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I guess he really thought that his initial userbase was now too small, and the larger more sustainable base is what he thought would be enough. He could still b
by bloomingkales 2y ago
I guess he really thought that his initial userbase was now too small, and the larger more sustainable base is what he thought would be enough. He could still be right (no pun intended), but he would need all of the MAGA people to buy his cars, and China. It's not the worst bet, but more importantly, it very much exposes the lack of conviction in values.
The vast majority of people are good, and we're finally seeing that spirit moving (about time!).
- basisword 2y agoCan’t see the trade war helping him much in China. And MAGA is a pretty small market compared with…the rest of the world.
- daveguy 2y agoYeah, he's kinda fkd. Trumpty isn't even letting him fire people over the cabinet heads. Oops, fascism.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- outer_web 2y agoHe could be banking on people having short memories.
- kivle 2y agoThat would require him to not be in the media long enough for people to forget. He loves the attention he's getting, so don't expect that to happen any time soon.
- outer_web 2y agoHe might think he is like the president and can just use a new controversy to make people forget about the previous one.
- pasttense01 2y agoNo, we are not thinking Elon will voluntarily leave; we are thinking Trump is very fickle and could easily dump him. Remember what happened to Steve Bannon in Trump's first administration?
- vessenes 2y agoBYD is nailing them in china, and look likely to continue to do so.
- nikcub 2y agoThey're nailing them in Australia, too. They'll surpass Tesla in EV sales likely this year. This would have been unthinkable a few years ago. The Chinese EV's and hybrids are brilliant - the US market doesn't know what it's missing out on.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoThere are conservatives with money, and those without. The latter is louder and more visible. Importantly, one should always, as a business, be optimizing for those with dollars vs opinions. Opinions do not contribute to revenue.
- bloomingkales 2y agoIt's a moral failure. Even in business. You know the electric car people are bleeding heart liberals. Is it okay to mislead them with false advertising? They really did look at him as a role model. So, immorality is bad business. But how can that be shown to you? I suppose a few more of these articles until this thing goes bankrupt over time. That would truly be god. Edit: I just want to add a little grace here (got my Sunday suit on). I think Elon is probably the most interesting person you can ever hang out with most likely. He's definitely in a dark mindset atm, and I pray he gets out of it because it's not leading to a better world (and I know he once cared for this).
- toomuchtodo 2y agoI bought my Teslas to contribute to electrification of transportation, climate change and whatnot. Also invested early on after test driving the original Roadster, I believed it was the future. We win or we learn. I learned. There are no heroes, only people. Onward.
- bloomingkales 2y agoBeautifully put.
- karmakurtisaani 2y agoI'm sure you did the right thing. Tesla was great for electric cars, but it's time to move on now and look forward to the next good thing. BYD maybe?
- verdverm 2y ago
- light_hue_1 2y agoRed counties have 30% of the GDP in the US. Blue counties have 70%. Doesn't seem like a good strategy to pivot from one to the other! Also, MAGA people don't believe in the environment and don't want to pay extra to save it. That was the big leverage that Tesla had originally. He could have kept out of politics and tried to capture both markets. Little fast cars for blue people, big ugly cars for red people. That's now totally impossible. It's one or the other.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago>Red counties have 30% of the GDP in the US. Blue counties have 70% Now let's look at the number of voters
- AlotOfReading 2y agoLooks like the numbers are from the 2020 election (https://www.brookings.edu/articles/biden-voting-counties-equal-70-of-americas-economy-what-does-this-mean-for-the-nations-political-economic-divide/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/biden-voting-counties-equ...). Red counties tend to have smaller populations, but there are more of them. Those factors balance out to each of the groups having roughly 50% of the total voting population (contributing to close elections). If we assume the proportion of non-voters is the same in both groups, then the blue counties are over twice as economically productive per capita, which shouldn't be surprising given that the red counties tend to be rural and agrarian. I'm not sure the turnout assumption holds, but I'm also not sure which way has lower voter turnout. This 2016 map of voter turnout by county (https://abag.ca.gov/sites/default/files/maps/motm_10_18_18_Letter.pdf https://abag.ca.gov/sites/default/files/maps/motm_10_18_18_L...) suggests urban areas (e.g. bay area, NoVA, new england) have higher voter turnouts than rural areas, so the per capita numbers may be even more sharply skewed towards blue counties.
- ericjmorey 2y agoNow it's neither for Tesla it seems.
- chgs 2y agoThe coal rollers are hardly going to go full electric no matter what musk says
- gruez 2y agoRepublicans went from being the party against marriages and protection for gay people (in the early 2000s), to claiming "Trump is the most pro-gay president". Going from "roll coal to own the libs" to not caring would be a small change in comparison. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/24/absurb-claim-that-trump-is-most-pro-gay-president-american-history/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/08/24/absurb-cl...
- archagon 2y agoI think it was a lie to catch liberal strays: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republican-lawmakers-increase-calls-gay-marriage-scotus-ruling/story?id=119395181 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/republican-lawmakers-increas... They've started with the T, but they'll get to the other letters eventually.
- rsynnott 2y agoEventually? They're already basically there: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/idaho-republican-legislators-call-scotus-reverse-same-sex/story?id=118217747 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/idaho-republican-legislators... Some have also been muttering about revisiting Lawrence v Texas (the Supreme Court decision which legalised homosexuality nationwide in the US in 2003).
- ericjmorey 2y agoThe pro-gay claim is not sincere. See Jean-Paul Sartre for more explanation.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoSartre said many things. What specifically are you referring to?
- daxfohl 2y agoHe's all bitcoin now, his companies don't matter. Now he can push for more inflation, bitcoin will be the only hedge against it, boom, trillionaire. Leaving the rest of us with no jobs, stagflation, no government.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- estebank 2y ago> Now he can push for more inflation, bitcoin will be the only hedge against it, boom, trillionaire. That's assuming that Bitcoin gains value disconnected from the US dollar/economy. That's not a given.
- daxfohl 2y agoIf it doesn't, the trillionaire class can eliminate the fed and require all taxes to be paid in bitcoin.
- creato 2y agoAt 7 transactions/second? Good luck.
- bloomingkales 2y agoYou just need liquidity to hide the transaction time. As in, all transactions are instantaneous because they are all instant loans, where the reconciliation of the actual transaction happens slower in a back channel.
- surgical_fire 2y agoWith Crypto volatility? That's a reconciliation nightmare.
- ericjmorey 2y ago
- klipt 2y agoHe can just make money insider trading on Trump's policies before they're announced. Short some industry just before tariffs are introduced that will hurt them.
- ericjmorey 2y agoAnd cancelling competitors' government contracts and replacing the contracts with his own companies'.
- EasyMark 2y agohe's trying to do that right now with fiber optics contractors working in rural areas and steer the business to his starlink.
- permo-w 2y agoor more likely invest in competitors that will benefit. short positions are far stronger evidence for insider trading
- lavezzi 2y ago> he would need all of the MAGA people to buy his cars, and China. Everyone in those groups would be behind a guy throwing Nazi salutes?