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Comment by eddtries | Hacker News Reader

They will have to give in or close shop. Simply two options available. Musk is pretty irrational when it comes to backing down so I suspect the latter. I was just about to buy a new Tesla when this kicked off and don’t fancy the risk of having a car I can’t service, so shopped around and discovered other EVs can be just as good with better build quality nowadays! So that’s a nice outcome for me.

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The Finnish dock workers just announced that they are also joining the strike. Tesla would lose the whole Nordic market for something that surely is peanuts in the company scale. One could assume that an agreement would make financial sense.

What does it mean for Finnish dock workers to join? Are they refusing to load and unload Tesla shipments or are they striking generally?

They are refusing to load and unload Teslas and Tesla components to Sweden. So doesn't actually affect the Finnish market now.

Article in Finnish: https://www.hs.fi/talous/art-2000010043398.html

It's a bit shocking, as Sweden is one of Tesla's most mature and highest-density markets in Europe.

Yes, but there are only 10M people there (and only 25M people in the nordic countries).

To put it in perspective, the total number of Teslas sold over the entire history of Tesla in all of the Nordic countries is less than half of how many Teslas were sold in the US in 2023 alone.

One factor that could be a thing in the next few years is the R&D on EVs, green mining, and rare mineral deposits found in Northern Sweden. Sweden now has the largest despot of materials used in EV batteries in Europe and is leading in green mining to be able to access those minerals while meeting climate targets. These materials are expensive and hard to transport - Tesla could use this as an opportunity to set up some R&D there and get access to the materials logistics to bring them to Germany, etc. Which I'm sure has crossed their minds. But if they fight the unions and storm off they're not going to be winning any bids for that extra stuff.

Countries like Sweden have form on using their natural resources to build vast state funds which are then used to improve conditions yet further, creating a virtuous cycle of opportunity and innovation in the process. Norway did this very successfully with oil money. There's no reason to think Sweden wouldn't go this way with their rare minerals.

While the rest of the world looks on in envy, wondering why it is seemingly so impossible to replicate elsewhere.

> Musk is pretty irrational when it comes to backing down

What from the outside looks "irrational", from the inside may look like "not compromising on principles".

Money is not the main variable that Musk is trying to maximize at this point.

> not compromising on principles

Yes, I'm not talking about money here. Irrational means making bad decisions. The bad decision here is to continue playing with a bad hand against someone who isn't going to fold. Sweden is not going to fold so either Musk folds now to avoid more embarrassment & costs, or keeps going and folds in the future. It'd be more rational to just pull out of Sweden than fight a losing battle, as you said money isn't that much of a factor here.

> "not compromising on principles"

which almost always is immature behavior, whereas adults think solution-oriented, which sometimes is called "Realpolitik" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realpolitik).

Doesn't get better in this particular case where musk is opposing to officially agree to common worker protection rules, wages, ... he already follows. Just another case of "dumb behavior".

Most things are iterated games so "not compromising on principles" can be a really good strategy if you can afford it.

I should add that that is true both for Tesla (and Elon personally) and for the Swedish unions (and the other Nordic unions).

> not compromising on principles

Not compromising on free speech worked well... Until he started banning journalists from Twitter.

It worked well for his own free speech.

Which journalists has he banned from Twitter/X ?

Just look up the events surrounding ElonJet.

Doesn't answer my question.

I would actually like to know if there have been any. I'm quite open to criticising things that he has actually done, and have made criticisms of him plenty of times. But I'm not aware of any journalists that he's kicked off twitter/X. The closest to such a scenario that I'm aware of is him (so far) not allowing Alex Jones back on, but he didn't actually kick him off.

It's not that hard to Google.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/15/23512004/elon-musk-start...

> Twitter has suspended the accounts of several prominent reporters who cover Elon Musk, including Ryan Mac of The New York Times, CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell, The Intercept’s Micah Lee, and Mashable’s Matt Binder, Aaron Rupar, and Tony Webster.

Thanks for that link. I wasn't aware that he suspended journalists at that time. However, I do note that they were only suspended and not banned. And this is consistent with what he has said on a number of occasions, that people might get 'timeouts' (in this case for doxing) but he's against permanent bans. Just checked two of the accounts (Ryan Mac, @RMac18 and Aaron Rupar, @atrupar) named in the article and they are active today.

I would like to know if there are any journalists he has permanently banned. As used to happen quite often on twitter, pre-Musk acquisition.

>I do note that they were only suspended and not banned.

This distinction is meaningless until someone is un-suspended.

Certainly if you are suspended you should be told the time period the suspension will last for, yes.

Don't make assumptions.

Here's one that has been permanently banned: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/elon-musk-twitter-st...

Ok, this particular case is interesting and certainly looks concerning.

Checked his handle [1] and yeah, it's still "suspended" over 6 months later. And while it only says "suspended" there, according to this thread [2], the message he originally got was that he had been "permanently suspended", which does imply a ban. And is also somewhat disingenuous because a suspension should imply temporality.

Appreciate you providing the link. Perhaps I've been living in a bit of a bubble because I hadn't heard of this.

[1] https://twitter.com/dellcam

[2] https://twitter.com/stevanzetti/status/1648785112748662784

The principle that he should be able the run the company as a dictatorship and not have to negotiate with anyone.

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