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.
It feels like all of that toxicity was unnecessary and he could have been impactful and transformational without it, but maybe I'm wrong.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackmccullough/2019/12/09/the-p...
Quacks like a duck for me.
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.
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.
Musk was divorced like 5 times already.
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 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.
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.
[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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Uhh, wat?