Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[The Larch]

Yeah, all kinds of tech companies are competing for hiring technical roles, iormlund's comparison to being a hot girl on Tinder was pretty spot on. Given the amount of effort companies put on presenting themselves as attractive places to work, I've never understood Musk's longstanding policy of treating workers like shit (this is pretty documented) as being conducive to sustained success. He seems to have relied on just the brand and the mission, and he's shitting on that too now.

On top of that, Musk's companies penchant for changing working conditions overnight does not really jive with a heavily regulated and unionized work environment such as the German car manufacturing one.

I really wonder why was Germany the country where it was decided to build this factory. Aren't most new car factories being built in places like the Czech Republic, Romania or Slovakia?

[Tamas]

Or Hungary. Orban spent a lot of effort on removing worker protections over the last several years, sounds like that's a very Musk-friendly environment.

[Josquius]

Musk had previously been pretty big on selling his credentials as a old school good employer no?
No exporting jobs for shitty overseas labour, we build them AMERICAN as things used to be as its better.
Maybe with Germany in Europe he was going for similar vibes?

All this of course makes his descent into madness all the more interesting.

[Admiral Yi]

Musk had previously been pretty big on selling his credentials as a old school good employer no?
No exporting jobs for shitty overseas labour, we build them AMERICAN as things used to be as its better.
Maybe with Germany in Europe he was going for similar vibes?

He built a plant in China.

[The Larch]

Musk had previously been pretty big on selling his credentials as a old school good employer no?
No exporting jobs for shitty overseas labour, we build them AMERICAN as things used to be as its better.
Maybe with Germany in Europe he was going for similar vibes?

He built a plant in China.

One can assume that that plant is geared towards supplying the Chinese market, which AFAIK is, after the American one, Tesla's key market.

[OttoVonBismarck]

For Columbia I once read a long writeup about whether or not they could have saved them had they known about the damage incurred during the launch. Essentially--yes maybe. The plan would not be try to intercept ISS (they had nowhere near the delta V required to change orbit so dramatically), nor did they have a backup shuttle ready to go. Instead, the plan would have been to just keep the shuttle in orbit, where it had about 30 days of food. They believed with rationing they could extend that out to maybe 45 days, and in that window they believed NASA could probably rush a supply rocket to intercept and extend their time. The end goal would be to rush the next planned shuttle launch up (which was a few months out), to rescue the stranded shuttle crew with the other shuttle.

From the link I posted:
Cain's review did not address the possibility of launching an emergency shuttle rescue mission. But engineers say they do not believe it would have been possible to get the next shuttle in the launch sequence - Atlantis - into orbit before Columbia's crew ran out of carbon dioxide-scrubbing lithium hydroxide.

I believe after that they kept Atlantis on standby to rescue stranded astronauts during missions.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/02/the-audacious-rescue-plan-that-might-have-saved-space-shuttle-columbia/

[Darth Wagtaros]

I think it is interesting the reaction all this is getting from predominantly Republican fans.  Even people I know were laid off and wound up in sad financial straits as  result are gloating over all this.  

[Josquius]

Musk had previously been pretty big on selling his credentials as a old school good employer no?
No exporting jobs for shitty overseas labour, we build them AMERICAN as things used to be as its better.
Maybe with Germany in Europe he was going for similar vibes?

He built a plant in China.

One can assume that that plant is geared towards supplying the Chinese market, which AFAIK is, after the American one, Tesla's key market.

Really stretching my memory here but I am pretty sure there was an excuse there about him having to do this as foreign built cars have insane tariffs in China.

[OttoVonBismarck]

That doesn't seem shocking? Doing things that trigger lots of libs is a great way to make Republicans love you. I just don't fully understand what Musk believes he is gaining by doing that? For a shill or politician, the benefits are obvious--it can help you win elections as an (R) and if you're not a politician, it can get you one of those sweet gigs spewing nonsense on Fox News or Newsmax, or running a right wing podcast / YouTube channel etc. But those are good grifts for "normal" people, maybe netting you decent six figures income; if you become a right wing star it'll make you rich--but Musk is already rich to a degree far beyond such grifts to the point he has zero financial motivation to be a right wing shill. He, as far as I know, has zero interest in running for elected office.

For what Musk does do, his behavior while maybe not catastrophic to his other business interests, certainly doesn't help.

He already got a little bit of scrutiny as the CEO of SpaceX when he smoked marijuana on a podcast with Joe Rogan--because it could affect his security clearance, and the CEO of the company having a clearance revoked would be bad for future SpaceX DoD contracts. That was relatively nothingburger ultimately, but it shows the risks of acting like a child as a CEO of a company with extensive government contracts.

For Tesla, I think the risks are more serious--a significant driver of adoption of expensive EVs like Tesla is absolutely a progressive desire to embrace the virtuousness of driving an EV. If the company and its leader are seen as supporters of the far right, this significantly mutes this effect. How much will that matter? I have no earthly idea. But I think there is a good reason almost all other consumer products companies try to strike a fairly middling line on politics--certain issues they simply have to take a stand because societal forces don't allow them to ignore the issue, but whenever possible most consumer facing companies strive very hard to not be seen as "Democrat" or "Republican", unless they serve a very targeted market in which that serves their interests. EVs don't really fit the bill, to be a successful car company you want the whole country at least willing to consider buying your cars.

I have seen some speculation (which I don't buy--I think this is all personal/emotional for Elon), that he is just aping a right winger to cause EVs and Tesla to get social cachet with right wingers, who are largely culturally opposed to EV adoption. If that was his ploy (which I don't think it is), it's not a smart one--I don't think support of Elon owning the libs is in and of itself significant inducement for a guy who drives a V8 F250 to swap it out for an EV.

[FunkMonk]

I think it's pretty obvious none of us can ever fully understand Elon because he is a Big Brain 200 IQ Genius.

[Valmy]

I think it is interesting the reaction all this is getting from predominantly Republican fans.  Even people I know were laid off and wound up in sad financial straits as  result are gloating over all this. 

It owns the libs I guess.

[Jacob]

Is there anything other than branding that makes Tesla factories "giga factories"?

[Josquius]

Is there anything other than branding that makes Tesla factories "giga factories"?

Doesn't it just mean a factory making electric car batteries?
There was a big scam about a non tesla related one being built locally and gigafactory is the term used.

[The Brain]

Is there anything other than branding that makes Tesla factories "giga factories"?

I don't think so, no.

[celedhring]

Is there anything other than branding that makes Tesla factories "giga factories"?

The name comes from "gigawatt", it's how they designate their battery factories.

I do recall that the first one was designed to be the largest building in the world though (in acreage), but it hasn't been fully built.