Tesla Vandalism Surges in Canada as Trump and Musk Face Backlash
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VW was literally founded by the national labour organization of the literal Nazi Party, it was offered to the Ford motor company in 1948 for free (they turned it down). Yet VW was shipping to the US in 1949 (albeit sold a total of 2 that year) and reached a million sales (in total, I think, not US) around a decade after the end of the actual war — all the horrors were still very much in living memory at that point.
But I said "brand". The company itself may be screwed, as my understanding is that Tesla Inc has debts of around USD 13.62 billion[0] plus whatever is going on with the various claims I've heard but cannot verify about Musk using Tesla stock as collateral for loans[1]. If the Market cap was realistic, the loans wouldn't be a big deal, but I think the share price (and hence market cap) is off by a factor of around 15-20[2], and that Musk personally has enough of a Steve-Jobs-like Reality Distortion Bubble to hold it at that ratio for a while yet. If I'm right, the current market cap of ~USD 780 billion should be closer to 30-60 billion — and Wikipedia says that he used more than the high end of that to secure a personal loan to buy Twitter[3].
[0] https://companiesmarketcap.com/tesla/total-debt/#:~:text=Tot...
[1] https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/21772866617914
[2] the P/E ratio only makes sense if you assume growth that was already implausible even if there wasn't excellent competition from China or a brewing trade war or that current White House policy is to cut spending and kick out workers both independently at a scale likely to cause a recession in the USA; if the US does actually go to war with China like some of the (currently) rumours are saying they're thinking about, that's 21.4% of Tesla's market by dollars.
[3] "$6.25 billion in bank loans to Musk personally, secured by $62.5 billion of his Tesla stock" - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Acquisition_of_Tw...
Ford is probably a better example; I gather Ford sales _did_ suffer somewhat. It’s not a _great_ comparison, though; by the time Henry Ford went public with his lunacy, he was no longer the president of the company (his son was). And his brand of antisemitism didn’t really become complete political poison in the US until after the war (when he started on it in the 20s, blatant antisemitism was still somewhat socially acceptable in the US), at which point he was basically dead.
Others groups, yes.
Perhaps I've missed things — I have missed things, I should instead say that perhaps I've missed those things — but I while I dislike e/acc for seeing only what existing ills can be prevented rather than accounting for what new ills can be created by a lack of caution, I've not seen what you say in e/acc. Nothing wilful.
Do you know about VW? Why is no one burring those?
EV's were pushed by the left, now they are bad? So burn them.. what about the environment?
It's the fascist salutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smQNNo2a9xc
It's the excuses he makes for Hitler: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/musk-holoc...
It's the interference in foreign politics: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/25/elon-musk...
It's saying Canada is not a real country: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elon-musk-canadian-citizens...
And so on and so on. Take your pick. There's lots to choose from. He's determined to damage the Tesla brand and he is succeeding.