Musk v Zuckerberg: Opposing views on America's shutdown
The technology giants of Silicon Valley are among the few winners from the global pandemic. Their share prices are holding up or even surging ahead as investors bet they will come out of the crisis even stronger.
But Covid-19 has also shone a spotlight on two tech tycoons with radically different attitudes to the battle to control the virus: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
The contrast was seen in the way the two men treated what is usually the sober, perhaps even somnolent, environment of an analysts' conference call after their latest financial results.
For the last few weeks, Tesla's mercurial founder has been tweeting in increasingly intemperate fashion.
First he expressed scepticism about the threat from the coronavirus. Then he condemned what he saw as the excessive measures to combat it.
The lockdown in California has meant the closure of his main production plant in Fremont, and Mr Musk wants it open again.
"Bravo Texas!," he tweeted yesterday, linking to a report about the state easing restrictions.
check for more detail:- https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52487486?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/technology&link_location=live-reporting-correspondentOpinion: Musk vs. Zuck: A tale of two CEOs acting much differently during a pandemic
Facebook and Tesla both reported earnings and had conference calls that discussed the effects of COVID-19 on Wednesday, but the results were very different.
Mark Zuckerberg has spent much of the past two years facing widespread vitriol about Facebook Inc.’s huge privacy lapses, while Elon Musk has bathed in rabid fans’ lionization of him as a genius who will change the world.
When confronted with the most dangerous crisis either Facebook FB, +5.02% or Tesla Inc. TSLA, +2.37% has faced as public companies, those roles reversed Wednesday on their respective earnings conference calls. Zuckerberg appeared to be the levelheaded, science-based executive who thinks through complex problems, while Musk sounded more like Mr. Burns from “The Simpsons” or a comic-book villain who does not care about preventing COVID-19 from spreading if it means keeping his factory closed.
The contrast mirrors the ongoing debate in the U.S. about when to open up the country to avoid a total economic collapse without endangering citizens who are more vulnerable to the coronavirus that is spreading across the globe. The San Francisco Bay Area — where Facebook and Tesla are based — announced an extension of its shelter-in-place Wednesday that will allow for more freedoms beyond the essential activities allowed currently. That wasn’t enough for Musk, who had already proclaimed “Free America Now” and congratulated Texas for its plans to reopen some businesses in a series of tweets in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. The executive — who stands to reap a huge windfall if Tesla can maintain its current market capitalization, which could depend on his Fremont factory reopening — continued the rant on a conference call with analysts Wednesday.
Check for more detail:- https://www.marketwatch.com/story/musk-vs-zuck-a-tale-of-two-ceos-acting-much-differently-during-a-pandemic-2020-04-29
Comments