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Nir Kaissar

David Einhorn Goes Mano a Mano With Elon Musk

Greenlight Capital needs Tesla to fail. The automaker’s CEO intends to disappoint.

The duelists: Elon Musk of Tesla, left, and David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital.

The duelists: Elon Musk of Tesla, left, and David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital.

Photographers: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images (Musk); Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg (Einhorn)

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Hedge fund wunderkind David Einhorn and futurist Elon Musk are locked in a zero-sum contest. Einhorn is betting big, in reputational capital if not actual dollars, that Musk’s Tesla Inc. is doomed to fail.   

“We believe that right here, right now, the company appears to again be on the brink,” Einhorn declared on Friday in a letter to investors in his fund, Greenlight Capital, citing lack of demand, price cuts, layoffs, service center closings and cuts to capital expenditures as signs that Tesla is in trouble. This isn’t the first time, Einhorn added, contending that “Musk never admits the crisis in real time.”