I was definitely on the bandwagon from this thing from the first time I saw it. Four years of Elon's dumb antics and I now absolutely will not spend a dime at any company he's associated with.
I can like the cars but not like Elon, very little nuance required in holding the position [1].
holy consoomer
> I have one, but am looking for a second
I think you are only superficially concerned about climate change if you are planning to buy not one, but two, fully steel enclosed monster trucks weighing 6.500 pounds each.
Congratulating people that buy a Tesla for helping to save the world from climate change makes absolutely no sense.
Congratulate people that decide to buy small minimalist cars or give up cars and take public transportation
TLDR Pats on the back aren't going to drive down petroleum consumption in any material fashion.
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/27/teslas-horde-of-megapac...
https://qz.com/2182975/tesla-is-killing-coal-and-gas-plants-...
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38448818
https://vividmaps.com/public-transportation-in-the-united-st...
That solution simply doesn't scale and is a convenient "feel good" excuse for Tesla to sell more cars and individual that can splurge in a 5000 pounds vehicle full of toxic particles requiring a ton of grey energy to produce.
Is it marginally better than buying an ICE car? Maybe (Some studies show that keeping your old car a couple more years is actually more efficient).
But the real solution is to start reducing the size of those vehicles to something like a one-person car, not buying a "lifestyle truck"
Edit: I have no issue with people buying what they want. I have an issue with people splurging on superfluous items and ALSO claiming they help fighting climate change.
Oh wait. They do.
Panasonic makes Tesla's batteries. So all of Tesla's battery "manufacturing" progress is really...Panasonic's battery manufacturing progress.
> I traded a Toyota full size pickup truck in for my first Tesla, a Model S, because Tesla needed to move units to survive. I'm looking forward to closing the loop, trading that Model S (with almost 110k miles on it after driving cross country in six years) in for my Cybertruck. It's ugly, I love it, I don't care what it costs.
I don't need a fancy EV. I want an EV I can beat the shit out of (steel body, no paint issues to contend with), tow with, and has native access to the Supercharger network (I live out of a duffel bag with a starlink dish and am constantly mobile across the continental US). I also don't want to support legacy auto, who had to be dragged to the EV transition by Tesla. Mission accomplished. That is worthy of my dollars. How others spend theirs is up to them.
I am Jack's piqued curiousity.
I'd love to get more details on your setup. Hotels? Cafes? Or work out of a tent?
Above the $44B, I mean.
Exactly my feelings. Edit: actually disagree with “antics” — that softens reality — he’s telling us exactly who he is by his actions.
Buying petrol from Shell or cereal from Nestle? No problem. Buying a Model 3 from Tesla? No way!
Honestly, I'd be surprised if there weren't a ton of people with the same views on immigration or trans issues or covid or whatever, each associated with a company you buy from every year.
Though personally, I always thought Cybertruck looked pretty naff.
what a shallow unnuanced "critique", on brand for this website
There's a reason most CEOs stay quiet, when you become the face of a company your actions reflect on the companies you represent, and when you spend billions of dollars to make sure that your antics are broadcast as far and wide as possible it's not surprising that your antics affect your companies.
There's a reason most spokespeople for companies have to sign some level of acceptable public behavior contract.
Why on earth do you think that is why he bought Twitter?
You get article after article hating on him - it ends up affecting reputation and public sentiment.
Humanity is lucky to have him, despite his faults.
This is more hyperbolic as anything negative I've read about him the press.
Elon in particular has become a liability thanks to his deliberate efforts to be the face and voice of Tesla. For me and clearly others, it's no longer possible to think of Tesla independently of him. His products need to be that must better to work against it and they're just not making the cut.
Other products -- Shell, Nestle -- are reevaluated for disgust-vs-need each time. Most of us have tiny, brief interactions with these companies. There's no meaningful relationship, so I'd have to be extremely furious with a brand to avoid their product. Right now I'll get gas from Shell but not Lukoil, for instance.
Of the things he's done that's actually one of the least questionable.
Twitter was going to have to fire those people soon any way due to not making enough money to keep paying them and they've gone on to do better things any way.
He's indicated he thinks that Twitter's liberal censorship was an existential threat to man. I think boosting his own messaging has to have been one of the motivations (though maybe not the most pressing one).
There are a lot of reports that he doesn't treat employees well, at Tesla as well as Twitter.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/16/23833447/tesla-elon-musk-...
But then this is Tesla so I'm not surprised.
That is a real vision for our species.
If you don't like Musk, why would you contribute to his success?
If engineers sharing your views and concerns don't want to work there, how are you expecting those cars to fulfill your expectations and perform on the points you value ?
I have no problem with an eccentric CEO, but I do have a problem with the bald face lies he makes.
Personally, I don't want to fund Elon Musk's culture war bullshit. I don't like being lied to (FSD, and vehicle reported range). And I don't like their doing away with all of the instruments in favor of voice control and a single display.
Also there's a typo at the end, it should be "because you love [xxx]"
It's silly to buy from Tesla for any reason but you want one of their products, all other reasons are trivial.
There are many non trivial reasons that you may not want to give your money to a company or organization.
For better or worse, even random Joe Q. Public knows who the richest man in the world is, and has some opinion on him. Everything he does is scrutinized by the media and put into some political or moral framework. Just like Bill Gates in the '90's, he's inescapable.
But unlike Bill Gates and other prior holders of the richest-man title, Musk eschews any personal PR department and instead broadcasts to the world unfiltered takes. And by and large, people don't like what they see.
I don't know when the Cybertruck was announced initially, I believe Elon had already started to enter the public eye a bit more aggressively... but sentiment has definitely changed over the last ~8-9 years.
People want the best cool shit.
You should contemplate that sometime, just as an exercise. What would it be like to live in a world where whataboutism doesn't amount to a cheat code to summon the easily-led? One where your beliefs, opinions, arguments, and actions actually have to stand on their own, without reference to unrelated crimes committed by other people in a different time and place.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/29/elon-musk-to-advertisers-who...
You can buy a car from him, I'll pass.
There was no reason to think he would bid $54.20/share for Twitter, either.
There was no reason to think he would call a guy a pedophile for criticizing his submarine idea.
There was no reason to think he would name his kid with nonstandard characters.
There was no reason to think he would offer to trade horses for blowjobs.
There was no reason to think he would _______. I'm not saying he's a Nazi, or that he is especially likely to call himself one. It's impossible to say whether he is more likely to wake up one morning identifying as a Zen Buddhist, or a Laveyan Satanist, or a Nazi, or a Methodist.
You don't know what he'll say or do to hose the value of your car, and neither do I, and neither does he.
Average person probably doesn't consciously register all that is happening and can't tell you about the past weeks' drama, but I think there's a certain point where too much negativity attached to a brand starts to drag it down, and Tesla might have reached that point.
I'm not saying it certainly has, but a few years back the outlook on Tesla was so overwhelmingly positive, you'd have to actively seek out criticism on your own. At least nowadays sentiment on them seem to have returned back to Earth.
Same way people still remember Carlos Gohn, when they probably couldn't name WV's CEO.
But you definitely knew that, deep down
Isn't there a rule about not being snarky?
When I'm thinking where to spend my money, I do appreciate that Tesla (and SpaceX) push the boundaries in high-tech industries, and that much of the R&D and manufacturing spend goes to employees in my home country.
As an investor in Tesla's IPO I find some of his behavior erratic and worrying. I certainly can't diagnose anyone and don't know the man personally. But sometimes he gives the impression he's abusing stimulants to stay awake for 72 hour stints. I worry about his health. I worry about how some of his decisions might negatively affect Tesla or SpaceX.
In the past he was known for appreciating contrary views and opposed yes-men but it seems like he is surrounded more and more by such people who say what he wants to hear in an attempt to leech off him. Again I don't have any personal knowledge but it is another worry that any rich person has to face. I hope I'm wrong about this.
The thing I'm most disappointed about is his moving from CA to TX to avoid income taxes.
The startup ecosystem, local infrastructure, education system, and many other factors that make California the global center of startups and innovation are paid for by those taxes. Or at least the region needs to pay for infrastructure, housing, etc to make it possible for such a system to function. Elon effectively declared "screw you future generations, I got mine".
Did moving to avoid income tax make him immoral? No. Was it illegal? No. But I hate that kind of thinking. You made your bones here in CA, now that you have more money than you can ever spend in a lifetime you want to bail to avoid paying into the system that made it all possible?
I want to be clear here: Elon is within his rights to do that. I'm not calling him a sinner. I just personally find it incredibly disappointing and demonstrative of a lack of appreciation for the factors that made him successful.
edit: I still own a Tesla vehicle. I still own shares. I still support SpaceX's mission. I don't fault anyone for being a fan of his, I'm just not as much anymore and I find that regrettable because he used to be focused on such grand and important things.
edit2: Twitter is also such a massive and pointless distraction born out of being personally offended that they were fact-checking and moderating some of his tweets. The world would be better off if he were focused on Tesla and SpaceX. Instead he's out there swearing at advertisers and doing petty things like removing verified checkmarks or banning prominent people who say bad things about him on Twitter - despite his purported support of "Free Speech". All of this is demonstration of extremely thin skin and lack of perspective.
Turning his sexual harassment allegations into a cultural red vs blue issue by front-running a story about said sexual harassment allegations
Totally unnecessarily inhumane behavior toward employees during the Twitter acquisition
He just seems increasingly like a truly awful person by almost any definition of “awful person” except the one “has a lot of money.” Character really, really matters, and culturally important people exhibiting horrible character should be aggressively laughed at and disparaged. A less public, equally atrocious, equally wealthy person actually does have less of a negative impact on the rest of us by mere virtue of being less public. Elon could’ve been awful in private and frankly I wouldn’t have cared all that much. But as it is now, generations of people — young leaders — are learning that you can be as awful as you want so long as you’re powerful. What does that foreshadow for our culture, if unchecked?
He posted another insane conspiracy theory about the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband. [0]
He keeps promoting the concept of "civil war" in the EU, due to immigration. I am in the EU, and this sounds absolutely bonkers to me. Maybe different parties being elected at best/worst, but civil war? That's not a rational take, and seemingly just projection.
> Musk, who has never reserved his social media posts for business matters alone, drew attention to a tweet that said Jewish people “have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
> Musk replied to that tweet in emphatic agreement, “You have said the actual truth.” [1]
I greatly respect SpaceX which he actually founded, what he has done with funding and running Tesla, but it appears to me that he has now truly lost his mind. Today he behaves like a politically deluded troll. This saddens me deeply. At one point, he seemed like the best of us, above any of that dangerous silliness.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/31/1132906782/elon-musk-twitter-...
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/16/elon-musk-calls-antisemitic-...