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Was it not the mission of Tesla to make electrical cars an alternative to cars running on petrol? To me this was achieved. Bmw or Tesla, i do not care about tha

by okr 2y ago

Was it not the mission of Tesla to make electrical cars an alternative to cars running on petrol? To me this was achieved. Bmw or Tesla, i do not care about that too much. But we have an alternative. Great! And politics, well, only for people who do not agree with him it is an issue. But that's normal in politics, is it not?

Swizec 2y ago
> And politics, well, only for people who do not agree with him it is an issue. But that's normal in politics, is it not? 50% is a big chunk of your target market to piss off
marcosdumay 2y ago
> But that's normal in politics, is it not? Excluding a part of the population for no practical reason at all is bad business. But when the politics becomes extremist, that share becomes huge, and it becomes disastrous business. Some people are motivated enough to lose business for their principles. But the guy's principles is "big business is right"... I'm not sure what he wants to achieve.
- AnthonyMouse 2y ago
  > Excluding a part of the population for no practical reason at all is bad business. But when the politics becomes extremist, that share becomes huge, and it becomes disastrous business. Companies do this all the time though. The trade off is, of course, that you get more support from customers the other side. > But the guy's principles is "big business is right"... I'm not sure what he wants to achieve. This is not an accurate representation. For example, the Twitter acquisition followed a period of Twitter (and most other social media) banning a lot of conservative accounts for publishing truthful reporting (New York Post) or actual satire with the disfavored political leaning (Babylon Bee), at which point Musk did a Twitter poll asking the entire site if Twitter adheres to the principle of free speech: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1507259709224632344 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1507259709224632344 70% said it didn't, so he bought it. This upset a lot of people (not least the people who liked the preexisting system that tended to ban their political opponents) and they've been characterizing everything he does in a negative light since. So then you'll get a lot of stories about a left-leaning account being suspended with the implication that he's just doing it the other way now, with no investigation into whether the suspension was deserved, or just characterizing the unavoidable false positives and false negatives in moderation as a willful bias etc. That isn't to say he's a saint, but the impression you'd get from reading a lot of this coverage is that he's the devil.
  - the_gastropod 2y ago
    Talk about a not accurate representation... > the Twitter acquisition followed a period of Twitter (and most other social media) banning a lot of conservative accounts for publishing truthful reporting (New York Post) The NY Post's Twitter has been banned multiple times, including the most recent one that happened in March 2023, well after Musk's takeover of the company. > or actual satire with the disfavored political leaning (Babylon Bee) Yes. Twitter had terms of use. And posting hateful and targeted attacks misgendering people was against their terms. This wasn't some "THEY'RE PERSECUTING ME FOR MUH CONSERVATIVE BELIEFS!". This was just flat out them being unambiguous assholes.
    - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
      > The NY Post's Twitter has been banned multiple times They were, in particular, suspended immediately prior to the 2020 election over a story that was substantially accurate. > Twitter had terms of use. Everything has terms of use. All of the terms of use are purposely written so that anything the company wants can be construed as a violation. But also, "misgendering people" is a point of political dispute. "We prohibited the opposition's politics and then banned them for it" is in fact what they're objecting to.
      - slg 2y ago
        >But also, "misgendering people" is a point of political dispute. If I ask you to call me Bill and you keep calling me William, you're an asshole. I don't know how misgendering people is any different. Just call people what they want to be called. You don't have to turn this into some ideological battle.
        AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > I don't know how misgendering people is any different. If your gender is like your name, which you can choose yourself, then it can't be bound to anything you can't change, like your chromosomes or the hormone levels you had during puberty. In other words, it can't map to biological sex. Which, okay, that's kind of the idea, isn't it? Someone wants to have sex male but gender female. Except that then nobody really cares about gender at all. When you want to have things like women's sports or prospective dating interactions in which people may want to have biological children or anything else where sex differences actually matter, what people want you to declare is not your gender but your sex. This then becomes the motte and bailey where gender is supposed to be different than sex but somebody who has reason to actually care about sex is then told that they have to accept gender instead or they're a bigot, as if they aren't different. And that is the point of political contention.
throwadobe 2y ago
The mission of Tesla is to maximize value to its shareholders
- sandworm101 2y ago
  Or shareholder, when one controls all the levers.
- lern_too_spel 2y ago
  Not quite. Tesla's mission is to do what its voting shareholders want. Usually, shareholders want to maximize their returns, but Tesla's shareholders voted to reduce their returns to overpay Musk for work already done.
  - throwadobe 2y ago
    Presumably because they believe keeping Musk will increase value long term, so they are still maximizing the value of the future cashflows discounted to the present. The size of Musk's ownership stake adds another layer to this metric, but at the limit, that really that just means the words "they" in my previous statement can be replaced with "Elon Musk"
    - lern_too_spel 2y ago
      No, the reason most voters gave is that the payment was promised, not that it maximized their returns. There are any number of projects that Tesla could spend $50 billion on that would provide a greater return to investors than giving it to Musk. Even giving him a fraction of that would have been enough to retain Musk over giving him nothing, if they really believe Musk's leadership will be positive for future returns.
    - verzali 2y ago
      I suspect many Tesla shareholder believe they are investing in Musk, rather than just Tesla. That explains much of their behavior.
- throw0101d 2y ago
neofrommatrix 2y ago
I was seriously considering a Model X until Mr. Musk decided to open up on his political ideology..
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  This attitude reads to me like: only those who agree with you deserve a place in our economy and society.
  - coryrc 2y ago
    Huh, where have I heard that before? https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/gay-rights-trump-gop/678797/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/gay-rights...
  - dimensi0nal 2y ago
    maybe guys don't want to buy cars that make them unfuckable
  - anon373839 2y ago
    Funny, it reads to me like: my money should go where I see fit.
    - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
      What I see is that people here and on places like Reddit seem to support expression of political views when it is for their side. They wouldn’t take issue with CEOs supporting leftist social justice issues, for example. But when it is a CEO supporting centrist or right-leaning views, they don’t support it. And not just that, but they go out of their way to manufacture outrage or signal their actions in order to suppress their political opposition, who they feel should not be able to express their views. When you can’t handle your opposition’s ideas being aired, you don’t support democracy. Sure you can make the claim that your money should go where you see fit, but it does also mean that you don’t support a society where ideas can be discussed.
acdha 2y ago
Most of the EV market are people who find his politics disagreeable. He’s not doing his duty to shareholders by driving them away, especially for such pointlessly offensive things which have nothing to do with the business. This is why you almost certainly know nothing about the views of the CEOs of any other car company, and why Musk is almost certain to face lawsuits after the inevitable decline - a meme stock can’t last forever, and the fundamentals don’t support the current valuation at all.
epistasis 2y ago
I think that in addition to proving a point about technology, they also wanted to be a very economically successful company. That second part is at risk, and if Elon's decision making power has been better reduced, they'd probably be really far ahead of where they are now.
GaggiX 2y ago
>But that's normal in politics, is it not? Yes exactly in politics and not in business, in particular if you are the CEO.

by okr 2y ago

Swizec 2y ago

> And politics, well, only for people who do not agree with him it is an issue. But that's normal in politics, is it not? 50% is a big chunk of your target market to piss off

marcosdumay 2y ago

> But that's normal in politics, is it not? Excluding a part of the population for no practical reason at all is bad business. But when the politics becomes extremist, that share becomes huge, and it becomes disastrous business. Some people are motivated enough to lose business for their principles. But the guy's principles is "big business is right"... I'm not sure what he wants to achieve.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> Excluding a part of the population for no practical reason at all is bad business. But when the politics becomes extremist, that share becomes huge, and it becomes disastrous business. Companies do this all the time though. The trade off is, of course, that you get more support from customers the other side. > But the guy's principles is "big business is right"... I'm not sure what he wants to achieve. This is not an accurate representation. For example, the Twitter acquisition followed a period of Twitter (and most other social media) banning a lot of conservative accounts for publishing truthful reporting (New York Post) or actual satire with the disfavored political leaning (Babylon Bee), at which point Musk did a Twitter poll asking the entire site if Twitter adheres to the principle of free speech: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1507259709224632344 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1507259709224632344 70% said it didn't, so he bought it. This upset a lot of people (not least the people who liked the preexisting system that tended to ban their political opponents) and they've been characterizing everything he does in a negative light since. So then you'll get a lot of stories about a left-leaning account being suspended with the implication that he's just doing it the other way now, with no investigation into whether the suspension was deserved, or just characterizing the unavoidable false positives and false negatives in moderation as a willful bias etc. That isn't to say he's a saint, but the impression you'd get from reading a lot of this coverage is that he's the devil.
- the_gastropod 2y ago
  Talk about a not accurate representation... > the Twitter acquisition followed a period of Twitter (and most other social media) banning a lot of conservative accounts for publishing truthful reporting (New York Post) The NY Post's Twitter has been banned multiple times, including the most recent one that happened in March 2023, well after Musk's takeover of the company. > or actual satire with the disfavored political leaning (Babylon Bee) Yes. Twitter had terms of use. And posting hateful and targeted attacks misgendering people was against their terms. This wasn't some "THEY'RE PERSECUTING ME FOR MUH CONSERVATIVE BELIEFS!". This was just flat out them being unambiguous assholes.
  - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
    > The NY Post's Twitter has been banned multiple times They were, in particular, suspended immediately prior to the 2020 election over a story that was substantially accurate. > Twitter had terms of use. Everything has terms of use. All of the terms of use are purposely written so that anything the company wants can be construed as a violation. But also, "misgendering people" is a point of political dispute. "We prohibited the opposition's politics and then banned them for it" is in fact what they're objecting to.
    - slg 2y ago
      >But also, "misgendering people" is a point of political dispute. If I ask you to call me Bill and you keep calling me William, you're an asshole. I don't know how misgendering people is any different. Just call people what they want to be called. You don't have to turn this into some ideological battle.
      - AnthonyMouse 2y ago
        > I don't know how misgendering people is any different. If your gender is like your name, which you can choose yourself, then it can't be bound to anything you can't change, like your chromosomes or the hormone levels you had during puberty. In other words, it can't map to biological sex. Which, okay, that's kind of the idea, isn't it? Someone wants to have sex male but gender female. Except that then nobody really cares about gender at all. When you want to have things like women's sports or prospective dating interactions in which people may want to have biological children or anything else where sex differences actually matter, what people want you to declare is not your gender but your sex. This then becomes the motte and bailey where gender is supposed to be different than sex but somebody who has reason to actually care about sex is then told that they have to accept gender instead or they're a bigot, as if they aren't different. And that is the point of political contention.

throwadobe 2y ago

The mission of Tesla is to maximize value to its shareholders

sandworm101 2y ago
Or shareholder, when one controls all the levers.
lern_too_spel 2y ago
Not quite. Tesla's mission is to do what its voting shareholders want. Usually, shareholders want to maximize their returns, but Tesla's shareholders voted to reduce their returns to overpay Musk for work already done.
- throwadobe 2y ago
  Presumably because they believe keeping Musk will increase value long term, so they are still maximizing the value of the future cashflows discounted to the present. The size of Musk's ownership stake adds another layer to this metric, but at the limit, that really that just means the words "they" in my previous statement can be replaced with "Elon Musk"
  - lern_too_spel 2y ago
    No, the reason most voters gave is that the payment was promised, not that it maximized their returns. There are any number of projects that Tesla could spend $50 billion on that would provide a greater return to investors than giving it to Musk. Even giving him a fraction of that would have been enough to retain Musk over giving him nothing, if they really believe Musk's leadership will be positive for future returns.
  - verzali 2y ago
    I suspect many Tesla shareholder believe they are investing in Musk, rather than just Tesla. That explains much of their behavior.
throw0101d 2y ago

neofrommatrix 2y ago

I was seriously considering a Model X until Mr. Musk decided to open up on his political ideology..

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
This attitude reads to me like: only those who agree with you deserve a place in our economy and society.
- coryrc 2y ago
  Huh, where have I heard that before? https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/gay-rights-trump-gop/678797/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/gay-rights...
- dimensi0nal 2y ago
  maybe guys don't want to buy cars that make them unfuckable
- anon373839 2y ago
  Funny, it reads to me like: my money should go where I see fit.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    What I see is that people here and on places like Reddit seem to support expression of political views when it is for their side. They wouldn’t take issue with CEOs supporting leftist social justice issues, for example. But when it is a CEO supporting centrist or right-leaning views, they don’t support it. And not just that, but they go out of their way to manufacture outrage or signal their actions in order to suppress their political opposition, who they feel should not be able to express their views. When you can’t handle your opposition’s ideas being aired, you don’t support democracy. Sure you can make the claim that your money should go where you see fit, but it does also mean that you don’t support a society where ideas can be discussed.

acdha 2y ago

Most of the EV market are people who find his politics disagreeable. He’s not doing his duty to shareholders by driving them away, especially for such pointlessly offensive things which have nothing to do with the business. This is why you almost certainly know nothing about the views of the CEOs of any other car company, and why Musk is almost certain to face lawsuits after the inevitable decline - a meme stock can’t last forever, and the fundamentals don’t support the current valuation at all.

epistasis 2y ago

I think that in addition to proving a point about technology, they also wanted to be a very economically successful company. That second part is at risk, and if Elon's decision making power has been better reduced, they'd probably be really far ahead of where they are now.

GaggiX 2y ago

>But that's normal in politics, is it not? Yes exactly in politics and not in business, in particular if you are the CEO.