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Comment by JonathanBeuys | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much Musks behavior on Twitter over the last months impacted the Tesla brand.

A lot of people I know hesitate to take a seat on a plane, even for a week-long holiday. Having to read about Elon Jet and that Musk takes a whole plane to watch a football game certainly rubs them the wrong way.

Censoring users at will for his own ego or his own benefit also seems to go against what intellectual tech enthusiasts value.

A lot of his tweets seem cold-hearted, passive-aggressive towards minorities like immigrants and LGBT people.

For the people who followed it (not sure if it is many of the Tesla target demographic), it must have been a change from "Smart free speech absolutist who works on accelerating the advent of sustainable energy to save the world" to "Unethical, narcissistic despot with ill will towards minorities".

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I'd say dramatically ?

He is so unlikable, foolish and actually rude to people that I wouldn't want to be driving around a car that's associated with him. It' a massive shame because I really think at some point he was a force for good and he really wanted to see progress in the world. Sadly and I mean this in the nicest way possible, he now just seems like a fraud.

I actually think Tesla already had a bit of stigma associated with it, kind of a "show offs" car...but now, it's just a liability.

I wonder why he couldn't just play the "brilliant engineer innovator titan of industry" part without the "teenage edgelord stick-it-to-the-libs Twitter troll" piece. Or was the latter always a prerequisite for his success, his ability to get eyeballs at all costs?

It feels like all of that toxicity was unnecessary and he could have been impactful and transformational without it, but maybe I'm wrong.

Years of being surrounded by yes men with no one to rein in his worst impulses has consequences. https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/elon-musk-text-messages...

It’s well documented that CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits at a rate far higher than the general population

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-p...

I wouldn't call his behavior psychopathic. Narcissistic, perhaps.

“ Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits.”

Quacks like a duck for me.

Antisocial behavior in that definition, which is the core of it, is continual criminal activity. At this point I don't believe it is present. Calling people names doesn't fit.

> At this point I don't believe it is present.

Why rob banks for $10k when you can whip up fervor on social media for millions?

Criminal activity is there, basically, cuz people want to get what they want, norms, morals, and the well-being of others be damned. Musk doesn't have to rob banks to get what he wants, and probably never would have since his family owned gemstone mines in S Africa.

If you want to judge the man, see how he treated his ex's, his children, etc. That paints a far less flattering picture.

If a criminal did that kind of damage to other people we'd be happy to commit them to a long stay behind bars. The fact that it is all bought and paid for makes it legal, but that's a flaw in capitalism: legal and ethical are very much disjoint concepts and you can do a lot of damage in a purposeful way that you'd never get away with otherwise if you have money and an army of lawyers.

Because you can play a role only for so long. Eventually that toxic real side comes out.

I think he was always a jerk and now it's just coming out.

I think what gave him some cover is that for a long time nobody else was able to do what his companies could do at the same scale, or even close to it. Maybe Blue Origin is not equal to SpaceX yet, but putting Captain Kirk into orbit was a good PR coup. And the legacy car companies are not as experienced as Tesla as making electric cars, but they have been manufacturing cars for a century. US automakers were hurt by Asian carmakers a few decades ago, but survived. It might take a few more years, but I think they will figure out how to survive this transition.

His companies were close to monopolies in their niches for a long time, so he kind of walked on water. Now other companies are catching up, and he is not as special.

They never put Captain Kirk into orbit. That you believe it, or believe BO can even be compared to spacex, shows how flashy the PR was.

aka "the online marketing bots are only picked up by the algorithm so often"

Just speculation, but I think his separation from his last romantic partner isn't necessarily a coincidence. I think I can no more discern what happened between him and Grimes than I could between Kanye and Kim, or any other similar power couple where kids came out of the coupling; but with that said, the timeline of the the beginning and end of the relationship does seem to line up with when the shark was jumped per sé.

The close ones are usually treated the worst and are treated badly sooner then the rest. It might just be that - them bailing out as situation worsenes.

Musk was divorced like 5 times already.

His overall arc feels very reminiscent of Notch (of Minecraft fame). Man attains unfathomable levels of wealth and fame and decides to use their bully pulpit to explain to the world how they're the victims, actually.

Yeah. I wonder if there's something to attaining that level of success that leads people to isolation, extreme opinions, and falling out of touch with reality.

Perhaps an inward effect of the Rougon-Macquart coefficient — corollary to the outward the light-bending phenomenon. https://twitter.com/cpriestman/status/1230821595222028288

Love the reference.

I was chatting with my neighbor, who owns a Tesla + Tesla Powerwall, about the Twitter situation and he was not shy to say how he was quite upset by the direction that Twitter is going and how he had just deleted his account and moved to Mastodon (and he is somebody who has a few thousand followers).

I doubt he is going to rip the Powerwall off his house or sell the Tesla, but I'm quite sure based on the conversation that if he didn't own either of these Tesla products right now he would seriously consider other options if he were buying today.

This is just one example obviously, but there is no doubt that Elon is upsetting some key demographics who want to purchase Tesla products, and while I have no idea if it will have a major negative impact on the bottom line, it certainly can't be good.

I own a Tesla. I'll never buy another as long as Elon is involved. Just reserved a Rivian and won't look back.

Good news that he is soon getting margin called on his Tesla stock collateralised loans and investors are already requesting Elon to step down.

What is the $ value the stock has to hit for this?

I was considering buying a Tesla for my next car. Now I'm not.

I've had four Teslas and Tesla solar on a previous house. I don't plan to purchase any further Tesla products with Elon at the helm and have moved to BMW's electric line which has far superior build quality.

It’s fundamentally just a car company and was wildly overvalued as a car company in large part due to the Musk cult of personality. He popped his own bubble by making everyone hate him with the twitter acquisition. Now Tesla is being revalued as a car company.

I mentioned a few times at peak it was valued as much as the entire auto industry combined plus a utility company plus a battery company plus a software company or two plus a solar company - and then some - all while manufacturing about 10% as many cars as Toyota and showing no success in anything other than cars.

It was always a question of when, and he forgot that JPow giveth and JPow taketh away.

Like Trump he could have just sailed off into the distance a rich and largely beloved man but he flew just a little too close to the sun.

I’ve joked before that Trump is a poor person’s idea of a rich person (“I bet rich people have solid gold toilets”) in the same way Elon is a 'left-curve' idea of a genius (“I bet geniuses just spend all day inventing crazy ideas and going to Mars and digging holes and stuff”). They’re both, in real life, caricatures of what they’re projecting to be. More showmen than anything. That’s not a criticism; they’re both excellent showmen. More Barnum than Rockefeller or Nikola.

I think a large part of the valuation was also the promise of full self driving. Musk repeatedly stated that it would coming "very soon" and Tesla would have been the first worldwide with that.

Now we know that Tesla will probably not be the first with level 5 autonomy and that their no-lidar approach may not even be sufficient at all.

But the belief in their FSD was priced into Tesla's valuation as well and by now it's clear that this part was overvalued.

The man did promise FSD was one year away for each of the last 9 years. At some point it becomes a 'fool me 9 times shame on... fool me can't get fooled again' kinda deal. [1] It's just too bad the video montage got struck down. It takes a genuine showman to string people along for an entire decade.

[edit1] All while getting them to pay up to $12,000 for software that didn't exist and had no path to existing within the promised timeframe.

Textbooks will be written about this bezzle.

[edit2] > Bezzle: Alone among the various forms of larceny [embezzlement] has a time parameter. Weeks, months or years may elapse between the commission of the crime and its discovery. (This is a period, incidentally, when the embezzler has his gain and the man who has been embezzled, oddly enough, feels no loss. There is a net increase in psychic wealth.) At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in—or more precisely not in—the country’s business and banks. [2]

Not suggesting a crime occurred here, to be clear - just the broad shape of what transpired re: FSD rhymes real good.

[1] https://jalopnik.com/elon-musk-promises-full-self-driving-ne...

[2] https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/85179

In a lot of ways it feels like this finale was already written.

This bubble birthed and featured Cathie and Saylor (again) to a large degree, but the real star was Elon.

There's always too much poetry in these cycles for him not to fall apart on the way back down.

Do you even know who the CEO of VW or Mercedes is?

I mean, I’m a Mercedes fanboy, and I don’t. I don’t need to. I don’t care who’s running the show — the cars deliver on the brands reputation and that’s all I care about.

That's the whole point. You shouldn't have to know. They're not out there calling harmless divers pedos, or retweeting far right material. They might have very conservative viewpoints - who knows - but they're not trumpeting them around and trying to influence other people in their political decisionmaking.

They’re probably significantly influencing other people, politicians with massive, unmatchable donations and behind the doors conversations. You just don’t know

Could it be that some parts of the mainstream media sees Musk as a partial replacement for Trump, a great source of over-done outrage stories, clicks and ads?

Pretty much. He’s been that kind of “magnate does strange things” since long, but since he publicly joined the political conversation, he hasn’t done anything to undo that framing.

Look, some of his points have some standing but the points have to be more nuanced. I’m also annoyed by PoCo and the power-grab by US identity-identitarian Calvinists, painting anyone that does not defer to their moral authority as fascist monsters. I’m also irritated by the “present your pronouns” because you’re “either an ally or part of the problem.”

But indeed, for every time you snap back, there’s a real trans person who’s suffering an identity crisis, victimized and exploited by all sides of the polarized flame-fest that’s smashing any chance for a reasonable debate.

I don’t know if Musk is a true reactionary bumpkin of just burnt out, and out of touch. He should really get a public relations specialist to fix his public persona and teach him how to stay out of rhetorical minefields.

Is your hypothesis that there are lots of other CEOs out there spreading crackpot conspiracy theories that are doing so unnoticed by the general public because "mainstream media" has unfairly singled out Elon Musk?

A few, just off the top of my head:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_Döpfner Who apparently texted Musk during the Twitter transaction. He’s a media magnate too eh!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barre_Seid You should thank this respectable man for the Roe repeal. Good luck avoiding their products.

> Could it be that some parts of the mainstream media sees Musk as a partial replacement for Trump, a great source of over-done outrage stories, clicks and ads?

I think a bigger factor is that some parts of social media sees Musk as a partial replacement for Trump.

And, particularly, that the part of social media to which Trump was most valuable for several years (before he was finally booted), and which has failed to draw Trump back recently despite very visible efforts, and which Musk now owns, sees him that way.

No, I don’t. They must be too focused on their job to be tweeting like a petulant child. Maybe Tesla should hire one of them to run things.

Perhaps, but that approach didn’t work out well for Apple when Steve Jobs was ousted for John Sculley. It did work out for Steve Jobs though with the diversion only making him stronger.

Steve Jobs was a very different kind of asshole.

I do (and it's not VW or Mercedes but Volkswagen Group AG and Mercedes-Benz Group AG), but only because I follow the industry closely, I don't think their CEOs are household names until something goes wrong. Such as 'Winterkorn'. That's a name that probably rings a bell with many on account of the diesel scandal.

It’s a strength that I don’t know?

For a lot of reasons I like Toyota and I’m super happy I don’t really know the CEOs name. If they do something silly I won’t have to feel like I can’t continue driving Toyota

When I buy a Toyota

The company is wildly undervalued.

Their products have abysmal initial quality, durability, and reliability.

Their parts/service/bodywork repair/support network sucks. The cars are ludicrously expensive to repair because Musk is using insurance company payouts to subsidize his company.

They've lost almost every advantage they had. Their cars aren't the fastest in acceleration, don't have the most range, don't have the best efficiency, aren't the fastest charging, etc.

GM, Ford, and Volkswagen are gunning for Tesla and Tesla doesn't stand a chance.

I assume you meant overvalued?

> The company is wildly undervalued.

Uhh, wat?

I think Brian Klass nailed it with his essay about 'The myth of the secret genius': https://brianklaas.substack.com/p/the-myth-of-the-secret-gen...

Many people don't like what the owners of Chick-fil-A are up to but apparently they do really good chicken at fair price so people keep buying it anyway.

I would guess that Tesla is losing the premium they can put to their prices and that is pushing Tesla value to a transactional value. No more apologists for the build quality or features that are pay now get it next year(every year, next year), if Tesla makes good cars and sell them at good price people will buy and if they don't people won't. If can't do autonomous driving, can no longer sell autonomous driving. No more paying extra to save the planet.

On the one hand, I don't doubt there's people who boycott Chick-fil-A, but in industries that sell large volumes of relatively inconsequential purchases I would assume the effect of bad PR is less.

If I'm hungry and I'm at the airport I'll grab something that's quick and convenient. My choice might not be the best, but whatever, I'm in a hurry and I'll forget what I ate by my next meal. A car on the other hand is a purchase I'll mull over for months— I'll consider everything, because it'll involve a lot of cash and I'll live with that decision for years.

On the other hand, I think you're right, and I doubt this is all just a consequence of Twitter saga. There's a lot of other forces at play here; there's more competition, Tesla keeps pushing some promised launches back, the whole stock market in general doing poorly, etc.

Weirdly, I think you could also argue the flip side of this:

- restaurant: inconsequential which I pick, won't remember the quality of the meal, likely have a few similar options, very low stakes -- why support the chain that's owned by jerks?

- vs major life purchase, weigh all the pros and cons, mileage and economy and environmental impact and identity all come into play: how much long term, big picture economy would I trade to maximize my self identity?

I think it works your way too -- just seems neat.

Yes, but the thing is Teslas largely selled as status symbol. It was that kind of car, they were cool.

They were never "good money vs value" tradeoff kind of choice.

They were almost the only viable electric car for a lot of use cases for a decade. Only very recently have alternatives with 300mi range that you can actually buy emerged.

But you did not had to insist on electric vehicle. It was definitely priced as luxury car, it was status symbol basically.

You eat the meal once. When you walk down the street the next day, nobody knows that you ate at chick-fil-a the day before. Everytime you are in a Tesla, you are in a Tesla, the entire time you have the Tesla.

Also don't forget that a car is one of the biggest status symbols.

Most people can eat a chicken sandwich without anyone they know ever knowing it. I've eaten many meals completely unobserved by people I know. Also, it's easy enough to dispose of a half-eaten sandwich if you spot someone you know and truly care about such things.[0]

Most people I know are aware of what kind of cars I drive[1].

Even if there's equal stigma attached to both, it's easier to quickly move past spending $5 on chicken than $50k+ on a car that's going to be with you for years.

0. I don't. It's a sandwich.

1. Both EVs, neither made by Tesla.

At some point Teslas product became its stock and Musk it’s tout. What lost its shine is TSLA. This is my first go around but I’m led to believe this is what the tail end of a credit cycle looks like.

What hurts Tesla isn’t a few terminally online folks refusing to buy some expensive electric cars but the perception they will in a very difficult market.

Tesla made cool cars before Elon joined (it was founded by Eberhard and Tarpenning - Elon was an early investor who started calling himself a founder one day and got sued by the actual founders, they settled allowing him to continue) and it’ll continue to make neat electric cars moving forward. But they will lose their first mover margins as more players join and that’s gonna hurt.

It’ll continue to be a player in automotive but it’ll now be priced like it. Until it can demonstrate traction in literally anything other than making cars.

You think it's irrelevant that Elon alienated most of his potential customer base?

I don’t think the customer base was actually meaningfully shrunk by his shenanigans on twitter but I think the perception that it was matters more. I could be wrong.

Heartbreaking is how it feels. I’m going to admit that I have been an Elon fanboy since he launched SpaceX. He seemed to be the purest incarnation of the entrepreneurs of the last century (Edison, Westinghouse, etc.) especially compared with the bluster of the non-tech-tech people that really just did Web (or CS on a good day). Now, he has turned into Howard Hughes with a megaphone, and it is not pretty.

There are no excuses for idolizing humans, the folly is my own, he is just a man after all..

How did you come to terms with how he failed upward with X.com and Paypal? He tried to ruin Paypal but was rewarded with $180M. SpaceX and Tesla being Elon’s wouldn’t be a thing.

I think it’s basically my internal valuations of the endeavors. Building a payment facilitator seems like a side hustle compared to the space/energy initiatives. That said, X/PayPal certainly helped a good number of people bootstrap more ambitious companies.

The emphasis in that comment was on Musk's failure with X; he was kicked out of PayPal and only collected the money after he was long gone.

That's a bit unfair - he had shares in the combined X.com and Paypal which did well and so he made money when it was sold. Fair enough he was replaced as CEO after a brief stint but it doesn't really matter that much.

I'll be happy to bet that there were quite a few ordinary employees of Paypal that had more of a positive effect on that outcome than Elon but that were compensated to a very small fraction for their efforts.

Capitalism is more than a bit unfair. Having the most stake in PayPal because he merged a different entity with its parent company while being lucky enough to be fired before he could ruin the company doesn’t seem like it deserves positive recognition.

Lets never idolise humans, but we can still be proud of the achievements that companies like SpaceX have achieved on behalf of humanity, despite their management's behaviour.

And you can feel better in knowing that he is not the brain behind any of the technology that SpaceX has created.

I have worked at companies that had a similar personality to Elmo's (though not to his level) working in a C-suit role. They are the hype machines that land contracts for the companies, or attract investors, nothing more.

> passive-aggressive towards minorities like immigrants and LGBT people

Are you kidding? he's legitimately full on aggressive to them with his tweets and retweets. the entire cruelty about pronouns is so baseless it's almost unimaginable. say you were born larry but you didn't like that name so you decided james fit you better so you ask people to call you james. that's it. I don't want to be called larry so call me james because that fits my internal idea of myself more. it's easy just call people what they want to be called. you can call them whatever you want but you're an asshole if you are calling them a different name than what they want to be called and have asked you to. and this isn't even "they are going to ostracize me if i mess it up once" kinda thing... they are aware that people get it wrong just like people getting your name wrong. this is about being deliberately cruel to people you don't think matter. it's absurd.

Yeah and the bashing of the Twitter ERG swag was just offensive and insensitive. Came across very spiteful and mean spirited.

My mother has been in the market for a new car for the last few months. I was keen on a Tesla until the shitposter in chief took the reins. We bought an Audi last week instead.

Wait until you find out the history of Audi (and its parent company VW)

Any reason why people have to keep bringing this up? At this point, who really cares.

Audi or VW are poor choices if virtue signaling is the aim. Almost any other Western car company would have been better.

Comparing corporations from 80 years ago under a regime that was toppled to a shitty CEO from today is utterly meaningless. The point of conscientious spending is to affect change. Not buying an Audi today does not send a message to Nazi Germany because it no longer exists (and it wasn't even Audi, it was their predecessor). Not buying a Tesla today sends a message to Tesla, because it exists. Make sense?

"Didn't buy a Tesla" = sends a message to Tesla

"Didn't buy a Tesla, bought an Audi" = poorly-executed virtue signal attempt.

If I was attempting virtue signalling, I wouldn't have bought an ICE over an EV.

Audi sell EVs as well as ICEs. You said you’d bought an Audi after considering a Tesla. As I said, poorly-executed virtue signal.

Really not. Only full on anti-capitalist care about origins of companies deep into last century. And even they are doing it for larger capitalism bad reasons.

Plus there is nothing wrong with virtue signaling, really. It beats vice signaling by miles and it beats passivity too.

Why is virtue signalling bad? It's demonstrating that you care about something related to human dignity. Do you really think that is so awful that you laugh at it? What would have been better virtue signalling?

Do you realize that sometimes people make choices because they have moral or ethical concerns? It is not always about sending any sort of signal to others. It is very rarely about sending any sort of signal to others.

In fact, the phrase "virtue signaling" was initially primarily used by people who seemed to lack moral or ethical concerns of their own and couldn't fathom that other people were guided by such. It's not a great term to throw around when it doesn't clearly apply.

Because they don't have a better point to make, so they're going for a gotcha

Depends on what history you talk about? The Nazis are gone for 80 years and quite a few of the emission scandal managers are in jail.

When is the official cutoff, for a company founded by the Nazi party to be used as the positive side of a virtue-signaling comparison? Obviously less than 80 years?

Is Audi or VW presently being run by Nazis or actively supporting Nazi Germany's war effort? Is anyone who was one of those Nazis still alive, let alone in any way actively associated with the company?

Do you even know what point you're trying to make?

This makes no sense. VW is a public company, employing regular people, making good cars in Germany and elsewhere. No one brings up the past for Japanese, so not sure what the logic for punishing VW is?

Who is punishing VW? I drive one (my 3rd) & it's a great car. I'm not using it to signal my virtue though, and I am suggesting it's a poor choice for that purpose.

Having and/or abiding by personal principles is hardly virtue signally — to the best of my understanding, it’s just called having a moral compass.

There is a certain kind of person who does not believe that anyone actually has morals, and so interprets any form of having a moral compass as "virtue signaling".

"moral compass" is something leftists invented to try to constrain the freedom of value creators. morals are an imaginary thing - ever read Atlas Shrugged? We all need to wake up - the left are trying to destroy capitalism and free speech with their "morals". Next they will say its wrong to cull the weak en mass to make room for more fit individuals.

Of course I read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, et all -- basic high school reading, hasn't everyone? I actually won first place in that stupid prize they set out, and all I had to do was pretend Rand wasn't a total dunce (which happily turned out to be excellent training for the business world).

Both novels, like the majority of Rand's work, are absolutely cracking as wish-fulfillment fantasies for folks without social skills who dream of having kinky, angular sex while demanding that they be made BusinessPapa for perfecting some mechanical process.

Ignoring, of course, that perfection in a vacuum means very little; it is the ability to use said process in the context of society that makes it 1) useful and 2) profitable (although I suppose Rand would order those different :)

Who is John Galt? The kid who took his ball and went home when the other children didn't let him make all the rules.

In short, I do not find Objectivism to be a useful rubric when it comes to morality. Frankly, Objectivism is incoherent except when read as a wish-fullfilment fantasy as described above, as the life of the originator handily demonstrates. Success does not come from minimizing the contributions of everyone else -- that way lies loneliness, hypocrisy, and a reliance on the teat of the State.

As I deeply value my freedom and lack of debt, I could never adhere to such a unprofitable and vacuous quote unquote philosophy.

With regard to "moral compass" being a leftist invention -- such an accusation betrays precisely the sort of total willful ignorance I have come to expect from self-proclaimed Objectivists (akin to RATM being Atlas Shrugged devotee Paul Ryan -- aka the literal machine --'s favorite band). Suffice it to say that the phrase "moral compass" appears long before the current political paradigm -- and the concept to which it refers is literally older than written language itself.

Have you read any books OTHER than Atlas Shrugged? If not, I would be happy to provide a few suggestions to get you started!

And while I'm dispensing unsolicited-but-potentially-life-changing advice: If I were you, I'd hesitate to out myself in public forums as being unfamiliar with an inner sense of morality. Most people prefer a social circle that views their friendship as something greater than a business arrangement built on symbiotic profit.

I would ALSO hesitate before living my life in the accordance with the principles of an parasitic welfare queen like Ayn Rand, but that's an entire conversation in and of itself.

Not the parent but I’m pretty sure that comment was meant sarcastically.

I hear you, but that’s also how they talk, so it could go either way.

It seems like people think that having a Tesla virtue signals for musk, so I think you have the equation backwards.

No I don't, that's not what I'm suggesting. People who may have bought Teslas in the past at least partly for virtue-signalling are now buying cars built by other manufacturers as a virtue signal against Musk, now they have decided Rocket Man Bad. Some of the car companies used for the virtue signal have histories that are demonstrably worse than anything Musk has done to hurt people's feelings on Twitter, making the virtue signal attempts amusing.

I know that's not what you are suggesting. I was explaining why you remain incorrect.

How many people are alive who worked for VW in 1937? I skimmed Audi’s wiki. What does it have to do with Nazis? Because it was an active company during the rise of Nazis? Yeah of course. The company was run by capitalists. Just like most companies. We know socialists weren’t running stuff. They were executed.

VW was founded by the Nazis, and the SS ran labor camps where prisoners were forced to work for Auto Union. I'm surprised that wasn't mentioned in Audi's wiki, they did make an announcement about it several years ago.

I find it amusing that this company seems to be the go-to for those refusing to buy a Tesla for ethical reasons (see also: Alyssa Milano recently announcing she sold her Tesla to buy a VW).

I don't think VW has benefited any (openly) Nazi people in several decades, so this argument seems just really silly.

Please. If you want to make this particular argument you'd be better off doing it for Opel than VW.

Tell the OP to buy an Opel instead of an Audi then.

You are not making a whole lot of sense in this thread.

FWIW, until a few months ago, my next car was absolutely going to be a Tesla. I can't bring myself to buy one now.

I'm still committed to getting an electric car as my next purchase and am slightly disappointed to take the Model 3 off the table but there are good options if you don't mind waiting.

To me it looks like: "Musk is rude, evil, hard to work with but a product genius (Tesla, SpaceX)".

Now with no direction of Twitter, fumbling features and losing customers and users, the "product genius" fell apart.

His blunders with Paypal don’t show a genius.

Definitely not, but those aren't particularly well-known, whereas the Twitter thing is dramatically, embarrassingly, unavoidably public.

For me it’s about firing half the Twitter staff in a ridiculous way (print out your code!) and generally him behaving like a crazy entitled asshole. I would be fine owning a fun vehicle that a few people didn’t like because it was wasteful or a weird statement in one way or another but at this point everyone has an opinion about elon and it’s not like very many of them are positive. I don’t want to get mixed up in being asked to defend the antics of a deranged billionaire because of the car I own.

I’m in the market for a car and Tesla definitely lost some ground in the running because of the perceived hassle of having to defend my decision to buy supporting his behavior.

But to be honest, I can’t drive any Tesla to visit my parents without stopping to charge, especially in the winter so it’ll be a few years until I actually consider an electric car.

For me the most important bit is that if he had any checks and balances at Tesla / SpaceX / life in general they would've reigned in his Twitter behaviour.

Any normal CEO would've had a big discussion with his supervisory board if he damaged his companies' brand like this in Twitter.

The fact that he seemingly doesn't have any accountability on it worries me the most.

There were various factors that could've gone positively or negatively that now appears to be poorly coordinated for Elon -- GOP not sweeping legislature, China manufacturing issues, competitors continue to develop, pace of market recovery, FSD beta performance, etc. Brand strength and Twitter distraction is just adding on top.

That and Elon has recently reassured his shareholders twice that he wouldn't sell and then proceeded to sell billions.

> I wonder how much Musks behavior on Twitter over the last months impacted the Tesla brand

Probably a lot. Musk is too closely associated with the brand. For many people, Tesla is Musk and Musk is Tesla.

They've been called "Muskmobiles" in the past. I wouldn't be surprised if people also started to call them "Twitter cars".

"Musk" also means "smell," with some bad connotations.

It's a shame since Tesla and SpaceX both seemed to have reached maturity beyond the start-up/celebrity CEO stage. Yes - they're both facing teething issues, supply chain problems, demand, etc - but it'd be easier to write off these drops if the CEO wasn't busy with some glorified SMS service.

IMO Tesla reached "maturity" with two issues:

- It was so incredibly overvalued before being mature, that once it actually started to deliver on some promises its price shot up even further from where it should be.

- It reached "maturity" too late. Other car makers have caught up. Consumers can buy a Ford F-150 Lightning, an Rivian R1T or a GMC Hummer EV today, but not a Cybertruck. Kia, Nissan, Mini, Porsche, Audi, etc have great EV offerings. Tesla isn't even the biggest seller of electric cars in the world anymore (it's BYD, 354k sales vs Tesla's 254k)[1]

[1] https://www.counterpointresearch.com/global-ev-sales-61-q2-2...

Also Rivian tanked 50% last two months.

Rivian makes cool looking things but will probably go out of business.

If you look into the numbers almost 50% of BYD is PHEV, the BYD Song, their top-seller, is a PHEV.

https://www.ev-volumes.com/

The most important part in the EV transition is still who can buy/produce the most batteries.

He just liked a tweet which claimed that Sir Winston Churchill was not responsible for Bengal Famine. Something which I think has been mostly proven beyond a doubt.

> Sir Winston Churchill was not responsible for Bengal Famine

I searched using this phrase and received lots of very interesting results that are in the affirmative, with lots of references from historians. I cannot rate the responses myself, nor the historians, as I am not an expert in the topic but it would seem that the topic is not settled.

I'll certainly enjoy taking a look into it and seeing what I think at the end of it.

That is disputed, and certainly not “beyond a doubt”, unless you are speaking in an entirely personal capacity.

This is definitely not proven beyond a doubt. In fact it's fairly well documented that he was not the cause.

I think we might be overindexed on his Twitter antics. Yes, he’s proven himself an incompetent moron for not realising the difficulty of running Twitter despite repeatedly being told it’s difficult. But this was only noticed by terminally online people and those adjacent to them.

It’s like the panel gaps on Tesla cars. Yes, they exist. Yes, they could indicate worse QA issues with the car. But for most part, this is something that only bothers car reviewers. Ordinary consumers don’t notice it and still buy Teslas thinking they’re quality cars.

Ultimately, what impacts Teslas sales isn’t his cruelty of the last few months. It’s something much more mundane - other manufacturers make decent electric cars now. And their charging infra is comparable to Tesla’s.

I think the consumer reports rating did more damage than he could but he didn't help.

(27 out of 28 reliability report)

But it is incomprehensible to imagine having double-digit BILLIONS cash in the bank, not on paper, in hand, and doing what he did to twitter?

It would be like the President of the United States daily tweeting insane petty crass things.

He obviously had competent people running SpaceX, Tesla, because all those products are too technical for him to be in charge exclusively.

But with twitter nope nope, it was an ego trip, hitting every branch on the way down.

I cannot comprehend having that much comfort in life and THAT is what you do with your time.

Each state in the US has a billionaire but most names are unknown. Not him.

I couldn't name another current car company CEO off the top of my head, but in my head the Tesla brand = Elon Musk the person. Which now means "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci" or whatever the last thing he was going on about was.

I'm not in the market for a car so it's hard to say how much this would sway my decision. Probably not zero though. At the very least the future of Tesla feels more erratic.

Most billionaires figured this out ages ago: thread very carefully when speaking publicly,or don't say anything at all unless it somehow benefits you down the line. There were litterly cases of large companies collapsing because some arrogant tool at the top couldn't keep their mouth shut. I never was a fan of him, but apart from being a huge douche, he's unpredictable,so how could I invest in anything behind him if he goes from zero to hundred and then back multiple times a day?

If anything, why would you prefer a billionaire who keeps to himself, and is afraid to speak his mind?

I don't prefer either type, I was simply stating the way it is.

In general we want the richest and most powerful members of society to behave predictably, and ideally rationally, so that we can make long term plans without worrying about the fickleness of a small number of people. We have a lot of problems to solve over the next few decades and chaos agents in the billionaire ranks won't help. Global economic growth depends on predictability.

If we want another chaos agent in charge we should elect them democratically.

I think predictability is irrelevant as long as change is positive. I am OK with unpredictability of having SpaceX for instance.

Related article on CNN:

Elon Musk’s Twitter obsession isn’t the core reason for Tesla stock’s plunge

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/23/investing/elon-musk-tesla...

It sure didn't help.

> I wonder how much Musks behavior on Twitter over the last months impacted the Tesla brand.

Definitely affects mine, I'd buy literally any other electric car now.

But... Tesla had a ridiculous valuation anyways compared to profits. They were always a long gamble for anyone with money. Given bonds are more attractive now, makes sense it'd tank.

What anti-inmigrant or anti-lgbt statements are you referring to?

Seriously asking or just trolling?

Musk is known to be anti-LGBT: https://www.them.us/story/elon-musk-gay-twitter-employee-gro...

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/elon-musk-should-apologize-f...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epz8jz/elon-musk-twitter-col...

https://newrepublic.com/article/169112/elon-musk-anti-trans-...

He even insinuated Pelosi's husband had gay hookers in his house! https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/truth-or-fake/20221101-...

and that's nothing new for him: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/19/tesla-fac...

From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments

> Assume good faith.

As to your claims:

> Musk is known to be anti-LGBT

Since when is pointing to an individual's comments who is gay and criticising them (the person or the comments) "anti-LGBT"? I'd like to see the reasoning for that one. I thought it's because Roth brings up children in questionable comments, an awful lot. YMMV.

The next link's headline is "Elon Musk should apologize for mocking gender pronouns, says group that gave Tesla top LGBTQ-friendly rating" - why? Freedom of speech includes freedom to mock. Anyone wanting, nay, demanding their own pronouns is eminently mockable, trans or not.

Next link's headline is "Elon Musk's Twitter Reinstates Anti-Trans Activists on Same Weekend as Club Q Attacked". Aside from that being a shameless guilt-by-association fallacy, the policy changed after Musk asked the question "Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?"

Portraying a general amnesty as something targeted seems a tad misleading.

Next headline: “Not content with reactivating accounts that spewed anti-trans content, Musk’s Twitter has now banned a group that organizes to protect people at LGBTQ events from far-right violence.”

I had to do a bit of digging with this one. The banned group, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club, claim they were suspended for two tweets (from the link you gave):

> The reason given for its account suspension, an Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club contributor told The New Republic, was that it had violated Twitter rules against “hateful conduct,” with two tweets cited: a reply to the official account of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“Mugging at gun point,” reads the reply to an unspecified CBP post) and another post with what seems like a retort to the perpetual conservative nonjoke about pronouns, “Every queer a riflethem.”

I don't understand why that would lead to suspension.

It turns out that they are part of Antifa and were involved in targeting a conservative activist[1][2]. Perhaps it is linked to tweets like the following by its leader? [3]

> For legal reasons, this is a direct threat. Enjoy your kneecaps while you've got them.

I can't tell. This tweet[4] from Musk in response to another thread by Ngo says:

> That is a disturbing story and very concerning that Twitter took no action, despite clear violation of ToS. Report in this thread for now.

So it seems possible that it may have been because those tweets were seen as threatening somehow, or for other violations that were previously, I'm tempted to write condoned but shall we say, overlooked?

[1] https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1557475321678647297

[2] https://humanevents.com/2022/08/10/meet-the-woman-antifa-mil...

[3] https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1557478306760597504

[4] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1596071799410003969

lol.

>Seriously asking or just trolling?

For what it's worth, I didn't know what statements were being referred to, and I like to keep up with tech news. There are probably a lot of others in the same boat too - definitely more then there are trolls feigning ignorance about him.

It's probably best to assume good faith from the commenter, especially when their username is "transcoderx"!

> It's probably best to assume good faith from the commenter, especially when their username is "transcoderx"!

Given that HN is a site by nerds for nerds, I think you’re leaping to conclusions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcoding :-)

Haha, of course!

These all seem like "nothing burgers" to me.

* He critizised that Yoel advocated for Kids using dating platforms in his PhD thesis. It's a misrepresentation IMO, but the reasoning behind his criticism is not LGBT specific.

* This is about mocking pronouns, not about LGBT people. “I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare.” - EM

* He reinstated a lot of accounts that didn't violate the law (free speech). Vice cherry picked some examples that were originally banned for "anti LGBT" tweets.

* Activist account was banned for "hateful conduct". I don't know the context here, but that classification seems reasonable.

* He did delete the pelosi tweet, presumably once he realized it was false.

* The last one is about anti LGBT behavior by employees at Tesla, not by EM himself.

Take this one, written 20 minutes ago:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1607997591870124032

Depicting the LGBT flag as one of the attributes of a brainwashed person.

You can see many tweets like this, belittling minorities, when you scroll through the "Tweets & replies" tab on Musks profile.

I think you are missing the nuances of this picture.

Can you explain it? I am also struggling.

My understanding is there's controversy about the "new" LGBT flag even among the movement.

So? Acting like Musk is making a point on behalf of LGBT people is so incredibly disingenuous it speaks to your character as a liar no different from Musk himself. There's a world where it's possible that could be what he meant, but it's not the one we are living in! Look around.

> Acting like Musk is making a point on behalf of LGBT people

You are fighting imaginary windmills here. I never said Musk is acting on behalf of LGBT.

Then what was your point? Do tell... it's of no consequence that something could be true. We are here determining what is true.

> Then what was your point? Do tell... it's of no consequence that something could be true. We are here determining what is true.

Look, learn to read FFS. This is a subthread where parent claims Musk is anti-LGBT based on the flag in the picture. Which has to be `(anyone who disapproves flag -> anti-LGBT) and (Musk is anyone) -> Musk is anti-LGBT`. And I am proving this sentence false from `(any LGBT is pro-LGBT) and (there's at least one L who is LGBT and who disaprroves the flag)` which contradicts the above statement rendering the argument invalid, specifically `anyone who disapproves flag -> anti-LGBT` part. Therefore the picture does not show Musk is anti-LGBT, at least not via the flag reasoning.

I have no problem reading. The assertion wasn't that Elon Musk is anti-LGBT because of that single tweet. It was that single tweet was another example of him being LGBT. The irony that you miss this while telling me to "learn to read FFS" is not lost on me and once again speaks to your lack of credibility in being a reasonable person about this. You cannot seriously suggest that Musk is engaging in criticism of the flag from a pro-LGBT stance because he's objectively not pro-LGBT. He posted the other day that his pronouns are "prosecute fauci" he's not an LGBT ally. Sorry to break it to you. But this is the state of things today. Read the fucking news or something, give me a break from your disingenuous BS.

Oh, but you do.

I responded to the specific claim. You are talking about something entirely different, generalizing a lot, and equating individual policy preferences with giant groups of people.

The claim I responded to was a BS. The way you argue is a BS. If "the fucking news" are doing the same, then they are also BS, and I'd rather read sources recommended by people who actually understand what's written rather than read what they want to see between the lines.

Be as obtuse as you want, it's not my problem.

Great point, it also expresses an anti-vaccine sentiment!

Considering the number of needles on the picture, that wouldn't be my interpretation.

My bad, I should have said "covid vaccine". Thanks for understanding.

Like really you don't see any other options for the implied content of the needles?

I think a statement that there are too many covid shots is fundamentally the same point I made, but feel free to make yourself clear at any time.

Have you considered they may be drug needles, not vaccine shots?

No I didn't, and I disagree. Are you joking? The image, literally, captures every conservative grievance regarding the culture wars of late. And you think it's more likely that those needles don't represent the multiple covid vaccines that were hugely controversial amongst this same crowd? You are entirely not credible. You are making ridiculous and unreasonable posts all over this thread, trying to say that these things which obviously indicate what they do, must mean something else.

> And you think it's more likely that those needles don't represent the multiple covid vaccines that were hugely controversial amongst this same crowd?

Are you saying the drugs issue is not a "conservative grievance regarding the culture wars of late"?

This goes directly against "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. "

> You are entirely not credible.

That's just a personal attack again.

"Needle drugs" aren't a "conservative grievance regarding the culture war" and certainly nowhere near comparable to vaccines, which the image obviously reflects (the three boosters, then the fourth) and they also aren't intravenous...

I didn't stick with an easier plausible interpretation. Both of your interpretations are clear nonsense and you are not credible because you keep making completely baseless, specious arguments. If you find that offensive, stop making these kinds of arguments.

> "Needle drugs" aren't a "conservative grievance regarding the culture war" and certainly nowhere near comparable to vaccines, which the image obviously reflects (the three boosters, then the fourth) and they also aren't intravenous..

Just for you I googled up the top conservative reddit, and scanned it for topics until I hit vaccines or drugs, and drugs came up first.

The fact that you've posted this as if it proves anything, let alone your point, really speaks to just how far off you are from being reasonable.

Right, cause your claim was substantiated much better.

The image speaks for itself. The needles are in the exact places where the vaccines go, which is also exactly where you don't put intravenous drugs. Either you are ignorant or foolish.

The casual cruelty is what really gets me. To treat other people as though they are less than toilet paper is such a terrible thing to do.

I'm probably giving Elon too much credit, but I think his Twitter takeover and subsequent offensive behavior is a part of a concerted effort to improve Tesla's brand in red states, specifically Trump Country. The Tweets that many view as "cold-hearted" are embraced/worshipped in Trump Country. The Tweets about Nancy Pelosi's husband and "pronouns are prosecute/Fauci" are perfect examples, just to name a few.

Why would Elon care about his and Tesla's brands in red states? Well, it seems Tesla has pretty much saturated the tech-forward, eco-friendly, upper-middle-class car buying demographic. Everyone in SV/CA that was gonna buy a Tesla has already bought one. Time to find new markets: red states.

Red states have generally had a very low opinion of EVs. Elon is just trying to sell the sizzle, not the steak. He could promote all the cool tech of Tesla vehicles, but it would generally fall on deaf ears. Coal rollers don't care about battery tech, but they do care about owning the libs, and Elon's their guy now.

Furthermore, Tesla's Cybertruck is gonna ship eventually, and its destiny is Trump Country. The bulletproof panels, unbreakable glass and ginormous size are all features that resonate in red states. I'm sure many Cybertruck owners will utilize all the cool features, but I'm guessing that most just want attention, just like those obnoxious Hummer H2 owners from 20 years ago. Then there's the Tesla Semi that will need to be at least accepted in red states in order to be successful.

And that's just cars/trucks. Tesla is also expanding its power grids, and I think Elon views red states like Texas and Florida as integral to this. Red state governments will be a lot more receptive to Tesla's power grids if Elon is already considered political gold. There's a lot of opportunity in Texas, and I think Elon wants to get to the front of the line.

And lastly, I think the icing on the cake for Elon is replacing Trump as the King Of Owning The Libs, effectively neutralizing Trump's greatest strength, making him seem old and lame. My understanding is that Elon butted heads with Trump when he was president, and now he's doing everything he can to keep Trump out of the White House, either hoping to get a more friendly Administration or simply to get back at Trump.

Or, then again, maybe Elon's just a jerk with a bunch of money.

This would involve Elon playing “4D Chess”. No reason to think that unless meritocracy existed.

No, Trump country knows what a truck looks like: A Ford-150 or GMC Sierra. Trump country knows that a Cybertruck is something those left-wing loonies would buy.

I’ve wondered the same.

A good test for one's instincts is to guess what Tesla NPS is. Then look up estimates.

That isn't a brand, it is a cult. Tesla's are not even that good of cars. They feel really cheap.

You mean, there's anything morally wrong about one of the world's richest people flying a private jet? There are tens of thousands of them in the world.

For environmental reasons alone, yeah private jets are wildly unethical.

No one wins from blatantly contradicting reality. They are a thing and everyone with some cash uses one. Many of them are people as lowly as successful engineers or owners of <100 people outsourcing shops. And here we are speaking of one of the world's richest people.

I mean...I'm aware that private jets exist, idk if anyone doubts their existence. I still think their usage is unethical though.

Is your argument that private jets exist therefore you can't be judged for having one?

No, my argument is that if people much poorer than Musk are using them routinely and no one makes a fuss about it, then it's really surprising anyone is concerned with Musk doing that.

How does saying private jets are unethical contradict reality? I don't follow you at all... does reality only reflect things which are ethical? Surely that's not the case. What on earth could you mean?

It is not just Tesla. Apple is down too, and many other famous brands are also listed. Here is more balance article: Apple and Tesla: Tech shares tumble amid supply issues https://www.bbc.com/news/business-64099654

Ah, the old HN trope of "nice guys succeed in business because I myself am a nice guy, and tough operators with rough edges are all freakshows and got their success through thuggery and criminal activities".

Tesla was already over-priced on any basic metric. Elon is a phenomenal operator, regardless of whether you like his tweets or not. And if you follow the media coverage of any public figure on how you're "supposed" to think about them, I would recommend taking a breather and re-evaluating to whom you give root access to your mind to.

If you are right, then this is a MASSIVE buy opportunity.

1) does anyone else have the battery and EV production capacity of Tesla? Maybe some Chinese makers ... maybe?

2) are they releasing new models and continuing to scale production? Yes.

3) is the exigent need of electrifying transportation still at red alert klaxon level? Oh yes.

4) does anyone else have as good a drivetrain tech yet? Not really, the lead is likely shrinking rapidly.

The fact that twitter is impacting a company in an almost totally unrelated industrial area shows that there is massive irrationalism around Tesla.

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