Musk is a cunt and Tesla are shit

A new low - https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1708629197617336398

He really is scum. He was live streaming migrants at the US border this weekend, talking about 'illegals' and how they're ruining everything.

I reckon he's going to run for President at some point. He's going for a Trump lite vibe.

He can’t, he wasn’t born in the USA.

Never stopped Obama, amirite?

I can sleep a little easier at night I guess.

I reckon he's going to run for President at some point.

He allegedly considered it at one point, till it was pointed out to him he can't.

Oh, late to the party again.

IIRC Tesla receive hundreds of millions in direct subsidies, and again in indirect subsidies.

As does Starlink.

As does SpaceX.

As does SolarCity.

I once called Elon Musk ‘a bullshitter who delivers’ - he says a lot of stuff he knows isn’t true, and yet, there are the cars and the self-landing rockets. People generally struggle with one or other of these - they will refuse to accept the problem in selling a car that can’t drive itself as ‘full self driving’, or they will say ‘he didn’t found Tesla!’, forgetting that he’s run it since before it has shipped a single car. Everything you see at Tesla or SpaceX really is his creation - but half of what he says is bullshit.

Until recently, though, the bullshit was mostly about cars or tunnels. It wasn’t repeating obvious antisemitic dog-whistles. It wasn’t telling us that George Soros is plotting to destroy western civilisation. It wasn’t engaging with and promoting white suprematists. It wasn’t, as this weekend, telling us all to read a very obvious misinformation account, with a record of anti-semitism, as the best source on Israel this week. Of course, it had bought a Blue Tick.

The old Henry Ford car-magnate-to-antisemite pipeline.

I don't buy a lot of what you say - he employs people to do the work, he's just a money man and always has been - even his e-banking company was bought by PayPal because of connections it had rather than any technologies they wanted - but I agree that he has gone off the rails in recent years, seems to be correlated with his wealth. There is the possibility that he is acting up because he has seen his wealth grow and feels that his power and influence should grow commensurately. This is a phenomenon that is recognised in societies with widening inequality, as they produce elites in excess of the political positions available for them.

I’m quoting someone else, those aren’t my thoughts. But I did like the description of Musk as a bullshitter who delivers.

He might be a cunt, and I think there is very little doubt left there, but both Tesla and SpaceX are successful, disruptive companies.

The Origin Story episode on him is really interesting. And has some similarities to that point.

The problem is that there's zero evidence that Tesla and SpaceX are not just successful and disruptive in spite of him being leader.

True.

Out of curiosity can you prove you don't fuck donkeys?

Both companies have been highly successful and attracting government subsidies. American taxpayers have been pumping up his market cap for decades.

If you haven't read the story of Elon moving X servers from that biography it is nuts

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/11/elon-musk-moved-twitter-servers-himself-in-the-night-new-biography-details-his-maniacal-sense-of-urgency.html

Sure, but that's not quite the point I was trying to make.

Just so I'm clear, you're not disputing the stuff about donkeys?

I have the same amount of proof as the average (non-donkey fucking) person.

Otherwise you'll just have to trawl the I Confess thread.

Imo the dudes a prick. And over rated.

But whatever hoops you want to jump through to mitigate his role, the fact is he has shifted the landscape with Tesla and Space X

Toyota made the prius in what the late 90s? And for a long time that hybrid solution was the closest to commercially available EVs we'd got.

I've met loads of people with cool ideas and no money. I've also helped people with cool ideas get money and then totally fuck it up. I've also tried and failed to get money from public and quazi public bodies - not the US Government admittedly, but I'm going to wildly speculate and say they're not that easy either.

Clearly I don't claim to know everyone's personal experiences with building successful multinationals, but a lot of commentators seem to downplay how difficult it is to do what he's done.

But whatever hoops you want to jump through to mitigate his role, the fact is he has shifted the landscape with Tesla and Space X

Right - it's difficult to assess what he did with those two given who he's become. I believe in both cases he heavily invested his own money (which he didn't need to ever spend, he could have happily lived on a beach for the rest of his life) to the point of almost being ruined. Space X in particular was one more failed launch off being finished at one point - and that would have been the end of him as well.

I think they're both important companies that wouldn't have moved so quickly without whatever it was he injected. Shame (for him, I guess? personally I'm not too bothered) he seems set on ruining his own legacy so completely and so quickly.

Out of curiosity can you prove you don't fuck donkeys?

Donkeys, yes. Asses maybe. Mules, no.

Space X in particular was one more failed launch off being finished at one point - and that would have been the end of him as well.

Billionaires do what billionaires does best; keep pouring money until it stick.

And lobby for government handouts/contracts

Toyota made the prius in what the late 90s?

Yeah when petrol is cheap, why would you buy an EV (or electric hybrid) for marginal or even less gain?

Remember at the end of the days it’s money, load of people brought bikes during the 73’ oil crisis as a solution, but quickly revert to cars when the price is more favourable.

Changes only happen with government setting a goal or money (or even both for us).