Is Elon Musk hurting Tesla? (Mod Note Post #1)

Bought one last January, probably wouldn't do the same if I was buying now. He's gone from just crazy to dangerous in the past year, there's more choice now too. That said, anyone who wants to judge me for owning a Tesla can get fucked tbh.

Massive fight now to retain resale value , throwing stones around for no abject reasons.

I've no interest in selling mine anytime before the warranty is up so its value makes little difference to me.

I've taken you up on this before wrt VW. They were taken over and run by the Brits for a few years after the war and then handed over to the then German govt. Completely disconnected from its previous associations.

But back on topic. Putting aside Musk's politics (if you can call it that), his involvement in the US government means that his attention is spread extremely thinly and since the Tesla board is made up almost entirely of his yes men, there's going to be less and less of his input there. Maybe that's a good thing - less Cybertruck, more proven sellers, but it could also lead to snap decisions that are poorly thought through (Cybertruck again).

For me, the problem with Tesla has always been the drive to make them cheaper and quicker to produce (not bad things in themselves) which has led to quality issues, dangerous failures (Cybertruck accelerator pedal, autopilot) which have put Tesla at the top of the fatality list in the US.

Musk's mercurial nature is another issue. You just never know what he's going to do next and some of his decisions have been questionable such as dropping the model 2, Cybertruck, indicator stalks (likely to reduce Euro NCAP rating) etc. There's also more than a suspicion that owners are effectively beta testing their cars based on the huge quantities of data that is uploaded to the mother ship.

I just wouldn't trust one. Or him.

Not sure if VM, BMW, BYD or Nissan are doing quite the same thing in today's world? (do correct me if I'm wrong)

VW - 10% owned by the state of Qatar. A country that famously held the soccer world cup in 2022. You might recall a lot of people died of suspicious circumstances while building the stadiums at the time? LGBT and women's rights being an ongoing issue in the oil exporting country

BMW - While the 2 current owners seem to be quite the philanthropists, having a google for "The Silence of the Quandts" to see their family history might interest you. They have supported the CDU in Germany so politically involved as well

BYD - Majority owned by Wang Chuanfu, a member of the communist party of China. Uighur Muslims.

Nissan - Former CEO, Carlos Ghosn, was convicted due to financial irregularities but you rarely see his name associated with Nissan unless you go digging

I get the feeling that Musk is done with Tesla. He’s bored and not to involved.
He’d no interest in convincing the Don to keep incentives and stop dishing EVs

Mudk is focused on loosing government money into SpaceX for Moon and Mars landings. They’ve already weaponised StarlinX, via Starshield.

Really stretching here. He's gone three years. But if you think those kinds of expressions/gestures should warrant expulsion from the company…

Based on 2024 sales figures Tesla were down 10% in Europe (EV sales overall down 5.9%).

All models down in the US (M3 most significant at 17.4%) where other marques were showing strong growth.

Whether that's specifically down to Musk or some other factor is hard to tell. Some saying that it's because models are getting tired (not true for M3 though) or maybe because there's far more competition now.

Guarantee you the oil industry is all over this. They've been running and hiding and trying to attack from the edges for years now