8 ms·
This is so weird, did he miscalculate how intense the backlash would be? or he truly doesn't care?
by snapcaster 2y ago
This is so weird, did he miscalculate how intense the backlash would be? or he truly doesn't care?
- me_me_me 2y ago[dead]
- zzzeek 2y agohe's a drug addict so his critical thinking skills are compromised just look at all the batshit conspiracy theories he greenlights on X if not states directly
- Upvoter33 2y agoTo me, it's pretty funny. It's like we're being told "hey, don't worry, this is the world's smartest guy, and he's going to, in a heartbeat, examine every dollar of spending and tell us what to cut. And oh yeah, he didn't anticipate that Tesla might be hurt by his actions."
- tonyhart7 2y agohe should never use twitter tbh, back then elon is likeable until he tweet 20 times a day
- coliveira 2y agoHow is he going to manipulate his stock price without using social networks to spread rumors?
- thinkindie 2y agoback to when exactly? Let's remember for a moment his behaviour with the Thai cave episode, he wasn't any better. Thing is, people just put up stupid stickers about purchasing their Teslas before he went nuts, but he has never been centered.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoBack to when his behaviour included things like rage-quitting Trump's advisory council in protest of Trump leaving the Paris climate accord.
- hsuduebc2 2y agoExactly. He is the same. This "new" audience just tolerate this man baby cringe much better.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago> As we danced at our wedding reception, Elon told me, 'I am the alpha in this relationship,'" Justine, his first wife, revealed in a 2010 column Or going further back, he got pushed down some stairs as a kid because he was bullying someone whose father had killed himself.
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoHe's an asshole. So was Steve Jobs. We're better off with brilliant assholes devoting themselves to industry than politics.
- johneth 2y agoElon's not brilliant, he's just lucky.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Elon's not brilliant, he's just lucky Est-il habile où est-il heureux [1]? [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Mazarin https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Mazarin not Napoleon
- Sabinus 2y agoYou don't get lucky building both Tesla and SpaceX. Bezos spent the same amount of time and money on a rocket company and they haven't got far. Elon does have something going, it's just unlikely the competence carries over to national and international politics.
- api 2y agoI think Twitter is partly responsible for destroying his mind, with the rest of the job being done by drugs. It's an inherently toxic format. It promotes incoherent, contradiction-ridden, emotionally-driven, short-attention-span meme-think. IMHO Bluesky is no better, which is why I'm not there. It's the same format, an incoherent soup of sound bites competing to emotionally trigger you into amplifying them. This format is the kind of thing a mad scientist would design with the explicit goal of rotting the human mind. The good thing about books and longer-form works... even things as long as Reddit and HN comments... is that they can encapsulate complete thoughts that are connected to other thoughts. Building systems of thinking is how humans reason coherently about the world. Meme soup reduces us to some kind of animal level of grunts and short-horizon reactions but with language. It's gross. I've been calling "social" media companies in general "the tobacco companies of the mind" for years.
- hsuduebc2 2y agoI'm not using it for the same reason. It tailors the content to trigger emotional reactions-usually negative ones. I'd often leave X feeling like people are just evil, idiotic creatures. That's not healthy. Kinda ironic that the so-called prodigy of our generation is letting himself get manipulated by his own platform's algorithm-promoting garbage to himself just to better manipulate others.
- rchaud 2y agoBeing radicalized by the Internet isn't an excuse for teenage Isis fighters, nor is it one for a 55 year old man.
- disqard 2y agoI get where you're coming from (and I've rolled my eyes at the "video games cause violence" line of reasoning myself). However, there is much wisdom in McLuhan's "we become what we behold" -- and consuming too much "social media" turns one into a performative puppet. Twitter is the distilled version of this (Jaron Lanier called it "Twitter Poisoning"). If Elon Husk huffing Twitter 24/7 while owning Twitter isn't a case of "getting high on your own supply", then I don't know what is.
- ryandvm 2y agoNever meet your heroes indeed. I have a feeling that if Einstein, Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Churchill or really any of the great historical figures had access to Twitter, there legacies (or lack thereof) would be very different today.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoChurchill was known to be very problematic and his career outside of the war wasn't exactly stellar as he had some dubious opinions: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29701767 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29701767 Newton was known to be very egotistical and his grudge with Hooke was well known: https://culturacolectiva.com/en/history/isaac-newton-dark-side-history/ https://culturacolectiva.com/en/history/isaac-newton-dark-si... Einstein was generally considered a very kind and generous man, outside of his marriages: https://www.grunge.com/264270/the-dark-side-of-albert-einstein/ https://www.grunge.com/264270/the-dark-side-of-albert-einste... I don't know much about da Vinci, though he designed machines for war and he must have performed a lot of macabre work on cadavers for his research into anatomy (not that studying anatomy is a bad thing).
- tonyhart7 2y ago"Never meet your heroes indeed." they have different values on life because they literally built different, thrown people at hard times and that would change people see life
- palmotea 2y ago> he should never use twitter tbh, back then elon is likeable until he tweet 20 times a day Was that before or after he started over-promising/lying about Tesla's full self driving capabilities? I don't think he was ever likable, it's just that back then his reputation hadn't caught up with his hype.
- toss1 2y agoYup And it is not even the intent of his actions, it is the haphazard, chainsaw slash-&-burn, "move fast and break things" way he is doing them. The same thing was done by Al Gore in the 1990s, cutting 250,000 federal jobs, eliminating 100+ programs, and consolidating over 800 agencies [0], all without creating these kinds of programs — specifically because Gore CONSIDERED all the issues and players and worked with congress to get it all done in a rational, and more importantly effective way. And that effort is respected decades later. In Musk was using a similar approach, he'd earn respect, which indicates he is not making changes for efficiency for the government or people, but to slash-&-burn for his specific goals, e.g., gutting regulators requiring him to behave responsibly in his businesses. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinventing_Government https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Partnership_for_Reinv...
- hsuduebc2 2y agoI get you. It's still amusing to see the increasingly creative ways his fanboys come up with to cope. In the end, it all turns into blind belief in him, just because they see him as part of their tribe. Just another reminder that deep down, we're still just a bunch of unga bunga monkeys.
- bfmalky 2y agoI don't think it is his DOGE antics that are affecting the european sales though, I think it was the Nazi salute. That went down very badly this side of the Atlantic.
- ABS 2y agoThe Nazi salutes, the repeated commentary on individual European countries politics, his explicit support of far right parties in various European countries (at the time) upcoming elections. The related spread of misinformation at best and disinformation at worst via his x account regarding individuals in Europe he opposed, and so on and so forth.
- SecretDreams 2y agoMan has bigger ambitions. Teslas were just a stepping stone to whatever he's unleashing on the world now from the White House. Or he's completely deranged and the drugs have irreversibly damaged his mind. Both scenarios, or some intersection therein, are plausible.
- noitpmeder 2y agoHe has 3 years left to convince the administration to allow non-US-born lizard people to run for president. Or, more likely, to institute some kind of perpetual monarchy passed down through his 14 kids.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoI'm not sure he understands that he will always be the Crassus to someone else's Caesar. Things don't go well for the money man.
- ajb 2y agoYeah, he reminds me of Berezovsky.
- af78 2y agoGarry Kasparov recently made the same connection in this piece: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/putinization-america/681837/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/pu... > Berezovsky, who elevated Putin to power from behind the scenes, was soon exiled and replaced with more compliant oligarchs. He also met a grisly end—found hanged at his Berkshire mansion at 67—a precedent that might give pause to anyone thinking of risking his business empire to play that gray-cardinal role for the likes of Trump and J. D. Vance.
- nouveaux 2y agoThe mistake here is equating Putin to Trump. One is a mastermind and the other is a puppet.
- dartos 2y agoHe doesn’t care. Spacex is more important for him, personally. He has a larger stake (percentage wise) in spacex. Also, Tesla just jumped bc Musk said that there’s going to be full sell driving in china…. Next year… We’re back to 2017-era strategies but in china this time.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoThe current dollar value of his stake in SpaceX is also twice that of his stake in Tesla.
- pixelpoet 2y ago> full sell driving in china Full sell, indeed!
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI don't think Tesla in China will amount to much, given the local competition has spun up their factories and is outproducing anyone else on the market. Just look at the numbers from last year [0], BYD was outselling Tesla 7:1, with Tesla barely doing any better than other manufacturers. "Full self-driving" won't fix that, and the competition will be offering similar features themselves. Tesla lost their innovator / first mover advantage years ago, choosing to spend their R&D on dead ends and vanity projects like autopilot and the cybertruck while not delivering on projects that might have merit if they would actually listen to their target audience like the semi. They would've remained pretty successful had they iterated on their existing offerings, improving range, quality and reducing production costs of their existing lineup. [0] https://autovista24.autovistagroup.com/news/which-brand-won-the-battle-for-chinas-ev-market/ https://autovista24.autovistagroup.com/news/which-brand-won-...
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoHe's convinced of himself being right / just / superior, just like Trump, just like many dictators. Personal / self-inflicted delusions.
- nyc_data_geek1 2y agoHe's already the richest man in the world, and a drug addled fascist nutjob (in true fascist tradition). Why would he care?
- 1234letshaveatw 2y ago[flagged]
- amarcheschi 2y agoDuring ww2 in italy (and I guess elsewhere) some intellectuals participated in the war as well. Some on the side of the fascists, some on the side of partisans. And I doubt the ones in partisan groups would have discussed about mussolini in a respectful way
- RandomBacon 2y agoLol, I agree about name-calling others (or saying that someone must be thinking something, as if the author can read minds), but you definitely aren't earning any good will with "btchsky". Maybe stay away from the social media you seem to not care for?
- 1234letshaveatw 2y agoI do, that's why I am here
- zzzeek 2y agodont blame hacker news for the abysmally sorry state of political and tech leadership right now. lots of people dont know this but there was a time when the statements of the President of the United States and his cabinet members / advisors were looked upon with some degree of reverential formality. now they are gutter trash on a daily basis.
- RandomBacon 2y agoThat doesn't mean we have to lower ourselves to that level.
- RandomBacon 2y agoI'm guessing it's a sacrifice he's willing to make towards his goal, especially since he has other ventures such as SpaceX which if I had to guess has more potential value than an electric car company when there are a bunch other car companies getting into the game. There are a lot less rocket companies with comparable experience.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- LargeWu 2y agoThis implies it's intentional, that there's some sort of master plan. I don't think that's it. I think he's just intoxicated by the prospect of basically unlimited power and is unable to think rationally about the entire situation.
- RandomBacon 2y agoI don't think it implies that it's intentional.
- TechDebtDevin 2y agoSoonish he will own one of the biggest ISPs in the world (Starlink). Hes going to have a consumer monopoly on cube sats and a lot of the worlds bandwidth in places that dont have other options (much of the world). I thibk Tesla eas just a scam or means to an end to acconplish his other goals.. One app for everything/mega corp or whatever.
- philjohn 2y agoWill he? From reading some sources it looks like as more customers are added the bandwidth just isn't there. Part of that is apparently not enough earth stations, but there's a saturation point where they can't add more satellites. They already limit signups in oversubscribed areas, and as good as starlink is, it's still a technology that has higher latency, and higher ongoing costs from what I can see. Meanwhile, once fibre is in the ground, with PON there's very little maintenance required. And upgrading speeds is a case of upgrading the OLT and ONT's - I'm going out on a limb and guessing that's much cheaper to do than launching thousands of upgraded satellites.
- garyfirestorm 2y agoi think he truly doesn't care. even if $TSLA => 0$ even then he might still be the richest guy on earth
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bognition 2y agoMusk has always been an opportunist. All of his companies are things he's jumped on because they offered him a chance at a huge payout. He was acquired by PayPal, and he forced his way into Tesla. Likewise with Twitter, he was willing to burn huge piles of cash for what it offered him. He's a master of picking up a new project and amplifying it through the hype cycle. The Tesla hype cycle is either nearing its end or peaked and I'm sure he knows this. The valuation for this company is ridiculous by any standard. So he's on to his next thing. By joining ranks with MAGA and he's purchased himself a driver seat for the most powerful country and strongest economy. Obviously he still cares about Tesla, but it's not his primary focus anymore. He's moved on to his next big thing which I'm sure he expects to be many times more lucrative than Tesla was.
- FirmwareBurner 2y ago>Musk has always been an opportunist. Can you name me any billionaire who isn't an opportunist? How can you become super wealthy without being opportunistic? Do you think by being kind and law abiding gentlemen, massive wealth just lands into your lap while your competitors let you by? This entire platform is full of opportunists. You don't get anywhere in life by not being opportunistic, life is just too competitive the higher up you go.
- 52-6F-62 2y agoWhere is there to go?
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoWhat do you mean?
- zzzeek 2y agohence the issue with "billionaires" 100% tax for wealth over $100M, problem solved
- Chinjut 2y ago
- treis 2y agoTSLA is up 60% from a year ago and 700% from 5 years ago. He's not in any way hurting.
- tapoxi 2y agoIt's down 26% since he took an active role in government, and we haven't seen quarterly results showing the sales dip since.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 2y ago>we haven't seen quarterly results showing the sales dip since. Which are caused by the retooling of the Model Y production lines which took 3-5 weeks. Y represents 2/3 of the sales globally and all factories where down simultaneously. Deliveries are back up in China and at current trends, they might achieve ~130,000 sales - just like Q1 2024, even though they had to close down their most production factory lines. China is the first to get back to speed but it says a lot about the "sales dip" which is actually a planned production dip.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 2y ago>we haven't seen quarterly results showing the sales dip since. Which are caused by the retooling of the Model Y production lines which took 3-5 weeks. Y represents 2/3 of the sales globally and all factories where down simultaneously. They started 2025 with only 12 days of inventory worldwide. Deliveries are back up in China and at current trends, they might achieve ~130,000 sales - just like Q1 2024, even though they had to close down their most production factory lines. China is the first to get back to speed but it says a lot about the "sales dip" which is actually a planned production dip.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- JeremyNT 2y agoTesla a meme stock though, it's more about the Elon cult of personality than any real market fundamentals. Its performance is only loosely coupled with the actual car business. Honestly it's surprising that it's still so high. Compare it to any other car manufacturer and its valuation seems ludicrous. A lot of people are somehow still persuaded that the company is going to have some kind of amazing breakthrough Any Day Now.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoElon Musk is mostly out of his Tesla position. He doesn't need that contribution to his net worth any more, and getting status with the Trumpian right was worth it. His Tesla holding is worth only $70B right now, and like the rest of the executives, he has been dumping stock as fast as possible onto whoever wants to hold the bags.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoHe's still suing to be paid $55 Billion by Tesla, which is far more than they've generated as profit and will be for years even if it weathers this particular storm. I've yet to see any good writeup on how this recent trouble would affect the legalities of that lawsuit.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoTesla has made about 8 million cars and is "worth" about $800 billion. $100k per car. Everything about Tesla is completely divorced from reality.
- TheCondor 2y agoWe don’t know how the story ends yet. Is this a permanent backlash or does the public forget in a a couple years?
- edc117 2y agoPretty hard to forget when he keeps reminding people how abrasive he can be every five minutes.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throwacct 2y agoTesla needs to develop an affordable car for emerging economies (LATAM, EMEA), and their stock will increase faster than before. China is dumping its cars on these markets like crazy and even then most people are reluctant to buy them.
- coliveira 2y ago> most people are reluctant to buy if people were really so reluctant to buy a cheap, high quality car, BYD wouldn't be selling millions of them.
- VerminOctopus1 2y agoTesla doesn’t have the engineering or supply chain chops to compete with the Chinese firms.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI'm sure this is how they lost their first mover advantage, by choosing to reinvent the proverbial wheel of car manufacture instead of partnering with e.g. VAG, Ford, or even a Chinese company.
- acdha 2y agoI think they could have pulled that off with a full-time CEO. The quality-control problems didn’t seem intractable, but they didn’t have the equivalent of a Shotwell providing the sober engineering execution which a hype-chasing CEO was never going to deliver.
- warp 2y agoMany countries in latin america still subsidize gasoline, so EVs just aren't as viable here compared to e.g. Europe where gas is taxed significantly. (anecdotally, Chinese cars are pretty popular here in Ecuador, but they're fossil fuel cars, not EVs)
- tlogan 2y agoHe’s thinking much bigger. I believe the major push will be around self-driving cars. My bet is that he’s in government because he wants to help shape comprehensive federal regulation for autonomous vehicles — which I think is the missing piece right now. And then there’s SpaceX…
- Sammi 2y agoYou want to believe he is thinking much bigger...
- apexalpha 2y agoOr he thought 'the people' would support him.
- earnestinger 2y agoCalculation could be, that tesla will be granted monopoly in USA
- root_axis 2y agoMy guess is that the backlash was factored in. Even prior to his government role, Elon had stated plans to quit Tesla and take all their ML tech and engineers to xAI (if they didn't give him the 55b pay package), so he has at least one backup plan we know about. He also has more ownership over SpaceEx than Tesla which gets its money from the government, so backlash from customers doesn't really matter to him in the grand scheme of things. However, that's just a worst-case scenario, more likely is that sales will recover as the news-cycle wanes and new subsidies entice MAGA buyers.
- xyst 2y ago“did he miscalculate how intense the backlash would be” Right … it’s a “calculated move” to cater to far right, and Neo Nazi groups abroad (ie, AfD). It’s a “calculated move” to not only do one but two Nazi salutes on national television. Let’s stop treating this guy as some sort of genius. That Potemkin village/illusion was dispelled long ago.
- palmotea 2y ago> This is so weird, did he miscalculate how intense the backlash would be? or he truly doesn't care? Personally, I don't think he is some genius mastermind, he just took some risks with business strategy and tactics and ended up being really lucky. Eventually, luck runs out. Also, success and sycophants have probably caused him to get a lot more arrogant and less careful.
- pacomerh 2y agoMark Cuban said something along these lines, when you have control over the White House your EV company is not that important.