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Tesla and SpaceX ran on government money. X is doing poorly enough that he’s suing former advertisers demanding that the courts force them buy ads. He now has

by acdha 2y ago

Tesla and SpaceX ran on government money. X is doing poorly enough that he’s suing former advertisers demanding that the courts force them buy ads. He now has significant influence over all of those things. Official government communications are only being released on X, incentivizing people to use it. The next NASA contract is going to be awarded by people who know their boss’ boss’ boss’ boss’ boss owes his political career to the owner of one of the bidders. Last quarter, a quarter of Tesla’s net income was unrealized Bitcoin profits – and he’s pushing the government to subsidize Bitcoin so it can get the kind of adoption it hasn’t been able to achieve on merit! This is why government ethics rules exist, and why high-level officials have public confirmation hearings. Even if he was incredibly scrupulous about not making decisions based on his own interests, it reeks of corruption and provides many avenues for potential abuse (e.g. what if China threatened to seize his factories unless he helped them get a better deal?). The federal employees he’s attacked have annual training reminding them that they can’t accept gifts over $20/year – and really shouldn’t even then – with consequences up to going to jail for a long time.

saturn8601 2y ago
Hold on there, Tesla has repeatedly shown an amazing ability to cut costs of their products while improving functionality/quality. Yes Tesla benefits from credits caused by other companies not meeting co2 targets set by the government but that wouldn't have been enough to save them from three near bankruptcies. And yes, they are still quite a ways away from being a leader in overall quality and consistency but yhey are executing extremly well in their R&D compared to other US car companies only to be outdone by the Chinese, certainly not any US company. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNWYk4DdT_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNWYk4DdT_E As someone solidly on the left, this has really frustrated me to no end with the typical lefist sources I watch. In 2025 Facts really matter but all I see are facts being omitted to push a narrative (ie. Elon wasn't the founder of Tesla, Tesla/SpaceX is just alive because of the government subsidizes, Elon does not know anything about how to make a car/rocket). They cite his bad behavior or screwups in reforming Twitter but unless you have followed everything that Elon has accomplished/failed at you are lying by omission. This is especially dangerous now because by dismissing him as dumber than he really is, you are setting him up for surprise successes because people let their guard down. This is what I see on /r/fednews at how shocked they are over how fast he is moving at his slash and burn. You would have known this had you followed the whole Twitter saga very closely, the early days of Tesla where they ousted the original CEO for deliberately lying to the board, and the three near bankruptcies of the company where Elon pulled out hail mary after hail mary to save the company.
- Hikikomori 2y ago
  When was Tesla founded and when was Elon involved? Tesla is getting cooked by Chinese carmakers and only tariffs or outright bans can help. In EU their sales are falling quickly due to his salute.
  - saturn8601 2y ago
    See this is my point. You can easily google that answer and I suspect you know it already. The entire context is missing because you are pushing your narrative. Tesla was founded by Eberhardt and Tarpenning and thats where the left always stops. Without any doubt we know that Eberhart would have tanked the company. Tesla would have been nothing without Elons involvement especially now that we know of the lies that occurred early on during Roadster. There would be no Tesla left had he continued. Leaving this out causes people to miss lessons that help them understand how Elon thinks. Lessons such as how he brought in his fixers to go 'line by line' in the books to figure out where all the money is going: sound familiar? >Tesla is getting cooked by Chinese carmakers and only tariffs or outright bans can help. In EU their sales are falling quickly due to his salute. Did you not read my message completely or were you so fixated on your conclusion that you missed how I admitted that Chinese are outdoing Tesla? Don't listen to me, heres Elon Musk talking about how good his Chinese competitors are: [1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-ceo-musk-chinese-ev-firms-will-demolish-rivals-without-trade-barriers-2024-01-25/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-... "If there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world," he said. "They're extremely good." In regards to EU, yes they are sinking there, so are all the other EU companies. The Chinese will own that market. That entire continent is a sinking ship and in hindsight maybe it was a mistake to even open a factory there as im sure Musk is realizing now. I am so disappointed that the left has apparently learned nothing from the Twitter saga and are instead relearning all the mistakes made there because they didn't pay attention the last several times this happened. Instead of downvoting figure out how you can exploit Musks's weaknesses to stop him.
    - Hikikomori 2y ago

by acdha 2y ago

saturn8601 2y ago

Hold on there, Tesla has repeatedly shown an amazing ability to cut costs of their products while improving functionality/quality. Yes Tesla benefits from credits caused by other companies not meeting co2 targets set by the government but that wouldn't have been enough to save them from three near bankruptcies. And yes, they are still quite a ways away from being a leader in overall quality and consistency but yhey are executing extremly well in their R&D compared to other US car companies only to be outdone by the Chinese, certainly not any US company. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNWYk4DdT_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNWYk4DdT_E As someone solidly on the left, this has really frustrated me to no end with the typical lefist sources I watch. In 2025 Facts really matter but all I see are facts being omitted to push a narrative (ie. Elon wasn't the founder of Tesla, Tesla/SpaceX is just alive because of the government subsidizes, Elon does not know anything about how to make a car/rocket). They cite his bad behavior or screwups in reforming Twitter but unless you have followed everything that Elon has accomplished/failed at you are lying by omission. This is especially dangerous now because by dismissing him as dumber than he really is, you are setting him up for surprise successes because people let their guard down. This is what I see on /r/fednews at how shocked they are over how fast he is moving at his slash and burn. You would have known this had you followed the whole Twitter saga very closely, the early days of Tesla where they ousted the original CEO for deliberately lying to the board, and the three near bankruptcies of the company where Elon pulled out hail mary after hail mary to save the company.

Hikikomori 2y ago
When was Tesla founded and when was Elon involved? Tesla is getting cooked by Chinese carmakers and only tariffs or outright bans can help. In EU their sales are falling quickly due to his salute.
- saturn8601 2y ago
  See this is my point. You can easily google that answer and I suspect you know it already. The entire context is missing because you are pushing your narrative. Tesla was founded by Eberhardt and Tarpenning and thats where the left always stops. Without any doubt we know that Eberhart would have tanked the company. Tesla would have been nothing without Elons involvement especially now that we know of the lies that occurred early on during Roadster. There would be no Tesla left had he continued. Leaving this out causes people to miss lessons that help them understand how Elon thinks. Lessons such as how he brought in his fixers to go 'line by line' in the books to figure out where all the money is going: sound familiar? >Tesla is getting cooked by Chinese carmakers and only tariffs or outright bans can help. In EU their sales are falling quickly due to his salute. Did you not read my message completely or were you so fixated on your conclusion that you missed how I admitted that Chinese are outdoing Tesla? Don't listen to me, heres Elon Musk talking about how good his Chinese competitors are: [1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-ceo-musk-chinese-ev-firms-will-demolish-rivals-without-trade-barriers-2024-01-25/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-... "If there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world," he said. "They're extremely good." In regards to EU, yes they are sinking there, so are all the other EU companies. The Chinese will own that market. That entire continent is a sinking ship and in hindsight maybe it was a mistake to even open a factory there as im sure Musk is realizing now. I am so disappointed that the left has apparently learned nothing from the Twitter saga and are instead relearning all the mistakes made there because they didn't pay attention the last several times this happened. Instead of downvoting figure out how you can exploit Musks's weaknesses to stop him.
  - Hikikomori 2y ago