Sun Coast has duly “responded to all of the different Tesla personnel involved and submitted the requested information to Tesla in every format requested.” A Tesla spokesperson did not respond Friday to a request for comment. Messages sent to the attorneys representing Sun Coast Resources in the case went unreturned. Tesla has faced fierce blowback from consumers worldwide in the wake of CEO Elon Musk’s anointment as “First Buddy” to President Donald Trump. The mercurial billionaire has crowed gleefully about the draconian cuts his so-called Department of Government Efficiency has made to federal agencies and programs, while purging seniors from the Social Security rolls, eliminating federal funding for cancer research and putting nearly 300,000 federal workers on the unemployment line. As a result, Tesla dealerships have been firebombed, Tesla vehicles have been vandalized and Tesla sales have seen their biggest decline in history. Last month, Tesla was accused in a federal class-action suit of manipulating its odometers to make their warranties expire sooner. On Wednesday, Musk angrily denied reports that the Tesla board is seeking a new CEO amid concerns his political involvement has damaged Tesla’s reputation and stock price. Tesla began construction of its Austin “Gigafactory,” which builds the Model Y and the Cybertruck, in July 2020, according to the complaint filed by Sun Coast Resources. “While Tesla designs, manufactures and sells electric vehicles and battery energy storage devices, it required the use of heavy equipment, which required diesel, gasoline and other fuel products, to construct its new Texas facility,” the complaint explains. So, in August 2020, Sun Coast and Tesla signed a master services agreement for fuel deliveries to the site, which is the size of 100 professional soccer fields, the complaint goes on. In December 2022, Sun Coast agreed to renegotiate its pricing and expand the fuel deliveries to include Tesla headquarters and Tesla’s nearby logistics park, according to the complaint. “The typical process included a Tesla representative requesting the delivery of the fuel, and Sun Coast making the requisite delivery,” the complaint states. “Tesla required that Sun Coast invoice on a weekly basis so the invoices that were submitted to Tesla would include multiple deliveries on one invoice… Most of the time, Tesla would provide a purchase order number to Sun Coast for the product after it was delivered.” In all, between August 2020 and August 2024, Tesla paid Sun Coast a total of $20,721,923.06 for the fuel it purchased, the complaint says. “However,” it continues, “Tesla did not pay for all of the fuel delivered by Sun Coast.” While Tesla “has never denied receiving the fuel,” it has offered a raft of justifications for its failure to make good on an outstanding debt of $2,638,777.55, according to the complaint. A spreadsheet Sun Coast filed as an exhibit in court shows unpaid invoices from as far back as January 2023. “Most recently, Sun Coast and its counsel had a joint call with numerous Tesla representatives and its counsel,” the complaint states, noting that Sun Coast, “[o]nce again… walked the Tesla representatives through the information to show that it has the necessary back up for its invoices to be paid.” Still, according to the complaint, even after Tesla promised to respond “within days to the information Sun Coast provided and pay at least some of the invoices, [the company] is still refusing to pay for the fuel that it ordered and received.” “Sun Coast filed this lawsuit to recover the money it is owed by Tesla,” the complaint says. Sun Coast is now asking the court to force Tesla to pay its $2.6 million bill, plus court costs and attorneys’ fees.
In 15 Minutes in the Middle of the Night, Elon Musk and Tesla Just Taught a Key Leadership Lesson (Whether They Meant to Or Not) https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/...-lesson-whether-they-meant-to-or-not/91184109 What happens to your business if something happens to you? Let’s catch up on the last few days of drama with Elon Musk and Tesla, and then move quickly to the crucial lesson you should take to heart in whatever business you run: First, the background. Unless you’ve been lucky enough to have been on a digital detox for the past six months, you know that Musk has devoted most of his efforts in 2025 to his “Department of Government Efficiency” effort in the Trump administration, as opposed to Tesla. Last month, Tesla reported very disappointing earnings, and Musk said that he planned to scale back on DOGE – to one or two days a week. Was that enough for Tesla? Maybe not, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported that Tesla’s board had started the process of finding a replacement. Not true! exclaimed Tesla and Musk on X, in middle-of-the-night tweets posted 15 minutes apart (at 1:23 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. ET Thursday). Musk called the report “DELIBERATELY FALSE” and Robyn Denhol, Tesla’s board chair wrote: “The CEO of Tesla is Elon Musk and the Board is highly confident in his ability to continue executing on the exciting growth plan ahead.” ‘I’ve got too much else to think about now’ Let’s take Tesla and Musk at their word and assume there’s no current plan to look for a replacement. But does that mean there’s really no succession plan at Tesla? What would happen if Tesla really did have to replace Musk in a hurry? This isn’t exactly the first time that people have asked this. You can go all the way back to Musk’s PayPal days, when he once went on vacation, contracted malaria, and spent 10 days in intensive care. As a result, he reportedly had to take out a $100 million life insurance policy benefiting PayPal, which gives you a nice estimate of what people thought the value of the “key person risk” of having Musk in a leadership position was back then. Maybe he learned his lesson? But there’s the meeting he had in 2022 with a group of estate-planning experts who wanted him to focus on his massive wealth. “I’ve got too much else to think about now,” Musk declared before ending the meeting, according to Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography, “Elon Musk.” What’s more, in 2023, an activist Tesla shareholder tried to force issue at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting, but the board resisted and efforts to put succession planning on the record failed. Musk also announced in a Trump cabinet meeting earlier this year that he’s been getting death threats since working on the DOGE effort. ‘Key Elon Risk’ On the one hand, if Tesla doesn’t want to acknowledge searching for a possible Musk replacement, and if Musk wants to step aside unofficially from the company sometimes while running other companies or heading up a massive government effort, that’s their business. Tesla is a public company. “Key Elon risk” is there for anyone to see, and people can choose to invest, or buy Tesla products, or work for the company or do business with it accordingly. On the other hand, Tesla is roughly the eighth largest company in America, worth just under $900 billion as of Friday evening, with billions upon billions of retail investors’ and pension funds’ wealth invested. That’s a lot of risk for a lot of people, even if many of them might not realize it. I hope even people who don’t like Musk or who oppose his work at DOGE or elsewhere don’t wish him harm or wish for his demise. But, if PayPal thought the “key person risk” for Elon was worth $100 million years ago, how could we even put a dollar amount on it at Tesla today? Your company’s own worst enemy I’m writing this on the eve of the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, as Warren Buffett is taking the next step in one of the more graceful succession planning strategies we’ve seen, handing the baton deliberately to his heir as CEO, Greg Abel. Comparisons spring to mind as well of how deftly Steve Jobs managed succession at Apple. I’ve asked Musk and Tesla on X if there’s any succession plan at Tesla, but have had no reply. However, this whole episode over the last few months offers a vivid illustration of why you should consider key person risk and a succession plan in whatever business you run. I sincerely hope you’re not running around with a platoon of armed bodyguards the way Musk does, talking about threats on your life, and building a polarizing persona that leads people to say you’ve become your company’s own worst enemy. But I also hope you can look at the never-ending chaos at Tesla, and have the presence of mind to say: Let’s try to avoid that. The solution and the lesson? You owe it to the people counting on you to think through what will happen if you’re no longer able to continue. Figure it out, work it through—and let the people who care about you and your business know the plan. Preferably not via a couple of middle-of-the-night tweets.
Not only has Tesla started refusing to take-in Tesla trucks as trade-ins -- we are seeing other local dealerships refusing to take-in any type of Tesla as a trade-in stating they effectively cannot re-sell a Tesla even in the wholesale market. Tesla Dealers Are Now Refusing Cybertruck Trade-Ins, Sources Report https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgor...refusing-cybertruck-trade-ins-sources-report/