Is Musk losing the plot? Angela Weiss/AFP/Getty Images
In hindsight, the farts were a giveaway. A few years ago, I was getting a lift in a Tesla Model Y, when the driver (a friend of a friend) offered to show me some of the car’s innovative features. Tesla is known for revolutionising the auto industry, turning the electric vehicle into a mass-market product, so my expectations were high. Then my acquaintance pressed something on the gigantic touch screen, and a cartoonish farting noise erupted from a speaker near my seat. He jabbed at the screen again, and now the flatulence came from the passengers behind us. I remember wondering, as we all sat there smiling sheepishly, whether this was what Tesla’s elevated stock market value rested on.
In its small way, the whoopee-cushion function illustrates a weakness of Tesla’s CEO, the serial entrepreneur-turned-political actor Elon Musk. It is not enough, apparently, for Musk to be idolised for his achievements in business and technology. He also insists on engaging in the kind of attention-seeking behaviour you might expect from a troubled 13-year-old boy, albeit one who commands unfathomable wealth and influence. The potential downsides for Tesla have long been apparent. The same man who exhibited those fart sounds to me — a progressive-minded software contractor at a major European company — also said that he was thinking about trading in his Model Y in protest at Musk’s political activism, which was then just getting started.
Today, Tesla’s future hinges on a bewildering combination of factors. In addition to Musk’s overbearing persona, given free range on his social media platform, X, he has entangled himself with the radical Trump regime, and with insurgent Right-wing parties in Europe. As if this was not jeopardy enough, the entrepreneur is also betting that he can use Tesla to launch a new wave of paradigm-shifting technological breakthroughs. Or so he claims. In this strange mix of audacity, hubris and mere trolling, it is becoming difficult to tell where the strategy ends and the hot air begins.
For the time being, Tesla is in the firing line as misgivings about Musk pall into outrage. Sales are plunging around the world. In Germany, where Musk enthusiastically backed the Alternative für Deutschland in the recent election, they were down 76% year-on-year in February. In Australia they fell by 66%. A wave of protests and vandalism at Tesla dealerships, which has been building in the US for months, erupted in numerous other countries last week. Meanwhile, a fresh dip in the company’s stock price means that it has now lost more than half of its market value since December. Tesla owners are even trying to disguise their cars by rebadging them as other vehicles. A JP Morgan analyst said of the backlash: “we struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly.”
Thanks to his showboating, Musk has made himself a focal point for resistance to the Trump regime. The surreal spectacle of Just Stop Oil protestors vandalising a Tesla showroom in London, thereby attacking a company which has done more than any other to kill the petrol car, suggests the strange territory that the brand is entering. Its image is shifting from green icon to MAGA accessory. In a bid to stop last week’s rout, Trump was persuaded to pose with some Teslas and to commit to buying one. But there are few signs, as yet, that Musk’s closeness with the President is delivering significant spoils for his car company, even if Tesla will suffer less than its competitors from the withdrawal of EV subsidies. A rumoured contract to supply armoured vehicles for the diplomatic service will not outweigh the brand damage of associating with a regime intent on dismantling climate policies. When Musk was known as a brilliant if somewhat eccentric entrepreneur, he could rely on a wide base of progressives, tech fans and admiring business types to buy his cars. By contrast, his new followers on the libertarian Right are more likely to cherish their diesel trucks as symbols of liberty threatened by a despotic green state.
This all looks like a baffling campaign of self-sabotage, until we step back and reckon with the full scope of Musk’s ambitions. The man is mission-driven to an unusual, almost frightening degree. He uses capitalism as a framework for trying to realise big, concrete visions for the world, and is willing to take risks and suffer setbacks on the way. The simplest explanation for his decision to partner with Trump and ransack the Federal government via his Department of Government Efficiency is that he saw the American state bureaucracy as an obstacle to his goals, namely exploring space, developing artificial intelligence and “deleting the woke mind virus”. As for Tesla, Musk appears to be wagering that a dramatic expansion of the company’s mission will render irrelevant the hostility to his personal actions.
The first bet is autonomous vehicles, in the form of Tesla’s Cybercab, a product that some excitable analysts think could replace not just combustion cars, but car ownership as we know it. Musk has suggested that these vehicles — the prototypes resemble the streamlined noses of high-speed trains — would allow Teslas to operate as self-driving taxis when their owners aren’t using them, independently roaming cities and providing lifts for paying customers. The implication is that we will soon be treating cars as a service rather than something we own. At the same time, Tesla is developing a humanoid robot, for which Musk has made even grander claims. It will, he says, be “the biggest product ever of any kind”. Called the Optimus, this AI-powered minion could “be a teacher, babysit your kids… walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of, it will do.”
Last year, a showcase of these futuristic machines raised more questions than it answered (it later emerged that the “autonomous” robots were being remotely operated). Notwithstanding Musk’s ever-optimistic timelines, they remain largely in the realm of science fiction. And yet, despite the beatings that Tesla has taken in recent months, there is still everything to play for. Its enormous stock market losses have merely erased a surge in value since Trump’s election in November. Tesla is still as valuable as the next five biggest car companies combined, suggesting a level of expectation totally out of proportion with what its current business model can achieve. Market analysts say that Tesla’s value now owes much more to bets on self-driving technology, robotaxis and robots than to car sales.
So why do these investors remain so confident? The obvious answer is that, while Musk rarely delivers his promises in full and on time, he nonetheless has an impressive track record of high-stakes innovation. At Harvard Business Review, Andy Wu and Goran Calic observe that the billionaire tends to focus on problems that “involve navigating scale and overcoming complexity”. He chooses very big and difficult challenges that few rivals have the stamina or risk tolerance to tackle. When he succeeds, he captures a significant advantage in the relevant industry. Take SpaceX, for instance: designing cheap rockets is difficult, and designing reusable ones more so. But by 2023, the company was responsible for almost 80% of US space launches, and nearly half of all launches worldwide.
Tesla’s own history shows the same principles in action. Its original mission, as Musk wrote in 2013, was “to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass market electric cars to market as soon as possible”. The company had been founded a decade earlier, though Musk did not join until 2004. It began by trying to design an attractive electric sports car, which required bold thinking as well as a good deal of improvisation and borrowing. When its first model, the Roadster, arrived in 2008, it used a Lotus chassis and ran on laptop batteries. Tesla’s subsequent partner, Panasonic, made battery cells with techniques adapted from VHS cassettes. Until recently, the cars have also looked pretty conventional; an element of familiarity has always been important for encouraging people to adopt new technologies.
As it rose to success in the 2010s, Tesla became the first major carmaker to function like a Silicon Valley tech company. Its vehicles have sophisticated software systems, updated remotely like an iPhone, and since 2015 they have been partially controlled by an Autopilot capability. What really made the difference, though, was that Tesla found a way to manufacture EVs on a massive scale. Like Apple, or indeed Henry Ford, the company focused on making just a small range of products in large numbers. And rather than outsourcing to external suppliers, it developed its own infrastructure and supply chains, from enormous battery plants to networks of charging stations. Such tight control over production allowed Tesla to drive down costs and achieve economies of scale. With its S and X models, Tesla effectively created the mass market EV as a viable commercial category.
Tesla is, of course, much larger than Musk. But we shouldn’t fall for the now-fashionable conceit that the CEO is some sort of simpleton who just got lucky; his bloody-minded, autocratic management style has delivered results. Across his various companies, he has personally interviewed thousands of employees. Under his very public leadership, Tesla’s image was initially so potent that it did not advertise at all until 2023. If the brand manages to maintain an aura of possibility, it will be, in considerable part, because people think it unwise to bet against someone like this.
The problem is that the EV industry has caught up. Between them, the world’s big car marques now offer a bevy of electric and hybrid vehicles, making Tesla’s handful of models look increasingly stale. Meanwhile, China’s BYD has overtaken it as the world’s biggest EV maker by volume. Having grown with shocking speed, BYD is dominating the crucial Chinese market, and has just announced a new battery that allegedly charges in five minutes. Tesla needs a careful redesign, but this is one task that Musk seems unsuited to. The recent Cybertruck, with its sharp angles, metallic finish and domineering presence, has an anti-social character that recalls the most unattractive qualities of its chief architect.
And so, the company has reached a perilous juncture. Its remaining customers and investors face an increasingly urgent question: can Musk’s volatile public persona and political recklessness be judged separately from Tesla’s future trajectory, or do they reveal a CEO who is losing the plot? The longer Tesla promises fresh marvels without delivering them, the more people will be inclined to believe there is a madman at the helm.
Whatever the outcome, though, it is already too late to repair the wider rifts that Tesla’s recent troubles have exposed. Not too long ago, the tech world which sprang from Silicon Valley was held together by an ethos of corporate capitalism suffused with cultural liberalism. If this world was shaken by the radicalisation of Left-wing identity politics in recent years, it has now been decisively ruptured by some of its most prominent entrepreneurs and moguls shifting into the MAGA orbit. The Tesla brand used to appeal, above all, to people like that man who entertained me in his Model Y: successful, sensible progressives who wanted to believe that capitalism and technology would ensure everything works out for the best. Such complacent optimism now belongs to a simpler age. Clearly, innovation does not have a liberal bias after all.
Wessie du Toit writes about culture, design and ideas. His Substack is The Pathos of Things.
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SubscribeDespite his foibles, I am a Musk fan. I think he is audacious, innovative and slightly nuts. He’s not very likeable in some respects? Well, blow me down – it’s not as if other highly innovative people who changed the world were all sweetness and light (Steve Jobs is just the low-hanging fruit in that conversation).
I love the idea of DOGE: in fact when he’s done he can rock on over the Atlantic, take on Brussels and then come to Vienna. We live under such a greasy layer of grift and corruption here, only an external party could take it on with any effect. Yes, bring on Austro-DOGE!
And watching the astronauts who were stuck in space for 9 months splash down to earth, greeted by dolphins like something out of Disney…I am excited by space travel for the first time since Helen Sharman went to space in the 90s.
To see all this creativity and innovation and creative destruction is so exciting, a new era of progress. Makes me feel hopeful that humanity can take on the challenges coming our way with a positive, “let’s go!” attitude.
And what do the Left have? Tim Walz – this loser could have been VP – getting openly giddy about Tesla’s falling share price like some failed stand-up comic, “activists” attacking cars, dealerships, charging stations, liberals barely able to stop themselves from egging them on…I’m sorry, but this says far more about them than it does about Musk. They are vile.
And so pathetic. Anyone with 5 brain cells can key a car – very VERY few people can land rockets.
Go Elon.
I am sure that the Europe doesn’t need Musk. Doesn’t it have homegrown Nazis that can fill the role? Failing that, it can import a fresh one from South Africa.
Why do you associate white South Africans with Nazis? They helped Britain during WW2, while your beloved Ukrainians worked for Nazi German y under Stefan Bandera.
I’ve met lots of white South Africans. They are present in plague proportions here in Australia. I should stress that I only have issue with the apartheid-era ones (and even then, they are not all bad). The next generations down might be perfectly ok.
It was pathetic to see that much of the UK mainstream media refused to put musk‘s name anywhere in the articles showing SpaceX brilliant repatriation of the astronauts. The MSM is generally staffed by captured imbeciles.
It was shocking, I read an entire article in RTE that only referenced ‘NASA’ getting the astronauts home, I had to check elsewhere to see if Space X had pulled out of the contract. This from a supposed neutral PSB.
Cynical liars, surely?
I listened to this news on the Spanish public radio (RNE 5) and it was only at the very end that they passingly and gritting their teeth mentioned Elon Musk. NASA, on the other hand, was mentioned at least four times.
They have definitely downplayed his involvement now that Musk is hated by so many on the Left and anti-Trump center-Right. An impressive, successful rescue. Credit where credit is due (trying anyway).
Indeed. In the specific case of RNE, they just follow the guidelines of the current leftist government of Spain. So, nothing surprising there…
His contribution to the cave rescue was great too. He came up with a really stupid idea, and then called the guy who actually did the rescuing “paedo guy”.
Captured, corrupt, embeciles.
The mentalities here are really interesting. The anti-Musk groups show themselves to be easily led or even brainwashed. Instead of starting with cautious evaluation of facts and history, they continually judge on ‘character’ or ‘personality’ and then project that character into cartoonish viewpoints of good and bad.
And it’s not real character, but things they are told through gossip and influencer channels from afar.
They then look for ‘evidence’ to support their character assessment cherry picking to affirm their confirmation bias that they can ‘read people’.
And with that they then feel knowledgeable enough to ‘mind read’ what that person is thinking, or what’s driving their motivations, or how intelligent the person is – not based on facts, or what that person says, but based purely on their character assessment from afar, as told to them by the equivalent of gossip columnists and astrologers. For instance, pronouncing that Musk is ‘stupid’ despite all the obvious counter-evidence. They have zero actual personal experience of the person’s character, they’ve never met them, or talked to them, but they ‘know’.
Now Musk isn’t the first and won’t be the last. Newspapers and tattlesheets have been doing this since forever – the Royal Family being the most frequent source for public soap operas. However, the level of emotional involvement, name calling, and even hate and violence this ‘judge the person not the facts’ engenders is terrifying.
Step back. You don’t really know the person. Protest the facts and actions, and campaign to change decisions and protect your interests, but hold fire on the name calling and demon-making.
Indeed. One of the most rabid Musk haters I know told me once that she was born with the political views she holds.
She didn’t seem to understand my reply that there is quite a difference between the eye colour and political views (or other opinions, for that matter).
Telling, isn’t it?
“Step back. You don’t really know the person“. I didn’t “really know” Pol Pot, but I have no hesitation in saying that he was “bad”.
We know Pol Pot was bad because we judge him by his actions, not by his character. We can write ‘Pol Pot was bad because…’ and list a stream of atrocities.
We can even take a ‘good’ guy like Nelson Mandela and say ‘Mandela was bad because…’ and cherry-pick a set of actions from his early ANC days. Simple cartoon labelling doesn’t give any real insight, or allow for character development and maturity, because human beings are more complex than that.
Now write out ‘Elon Musk is bad because…’ and write out the stream of actions that define him as bad – not opinions or character or mind reading how you think he things, but actions. If you disagree with him, dislike his opinions, voice that freely, loudly and logically, but that’s different from calling him names and resorting to violence (people’s actions show who they are).
Elon Musk is bad because: 1) He is a racist, 2) He is a fascist, 3) He is a creepy Aspy-weirdo, 4) He is destroying the US government, 5) He is impoverishing millions of Americans, 6) He has a personality that is positively reptilian.
“The surreal spectacle of Just Stop Oil protestors vandalising a Tesla showroom in London, thereby attacking a company which has done more than any other to kill the petrol car, suggests the strange territory that the brand is entering.”
This pathetic behavior tells more about the cognitive wreckage of the “tolerant, empathetic left” than about Tesla’s chances of economic success, or its brand.
I don’t think it is too hard to understand, whatever your personal political views on the subject are. Left are concerned about “climate change”, and consider that EVs are a means to combat it. The fact that Musk builds EVs, together with various “progressive” statements he has made in the past, suggested to them that he was “one of them”. However, Musk has now revealed his far-Right leanings, and they feel betrayed.
Actually there was no “far right” reveal for Musk – he said his viewpoints haven’t changed. Instead, the Left went so far to the left with their radicalization over the past decade that it appeared to them that he moved rightward.
America presented their damning verdict on the Left’s Radicalism last November.
I always knew what is leanings were. For starters, he is a white South African who came of age during the apartheid era. We have plenty of those in Australia, and they tend to come from a political perspective that is in broad terms “far Right”. My suspicion is that the US has far less white South Africans, so Americans might not be aware of this tendency. Also, the fact that Musk has always struggled to behave in what most would consider to be a “human” way means that I was not surprised by his recent actions.
Shouldn’t you mention that you are half German and thus genetically programmed to recognise such characteristics?
I am ethnically half-German (because my mother was German), but I have never lived there. I don’t think that facts puts me in a better position to spot a Nazi though.
Musk was 19 when Apartheid ended, so no, he did not ‘come of age’ during the apartheid era. And are you suggesting that because he is a white S African he is indelibly tainted with the institutional racism of that country’s apartheid era? Plenty of white S Africans – of Musk’s age and older – would justifiably find that extremely offensive.
“And are you suggesting that because he is a white S African he is indelibly tainted with the institutional racism of that country’s apartheid era“? Yes, I am. What is more, apartheid-era South Africa oozes out of every one of Musk’s pores. “Plenty of white S Africans – of Musk’s age and older – would justifiably find that extremely offensive“. Tough luck for them. If I meet them in person (and being Australian the chance is very high), I’ll be sure to say it to their face.
There you go again, dear Martin. “...a white South African who came of age during the apartheid era … . they tend to come from a political perspective that is in broad terms ‘far Right.” Please identify the quantitative analysis you employed to make such a determination. Did the white South Africans who came of age during the apartheid era in your analysis include Helen Suzman, Joe Slovo, David Webster, Neil Aggett? Or are you so ignorant about the subject upon which you opine in your armchair that you can’t be bothered to find out about people like that and many, many others?
No, of course not. There were plenty of South Africans that resisted the evil that was apartheid. However, most just went along with it. I should say that I have met A LOT of South Africans, because huge numbers of them came to Australia in the lead up to universal suffrage being introduced. Why we let them in has always been a mystery to me.
Why is it, dear Martin, that whenever you refer to “Left” you never employ the term “far left” but whenever you refer to “Right” you always employ the term “Far Right”??
I don’t always use the term “Far Right”, although it tends to be quite appropriate in discussions on these pages. I mean, we are talking about Elon “I Was Just Trying to Hail a Cab at Trump’s Inauguration” Musk, right? As it happens, I consider myself to be “of the Right” (albeit of the Thatcherite/Reaganite” variety).
At this point I’m not sure climate change activists even understand what they are fighting for and I’m not sure the movement’s leaders actually even care about climate change except insofar as they can use it as a new excuse for socialist, collectivist governments and run command economies where decisions are all made by unelected bureaucrats, communism with a thin veneer of shallow consumer capitalism controlled and limited by government ‘experts’. Climate change won’t destroy all life on the planet. People couldn’t do that if we were trying to do it deliberately. It’s really a question of what things will change with the climate and how best to adapt to that. Using technology and planning to mitigate the effects of climate change and adapt to changing conditions is never discussed, either because of quasi-religious desires to protect ‘nature’ as it happens to exist at this particular moment of geologic time., or because stopping/limiting climate change gives governmental experts and elites an excuse to exert more control over people’s everyday lives and activities. I’m far more concerned about microplastics than climate change, because that’s something that’s obviously caused by people and has no precedent in geologic history.
Agree completely.
Ha – you got there before me! I was going to say it says more about the strange mental territory many people are entering who are literally deranged by Musk. The author talks about the brand as if it has some kind of autonomy – completely ignoring that the attackers of Tesla cars, dealerships etc are fully grown adults capable of realising that vandalising private property is wrong.
Ok, maybe vandalising Teslas is bad (although I for my part am not going to lose any sleep over it). However, surely you don’t dispute anyone’s right to not buy a Tesla?
I wrote that already on my comment below – where one of your other (well downvoted) comments is languishing.
In these halls, downvotes are a badge of honour.
They will probably instead choose to signal their climate change virtue by buying a Chinese EV made by Uighur slaves using coal.
Maybe, but at least Elon doesn’t get any money from that.
I’ve never known a left that was tolerant and empathetic. The blind zombie rage that makes them sprint down the road after Tesla cars, frothing and screaming at the owners, has always been the ‘left’. I think it important to separate ‘liberals’ and ‘leftists’. The two have absolutely nothing in common.
Petrol cars are better for the environment.
Change my mind.
People that want to trade in their Teslas as a protest – pathetic. They’re fine about African child labour for the batteries but want to take a ‘moral’ stand because of someone’s politics.
In fairness, it is not just “someone’s politics”. The guy does do Nazi salutes.
Martin, you’re entitled to your opinion elsewhere and it’s obviously different to my own, but this is defamatory nonsense that couldn’t fool the average 10 year old, and you’re only hurting your own argument in repeating it.
Do you actually think Musk didn’t do Nazi salutes, or are you just taking the piss?
Oh, please! Have you seen the video footage? Anyone could be caught at one point raising their arm in what could be interpreted as a Nzi salute – as long as you wish to smear them.
Or one could see a clear picture of what walks, quacks, flaps, and looks luck a duck, and call it a dove. What do you think of Steve Bannon’s similar (but more expert) salute at CPAC soon afterward. Another woke mass hysteria?
This comparison is not suitable in this specific case.
There are many things that, if taken out of context, might create a completely distorted picture.
As for Steve Bannon, sorry, but this is pure deflection. We are not talking about him.
It think it was enabled by Musk’s audacious example. And yes, I have seen the extended footage. Musk did it twice, back and front of crowd. Why is he also shilling for the German far-right and buying into replacement theory?
Indeed, shortly after the hysterical left claimed – with the aid of edited footage – that Musk was performing Nazi salutes, the photos appeared of the Squad all doing Nazi salutes, and of random people in the street doing Nazi salutes while calling cabs and waving at friends. The left has an obsession with calling people ‘fascist’: it turns out they are right – everyone has been seig heiling all of the time. I performed a Nazi salute from my own balcony this morning while shielding my eyes from the sun. The re-education camps can’t come soon enough.
I hope that no one took a picture of you earlier today, because in this case, I am afraid, you would be among the first ones to be sent for re-education…
Did you consider carrying two heavy shopping bags with you, even when you are at home, to avoid any suspicion? I have been doing this all the time and it definitely helps me to improve my reputation. And to boost my social credit score, obvs
🙂
You didn’t mention all those people at the Nuremburg Rally who were just “hailing cabs” and “waving at friends”.
They were not tried at Nurembeg because of giving N–i salute.
And you are again providing false arguments.
I think some of the people at Nuremburg who were giving the Nazi salutes might have been tried for doing other Nazi things, like….you know, the Holocaust.
“What could be interpreted as Nazi salutes”? I think Hitler might have done some things that could have been interpreted as Nazi salutes at Nuremberg, but all he was saying was “Before ve start zis Rally, you need to know vere ze fire escapes are. Von is over zere, and ze other is over zere”.
Mr Musk on a personal level has always been a dichotomy to me – he’ll say one thing and I’ll nod in agreement. The next time he opens his mouth I’ll want to throw something at whichever screen he’s displayed on. This has been the case since I first started paying any attention to him during 2018. The entire cave rescue circus seemed to highlight his inconsistency and need to be the focus of attention, along with his pettiness. Since then, his need for attention has seemed almost pathological, and I wonder how much of his personal antipathy towards “wokeness” stems from this rather than actual conviction.
Whilst I welcome many of his stated intents in his current crusade, I remain unconvinced by his execution methods. They seem quite cavalier, and without regard for consequences beyond the immediate stated purpose. Like a software developer who fixes one problem with a “solution” that causes multiple other bugs further down the line.
Regarding Tesla specifically, my own company was looking at replacing our fleet with e-vehicles, and Tesla was a strong contender. But, because of Musk’s personal controversial status, this was dropped. Regardless of the personal feelings of anyone in the decision-making process, it’s recognised that sales / engineering staff turning up in Teslas to customer sites would be a worse move than arriving in any other brand of e-car. The last thing you want to do when trying to get someone to buy your stuff is have the potential for controversy from the moment you arrive. Our staff wouldn’t arrive wearing a political party pin or (insert cause here) merch – and Tesla is becoming the equivalent of that.
I’ve spoken to colleagues across industries and we’re not the only ones making that decision. One friend in the USA has been banned from parking his Tesla in the staff car park because of the potential risks this causes. Now that might well say more about the “Tesla protestors” but it also shows that most folks value pragmatism over anything else.
Perhaps those companies could buy electric Volkswagens. Now how did that company start…?
Go back and read your last paragraph, specifically the part about the protesters. See if THAT isn’t the real issue here. The same people who wanted everyone in EVs are now attacking a specific brand over a political disagreement with its author. When conservatives in America found the Bud Light trans ad campaign off-putting, they didn’t attack the brewing company or its people; they just stopped buying that brand of beer.
As I stated in that paragraph you refer to; “Now this might well say more about the Tesla Protestors…”
All I’m saying is that a controversial figure so tightly entwined with his brand will not sell well to people wishing to avoid controversy.
If a salesman selling Widgets pulls up in a Tesla, he will likely not get a sale if that customer has ill will towards Mr Musk. Therefore companies will not buy / lease Teslas for their staff to visit customers. Other companies will not want Teslas in their car park because of the risk to the company.
I’m not in any way saying the protestors are right to behave the way they are. I’m simply saying that in the real world, many people will want to avoid the problems that come with having Teslas around, whether they personally agree with Mr Musk or not.
I understand why you say what you say in your first paragraph, but to me, Musk has never seemed convincing. Even when he says something that I (on paper) agree with, I have just never believed that is what he really thinks.
“The simplest explanation for his decision to partner with Trump and ransack the Federal government via his Department of Government Efficiency is that he saw the American state bureaucracy as an obstacle to his goals, namely exploring space, developing artificial intelligence and “deleting the woke mind virus”
May another explanation be that he is patriotic, efficiency driven, and concerned about the direction the US ( and much of the rest of the free world) was heading in? After all, he fully understands that he paid well above the odds for twitter, but did so to try to maintain free speech. I don’t imagine that he’s overjoyed at the devaluation of Tesla, but at the end of the day he has enough money, and is motivated more by humanitarian impulses.
As for the woke mind virus, have not the physical attacks on these cars and dealerships proved that this is very real? It’s very strange to see how criminal hostility is directed at the product of a man who hasn’t caused, but simply exposed government wastage, and that on a gargantuan scale. There is only hatred, instead there should be gratitude.
Musk ought to be grateful for the billions in federal dollars his companies have received. Instead, he begrudges the so-called entitlements of ordinary, mostly hard-working Americans. His humanitarianism appears to me to have very little to do with actual humans other than himself. Where there should be a little skepticism or at least balance mixed with your gratitude, your remarks contain only outraged defense and gushing endorsement. His methods are crude, leading to needless chaos and the endangerment of many people worldwide. Many of DOGE’s “findings” and numbers are fake.
When you say that many of Doge’s findings and numbers are fake, what are you basing this on?
For instance: 1) There is no evidence for the outlandish claim that $50 million dollars was to be spent on condoms for Gaza. Some far smaller fraction of the $100 million allocated for Gaza under a relief program was for contraception. 2) Cutting a program that cost $8 million was announced as a savings of $8 billion. 3) They claimed savings for numerous contracts that had not even yet been awarded 4) Other agencies will have to supply the sudden, gigantic voids left by many of the drastic cuts, and about 25,000 workers that DOGE removed itself have been restored so far, sometimes by the Musk team themselves after they were confronted with their frenzied mass firings of some essential workers. The heedless, almost indiscriminate cuts are loudly announced; the many errors, once exposed, are quietly removed and the required backtracking is rarely owned up to. I encourage you to investigate it and do the math yourself, via whatever series of sources you consider to be trustworthy or neutral enough.
There’s a lot of empty theatrics and Trump-style “great television” in much of what DOGE has done. It’s having a major impact, but often not of the kind its architects and rah-rah supporters claim.
5) They claimed savings on programmes that had already finished before they took office
I think you mostly have the right of this. I’m sympathetic to the stated purpose of DOGE. America does have a budget deficit and does need to make choices about what programs to cut. We have no business whatsoever sending money to foreign governments for any purpose given the domestic situation here.
What I have to question is the execution. It’s pretty common for politicians to claim to be populist but most of their populist achievements are just publicity stunts or provoking the media and the left by targeting some of their sacred cows. Ron DeSantis and his feud with Disney is an example. It was so much sound and fury signifying nothing. Disney’s customers have already done far more to drive Disney to ditch the woke than DeSantis could. Given Trump’s zeal for theatricality, I have to believe that much of this is performative. Given the scale of the federal government and the depths of waste that likely occurs, there’s no way they could produce the claimed results so quickly.
Further, the idea that the President can create an agency to fix this obscures where this money actually comes from. Almost everything that gets spent is in the federal budget that gets passed by Congress, who has the explicit constitutional authority over expenditures. The real problem to my mind is the horse trading that goes on in Congress, a subsidy for one district here, and an allowance for some other cause there. It adds up. We need to get rid of the omnibus motion that allows these spending items to be tacked onto other legislation or a line item veto that allows the President to veto the nonsensical, unnecessary items. What Trump really should be doing is reading the items on the federal budget, because I suspect nearly all the absurd nonsense the President has been reading off in his speeches was in there somewhere, probably using the same language, and then make his case against corruption and push for the line item veto. That would show greater awareness and political savvy, would put Congress in the crosshairs, and further his own ability to accomplish his stated purpose of ‘draining the swamp’, because Congress is awfully swampy.
A line item veto could actually work like what DOGE is claiming to do, but it would require, at minimum, an act of Congress and possibly a Constitutional amendment, and good luck with that because Congress likes their horse trading and likes to get things for their states or districts that they can put in campaign ads. They like to be able to scratch their aristocrat friends’ backs as well. Corruption and waste from Congress is at least as big a problem as that within the federal apparatus, and it’s easier to solve if people get the political will to do it. We’re heading that way, with the freedom caucus and people like Josh Hawley and Rand Paul, but I still think the situation will have to get a lot worse before such radical ideas get considered.
Where I’ll disagree is on the employees themselves. The President must have the ability to hire and fire federal employees, because that’s democracy. In a democratic system, the theory is that the people rule through their elected leaders. In a democratic system, there just can’t be a group of non-elected bureaucrats that are beyond the authority of elected officials. Somebody who wins an election has to ultimately have the authority to hire and fire these people, and yes, even for political reasons, because that’s what democracy is. Elections have to have consequences. The reason the Constitution gives Presidents explicit command of the military is that the founding fathers didn’t want military leaders to form their own base of political power and interfere with civilian government or push their own political ideology. Had they known how much bureaucracy would exist in this day and age, they’d probably have made a point to do the same for other executive functions. Will some people be fired unfairly for bad reasons? Absolutely, because people aren’t perfect. They can elect whoever they want, and sometimes they’ll make bad choices. See pretty much the entire Bush administration. Insulating bureaucrats from executive power essentially concedes that one no longer believes in democracy or the people’s right to rule themselves for good or for ill.
I’m sympathetic to the goal of reduced bureaucracy and waste too. I don’t think the amount of power that has been invented in the last several presidents is correct, nor intended by the Founders. Also, the judiciary is constituted as a co-equal branch, and judges nominated by a president and approved by Congress have the authority to check some of his intended actions. They are not loyal or beholden subjects in the manner of an absolute monarchy.
A pretty well inescapable problem of the current reform movement is that it is led by a petty and vicious man who is using a personal loyalty test to remake the federal according to his self-declared thirst for “absolute and ultimate revenge”.
Well, I can assure you that however much federal dollars I was given, I would never be able to produce reusable spacecraft.
Indeed, some of Musk’s projects have been funded from the federal budget, but he showed impressive results and spectacular RoI. Unlike many other contractors syphoning off the federal budget (and not only US budget, btw).
So any sensible person ought to be grateful for every dollar Musk received from the federal government, and welcome every dollar he arbitrarily cuts?
The proof is not in, one way or the other, on any of Musk’s projects, from self-driving cars to a Mars escape plan.
Nor is it clear why even the greatest science and tech visionary would be well suited to reform a government, or ought to treat it like personal property he can strip away: disrupt first and maybe try to clean up the mess later.
Please, let’s stick to what was *really* said, without distorting things and taking them to absurd lengths.
What I said was that Musk, indeed, used public money. Still, with this money he has done many valuable and useful things (you yourself praised him for sending a spaceship to bring back the stranded astronauts).
Another point: if we compare what Musk has achieved using federal funds with the scandalous waste of said monies by other entities, this makes his achievements even more valuable in terms of cost-effectiveness and value for money.
As for whether he is the best-placed person to carry out a large-scale government reform, I think the jury is still out.
I would compare what he is doing with someone entering an abandoned house and opening the windows to air the place and to start cleaning it. The draft will inevitably mess with some old papers and might cause some stuff fall down and break into pieces. But is it a small price to pay for bringing the abandoned place in order and make it clean and hospitable again? We don’t know yet.
Plus, let’s not forget about checks and balances. Although it is obvious that some judges try to interfere out of ideological bias, the court system is there to provide corrections when and if needed. Ditto the Congress.
I’m glad you acknowledge the fair role of the judiciary. That is not uniformly true among Musk or Trump supporters. The jury is indeed still out, but so far the chainsaw seems too apt a symbol for his project. In my opinion, you’re extending him to much credit, a blank check of hopeful benefit of the doubt. I’m sure I have the reverse bias. Perhaps we can each take a page from the other: I could be more patient and charitable toward his quick and severe efforts, and you could take a more critical, less enthusiastic look at his radical disruptions.
And saved billions by making things so much more cheaply and efficiently than NASA.
Exactly!
And not by some marginal amount/percent, but at a fraction of the NASA estimated/real cost.
One of his first projects cost 30% of what it would have been had it been implemented by NASA.
I laughed out loud at the suggestion that Musk is “motivated more by humanitarian impulses”. Musk has enough difficulty in even behaving like a human. Every time I see him, I think that he gives credence to that conspiracy theory that says the world is secretly run by shape-shifting alien lizards.
Glad you’ve got a laugh out of this, and while I may be completely misguided, listening to the last Rogan interview with him I had the sense that he genuinely cares.
I might have to watch that interview. Every single time I have heard him speak, he has either said creepy and weird things, or he has appeared to be thinking “What would an actual human say in this circumstance”.
Listening to long-form interviews (e.g Rogan) is by the far the best way to judge an individual’s character for yourself. I have a policy to avoid expressing any non-validated opinion on an individual until I have done that.
I’d say that an individual’s actions (including how they treat people) and the fruits of those actions, as well as what those who know a man closely say about him, are a bigger part how we can best guess a person’s character and heart. Not that we should presume some purity or finality of judgment, or that the jury is in on anyone who is still alive.
I agree with the “actions” comment, but it is very hard to judge because there are so few media sources that report accurately on the context around the actions that the person takes.
That’s fair.
To admit some complexity: In my opinion Musk has some noble intentions, and isn’t a purely selfish creature. I do think he has become more convinced of his own perceived greatness and that his plan to save to the world has a far-off quality that tends to see Mars more clearly than Earth and look past the suffering of those who seem to get in the way of his grand plans.
“The end justifies the means” is rarely a government policy that ends well for anyone
Nor do good intention pave good roads.
He needs to remember that people on oedestals have a long fall to the ground when people kick tbe base out. And it is coming. An unelected blowbag telling foreign governments how to govern will come to some sort of unpleasant, sticky end when they finally lose patience with his toxic leanings.
He cares! About Elon Musk. He does not care about the people dying round the cobalt and lithium mines. “Not my problem. We only buy the stuff!”. He is a charlatan pretending to be a humanitarian.
I think you and the author both have it wrong. Musk already benefited from massive subsidies for EVs during the Obama administration. He has firsthand knowledge of how profitable it can be to take advantage of political causes and political trends. Pretty much anyone with as much money as he has can manipulate governments and circumvent regulations. He could probably defect to another nation if he wanted and take most of his money and his company with him. He’s not worried about the government being an ‘obstacle’ to his plans. He probably has watched the political situation very closely because he knows how much it matters.
He reached the conclusion that the old order was collapsing and that Trump or some other populist was going to end up on the winning side, so he declared his allegiance to the other side before they ascended to power so he could be a primary beneficiary when they did. He was doing what has made him successful in the past, looking towards the future and successfully understanding how politics interacts with economics to produce opportunities that shrewd and farsighted people can take advantage of. He showed no loyalty to his former progressive allies and his customers because he likely cannot feel social loyalties or social pressures in the same way normal people do.
I think his motivation is mostly self-interest. He perceived the same social trends that I and many others have noticed and concluded that the political backlash towards globalism was basically unavoidable, so he’s positioning himself and his company to profit from that turn or at least avoid the people’s direct wrath if and when things get uglier and more revolutionary. I don’t know whether it will work or not. He may have to triangulate and change sides again further down the road. The problem as I see it is he’s involved himself personally and he quite obviously doesn’t have fully developed social skills, thus he’s likely to make mistakes and those will add up over time. I think it’s his ego showing. His prior success has made him overconfident. Pride goeth before the fall.
I think you are absolutely right, but my view is that the recent steps he has taken will be the end of him. I don’t think he realised how much hatred he would generate. Beyond members of the Trump administration, and some hard-core MAGA types (who aren’t going to buy his cars anyway), who actually still likes him? Europe hates him, Britain hates him, Australia hates him, Canada hates him. You might say “Who cares?”, but those places used to buy his cars. China is ambivalent towards him, but they can get better EVs than Teslas at far lower prices.
Your comment contains the word “hate” 4 times plus “hatred” once. Don’t you think it’s a tiny bit ironic and not a little hypocritical that many (if not all) of these these haters are the kind of people who think themselves on the side of empathy and all worldly goodness and that Trump and Musk are hateful tyrants?
No one HAS to feel hate. Neither Trump nor Musk are the cause of anyone’s hate, it is entirely their own choice. It is your choice – just like the one to buy or not buy a Tesla.
This is pre-two tier thinking Katharine !
You and I get to have agency for our decisions. As well as being responsible for other people’s decisions and actions. Since the victim class have no agency.
Of course, I agree. We all have some control over how we respond to provocations. And the more self control we can exercise, the better.
No no, because we now all love federal bureaucrats, who shovel money to unaccountablecNgOs. They can do no wrong. Bureaucrats, the new priestly caste.
Throughout history, any number of people brought pain and suffering to the masses, and there is no doubt that many of the masses hated them for it. It is hard to love your oppressor. Musk is just the latest in a long line.
Of course he didn’t realize the hatred he would generate. He has a disorder that makes him terrible at socialization in general. He tried to do what Trump does but possesses none of the relevant skills. He has other skills that far exceed the President and most everyone else, yet for some inexplicable reason he chose the method of engagement that suits his skills the least. I can’t explain it as anything other than an act of supreme arrogance that he will definitely pay for whether or not he ever regrets it.
Not arrogance, he doesn’t understand how others might react. As you say, it’s a disease or syndrome, over which he has almost no control.
Cluelessness doesn’t remove the arrogance, though it makes it more understandable and in some sense less blameworthy. At his age Musk could have taken greater corrective steps, like Steve has. Also, he is not profoundly autistic or emotionless, and could grow more kindness and humility if he chose to. Or do you honestly think he is forced to be exactly as he is?
He is a great visionary. And you think he should be kinder?
His vision is more anti-human than humanitarian. But he thinks he can upload his massive brain to the cloud or flee to Mars if he’s not permitted to save the world according to his singular genius. And I don’t think that’s much of an overstatement of his current level of hubris. Perhaps I’m very much mistaken and I hope I am. I’ve been watching and listening to his act for a couple decades here in Silicon Valley. He’s changed for the worse in my view. He may not be capable of much change toward kindness and humility given his inborn social challenges, but I think people should beware of following a man who looks at the world and sees little more than a giant image of himself reflected.
Excellent summary.
I was genuinely surprised at the sympathy expressed by non bureaucrats for people working from home and thus failing in their tasks, playing mind games with their victims, living a life secured from ordinary problems with high salaries and pensions with no need to show competence, or even kindness ( read the story of veterans and the veterans administration over the last ten years). And although 2.3 million may seem a small amount, most of what they do is make work, destructive and duplicates states’s actions. Every complaint that now South Africa can’t afford to care for its HIV patients ignores the fact that only the West cares about health and education. While our money enables governments to spend more and more on really important things, like war and theft.
What inside knowledge enables you to blanket denounce every government worker as a lazy busy-worker who’d rather zoom out and victimize taxpayers than do a good job? I’m sure there’s some of that, but let’s be a bit less general. Should veterans be confident that only inessential or parasitic workers and services are being cut from the VA, with a careful eye?
It is quite strange, You’d think that he would have learned by now that there are some things that he simply isn’t good at.
Your list of “haters” makes little sense. Free-speech advocates see him as a hero. Many left-wing institutions/governments hate him for it.
Like their counterparts on the other prong of the horseshoe, far-right free-speech crusaders become very selective about allowing speech they don’t like. “Free speech for me, not for thee” is the common practice, belying what is preached by both warring extremes.
Hasn’t he kicked numerous people of Twitter for disagreeing with him?
Free speech champion my a**e!
Like most “free speech advocates”, he mostly in favour of free speech when he is the one speaking.
Errrr… How many people have authorised you to speak of their behalf in Europe, the UK, Australia, and Canada?
I could safely say that there are people out there who, like me, choose to be rational and pragmatic enough when forming their opinions.
Hatred is irrational and if someone hates a person who has never harmed them personally, this is a very alarming symptom of the state of their mental health (and, as a consequence, their ability to have sound judgement).
Well, I am a citizen of both the UK and Australia. Still, don’t take my word for what people in those places think. Count how many Teslas they buy (and vandalise).
It’s a tad presumptive to claim to speak for entire countries! Anyway, I sort of like him (I think, I’m a bit on the fence), but I certainly couldn’t generate any strong emotions about the man.
Clearly, you hate people. Hate hate hate hate! You keep saying it.
I actually hate very few people. However, Musk is so eminently hateable that I’ll make an exception in his case.
the excellent news is that X is now valued at the same price Musk paid for Twitter. Something new for the deranged to cry about.
Does that valuation take into account the last few years of high inflation?
And, whereas Twitter leaned 97% left, X now leans 48% left and 47% right. But mainstream media doesn’t report that .
So Saint Musk was merely trying “maintain free speech”? Oh you mean like reinstating Andrew Tate’s ability to spew venom, hate, misogyny and violence? Free speech or hate speech?
Intellectual pygmies have turned to vandalism and violence because an election did not go their way. Naturally, the issue is Elon Musk.
Unherd – where do you find these people?
The issue is Elon Musk, because Elon Musk has made himself the issue. It’s not like everyone has started picking on poor harmless Aspy-guy, who was just minding his own business.
Even if you don’t own a Tesla, repudiating Musk is now public symbol of obedience and conformity. A sort of Progressivgruß.
The blunting of growth in Tesla sales preceded Musk’s pivot to Trump and derived from a saturation of a market mostly comprised of affluent liberals and heavily subsidized. Multiple other auto makers have had to scale back or eliminate their EV production aims as well. Despite all the cheerleading from legacy media, EV’s remain problematic for large swaths of the population and the segment of the market that craves them is no longer as robust.
The vandalism of Teslas demonstrates that, for progressives, owning a Tesla was only ever a meme without intrinsic importance to actual mitigation of climate issues. It was a totem of tribal identification that lost its symbolic potency with Musk’s heterodoxy.
Also, the market segment that craves EVs no longer likes Musk.
“… ransack the Federal government via his Department of Government Efficiency”
I’m afraid I gave up reading at this pointt.
Twitter profitability before Musk: only profitable in 2/8 years.
Post Musk: workforce cut by about 80%, figures not publicly available but it doesn’t take a genius to guess what has happened.
The stock price is back to very near where he bought it ($54 per share vs $53). A small price to pay for the US president being in your pocket.
As Peter Thiel said, don’t bet against Elon.
I’m betting against Elon. He might be ok if he had some people skills, but he has none whatsoever. He is also an exceptionally easy guy to hate.
Do you hate people with cancer because they can’t walk? Do you hate people with Downs syndrome because they talk funny?
Look inside yourself. You’ll see the hate.
I don’t recall anyone with cancer or Downs Syndrome declaring war on the human race, so no.
Martin is so stupid he thinķs Musk is a nazi out doing nazi salutes. Xho dhould give a flip what a proud moron has to say?
Musk was probably just shooing flies, right?
Who are your heroes? I would be genuinely interested to know.
If we are limiting it to politicians around in my lifetime (and not in any particular order): 1) Ronald Reagan – One of the greatest US Presidents. Won the Cold War without firing a shot, and was a courteous and respectful man (unlike some other US Presidents I could name, 2) Margaret Thatcher – Took a moribund and socialist UK, and gave it some respect. Also kicked the hell out of the Unions, tormented the EU, and flamed the Argentinians, 3) (and this one will surprise you) Mikhail Gorbachev – Despite rising through the Communist Party, realised that Communism (the most repulsive political system ever invented by humans) was not the future, and engineered its demise in Russia. I should say I had great hopes for Russia at this point, but the Russian people were simply not up for becoming civilised, and just wanted to be led by another tyrant.
Musk is looking like this term’s Giuliani.
An innocent man falsely accused by leftists.
A disbarred, disgraced former American hero, booze-soaked and sold-out.
An excellent analogy.
So Tesla is having its own weird Bud Light moment with a violent (and, of course, illegal) twist. A lesson for business people: mixing business with politics can be quite risky.
Remind me how many incidents of vandalism or arson there were with Bud Light.
Remind me how the CEO of Bud Light had the extra-Constitutional authority to eviscerate and transform the federal government. I don’t support criminal menace, but your comparison is thin.
For many years Musk supported the Democratic Party. Then he saw how they revealed their true authoritarian/fascist/marxist colours in the aftermath of the George Floyd death followed by the Covid pandemic, which gave them the perfect excuse to extinguish civil liberties. This is why he moved into the Republican sphere. In many way, he comes across as apolitical in the party sense. He stands for freedom and free speech. We should all thank our stars that someone of his stature has stood up to be counted. The example of Twitter alone demonstrates that his intervention has been valuable. Before his purchase of Twitter it was a weapon of repression and misinformation used by the Democrat machine. No longer. And it took Musk to illuminate the ghastly mass rape of British girls by Muslim rape gangs – the BBC and the Woking Class elite had done an excellent job of largely brushing this under the legal and media carpets until Musk trumpeted his disgust from across the Atlantic. Thank you, Elon. We owe you!
People keep going on about “Muslim Rape Gangs” in Britain, but there is no getting away from the fact that the biggest “Rape Gang” in Britain is the clergy of the Catholic Church. Still, they’re Christians, so no problem there, right?
A horrible article. I will not be renewing my UnHerd subscription.
Bye.
A demonstration why well known brands and individuals associated with them should steer clear of high profile politics. Its pretty much guaranteed to alienate half your prospective customers. I guess Musk can afford it but I suspect Tesla shareholders and workers will be less than comfortable. Bud light another example.
With all the bad things going on in the world, the troubles of Musk and Tesla are something that we can all take joy from.
Fine if you don’t like the cars and don’t want to own one. I dislike Michel O’Leary, so I don’t fly Ryanair – it’s my choice and I don’t want to put money in the guy’s pockets. It’s the sme reason I try to avoid Amazon these days: I don’t like Bezos. Consumers are entitled to vote with their feet.
But actively cheering someone’s misfortune who has achieved far more in 10 years than most people would do in 3 lifetimes says far more about you than it does about them.
Indeed it does.
There’s a Swiftian expression that applies here (and i never thought i’d find myself writing that!):
“Haters gonna hate”
We all need somebody to hate though (it’s a fundamental human need), and Elon is so perfect for the role.
No. It is not a fundamental human need.
Please, speak for yourself.
The late Kris Kristofferson wrote, in Jesus Was a Capricorn, “Everybody has to have somebody to look down on,…” and I find conversations with most folk these days almost always involves showing disgust with various politicians, medics, business leaders etc. Surely you also find this? The last few years have shown corruption is everywhere and many prominent people have incurred the displeasure of the masses.
You’ve never hated anybody? Well, when the Dalai Lama dies, maybe you can take over from him.
I do not feel the need to hate people.
I do not think that this is a need, let alone a universal need.
Yes, I did hate some people for a while, because they harmed me. This was my (temporary) reaction to their behaviour.
But this doesn’t mean that I think that hatred is necessary.
In addition, I am convinced that feeling hatred for someone who did not cause you immediate harm is a pathology.
E.g., hating an entire nation, or a politician or another public figure who didn’t harm you directly, i.e. personally.
Elon is harming everybody, so he is the perfect person for everybody to hate. Maybe we can get an internet meme going that he is the Biblical “Beast 666”. That would be fun.
And you, dear Martin, are perfect for the role of hater, as is evident from your various comments.
I should say that I hate comparatively few people. I limit my hatred to those who richly deserve it. Had I been alive in the 1940s, I imagine that I would have hated Hitler. Nowadays, I hate Musk.
Hatred is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die. Stupid people hate.
If you are just sitting there being consumed by it, sure. But have you ever heard of the term “Rising up against an oppressor”? That is generally viewed as a good thing, right? Well, Musk is the oppressor of the human race, and people are rising up against him.
I don’t know who Michel O’Leary is, but I wouldn’t fly Ryanair for the same reason I wouldn’t fly any other budget airline – because I have no desire to be treated like a sheep at a market. You are entitled you your views, but I for my part consider that I am entitled to take joy from the misfortunes of a truly evil person.
Mmm… anyone who takes joy in another’s misfortunes needs to take a look in the mirror.
I don’t take joy at most people’s misfortune, just those who richly deserve it (and who deserves misfortune more richly than Elon?)
You really aren’t making yourself look very good right now.
You’re very kind, Katharine. Our dear Martin is not only NOT looking very good. He is looking very much like a deranged and very angry and hate-filled demagogue. I bet his family considers him to be a barrel of fun, and the life and soul of a family dinner.
I don’t have a family (I am an only child, both my parents are long dead, and I have no wife or children), but thanks for the sentiment.
I don’t come here to “make myself look good”. I come here to have a discussion. Unlike Musk, I have a pretty good idea when I’m annoying people, and there is a fair chance I am doing it deliberately.
I’m sorry, but how is Musk “evil”? I’ll give you “unlikeable”, but “evil”? Please don’t say you’re one of those clowns that liberally chucks around the words “Nazi” and “fascist” about Trump and Musk…
Indeed, he is. Alongside his blanket hatred of South Africans and Russians (in particular wanting as many Russians as possible to be killed). It’s somewhat ironic that he accuses Musk of being a f@scist and a n@zi.
But loves the derangedly ethno nationalist rune wearing Ukrainians.
Yeah, runes are bad. How good would the world be if there were no more runes?
Point of order: I want as many Russian SOLDIERS to die in Ukraine. There are two reasons for this. 1) They are invaders, and have no right to be there. 2) The more of them that die in Ukraine, the less there will be for Putin’s next unprovoked invasion. I do not however want non-combatants to be killed, and I don’t even want soldiers to be killed outside the rules of war. That’s where I differ from the Russians themselves, who have always executed captured enemy, and killed non-combatants, as a matter of routine policy.
In fairness to Trump, I have never seen him do a Nazi salute. Musk, on the other hand….
Have you had the misfortune to try BA recently?
A few years ago. They are not a big part of my travel plans, given that I live in Australia. It was a short flight (Edinburgh to London City), and it was in Business Class. I found them to be ok. Most of my travel is on Qantas or Malaysian Airlines (although I have recently been on Fiji Airways and LATAM medal, and will be flying Emirates metal at Easter).
Relating to the subject of the DOGE asking for bullet points of achievements for the week, Elon Musk’s will probably say “the company I created and developed brought astronauts back safely from space this week” The haters version will say “I managed to badmouth 200 creative and effective people this week”.
Do they really believe the Federal govt full of creative and effective people? They obviously never worked in a bureaucracy.
Well, I think that it’s likely that there might be, indeed, about 200 creative and effective people in the Federal government.
Like in the old joke:
– How many people work in this building?
– About 10 per cent.
It doesn’t help that they make very average cars and the truck is a laughing stock. BYD have just launched a new car that recharges in 5 minutes. It feels like Tesla could disappear unless Trump protects it with tariffs.
Hopefully it will still disappear. After all, the Left (who are generally kindly disposed towards EVs) now hate Musk, and will buy EVs from other companies, and the Right (who are generally kindly disposed towards Trump, and thus Musk by association) have always hated EVs, and probably aren’t going to start buying them because Trump says they should.
‘Icebergs! Pah, Full steam ahead. This ship is unsinkable’.
History full of the rich and powerful over reaching in arrogant hubristic pride. Elon just the latest.
The irony is that had the Titanic actually rammed the iceberg at full speed dead on, it probably wouldn’t have sunk. I understand and agree with your point, but I couldn’t resist picking that particular nit.
Correct!
Giving the order “left hand down a bit” was an unfortunate mistake. Having the ship designed by an Ulsterman was another.
As to the first bit, the “Full Speed Astern” order was also unwise, as had it not been given, the ship may well have steered around the iceberg. I make no comment on Ulstermen.
O come off it! Mr Musk is a “breath of fresh air” by comparative analysis with most of the thoroughly worthless politicians that currently strut the world stage.*
Even if he is partial to eugenics. who can really blame him given the moribund state of our so called civilisation?
*Just for the record President Trump is NOT one of them.
Ah, eugenics and “Darwinian realism”— now we’re on to your favourite brand of humanitarianism.
GK. Chesterton wrote a wonderful polemic against eugenics, then proposed by the Labour government. Somehow I don’t think you would like GKC, so you must support eugenics, right?
I do like Chesterton. I do oppose eugenics. I’m responding to specific comments Charles has made here over the years, not just this one.
*Also. take a look at what he posted in response to me. Granted, he is a cheeky old provocateur, learned as he is. But he’s more serious than not on this, I’d estimate.
“When men choose not to believe in God, they do not therefore believe in nothing. They then become capable of believing in anything” —GKC
Indeed you are sir.
Like most innovations produced by carbon obsessives, the current generation of electric cars have almost certainly had a net negative impact on the environment.
EVs, compact fluorescent bulbs, wind & solar “farms” – all were pushed by an alliance of clueless do-gooders, cynical corporatists and aspiring tyrants.
Electrification of transportation, industry, and heating should come *after* we’ve got abundant clean electricity, which is only likely through a mix of nuclear and hydroelectric.
We should also insist on batteries and motors that avoid toxic heavy metals.
An attempt at a fair and balanced article by someone who is clearly not a fan of Musk. On the raw numbers, I think it’s important to consider that Germany removed EV grants this year, so EV sales in general there have fallen 28% in general. The second point is that Tesla now occupies the iPhone position in this relatively new market. It’s the premium trailblazer that had a dominant market position and is now facing increased competition as other brands catch up. Most people don’t care about politics when they’re buying their car, or surely Chinese cars wouldn’t sell?
I would disagree with you about the attempt to write a balanced article. Or, maybe, there was an attempt, but it was not particularly sucessful, in my view.
As for the numbers, I fully agree with you. It’s very easy to throw some statistics without any context and to interpret the data in the way that suits a certain narrative.
I think that the drop in Tesla sales is due to the saturation of the EV market, Chinese competition, and – not least – to the realisation that EVs are not very practical if someone has to do long trips on a regular basis.
I don’t think the data can be cooked to show, believably, that Musk’s unpopular DOGE overreach and support for far-right politics worldwide aren’t the main causes for the precipitous fall of Tesla’s star. They suddenly ‘realised’ this drawback—since November?
Thank you for replying. I did not refer to cooking the data, but to interpreting it. And to citing data without providing sufficient context.
It might be the case that, indeed, the wokeist backlash against Tesla has been a contributing factor, but one needs a much more thorough analysis to gauge to what extent this contributed to the drop in sales, whilst also taking into consideration other factors.
Monocausality is a rare phenomenon, as we know.
Fair enough. Or course “cooking” was a deliberate rhetorical jab on my part. I think the primary cause, not merely a “factor”, is quite evident. Not that he therefore deserves it, or that Tesla couldn’t rise again—or fall lower. Perhaps he’ll secure fame as a great architect of reform-by-chainsaw, adding to his reputation as a sort of real-life Mr. Spock meets Tony Stark.
That was my point: neither of us knows for sure what weight each of the factors might have or how many factors are at play in general.
As for Musk’s future fame or place in history, for now it seems a bit early to judge, isn’t it? 😉
Yes, but I’m allowed to post opinions online—however hasty or seasoned, justified or ill-founded—just like the (for now second) richest man in the world.
Frankly, AJ, my impression is that you do not reply to me, but rather to something you think I said.
I have never denied your rig htto express your opinion.
By the same token, I have the right to express my disagreement with your opinions.
On a positive note, am happy that there’s something in Musk you can identify with. Maybe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, to quote some film classic?
Yeah, maybe. Though I don’t think that quote-as-quip amounts to a hill of beans in this world. I was pointing to the fact that Elon Musk, given his platform, is probably the most prolific and influential poster and re-tweeter of falsehood and garbage—including baseless accusations against individuals—on the World Wide Web. That doesn’t excuse more of the same from others, but makes him a less sympathetic target than most. In agreement with Steve Jolly, who like Elon has autism, I consider Musk to be a picture of hubris that is likely to become a cautionary tale. We’ll see though. On that we can agree.
Uh, huh. So why are people setting Teslas on fire then?
Because they are hysterical vandals that have never done anything useful in their lives.
You are welcome.
It’ll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I’ll just pick up on this point:
“Tesla’s Cybercab, a product that some excitable analysts think could replace not just combustion cars, but car ownership as we know “
Part of me would welcome this. Private vehicles played a huge role in the uglification of urban environments, especially once the powers that be decided we needed lines and signs everywhere.
Driverless cars don’t need signs to tell them what to do, and they can park themselves out of sight, rather than along our streets.
But having seen how our rulers behaved during the pandemic, who would trust them to oversee “smart cars” of any sort – cars that they can monitor, and remotely deactivate.
Musk is too comfortable with the idea that plebs will own nothing.
Yes, I also have become very nervous about any attempts to convince people that the right to property is not that necessary and even is a bad thing.
” In addition to Musk’s overbearing persona, given free range on his social media platform, X, he has entangled himself with the radical Trump regime, and with insurgent Right-wing parties in Europe.”
Ah, another piece of even-handed journalism from the new UnHerd – basically just an excuse to reuse that agitprop photo of Musk supposedly doing a Hitler salute.
What do you call it—the universal “from my heart” gesture?
“Supposedly doing a Hitler salute”? Next you’ll be telling me that Hitler himself didn’t do any at the Nuremburg Rally, and that he was just pointing out where the fire exits were to the attendees.
That alleged public intellectuals are justifying terrorism against Musk and the cars those wise thought leaders embraced sums up this age tather well.
Nothing quite so satisfying as a snapshot to sum it all up. Do you feel the same way about the unflattering pic that accompanies this article?
Sorry to go off-topic, but I feel the need to point out that four of my eight comments have been removed by the moderation system.
Again.
The arrogance of Musk is on full display, how Musk destroyed his brand will be discussed in future business strategy courses, Tesla is in deep trouble as sales collapse around the world because of his political radicalism. There are plenty of EV brands to chose from, and many more coming in the near future. The company will struggle, the stock will collapse to 50$ or less as sales growth crashes and margins get squeezed. Tesla may even need a bailout at some point, Musk may actually become a poor man because of his limitless arrogance.
The mindset behind this is bizarre. Mental illness seems to be a pandemic. Do these people also throw out or delete music from musicians whose political views they don’t like? Gee, if I did that I would have precious little music left to listen to..
“Mental illness seems to be a pandemic”
Donald Trump’s recent election would seem to confirm that much…
Action against musicians were not uncommon back in the day. I can remember “record burnings” of works by musicians that had annoyed people.
Only an ignorant fool, or possibly a pathological liar, would state that that what Musk is doing is,ransacking the federal government.
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Nice photo. No reason to read crap below
I don’t know why you are upset about the picture. Do you think its faked or something? This is who Musk is and the N@zi salute is in line with everything he says and does.
Don’t be ashamed of who you are. Let the world know that you don’t just think that’s ok but that you think its wonderful!