how common do you think this perspective is? outside of places like this one, of course. as far as I can tell, the average person's perspective of the guy likely hasn't changed much in the past few years at all.
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.
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.
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.
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.
People want the best cool shit.