Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

[Chooky 13307]

[Covri 6244]

[F250 28764]

1 hour ago, B00M said:

What the fuck were they even trying to do? How the fuck do you get in that situation? 

To me, it looks like someone was trying to illegally cross the border.

[safe sex 11696]

I thought one of the things he's most proud of about the Cyber Truck is the look of the body. Can't believe he'd cover it up with a wrap smh

[Stinkpalm 687]

14 hours ago, Chopper said:

I'm sure it'll be just fin  wait, I wonder what'd be like to have parts of a broken implant floating around your brain.

 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/elon-musks-neuralink-reports-trouble-with-first-human-brain-chip/

Maybe Musk or one of his fanbois will volunteer for round 2. Macklemore it's your turn to step up.

 

Isn’t the test subject an aggy? That chip has seen some shit and is trying to nope the fuck out of there

[Clintonaldo 2572]

21 hours ago, Chopper said:

The Beast

"Let's dress in all black and take my Black Beast out on the wide open road!"

I can’t tell if that is Elon or someone else with an unfortunate body. 

[hayden_horn 11362]

12 minutes ago, Clintonaldo said:

I can’t tell if that is Elon or someone else with an unfortunate body. 

nah man that's the cyber truck

[Nice Guy Eddie 13508]

On 5/10/2024 at 8:04 PM, atomheartbevo said:

Okay that’s insane.

Nintendo said this: As of June 10, 2024, it will no longer be possible to post screenshots and videos to X (formerly Twitter) from the Nintendo Switch's Album, or send friend requests to social media users via the Friend Suggestions feature. Find out more: https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/65057

And Twitter said this in response: The gaming community is one of the largest and most vibrant communities on our platform, and we are dedicated to enhancing and supporting gaming-related features. As part of Nintendo's planned discontinuation of sharing content to X from the Nintendo Switch, from June 11th, users will need to download Switch gameplay media directly to their smartphones and share it natively on our platform. We worked together with Nintendo throughout this process to ensure API access for this integration, but ultimately it was a product decision made by Nintendo. Our partnership with Nintendo remains strong, and we are working together to ensure a smooth transition for all users. We will continue collaborating with partners to bring new and exciting experiences to our global gaming community.

Community note:  This is in direct response to X changing their API. Specifically, X is charging companies upwards of $40,000 or more per month to access its API. Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox already removed integration with X last year. uk.pcmag.com/sony-playstati… uk.pcmag.com/news/146559/mi… en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/de…

——-

So Twitter has run off the Sony/PlayStation, Microsoft/XBox, and Nintendo platforms from posting directly on Twitter. 

All because Twitrer wanted to collect around $1.5 million (or more) a year from Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo, who had made it easy for millions of people to create a shitload of content on Twitter for free.

The X community notes says that X is asking partners to pay $40k or more to keep this feature. While Nintendo would probably roll their eyes at being asked to pay. $40k, they would do that without a second thought. You know that Elon is asking for millions if not tens of millions which wouldn’t be on anyone’s available budget at Nintendo.

elon makes bad decisions that lowers X’s revenue and then he expects loyal and good customers to make up the difference.

[bolverk 29655]

Long piece detailing Musk supporting nationalist leaders around the world to advance his business interests. You know, it's kind of a problem when one guy who's shown so much...instability...can wield so much influence.

 

Elon Musk’s Diplomacy: Woo Right-Wing World Leaders. Then Benefit.
Mr. Musk has built a constellation of like-minded heads of state — including Argentina’s Javier Milei and India’s Narendra Modi — to push his own politics and expand his business empire.

Minutes after it became clear that Javier Milei had been elected president of South America’s second-largest nation in November, Elon Musk posted on X: “Prosperity is ahead for Argentina.”

Since then, Mr. Musk has continued to use X, the social network he owns, to boost Mr. Milei. The billionaire has shared videos of the Argentine president attacking “social justice” with his 182 million followers. One doctored image, which implied that watching a speech by Mr. Milei was better than having sex, is among Mr. Musk’s most viewed posts ever.

Mr. Musk has helped turn the pugnacious libertarian into one of the new faces of the modern right. But offline, he has used the relationship to press for benefits to his other businesses, the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.

“Elon Musk called me,” Mr. Milei said in a television interview weeks after taking office. “He is extremely interested in the lithium.”

Mr. Musk has declared lithium — the silvery-white element that is the main component in Tesla’s car batteries — “the new oil.” Tesla has long bought lithium from Argentina, which has the world’s second-largest reserves. Now Mr. Milei is pushing for major benefits for international lithium miners, which would likely give Tesla a more stable — and potentially cheaper — flow of one of its most critical resources.

Mr. Milei is part of a pattern by Mr. Musk of fostering relationships with a constellation of right-wing heads of state, with clear beneficiaries: his companies and himself.

Mr. Musk, 52, has repeatedly used one piece of his business empire — X, formerly known as Twitter — to vocally support politicians like Mr. Milei, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Narendra Modi of India. On the platform, Mr. Musk has backed their views on gender, feted their opposition to socialism and aggressively confronted their enemies. Mr. Musk even personally intervened in X’s content policies in ways that appeared to aid Mr. Bolsonaro, two former X employees said.

Mr. Musk, in turn, has pushed for and won corporate advantages for his most lucrative businesses, Tesla and SpaceX, according to an examination by The New York Times. In India, he secured lower import tariffs for Tesla’s vehicles. In Brazil, he opened a major new market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service. In Argentina, he solidified access to the mineral most crucial to Tesla’s batteries.

Mr. Musk’s endorsement has given many nationalist and right-wing heads of state more international cachet, which they have eagerly promoted as a validation of their policies and popularity. Last month, as India began holding an election, Mr. Modi prepared to host Mr. Musk in New Delhi, calling the billionaire’s visit a testament to his leadership.

“People are coming, and they are trusting me,” the Indian prime minister said in a televised interview before Mr. Musk postponed his trip.

Mr. Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and X did not respond to requests for comment.

No other American megabillionaire businessperson has so publicly fostered ideological relationships with world leaders to advance personal politics and businesses. Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder turned philanthropist, engaged in political diplomacy largely after stepping back from corporate life. Other chief executives typically stay quiet about meetings with politicians.

Mr. Musk’s politics have long been guided by his businesses, said five former Tesla and SpaceX executives who worked closely with him and were not authorized to speak publicly. In the 2010s, he built an alliance with President Barack Obama as Tesla and SpaceX welcomed federal assistance and contracts. He remains close to some mainstream leaders, notably President Emmanuel Macron of France.

But as populism and nationalism spread, Mr. Musk courted Xi Jinping in China and supported Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. He began criticizing the “woke mind virus” and what he has declared the failings of the left, which he says have led to issues such as illegal immigration and declining birthrates.

“I guess if you consider fighting the woke mind virus, which I consider to be a civilizational threat, to be political, then yes,” Mr. Musk said in a podcast in November when asked if he was becoming more political. “Woke mind virus is communism rebranded.”

 

INDIA

Spoiler

A Long Game
In September 2015, Mr. Musk welcomed Mr. Modi to Tesla’s factory in Fremont, Calif. Mr. Modi, a Hindu nationalist politician, had been elected India’s prime minister a year earlier when his Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power, and was visiting the United States to meet business leaders.

Standing under Indian and U.S. flags at the factory, Mr. Musk and Mr. Modi posed for photographs near a gleaming red Model S car. They discussed how “solar panels and battery packs” could power rural regions in India without electrical lines, Mr. Musk said at the time.

“I understood his vision,” Mr. Modi later said.

It was one of the first instances of Mr. Musk’s publicly meeting a nationalist leader. And it was the beginning of a long game between him and Mr. Modi, a relationship that took years to develop — and that started paying off for Mr. Musk after he bought X.

India is a potentially massive market for Tesla, which needs to expand to new regions to grow. But the country has virtually barred electric vehicles built by foreign manufacturers. In recent years, the tariff India imposes on imported electric vehicles has risen as high as 100 percent.

Mr. Musk initially used traditional personal diplomacy, meeting with Mr. Modi and ordering his staff at Tesla to get close to officials. In 2017, Tesla sent a letter to India’s government to kick-start talks on operating in the country. Another overture to Mr. Modi’s government in 2019 was rebuffed, three people with knowledge of the company said.

After Mr. Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he had a new lever. The platform, renamed X, is widely used in India — including by Mr. Modi, who has nearly 98 million followers — and is a major forum of political discussion.

Before Mr. Musk owned the platform, Twitter tangled with Mr. Modi’s government. The company, which complies with requests to block certain content in India, had sued the government and challenged its power to censor online material.

Under Mr. Musk, X blocked posts last year that linked to a BBC documentary examining Mr. Modi’s role in the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, where he was the chief minister at the time. Twitter’s lawsuit against the Indian government was dismissed in July.

In a discussion last year with Twitter employees, Mr. Musk intimated that he was personally close with Mr. Modi. He said he could easily call the prime minister to take care of a content issue, two former employees said. It’s unclear if any conversation took place.

Mr. Musk met Mr. Modi in person again last June when the prime minister visited New York. He called himself a “fan of Modi” and said Mr. Modi was “pushing us to make significant investment in India, which is something that we intend to do.”

By then, Tesla employees were again talking with Mr. Modi’s advisers about a reduction in tariffs and investing in India, two people familiar with the conversations said. Rohan Patel, who was Tesla’s vice president of public policy and business development, traveled to India several times, and Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister, visited the Fremont factory in November.

In January, Mr. Musk posted on X that India should receive a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, which would boost India’s international standing. “India not having a permanent seat on the Security Council, despite being the most populous country on Earth, is absurd,” he wrote.

The timing suggests that Mr. Modi noticed. Two months later, India announced it was reducing some import duties for electric carmakers that committed at least $500 million to produce vehicles in the country. The policy dropped tariffs to 15 percent of a car’s price from 100 percent, specifically for electric vehicles that retail for more than $35,000.

The description fit Tesla to a T. Its Model 3 cars ship at $38,990. BYD, the fast-growing Chinese electric vehicle maker, is barred from investing in India on national security grounds.

Last month, Tesla scouted potential factory sites in three Indian states, three people familiar with the process said. Mr. Musk had also said he would visit Mr. Modi in New Delhi during the country’s multiweek general election, before delaying the trip, citing obligations with Tesla.

Mr. Musk promised not to stay away for long. “I do very much look forward to visiting later this year,” he wrote on X.

 

BRAZIL

Spoiler

‘True Legend of Freedom’
By 2021, Mr. Musk was employing a similar courtship to bring his Starlink satellite internet service to Brazil, which was then led by Mr. Bolsonaro, the right-wing populist president elected three years earlier. At the time, Starlink was in its infancy, with fewer than 150,000 users across 25 countries.

In October 2021, Fábio Faria, Brazil’s communications minister and an organizer of Mr. Bolsonaro’s re-election campaign, sent a letter to Mr. Musk, saying that “Starlink and Brazil can become great partners,” according to correspondence obtained through the country’s open records laws.

Weeks later, Mr. Faria visited Mr. Musk in Texas. After returning to Brazil, Mr. Faria pushed regulators to approve Starlink, at one point urging Brazil’s space agency to stay out of any debate about SpaceX’s satellites over the country, he later testified to Brazil's Congress.

Brazil’s regulators approved Starlink for operation in December 2021, seven months after the service first applied. It was the fastest of five approvals that regulators granted to satellite internet providers.

Mr. Musk later lent a hand to Mr. Bolsonaro, who faced an uphill battle in his 2022 re-election campaign.

On May 20 that year, Mr. Musk made a surprise trip to Brazil for a major announcement alongside the president. Starlink was coming to the country, and it would provide internet connectivity to 19,000 rural schools, as well as environmental monitoring of the Amazon, they said at an event in a resort near São Paulo. Mr. Bolsonaro gave Mr. Musk a medal and called him a “true legend of freedom” for his bid that year to buy Twitter.

There was just one catch: The plan to connect schools never materialized, said Carlos Baigorri, Brazil’s chief telecommunications regulator, who helped approve Starlink’s entry into the country. “I don’t really think that it even existed,” he said of the plan.

Brazilian officials said they had no record of Starlink’s connecting Brazilian schools for free or conducting environmental monitoring.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Bolsonaro benefited anyway. Mr. Musk had entrenched SpaceX in a critical market, where Starlink now has 150,000 active accounts, according to Brazil’s telecommunications regulator. Mr. Bolsonaro’s campaign got to promote the president’s business acumen and cast him as a defender of the Amazon before an election.

Mr. Musk’s favor did not prevent Mr. Bolsonaro from losing the presidency to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s leftist former president, in October 2022. But within weeks, Mr. Musk, who had just completed his deal for Twitter, tried helping Mr. Bolsonaro again.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters had started pushing accusations on Twitter that Brazilian judges had tilted the election by ordering social networks to remove right-wing posts and accounts. As they camped outside military bases demanding the election be overturned, Mr. Musk fed their suspicions by suggesting that Twitter’s former bosses had contributed to Mr. Bolsonaro’s defeat.

“It’s possible that Twitter personnel gave preference to left wing candidates,” he posted in December 2022, without citing any evidence. He later wrote that the company “may have people on the Brazil team that are strongly politically biased.”

Mr. Musk got involved in deciding which posts about Brazil’s election results should stay up or be taken down, two former Twitter employees said. Even after Mr. Musk was briefed about the risk of violence in Brazil that winter, he ordered employees to stop enforcing Twitter’s election rules in the country, including a policy forbidding users to spread misleading claims about election results, they said. He told them to remove only posts that directly incited violence or were subject to a court order.

In January 2023, thousands of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices, under the false belief that the election had been stolen.

Mr. Musk has since used X to attack one of Mr. Bolsonaro’s main political opponents, Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who has overseen investigations into the former president and his supporters. X has blocked more than 100 accounts on orders from Justice Moraes, who has said many of them threatened Brazil’s democracy.

“This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil,” Mr. Musk posted on X in April. “He should resign or be impeached.”

At a rally called by Mr. Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro last month, his supporters held signs thanking Mr. Musk.

When Mr. Bolsonaro addressed the crowd, he hailed the billionaire as “the man who really preserves true freedom for us all.”

 

ARGENTINA

Spoiler

A Meeting of the Minds
In 2022, one of Tesla’s lithium suppliers announced a $1.1 billion investment to expand in Argentina. Since then, Mr. Musk has taken a keen interest in Argentine politics — and particularly Mr. Milei — leading to one of the most pronounced bromances among Mr. Musk’s political relationships.

Mr. Milei “would be quite a change,” Mr. Musk wrote on X in September in response to a post from the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who had called the then-candidate “Argentina’s next president.”

Mr. Milei, a libertarian economist and TV pundit, campaigned on getting the government out of the economy and tying Argentina more closely to the United States. Like Mr. Musk, he frequently insults critics, has an intense social media habit and is deeply worried about the threat from “woke” culture.

Days before Mr. Milei’s inauguration in December, they spoke directly for the first time, and Mr. Musk asked about Argentina’s lithium. In the months since, Mr. Milei has been pushing legislation that would make extracting Argentina’s lithium far more attractive to foreign investors.

His sweeping bill, which would grant him broad emergency powers over Argentina’s economy and energy for the next year, includes a major benefit for Tesla: significant incentives for foreign investors in large projects, particularly in mining.

Such companies would receive substantial tax cuts, customs exemptions and foreign-exchange benefits, as well as tax and regulatory certainty for the next 30 years. Tesla’s lithium supplier is likely to qualify. If so, Mr. Milei’s plan would give Tesla unusual stability and predictability in its access to lithium in Argentina until at least 2054.

The proposal passed Argentina’s lower chamber of Congress on April 30.

Mr. Musk has already seen other dividends from Mr. Milei. In one of his first acts as president, Mr. Milei passed an executive order with 366 provisions. When summarizing the highlights of the order in a televised address, Mr. Milei mentioned just one corporate brand by name: Starlink.

SpaceX had pushed for Starlink’s approval in Argentina since 2022, but faced a bureaucratic jam. Mr. Milei quickly cut regulations on satellite internet, and Starlink began operating in the country in March.

Mr. Milei, in turn, has benefited: Mr. Musk has become his most influential online promoter. In January, Mr. Musk shared videos of Mr. Milei’s speech at the World Economic Forum, in which the leader claimed communism and social justice were the main threats to the West.

The posts set off a frenzy of praise for the Argentine across right-wing corners of the internet, including from Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who met with Mr. Milei in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. Mr. Milei hugged Mr. Trump and told him he was rooting for him.

Last month, Mr. Milei traveled to Austin, Texas, to visit Mr. Musk at Tesla’s factory there. The two men agreed to “open markets and defend the ideas of freedom,” according to a statement from Mr. Milei’s office. The statement did not mention lithium.

Later, Gerardo Werthein, Argentina’s ambassador to the United States, told the Argentine newspaper La Nación that the pair had indeed discussed Argentina’s mineral reserves.

Mr. Musk “had a very good view of everything we have,” Mr. Werthein said, “especially lithium.”

On Monday, Mr. Musk and Mr. Milei met again, this time at a conference in Los Angeles. Mr. Milei called the entrepreneur “my friend” in a speech in which he praised Mr. Musk’s effort to reach Mars. A few hours later, Mr. Musk posted a photo of the two men with their thumbs up.

“I recommend investing in Argentina,” he wrote.

[NoName 16351]

Incredible

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

Nice little mixed metaphor there

[Captain Ron 12868]

4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

The X community notes says that X is asking partners to pay $40k or more to keep this feature. While Nintendo would probably roll their eyes at being asked to pay. $40k, they would do that without a second thought. You know that Elon is asking for millions if not tens of millions which wouldn’t be on anyone’s available budget at Nintendo.

elon makes bad decisions that lowers X’s revenue and then he expects loyal and good customers to make up the difference.

The idiotic part is that he likely hasn't done any work to actually put a price on the API access - while places like Nintendo, etc easily just say "how does this fit into the advertising budget?" and can likely run calculations of what Twitter integration brings in and what level/if any cost to access the API is worth it.

[MrBig 5382]

3 hours ago, NoName said:

Incredible

[956 Worldwide 34702]

Musk is trying to drive people to Telegram as a secure messaging app. Don’t do it. Use Signal. 
 

 

[Captain Ron 12868]

This I can’t fathom that anyone that understands security would even make that jump. If you know what’s up and you’re using Signal, you’re likely in the know.

BTW - I unrolled that thread since I can’t read it natively (I’m ok with that):

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1789687898863792453.html

[atomheartbevo 89628]

The coolant leak thing mentioned earlier is nuts and sounds like what happens when you lay-off a shitload of employees across all areas.

When we’ve had problems with new cars, we didn’t have to get on social media and get the attention of the Ford, Subaru, or Toyota CEOs, we just took them back to the dealer and they fixed them.

And we damned sure would not have left the dealer with a brand new car that was dirty.  Of course, we somehow avoided buying a car with bare stainless steel as the exterior.

[Prepuce of Doom 21053]

How dirty could it have become in its short 35 mile pre-failure lifespan unless it was dirty upon initial delivery? 

[hayden_horn 11362]

4 minutes ago, Prepuce of Doom said:

How dirty could it have become in its short 35 mile pre-failure lifespan unless it was dirty upon initial delivery? 

he said it was dirty upon pickup

[Genco 3040]

The dealer didn't want to void the warranty by running the truck through the carwash.

[Pato del Muerto 52485]

Was at pikes market today and there was a ct in the parking garage. Not terribly parked, but looked more like an avant garde art installation than an actual vehicle someone drove in there. 
 

[Prepuce of Doom 21053]

2 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

he said it was dirty upon pickup

Of course it was. 

[MrBig 5382]

3 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

This I can’t fathom that anyone that understands security would even make that jump. If you know what’s up and you’re using Signal, you’re likely in the know.

BTW - I unrolled that thread since I can’t read it natively (I’m ok with that):

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1789687898863792453.html

My weed guy uses Signal so I’m sticking with Signal 

[Captain Ron 12868]

I found a list of apps that were Edward Snowden approved - Signal was the messaging app.

(SpiderOak was the one file storage/backup & KeePass was the password manager). 

[BearMace 2194]

On 5/11/2024 at 10:22 AM, Chopper said:

The Beast

"Let's dress in all black and take my Black Beast out on the wide open road!"

I'm betting there's a greater than zero chance Elmo sees these idiots willingly overpaying for a car they have to then pay to wrap themselves if they want it protected and either stops painting Teslas altogether, or goes with a single color like the Model T, you can have any color you want as long as it's black. 

[Da Fino 2776]

They gave this idiot a different truck, didn’t they?

[SydneyCarton 48054]

1 hour ago, BeardIP said:

Weird how the US Govt props up Musk so much: https://www.wsj.com/economy/trade/biden-to-quadruple-tariffs-on-chinese-evs-203127bf?

The Biden administration is preparing to build a towering wall of tariffs to block Chinese EVs from coming into the country and eating American automakers’ lunch.

On Tuesday, the US government is set to announce that tariffs on Chinese vehicles will quadruple from the existing 25% to 100%, making it almost prohibitively expensive to sell them in the country, the WSJ reported. The Biden administration will also raise tariffs on other clean energy goods sourced from China, such as batteries, minerals, and solar cells, to protect American manufacturers that make those items.

These jacked-up tariffs would reflect a significant escalation in the US–China trade war and highlight how the conflict has shifted into a new arena: climate technologies.

Why the US is so concerned about Chinese EVs

Because of their high quality and low cost (thanks to heavy government subsidies), Chinese EVs represent an existential threat to American automakers, industry journalists and execs have argued. The average cost of an EV in the US is $47,500, compared to $28,000 in China, according to Dunne Insights.

And by all accounts, they’re great cars:

Inside EVs writer Kevin Williams went to the Beijing Auto Show last week and was floored by the vehicles he saw. His conclusion: “Western automakers are cooked.” 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk agrees. In January, he said Chinese EVs “will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world” if countries don’t slap tariffs on them.

President Biden is happy to oblige. He heard complaints from the devastated US solar industry when cheap Chinese products flooded the market—prices plummeted 50% over the last year—and does not want the same thing to happen to Detroit automakers.

Chinese EVs could face challenges expanding into other markets, too. The EU is investigating whether the cars received unfair subsidies from Beijing and could place higher tariffs on them.

The pushback: Critics of Biden’s upcoming tariffs say they’re counterproductive to reducing emissions. If the US wants to increase EV adoption—and a main barrier is the high cost—why block cheaper models from entering the US market? Meanwhile, in Europe, top execs at BMW and Volkswagen came out against tariffs, which could threaten their substantial sales in China. “We don’t think that our industry needs protection,” BMW CEO Oliver Zipse said

I mean, any propping would be short term. I assume China will respondond in kind, which will fuck Tesla in the Chinese market, which is like 1/3 of his business. Of course, he was going to lose that business anyway, and he is going to continue to lose ground in the US to the traditional automakers as well. I'm not sure this is the life line you think it is for Musk. 

[wildcat09 29345]

It's pretty clearly more about protecting the other domestic manufacturers than it is about protecting Tesla.

[Brisketexan 105066]

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

It's pretty clearly more about protecting the other domestic manufacturers than it is about protecting Tesla.

I mean....I don't think I'll be looking at a Chinese EV anytime soon.  I don't want to buy something from a company that may not be around (or might not be allowed to operate in the US at some point) to back up its product.  And I don't want to buy something that will surely require integration with my personal devices/phone etc.....just what I need, a car that spies on me and sends info back to Chinese officials?  Fuck no.

[bolverk 29655]

25 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

It's pretty clearly more about protecting the other domestic manufacturers than it is about protecting Tesla.

 

18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean....I don't think I'll be looking at a Chinese EV anytime soon.  I don't want to buy something from a company that may not be around (or might not be allowed to operate in the US at some point) to back up its product.  And I don't want to buy something that will surely require integration with my personal devices/phone etc.....just what I need, a car that spies on me and sends info back to Chinese officials?  Fuck no.

Yes, to both of these. However, Marketplace mentioned this morning that the Chinese had pretty much "cracked the code" on low-cost EVs, with one Chinese company saying they could sell them for under $10,000. It seems that, with that low of a cost, those cars would still be incredibly affordable even with a 100% tariff.

[Captain Ron 12868]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

It's pretty clearly more about protecting the other domestic manufacturers than it is about protecting Tesla.

This. Let's not ignore how China's play in many emerging markets is to flood the zone with such low cost offerings that they corner the market themselves and then control the whole thing (see solar panels).

This move has little to do with Elon directly and more to do with protecting US interests.

[immamac 42835]

The major component of EVs is the battery. China is overproducing lithium batteries, it’s a major issue for them domestically and internationally. They would tank the EV market because their batteries are cheaper not because their overall cars are cheaper

Cars aren’t expensive to produce, especially when you remove the most complex part (the engine and eco) and replace them with a seriously simplified series of electric motors and a battery. 

[wood 11225]

I saw another wrapped CT at the Slaughter Lane HEB yesterday (it was open). The color of the wrap? Yeah ... flat gray. You can't make this shit up.

In other news ... nsiap. Musk's SpaceX is quick to build in Texas, slow to pay its bills https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/musks-spacex-is-quick-build-texas-slow-pay-its-bills-2024-05-13/

Edited May 13 by wood

[HenryJames 66038]

 "If they were to call me today, I'd tell them to fuck off," said Brian Rozelle, an owner of Hydroz Energy Services LLC.

[Clintonaldo 2572]

Brian Rozelle doesn’t sound hardcore at all. 

[Captain Ron 12868]

"Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"

 

[Brisketexan 105066]

23 minutes ago, Captain Ron said:

"Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"

 

You just don't understand what it is to be EXTREME HARDCORE!!!!!

Don't worry, @Macklemore or some other fanboi will be by soon to tell you how stupid you are, and you just don't understand Elon's next-level brain genius.

[Underdog 28576]

6 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I mean....I don't think I'll be looking at a Chinese EV anytime soon.  I don't want to buy something from a company that may not be around (or might not be allowed to operate in the US at some point) to back up its product.  And I don't want to buy something that will surely require integration with my personal devices/phone etc.....just what I need, a car that spies on me and sends info back to Chinese officials?  Fuck no.

Youuuuuu, big boy!  Why you masturbate for four hour?  You scare my wife. 

[chainsaw 9857]

47 minutes ago, Captain Ron said:

"Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"

 

[HenryJames 66038]

[Captain Ron 12868]

1 hour ago, Underdog said:

Youuuuuu, big boy!  Why you masturbate for four hour?  You scare my wife. 

 

[Clintonaldo 2572]

1 hour ago, HenryJames said:

Hell, that looks better. 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13574]

Rust problem solved.

[Captain Ron 12868]

12 hours ago, HenryJames said:

A few things:

1. Isn’t this what the WankPanser was supposed to be? Some revolutionary exoskeleton design with no frame? So shouldn’t nothing being there be expected?

2. I have to question “the most American made car ever” status. I mean I’m pretty sure that I can find many parts on that thing manufactured in China or elsewhere. But I can guarantee you that you go pre-70s, most Ford, GM and Chrysler cars didn’t have a single bolt, hose or wire that wasn’t made by a red blooded American. 

[Francisco 2.0 32387]

https://jalopnik.com/a-robotaxi-wont-solve-teslas-mounting-issues-1851473930

 

Quote

2024 has been a very bad year for Tesla so far. We’ve all read about the layoffs, the poor sales, and the deeply weird earnings call, but a closer look reveals even more behind the scenes. It’s about who is being laid off, why sales are down, and whether what Musk said on that call might be signaling his exit from Tesla entirely.

A viral Twitter thread from user Zero Sum Bond looked into just how bad the circumstances at Tesla are, declaring that the “walls are starting to close in” on the automaker. While the thread isn’t entirely accurate — tweets about Tesla keeping two separate copies of its books to fool regulators are only backed up by a suit that’s since been dismissed for lack of evidence — it’s a convenient compilation of some of Tesla’s biggest misses in recent months.

 

Quote

First on the agenda for Zero Sum Bond is the steady loss of many of Tesla’s top folks. A lot of folks have been wrapped up in the sweeping layoffs at the company, like Daniel Ho and Rebecca Tinucci, but others have left of their own accord — most notably HR head Allie Arebalo. Still others, like Cybertruck manufacturing head Renjie Zhu, left the company for reasons that are still unclear and we don’t know who made the call.

What’s more interesting than those who left, though, is what they did on the way out. People who were recently either restructured at or removed from high-level positions at Tesla are unloading their shares, like former CFO Zach Kirkhorn or now-former Musk right-hand-man Tom Zhu. Zhu, who is still employed at Tesla, holds fewer shares now than he did a year ago — despite thousands of shares awarded as compensation. Whatever’s going on behind the scenes, it’s possible it’s making even the inner circle lose faith.

 

Quote

Tesla is even going back on some of those layoffs, rehiring parts of the Supercharger team just weeks after gutting it. The move shows disorganization at the top, a shoot-from-the-hip mentality that seems incongruous with a company valued at $538.6 billion.

That valuation, of course, isn’t really matched by Tesla’s actual business. The company missed revenue and earnings per share targets last quarter, as it did for the two quarters prior. Softening EV demand is part of the issue, but Tesla has steadily dropped prices and market share at once — competition from more established automakers is simply getting tougher for the company to battle.

 

Spoiler

Tesla’s outdated inventory, save the new and issue-prone Cybertruck, certainly isn’t helping. Tesla sells some of the oldest new cars you can buy, which is a wonder in a world where even Toyota is changing the platform beneath the 4Runner. The faithful will tell you that Tesla is constantly iterating, always improving beneath the cars’ skin, but that’s a line that only works on the faithful — your average commuter sees a new car on the lot that looks nearly identical to one from ten years ago.

Tesla also has fewer avenues to hide its missteps. Traditional automakers can force cars down dealers’ throats in a move called channel stuffing, an unethical practice that shifts vehicles off the OEM’s books and tells local retailers to deal with it themselves. Automakers have been known to hide bad quarters through this method — Triumph once lost a CEO over the practice — but it’s not an option Tesla can use to sweeten its books. Not that it should, of course.

This, of course, is all before the myriad litigation Tesla faces over its semi-autonomous driver assist software. FSD and Autopilot are being investigated by the Justice Department for fraud, due to the implication of self-driving when the software truly can’t, while NHTSA is probing just how bad the systems really are, and whether mandatory recalls actually made as much of a difference as they promised to.

Yet, this software is what’s supposed to save Tesla: Musk himself said, “If someone doesn’t think Tesla’s gonna solve autonomy, I don’t think they should be an investor in the company.” The robotaxi project is the company’s new north star, and Musk believes it’ll be enough to save the company from its financial dire straits. Maybe he’ll open up another preorder round this August, hoping for some real money for nothing.

 

[wood 11225]

3 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

competition from more established actual automakers is simply getting tougher for the company to battle.

fixed.

[Clintonaldo 2572]

If you were someone that was let go and then go back to work for him you are a complete cuck.

[chainsaw 9857]

13 minutes ago, Clintonaldo said:

If you were someone that was let go and then go back to work for him you are a complete cuck.

it's a tough job market i hear

[Captain Ron 12868]

4 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

https://jalopnik.com/a-robotaxi-wont-solve-teslas-mounting-issues-1851473930

  Reveal hidden contents

Tesla’s outdated inventory, save the new and issue-prone Cybertruck, certainly isn’t helping. Tesla sells some of the oldest new cars you can buy, which is a wonder in a world where even Toyota is changing the platform beneath the 4Runner. The faithful will tell you that Tesla is constantly iterating, always improving beneath the cars’ skin, but that’s a line that only works on the faithful — your average commuter sees a new car on the lot that looks nearly identical to one from ten years ago.

Tesla also has fewer avenues to hide its missteps. Traditional automakers can force cars down dealers’ throats in a move called channel stuffing, an unethical practice that shifts vehicles off the OEM’s books and tells local retailers to deal with it themselves. Automakers have been known to hide bad quarters through this method — Triumph once lost a CEO over the practice — but it’s not an option Tesla can use to sweeten its books. Not that it should, of course.

This, of course, is all before the myriad litigation Tesla faces over its semi-autonomous driver assist software. FSD and Autopilot are being investigated by the Justice Department for fraud, due to the implication of self-driving when the software truly can’t, while NHTSA is probing just how bad the systems really are, and whether mandatory recalls actually made as much of a difference as they promised to.

Yet, this software is what’s supposed to save Tesla: Musk himself said, “If someone doesn’t think Tesla’s gonna solve autonomy, I don’t think they should be an investor in the company.” The robotaxi project is the company’s new north star, and Musk believes it’ll be enough to save the company from its financial dire straits. Maybe he’ll open up another preorder round this August, hoping for some real money for nothing.

 

The underlying twitter thread is scathing. I unrolled it here:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1787501413137858617.html

It's SUPER LONG, I wish I had time to read it, I was only 1/10th of the way through it.

But man, I very much can see that the failure to deliver Robotaxi on August 8 being the moment that Tesla comes crashing down. AI is closer to writing a viable movie script than Tesla is for delivering FSD. 

[BearMace 2194]

1 hour ago, Clintonaldo said:

If you were someone that was let go and then go back to work for him you are a complete cuck.

Or have immigration issues.

[HenryJames 66038]