It is mental that a man worth billions in mostly electric car companyv shares is courting people who would run their cars on coal if they could.
this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2025
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A man who has made his billions on being essentially a corporate welfare queen.
Are you criticizing Musk or our government?
Musk, obviously. The man courting people who rage about "welfare queens" is himself the true welfare queen.
He sells a subscription-on-wheels. Any environment benefits are just gravy on top.
Nobody at Tesla headquarters voted to alienate their customer base. No board meeting decided to turn their electric car company into a political lightning rod.
This is technically not true. The board keeps Elon Musk on as CEO of Tesla, and they granted him the biggest bonus package ever, while he was already very controversial and clearly was losing his mind, because they thought he would be able to make them money.
You're right, that's not just technically untrue. The board voted with their wallet, by giving him even more money than ever, so he could continue doing what he is doing. The people on the board wouldn't give a shit if only Nazis buy their cars, as long as there's enough of them to keep buying.
Well joke's on them though, because it seems Musk has found a way to tap US citizens directly, so he probably doesn't even care much about Tesla anymore now that it is failing.
I believe this is the part where we get sued for not buying his cars.
Like companies getting sued for not advertising on Twitter
That was the joke, yes
Don't give him any ideas!
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About a week ago I saw a brand new model Y (still had the 90 day temporary plate) sporting one of those "bought before elon..." stickers.
Knowing how badly Tesla has managed their supply chain, it's possible they paid for it in 2016.
Elon has always been a terrible person, but he was once focused on things that society actually needed, like electrifying transportation to avoid climate collapse.
He seems to have gone sharply downhill into total insanity by taking ketamine while locking himself in a rightwing echo chamber. It’s the perfect storm of dissociating from reality.
Elon has always been a terrible person
The problem with Elon is he's been provably an idiot for the past 25 years.
The first thing I ever heard about Musky is that back in 2000-ish he wanted PayPal to take their infra, throw out all the Linux/BSD in use, and move everything to Windows NT.
Anyone who was even remotely IT adjacent in that era can come along and tell you how utterly moronic that idea is.
Anytime I've ever heard him blather on about some stupid shit that doesn't exist except in his delusions or talk about, well, ANYTHING technical or specialized all I was ever able to think of is that he got lucky that Thiel didn't drain all of his blood and leave his corpse in a ditch.
Potential ketamine addiction aside, he's just gravitated toward where he sees more money and unfluence for himself. He wanted the prestige of being a leader in tech, so he used his influence and money to build SpaceX. Then he bullied his way into the ownership of Tesla, desperately wanting to appear as a genius to libertarian and liberal minds alike, but he's never been any less of an authoritarian. When Trump rose to power the first time, he sat and watched and along with the rest of the Silicon Valley Moguls, he began to move himself into positions of influence with populist politicians, borrowing the evangelical right's playbooks and throwing himself into the spotlight no matter the reason. He pivoted off his falsified image as some kind of American self-starter into MAGA rhetoric.
Musk doesn't have lofty ideals or any real focus on the betterment of society. I don't think he ever did. He just wanted to be a real life Tony Stark and command the influence that came with it. Now he doesn't need to, because he's got Trump in his back pocket and is mostly untouchable by any normal means.
I'll never stop laughing when Tony Stark treats Musk as a nobody.
Iron Man II, "Yeah. Later. Blown. Off. Bet Musk is still proud of that cameo.
“I think that’s a good idea.”
“You do? Then we’ll make it work.”
Sick burn
Dr Dorothy Bishop resigned from the Royal Society back in November 2024 because of Musk. Everybody knew. And being an FRS is a huge, huge deal to a British scientist.
I didn't know till ...tomorrow.
Damn, your temp plates are 90 days? Where do you live?
Oregon
Ours (Vegas) are only 30 days
Wow. Our DMV didn't get us our plates for for almost 2 months, and from what I've heard, that's faster than usual.
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Everyone forgets where the German cars, Henry Ford, etc came from politically.
I was looking into my first EV, and politics just didn’t weigh that much into the decision. Now, the “infotainment as a perpetual service”, that turned me off and away from Tesla. With CarPlay my car dash will never lose service, and will always be free to use with updates from Apple/Google. I can’t imagine why people would ever pay for their infotainment when CarPlay is better or equal in all cases to the alternative.
That said, if Tesla and other brands were equally weighted in my purchase decision, I’d then happily rule Tesla out based on merit.
Are either Ford or Mercedes currently run by Nazis? Can the average person on the street name the CEO of either of them?
The problem with Tesla is that everyone hates the guy who has made himself the face of the company at a time when there are plenty of alternatives.
The issue is that the alternatives generally aren’t that much better in a vacuum. Infotainment vs Tesla infotainment (removing the CarPlay merits): It’s not even close. Tesla is like 10-15 years ahead of everything else on the US market in their price range. Car manufacturers famously lock in their tech and designs something like 3 years before public release.
Will there be meaningful software updates for your Kia EV6 in 2028? Absolutely not, no way.
Do you want to tow anything more than 1000Kg? Good luck outside of Tesla.
NACS? Not one single other car available yet.
Do you want a dashcam? Rivian is the only other brand, IIRC.
I’m not apologizing for Tesla, but it’s really painful how awfulall other cars are compared to the competition.
If Rivian had a more affordable option they’d be eating Teslas lunch right now. R2 coming next year.
German cars come from Carl Benz, who built the first automobile in 1885, four years before Hitlers birth.
Not necessarily Carl Benz himself, but it has been litigated that the company had ties to the nazi regime. I’m not arguing that Mercedes was founded on Nazi values, I’m just saying there was a connection and a less than stellar history of bedfellows.
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Remember 2015? A Tesla parked in your driveway told your neighbours that you valued innovation, that you possessed an environmental conscience, that you had a stake in the future of the planet. The cars weren't perfect, but they meant something. They represented hope - for clean energy, EVs, and a world beyond fossil fuels.
This was me years go. I knew climate change was real and an imminent threat. I wanted to vote with my wallet for a cleaner future. I also wanted to strike a blow against the National Automotive Dealers Association for their regressive practices that hurt consumers and drive prices for cars higher for everyone. Buying a Tesla did those things. I charge the car on sunlight from my house. I don't have to support the petroleum industry's damage to environment and people around the world. I was proud to be doing something rather than just talking about needs for changes against climate change.
Musk doesn't get any of my money from this car. I don't pay for any of the Tesla monthly services. I'm don't want to be seen driving with a Tesla logo on the car. I'm ashamed that my good intentions funded a fascist.
There is no shame in your ownership of the vehicle based on your intentions; I would humbly assert that anger is a more appropriate reaction to the current leadership of the company that made it. If strangers judge you, that’s on them.
If I had had the means to purchase one 10+ years ago, I would have. Most people who claim they wouldn’t are not being honest with themselves or disapproved of the virtue signaling associated with them at the time.
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Tesla might have to go on welfare... by having the US government buy thousands upon thousands of Teslas. 🤮
Problem is that Trump is on the oil companies' pay rolls. Unfortunately he's subsidizing them instead of Tesla.
https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/22/24349650/trump-ev-tax-credit-tariff-congress
Swasticars for a fascist government. Makes sense.
The popo using cybertrucks would really be the cherry on the techno-feudalist hellscape cake.
Just commit all your crimes in 3cm of snow and you can outrun the cybertruck police with a light jog.
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8% drop in car sales isn't great but I think the article is overselling the idea that the company is straight up dying. (Sadly) Most people just don't make a connection between how they spend their money and the politics of the people they prop up.
It’s close to 50% drop in Europe. The EU has 500 million people. They may not know it yet but Tesla is on hospice care.
Tesla is definitely dying unless they can turn this around quickly.
Surplus capacity is expensive, and I bet they are already operating at a loss. And turning around a bad reputation is hard.
Their models are dated, the cheap Tesla is cancelled, the Cybertruck is a catastrophic fiasco, and the model Y has already lost a lot of popularity, so even a new mode already said to be mostly a facelift, is unlikely to make a huge difference.
The drop in sales in January in EU is 50%, and they are losing market share in China and USA too. So I think the actual drop is higher now than 8%.
Note that for Nissan a 5% drop last year was called catastrophic!! And their survival is also questioned, and they are way bigger than Tesla.
To your list add that new Tesla sales are also competing against an increasing number of Tesla owners who now want to divest themselves of the brand.
More used Teslas on the market will only push down the market rates and thus profits of new Teslas even further.
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