[SA Chris]

Further highlights his level of delusion.

[TobyD]

Further highlights his level of delusion.

I assume that the link was those NFT cards he's flogging. I'd like to think it means he's a dribbling imbecile and won't even be picked to run for the Republicans, but I seem to remember everyone thought he was mental and not going anywhere in 2016...

[teestub]

https://decrypt.co/117431/trumps-nft-rollout-went-exactly-as-youd-expect

Dodgy shell company deffo nothing to do with Trump and definitely not an east way to funnel some untraceable funds!

[slab_happy]

Apparently Elon's decided to get in on the action, since "selling overpriced shit to your fanboys" turns out to be a good grift:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/16/23513407/elon-musk-equity-investment-sucker-born-every-minute

[petejh]

Ha, Musk is in a slow motion car crash. My prediction, for what it’s worth (what you paid for it), is that Tesla will halve in value over the next 2 years. Read a stat that even if they halve in value from today’s price Tesla would still be the largest car company globally, by market cap. Which is clearly insane.

Also humorous to consider what the $44 billion spent purchasing a social media platform could have been used for instead. For example partnering or purchasing lithium and nickel projects in safe jurisdictions to secure the physical assets required to run Tesla vehicles for the next couple of decades. But no, Twitter. Madness.

[teestub]

After being interested in one for years a Tesla has become a more realistic proposition recently, but Musk’s actions have managed to completely put me off and I bet there are tonnes of people in the same position (but I guess millions of fanbois too).

I wonder how seriously both Tesla and SpaceX boards must be thinking about ousting him, I can’t imagine NASA are particularly happy! Not sure there would even be a mechanism with him being such a major shareholder?

[slab_happy]

I wonder how seriously both Tesla and SpaceX boards must be thinking about ousting him

It does appear that some major investors in Tesla are publicly Not Happy about goings-on:

https://twitter.com/BriannaWu/status/1603942515723436033

https://observer.com/2022/12/koguan-leo-tesla-shareholder-oust-elon-musk/

CBS: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-tesla-down-700-billion-in-value-angry-investors/

Not sure there would even be a mechanism with him being such a major shareholder?

According to Reuters, his stake is down to 13.4%:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/elon-musk-sells-22-mln-tesla-shares-worth-36-bln-filing-2022-12-15/
 
And he keeps selling off Tesla stock to so he can pour money down the drain of Twitter.

OTOH, he's also got control of a huge social media website and no compunctions about setting angry mobs on people who annoy him by smearing them as pedophiles, so I can see why board members might be a bit hesitant to make a move.

[spidermonkey09]

After being interested in one for years a Tesla has become a more realistic proposition recently, but Musk’s actions have managed to completely put me off and I bet there are tonnes of people in the same position (but I guess millions of fanbois too).

I wonder how seriously both Tesla and SpaceX boards must be thinking about ousting him, I can’t imagine NASA are particularly happy! Not sure there would even be a mechanism with him being such a major shareholder?

Even if I could afford one (I can't!) there is absolutely zero chance I would ever buy a Tesla. Thats entirely down to Musk. Complete nobhead.

[petejh]

The money void of the metaverse is turning into Meta/Zuckerberg's downfall, from which apparently they are trying to claw their way back from. Twitter and other attention-grabbing fuckwittery might end up being Tesla's. These visions can work out when money is essentially free as per the last decade, which created companies with market caps predicated on earnings 15 - 20 years into the future assuming a low cost of money. But not when money costs 5%. It's going to be weird looking back from 2025 at the market and remembering the multi-billion dollar crypto, tesla and facebook market caps.
Can't beat this for a bit of perspective on changing of the guard:

[petejh]

Even if I could afford one (I can't!) there is absolutely zero chance I would ever buy a Tesla. Thats entirely down to Musk. Complete nobhead.

I would, I think they're nice cars if a bit pricey. Musk being a bellend should would have no impact on whether or not I bought a Tessie. Do you shun VW? I mean they systematically corrupted the emissions testing to cheat environmental regulations for years. A far worse crime than simply being a nob yet it doesn't appear to put people off.   

[ali k]

there is absolutely zero chance I would ever buy a Tesla. Thats entirely down to Musk. Complete nobhead.

I would…Musk being a bellend would have no impact on whether or not I bought a Tessie. Do you shun VW? I mean they systematically corrupted the emissions testing to cheat environmental regulations for years. A far worse crime than simply being a nob yet it doesn't appear to put people off.

SM isn’t trying to speak for the population as a whole though (or you!), just expressing personal opinion. Likewise, I wouldn’t buy a Tesla, Dyson or any Nestle products, nor use Amazon or Sports Direct to shop no matter how cheap. It’s up to the individual where they choose to spend their money and whose pockets they line in the process.

[spidermonkey09]

I agree it's not a totally coherent, logical position to shun some companies and not others, but that's the nature of individual choice isn't it? I find Musks combination of populism, far right adjacent rabble rousing and his absolutely massive ego really off putting, before we even get to him falsely accusing an innocent man of being a paedophile and buying his way out of legal ramifications. The risk of making yourself so overtly the "public face" of an entity is that people project their opinions onto the individual onto the company. I don't have the same view of the VW ceo; I don't even know their name.

On the other side of the coin, I bet some people avoid eg Ben and Jerry's because they object to their political stance.

[petejh]

Oh I completely understand it’s anyone’s right to make a personal choice, based on their personal opinion about someone else’s politics and behaviour. And of course hypocrisy is unavoidable in most consumer choices we make.
I just find it odd, because shunning something like Tesla for the reasons stated just means you buy a vehicle from a.n.other large car company. I doubt avoiding any particular major car manufacturer on principle is an efficient way to collect virtue points but if it makes you feel better than so be it.
 And in the case of VAG they have actually been found guilty of corruption on a mass scale - you don’t need to know anything about the ceo to know this btw.

[spidermonkey09]

Well yeah, just like shunning Dyson because I think he's a nob means I buy a hoover from someone else. Or when people boycotted Esso but still bought fuel from other providers. Its a form of protest ultimately, against either poor behaviour by either an individual or company. That's not to say those you choose instead are pure as the driven snow, just that they align better in a specific way.

Its also not a case of virtue points. Everyone makes these choices on a daily basis, when we choose free range eggs over battery, mear from a local farm rather than Argentina, or choosing certain foodstuffs at the supermarket because they use recyclable packaging. If you don't do that and completely detach your wallet from your value system then fair enough, but surely most people do it to some degree.

[ali k]

It’s nothing to do with collecting virtue points. The idea of putting a single extra pound into the pocket of Musk just makes me feel sick. Same goes for Mike Ashley and several other individuals. Boycotting ‘faceless’ corporations is more nuanced and takes a bit more research, but when it’s an easily identifiable nobber at the helm then it’s a no brainer. For me at least.

[teestub]

What Ali said.

Top use of the word ‘virtue’ for baiting purposes Pete!

[petejh]

Boycotting folk such as Mike Ashley I get. And making cheap clothes is not on the level of value creation as engineering revolutionary forms of transport.

Musk, nope sorry I don’t understand what about him you’re so dead against morally? When compared to other CEO’s of companies in the specific business of selling cars.

On an individual level I think he’s a bit of bellend. He has some questionable views. I don’t think he’s morally outrageous or at least any more so than many other CEO’s of large companies. And he was a favourite pet of the left only a couple of years ago. I expect he plays to whatever political sympathies seem most apt in the moment.
On the level of making cars I think he’s done a pretty good job of popularising EVs and making a desirable product in the model 3/model s.

[teestub]

I don’t think he’s morally outrageous or at least any more so than many other CEO’s of large companies. And he was a favourite pet of the left only a couple of years ago. I expect he plays to whatever political sympathies seem most apt in the moment.

Pet? He was selling posh electric cars, so this was always going to favour rich left leaning people.

Have any other car company CEOs recently spent spent $40bill with the apparent express purpose of giving a popular platform to racists and far right types?

[seankenny]

And making cheap clothes is not on the level of value creation as engineering revolutionary forms of transport.

I don’t think this is at all correct. Making cheap clothes is often the first step on the rung from an agrarian society to a more industrial society. It brings huge benefits to the people who undertake it, allowing them to urbanise and create new forms of social and political organisation. Elites get to make the transition from landlord-ism to running broader institutions that pave the way toward more complex production processes. Clearly it’s not the same value creation in terms of the transformation of inputs, labour and capital into an individual product, but the value creation on a wider scale is immense.

Human betterment is about both pushing out the frontiers and everyone else trying to catch up.

[slab_happy]

I expect he plays to whatever political sympathies seem most apt in the moment.

I don't think it makes it morally better if he's decided to embrace the alt-right, QAnon dog-whistling, and the kind of people who incite terrorist threats against children's hospitals out of cynicism rather than sincerity.

I doubt many car company CEOs are paragons of virtue, but it's not surprising if people go "wow, Musk seems to be a very special kind of turd" and decide they don't feel like giving him their money.

[slab_happy]

HAHAHAHAHAHA:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/18/23515221/twitter-bans-links-instagram-mastodon-competitors
https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/social-platforms-policy

Guess Musk must be really worried about the exodus. It is now Forbidden to let people know your account name on another social media site, or even post links to any content on one of the Forbidden Sites.

[Bradders]

Musk, nope sorry I don’t understand what about him you’re so dead against morally? When compared to other CEO’s of companies in the specific business of selling cars.

I think the big difference is the corporate structure in place at those other companies, to the extent that in the long run those CEOs really aren't all that important. I imagine it's only a vanishingly small number of people who could name any major car manufacturer's CEO other than Musk, off the top of their heads, and that's with good reason.

To draw the VW comparison, Martin Winterkorn (yes I had to Google his name) resigned over the emissions scandal and was rapidly replaced, which is what would happen to all of the normal CEOs if/when something went seriously awry.

As their power is more limited, it doesn't matter as much whether those other CEOs are right wing or left, etc.

Musk on the other hand is rather hard to get rid of, as was proven in the past at Tesla before they turned things around. He owns something like 20% of the shares, more than 3 times any other investor, he has family members on the board, etc. He now owns Twitter outright. And he essentially now runs both companies as something of a dictator, which would be bad enough let alone that one of those companies is a globally significant social media platform.

Such concentration of power in the hands of one person naturally draws a greater degree of personal scrutiny, and consequently I think it's a very logical outcome that more people would take a principled view over buying products from that person's company, versus A.N. Other's products.

[slab_happy]

Musk on the other hand is rather hard to get rid of, as was proven in the past at Tesla before they turned things around. He owns something like 20% of the shares

Now down to 13.4%, according to Reuters, since he keeps selling Tesla stock in order to pour money into the black hole of debt he's piled on Twitter. So he may be getting easier to get rid of.

Brutal piece on Musk from Linette Lopez at Business Insider:

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-business-playbook-boss-visionary-jerk-spacex-tesla-twitter-2022-12?r=US&IR=T

[mrjonathanr]

Interesting read.

[galpinos]

Even if I could afford one (I can't!) there is absolutely zero chance I would ever buy a Tesla. Thats entirely down to Musk. Complete nobhead.

I would, I think they're nice cars if a bit pricey. Musk being a bellend should would have no impact on whether or not I bought a Tessie. Do you shun VW? I mean they systematically corrupted the emissions testing to cheat environmental regulations for years. A far worse crime than simply being a nob yet it doesn't appear to put people off.

I've always been baffled as to why/how VW ended up being the fall guy for this. It was industry wide, a "known secret", VW weren't even the worst yet seemed to cop the lot. The Nissan Qashqai was well known as being by far the worst offender but remained un-criticized and a massive best seller.

Re Musk, it has definitely put me off Teslas, for the same reasons as Ali et al articulated above. I know me buying a Polestar/Hyundai or whatever won't cause Elon to lose any sleep (and it I've no idea who the CEOs of those two example are, nor their political/ethical leanings) but it will mean I will sleep easier!