There was a time when he could have been as close as our mundane real world would ever have gotten to Tony Stark. It has taken a concerted effort on his part to degrade his public image to the extent he has. At any time he could have just, you know, stopped. He's been huffing way too many of his own farts.
Makes a pretty damn good car for a con man, though.
This kind of argument seems silly to me. The world is complicated. He can be both a fantastic manager able to push out successful products in markets that don't even exist and a narcissistic thin-skinned asshole. We can celebrate SpaceX and Tesla while we condemn his censorship on Twitter.
In which ways does he make a good car? Consumer Reports ranked Tesla 27th out of 28th for most reliable car.[^0] JD Power's "Initial Quality" ranking ranked Tesla LAST[^1] meaning a new Tesla car had the most problems compared to a new car of all other brands tested. They've also consistently lied and misled the public about how safe their cars are.[^2][^3] A Climate Central study also found that out of all the EVs, Tesla's are the least friendly for the environment[^4]
Yeah. My Y goes farther, (much) faster, fits more stuff, seats more people, charges faster, etc... than all the competing cars. You can find one item on one model somewhere where it falls short (c.f. Hyundai's 800V charging speeds are about 20% better and the Mach-E can keep up on range numbers, but both cars are otherwise inferior).
But really it's just the whole experience where it wins.
It's a robot that drives me around town on its own, every day! Trivial and actually-working phone-as-key implementation that lets me walk up, drive, and walk away without ever doing anything analogous to "un/locking" or "starting" the car. I can turn the climate control on over the internet and watch the exterior cameras. My kids can make the turn signals emit fart noises!
The Elon hate has always been bad, and the complete dumpster fire at Twitter has made it even worse. But... they're the best cars in the world. They really are.
It is indeed a very silly argument, even one going as far as to stopping their friends from buying a Tesla due to his handling of Twitter. [0] By that logic, everyone should stop buying a VW due to its founder being Hitler. It makes no sense.
As you said, one can give him credit for the push for electric vehicles with Tesla, but you can also critique him on the incompleteness of FSD which Musk continued to over-promise dates of robo-taxis, advertising FSD to Level 5 SAE safety when it is admittedly Level 2 [1]. Other than that, Tesla vehicles are just fine.
I have not seen this chaos with SpaceX which is another safety critical company. Perhaps we are already seeing where the line is being drawn on the unbiased enforcement of the Terms of Service which is what I am seeing here on Twitter rather than before, it was slanted and applied to a select group.
This time, it is clear that it applies and is enforced on everyone, journalist or not, celebrities and bots and as for the over coverage of the matter is of course fuelling the outrage machine that the news needs for more eyeballs. Just like how Twitter didn't immediately collapse, it isn't going anywhere either.
> This time, it is clear that it applies and is enforced on everyone, journalist or not
This is a brand new rule, announced after the fact, and applied so far only to exactly one circumstance that happens to be personally related to the CEO. Arguing that this is a fair application of a well-considered policy is just ridiculous, sorry. For that matter, if Musk's wasn't actually in the air at the time of the bannings, it's not even clear that the stated policy was even applied correctly! All the journalists did was post links that allows you to find ElonsJet on Facebook, AFAICT. That's not "real time" info, is it?
Let me know when someone else gets banned for "doxxing" that involves something as simple as this. You know it's not going to happen, right? Posting a link to Kiwifarms should result in the same treatment, right?
What I hope people understand is that, while he wasn’t always outwardly like this, his core personality really wa always this deranged narcissist. He’s a tech version of Trump. He hasn’t really changed.
