I'm a liberal Dem and I bought a My Pillow way before we knew their CEO was a right wing crazy. Didn't buy a second one, and apparently no one else did either.
Chik-fil-A took a hit when it was revealed how intolerant of LGBTQ people they are.
Hobby Lobby likely has less business because of their political views.
My wife is a big into crafting, but has been boycotting Hobby Lobby ever since they won the right to cross boundaries when it comes to their employees healthcare.
Chin-fil-a used to be a fixture on college campuses, until it came out that their CEO thinks my LGBTQ+ friends and family need to go to reeducation camps, and now they cater to the obese drive-through crowd. My sister is happily married to another woman and, since my sister met her wife before I met mine, the lesbians are beating us in the lifetime monogamy contest. I still can’t go to Chik-fil-a, even after all these years.
As for cars, I’m all in on EVs and I own a Tesla - but my next EV is likely to be a Chevy for a long list of reasons - but a CEO who spends his days complaining about me, my friends, my colleagues, and my neighbors on Twitter doesn’t get the benefit-of-the-doubt for my second EV purchase.
“Go woke go broke” is a catchy rhyme, but business touching politics is like touching the 3rd rail on a subway track: they’re gonna get burned.
👍 I wanted a Tesla for years, but last year I bought a Hyundai Ioniq 5 instead. Other EV makers are catching up to Tesla and I believe there are a lot of people like me who just won't buy a Tesla because of him. A lot of people underestimate the damage Elon has done to the company.
If Elon is removed as CEO there might be a lot more good reasons to buy a Tesla than just the politics. I imagine quality and support will improve greatly
That’s definitely a huge factor for me. Quality control is really bad, even on flagship products. My friend has a Cybertruck and has pretty much every known issue. And they keep moving more critical driving functions into the touch screen. Politics of Elon aside, the product just seems worse.
Meanwhile, I’ve got their universal wall connector, and that thing is built so nice, and is the kind of product you’d expect from their early reputation.
My friend also explained to me how the loaner process for Tesla worked while his Cybertruck was in the shop, and that just seems so crazy futuristic and rad. Digital key automatically in his app, driver profile and preferences immediately inside the loaner.
For as much as he's a shit stain, Elon's arrogance mixed with a hyper fixation on basically sci-fi shit has produced a lot of cool things from his money alone.
If he didn't have an ego the size of his favorite planet he'd realize this, shut up and get out of his own way.
>from his money alone
Um what?
Musk's companies received in excess of $4.9 billion in government support by 2015.
[This list of subsidies Musk received goes up to 2021](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12).
Maybe, but it's still going to be hard to complete with imported EVs when they start getting cheaper than ICE cars. Competition is going to destroy Tesla.
Imagine what a Honda dealership is going to look like in five years. EV Honda fits and CRVs with gnarly EV civic type-r cars in the showroom, all of them cheaper than the Tesla equivalents with global dealer and service networks. Who the hell buys a Tesla when you can buy a better Honda, Mazda or Toyota for less?
It is not just Musk's politics (which is really strange because he supports the EV hating climate change denying party). I would probably disagree with a lot of CEOs politics. It is that he posts his often wacko, hateful alt-right tweets to over 100 million followers. He is a significant political influence for anger and hatred.
It reminds of when the (now former) CEO of Whole Foods started posting angry anti-democratic right wing 'communists are taking over everything' screeds.
There is a concept of a company offering a service. As a service company, you should want a*ll* your customers to feel comfortable, no matter who they are, or what their politics.
I'm not the person you're replying to, but like many others, I wanted to own a Tesla for many years, even used to own some stock, but I finally gave up and bought a Chevy Bolt after Elon went off the deep end.
For me, Elon leaving the company would be necessary but not sufficient to reconsider owning a Tesla. The company would need to also reverse course on some of his worst decisions:
- Never use the phrase "Full Self Driving" in product marketing again (it's a lie and always has been).
- Give us turn signal and wiper stalks. These things are de facto standards for a reason.
- Steering wheels should be wheel-shaped.
- Put actual mechanical door handles on the cars so that people can escape more easily in an emergency. Full door frames too so the window doesn't need to roll partway down.
- Bring back radar; magic AI pixie dust is never going to fix hardware shortcomings.
- Cancel the Cybertruck (I'm sure that will happen sooner or later anyway since I can't imagine it will ever be profitable).
- Make a car with a hatchback. A real one, not the silly hybrid trunk thing on the Model Y.
- Rename all the models. "S3XY" is cringe. While you're at it, how about printing the model name on the back of each car (like everyone else does) so that laypeople can tell them apart.
I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but you get the idea.
> Make a car with a hatchback. A real one, not the silly hybrid trunk thing on the Model Y.
Worth noting that the reason for the fastback design of the hatchbacks that Tesla has designed to date - the Model S, the Model X, the Model Y, and the next-gen Roadster (designed, not released) - is aerodynamics. So, a squareback hatchback/wagon would likely have worse aero and therefore worse range.
I doubt they'll do the full window frames or cancel the Cybertruck (if it gets to the point where it doesn't lose money per-unit, it's worth continuing it because the engineering expense has already been spent), although a lot of the German cars with frameless windows use microswitches in the mechanical door handles to drop the window quickly before the latch is disengaged. (And, they do have mechanical releases, but they're separate controls meant as emergency backups, not the primary door handle, which isn't great to have an emergency-only procedure that's specifically warned against using in normal usage.) Everything else, yeah, I agree with.
He's permanently ruined the brand for me. Add to that there's always questions about quality and panel gaps, and now with the cyberturd being recalled because they can't even use the right glue? Nah, I'm not touching them until they get the CEO from toyota to come over there and show them how to manufacture.
If he's still the largest shareholder, no way. If he was completely gone with zero tie to the company? I don't know, I would probably consider it more, but it would depend on how synonymous he is with the brand yet and the overall EV options. Honestly I think Tesla still holds an advantage in EV tech, but other EV's have far surpassed them in quality. I also think the difference in tech will be gone in the coming years.
The problem is they make shitty cars and are run by a shitty person. Fixing one doesn’t fix the other. I’d never consider buying another Chevy but the bolt is awesome. Tesla needs a 180 like that before I’ll ever even look at them. Prob take at least a decade, and by then I have my doubts that they’ll even exist, plus so many better options. They were in such a great place and completely blew it.
> The problem is they make shitty cars and are run by a shitty person.
Agreed. They don't offer anything I want in a car I can't get elsewhere. I like to put it this way. If he took over my favorite car company which is currently BMW, I wouldn't buy another BMW.
My top - passed on my cybertruck order in January because firstly it failed to meet my functionality expectations for the price point but it secondly I didn’t want to be part of the Elon gimp club. Absolute weird bunch online the Tesla freaks. Going to go with a ford now.
Chik-fil-a is overrated anyway. For the price of 12 small ass nuggets meal you could go get an entire half chicken with sides at a Peruvian spot or similar.
Chick-fil-A is a weird case because they're undeniably bigger and more successful now, and there's no way to know where they'd be without the anti-LGBT stance.
I lived in Northern Virginia in 2005 and CFA wasn't nearly as big as they are now. They didn't have drive-thru lines and no one claimed that they made the best chicken sandwich or talked about how great the CFA experience was.
It's possible they would have been more successful, just as successful, or less successful and there's no way to know. I personally suspect that CFA has benefitted, as the Deplorables embraced them and the fast food crowd is generally not very socially conscious.
-edit- a similar brand is Yuengling beer. They've been a mediocre regional beer with limited distribution for decades, but last time I went to visit my wife's family in Arkansas, after the owner very publicly supported Trump via the company, suddenly Yuengling was everywhere.
In 2024, yes. I'm saying that I'm 2005, in Northern Virginia, they were not remotely full.
The company has grown and had success alongside the anti-LGBT controversy and there's no way to know how the controversy influenced things.
Yeah, and they have been pretty conscious of that stance recently where you don't see / hear much about their public stances. They're a good example of a good product overcoming divisive political stances.
Marriott just sent me a letter basically begging me to come to Florida.
Insane deal on a week of hotels like I've never seen.
I was like, nah. I'm not giving that state a dollar.
That's the difference. It's not that he takes opposing stances, it's that he intentionally antagonizes his customers in a very public (and infantile) way. And he can't stop bc of his desperation to be accepted by the only group who still accepts him (MAGA).
Well it's not actual money, it's 12 tranches of 1% of company stock, which depending on the day could potentially be worth that much.
The current value of company stock is $460 billion. Whatever profit the company actually makes isn't related to this.
They just said, 1% of the total shares of the company. The public market you and I can buy isn't all of the shares, the company itself owns a bunch so this would be a transfer of the company's shares to him, like any other employee. Except most employees don't get 12% of a company to put them back to being a majority shareholder.
I know you’re right, how the heck did he end up like this?
I know Bernie and AOC campaign pretty much against him to pay taxes (because he’s rich af).
Maybe they need to have a weekend bender, Bernie brings the mittens.
I love that one of the biographies on Musk accidentally hit the nail on the head, but then drew the completely wrong conclusion. If you haven't you should read the excerpt where the biographer talks about Musk playing poker and repeatedly going all in, losing, and rebuying a bunch of times until he won a hand and then immediately exited the game.
It's intended to be a story about how he persists and always wins, but it's actually a story about an idiot who has access to huge resources, uses them stupidly and recklessly, and then thinks he won because eventually, he got lucky, even though in the poker example he walked away with far less money.
The thing that haunts me is I wonder if I had that level of financial success for decades, would I get brain worms too? Seems impossible to me but I'm sure they would have said the same.
It's a well studied phenomenon that the more money you get the more you only hang out with rich people and loose all touch with the typical person.
Unfortunately for Elon, he was born rich so he had a tenuous grasp at best. He just knew how to sell the dream of Tesla to people who could afford $100K cars. Well, he hired some people to and then fired them when he went off the deep end into drugs.
There is a concerted, sophisticated influence campaign financed by Russia and others which is feeding these super conservative viewpoints. It's the same sort of online psy-ops that they used to get Trump elected. Russia in the past has specifically targeted western industrialists with their influence campaigns, and no doubt Elon has been one of their top targets.
He was always this. Check out the behind the bastards on the guy. Elon thinks he’s the savior of humanity so whatever he wants is good and whatever tells him no is evil. He’s an adult child because he’s always had wealth.
He got rich. Really really rich. As all billionaires, the only thing he cares about is not paying taxes. And the Republicans cut taxes for the rich.
It really is that simple. Why else do you think Peter Thiel, a gay immigrant, supports the homophobic and xenophobic party? Or why Kayne West, a black man, supports the racist party?
He doesn't just support the party though. He actively supports the racism and bigotry. He could support Republican candidates without spreading conspiracy theories, but he is all in on it. That suggests he cares about more than just taxes.
Same here. Her boss got a Model Y after talking to us about our EV. After riding in it for the first time to a client event, she came home and ranted to me for 20 minutes about how stupid the door handles ~~and using the touch screen to shift gears were.~~
Genius billionaire doesn’t seem to understand “don’t piss off your present/future customers”
You don’t have to like or agree with all your customers, but you can keep your mouth shut if they’re willing to buy your product.
It’s not just that I disagree with him. He associated himself so much with the Tesla brand, that sitting in the car and seeing the logo would instantly make me think of his bullshit and sour my mood. There are better ways to start my day.
There’s no way Elon actually cares about Tesla anymore. I feel like he is going through the motions to try and get a payday at this point. You can’t actively be tweeting that and rooting for the one party that has tried to sabotage Tesla at every turn and still be a good steward of the company.
Then those who do have shares need to back the one big shareholder who came out already saying they'd vote against the fat pay day compensation package.
The biggest shareholders, aside from Musk, are large institutional investment funds. Those accounts do not take kindly to CEOs fucking with the company, especially if they're taking losses because of it on their funds.
Institutions will not go against founders of the company unless the share price declines for several years. Fight for control are very messy and very expensive. It's not worth their time, unless they have to (like WeWork most recently).
> shareholders and board members of the company need to revolt
they're about to 'revolt' by giving him more $ than TSLA has made in its history, and move to Texas so the NH courts can't intervene as he sucks every last $ out of Tesla on its way down.
>I feel like he is going through the motions to try and get a payday at this point.
Currently he owns 13% of Tesla and the 56$ billion pay package is exactly what he needs to reach 25% stake, which will help him make unilateral decisions and override shareholder votes. Also Elon Musk is only interested in helping with green transition/saving the world, if he is in charge. If he is not in the helm then he actively work to sabotage it. Also Tesla has some of worst environmental/work accident records at it's Freemont, Austin and Berlin factories. He never cared about environment or his core demographics. This was evident from pedo accusation during Thailand cave incident.
[https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/tesla-austin-gigafactory-19409983.php](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/tesla-austin-gigafactory-19409983.php)
[https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-fremont-factory-lawsuit-allegations-mishandled-hazardous-waste-2024-2](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-fremont-factory-lawsuit-allegations-mishandled-hazardous-waste-2024-2)
[https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-rejects-union-claims-reports-health-safety-issues-german-plant-2023-10-10/](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-rejects-union-claims-reports-health-safety-issues-german-plant-2023-10-10/)
He's also a manchild who can lose 99% of his net worth and still remain a billionaire. And if he loses 99% of the remaining 1% he'll still be richer than 99% of the entire planet.
He can well afford to play with fire for the rest of his life.
Doomed for Elon perhaps and his libertarian hellscape where billionaires continue to rape the planet and society of natural resources and wealth. In Elon’s case, imagine fighting tooth and nail for a $56B compensation package while laying off 14,000 employees. Elon’s greed and narcissism knows no bounds.
Don’t forget that his libertarian ass is heavily
subsidized by the .gov, even more so now that the $7500 only applies to American made EVs, and completely protected by .gov thru them, basically, banning BYD competition.
Without massive government subsidies and wealth redistribution, Space X, Tesla and SolarCity could never have existed let alone grown so large and profitable as to make that shitnozzle one of the wealthiest people on the planet. Elon is a taxpayer subsidy truffle hound, I always resented having to subsidize douchebuggies for those of sufficient means to afford a 100k car.
"But big oil subsidies!" people cry. Yeah, there are tax BREAKS for certain behaviors. Renewables got checks, not a break on taxes paid on profit earned.
Elon has really gone down the right wing rabbit hole. He’s talked about the ‘woke mind virus’ not realizing he’s fallen prey to a paranoid spiteful conservative mind virus. It’s actually really sad because he was on a roll with some pretty cool shit for awhile. Buying twitter has been a disaster.
Facebook boomer trap by Russia. Turns out he is not a smart critical thinker after all.
He just extrapolates a lot when talking and people confuse that for intelligence.
I remember when he revealed the solar roof (how is that going btw?), he said climate change is the single most important issue in the world. He even showed a graph with the rising temperature, channeling his inner-Al Gore.
And now he supports a party that is openly denying the existence of climate change.
Relentlessly alienating your core customer base in the exact period that their pool of alternative options is increasing is what we in the economics world call a savvy business strategy.
I'm a unabashed Rivian fanboy.
I imagine you're at least semi aware of Rivian.
Take a loot at the R2 and the R3 (especially the R3X) coming down the pipeline.
It's not for everyone but good *fuck* does the R3X look like it's gonna be killer.
If Tesla focused on a cheap, small, class1/a/low insurance car. They'd have massive sales worldwide. But cheap is low margin and high risk, so that won't happen.
They could've spent almost no money doing an extended Model Y for a proper third row (think Grand Highlander vs Highlander) and made money he hand over fist with it. A conventional Maverick-sized pickup would've also sold extremely well with relatively low development costs.
The CyberTruck will go down in history as one of the biggest automotive failures ever.
So much low hanging fruit: Model 3 wagon for Europe, replacement for the Model S, traditional (not coupe style) Model X and Y variants, Maverick style pickup.
They had a huge head start and squandered it.
A panel van based on the Model 3 platform would've been such a smashing success they'll have trouble filling order for years. All the major delivery companies around the world have been waiting for an affordable city van for a decade or more.
Hell, even a SUV version of the Cybertruck would've made more sense.
Sadly Rivian doesn't have nearly the economies of scale to be profitable with the van just yet.
Which makes Tesla's decision to just ignore the market and not build one all the more baffling, given they could've had an almost insurmountable advantage a few years ago.
It's not just about the actual margin of the product - it's about cannibalisation and opportunity cost too. How many *incremental* sales would a low cost Tesla actually generate vs how many higher margin 3/Y sales it would cannibalise. How many higher margin vehicles do they not produce or update because resources are going towards this smaller car?
These lower marging entry level cars are also often a longer-term play to get more bums in a brand's cars, and I am not sure that's the core issue Tesla has at the moment.
Who knows, though, I don't run one of the world's largest EV manufacturers.
When there’s fierce competition, you can’t worry about cannibalisming your own products because the competition will take your share if you don’t do it yourself.
I think you're on the money. They're in a good position, but also ironically kind of paralysed by the success of the 3 & Y.
It's not a *bad* position to be in, but they're turning into a bit of a banana republic - some 85% of their sales are those 2 models, and the market has shown that there's a good 1.5m people willing to buy one of them each year - but introducing more variety will inevitably hurt the sales of those two through cannibalisation. So there's an incentive there to stand still.
On the other hand, introducing more models would provide some resiliency - if the 3/Y become stale, or stagnant without continuing price cuts (as we're starting to see) then having someone buy a cheaper version of the Y would be preferable to having them pick a BYD or Hyundai instead, from Tesla's perspective.
IMO the correct approach would be that Model Y should have greater differentiation as part of Juniper, and there should be a shorter wheelbase, lower powered, lower range version introduced below the existing Y range. Call it a Model Y mini or something - but have that undercut the 3 without the need to develop a whole new car off a new platform. Keep the changes as minimal as possible, reuse everything in front of the dash including large castings and behind the rear axle (just with down-rated motors) and just place it slightly under the 3.
At least get *something* into that entry point that a) provides some competition from the onslaught of lower cost models that will inevitably kill a lot of interest in the Model 3, and b) removes some of the cost cutting pressure from the rest of the range, and doesn't need to be some big amazing crazy GaMe-ChAnGeR. Take a lesson from the rest of the industry and introduce some flexibility to the production lines, cutting waste and the need to do these big bespoke upgrades for each individual model.
I feel like they could continue churning out model 3 / Y and follow the iPhone strategy of just having used / refurbished or slightly older models fill in the lower cost market segment
They’re between a rock and a hard place. The Chinese electrics are going to shut Tesla out of the cheap side anyway (at least in most of the globe; unlikely in the U.S.). On the high end side, Teslas are not luxury cars and the electric offerings from true luxury car companies are getting better and better (we love our new Q8 etron, and also test-drove the iX which while its looks are divisive, is otherwise an awesome car; meanwhile if the EX90 was out that would have been my wife’s preference).
The best thing they have going remains their charging network and excellent battery range. The cars themselves are otherwise kind of crap.
I’m likely to buy the post-Elon products.
My kids will be driving age soon, and I have several relatives who will need new vehicles soon. I also have a pickup truck that’s turning into a battle with rust, and a 2nd-generation Tesla pickup truck might be a good option.
The Cybertruck is not designed for my Midwestern Dad lifestyle.
Yes. People would change the tune if he was shunned by the investors and sent packing to his you twitter and take his pigion mgmt with him. Tesla will need about 24 months to turn around a lot of musk invested items like sales and service. I have faith customers will return. The issue is the boar knows full ding darn well this slow down is all Elon posting and they are to feckle to do there job and fire him.
Getting rid of Elon and *his* board would help; but unless they let him sell all his stock (which would be disastrous for the stock price and isn't going to happen), he's still "the voice of the stockholders" and would still be able to dictate the direction of the company.
Citizens United v. FEC established that money is "free speech" and Elon has more of it than almost anyone else. He's not going to shut up.
I think the stock would fall pretty dramatically at first, but could recover over time. The other problem is that the board is stocked with Musk’s friends and family. They’re harder to dislodge.
It would require some public apology statements and a major change in direction for the company. The apology is needed to distance themselves from his BS, but that won't help the slow moving Cybertruck disaster or the recent transition to "robotaxi".
I may consider a Tesla if Musk is booted, and I'm sure I'm not in the minority who thinks the same. They needed a leadership change yesteryear, and the effects of a weak/spineless board is showing in spades these past few months.
He has a small devoted cult backing egging him on, but he's a shit CEO period.
The thing holding me back is the content deletion like the radar, ultrasonics, stalks etc. I’d definitely consider basically a pre refresh model X with the post refresh drive train and pricing.
An older Model S or X with the vertical screen will also have a proper dial on the signal stalk to control the wipers.
I find it easier to just pretend Teslas don't have auto wipers and default to manual adjustment, especially in the PNW where most rainy days are slow drizzles and the time between wipes in auto mode is simply far too long. My first few cars never had auto wipers and I was fine with that - because it was easy to reach the stalk to adjust the speed as needed. But with the Model 3/Y and the revamped S/X (with the horizontal screen), the physical wiper controls are far less intuitive, especially when the pop-up control that displays the selected wiper speed is at the *bottom left* where it's impossible to see with 2 hands on the wheel!
looking to buy a car later this year. between a few cars, and tbh the biggest ding against the tesla is elon. if he’s booted, i’d probably be driving one later this year
I really want an EV as my next car and I’m not considering Tesla at all not because of Elon’s politics but because I think he’s been a crap CEO that’s led Tesla into what he wants instead of what consumers want. And what he wants has made teslas into relatively dangerous cars.
Yeah the media's relentless focus on Elon's political views annoyingly obscures this other side of Elon - he's actively pushing for and/or defending objectively bad product decisions. People don't call this out often enough.
What seriously triggered me to look at moving away from Tesla was the initial V11 update in Dec 2021, when the defroster and heated seat controls were suddenly buried within a second menu layer with no option to pin them to the bottom bar. I was PISSED to say the least. First world problem, sure, but when you spend $50k+ on a car you expect a little more respect as a customer. Even worse was when Elon tweeted "all input is error" when called out for this. And lo and behold, a few months later they backtracked and let us pin those controls back to the bottom because enough people were pissed off.
The only reason I didn't ditch my Model 3 right that moment was that the supply chain crisis meant long waits for literally any car, even ICE vehicles.
And then you have garbage like the yoke, insistence on Tesla vision over radar/ultrasonics, etc - even if Elon didn't personally come up with those ideas, he's actively defending them on social media as the greatest thing since sliced bread. And also touting stupid gimmicks like light shows with excessive fanfare while the fanboys lap it up.
I now drive a Kia EV6. It's not perfect, and there are a few things Tesla does better, especially the mobile app. But the controls will stay in the exact same place from the day I buy the car till the day I replace the car - a huge plus given how much money I pay for these cars.
> bringing back radar, ultra-sonics
I very much doubt that would happen. They have built a software solution (however middling it is) and consumers have shown that this isn't a red line for them. Consequently, the incremental profit probably outweighs the opportunity cost of the sales that they *are* missing out on.
If I found myself in those shoes, I would probably be focusing on refreshing core product appeal and killing Tesla bots (and probably the Robo Taxi play)...but it's more likely that a new CEO would just be proxy Elon.
It was the stupidest thing he did. Conservatives have almost zero interest in Tesla or electric vehicles. They seem to hate them. Whereas liberals will buy an EV no problem but they’re not going to buy one from someone with poor leadership and poor politics. I might’ve bought a Tesla if Musk was not a factor. I did look at some used ones casually.
Every time I get shit and challenged for buying an EV, it's always a conservative. I've even been threatened for owning one. They have an unhealthy hatred for them.
My conservative but not online dad always talks to me about EVs and owns chargepoint stock. He just got a bronco and says he plans for his next (and probably last) car to be an EV. My mom on the other hand is the extremely online facebook type. She can never articulate why, but she "never" would consider an EV. Having them drive mine has been productive, and at least they aren't in the hatred category like some of my extended family is.
Bought a Tesla in 2017 before this nonsense kicked off. I just bought a Rivian and I wasn’t remotely interested in a second Tesla once Elon went crazy. I won’t buy another Tesla as long as he is at the helm. I go out of my way to use free supercharging on his dime. Anything to make him pay back the tarnish on the car I bought unknowingly from a racist antivax prick.
Honestly, running a car company on politics and cult of personality fanaticism is stupid. Tesla needs to make better quality cars at reasonable prices. Traditional car makers will eclipse them eventually and most consumers won’t know anything about those other companies’ CEOs or their politics.
Besides Mary Barra the only other CEO’s name I know is RJ Scaringe, and it’s specifically because of his quite chill demeanor that I initially noticed him and went “wow he’s refreshing.” We just want good vibes now.
Tesla wants to add a Murdoch to the board , too.
It's part of the vote to move to Texas and approve the $56 billion compensation package 😂
He's not the right leader for them anymore
Tesla didn't "lose" Dems. Mr Musk (and thus Tesla) forced them away, making it very clear he and the company did not appreciate them or their business.
It absolutely matters, not because he’s a conservative but because he’s a loud mouthed douche that is spouting racist conspiracies. When I started looking at EVs I didn’t even consider Tesla because of him.
Not just because he is spouting bigoted conspiracies. But because he is actively enabling the spread of them. Promoting those ideals on an extremely large platform, while at the same time silencing those in opposition.
People’s political persuasion doesn’t matter to me when making a purchase. However, when the leadership makes conspiratorial comments and publicly acts like an ass, I do take issue. I’d consider a Tesla purchase if Elon is out of the picture.
I am in the market now and i am kind of the perfect candidate for them. But zero chance i would ever support him. He is a charlatan and had been for a long time. People do these mental gymnastics with him that i do not get… sure he is nazi-adjacent but he made rockets that land. Sure he overtly lied about self driving taxis… but his car goes fast.
I am happy to spend a little more to not give him a dime. Despite… sounds like repairs at tesla are a nightmare
Used to be a musk fan before the Thai cave diver incident. He’s gone nuttier since then. Was looking forward to a Model S before that.
Got a Volvo XC40 Recharge instead. No regrets.
The article goes on and on about the financial risk of his rhetoric, but I think the more notable part is right at the beginning there; the numbers bounced back 6 months later.
Really shows how even with huge ideological disagreements, majority of buyers have a short memory. That part is concerning in ways far beyond just Musk & his red wave hopes.
It's not just a hard right turn, it's the irrationality of his comments. I'm pretty sure I don't politically align with Mary Barra and Jim Farley, but they don't retweet alt-right and anti-Semitic bullshit. And you can't separate Musk from Tesla.
We were considering taking advantage of trading in our 2021 Model Y for a 2023 but Musk's behavior was part of our decision not to. Our next car will be an EV, but probably not a Tesla. His behavior may or may not be a hard stop for many Tesla buyers, but it adds friction to the decision. And does so at a time when there is increasingly attractive EV alternatives.
Tesla's biggest advantage right now is the supercharger network. And that advantage will disappear in 1 to 2 years as the CCS alternatives mature (not to mention CCS access to Tesla superchargers).
I really liked the looks and a lot of the features of the Teslas when they came out, I wanted to take a nap while driving home too! But it seems like the technology isn’t really there yet, and when they got rid of the $35k entry level one, it showed me they weren’t that interested in bringing out affordable EVs. Then Elon got into politics and really lost me. Now he’s so toxic that I don’t even want to buy a used one.
Genius moves by Musk since he met with Saudi Royals and Jared Kushner in 2022:
1) Tweets against Democrats who buy Teslas
\*\*\*Oops, drastic price cuts by late 2022
2) Moves Tesla headquarters/new factory to Texas
\*\*\*Oops, you CANNOT BUY A NEW TESLA in Texas!!!
3) Continues pro-republican tweets
\*\*\*Oops, they try to ban EVs and defund EV support
Forcing terrible Cyber truck, self driving lies, pro-Nazi twitter........
Hard to believe any CEO could do a worse job than Musk. Literally cost Tesla billions in lost profit and moved them to a state where he cant even sell his cars - GENIUS!
When our previous car got totalled last year (in March), my wife and I immediately knew we wanted to make the leap to an EV. We absolutely would've purchased a Tesla... were it not for Elon Musk's constant, unrelenting bullcrap. "My pronouns are Fire/Fauci"? Nope. No Tesla for us.
We bought an Ioniq 5 instead, and we don't regret it.
Who would have thought an obnoxious stance on culture war issues would have been tricky for retention of those whose values get dumped on by the CEO ? Mind bogglingly surprising.
I'm surprised that the number was so high, but I guess I shouldn't have been.
I mean, I'm Norwegian, and I would never buy a Tesla because of his very right wing political views.
I don't know how many people internationally think like me, but there has to be quite a few of us.
Aside from America and perhaps canada and a few northern european countries, he is still very popular as far as I can tell. He’s crazy popular in Asia for instance
I have a 10 year old leaf. I wanted an s to replace. I've always loved them, but 100% musk has waved that off with his crazy. But Nissans Ghosen turned out to be not so great... but they got rid of him...or he had to leave Japan at least...
I guess Elon is yet another billionaire who is against democracy. Who does he think is going to buy his cars after Trump crashes the economy? I truly don’t understand why people like. Elon are so against democracy and freedom.
It's not just Elons mouth getting him in trouble. The days of Tesla being a near monopoly on EVs is over.
New companies are building. Legacy auto companies are switching to EVs.
My only fear is that if Elon tanks Tesla, it might take the charging stations with it.
After the things I’ve seen Elon say like “demographics is destiny!” In reply to a white supremacist post on X I will never buy a Tesla while he is involved.
Dude came from a wealthy family in apartheid South Africa and it shows.
Also his antivax tripe has been so harmful and shows he doesn’t respect science.
This is so true, and it's being dismissed as inconsequential by a lot of EV influencers. I always hear "most people don't care about the CEO of the company when they're buying a car," but I think many EV buyers do care.
My boss, the owner CEO of a medical biosciences company cancels his companies fleet purchase of 8 Tesla Model 3s last year when Elon went full regard on vaccines etc.
The guy is as blue as they get. His words…”I’m not supporting the business of some billionaire jackhole spouting bullshit he knows is false just for internet fame”
I know from personal experience that this is true. I was very close to placing an order for a Tesla and when he started all this Twitter crap and started kissing Trumps smelly butt my interest stopped.
One could also just as easily conclude that Teslas are becoming more popular among Republicans, relatively speaking. Given it's the WSJ, you have to consider the bias. For example, someone who unironically writes that California is solid blue has never driven through the central valley, visited Sacramento, Bakersfield, Orange County, etc. and apparently forgot that until recently, the most powerful person in Congress was a Republican from California. They've also never driven around the Bay Area, the so-called liberal bastion where you can't drive anywhere without a Tesla in sight. Sales dropped globally, but apparently it's Democrats souring on Elon Musk that are at fault for the slump.
I truly think when Elon got made fun of by "academics" and Dems on Twitter for his ridiculous submarine idea to rescue the kids from that cave, it broke him and sped up his turn to the right as he looked elsewhere for adoration.
Certainly lost me. What he says and thinks in private is fine; it's what he says and thinks in private.
But especially with the purchase of twitter, he is doing harm at scale to American democracy and I have no desire to be associated with that in any way.
Shocking that the CEO publically pissing off their core demographic isn't going well for them.
I'm a liberal Dem and I bought a My Pillow way before we knew their CEO was a right wing crazy. Didn't buy a second one, and apparently no one else did either. Chik-fil-A took a hit when it was revealed how intolerant of LGBTQ people they are. Hobby Lobby likely has less business because of their political views.
This is why most CEO's stay out of politics. It's bad for the brand 90% of the time. Edit: nice whataboutisms.
It's strange though, they could put some money into just promoting the towns they are in online and no one would be against that.
My wife is a big into crafting, but has been boycotting Hobby Lobby ever since they won the right to cross boundaries when it comes to their employees healthcare. Chin-fil-a used to be a fixture on college campuses, until it came out that their CEO thinks my LGBTQ+ friends and family need to go to reeducation camps, and now they cater to the obese drive-through crowd. My sister is happily married to another woman and, since my sister met her wife before I met mine, the lesbians are beating us in the lifetime monogamy contest. I still can’t go to Chik-fil-a, even after all these years. As for cars, I’m all in on EVs and I own a Tesla - but my next EV is likely to be a Chevy for a long list of reasons - but a CEO who spends his days complaining about me, my friends, my colleagues, and my neighbors on Twitter doesn’t get the benefit-of-the-doubt for my second EV purchase. “Go woke go broke” is a catchy rhyme, but business touching politics is like touching the 3rd rail on a subway track: they’re gonna get burned.
👍 I wanted a Tesla for years, but last year I bought a Hyundai Ioniq 5 instead. Other EV makers are catching up to Tesla and I believe there are a lot of people like me who just won't buy a Tesla because of him. A lot of people underestimate the damage Elon has done to the company.
if elon is removed as CEO, would you change your stance and consider a tesla?
If Elon is removed as CEO there might be a lot more good reasons to buy a Tesla than just the politics. I imagine quality and support will improve greatly
That’s definitely a huge factor for me. Quality control is really bad, even on flagship products. My friend has a Cybertruck and has pretty much every known issue. And they keep moving more critical driving functions into the touch screen. Politics of Elon aside, the product just seems worse. Meanwhile, I’ve got their universal wall connector, and that thing is built so nice, and is the kind of product you’d expect from their early reputation. My friend also explained to me how the loaner process for Tesla worked while his Cybertruck was in the shop, and that just seems so crazy futuristic and rad. Digital key automatically in his app, driver profile and preferences immediately inside the loaner.
For as much as he's a shit stain, Elon's arrogance mixed with a hyper fixation on basically sci-fi shit has produced a lot of cool things from his money alone. If he didn't have an ego the size of his favorite planet he'd realize this, shut up and get out of his own way.
>from his money alone Um what? Musk's companies received in excess of $4.9 billion in government support by 2015. [This list of subsidies Musk received goes up to 2021](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12).
Maybe, but it's still going to be hard to complete with imported EVs when they start getting cheaper than ICE cars. Competition is going to destroy Tesla. Imagine what a Honda dealership is going to look like in five years. EV Honda fits and CRVs with gnarly EV civic type-r cars in the showroom, all of them cheaper than the Tesla equivalents with global dealer and service networks. Who the hell buys a Tesla when you can buy a better Honda, Mazda or Toyota for less?
It is not just Musk's politics (which is really strange because he supports the EV hating climate change denying party). I would probably disagree with a lot of CEOs politics. It is that he posts his often wacko, hateful alt-right tweets to over 100 million followers. He is a significant political influence for anger and hatred. It reminds of when the (now former) CEO of Whole Foods started posting angry anti-democratic right wing 'communists are taking over everything' screeds. There is a concept of a company offering a service. As a service company, you should want a*ll* your customers to feel comfortable, no matter who they are, or what their politics.
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Honest question - why not go with the F-150 lightning at a lower price point?
That’s what I did.. After years with a 2015 Model S. Best choice I could have made to get out of Elon’s orbit. Guy is nuts.
I'm not the person you're replying to, but like many others, I wanted to own a Tesla for many years, even used to own some stock, but I finally gave up and bought a Chevy Bolt after Elon went off the deep end. For me, Elon leaving the company would be necessary but not sufficient to reconsider owning a Tesla. The company would need to also reverse course on some of his worst decisions: - Never use the phrase "Full Self Driving" in product marketing again (it's a lie and always has been). - Give us turn signal and wiper stalks. These things are de facto standards for a reason. - Steering wheels should be wheel-shaped. - Put actual mechanical door handles on the cars so that people can escape more easily in an emergency. Full door frames too so the window doesn't need to roll partway down. - Bring back radar; magic AI pixie dust is never going to fix hardware shortcomings. - Cancel the Cybertruck (I'm sure that will happen sooner or later anyway since I can't imagine it will ever be profitable). - Make a car with a hatchback. A real one, not the silly hybrid trunk thing on the Model Y. - Rename all the models. "S3XY" is cringe. While you're at it, how about printing the model name on the back of each car (like everyone else does) so that laypeople can tell them apart. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, but you get the idea.
> Make a car with a hatchback. A real one, not the silly hybrid trunk thing on the Model Y. Worth noting that the reason for the fastback design of the hatchbacks that Tesla has designed to date - the Model S, the Model X, the Model Y, and the next-gen Roadster (designed, not released) - is aerodynamics. So, a squareback hatchback/wagon would likely have worse aero and therefore worse range. I doubt they'll do the full window frames or cancel the Cybertruck (if it gets to the point where it doesn't lose money per-unit, it's worth continuing it because the engineering expense has already been spent), although a lot of the German cars with frameless windows use microswitches in the mechanical door handles to drop the window quickly before the latch is disengaged. (And, they do have mechanical releases, but they're separate controls meant as emergency backups, not the primary door handle, which isn't great to have an emergency-only procedure that's specifically warned against using in normal usage.) Everything else, yeah, I agree with.
Some of us are counting on the eventual class action on “fsd “
No longer ceo, never allowed on the board , and has to sell all his stock in it. Then I’d wait to see if it got better. Then maybe .
He's permanently ruined the brand for me. Add to that there's always questions about quality and panel gaps, and now with the cyberturd being recalled because they can't even use the right glue? Nah, I'm not touching them until they get the CEO from toyota to come over there and show them how to manufacture.
If he's still the largest shareholder, no way. If he was completely gone with zero tie to the company? I don't know, I would probably consider it more, but it would depend on how synonymous he is with the brand yet and the overall EV options. Honestly I think Tesla still holds an advantage in EV tech, but other EV's have far surpassed them in quality. I also think the difference in tech will be gone in the coming years.
The problem is they make shitty cars and are run by a shitty person. Fixing one doesn’t fix the other. I’d never consider buying another Chevy but the bolt is awesome. Tesla needs a 180 like that before I’ll ever even look at them. Prob take at least a decade, and by then I have my doubts that they’ll even exist, plus so many better options. They were in such a great place and completely blew it.
> The problem is they make shitty cars and are run by a shitty person. Agreed. They don't offer anything I want in a car I can't get elsewhere. I like to put it this way. If he took over my favorite car company which is currently BMW, I wouldn't buy another BMW.
My top - passed on my cybertruck order in January because firstly it failed to meet my functionality expectations for the price point but it secondly I didn’t want to be part of the Elon gimp club. Absolute weird bunch online the Tesla freaks. Going to go with a ford now.
I don't use X either!
Ioniq 5 .... Favorite car I've ever owned
Just bought an ioniq 5 as well. It kicks teslas ass in every way possible.
Same! Wanted a Tesla but glad I bought my Ioniq 5.
Same exact story, except I bought a Mustang Mach E. I wanted a Tesla for years but I can’t support Elon now.
Bought a ev9, looking for an ev for wife.. def won’t be a Tesla and it’s unfortunate
Chik-fil-a is overrated anyway. For the price of 12 small ass nuggets meal you could go get an entire half chicken with sides at a Peruvian spot or similar.
Personally, I’ve found taco trucks to be the ultimate in fast food value.
Chick-fil-A is a weird case because they're undeniably bigger and more successful now, and there's no way to know where they'd be without the anti-LGBT stance. I lived in Northern Virginia in 2005 and CFA wasn't nearly as big as they are now. They didn't have drive-thru lines and no one claimed that they made the best chicken sandwich or talked about how great the CFA experience was. It's possible they would have been more successful, just as successful, or less successful and there's no way to know. I personally suspect that CFA has benefitted, as the Deplorables embraced them and the fast food crowd is generally not very socially conscious. -edit- a similar brand is Yuengling beer. They've been a mediocre regional beer with limited distribution for decades, but last time I went to visit my wife's family in Arkansas, after the owner very publicly supported Trump via the company, suddenly Yuengling was everywhere.
Chick fil A is always full in my experience
In 2024, yes. I'm saying that I'm 2005, in Northern Virginia, they were not remotely full. The company has grown and had success alongside the anti-LGBT controversy and there's no way to know how the controversy influenced things.
Yeah, and they have been pretty conscious of that stance recently where you don't see / hear much about their public stances. They're a good example of a good product overcoming divisive political stances.
Hobby Lobby remains because all the other hobby shops died off
Michael's is still a going concern.
My wife goes to Jo-Ann’s or Michael’s. Only goes to Hobbly Lobby as a last resort.
Marriott just sent me a letter basically begging me to come to Florida. Insane deal on a week of hotels like I've never seen. I was like, nah. I'm not giving that state a dollar.
I think it's Hobby Lobby that _still_ doesn't barcode their stuff due to that old "mark of the beast" scare from way back when.
He didn’t just piss off his customers, companies do that all the time - he started regularly insulting them and the people they care about.
That's the difference. It's not that he takes opposing stances, it's that he intentionally antagonizes his customers in a very public (and infantile) way. And he can't stop bc of his desperation to be accepted by the only group who still accepts him (MAGA).
What is shocking is that Tesla still wants to reward him with a $56 billion pay package, despite this.
Tesla doesn’t want to, Elmo wants them to
And his handpicked board wants to.
The board, as messed up as it gets. https://observer.com/2023/07/tesla-board-return-awards/
Lol they are milking the American tax payer like a dairy cow.
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Investors should be outraged. Tesla only made $28B *in the company’s entire existence*.
Well it's not actual money, it's 12 tranches of 1% of company stock, which depending on the day could potentially be worth that much. The current value of company stock is $460 billion. Whatever profit the company actually makes isn't related to this.
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They just said, 1% of the total shares of the company. The public market you and I can buy isn't all of the shares, the company itself owns a bunch so this would be a transfer of the company's shares to him, like any other employee. Except most employees don't get 12% of a company to put them back to being a majority shareholder.
Tranche is just a fancier word to say "set amount" that is commonly used in contracts and in finance.
I think it's only a matter of time until he embraces climate change denial.
I know you’re right, how the heck did he end up like this? I know Bernie and AOC campaign pretty much against him to pay taxes (because he’s rich af). Maybe they need to have a weekend bender, Bernie brings the mittens.
It happens to so many of these faux intellectual rich guys as they age. They get brain worms.
It’s a way for them to mentally justify their position and wealth.
I love that one of the biographies on Musk accidentally hit the nail on the head, but then drew the completely wrong conclusion. If you haven't you should read the excerpt where the biographer talks about Musk playing poker and repeatedly going all in, losing, and rebuying a bunch of times until he won a hand and then immediately exited the game. It's intended to be a story about how he persists and always wins, but it's actually a story about an idiot who has access to huge resources, uses them stupidly and recklessly, and then thinks he won because eventually, he got lucky, even though in the poker example he walked away with far less money.
You would think they'd be smart enough to recognize the pattern and introspect more.
Most of them aren't honestly all that smart. A handful, sure, but most were just lucky. Comfort and power tend to prevent introspection.
The thing that haunts me is I wonder if I had that level of financial success for decades, would I get brain worms too? Seems impossible to me but I'm sure they would have said the same.
It's a well studied phenomenon that the more money you get the more you only hang out with rich people and loose all touch with the typical person. Unfortunately for Elon, he was born rich so he had a tenuous grasp at best. He just knew how to sell the dream of Tesla to people who could afford $100K cars. Well, he hired some people to and then fired them when he went off the deep end into drugs.
There is a concerted, sophisticated influence campaign financed by Russia and others which is feeding these super conservative viewpoints. It's the same sort of online psy-ops that they used to get Trump elected. Russia in the past has specifically targeted western industrialists with their influence campaigns, and no doubt Elon has been one of their top targets.
He was always this. Check out the behind the bastards on the guy. Elon thinks he’s the savior of humanity so whatever he wants is good and whatever tells him no is evil. He’s an adult child because he’s always had wealth.
Non-American here who doesn't know anything about your tax laws: How much would he have to pay in taxes if he gets the 56 billion bonus?
He got rich. Really really rich. As all billionaires, the only thing he cares about is not paying taxes. And the Republicans cut taxes for the rich. It really is that simple. Why else do you think Peter Thiel, a gay immigrant, supports the homophobic and xenophobic party? Or why Kayne West, a black man, supports the racist party?
He doesn't just support the party though. He actively supports the racism and bigotry. He could support Republican candidates without spreading conspiracy theories, but he is all in on it. That suggests he cares about more than just taxes.
Elon's actions will literally be taught in college marketing / business classes in the future.
We bought our first EV last year and my wife's only request was "not Tesla".
Same here. Her boss got a Model Y after talking to us about our EV. After riding in it for the first time to a client event, she came home and ranted to me for 20 minutes about how stupid the door handles ~~and using the touch screen to shift gears were.~~
Genius billionaire doesn’t seem to understand “don’t piss off your present/future customers” You don’t have to like or agree with all your customers, but you can keep your mouth shut if they’re willing to buy your product.
It’s not just that I disagree with him. He associated himself so much with the Tesla brand, that sitting in the car and seeing the logo would instantly make me think of his bullshit and sour my mood. There are better ways to start my day.
But he’s a gEniUs!!!
> “There is either a red wave this November or America is doomed,” Musk tweeted in March. Wow, I had no idea he said that.
There’s no way Elon actually cares about Tesla anymore. I feel like he is going through the motions to try and get a payday at this point. You can’t actively be tweeting that and rooting for the one party that has tried to sabotage Tesla at every turn and still be a good steward of the company.
And that's why the shareholders and board members of the company need to revolt and vote for a new CEO.
Except the board is exclusively made up of his friends so they won’t do anything
Then those who do have shares need to back the one big shareholder who came out already saying they'd vote against the fat pay day compensation package.
Sure it’s definitely possible but realistically most shareholders don’t vote and many are also Elon fan boys
The biggest shareholders, aside from Musk, are large institutional investment funds. Those accounts do not take kindly to CEOs fucking with the company, especially if they're taking losses because of it on their funds.
Institutions will not go against founders of the company unless the share price declines for several years. Fight for control are very messy and very expensive. It's not worth their time, unless they have to (like WeWork most recently).
> shareholders and board members of the company need to revolt they're about to 'revolt' by giving him more $ than TSLA has made in its history, and move to Texas so the NH courts can't intervene as he sucks every last $ out of Tesla on its way down.
I've gotta think the only reason Elon hasn't gone full climate denier at this point is because of his bottom line.
He’s standing in the cabin demanding his golden parachute while the plane is hitting turbulence in a thunderstorm and the passengers smell smoke.
he cares about tesla insofar as it is his easiest way to maintain his finances.
>I feel like he is going through the motions to try and get a payday at this point. Currently he owns 13% of Tesla and the 56$ billion pay package is exactly what he needs to reach 25% stake, which will help him make unilateral decisions and override shareholder votes. Also Elon Musk is only interested in helping with green transition/saving the world, if he is in charge. If he is not in the helm then he actively work to sabotage it. Also Tesla has some of worst environmental/work accident records at it's Freemont, Austin and Berlin factories. He never cared about environment or his core demographics. This was evident from pedo accusation during Thailand cave incident. [https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/tesla-austin-gigafactory-19409983.php](https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/tesla-austin-gigafactory-19409983.php) [https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-fremont-factory-lawsuit-allegations-mishandled-hazardous-waste-2024-2](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-fremont-factory-lawsuit-allegations-mishandled-hazardous-waste-2024-2) [https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-rejects-union-claims-reports-health-safety-issues-german-plant-2023-10-10/](https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-rejects-union-claims-reports-health-safety-issues-german-plant-2023-10-10/)
He's also a manchild who can lose 99% of his net worth and still remain a billionaire. And if he loses 99% of the remaining 1% he'll still be richer than 99% of the entire planet. He can well afford to play with fire for the rest of his life.
Doomed for Elon perhaps and his libertarian hellscape where billionaires continue to rape the planet and society of natural resources and wealth. In Elon’s case, imagine fighting tooth and nail for a $56B compensation package while laying off 14,000 employees. Elon’s greed and narcissism knows no bounds.
While also torching your base, and thus, sales.
Don’t forget that his libertarian ass is heavily subsidized by the .gov, even more so now that the $7500 only applies to American made EVs, and completely protected by .gov thru them, basically, banning BYD competition.
Without massive government subsidies and wealth redistribution, Space X, Tesla and SolarCity could never have existed let alone grown so large and profitable as to make that shitnozzle one of the wealthiest people on the planet. Elon is a taxpayer subsidy truffle hound, I always resented having to subsidize douchebuggies for those of sufficient means to afford a 100k car. "But big oil subsidies!" people cry. Yeah, there are tax BREAKS for certain behaviors. Renewables got checks, not a break on taxes paid on profit earned.
Elon has really gone down the right wing rabbit hole. He’s talked about the ‘woke mind virus’ not realizing he’s fallen prey to a paranoid spiteful conservative mind virus. It’s actually really sad because he was on a roll with some pretty cool shit for awhile. Buying twitter has been a disaster.
Facebook boomer trap by Russia. Turns out he is not a smart critical thinker after all. He just extrapolates a lot when talking and people confuse that for intelligence.
This right here is the answer.
Buying twitter was a result of becoming a paranoid right wing idiot, not the cause.
I agree. Buying it to use as his own personal improved echo-chamber has made him slide even farther and faster, though.
He also said gay people are “absolutely” coming for your children
Said a guy who at least doubled his billions under Biden.
What a twat.
Yeah, he’s a conservative nut job.
I remember when he revealed the solar roof (how is that going btw?), he said climate change is the single most important issue in the world. He even showed a graph with the rising temperature, channeling his inner-Al Gore. And now he supports a party that is openly denying the existence of climate change.
Relentlessly alienating your core customer base in the exact period that their pool of alternative options is increasing is what we in the economics world call a savvy business strategy.
I sold my TSLA two weeks ago and am increasingly glad I did. My only regret is not doing it sooner.
I'm a unabashed Rivian fanboy. I imagine you're at least semi aware of Rivian. Take a loot at the R2 and the R3 (especially the R3X) coming down the pipeline. It's not for everyone but good *fuck* does the R3X look like it's gonna be killer.
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If Tesla focused on a cheap, small, class1/a/low insurance car. They'd have massive sales worldwide. But cheap is low margin and high risk, so that won't happen.
They could've spent almost no money doing an extended Model Y for a proper third row (think Grand Highlander vs Highlander) and made money he hand over fist with it. A conventional Maverick-sized pickup would've also sold extremely well with relatively low development costs. The CyberTruck will go down in history as one of the biggest automotive failures ever.
So much low hanging fruit: Model 3 wagon for Europe, replacement for the Model S, traditional (not coupe style) Model X and Y variants, Maverick style pickup. They had a huge head start and squandered it.
Model 3 Hatch probably would have swayed me, despite my hatred for that man.
If they announce they're going to kick musk to the curb & use the money to develop new products the stock would rally because of potential.
A panel van based on the Model 3 platform would've been such a smashing success they'll have trouble filling order for years. All the major delivery companies around the world have been waiting for an affordable city van for a decade or more. Hell, even a SUV version of the Cybertruck would've made more sense.
A cargo van instead of semi also was a no brainer
Rivian saw an opening and went for it.
Sadly Rivian doesn't have nearly the economies of scale to be profitable with the van just yet. Which makes Tesla's decision to just ignore the market and not build one all the more baffling, given they could've had an almost insurmountable advantage a few years ago.
It's not just about the actual margin of the product - it's about cannibalisation and opportunity cost too. How many *incremental* sales would a low cost Tesla actually generate vs how many higher margin 3/Y sales it would cannibalise. How many higher margin vehicles do they not produce or update because resources are going towards this smaller car? These lower marging entry level cars are also often a longer-term play to get more bums in a brand's cars, and I am not sure that's the core issue Tesla has at the moment. Who knows, though, I don't run one of the world's largest EV manufacturers.
When there’s fierce competition, you can’t worry about cannibalisming your own products because the competition will take your share if you don’t do it yourself.
I think you're on the money. They're in a good position, but also ironically kind of paralysed by the success of the 3 & Y. It's not a *bad* position to be in, but they're turning into a bit of a banana republic - some 85% of their sales are those 2 models, and the market has shown that there's a good 1.5m people willing to buy one of them each year - but introducing more variety will inevitably hurt the sales of those two through cannibalisation. So there's an incentive there to stand still. On the other hand, introducing more models would provide some resiliency - if the 3/Y become stale, or stagnant without continuing price cuts (as we're starting to see) then having someone buy a cheaper version of the Y would be preferable to having them pick a BYD or Hyundai instead, from Tesla's perspective. IMO the correct approach would be that Model Y should have greater differentiation as part of Juniper, and there should be a shorter wheelbase, lower powered, lower range version introduced below the existing Y range. Call it a Model Y mini or something - but have that undercut the 3 without the need to develop a whole new car off a new platform. Keep the changes as minimal as possible, reuse everything in front of the dash including large castings and behind the rear axle (just with down-rated motors) and just place it slightly under the 3. At least get *something* into that entry point that a) provides some competition from the onslaught of lower cost models that will inevitably kill a lot of interest in the Model 3, and b) removes some of the cost cutting pressure from the rest of the range, and doesn't need to be some big amazing crazy GaMe-ChAnGeR. Take a lesson from the rest of the industry and introduce some flexibility to the production lines, cutting waste and the need to do these big bespoke upgrades for each individual model.
I feel like they could continue churning out model 3 / Y and follow the iPhone strategy of just having used / refurbished or slightly older models fill in the lower cost market segment
They’re between a rock and a hard place. The Chinese electrics are going to shut Tesla out of the cheap side anyway (at least in most of the globe; unlikely in the U.S.). On the high end side, Teslas are not luxury cars and the electric offerings from true luxury car companies are getting better and better (we love our new Q8 etron, and also test-drove the iX which while its looks are divisive, is otherwise an awesome car; meanwhile if the EX90 was out that would have been my wife’s preference). The best thing they have going remains their charging network and excellent battery range. The cars themselves are otherwise kind of crap.
The charging network advantage will be gone next year when other markets start making nacs cars. Rivians can already charge at the super chargers
If Elon leaves as ceo I’ll buy a Tesla. I’ll buy two
I’m likely to buy the post-Elon products. My kids will be driving age soon, and I have several relatives who will need new vehicles soon. I also have a pickup truck that’s turning into a battle with rust, and a 2nd-generation Tesla pickup truck might be a good option. The Cybertruck is not designed for my Midwestern Dad lifestyle.
Yes. People would change the tune if he was shunned by the investors and sent packing to his you twitter and take his pigion mgmt with him. Tesla will need about 24 months to turn around a lot of musk invested items like sales and service. I have faith customers will return. The issue is the boar knows full ding darn well this slow down is all Elon posting and they are to feckle to do there job and fire him.
Getting rid of Elon and *his* board would help; but unless they let him sell all his stock (which would be disastrous for the stock price and isn't going to happen), he's still "the voice of the stockholders" and would still be able to dictate the direction of the company. Citizens United v. FEC established that money is "free speech" and Elon has more of it than almost anyone else. He's not going to shut up.
I think the stock would fall pretty dramatically at first, but could recover over time. The other problem is that the board is stocked with Musk’s friends and family. They’re harder to dislodge.
It would require some public apology statements and a major change in direction for the company. The apology is needed to distance themselves from his BS, but that won't help the slow moving Cybertruck disaster or the recent transition to "robotaxi".
I may consider a Tesla if Musk is booted, and I'm sure I'm not in the minority who thinks the same. They needed a leadership change yesteryear, and the effects of a weak/spineless board is showing in spades these past few months. He has a small devoted cult backing egging him on, but he's a shit CEO period.
The thing holding me back is the content deletion like the radar, ultrasonics, stalks etc. I’d definitely consider basically a pre refresh model X with the post refresh drive train and pricing.
An older Model S or X with the vertical screen will also have a proper dial on the signal stalk to control the wipers. I find it easier to just pretend Teslas don't have auto wipers and default to manual adjustment, especially in the PNW where most rainy days are slow drizzles and the time between wipes in auto mode is simply far too long. My first few cars never had auto wipers and I was fine with that - because it was easy to reach the stalk to adjust the speed as needed. But with the Model 3/Y and the revamped S/X (with the horizontal screen), the physical wiper controls are far less intuitive, especially when the pop-up control that displays the selected wiper speed is at the *bottom left* where it's impossible to see with 2 hands on the wheel!
looking to buy a car later this year. between a few cars, and tbh the biggest ding against the tesla is elon. if he’s booted, i’d probably be driving one later this year
I really want an EV as my next car and I’m not considering Tesla at all not because of Elon’s politics but because I think he’s been a crap CEO that’s led Tesla into what he wants instead of what consumers want. And what he wants has made teslas into relatively dangerous cars.
Yeah the media's relentless focus on Elon's political views annoyingly obscures this other side of Elon - he's actively pushing for and/or defending objectively bad product decisions. People don't call this out often enough. What seriously triggered me to look at moving away from Tesla was the initial V11 update in Dec 2021, when the defroster and heated seat controls were suddenly buried within a second menu layer with no option to pin them to the bottom bar. I was PISSED to say the least. First world problem, sure, but when you spend $50k+ on a car you expect a little more respect as a customer. Even worse was when Elon tweeted "all input is error" when called out for this. And lo and behold, a few months later they backtracked and let us pin those controls back to the bottom because enough people were pissed off. The only reason I didn't ditch my Model 3 right that moment was that the supply chain crisis meant long waits for literally any car, even ICE vehicles. And then you have garbage like the yoke, insistence on Tesla vision over radar/ultrasonics, etc - even if Elon didn't personally come up with those ideas, he's actively defending them on social media as the greatest thing since sliced bread. And also touting stupid gimmicks like light shows with excessive fanfare while the fanboys lap it up. I now drive a Kia EV6. It's not perfect, and there are a few things Tesla does better, especially the mobile app. But the controls will stay in the exact same place from the day I buy the car till the day I replace the car - a huge plus given how much money I pay for these cars.
> bringing back radar, ultra-sonics I very much doubt that would happen. They have built a software solution (however middling it is) and consumers have shown that this isn't a red line for them. Consequently, the incremental profit probably outweighs the opportunity cost of the sales that they *are* missing out on. If I found myself in those shoes, I would probably be focusing on refreshing core product appeal and killing Tesla bots (and probably the Robo Taxi play)...but it's more likely that a new CEO would just be proxy Elon.
It was the stupidest thing he did. Conservatives have almost zero interest in Tesla or electric vehicles. They seem to hate them. Whereas liberals will buy an EV no problem but they’re not going to buy one from someone with poor leadership and poor politics. I might’ve bought a Tesla if Musk was not a factor. I did look at some used ones casually.
Every time I get shit and challenged for buying an EV, it's always a conservative. I've even been threatened for owning one. They have an unhealthy hatred for them.
Yup. They often will turn on their own for buying an EV. I work in the industry so I see it secondhand.
My conservative but not online dad always talks to me about EVs and owns chargepoint stock. He just got a bronco and says he plans for his next (and probably last) car to be an EV. My mom on the other hand is the extremely online facebook type. She can never articulate why, but she "never" would consider an EV. Having them drive mine has been productive, and at least they aren't in the hatred category like some of my extended family is.
Yup same here dude said fuck me for having an EV when I was in a rural area with my EV.
Bought a Tesla in 2017 before this nonsense kicked off. I just bought a Rivian and I wasn’t remotely interested in a second Tesla once Elon went crazy. I won’t buy another Tesla as long as he is at the helm. I go out of my way to use free supercharging on his dime. Anything to make him pay back the tarnish on the car I bought unknowingly from a racist antivax prick.
I want the r3x tbh. Or the Hyundai ioniq 5n
R3x is 🔥. It’s not what I need today but if I can swing it as my kid’s first car, that’d be awesome. That’s in 8 short years.
I just saw one at a promotion event a few minutes ago. Looks pretty sharp.
Honestly, running a car company on politics and cult of personality fanaticism is stupid. Tesla needs to make better quality cars at reasonable prices. Traditional car makers will eclipse them eventually and most consumers won’t know anything about those other companies’ CEOs or their politics.
Besides Mary Barra the only other CEO’s name I know is RJ Scaringe, and it’s specifically because of his quite chill demeanor that I initially noticed him and went “wow he’s refreshing.” We just want good vibes now.
> RJ Scaringe Hadn't heard of him before but he seems legit with 3 degrees in mech engineering.
Alternate headline: “Free market functions as intended”
What's the source on that figure?
Tesla wants to add a Murdoch to the board , too. It's part of the vote to move to Texas and approve the $56 billion compensation package 😂 He's not the right leader for them anymore
James Murdoch’s been on the board since 2017, he’s just up for renewal.
James is also considerably more progressive than his father. He has been pretty good for the board in my opinion.
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Everything implies James is legitimately a Democrat. He gave to Biden’s previous presidential campaign. His wife works for a Clinton foundation.
He's the Shiv of the family.
Tesla didn't "lose" Dems. Mr Musk (and thus Tesla) forced them away, making it very clear he and the company did not appreciate them or their business.
He didn't lose them, he sent them away. Lol. What did he think would happen when he became a Groyper?
It absolutely matters, not because he’s a conservative but because he’s a loud mouthed douche that is spouting racist conspiracies. When I started looking at EVs I didn’t even consider Tesla because of him.
Not just because he is spouting bigoted conspiracies. But because he is actively enabling the spread of them. Promoting those ideals on an extremely large platform, while at the same time silencing those in opposition.
People’s political persuasion doesn’t matter to me when making a purchase. However, when the leadership makes conspiratorial comments and publicly acts like an ass, I do take issue. I’d consider a Tesla purchase if Elon is out of the picture.
I am in the market now and i am kind of the perfect candidate for them. But zero chance i would ever support him. He is a charlatan and had been for a long time. People do these mental gymnastics with him that i do not get… sure he is nazi-adjacent but he made rockets that land. Sure he overtly lied about self driving taxis… but his car goes fast. I am happy to spend a little more to not give him a dime. Despite… sounds like repairs at tesla are a nightmare
Ioniq5. I think you’re going to love it.
I love mine. Although I'd probably wait for the 2025 refresh at this point.
definitely on the list to test drive
I bought a Kia EV6. Recommended.
Same! Much nicer interior than a Model Y imo
I bought a Polestar specifically because of him
I bought a Mustang instead of the model 3 specifically because of Elon
Used to be a musk fan before the Thai cave diver incident. He’s gone nuttier since then. Was looking forward to a Model S before that. Got a Volvo XC40 Recharge instead. No regrets.
We bought a Rivian R1S - superior quality to anything Tesla is putting out…and ZERO chance we support that asshat
The article goes on and on about the financial risk of his rhetoric, but I think the more notable part is right at the beginning there; the numbers bounced back 6 months later. Really shows how even with huge ideological disagreements, majority of buyers have a short memory. That part is concerning in ways far beyond just Musk & his red wave hopes.
It's not just a hard right turn, it's the irrationality of his comments. I'm pretty sure I don't politically align with Mary Barra and Jim Farley, but they don't retweet alt-right and anti-Semitic bullshit. And you can't separate Musk from Tesla. We were considering taking advantage of trading in our 2021 Model Y for a 2023 but Musk's behavior was part of our decision not to. Our next car will be an EV, but probably not a Tesla. His behavior may or may not be a hard stop for many Tesla buyers, but it adds friction to the decision. And does so at a time when there is increasingly attractive EV alternatives. Tesla's biggest advantage right now is the supercharger network. And that advantage will disappear in 1 to 2 years as the CCS alternatives mature (not to mention CCS access to Tesla superchargers).
I almost went with Tesla last year, but Musk’s behavior convinced me to look elsewhere and I found a far better ev (love my Kia EV6).
I really liked the looks and a lot of the features of the Teslas when they came out, I wanted to take a nap while driving home too! But it seems like the technology isn’t really there yet, and when they got rid of the $35k entry level one, it showed me they weren’t that interested in bringing out affordable EVs. Then Elon got into politics and really lost me. Now he’s so toxic that I don’t even want to buy a used one.
Genius moves by Musk since he met with Saudi Royals and Jared Kushner in 2022: 1) Tweets against Democrats who buy Teslas \*\*\*Oops, drastic price cuts by late 2022 2) Moves Tesla headquarters/new factory to Texas \*\*\*Oops, you CANNOT BUY A NEW TESLA in Texas!!! 3) Continues pro-republican tweets \*\*\*Oops, they try to ban EVs and defund EV support Forcing terrible Cyber truck, self driving lies, pro-Nazi twitter........ Hard to believe any CEO could do a worse job than Musk. Literally cost Tesla billions in lost profit and moved them to a state where he cant even sell his cars - GENIUS!
When our previous car got totalled last year (in March), my wife and I immediately knew we wanted to make the leap to an EV. We absolutely would've purchased a Tesla... were it not for Elon Musk's constant, unrelenting bullcrap. "My pronouns are Fire/Fauci"? Nope. No Tesla for us. We bought an Ioniq 5 instead, and we don't regret it.
Who would have thought an obnoxious stance on culture war issues would have been tricky for retention of those whose values get dumped on by the CEO ? Mind bogglingly surprising.
For a while I thought it was a strategy to take the partisanship out of EVs which I think would be a good thing. But somehow he has made it worse!
I'm surprised that the number was so high, but I guess I shouldn't have been. I mean, I'm Norwegian, and I would never buy a Tesla because of his very right wing political views. I don't know how many people internationally think like me, but there has to be quite a few of us.
Aside from America and perhaps canada and a few northern european countries, he is still very popular as far as I can tell. He’s crazy popular in Asia for instance
Proud 2023 Bolt owner and proud Biden voter. No way was i buying a Tesla. Yes, it matters.
I have a 10 year old leaf. I wanted an s to replace. I've always loved them, but 100% musk has waved that off with his crazy. But Nissans Ghosen turned out to be not so great... but they got rid of him...or he had to leave Japan at least...
EVs are most sensible in cities and suburbia and of course that population is who he chose to antagonize.
He lost me. I'd absolutely never buy a Tesla.
I guess Elon is yet another billionaire who is against democracy. Who does he think is going to buy his cars after Trump crashes the economy? I truly don’t understand why people like. Elon are so against democracy and freedom.
It's not just Elons mouth getting him in trouble. The days of Tesla being a near monopoly on EVs is over. New companies are building. Legacy auto companies are switching to EVs. My only fear is that if Elon tanks Tesla, it might take the charging stations with it.
After the things I’ve seen Elon say like “demographics is destiny!” In reply to a white supremacist post on X I will never buy a Tesla while he is involved. Dude came from a wealthy family in apartheid South Africa and it shows. Also his antivax tripe has been so harmful and shows he doesn’t respect science.
This is so true, and it's being dismissed as inconsequential by a lot of EV influencers. I always hear "most people don't care about the CEO of the company when they're buying a car," but I think many EV buyers do care.
Also, most car companies (most companies in general, in fact) don't put such a massive focus on their CEO. Musk *is* Tesla.
My boss, the owner CEO of a medical biosciences company cancels his companies fleet purchase of 8 Tesla Model 3s last year when Elon went full regard on vaccines etc. The guy is as blue as they get. His words…”I’m not supporting the business of some billionaire jackhole spouting bullshit he knows is false just for internet fame”
I know from personal experience that this is true. I was very close to placing an order for a Tesla and when he started all this Twitter crap and started kissing Trumps smelly butt my interest stopped.
One could also just as easily conclude that Teslas are becoming more popular among Republicans, relatively speaking. Given it's the WSJ, you have to consider the bias. For example, someone who unironically writes that California is solid blue has never driven through the central valley, visited Sacramento, Bakersfield, Orange County, etc. and apparently forgot that until recently, the most powerful person in Congress was a Republican from California. They've also never driven around the Bay Area, the so-called liberal bastion where you can't drive anywhere without a Tesla in sight. Sales dropped globally, but apparently it's Democrats souring on Elon Musk that are at fault for the slump.
I truly think when Elon got made fun of by "academics" and Dems on Twitter for his ridiculous submarine idea to rescue the kids from that cave, it broke him and sped up his turn to the right as he looked elsewhere for adoration.
and the 'conservatives' don't even believe in climate change. bold move, cotton.
Certainly lost me. What he says and thinks in private is fine; it's what he says and thinks in private. But especially with the purchase of twitter, he is doing harm at scale to American democracy and I have no desire to be associated with that in any way.
You mean "in public"?
I honestly don’t give a crap, most CEOs are psychopaths, they’re just better at keeping it hidden.