Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[DGuller]

I really hope the relevant agencies are keeping tabs on Elon, and have the balls to act if necessary regardless of blowback.  This is not the kind of person you want to be in the service of rival nations.

[HVC]

Fox (née Pravda) probably does more damage and no one cares. Musk going full Russian agent shouldn't do much. I don't envision him going full Bond villain and using space x to bomb cities

[OttoVonBismarck]

Musk through being CEO of SpaceX has access to non-insignificant classified information, there would quite certainly have to be something done if he was genuinely believed to be a Russian agent (which I don't think he is, I think he is just extremely stupid on most topics, and has fallen into a lot of middle aged man stupid conspiracy shit because the fact he is smart in one area of life has made him believe his expertise is universal and he never questions the stupid shit he thinks or hears.)

[The Brain]

Musk through being CEO of SpaceX has access to non-insignificant classified information, there would quite certainly have to be something done if he was genuinely believed to be a Russian agent (which I don't think he is, I think he is just extremely stupid on most topics, and has fallen into a lot of middle aged man stupid conspiracy shit because the fact he is smart in one area of life has made him believe his expertise is universal and he never questions the stupid shit he thinks or hears.)

How does he pass US security checks? He wouldn't be allowed to do grunt work in the Swedish nuclear industry for instance.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Musk through being CEO of SpaceX has access to non-insignificant classified information, there would quite certainly have to be something done if he was genuinely believed to be a Russian agent (which I don't think he is, I think he is just extremely stupid on most topics, and has fallen into a lot of middle aged man stupid conspiracy shit because the fact he is smart in one area of life has made him believe his expertise is universal and he never questions the stupid shit he thinks or hears.)

How does he pass US security checks? He wouldn't be allowed to do grunt work in the Swedish nuclear industry for instance.

There are genuine questions, some stuff like his reported recreational use of ketamine would be immediate disqualifiers for ordinary people holding clearances. But a lot of the stuff like that remains firmly in the field of "reported", not "confirmed", so it is hard to say--it is possible it has been looked into and he passed scrutiny. That stuff isn't made public.

[HVC]

In addition to being ugly as sin it appears that the cyvertruck exterior uses cheap stainless steal that's rusting already tesla, all the cost, none of the quality.

[The Minsky Moment]

I really hope the relevant agencies are keeping tabs on Elon, and have the balls to act if necessary regardless of blowback.  This is not the kind of person you want to be in the service of rival nations.

So far the only agency that seems to be keeping tabs is the SEC, because Musk appears unable to conduct any securities transaction without violating the law.  That particular problem predates his recent breakdown.

[Zanza]

Tesla is currently in an interesting situation. For the last decade or so they were the avantgarde on electric vehicles.

At the moment, 97% of their sales is model 3/Y, S/X barely matter anymore.

Cybertruck isn't there yet and will not have the same global success as 3/Y even if might sell well in North America.

But 3/Y are getting old and competition is catching up, especially Chinese companies, but also Stellantis or Volkswagen.

Semi, Optimus, robo-taxis, an unannounced Model 2 are all far in the future. The claim that Tesla would grow to 15 million cars by 2030 (about 20% global market share) is not realistically achievable.

One has to wonder how the company will develop now and if its CEO is not too distracted by his shenanigans to properly manage the company. They might just become another car company. Or they might turn around and find the next big thing.

[Jacob]

No problem. Tesla is an AI company, innit?

[The Minsky Moment]

No problem. Tesla is an AI company, innit?

Yeah that's the problem right there.  They bought into their own valuation hype and took their eye off the ball.

At the luxury end they are being smoked by Lucid and the traditional luxury brands like BMW and Benz are piling in.  Model S and X don't refresh until 2025.  I think they are screwed there.  Their Ace is "autopilot" but that turns on finding people who want to drop 100K on a car so they can watch a second rate AI drive it inconsistently.

On the mass market end, the 3/Y are still competitive on price-range, at least since they cut price and presumably gutted their margins.  But Hyundai and Kia have leapfrogged them on fast charge and are building cars with better interiors and more reliable quality.  Hyundai drops their Ioniq 7 later this year but the Model Y refresh has been postponed.

My Model 3 lease is up next year, will be interesting to see . . .

Tesla may sell themselves to the Street as a tech/AI company but they need to remember they are selling cars, not entertainment consoles that just happen to be mounted on a platform with wheels.

[Zanza]

It's not even clear whether they have anything in the pipeline for S/X. These models seem almost dead.

Also you hear very little about the Semi anymore. That was a strange move anyway. All the other big automotive companies had split off their truck business (e.g. Mercedes, Volkswagen, Renault, Toyota, Volvo, etc.), but they built it up afresh despite it being a very different market than cars.

Lucid is not (yet?) a relevant competitor though. They sold as many cars in all of 2023 as Tesla had sold by January 2nd. And Lucid so far makes huge losses for Prince Bonesaw.

[The Minsky Moment]

I've been seeing them all over the road in the fancier NY suburbs, they sure look relevant

[Josquius]

Isn't Lucid just a dodgy stock market pump and dump?

[Habbaku]

https://jalopnik.com/why-tesla-cybertrucks-are-rusting-despite-being-made-of-1851257091

 

Tesla Cybertrucks Are Rusting Despite Being Made Of Stainless Steel

[HVC]

Teslas problem is that their quality never caught up. Selling premium cars with fly by night quality control and fit. That can keep you going when you're the only kid on the block, but like minsky said, the completion is there now. Porsche's new offerings are supposed to be good too. So you have the luxury brands biting at the top end, and the likes of ford an kia biting at the lower end.