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Comment by zarzavat | Hacker News Reader

Musk's Nazi salute is going to go down in history as one of the stupidest things a businessman has ever done. There's still plenty of people in Europe with a personal connection to WW2, family members who died fighting or died in the camps or bombings. There are relatives I never met because of the Nazis.

It's unthinkable for me to give any sum of money to - let alone purchase a car from - a company associated with neo-Nazism.

I couldn't care less about DOGE or anything Musk is doing with US domestic politics, it's really just that salute that would prevent me from buying a Tesla.

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Totally agreed. And do note this is an opinion coming from EU. We really, really, really don’t understand _anyhting_ about US internal politics and most people here in EU countries who _think_ they do really don’t. And vice versa - europolitics are mostly non-sequitur in US context.

It seems inconceivable to some in US how some ”tropes” are not just ”harmless larping” but actually in a specific environments deeply insulting gestures.

I do realize the deep wounds nazism caused are plusibly hard to understand if one is not european.

But that does not really excuse someone who clearly signals he strives to be a thoughtleader.

In general it’s Pauling and Vitamin-C again. You are great at something and thus presume those intrinsic strengths serve equally well in some other context.

Human failures aside, hurtfull things are hurtfull and they cannot be reasoned away. Forgiven - sure, in right circumstances. Forgotten as well.

Not sure why this is downvoted. Even if you dispute if that have gesture was a Nazi salute, or think that people shouldn't consider the behavior of a CEO when making a purchase, this is the reality.

My thinking as well. Regardless of intent, trolling or otherwise, the fact that he did that is a huge miss and the most irrational behavior, not something you want in a leader.

It's wild to see this being downvoted while explanations based on build quality are going to the top. I'm not sure if it's a coordinated effort to suppress criticism of him from the Nazi perspective or that I was just wrong to assume the anti-fascist feeling that's so strong here in Europe must also exist in the US and the rest of the old Western world.

Musk's Nazi salute is going to go down in history as one of the stupidest things a businessman has ever done.

The second stupidest thing he did was build a huge EV manufacturing academy for the Chinese.

I always thought this was odd --- he could have farmed out select parts and pieces to China manufacturing with the final assembly in Europe but he went all in --- and helped accelerate China surpassing him.

It reminds me of a line from a movie, "Look at you now, you stupid fvck".

If you take Musk for his word massive expansion of EV automotive was his main goal all the time regardless who makes the cars. In that narrative BYD expansion is a win - validation&healthy competition.

Ofc the impact to Tesla-as-a-business is a different matter.

BYD absorbed everything it could from Tesla and then surpassed them on just about every front --- units sold, revenue earned, overall value, quality, battery tech, even self driving capability.

Instead of the teacher, Musk is now the student.

https://www.automotivemanufacturingsolutions.com/electrifica...

https://eletric-vehicles.com/byd/byd-rolls-out-in-house-self...

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