DUMB AND DUMBER: Elon Musk, Aaron Rodgers, and a Very Bad Zestimate
An Embarrassment of Riches
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I have a special Elon-o-Mania stuffed inside Dumb and Dumber this week. Two columns for the (free) price of one!
But first… a roundup of what went wrong in the world of business.
DUMB — MATTEL TOYS WITH NEW HIRES
It’s hard to find workers these days, and many people want to work from home. “WFH” may even increase productivity and profits, but Mattel isn’t quite sure all of you are up to the job.
Business Insider reports that the toy company had a job posting for a WFH seasonal customer service rep which included this:
“There may be periodic unplanned visits from a Supervisor during scheduled work shifts.”
Mattel confirmed to Insider that the job description was accurate, but the toymaker added that the phrase has since been removed, and no unplanned visits ever occurred.
If you don’t think your employees can work from home effectively, then don’t let them work from home. Don’t treat them like you’re an agent of Child Protective Services.
DUMBER — AARON, GREEN BAY, AND THE NFL
You may think Aaron Rodgers is a self-centered and entitled idiot for refusing a vaccine while breathing all over his teammates, or you may think he’s a champion for “my body, my choice.”
Or both!
But what is clearly dumb is that he violated the Packers’ Covid rules, and the team let him.
Rodgers and another unvaccinated player attended a Halloween party, which was against the rules, and the team knew it. He also held a news conference without a mask — against the rules — and the team didn’t stop him.
So the NFL fined the Packers $300,000, and Rodgers was slapped with the underwhelming penalty of $15,000. The fines happened after ESPN reported that executives at other teams blew a gasket. The teams complained that Aaron Rodgers gets special treatment.
I’m shocked, shocked!, to find favoritism is going on here!
DUMBERER — ROGER STONE
Roger Stone never disappoints.
Follow his logic, if you can.
Stone is threatening to 1) run against incumbent Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2022 gubernatorial race in order to 2) defeat DeSantis by splitting the GOP vote, but he’ll only run if 3) DeSantis doesn’t promise to not run against Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race.
“Look, I have no illusions about my ability to become elected governor of Florida,” Stone told the CBS station in Miami. “That’s not the point here.”
The point is that Gov. DeSantis should serve out his term if re-elected, Stone says. “What I don’t want to see is for him to be re-elected and then immediately abandon Florida to run off and run for president, particularly if he’s running against Donald Trump.”
My favorite headline on this story came from that hotbed of radical socialism, The Palm Beach Post:
“Trump's Roger 'Paulie Walnuts' Stone delivers warning to out-of-line capo DeSantis”
Photo credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Actually there’s some logic behind Stone’s threat to run. It makes sense that he loves Trump more than the GOP, because Trump’s pardon kept him out of prison.
However, does he hate DeSantis so much he’s willing to see the next Florida governor be a Democrat? Say what you will about the incumbent, but Florida’s rate of job growth is faster than the national average.
DUMBERERER — IT’S NOT NICE TO MESS WITH WARREN BUFFETT
Warren Buffett is not a stupid man. But even his investment conglomerate was duped by a solar company to the tune of $340 million.
Jeff Carpoff had a mobile solar generator business called DC Solar in California. He somehow managed to convince Buffett and others to give him $1 billion, according to federal prosecutors. (Sherwin-Williams was another investor, because paint and solar generators go together like... nothing.)
Carpoff exaggerated the number of generators he’d built, then used new investments to pay off previous investors in a ginormous Ponzi scheme.
He and his soon-to-be-sentenced wife also used some of the money to buy a minor league baseball team and purchase over 148 luxury cars worth over $8 million, according to the feds, including a 1978 Firebird once owned by Burt Reynolds. “They also bought luxury real estate in California, Nevada, the Caribbean and Mexico; a subscription private jet service; a suite at a professional football stadium; and jewelry.”
Go big, and go to prison. Don’t you think someone will notice?
Carpoff pled guilty and got his comeuppance this week with a whopping 30-year prison sentence.
Hell hath no fury like a Warren scorned.
DUMBERERERER — ELON-O-MANIA
So much to talk about, but I’ll keep it short (though I still won’t short Tesla).
Dumb: Telling the world that you’re thinking of selling 10% of your Tesla shares if Twitter agrees you should, which immediately sends the share price down, harming fellow Tesla shareholders who are not the world’s richest man.
This is after you tweeted you did not have a contract with Hertz, which also sent shares down.
Hmmm, does someone want Tesla shares to fall?
Also dumb: More strange and angry tweets, like telling a U.S. Senator his urine smells like semen (at least I think that’s what Musk was trying to say).
This is on top of mocking his archenemies at the UAW, tweeting, “New UAW slogan: ‘Fighting for their right to steal money from workers!’” And doing that on the same day Tesla faces interesting new competition backed by Ford.
Not so dumb: Looks like Elon was going to have to sell some shares to cover taxes on upcoming options he has to exercise before they expire, and therefore this was going to happen anyway and Twitter made for nice PR cover.
Even less dumb: By driving down the shares of Tesla with various tweets, Elon is selling shares that are less valuable, meaning his profits on them are lower, meaning his tax bill will be lower... wait... wait a minute... OH MY GOD HE’S A GENIUS.
I’m the idiot for not seeing this.
DUMBEST — ZILLOW LOSES ITS ZEST
Zillow has one job, and that is to figure out how much your home is worth. The Zestimate sets it apart.
The company figured it knew this business so well that it could make a lot of money buying and flipping homes.
The flipping flopped. Zillow is selling thousands of homes at a loss and closing down that part of its business for losing too much money.
The company says its algorithm failed to predict future home prices.
They. had. one. job.
Who loses money selling a home in 2021? I mean, seriously, how does that happen? I zuess we’ll never know.
PLEASANT SURPRISE — THIS WEEK’S BEST BILLIONAIRE
Ending the week on a high note, Sara Blakely is a self-made billionaire who changed my life when she created Spanx.
Recently, private equity firm Blackstone dumped a bunch of money in her lap by taking a majority stake in the company, valuing Spanx at $1.2 billion.
How did she celebrate? She didn’t buy herself a mega-yacht. She didn’t divorce her husband and start dating a 21-year-old.
She gave her employees $10,000 apiece and first-class tickets to anywhere in the world.
Of course she can afford it. She also did it. And, hey, maybe it’ll reduce her tax bill.
Another genius.