“Translation: all the times Tesla has vowed that all of its vehicles would soon be capable of fully driving themselves may have been a convenient act of salesmanship that ultimately turned out not to be true.”
Another way to say that, is Tesla scammed all of their customers, since you know, everyone saw this coming…
He and Trump deserve each other.
I think his intense commitment to getting Trump elected makes more sense when you consider this article.
His enormous wealth is largely stored in the form of Tesla stock, and that stock has been valued based on the belief that it isn’t a car company, it’s a robotaxi service currently selling the hardware to finance the software development. The value – and his wealth – can persist indefinitely as long as investors continue to accept that premise, no matter how long delayed. But if something tangibly undermines that premise, Musk could conceivably lose the majority of his wealth overnight.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Agency is probably the greatest threat to his wealth. He doesn’t worry about competitors or protestors or Twitter users or advertisers. They’re all just petty nuisances. But the federal regulator over roads… that is his proverbial killer snail. And I think fully capturing the entire federal regulatory state is his strategy to permanently confine that snail.
More than anything else, I think that’s what is motivating his radical embrace of fascism.
Aren’t they all motivated by wealth and greed?
Well any political choice will increase the wealth of the billionaire class in general. Any candidate that is a threat to that will be smeared to dust before they get anywhere near power.
But Musk is going for the more direct approach, and tbh I think the second Trump gets power again he’ll have no need for Musk and will treat him like the parasite he is. He’s certainly done that before.
Sometimes I’m reminded that there’s always a chance that they go submarine diving or some such with another overconfident crony who thinks their skills got them where they are today.
I would like them to try to go to Mars this coming January. I am sure with enough fuel one of Elons rockets can get it moving in the right direction, they can wing everything else as they go.
I don’t think he would go submarine diving, it would be more in-character for him to try and fail a moon vacation.
Makes sense. I’m not picky about which exact risks our entitled overconfident billionaires opt to take.