Musk’s desire to own the Libs is alienating the buyers of Teslas
ritholtz.com
ritholtz.com
Everyone who's ever own a business knows that money from Republicans is just as good as money from Democrats. Michael Jordan declined to throw his name behind a Democrat running for office in 1990 because "Republicans buy sneakers too". Musk thinks it's his job to influence public discourse. That's not a good thing if you're a Tesla shareholder or someone invested in one of Musks other businesses.
I've been saying this forever, even on HN. Tesla is a better company without Musk running it and the board should just rip the bandaid off and move on. Musk is dishonest, distracted and unable to meet basic expectations at this point. Products are late, engineering is distracted and people are starting to realize that Tesla will never meet the expectations set by the price of its stock.
The great automotive brands, even the ones NAMED after their founders are larger than any particular leader.
Musk has been a great for getting Tesla where it is today, but his style of leadership isn't what you need at a company the size of Tesla today.
To be fair, that is not what he thinks. He is after truth/facts in public discourse without undue political influence from any political camp or government agency. The reason Democrats are rattled about this is the fact that the left has behaved badly in this regard. It is the reason for which this comment will be mercilessly downvoted and flagged. The truth, sometimes, hurts. And yet, it is the truth.
My standard suggestion for anyone who can remain neutral and open-minded is to imagine the opposite scenario. In this case a Twitter and media dominated by right wing politics and influence, from every single employee all the way up to government and universities. That scenario would be just as horrific and undesirable as the current status quo. It is in everyone’s interest that the masses not be subjected to undue influence by any political party, not one.
That’s what Musk wants. The fact that he is being vilified is a sad reflection of a simple reality: In politics those purporting to be one thing are often the opposite. People say they are for tolerance, equity, inclusion, fairness, open-mindedness, access, etc., and yet, in real life that’s a lie. The minute someone challenges their ability to own the means of communication and messaging none of those things matter. Remarkable.
This is what he said he wants, but is not consistent with his actions which is why is he being called out about it or 'vilified'.
He also said he wanted to build a hyperloop in california, but it turns out he wasn't being honest about that either. The list goes on.
Have you ever run a non-trivial forum? I have, dating back to before the civilian internet was a thing. It isn't easy, at all.
It is by now clear that the Twitter innards has some putrid components that must be dealt with. This isn't easy. This isn't clean. This is going to be chaotic, nasty, difficult, controversial, unpleasant and more.
The only people complaining about Musk's Twitter path not being nice and linear are those who have never done or attempted to do anything even remotely approximating this level of difficulty.
It is also those who refuse to be ideologically consistent and honest, which is the case for the majority of people regardless of their ideological bend. It's just human nature. Some of us are able to step out of such cognitive confinement and make an attempt to see the world with some degree of ideological neutrality.
I'll give you a simple example of this.
If we found that 98% of <insert large company name> employees anglo white men people would be up in arms about it. And rightly so. Large-scale racial uniformity does not lead to good outcomes.
We know that somewhere around 98% of political donations from Twitter employees donated to the Democratic party. Not both parties, a single party.
This is no different in terms of bad outcomes from racial uniformity. Ideological uniformity is a component of racism and racist and other behavior.
When overwhelming ideological uniformity takes hold of an organization, it becomes, in many forms, racist. For example, if you apply for a job at a Christian organization having come from a university such as Berkeley, chances are you will be very low in the selection set. Apply at an ideologically leftist organization having come from a Christian organization and the outcome will be similar. Don't want to call it "racism"? Fine. Pick a word. Ideological, bigotry comes to mind.
Social bigotry has the same component. An organization that is 98% devoid of LGBTQ elements will likely behave in a bigoted way with regards to adding LGBTQ members to their ranks.
Everyone will quickly highlight and, in some cases, get angry about such things as racially-uniform and exclusionary organizations. However, when it comes to ideological uniformity, for some reason, people turn their brains down to 0 RPM and stop thinking. Maybe it is that they don't want to admit being wrong. That's very human as well.
This is how our universities have hateful become leftist organizations with, in some cases, violently militant professors and students. How is this different from having a 100% white Nazi university. It isn't. It's the same thing along a different vector.
The sooner we understand that ideological uniformity --REGARDLESS OF WHICH IDEOLOGY-- is massively bad for society and actively endeavor to not allow it, the sooner we will come to a point where we can start talking to each other again and get valuable things done. Until the, enjoy throwing feces at each other while accomplishing exactly nothing.
If you were intellectually honest about this, the number of entities on the Left will dwarf those in the other columns. That’s reality.
When someone flips through channels on TV and 90% to 99% of the content is ideologically aligned to one side, that is damaging to a society.
Your example is nothing less than ridiculous. Use race and gender instead of ideology and it might become obvious to you. For some reason people think of ideology in different terms. There is no difference. You do not want racial domination of institutions (by any race) any more than ideological (by any ideology).
Make that list. Then check your assumptions.
You can start here (which isn't at all an exhaustive list):
https://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=637508&p=4462444
And, in order to understand the nature and roots of the problem, please read this, by Politico, hardly a right-wing publication:
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/25/media-bub...
This article, about five years old, opened my eyes as to some of the mechanisms, root cause and effects of the kind of polarization seen in the media.
And you are totally wrong about me. I am a Classical Liberal, maybe even on the side of Libertarian. It sounds like I might be right wing-leaning because it just so happens that the egregious acts, today, are overwhelmingly coming from the left. Right wingers did not spend a year burning down business districts and right wing politicians inciting people to behave like animals. You criticize that which is overwhelmingly wrong. In the last few years the bulk of it has been coming from the left, from Democrats.
I have seen this tune play out in other countries where I lived when I was younger (in Latin America). What the left is doing here in the US today has been done before, multiple times. It is nothing less than evil. It is wrong. And it does not lead to good outcomes. This is a historical fact across multiple cultures all over the world.
Take a very simple example of this: The bulk of the media, due to it's leftist alignment, has done very little reporting on the horrors of what is going on at the southern border. Right-wing outfits like Fox to full-tilt and talk about it all the time, which is to be expected. However, a huge portion of the audience has far more exposure to left-leaning media. Which means people, for the most part, have no idea what's going on.
They are talking about it now because various affected states decided to load people on buses and send them to places living in denial.
What's the reality?
Our normal legal immigration quota is in the order of 1.5 million people per year.
Over five million people have illegally entered the nation. We think it's more. There are folks who are not caught and counted, so, no way to know. We have no idea who these people are.
During "normal" times (horrible concept), human trafficking for sex and other slavery across the same border amounted to somewhere between 20K and 40K people per year, mostly women and children. There is no way to know how much worse that got.
We think 2023 could explode this number to as many as eight million people.
These people, 100% of them, are, by definition, unemployed. Yet US unemployment statistics do not reflect this fact. They lie.
Even worse, they consume vast resources at a time when the economy isn't doing well.
Last I checked, we have not created five million NEW jobs --in addition to what existed before-- in order to be able to employ an additional five to eight million people. Those jobs do not exist --and one could argue will never exist-- which means these people will either remain unemployed or live under the shadows and be exploited.
Then there's the drug trafficking, which goes hand-in-hand with human trafficking. It's off the charts. It is causing a path of illicit drug deaths throughout the nation that is hard to quantify.
This has been going on for two years. And yet, the media has done nearly zero front-page reporting on this all this time. I have had conversations with people who only watch outfits like CNN. They had no clue. No idea. At all. They were horrified to discover it once they opened their minds to consuming a variety of news sources.
Today they are starting to report it because it the problem has grown to such proportions that the truth is impossible to ignore. Now, slowly, people are getting some of the story.
Yet, for two years, they actively shelved the news to protect this administration. That's the problem. You don't want media aligned with ANY IDEOLOGICAL SIDE and, worse, actively acting to protect and mold the narrative in their favor.
I don't know why that is so hard to comprehend for some. I know it is human nature to defend your "tribe". Intelligent people capable of critical thinking can understand that such tribalism isn't good for anyone in the long run. Nations have gone full tilt from one extreme to the opposite, with horrible results. Imagine a reality where, in, say, fifty years, the ideological right takes control of all that is in the hands of the left in the US today. That would be horrible, just as bad as where we are headed today. I have been consistent about stating this. We do not want ideological domination by any faction. That's the change we need.
Immigration problems for example is a long standing issue going back many decades and multiple changes in administrations. Both sides of the isle may have different talking points about it, but they don't do much substantive change once in power (the changes they do make are mostly theatre). This is because the elites on both sides like the status quo. They both profit from immigrant labor whether legally in the form of h1 visas for tech workers like twitter, or the illegal immigrants that work in agriculture like Tyson foods. Immigrant labor can be more fully exploited than citizen labor - which is the goal.
Also speaking of evil, I happen to think the Trump admin policy of separating young immigrant children from their parents falls in that category. Where the children were then also exposed to the unchecked abuses of CBP personnel. Horrific and dehumanizing.
> You don't want media aligned with ANY IDEOLOGICAL SIDE and, worse, actively acting to protect and mold the narrative in their favor.
This goes back to the original thread. My two comments about this is that unbiased media can't and won't exist any more than unbiased HN commenters (you and me included). And, even if it did and the unbiased truth happens to counter the narrative of a given side, then that side would still accuse it of being biased! The second is that if the actual goal is to criticize political alignment of media than you must also do the same of right media as well. Fox News certainly has some guilt in "actively acting to protect and mold the narrative in their favor", call them out on it too. If you think only the left leaning media needs to change, but the right is doing fine, then you what you're actually asking for is more ideological uniformity.
Your discourse is typically conservative (and rejoice, even democrats carry the same, and I start to see 'socialists' doing the same, you're ideologically winning!). Group X does this, but groups Y and Z will do that instead!
A more post-marxist discourse would be that a system in which a company can become and be treated as the world open forum while depending on advertising will limit freedom of speech and ban more than illegal speech anyway. You can also have a critic of the board composition. Or a critic of what 'diversity' mean in big international companies.
Anyway, basic stuff, but thinking of systems rather than people (or group of people) is usually a good thing anyway. That's what scientists do.
I don't know, maybe because he has come out and said it?
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/27/twitter-cannot-become-a-free...
Quoting:
“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,”
“There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”
How about you take the time to research before belittling people?
> How about you take the time to research before belittling people?
My comment wasn't meant to belittle you or be a personal attack. My wording was borne of frustration. You and I cannot know what Musk thinks or wants. Reading and researching him isn't helpful either, he is a public persona and manages his PR. Not well recently IMO, but previously quite well. That means you absolutely cannot take at face value what he says.
I'd say look to his actions, but they are all over the place too. He certainly doesn't seem to be taking Twitter in the direction of brining any kind of union between the left and right, unless his plan is to make a common enemy for everyone. Again, I'm not sure how wise it is to speculate.
Well, maybe you don't. I worked with him for a couple of years. Some of the technology I helped develop goes to the International Space Station with some frequency. I won't say I understand him. I can say he is nowhere close to being an idiot. Sometimes people who accomplish great things can and do pass for complete whacko's until everyone is actually able to comprehend what they were trying to accomplish. Landing a rocket is a perfect example of this. The hatred he caught for even daring to suggest this could be done was incredible.
> I'd say look to his actions, but they are all over the place too. He certainly doesn't seem to be taking Twitter in the direction of brining any kind of union between the left and right, unless his plan is to make a common enemy for everyone. Again, I'm not sure how wise it is to speculate.
Rather than repeat myself:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34131719
If you are a software developer of sufficient experience you might have had the experience of having to work with a codebase that had rotten, putrid stuff at the core. The process to fix something like that isn't clean, linear or logical. It is dirty and fully of surprises. You often end-up breaking it before you fix it. Life is like that most of the time. Fixing Twitter is definitely like that.
The man is very clear on his ideology. He isn't on the left or the right. And that's good. Something like having a leftist FBI pay Twitter millions of dollars to muck with accounts and posts should make everyone around the world take pause. If they are willing to do this to their own population, think what they are likely willing to do to others.
Do not be blinded by ideology. Think about a scenario where the opposite ideology has control in order to understand why pushing for one side or the other isn't good for anyone.
We do not want ANY government organization controlling ANY media organization. Not in the US. Not anywhere in the world. What has been revealed so far makes that nexus very clear. Fixing it will not be easy. Be glad he is willing to take the hatred and all else that comes with that job. If we are lucky this will transform social and conventional media forever and in a good way. Here's hoping.
Saying that, I don't use Twitter, I've never really seen the point of it. I agree with "if we're lucky", but in a different way - lucky for me would be that this causes a transformation whereby distributed services become popular enough to be self sustaining and interesting. I doubt they'll ever be dominant, that doesn't matter, I will use them (lightly).
We know what actual censorship is. It's being pushed every single day by republican politicians and oligarchs, fighting it takes persistent effort. It takes literally 0 effort to look at history and other parts of the world to clearly see where republican efforts lead. Luckily, since Twitter isn't a military backed government, it will be just a minor inconvenience to fight this time. I think this time it'll actually be better in the long run. Has a real Freenode -> Libera vibe.
If you're going to defend a hypocrite, the only way you're not going to get downvoted is to show evidence that the hypocrite is _consistently_ not actually a hypocrite, you can't just provide a few examples where they happen to be sort of right. It has to _far_ outweigh the times they've been an indisputable hypocrite.
I'm defending the left and I'm going to get downvoted too, due to my angry, fed up tone. Might even invoke the dang. But the values are consistent: be shitty, get downvoted and/or banned. Defending the right with the most hateful tone possible and throwing in some lie being pushed by the biggest players in the party gets you a better shot at running for public office.
I've yet to hear a convincing argument for why I should trust consistent hypocrites and liars over occasional hypocrites and liars.
As for democrats, or the left, take your pick, it is indisputable that the ideology has dominance over social media, technology, conventional media and educational institutions. This dominance has led to the current status quo, and scenarios such as what is being uncovered at Twitter.
This isn't health for society. I have said this multiple times, the opposite (republican/right) would be just as bad. This does not lead to positive outcomes in the long run. And we have to fix it. Not sure how. If we don't, well, look at the history of Latin America to understand the kinds of things that can happen in the US (some of which already have).
Perhaps it is the fact that I was educated in multiple countries and cultures that I am able to see through some of the fog that people who have only lived in the US can't seem to be able to cut through. When I talk to people from other nations who live in the US they can't believe what this country has allowed politics to become.
Not to go too far, one of my neighbors is from Ukraine. She cannot believe just how far the US has allowed the left to impregnate so many institutions. I have friends from all over Latin America, the Middle East and even Soviet era USSR nations. Same opinion, without fail. Everyone thinks this is incredibly dangerous. Everyone except for Americans who do not know history and have no understanding of other cultures and what they have experienced.
I know I am not going to convince anyone here. So be it. Perhaps one day, when things go to shit, people are going to learn the lesson. The hard way, as they say. Sometimes that's the only way people learn.
Even worse, China is actively using this to help us destroy ourselves from the inside. It's a remarkable display of strategic stupidity on the part of the US. Brilliant.
I bought the car in 2019 and the solar in ‘20 before Musk went full buffoon.
If I were buying today, I’d buy the solar and powerwalls because they’re unbeatable value. But I would not buy a 3 today due to Musk being an embarrassment.
I did buy some Mazda 3 badges for my car, though, so that’ll be nice.
More importantly, I have multiple homeowners among my friends and family who want solar but won’t consider Tesla anymore because of Elon’s behvaior. They’re literally willing to spend more money on competitors worse offerings just to not give Tesla -and Musk- any of their money.
Worse, I have even more car enthusiast friends- all of whom used to covet the model 3 for its performance and value proposition… who are now buying other cars just to avoid Tesla.
As a tesla product owner and stockholder (bag holder, now?), the best thing Wlon can probably do for me is to step down as Tesla ceo and/or retire from the public eye. He’s single-handedly absolutely alienated what would otherwise be his strongest demographics.
Probably should be the subject of a shareholder lawsuit.
What about adjusted for income? Are republicans truly not buying as many electric cars? I know there’s a bunch of stereotype behind renewables and gas and such, but is that enough to explain a 5x difference?
To emphasize: I’m just speculating.
Also I suspect big urban vs suburban vs rural differences in current EV buyers given range and charging factors. That happens to also mostly correlate to politics.
This is why Ford has exited the Car market except fo the Mustang.
Tesla's "CyberTruck" while popular with the same "blue district" crowd that likes the Model S, was NOT popular with the buyers of F150's or Silverado's
The model Y would be, but is largely out of the price range for people looking for a mid-size SUV, in that price range people want a Full Size SUV.
the model 3 is purely a "City Dwellers" Auto
Rural districts are much more likely to be Republican and owning a tesla in such places also makes a lot less sense. Fewer charging locations and a high likelihood of trips that will require more than a full charge.
Does this explain the entire 5× difference? Probably not. But:
> Are republicans truly not buying as many electric cars?
Very, very probably yes.
This makes sense, in a naive sense. A good deal of Republican votes come from the central states. While these states tend to have a COL that matches the AGI of the residents, a Tesla costs about the same no matter where you live in the country.
[1]: https://www.standingforfreedom.com/2021/04/irs-data-shows-th...
But the reality might be worse:
A few years ago Teslas were widely seen as really good machines, the hero that followed Car Guys vs Bean Counters, whether that was justified or not. I'm just not hearing that anymore, from anyone. The positive vibes are just... gone.
I suspect the damage to the brand is massive, but not strictly political. It turns out, most people don't like shitposters.
The average person is already poorly emotionaly/intellectually equipped to resolve "I can dislike Thing A1 but like Thing A2", but with cancel culture mentality so pervasive now, people are expected to hate all Things A_
Worlds (once) richest man buys social network and acts foolish is a compelling story.
I’ve seen a lot more about this lately - & from people like Dan Luu, so, far from hysterical.
It’s also invalid to think, “since people cancelled A1 recently, it must be illogical to have built up a new-found dislike of A2.” Plenty of independent reasons to hate A2! Correlation and causation, y’know?
maybe cat is out of the bag that the interior feels like that of a power wheels?
It would turn me off. The experience wouldn't be very good. I would feel these people might not have the brain power to build the car correctly.
TSLA has been absolutely hammered above and beyond most other stocks. There's not many companies that are down 70% off their highs and at this point TSLA has lost more than bitcoin, an asset that's currently in the middle of the biggest financial scandal since Bernie Madoff.
> Second, there's no evidence to suggest that Musk wants to "own the Libs" or that Democrats have actually stopped buying Tesla cars
He's publicly thrown his weight behind Republican candidates and said Democrats were bad. He's let Donald Trump back on twitter and re-platformed lots of ultra right wing folks including people who stormed the capital.
Most CEOs quietly donate to the party/candidates of their choice. Some do it very quietly with PACs that don't even require disclosure. Openly advocating for specific candidates is a recipe for disaster as a major corporate leader.
> He is simply in favor of free speech.
I agree, free speech is great. Now explain how this isn't a PR disaster for Tesla?
> Third, even if Musk was actually trying to "own the Libs" and it was affecting Tesla sales, any decrease in TSLA purchases by Democrats could be balanced out by an increase in purchases by Republicans.
Read the damn article. Tesla ownership is a lot more prevalent in rich, liberal communities. The exact communities he's alienating. This should surprise absolutely nobody. Instead of taking sides in political slap fights, Musk needs to put his ego aside, shut the fuck up and take money from anyone who wants to drive a Tesla.
People buy cars for a lot of reasons but one of this big reasons people buy expensive cars is because they feel it makes some sort of statement to the world about who they are.
The statement a Tesla made 2 years ago was "I'm a forward thinking environmentalist" whereas today it says "I support Elon Musk".
It also pumped above and beyond other stocks and analysts were calling it a bubble stock way before Musk bought Twitter.
> He's publicly thrown his weight behind Republican candidates and said Democrats were bad.
I didn't know that. Do you have a source?
> Read the damn article. Tesla ownership is a lot more prevalent in rich, liberal communities. The exact communities he's alienating.
I did. What I meant was that this could flip. Tesla ownership could now become high in rich, Republican communities instead of rich, Democrat communities. I believe Democrats are slightly wealthier on average but I don't think the gap is that significant.
> The statement a Tesla made 2 years ago was "I'm a forward thinking environmentalist" whereas today it says "I support Elon Musk".
It's kind of sad that people think like that but I guess it's probably true.
Personally I’d argue Musk’s perceived political leanings are likely more about him personally and less about politics / a well thought out point of view…
PS: Also I must include an obligatory "I'm not a liberal, I'm further left than that".
(Please respect my free expression and stop dichotimizing the American electorate. Kthxbye!!)
'Tesla Inc. is the main source of Musk’s wealth, and his main goal in life is selling lots of Teslas. He has sold all the Teslas that he can sell to coastal elite liberals, and now he faces the daunting challenge of selling electric cars to social conservatives. Acquiring Twitter and turning it into a right-wing media company with himself as the main character might be bad for, like, Twitter ad sales, but that is small potatoes if it is good for selling Teslas to Republicans. “Our cars are electric, yes, but they are free from the woke mind virus” is perhaps a good pitch.'
I don't think Matt (or myself) put much weight into this being his true reasoning, but it's a fun thought exercise :)
If Musk really believes this, then it’s safe to call him a pathetic businessman, since he doesn’t understand the concept of repeat customers.
If you think this is true, I have a bridge to sell you.
Tesla right now owns the lion's share of the EV market (a late-November report put it at 65% of the market), but that share has already started to slip (it's down from 71% the year prior). But they're still a small player in the overall auto market (~3.5%), especially compared to established operations like Ford (~13.5%), Toyota (~15%), and GM (~16.25%). And now that two of those three marques are making heavy EV bets, I'd expect the EV market to grow overall, something Tesla is increasingly poorly positioned to take advantage of.
Put another way: Westchester County has the highest rate of Tesla ownership (6,926 total, 69.4/10k residents). Using the tool in the original post, there were 685,843 total vehicle registrations in Westchester County in 2022, so Tesla accounts for just 1.01% of vehicle registrations. What CEO would accept such a low level as the maximum addressable market?
Any 101 level marketing course will tell you that burning your brand with existing customer base is a horrible way to reach a new market segment.
A Brand is a promise. Damaging your brand with one group doesn’t make you more appealing to another. Just makes you look erratic and untrustworthy.
Though, it’s probably as good an explanation of his nonsense as any, really.
The problem with the whole “owning the libs” approach is the presence of the libs is required. Otherwise the right wing trolls can’t enjoy themselves. If Musk runs off Twitter’s legacy user base, all he has left is a bad copy of Gab.
The ford f150 is the best selling vehicle of all types in the US, and pickup trucks more often then not are purchased by conservatives.
Instead the narrative is about how all of Musk's businesses will fail because of his changes at Twitter and how angry liberals are about it.
Are liberals really that upset because the new CEO made the world's tiniest baby step toward free speech?
I suspect that the FBI has its paws in all the major media organizations as well--and that this isn't really troubling to them, because they are all pretty much on the same page, in propaganda terms. But Twitter is one big comment section and it's a tougher nut.
Do you honestly believe that we can’t speak freely in the US?
One might argue Twitter didn't have to take the censorship advice from the feds but IMO they shouldn't be doing this type of lobbying adversarial to US citizens.
What it can’t do is punish people for what they say.
Twitter as you point out, is a business that is free to do whatever it likes, and publish whatever it likes on its website.
At no point did Twitter enter into an agreement with people posting tweets about who they will be shown to. That’s not part of its business.
Elon doesn’t seem to be doing anything differently. He’s using Twitter to advocate for his political views, and ban people he doesn’t like.
Associating Elon with freedom of speech is a red herring. There is no connection.
That said, everything that people keep claiming to be ‘censored’ is somehow public knowledge, and nobody is afraid the government is going to punish them for talking about it.
The idea that freedom of speech is under threat because of anything to do with Twitter just isn’t in contact with reality.