this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
337 points (94.5% liked)

politics

19097 readers
5683 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 41 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Nah I think this is just another example of Elon Musk being impulsive and not thinking through the consequences of his statements.

He can't actually afford $45m a month. His wealth is in Tesla shares (which are difficult to draw done further both while he continues to try to fleece the company with an absurd pay package and also can't risk destabilising the share price - its something of a house of cards with its value largely based on the future possibility of a flawed self drive tech) and Twitter (which took $20bn of his actual liquid assets and then debt and which he is running into the ground).

Also he may be realising the PR mistake of backing trump when he runs an electric car company that is losing market share and valued speculatively rather than actual financials.

His focus is really gettingnas much out of Tesla as hebcan before the markets turn on it.

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

That bit you said about realizing his PR mistake, I’ve got an interesting bit on that.

I have a friend who is pretty conservative, we live in one of the most conservative areas in the US (Trump got close to 90% of the vote here). He went all in on Tesla stocks early on and then later he bought two of the Model S. One for him, one for his wife. Everywhere he went he had to defend that decision. “Huht huht, Jim’s done turned into a socialist and got himself a liberal car!” Dumb shit like that. For years the car was so rare around here that he got attention like he was cruising around in an old Model T Ford, only it was always negative attention.

His was the only Tesla I ever seen in person for years.

After Musk made his personality very public though, I see them everywhere. I’m in rural VA. These people have to charge them at home. I’ve never seen a charge station anywhere. He no longer gets attention for his car. I pass about 5 of them on the way to work every day.

I know this information is mostly useless, but maybe his batshit insane interactions with the public have actually been good for electric cars, as silly as that might sound. To a lot of people out here in redneck land, the electric car is no longer a California pussy liberal car if it’s a Tesla. It’s a status symbol. “Look at me fellers, I’m doing putty good fer myself!”

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 months ago

You know what? If it gets them driving electric, fuck it, I'll take it.

[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It was Elon's plan all along. He really is a genius!

.../s

[–] theangryseal@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Oh I definitely don’t think that. Dude is clearly a moron, it just happened that way.

I don’t know if he’s a moron or not really, if he just got lucky being born into money or whatever. I know he has some moron takes though, like nonstop.