Breakfast Briefing: Musk defends investor call comments; Nike CEO apologizes to staff
Elon Musk is defending his unusual comments on Tesla’s Wedneday earnings call, on which he decried queries as “boring, bonehead questions” from analysts. On Friday morning, Musk tweeted that “dry” questions weren’t actually asked by analysts, but by sell-side investors. (CNBC).
The “dry” questions were not asked by investors, but rather by two sell-side analysts who were trying to justify their Tesla short thesis. They are actually on the *opposite* side of investors. HyperChange represented actual investors, so I switched to them.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 4, 2018
Nike’s CEO apologized to employees in an all-hands meeting on Thursday. Mark Parker acknowledged the athletic gear giant’s corporate culture left some staffers feeling excluded and failed to take workplace complaints seriously (Wall Street Journal). Nike began investigating allegations of improper behavior nearly two months ago (MarketWatch).
Top White House aides were blindsided by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s Wednesday night appearance on Hannity in which he acknowledged President Donald Trump reimbursed lawyer Michael Cohen for payments to porn star Stormy Daniels (WSJ). The media tour may have also gave investigators new leads, according to analysts (Washington Post). The surprise Giuliani rollout has also created a credibility crisis for White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who repeatedly said at Thursday’s gaggle that she was in the dark about payments to Cohen (Associated Press).
If you weren’t at last night’s Brand Film Festival New York, here’s a quick rundown of what you missed: Samsung took home a Best of the Best award for Best Short-Form Documentary for From Dream to Reality; Chair of Judges Jae Goodman says the industry is at an inflection point for brand storytelling; Panelists say clients still need to be convinced a brand film is right for them.
PSA: Please hurry up and change your Twitter password already. The company urged all 300-million-plus users on Thursday to change their passwords after a glitch caused some to be readable in plain text on an internal computer system (Reuters). But given the day, please do not all use #MayTheFourth.
