Elon Musk...human? - Political

[Sweet]

43 minutes ago, flesh said:

I’ll try to translate trumpese for you. He knows that the total fentanyl crossings from Canada are minor. He wants them reduced. The primary reason he says this is so that he has a stronger reason to impose tariffs that will hold up and he believes that something about trade relations are unfair… smokescreens.  It could be subsidies to certain industries, existing tariffs, tariff like instruments that have the same or similar effect, restrictions, or any other form of distorting effect. Of course free trade with friendlies and maximizing comparative advantage is the ideal, the ideal is never what happens. 
 

I posted in another thread with no response but I’ve yet to see a thorough analysis of all distorting effects on trade between usa and Canada. I personally done know if it’s fair or close to it. If it is I’ll agree it is if it’s wholistic.  
 

Regarding whether or not trumps strategies are, if I’m right, lying. I suppose you could say he’s lying partially.. in the sense that he uses one small reason as the main reason for what he’s doing. Otoh if he’s right and trade is unfair and In order to straighten it out he can’t see another path forward…. That’s a more difficult question. I don’t see how anybody can confidently say anything wo considering what I’ve written here. I originally come back to cobf recently thinking the Canadians … or somebody.. being the smart analytical types that invest.. would have a competent analysis of the trade between the two countries and found the opposite. I haven’t had time to do it my self but I’ll try. Also, if the usa is going to produce some things here for strategic reasons, antifragilityreasons, then that means by definition we will be buying less of those things Elsewhere and that means elsewhere wont be happy about selling less stuff to us. If we can’t compete for ammo prices and we need to manufacture our own, we may need tariffs. 
 

Also don’t assume those of us who voted for him are cultists, you won’t learn anything that way. In 2016 my father voted for him, and hated doing so, being a lifelong Mormon, the cleanest sort, only because he knew the Supreme Court appointees were coming up. He has no idea what happening in general. 
 

for myself, doge and cutting the deficit to 3% of gdp was paramount and the rest noise and I saw the opposite inclination since forever on the other side. For me, if this happens and wars don’t get worse, I’m willing to deal with the fallout as I see it as existential. I voted for Obama Romney Hillary then trump trump. Other things matter but I rank order them low compared to a snowballing debt/interest rate/inflation problem. 
 

For me the biggest mistake of the last four years was allowing the economy to be shuttered excessively and raining money in massive excess. Biggest mistake I’m aware of in my lifetime. I said that here March 2020 more or less. Then Biden doubled  down when the coast was clear. Destroyed the lives of tens of Millions of non asset owners for 79 year olds with 2.5 co morbidities who were going to die shortly and whom we could have targeted for relief at 1/100th the cost. 
 

 

 

I think overall that is how trump works.

 

However, ‘Who would ever sign a thing like this?’ - Trump said that a couple of weeks when referring to US trade deals.

 

Trump negotiated and signed this trade deal with Canada and Mexico.  So if the USMCA deal sucks then he’s probably to blame.

 

Edited March 5 by Sweet

[Spekulatius]

3 hours ago, cubsfan said:

 

Trudeau is your idiot not ours. 

 

Why are you allowing him to negotiate on behalf of the Canadian people?

Trudeau is actually doing better in the polls now. Nothing better for popularity of a politician than dealing with an external threat.

[dealraker]

19 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

Trudeau is actually doing better in the polls now. Nothing better for popularity of a politician than dealing with an external threat.

And Tesla has morphed to Bud Light?   LOL, I was actively buying the BUD in the lower 50's but you can be triple damn sure I will never discuss it on this site except to mention it here.  

[lnofeisone]

17 hours ago, Gregmal said:

LOL this is a great post with a lot of thought and consideration, and like always, its probably either ignored or met with the TDS drenched 3-4 sentence rager...

While I find @flesh's prose a bit logorrheic, I don't think anyone would disagree with having an efficient government that minimizes or eliminates fraud, waste, and abuse and maintains a healthy budget.

 

The crux of the argument here is the HOW. How are Elon and DT going about fixing the gov't. There are laws and processes and they disregard both. So far the savings amounted to fractions of what they claim and their actions are being reversed (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-civil-service-board-reinstates-thousands-fired-usda-employees-2025-03-05/) which basically amounts to added cost (workers were out 2 weeks doing 0 work, they will get backpay, and now they have to get reprocessed back in, which is extra work). 

 

Add in republicans threatening to impeach judges they don't like and the DOJ, on behalf of OPM, straight up lying to the court (and the DOJ got rightfully called out by the union and scolded by the judge); there is a lot not to like about the approach of the current administration. Given that Musk is running DOGE with the blessing of DT, this is 100% on him. 

[rogermunibond]

 

[rogermunibond]

[Spekulatius]

Elon is pretty full of himself. He is also wrong about no alternatives to Starlink. Eutelsat is one and it is being used in Ukraine.The 50M in cost matches my estimate for the 40k terminals that Ukraine is operating. Those are fully paid for, so he is lying too in addition to being arrogant.

 

 

[John Hjorth]

2 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Elon is pretty full of himself. He is also wrong about no alternatives to Starlink. Eutelsat is one and it is being used in Ukraine.The 50M in cost matches my estimate for the 40k terminals that Ukraine is operating. Those are fully paid for, so he is lying too in addition to being arrogant.

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing, @Spekulatius,

 

Absolutely shocking.

 

One do not - never - insult customers.

 

And if I was a SpaceX investor, I would have been all over Mr. Musk by now.

 

Absolutely fantastic entrepreneur, awesome at getting things to happen, and yet again, deep down, he is just a street boy, with very bad manners, a very bad example of the new generation of the newly and filthy rich.

[Eng12345]

Elon Musk seeks Italian presidential meeting to salvage Starlink deal

 

Dance buddy dance

Edited Sunday at 08:23 PM by Eng12345

[John Hjorth]

41 minutes ago, Eng12345 said:

Elon Musk seeks Italian presidential meeting to salvage Starlink deal

 

Dance buddy dance

 

Thank you for sharing, @Eng12345,

 

About ~1½ years ago, I was seriously considering a Starlink connection :

 

I finally decided to go with a 1,000 Mbit fibre connection in the home in stead of a Starlink installation, migrating from a lame 20 Mbit down / 2 Mbit up copper connection, installed around beginning af February last year. I had to pay quite some extra to get the installation inside the house the way I wanted it. Now easy to build the installation out with ouside mesh nodes on both sides of the house if this is needed.[Patio on the backside of the house [afternoon and evening spot) and a small place with a table and chairs on the front side of the house [morning spot, to get the sunrise)][I did not really get the chance last year to check if it works as is, because of my health situation then].

 

If I had opted for a Starlink connection I would have dumped it now, as early as practically possible.

Edited Sunday at 09:04 PM by John Hjorth

[Eng12345]

It's a decent product for its use case - certainly better than Viasat or Hughesnet. 

 

My company uses it for internet at remote locations. I've noticed that it seems to instantaneously lose connection regularly when switching satellites. This isn't noticeable in normal browsing, but in using things that require continuous internet connection it is problematic. For instance, SAP is rendered completely useless as the secure connection is not maintained - every time it hops satellites I have to re login. 

 

I'm sure there's a workaround for an IT head - but getting that troubleshot in a multinational corporation when dealing with security licensures etc is next to impossible. 

[Spekulatius]

It’s more than  Elon just insulting the Polish foreign minister. Starlink is an obvious security risk for any country that runs critical infrastructure on it, much more for military purpose,. I hope that Meloni cancels the deal - she is no dummy.  i guess any country that intends to use Starlink for critical communications will have similar thoughts and consider alternatives.

[John Hjorth]

10 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

It’s more than  Elon just insulting the Polish foreign minister. Starlink is an obvious security risk for any country that runs critical infrastructure on it, much more for military purpose,. I hope that Meloni cancels the deal - she is no dummy.  i guess any country that intends to use Starlink for critical communications will have similar thoughts and consider alternatives.

 

@Spekulatius,

 

Sure, think Huawei.

[backtothebeach]

 

[nwoodman]

FFS.  Hopefully a Cramer x10

[Sweet]

Lol, I am willing to bet that the people who predominantly own Teslas are those on the political left.  People don't like giving money to companies run by people they don't like - it's just how the world works.

 

It's not just Tesla, the Disney thread had some chatter about their strategy of producing content which alienated people - not helped when they directly got involved in Florida politics.  Also look at what happened with Budweiser when they pushed a particularly agenda.

 

Edited yesterday at 12:40 PM by Sweet

[thowed]

Latest - I can't really deal with what he said about Senator Mark Kelly.

[Spekulatius]

Yep, the “Radical left wing Lunatics”, as Trump calls then, are the predominant Tesla customer. 
 

So I don’t think Trump‘s “endorsement”  is going to help much.

 

I also noticed another little thing - Starlink is now running ads on X. Just another case of conglomerate synergies in action.

[Ulti]

1 hour ago, thowed said:

Latest - I can't really deal with what he said about Senator Mark Kelly.

+1

[TwoCitiesCapital]

10 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

Yep, the “Radical left wing Lunatics”, as Trump calls then, are the predominant Tesla customer. 
 

So I don’t think Trump‘s “endorsement”  is going to help much.

 

I also noticed another little thing - Starlink is now running ads on X. Just another case of conglomerate synergies in action.

 

Radical, lunatics, illegal when it's the left/independents boycotting a Tesla.

 

Totally reasonable, legal, and responsible for the right to have done the same with Disney. 

 

[Spekulatius]

1 hour ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

 

Radical, lunatics, illegal when it's the left/independents boycotting a Tesla.

 

Totally reasonable, legal, and responsible for the right to have done the same with Disney. 

 

The boycotts to Disney and Bud were child’s play compared to what is happening with Tesla. I think we could be seeing 50% down on deliveries. Several European counties are ~75% down on deliveries.  I mean Bud was all about an ad of a Trans Dylan cracking a beer. Elon involvement here is on another Galaxy.

 

I don’t think that Trump doing a Tesla car sales event on the White House lawn is going to help much.

 

Starlink will slow take significant damage but less so than Tesla, imo. The issue for foreign users is security.

Edited 22 hours ago by Spekulatius

[TwoCitiesCapital]

9 minutes ago, Spekulatius said:

The boycotts to Disney and Bud were child’s play compared to what is happening with Tesla. I think we could be seeing 50% down on deliveries. Several European counties are ~75% down on deliveries.  I mean Bud was all about an ad of a Trans Dylan cracking a beer. Elon involvement here is on another Galaxy.

 

I don’t think that Trump doing a Tesla car sales event on the White House lane is going to help much.

 

Starlink will slow take significant damage but less so than Tesla, imo. The issue for foreign users is security.

 

Oh for sure! 

 

But being associated with white nationalism is far more damaging to your brand in one direction than being open/accepting to alternative lifestyles is in the other - even if you feel in some cases it was forced virtue signaling. 

 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by TwoCitiesCapital

[John Hjorth]

14 hours ago, nwoodman said:

FFS.  Hopefully a Cramer x10 ...

 

Hilarious. I can't stop laughing. 

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

All this MAGA stuff is so old fashion. This is just the 2025 version [a very clumsy version, I would say] of : 'Buy American. I am.' 

 

The New York Times - Opinion - Warren Buffett [October 16^th 2008] : Buy American. I Am.

 

[Milu]

As I’ve said previously I would encourage people to use a bit of sense when predicting the end for Tesla. In 2024 the company sold about 1.8m vehicles. They are currently transitioning the model y which is their largest selling vehicle and the worlds largest selling vehicle from its previous version to an updated model. This is being carried out from January to April/may and is occurring across multiple geographies, china in Jan/feb, US and Europe at the moment. It’s possible that some (but not all) of this drop in sales is down to this similar to if Apple was releasing a new version of the MacBook it’s likely they would experience a slowdown in sales of the existing model as people await the chance to buy the new iteration. So for the people predicting 50% drop in sales is your assessment that for calendar year 2025 Tesla total sales will go from 1.8m(2024 numbers) to around 900k, or if not what are you forecasting?

Edited 21 hours ago by Milu

[Viking]

1 hour ago, Spekulatius said:

The boycotts to Disney and Bud were child’s play compared to what is happening with Tesla. I think we could be seeing 50% down on deliveries. Several European counties are ~75% down on deliveries.  I mean Bud was all about an ad of a Trans Dylan cracking a beer. Elon involvement here is on another Galaxy.

 

I don’t think that Trump doing a Tesla car sales event on the White House lawn is going to help much.

 

Starlink will slow take significant damage but less so than Tesla, imo. The issue for foreign users is security.

I don’t think most American’s understand the damage that Trump and his crew are doing to the American brand outside of the US. And Trump is just getting started. It will be punch after punch after punch… People in the rest of the world will respond - they will learn to despise America/Americans as they never have before.
 

Needless to say, that will not be good for US companies doing business in the rest of the world. Something like +30% of revenue from S&P500 companies come from outside of the US. That will likely be moving lower in the coming years.
 

All countries will be looking to decouple from the US wherever they can and as fast as they can (well, if they are smart they will). Because extortionists don’t stop… they keep coming back for more. 
 

My guess is fewer foreigners will be vacationing in the US. (My wife - who is not overly political -  informed me recently that we will not be taking out annual vacation is the US this year.). And Americans vacationing abroad are likely to get a pretty chilly reception by some local residents.
 

US dollar as the reserve currency? Countries will not have a choice - they will need to find a replacement (over the next decade).

 

Tesla is one small example of what is coming for US companies that do business abroad. 

 

Who will be the winners of the ‘dump the US’ movement? Probably lots of European companies.

 

And it’s not a cost thing - when it comes to maintaining/protecting your economy/way of life you do what you have to do. The rest of the world, ex US, is slowly waking up to the new reality. It will take many years for the adjustments to happen (in both the US and the rest of the world). 

 

Bottom line, I agree. What is going on with Tesla is different (much more severe and longer lasting) than what happened with Disney and Bud Light. 

 

—————

 

Listen, I am not saying the US does not have legitimate gripes with the rest of the world. But make no mistake, how Trump is doing what he is doing is going to have significant consequences for the America’s (citizens and businesses) standing in the world. If it continues, which I suspect it will (absent a big economic slowdown in the US, which I am not expecting).

Edited 20 hours ago by Viking