Beta Tales

Reader Tom writes in an email today:

Yesterday Elon Musk taunted the SEC calling it “Shortsellers Enrichment Commission”.

Today, David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital “Like Lehman, we think the deception is about to catch up to TSLA,” Einhorn said in an investor letter Friday. “Lehman threatened short sellers, refused to raise capital (it even bought back stock), and management publicly suggested it would go private. Months later, shareholders, creditors, employees and the global economy paid a big price when management’s reckless behavior led to bankruptcy.” -via CNBC

Tesla shared dropped 7% thanks to Musk’s tweets.

What are your thoughts? 

-Tom

Tom, I don’t know about the future of Tesla (full disclosure: I don’t hold any positions in that company).

I can tell, however, beta male behavior. Beta male behavior is unsettling and, sometimes hidden in what appears to be aggressive, alpha-like stance. It is quite obvious Mr. Musk hasn’t read this blog or else he wouldn’t be writing those tweets.

#Number 1. Twitter is not the place to address critics, ongoing legal issues and such.

#Number 2. Twitter is not the place to impress your girlfriend. In fact, only beta males work hard at impressing their girlfriends. A high value male is a constant target of women’s manipulation. Their hypergamy instincts shoot through the roof especially especially if the target is a public figure. I don’t know if you went through this blog yet, but we hold dear here the model of Christopher Walken. He’s composed at all times, even when he is theatrical. He is an what I call a “class act.”

#Number 3. If the shorts are bothering him, at least don’t show it. Or show it with humor, i.e. post a picture of dirty shorts or something.

Quote of the day: “Often I have found that liars do this: they watch their dupes closely, searching for the moment when belief sets in.” -Hadrian Marlowe in Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio

#Number 4. At the end of this year, we will be having a “contest” of who’s the world worst beta male of this year. Last year we had “Who are the world’s worst villains.” (Littlefinger of the Game of Thrones won that one). So last year we pulled from both real life and fiction. We”ll see what we do this year if we just stick with real life characters.

Thanks for writing.

Tips for the wise and free:

1. Sam Harris releases recently a meditation app structured as a course. It already received great reviews.

2. A behemoth book called Interview with the Masters, A company to Mastery by Robert Greene, released in 2013, is free on Amazon. You may wish to get that one.