He openly defies regulators.

Elon settled a case where the Securities Exchange Commission accused him of defrauding investors. Immediately after, he started badmouthing the commission. He said the commission was harassing him by reading his tweets. He follows a strict cadence of pushing boundaries to break the rules, apologizing, then mocking the group he apologized to.

He manipulated markets for personal gain.

Elon made a lot of statements that impacted the price of cryptocurrencies. We don’t know if Elon personally profited (he doesn’t have to disclose that information). Still, we know his company Tesla made at least $101 million in profit from the market manipulation.

You might be thinking, isn’t that illegal? And the short answer is no. Many cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin and Bitcoin, are not regulated securities, so the Securities Exchange Commission has no authority to control them.

He lied about expenses.

Elon lied about the amount of scrap waste. Then, he silenced a whistleblower. The company had plenty of time to clean up the financial statements, but that doesn’t mean they are perfect now.

Musk’s company Tesla amended its accounting statements three times since 2020. This doesn’t mean that Tesla is lying per se. Most of the restated issues are for renegotiated contracts and changes to the articles of incorporation. It could be that someone recognized a mistake or even wanted better transparency. Restatements are uncommon but not so rare that they are a red flag by themselves.

Enron used renegotiated contracts to hide losses and hype investors. Accounting regulations make this much harder now, and I’m not suggesting the restatements are evidence of fraud. It’s just an interesting parallel.

He takes unnecessary risks.

When a company doesn’t have the cash to pay its vendors and employees, the unpaid person may force them into bankruptcy. In finance terms, the problem is called liquidity, or the ability to pay bills in the short term. Elon said he was “concerned about the company’s liquidity” a few days ago. This statement comes from a person who admitted Tesla, at times, had less than $1,000 in cash on hand. As mentioned in the article, some ask, why didn’t you tell investors about this?

Coming to the brink of bankruptcy is dangerous.

He is morally bankrupt.

Elon has been accused of unprofessional behavior, sexual misconduct, and having an affair with his friend’s wife. You might think, is this related to his overall honesty? The answer is yes.

Studies show there is a clear connection. For example, users of websites promoting or assisting with infidelity are twice as likely to engage in corporate misconduct. In other words, workplace and personal behavior are closely related.