David Crane: 'It Became Inevitable That SolarCity's Days as a Publicly Traded Company Were Numbered'

David Crane: ‘It Became Inevitable That SolarCity’s Days as a Publicly Traded Company Were Numbered’

Here are some of the stories we’re reading this morning.

Eric Wesoff July 06, 2016

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

GreenBiz: David Crane on TeslaCity: Will Car Company + Solar Company = Shareholder Happiness?

As I watch all the Wall Street teeth-gnashing over the proposed related party transaction between Tesla and SolarCity, I wonder whether there is a shortcut that enables everyone to focus on the substantial commercial merits of the transaction.

Let’s go back to the day that all of this started -- October 29, 2015 to be exact -- when SolarCity guided its investors down to a 41% percent growth rate for 2016. SolarCity was brutalized the next day by a massive share sell-off, shaving billions of dollars off its market cap. At that point, it became inevitable that SolarCity’s days as a publicly traded company were numbered.

Huffington Post: Coal Baron Promises Huge Layoffs, Then Tells Workers to Vote Trump

Robert Murray, owner of the country’s largest private coal company, wasted no time pointing the finger when he announced plans earlier this week to lay off as many as 4,400 workers, or 80 percent of his workforce.

His St. Clairsville, Ohio-based Murray Energy Corporation needed to downsize “due to the ongoing destruction of the United States coal industry by President Barack Obama, and his supporters, and the increased utilization of natural gas to generate electricity,” he said.

“Frankly, I am frightened for you, my employees, and the survival of your jobs and family livelihoods,” Murray said in a speech to workers, according to The Wall Street Journal. Their only hope for their jobs, the 75-year-old said, lies in electing “friends of coal” like Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

Associated Press: Man Survives 120-Foot Fall From Kansas Wind Turbine

A south-central Kansas sheriff said a man who fell 120 feet while working on a wind turbine is expected to survive.

Pratt County Sheriff Vernon Chinn said the worker was seriously injured during the tumble onto muddy terrain Sunday morning while he was repairing a blade on a wind generator near Pratt. Chinn said emergency responders found the man coherent, able to talk and “doing amazingly well for the fall he just had.”

Another worker was found hanging from his safety harness 120 feet in the air and eventually was lowered to safety in a construction basket.

Technology Review: The All-American iPhone

Donald Trump says that if he becomes president, he will “get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China.”

Bernie Sanders has also called for Apple to manufacture some devices in the U.S. instead of China.

Neither candidate could instantly make that happen. As Steve Jobs once told President Obama when he asked why Apple didn’t make phones in its home country, the company didn’t hire manufacturers in China only because labor is cheaper there. China also offered a skilled workforce and flexible factories and parts suppliers that can, Apple believes, retool more quickly than their American counterparts.