The great thing about this country is you can have your own views — whatever they are — and tell anyone you want about those views. You can even have a blog where people can read those opinions, even if they disagree (not everyone, it seems, agrees with me that Škoda is VW’s best brand but I will not be silenced). Where it gets muddled is when it comes to the consequences of those opinions and who, or what, is allowed to experience them.
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk has views. A lot of them. Maybe you agree with all of them, maybe you find them odious, or maybe you don’t care. As Tesla sales slow it’s easy to point fingers at infrastructure, or interest rates, or growing competition. A group of analysts, backed by consumer sentiment data, are pointing the finger at an increasingly unpopular Elon Musk.
Do you know who the head of China’s biggest automaker is? It’s SAIC Motor Corp’s Wang Xiaoqiu. Do you know Wang Xiaoqiu’s politics? Probably not, although you might think an executive in a Chinese state-owned company is really only allowed to have one type of politics so it’s not a difficult guess. The company is having a rough go of it lately amidst a brutal Chinese EV price war and economic uncertainty. The solution? Try to force out a bunch of employees.
Ford wants to make EVs profitable, but first it needs to get rid of some old models. If you want more proof that EVs have a pricing issue, Ford’s sudden price drop for the Mach-E seems to have moved the needle on the company’s EV sales.
And, finally, the EPA has followed its softening of light vehicle emissions regulations with regulations for big trucks that still seem like a big swing.
‘Consideration’ Of Tesla Drops To 31% As It’s ‘Very Likely’ Musk Is Contributing To Tesla Reputation Hit
Free speech is often misunderstood. As an enumerated right in the U.S. Constitution, i.e. one that’s specifically called out, the government is specifically restricted from abridging it in most cases. The key word there is “government.”
Some people, especially powerful people, tend to be surprised when, in a free country, they suffer consequences for what they say. But that’s how freedom of speech is supposed to work.
If I call yo mama fat, it is my legal right to do so. If you respond by punching me in the face I could maybe appeal to the authorities for help, but you could also argue I had it coming.
This tweet pretty much sums it up:
Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
Me reaping: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.
— The Golden Sir (@screaminbutcalm) March 12, 2019
Tesla CEO Elon Musk managed to grow to almost hero status for a large portion of the population, inspiring Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal of Tony Stark, dating actresses, building rockets, and saving the world.
And then Musk bought Twitter, called it X, and subjected everyone to his increasingly angry-divorced-dad skeptic energy. Even worse, the self-created echo chamber only seems to encourage him to share more.
That’s his right and he’s still one of the richest men in the world and is head of the most valuable car company (by market cap) in the world.
As soon as tomorrow we’re likely to get an earnings report from Tesla and it should show if sales growth has continued to slow, which could see Tesla’s share price drop even further if not matched by margin improvements or some other good sign. There will be finger-pointing.
Up first is a big story from Reuters that heavily implies some consumers don’t love hearing Elon Musk imply that the government is bringing in violent undocumented immigrants so they can gain votes, as one example, or that planes could be less safe because airlines/aviation companies are putting effort into hiring people of color and women to be pilots, which is a thing he seems to believe.
The ranks of would-be Tesla buyers in the United States are shrinking, according to a survey by market intelligence firm Caliber, which attributed the drop in part to CEO Elon Musk’s polarizing persona.
[…]
Caliber’s “consideration score” for Tesla, provided exclusively to Reuters, fell to 31% in February, less than half its high of 70% in November 2021 when it started tracking consumer interest in the brand.
But that’s Musk. Certainly, people can’t connect Musk and Tesla. One is a car company and Musk is just one person. Well…
“It’s very likely that Musk himself is contributing to the reputational downfall,” Caliber CEO Shahar Silbershatz told Reuters, saying his company’s survey shows 83% of Americans connect Musk with Tesla.
Reuters spoke to five marketing, polling and car experts who said controversies surrounding Musk’s increasingly right-wing politics and public statements are weighing on Tesla’s brand and demand.
Until there are studies that show explicitly the connection between people buying something else there’s a little bit of inference here, but it’s a reasonable inference, especially now that a survey cited in the article shows more people have an unfavorable view of Musk than either a neutral or favorable view. There’s a known partisan bias when it comes to views on buying EVs and it doesn’t favor Musk at the moment.
I still think that, ultimately, most people do not make major purchasing decisions based on politics. I have two very liberal friends who despise Elon Musk and ended up with a Model Y because it was just the best deal.
But with increasing competition and higher net costs due to interest rates, plus an increase in Model Y prices as of today, it’s certainly not helping.
SAIC To Put Its Workers In ‘Uncomfortable Positions’
SAIC Motor Corp. is China’s largest automaker, with tie-ups to both GM (SAIC-GM-Wuling) and Volkswagen (SAIC-VW). The company has long benefited from support from the Chinese government, which means that it hasn’t exactly been the first company to start laying off its workers.
SAIC has found itself facing sliding sales and profits as it has to battle with a product mix that isn’t as EV-focused and appealing as what BYD is offering while in the midst of a price war with upstarts like Xiaomi.
Because it seemingly doesn’t want to (or can’t) just fire people, there’s another big Reuters report today that, based on a number of sources, says the company is instead looking for cause to get people to quit.
From the article:
One of the sources said most of the reductions at SAIC-VW would come through payouts offered to resigning low performers.
SAIC rates workers on a scale from A to D. In the past, the company has rarely handed out C or D ratings, the two sources said. For 2023, however, about 10% of SAIC-VW employees received the lower ratings, one of the people said.
D-rated employees are being offered payouts to quit, and C-rated workers are being put in “uncomfortable positions” intended to encourage resignations, the source said.
Uncomfortable positions? Like in the back of an SAIC-Volkswagen? Of course, SAIC has denied this report, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.
Mustang Mach-E Sales Surging After Price Cut
Did it work? Yeah, big time according to analytics firm Cloud Theory. From Automotive News‘s article on the data:
“Across the board, there’s a need for, and a direction toward, a reduction in pricing at a time where that doesn’t make a lot of financial sense for the OEMs,” Rick Wainschel, vice president of data and analytics at Cloud Theory, told Automotive News. “I think Ford had to do what they did; they’re really in a bit of a bind to clear out those Mach-E’s. It was a necessary evil, in a way. But it worked.”
Mustang Mach-E sales fell by more than half in January, when the crossover lost eligibility for a $3,750 federal tax credit as the Biden administration tightened sourcing rules. But since Ford announced the discounts in late February, Cloud Theory said, movement of Mach-E inventory has nearly tripled, based on its daily monitoring of dealership data. It said inventory has declined 9 percent.
“We saw an immediate bump,” Wainschel said. “It started to really catch fire over the last couple of weeks in particular.”
It’s almost as if the EVs are too expensive. Wow. Crazy. Wild thought.
EPA Makes Strict Standards For Buses And Big Trucks
The EPA’s new emissions calculations place some fairly strict standards on the makers of light passenger vehicles, but they’re not as stringent as originally proposed. The response from automakers has been fairly muted.
On Friday, the EPA unrolled its standards for big trucks and buses and the rules are pretty strict.
The new rules, which take effect for model years 2027 through 2032, will avoid up to 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next three decades and provide $13 billion in net benefits in the form of fewer hospital visits, lost work days and deaths, the EPA said. The new standards will especially benefit an estimated 72 million people in the United States who live near freight routes used by trucks and other heavy vehicles and bear a disproportionate burden of dangerous air pollution, the agency said.
Unlike automakers, the groups representing the trucking industry have not reacted quite so calmly.
Here’s what the American Trucking Association said in response:
“ATA opposes this rule in its current form because the post-2030 targets remain entirely unachievable given the current state of zero-emission technology, the lack of charging infrastructure and restrictions on the power grid,” said ATA President and CEO Chris Spear. “Given the wide range of operations required of our industry to keep the economy running, a successful emission regulation must be technology neutral and cannot be one-size-fits-all. Any regulation that fails to account for the operational realities of trucking will set the industry and America’s supply chain up for failure.”
While EPA’s final rule includes lower zero-emission vehicle rates for model years 2027-2029, ATA says forced zero-emission vehicle penetration rates in the later years will drive only battery-electric and hydrogen investment, limiting fleets’ choices with early-stage technology that is still unproven.
“The trucking industry is fully committed to the road to zero emissions, but the path to get there must be paved with commonsense,” Spear said. “While we are disappointed with today’s rule, we will continue to work with EPA to address its shortcomings and advance emission-reduction targets and timelines that are both realistic and durable.”
I have to say, “the path to get there must be paved with commonsense” is a good line.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
The new Waxahatchee album is out and it’s so good. Go listen to it. The best country/folk music right now isn’t coming out of Nashville is all I’ll say.
The Big Question
Without getting into your specific politics, on a scale of 1-10 where 1 = WHO CARES and 10 = I CARE VERY MUCH how much does politics influence your consumption?
Cancel culture: the God-given right of every American to disassociate with, ostracize and ignore anybody they don’t like.
Freedom is awesome!
I’d go for a solid 5.
If you dig far enough, pretty much every car company is going to have some skeletons in the closet. Do I care that [insert Japanese, German (or even some American) car company] was on the wrong side of WW2? Or that [insert big domestic company] sabotaged public transit in a decade’s long conspiracy? Heck, do I even care that on a deep enough dive, they’re all doing some shady stuff to get rare earth materials? Yeah… that all sucks but I can’t really do much about it.
But when a company’s identity is so tied up in the “founder” and his cult of personality, it starts to matter more. When a company has so many flagrant environmental and labor violations, despite positioning itself as a car company that’s going to save the world, I start to care more. When that same car company ignores good safety practices in a way that should launch the careers of a thousand Gen Z Ralph Naders, my opinion is going to affect my actions a lot more.
I would also take into account that most automaker’s skeletons are decades old and not as relevant today (aside from the material sourcing I suppose) whereas Musk is still very much alive and spouting brand new bullshit every day.
I generally prefer to know nothing about the politics of a company – you’re always going to be disappointed – but I definitely like to avoid places that would prefer it if me or my friends didn’t exist. So if I get a smell of anti-LGBTQ+ wafting off a company, for example, I’m going to try to avoid them.
It’s as much self preservation as ethics and I admit that.
In general, probably a 5. For Musk, a 10.
His views are so far from mine, and he’s so militant about pushing them that I can’t see myself subsidizing his ability to spew hatred. And I am a lost sale for him – Tesla was definitely on my radar when I bought my most recent car.
Under no circumstances would I buy a Tesla and that is 100% due to Elon. It’s not entirely about his odious politics as much as it is about that fact that I just don’t trust him at all and never will. I smelled the con man on him ten years ago with the Full Self Driving thing and can never forget it.
For me to make a major purchase, I have to have some (any) measure of confidence that the company at least pretends to care about my opinion, won’t attack me when I express displeasure with it, isn’t run by racists, doesn’t disable features when I re-sell, doesn’t change prices thirty seconds after my purchase, doesn’t willfully overestimate rage, and doesn’t beta-test things while me and my family are sharing the roads. Did I mention not wanting to line the pockets of bigoted racists? Screw TSLA and it’s stupidly over-valued shares.
At the rate the share prices are dropping they won’t be over valued for long.
Indeed! 🙂
I’m somewhere in the middle on voting with my dollars. I do at times avoid shopping at places because of either their political or business practices. I also occasionally order stuff from Amazon just because it’s so damn easy (and some companies only sell on there these days).
That said, it’s a little weird because some of these places I would boycott for shitty beliefs are also deeply unpleasant for purely consumer reasons. I hate going to Chik Fil A (or however you spell it) because the lines are always stupidly long and you can’t refill your own damn drink. Also, and I realize this is a hot take, the food is just fine, in every passive-aggressive meaning of the word. It’s not manna from heaven the way some people seem to think.
I also won’t buy a Tesla because they design stupid interiors. But am I really boycotting if I don’t want to interact with a company’s product in the first place? It’s easy to avoid a company you don’t like in the first place. It’s a lot harder when a company you want to buy from does something bad.
““The trucking industry is fully committed to the road to zero emissions, but NOT REALLY. In reality, we’re gonna find every excuse to do as little as possible”
There… fixed it for accuracy.
Regardless of how you feel about Elon Musk personally, consider this.
If any other employee of Tesla had run their mouth on social media like Elon has, what would have happened to them?
If any other employee of Tesla is creating as much negative press and public perception for Tesla by name, and negatively impacting sales, what would have happened to them?
That’s very similar to “if anyone else had threatened a judge’s daughter”, isn’t it?
He’s not an employee, though.
As a Canadian, I’ll stay out of that one…
Except he is. CEO is still an employed position, as it is in any other company, and can be fired by the board for cause (if Tesla had a functioning board and not a group of his family and buddies). Elmo isn’t the owner – even though he has a substantial number of shares, he’s still in the significant minority, as evidenced by his threatening the board for a bigger ownership stake.
Wasn’t a Tesla employee fired a few years ago for posting some very mildly critical videos about Autopilot? I don’t think this is even a hypothetical, it actually happened.
In answering your question about the scale, I would say that mine is pretty high. Close to 10, but not sure what value to assign it. As an example, I wouldn’t buy anything under the Geely, Polestar, or Volvo umbrellas due to politics.
Tesla is a much more interesting subject, in that they are beset by a large amount of damage to their reputation. Curiously, EVs generally are seen as a “liberal” purchase, despite there being some uptake by the other side. It may simply boil down to raw cost at the end of the day.
In that regard, I believe that there are much bigger reasons to avoid buying Tesla than just their CEO. Primarily the one that comes to mind is the cost to insure/repair them. As we saw, Hertz dumped a ton of them due to extremely high repair costs. I did a query with my personal insurer on a 2024 Model 3 just for research purposes and it came out to be quite high. Between a current model year hybrid maverick (which would have saved me some cash) and a current model year IoniQ 5, the Tesla was roughly $200-300 higher to insure. (Don’t have the exact figures on me today)
I am wondering if perhaps they try to save money by not overproducing parts for their cars, that then turns into higher repair bills for owners that can’t get them very readily.
I wouldn’t buy a Tesla myself, but the numbers don’t lie. They make the most popular EVs in America. Though perhaps this is finally starting to change. It was said that Tesla had a chance to corner the market being early, but when competition came it would be time to put up or shut up. Elon’s distractions are proving to be bad for the books. I’m sure he’ll find a way to continue profiting off of Tesla even if he steps down as CEO (He’s got majority control of the stock), so all the folks saying they’ll buy one if he leaves, just buy something that makes sense for your budget. He’s a maniac sure, but he’s not going to personally brick your car. (Hopefully)
I should also add that “How likely am I to face social unpopularity by buying this vehicle” is definitely a thing. Wouldn’t have been a thing a few years ago, but here we are.
You can check rich rebuilds channel, and see by yourself that he did brick cars/services when he disliked what they did.
While that certainly does mean that there is a distant possibility that Elon could brick your car, I think it would be possible to own one without being found out about and punished by Musk personally. The man in theory should have more to do being part of 3 major companies? (Who am I kidding) Be thankful they don’t have a self destruct sequence.
(nobody 🙂 )
I would personally say I’m an 8 out of 10, some people would say I’m a 10 out of 10. I can get pretty committed to boycotts. My spouse, she’s more committed than me, she hated the food system so much she became a farmer. Reason we’ve become so committed is boycotts are one of few mechanisms of power left in this our current stage in Capitalism. We’re given two parties to vote for, both under control of people with more money than me. Courts? Turns out they like money too. Regulatory agency? good luck. I, as an average person have increasingly less recourse to hold those above me accountable. The least I can do is not voluntarily give them my money for being an asshole. Seriously, no one put a gun to Elon’s head and made him tweet about his opinion on immigration. Elon’s need to express his shitty opinion is protected free speech. The consumers willingness to not buy Tesla is also protected free speech. What does Elon want to happen here? the stock price protected from going down via Law. Ultimately, this whole “Cancel Culture” thing is person in power saying their protected free speech right to be an asshole is more important then you’re protected free speech right to hold them accountable by one of few recourses allowable under law.
This is just my attempt to put a small positive light on a government regulatory service. In the past (admittedly a number of years ago), I have used successfully the complaint service that is available at fcc.gov for licensed companies (e.g., cell phone service providers). One example: For an unknown reason our cellphone service provider blocked my wife’s phone after 3 months of operation. After failing to convince them to fix the problem, I filed a complaint online. I was contacted by the service provider within 30 days (likely must faster, but this is the limit) and was able to get a free replacement phone. I believe that these licensed companies have special customer service reps to take care of formal FCC complaints. This is likely to streamline the re-licensing process when the time comes.
It’s nothing against regulatory agency; I fully believe that a healthy regulatory body is necessity of a healthy society to protect its lowest individual. And that most people within those agencies are doing the best they can with power and knowledge available to them. More that the death of the Chevron Deference will make regulatory agencies dysfunctional to the point of uselessness.
I own a 1982 Austin Allegro 3, a 1982 Triumph Acclaim HL, and a 1983 Austin Maestro VP but I’m not sure whether this is supposed to make me a staunch supporter of Thatcherism or a vehemently outspoken critic.
Posters should be made aware that the “likes” counter is extremely borked today.
I just posted a like on several comments and the counter jumps from zero to thirteen likes instantly. Or other numbers that may not be the true count.
This is not uncommon. It generally means a comment was popular and a lot of people liked it since you loaded the page. The likes don’t seem to update dynamically.
Thanks. It made no sense as to why a like became 13 in an instant.
Appreciate your knowledge!
I spend
too mucha lot of time in the comments here. 😉Some would consider it an appropriately cromulent amount of time.
I’ll always appreciate that Tesla made EVs viable, while the big automakers sat back and watched. And Musk worked hard to make that happen. That’s where the appreciation ends.
I wouldn’t rule out buying a Tesla but I’m not interested an any of their current products.
When I can afford it, politics influence my consumption. So a 5.
I’d put it around 5-6, I prefer not to support companies that are outwardly evil like Nestle, but I can’t afford to jump through the countless hoops it would take when such companies own 3/4 of any given market, so I just kinda have to pick my battles.
I like to think I’m somewhat consistent when it comes to luxuries or big purchases, like avoiding dealerships in favor of independent shops, buying art-based stuff only from artists’ and/or creators’ websites (no Redbubble/T-Spring/whatever stickers, t-shirts, posters and the like), only fair-trade coffee, and other such things. But when it comes to routine things like food, cleaning supplies, streaming services and the like it becomes (by design) prohibitively difficult/expensive to avoid the powerful monopolies.
Though I’d say my shopping leans more ethical than political, it’s not about who lobbies whose campaign, particularly because most companies play both sides. It’s more so about who unapologetically brushes off child labor, declares water “not a human right”, engages in union-busting or promises to “do our best to phase out slavery in the next 5-10 years, scout’s honor”.
In short, voting with one’s wallet is harder than it seems.
Some things are simple, don’t go to Wal Mart, Chic Fil A, or buy a Tesla. And that one hobby store, fuck that place too.
Exactly.
I struggle with Home Depot vs. Lowe’s vs. Place That Doesn’t Have What I Need.
I loved Hobby Lobby. No. Not that effin’ place.
https://archive.nytimes.com/boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/14/how-hobby-lobby-international-resolved-its-trademark-dispute/
We’re talking about a guy who has gone out of his way to spew his transphobic, misogynist, and otherwise hate-filled views on a platform he now owns. I don’t typically do a lot of research about the politics of a company or its executives, but if they’re throwing it out there for all the world to see — I can point to a chicken fast food place and a hobby store chain as other examples — I’ll pay attention and direct my dollars elsewhere.
I do research the heck out of charities before donating though.
Nobody made him act like this. It was a choice. There are lots of assholes in the world quietly toiling in the background to make your life shittier, but he basically puts up billboards about how he’s doing that and I’m the weird one for being repelled by it? Nah.
Everything is politics, and I vote with my money all the time. That said, to think that anybody in the C-suite of a national- or international-scale manufacturing concern isn’t an absolutely raging right-wing sociopath is wishful thinking. There are exceptions, but they’re newsworthy (Patagonia guy). Musk is only exceptional in that he got a cult to endorse his position as Dictator for Life and now gets to run around off his leash totally convinced he can eat cars that drive by.
Elon reminds me of the late Warren Zevon song “Excitable Boy.”
And not in a good way.
Politics do not usually have an impact in my purchasing decisions. Unless the speaker is a grade A turd.
I’d rather buy a car from Joe Isuzu than this imbecile. El Musko proves that some people can and do have more money than common sense. YMMV of course.
Good call out. There’s more than a few Warren Zevon songs that could apply to Technoking. That’s not generally a thing to be proud of.
+1 for the Mallrats reference.
You cannot help but associate Elon with Tesla, despite all my D friends constantly posting about how “Elon didn’t invent Tesla, he bought it” the truth is that Tesla simply wouldn’t be the same company today if Eberhard and Tarpenning were still running it. It might be better, might be worse, most likely wouldn’t be nearly as innovative and successful as it has been. Same thing for Space-X, would they really be landing rockets reusable rockets and finding other innovative solutions to cut costs on launching mass into orbit without his influence? Just look at ULA and Boeing for example.
In very narrow scopes he can be a genius but he needs to keep his damn thumbs off Twitter. Too late.
I think the Elon Musk of 2010 and the Elon Musk of 2024 are very different people. And I definitely do not think 2024 Elon Musk could have made a remotely successful car company.
Basically, he’s surrounded himself with so many sycophants and got high on so much of his own supply that his brain has turned to mush between then and now.
There’s some validity to this. I remember reading the Ashlee Vance biography when it came out in 2015 and the Walter Isaacson bio last year and you can tell a difference. I mean, Elon is a straight dickhead in both books but in Ashlee’s book he comes off as quirky but that’s how you have to be to make a difference while in Isaacson’s book he comes off as a bipolar asshole with daddy issues. Some of this can be chalked up to the different perceptions between Ashlee and Isaacson but I do believe Elon has changed. Twitter has poisoned his self-perception and buying the damn platform hasn’t helped him any.
I was a Musk and Tesla fanboy back in the early days of the company. Not so much anymore.
I don’t like to quantify how much politics matter in my purchasing decisions, because it varies based on a number of factors. Toyota’s political donations caused a stir, but I’m willing to accept that those donations are largely a product of the areas in which Toyota has manufacturing facilities. While there is a reason they are located there, I don’t truly believe Toyota was intentionally supporting election denials. For a number of reasons, a Toyota might be a reasonable purchase if the price is right, but might get passed up if the value is equivalent to a brand I prefer to support.
On the other hand, the homophobic chicken chain has shown that they will keep intentionally donating to causes that I cannot abide, even when they claim to quit, so they won’t get my money. There aren’t a lot of companies that I will cut out as thoroughly as them, but they are out there. They could offer the best deal for the best chicken and I will drive by them to go elsewhere.
Tesla has a number of problems for me, but the CEO is a big one. Since the brand is inextricably linked with him at this point, I certainly have no interest in a Tesla. I’ve seen some good deals on used ones (a local Model Y Performance would have been a contender for my next purchase if I could get past the CEO, reported labor conditions, and everything being on the center screen), but I’ll hold out. (And, before anyone points out that used vehicle purchases don’t support the guy, I’ll remind you that the secondary market is important to initial sales and the brand is still strongly associated with him.)
+1 for this comment.
The big question : for me it’s not “the politics” so much as it is “the CEO and dictator in chief of this company is looking more and more unhinged and it makes me nervous for the company / products that I’d be throwing major money at”.
This is a big deal to me as so much of the Tesla experience is mandatory software updates – Musk appears to have a TON of direct product sway and he’s… not looking like he’s all there. That’s not a position I want my transportation to be in. I like my cars uncoupled from the world as soon as I take ownership. If it needs an update, the dealership/service team can communicate the details to me and I will bring it in.
I just don’t understand the takes here. If the car fulfills what you want it to do in your life better than anything else, then get it.
The fact that Elon is Elon should be totally separate. Sure, the guy is pretty sloshed with power, but most people would be if they were in that position. To deny that there is a possibility that you’d at least act somewhat the same way is disingenuous because it’s damn hard to imagine that level of influence. In fact, it’s really not all that different from winning $500 million in the lottery. We all have some sort of plan for what we’d do, but common sense tells us that it’d never work out exactly that way. Something, or more likely, many things will change that are not for the “better”.
This is probably gonna not go over well, but if a product suits your needs more than any other and the only reason you won’t buy it is that the ideas of the CEO aren’t similar to yours…yikes. Anyone is obviously free to take their ball and go home, but it doesn’t change the fact that they are emotionally soft for getting all “pricipled” about a car. A car.
A perfectly ethical person cannot exist due to the realities of human nature, let alone an entity created by humans. Shit, The Stoics knew this Centuries ago. Deal with it.
I don’t think we’re asking Musk to be perfect. I think we’re asking him to at least reach the level of moderately disliked ass-hat before considering buying not just a product from his company, but a massively expensive $40k+ vehicle.
Also, I don’t exactly think I’m the spitting image of Jesus Christ over here, but goddamn I hope I’m less of an asshole than Musk has been, regardless of whether or not someone showers me with cash. I don’t think anyone is asking the dude to be a saint. I think many are just asking him to not spend all of his time actively antagonizing potential customers.
Right, but it’s up to the individual to place value on another’s opinion. It’s not that hard to not get worked up about it if it is assigned no value.
There’s a big distinction to be made here though. Tesla, unlike other manufacturers, made Musk’s cult of personality part of the product package. Their entire brand revolves around him and his “disruptor/supposed genius” badge. He’s linked to the product because he’s ultimately the only salesman for the entire company. Well, that and the cult that follows him around.
If someone showed me two bags of romaine lettuce, one looks like a better quality, one lesser. But someone told me “the high quality romaine guy is a real asshole” I probably wouldn’t care a whole lot, as high quality romaine guy isn’t exactly front and center. But this isn’t a plastic bag filled with romaine for $4. It’s a $40k car where the CEO actively puts out ridiculous statements daily.
That’s exactly the point, in that it’s NOT a head of lettuce. It’s a somewhat substantial portion of one’s own life security, so making the best choice is for individual well-being much more critical. In this case, self-preservation is much more important because the value the purchase provides is certainly more than disposable produce.
Maybe that worked 7 years ago when Tesla was the only option.
But competition has arrived, and I can take my business elsewhere.
(Somewhat related, my next vehicle purchase is likely to be a PHEV anyway, I think wasting all the battery resources on pure EVs is stupid. So Musk isn’t really losing a customer anyway, because he doesn’t sell anything I actually want.)
See, that wasn’t so difficult! haha.
Wait, so purveyors of expensive stuff are off the hook? A Tesla is so expensive we shouldn’t let petty things like the ethics of the company or its leadership into our thought process on buying or not buying it? We should just be grateful our “individual well-being” is allowed to exist at all? That’s some twisted bullshit right there. There is always a choice. The presence of people who are functionally locked into a single choice due to other obligations is what obligates those of us who CAN choose to choose well.
What’s twisted is the words you put in my mouth. Expensive is relative, and the context is a valuable long-term possession that increases the quality of life, i.e. transportation. Totally different from a head of lettuce. Should I write the same thing a third time in another way for you?
Did you read the Isaacson book? This is his factory setting. Whether it has causes outside his control or not (asbergers and trauma from his messed up father are both discussed in the book), this is how he has always been. It is part of why he was able to succeed at Tesla and Space X since he takes risks no one else would take and pushes people to their limit, either not caring about or not understanding the social cues as to when he has gone too far. It reminds me of Michael Jordan and his insane competitiveness. You probably do not become the GOAT if you are not the kind of person who carries grudges from high school JV into his 60s. Would we prefer a kinder, gentler MJ? That version of him would probably peak out at HS or college. I think Musk is similar. If he had normal social skills he probably would have stayed in finance and made a personal fortune but not changed the world the way he has. I would say the advances he has dragged the world towards in EVs and rockets are worth putting up with knowing he is a jerk. But YMMV.
Not everything Musk has ever done has been some sort of travesty. He deserves credit for many of the moves he’s made.
But he’s become increasingly obsessed with being a terminally online troll. And frankly, I do not care why he’s being an asshole, and I’m not giving anyone a pass who has committed to the bit like he has.
Most of his accomplishments were built on him being an asshole to his employees, his romantic partners, his brother, etc. I am not really trying to excuse it. I am just pushing back on this notion that he has lost his way. This has always been who he is. I say putting up with in the societal sense that we should recognize his contributions outweigh his flaws. But on a personal level I am surprised how many people put up with him. I would have a hard time doing it.
But “knowing he’s a jerk” is different from “watching him ascend his own ass at an accelerated rate, to the point where you’re concerned about his ability to run a company.”
His decisions, whether in his personal life or in product development, have gotten progressively worse since somewhere in the late ’00s – probably when the Cybertruck started development – and that makes one wonder about the viability of what you’re buying.
You have to give him credit, sure, but you can’t ignore what’s happening and how that affects what you’re putting in your driveway. The car I buy today can’t be chosen because of the accomplishments of a decade ago.
If we are going to compare to MJ, he’s in his “deciding to play baseball” era.
You mean MJ’s “secretly suspended from the NBA for a year era”?
Is he running his companies into the ground? Id does not feel that way to me. There is more competition as others clear the hurdles he was the first to overcome. But I am not seeing any sort of death spiral at Tesla or Space X. Seems like a lot of wishful thinking for that outcome, though.
Twitter is getting run into the ground, Tesla is losing sales.
And again, saying he was the first doesn’t apply to 2024, when he is doing a bad job. You can be an innovator who becomes incompetent. Henry Ford built Ford and nearly killed it before getting forced out of the company by his wife and daughter-in-law.
There isn’t really much data to go on when talking about Twitter. People that claim it is gonna be dead and gone soon are speculating and, more likely than not, have an agenda in saying so.
It seems like I know myself a lot better in terms of anticipating how I would act were I that rich (which I never would be even theoretically because I see amassing that level of wealth as a crime in itself) and while there are multiple “me”s that could take control under such a situation, even my worst self would not be a pathetic, whiny, reactionary, frightened, racist baby like Musk (made even more pathetic and weak that he’s as insecure as he is even with all his money). Besides that irrelevant tangent, though, a lot of people see Elon as a repulsive POS and, as he is a majority shareholder of Tesla, they don’t want to be giving him more money, especially now that there are valid competitors to choose over Tesla. On top of that, a large component of the appeal of cars is the image. If they weren’t, there would only be silver or white RAV4s 99% FWD with half the power currently offered to buy. Tesla for better or worse has its image wrapped up in Musk more than anything else, something many find abhorrent. Maybe at first, he was able to show himself as a visionary and that was a helpful image for Tesla, but that’s long gone and it’s all his doing. Harley-Davidson is in a similar boat where people who might actually like their bikes aren’t interested as they don’t want to be associated with a specific demographic that they have tied themselves to (plus, again, there are competitors). People can compare it to, say, Henry Ford being a scumbag, but not only was that a long damn time ago (or maybe because it was so long ago), I don’t know of anyone that associates Ford with Henry. Ask 1000 people what their primary association with Ford would be and most will say trucks, Mustangs, Model Ts, Model A hot rods, race championships, recalls, a ’70s junker they had nothing but problems with, maybe exploding Pintos, and so on, but I would bet damn good money that very few would mention Henry as the first thing that comes to mind.
This rationalization does not work for me. Sorry, but behavior and ethics do count for a lot. And most folks get that. And having all the money does not excuse crap behavior.
Not sure about the having 500 million bucks premise either. I would hope that having a ton of bucks would not change most folks much, but without data to reflect this, who the hell really knows?
Being principled about a purchase, especially a big ticket item like a car is something to consider. Nothing “emotionally soft” about having ethics and principles, seriously.
Don’t want to piss on your camp fire today. Just disagree with your premise put forth.
Have a good one today.
I’m thankful to be in a position where I can be “principled” about a car. I am in such a position, however, so I’ll vote with my wallet on Tesla.
Yeah, I think a lot of this is because he’s so damn loud about what he’s gonna do with the money I give him. I do business with a lot of folks who probably have different beliefs than me and may even spend the money I give them doing things I think make the world a worse place, that’s just life, but if someone says “hey by the way I’m gonna take this money you’re giving me and use it to kick kittens or something,” I can’t ignore that.
I paid cash for my used Honda Clarity last January out of money originally saved to buy a Tesla.
For years I was buying Tesla stock, and planned to buy a Tesla car as well. But the more Musk’s toxic personality was exposed, the slower I purchased the stock.
When Musk bought Twitter and paraded into their lobby with a large ceramic vessel just to make an idiotic joke, I stopped buying Tesla stock entirely. A company with a clown at the helm will soon be a circus.
When he reinstated people to Twitter who had been banned for obvious Nazi hate speech, that’s when I realized I won’t be buying a Tesla. I don’t buy products from people who support that sort of thing.
I still hold Tesla stock, and will resume buying eventually, but only because I expect the stock to rocket higher once Elon is ousted.
My opinion is that Tesla’s current woes are entirely due to Elon Musk. Tesla has so many other advantages that effectively eliminate EV purchase resistance, and these are advantages that no other maker has.
The market would be plenty large enough for Tesla to keep growing for at least another decade, but instead, Musk’s own ego is crowding it out.
Yet Elon has always been this guy –
Lashing out at critics and short sellers.
Haranguing employees & investment bankers who came to him with legitimate issues.
Overpromising and underdelivering.
Overcomplicating unnecessarily – then taking shortcuts where it matters.
People think he’s brilliant – He’s not.
He just happened to be in the right place in the right time with a lot of money.
If he was the son of a truck driver working at the local Hardees, you’d ignore him.
If he were the son of a Central-American immigrant – He’d be deported.
People say this, and it always amazes me. Do you honestly believe that Elon Musk has done nothing notable in his life, and that he’s just the luckiest person in history?
Elon bought into PayPal – he didn’t originate the idea.
He bought into Tesla – He didn’t design the motors or the batteries. When he did get involved in the designs, he turned them so complex (Model X, Cybertruck) that he shot himself in the foot.
He did see the need for manufacturing and charging infrastructure around his EVs – and brought that about – I’ll give him that, tho I wonder whose ideas they were?
And he certainly didn’t invent social media – Tho he certainly knows how to overpay for a company and crash an investment.
Even if he did absolutely nothing with PayPal or Tesla aside from buying in, making that good of an investment that early would generally be considered to be a very notable and smart thing, and not just luck.
And I guess you missed SpaceX, which he definitely did start?
Even if he didn’t have any ideas or do any engineering, just assembling the right crew of smart people is also generally considered to be an unusually and notably smart thing.
I don’t want to sound like an Elon stan or defender, which I’m not, but I am a common sense fan and defender. And what you are saying doesn’t make any sense.
I go back to my original statement that he happened to be in the right place in the right time with a lot of money. Even with Space X and StarLink – He didn’t dream up new tech, he just had a lot of money to throw at the wall.
That’s not brilliant – That’s opportunistic.
Throwing a lot of money at the right things at the right time is called investing, and making brilliant investments makes you a brilliant investor.
Or do you think Warren Buffett has done nothing notable in his life, and was just lucky?
You can argue that Elon Musk is a terrible businessman and a terrible inventor and a terrible engineer(I don’t think any of those are true, but you could argue that). But it is very clear that he has made several consecutive brilliant investments.
Warren Buffet would never consider himself brilliant.
“The plan itself is opportunism. There is no plan before that”
Einstein was brillant.
Pascal was brilliant.
Curie was brilliant.
The ladies who did the math for the Apollo missions were brilliant.
Elmo is not brilliant.
Well we can argue about the definition of brilliant and whether it applies exclusively to scientific achievements(that’s absurd), but the fact remains that making excellent investments requires intelligence and that luck does not get you this far, or at least it hasn’t ever before in human history.
I can’t believe there are at least 6 people here who don’t know what “brilliant” means and liked your incorrect definition
HAHA!
From the Oxford dictionary…
Brilliant; Exceptionally clever or talented.
Elon is neither of those.
Unless you consider throwing around truckloads of money to be a talent.
Even I could do that perfectly well.
A skilled investor meets that Oxford definition of “brilliant”. You pretty specifically said that investors can’t be brilliant, and that that word applies only to scientists. You incorrectly defined the word.
And yes, throwing around truckloads of money in a way that makes you lots more money is a talent, and a skill most people don’t have.
See: Ryan Reynolds
Let’s go further with this. Elmo had very little to do with SpaceX’s and Starlink’s success. He had virtually unlimited resources and backed up dumpster trucks of money to hire the actual geniuses who put SpaceX on the map – Thomas Mueller, the actual genius rocket scientist and Gwynne Shotwell, the chief operating officer and actual CEO. The one operating decision of SpaceX that we know was handed down by Elmo, because he admitted it on X – don’t spend extra money on developing a water deluge system for launches – led to disaster for the first Starship launch.
The freefall disaster of Twitter is the best gauge of his ability to lead a company. Instead of stepping back and letting the adults run the show like his other companies, Elmo took direct control of hiring and firing decisions, feature development and maintenance. The results so far mirror his level of knowledge and expertise.
No, Elmo has a very singular and valuable talent – he’s an incredible public cheerleader who can separate venture capitalists from their money. It is the single reason Tesla didn’t go bankrupt, as it provided Tesla with tens of billions of venture capital dollars to burn through while committing fuckup after fuckup reinventing the wheel of car manufacturing.
The most accurate and damning back-handed insult I’ve seen written about Elon Musk, is that he is the Thomas Edison of our time.
Hiring geniuses is also generally considered to be a very singular and valuable talent
If I take a billion dollars and hire Hayao Miyazaki to create movies under my name, do I have a singular and valuable talent, or am I just an ordinary asshole with an extraordinary amount of money?
No, but if you take 100 million and hire a crew of geniuses who become the first people to ever land a rocket and make you billions of dollars, you have a singular and valuable talent.
This is not anything strange, new, or unusual: many of the most famous and important people in history were important mainly because they had a vision and got the right people together to make that vision happen.
If you picked Miyazaki without knowing who he was, out of a pool of promising unknowns, then yes, you do have a very valuable talent.
Hiring the right people is perhaps the most valuable skill there is.
How exactly does anyone know that Twitter is in “free fall”?
That is very public and searchable knowledge, least of all because X itself places its value at less than half of what it once was. If you still aren’t able to hit the keys to Google “Twitter falling value X” then I’m afraid you’re beyond help in your Weird Nerd Defending Elmo status.
Good grief, I check in here for 2 minutes, and you are still on about this?
Let it go, dude.
Elon Musk has some skills and talents. That’s hard to deny. What’s important to note, however, is WHAT those skills are. He’s not some engineering genius or business operations mastermind. What he is good at is putting himself in the right place at the right time to get in on the ground floor of the next big idea. Once he’s there, he builds an ethos to get the right people to invest, then he cashes out when his ability to contribute has peaked.
What we are seeing now is Elon Musk outliving his useful life at these companies. He’s stuck around too long in Tesla and SpaceX so that his public image is becoming a liability. He’s driven off or circumvented the “adults in the room” who can take his manic concepts and turn them into something real enough. He’s fooled himself into believing that he can execute on ideas.
Hey, look! Somebody talking sense!
I disagree about SpaceX. It’s launching rockets all the time. I know this because on a clear day I watch them. Not sure how profitable Starlink is at the moment, but they seem to be tossing payloads into the sky a bunch as well…
I’ll give Musk credit for letting the people that know what they’re doing actually run SpaceX. But it’s only a matter of time before his antics blow back on the company. His various business and personal dealings could very well disqualify SpaceX from DoD contracts if they wanted to push the issue. Even Tesla is far from failure, but they haven’t been insulated from Elon’s shenanigans, so there’s no reason to believe SpaceX won’t start getting the same side effects if left unabated.
We need only look at how swimmingly things are going at
TwitterX to see what unmitigated Elon does to a company.Meh, SpaceX just went to the ISS a few days ago. Pretty sure they are the defacto option and that’s not going to change anytime soon.
I’ve already said it here, but folks keep saying that Twitter is a disaster. The reality is that no one outside of those with the privy to the financials knows anything for sure.