In 2015 the "populist" opinion was that Tesla wouldn't beat Toyota/Ford/GM/VW at making Electric Vehicles. I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that it was popular to think Tesla was going to beat GM at making EVs in 2015.
In fact, populist is often not popular till it hits a runaway inflection point. As a case point: Trump was a populist leader but was not a popular leader NOR *the* popular leader.
Besides, this is not about the view of Tesla but the view of Elon.
It is not populist to dislike Elon, however dislike of Elon is currently popular.
People can dislike Elon without disliking Tesla.
People can dislike Tesla without disliking EVs.
Again, your argument is illogical as presented, and I suspect is borne out of an emotional reaction to the aforementioned wealth growth that you spoke of.
Can you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting? Your substantive points will do just fine without name-calling or swipes. In fact, they'll do better as they will be more persuasive that way.
Edit: perhaps specifics will be helpful. These comments seem fine:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33682623
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33682193
But these are not:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33682662
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33681903
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33681574
If you'd generally just avoid personal pejorative language, this would solve most of the problem. I add this because I've noticed it in at least one other thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33615209. If you know more than someone else, that's great—by all means please share some of what you know, so the rest of us can learn. Just please do it without putting down the other person (such as by describing them as ignorant or "emotional").
I wasn’t trying to insult the user so much as point out that their argument is emotionally clouded due to their relationship to the subject and their wealth gain. But I’ll try and do better at not using language that is accusatory.
Regarding the GPS thread, I was responding to their dismissal of someone else explaining the problem. While I agree I could have responded more thoughtfully, the subject had already been covered elsewhere. However I agree that the reply could have been better and I’ll try and do so in the future.
Thank you for the suggestions.
Tesla only exists because of the way it was managed over the past 15 years. It would be cool if there was a successful EV company run by someone that was super nice to everyone all the time and let employees work whatever hours they want, but in the real world that doesn't exist. So in the real world we have to make trade-offs. Do we want to transition to electric vehicles? If so what is the best way to actually do that?
I like Disney products, but Walt Disney wasn’t a likeable person. I like soccer leagues but think FIFA are deplorable. I love Pixar films but dislike John Lasseter.
Regardless, I’d bring back the point that nobody is attacking electric cars. Tesla can exist independently, and perhaps should, of Elon.
I'm not saying Elon is a perfect CEO and that is impossible for someone to do a better job at Tesla. But in the real world actions have consequences and the current state of Tesla is due to the previous actions of Elon.
For example, he fired a long time assistant after she demanded 4 million dollars in compensation. You can feel sorry for the assistant, for getting fired after doing a great job, but that is 4 million dollars that was then able to be invested into the rest of the business. You can't have it both ways. You can't fire Elon and expect that magically another CEO that you like much better as a person will also produce the same results.