I have a Tesla, and love it (at least as much as I could ever love a car, I'd prefer a car-free life honestly).
The worst thing about it isn't the panel gaps or reliability (haven't had any problems). The worst part is Elon Musk and his fans. Shortly after getting the car three and a half years ago, I was leaving an outdoor party and a man who was a Musk superfan was doing that waving of arms of worship that you sometimes see fans do at metal conferences, and it was just embarrassing. Previously the same man had been gushing about full self driving, and I said there was no chance it would be delivered on time, if ever, and he professed his undying trust in Musk.
Combined with Musk's recent anti-Ukraine efforts, his hyper-partisan paranoia thay he's trying to push on Twitter, his hate for trans people, his hate for biological science exhibited throughout the pandemic and even today in his "jokes" about prosecuting Fauci, Musk is waging cultural war against every single aspect of my identity.
I hate Musk so so so much, and I know he had almost nothing to do with the creation of the car I like, but it still pains me everytime I get in it to know that I helped such a despicable person make a ton of money. Never again will I buy a Tesla, especially since there are now competitors. I'm sure I would hate all the rest of the auto execs almost as much if I knew as much about them as I know about Musk, but the nice thing is that I dont know a damn thing about Stellaris's CEO, from their name to their former partners. And there's a lot of value to that, as a customer.
Maybe Musk is just trying to win over conservatives and jackasses to but Teslas, but I doubt it. I think he's just a dangerous fool.
OTOH, people (at least online) like to talk out both sides of their mouth re" Tesla, saying on one hand "Musk isn't an engineer, didn't found the company, doesn't add anything to Tesla, etc etc" and then also "i'll never buy a tesla because of Musk".. like, if those are both the case then what about every other company and CEO? eBay's CEO collaborated to harass a random couple who posted critical articles, do they not use eBay? Adidas made untold billions from collabs with Kanye, do they boycott Adidas? CVS, Walgreens, and Walmart agreed to pay $13bn in a settlement over the opioid epidemic -- literally killing people! -- do they shop at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, or buy prescriptions from the companies that supply the opioids? Unethical Apple manufacturing practices... etc etc etc.
The point here, which is not 'whataboutism', is that there is seemingly no generalizable principle at play here, that for some reason Musk is a bridge too far in comparison with other companies that arguably do much, much more harm.
As somebody that doesn't use EBay and Adidas, sure, easy enough for me to avoid, but even for those I'm not sure I care as much, as the company isn't as much about the CEO. The opioid thing is a bit more tangential to the actual companies.
Whereas Musk is actually serving as a front man, greedily taking credit in a way that I never even saw Steve Jobs take credit for the work of others.
Musk's actions are also a very personal attack against my loved ones, in a way far more personal than drug stores selling opioids is. It's personal insults, and actions that are supporting the displacement of millions of family members's countrymen, deaths of more than a hundred thousand, and so many children's lives scarred. Pretty hard to compare Musk's actions to what Walgreens management did for the opiod crisis. Personal insults also go a really long ways towards negative polarization, whereas merely distributing prescribed drugs makes it a lot harder to fault drug stores.
Bill Burr has a funny bit about Steve being a marketer, not an inventor or engineer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ew6fv9UUlQ8). I can't say I've seen Musk take credit for Tesla work any more than Steve did for Apple's, let alone greedily.
Don't discount the impact of the opioid crisis with more than a million dead (https://www.npr.org/2021/12/30/1069062738/more-than-a-millio...) -- those pharmacies did the math and decided double-digit billions was cheaper than a trial -- but I do see what you mean about the personal connection. What I'm wrapping my head around is I don't see anyone (not that that means they don't exist) saying their cousin died from opioid overdose so they're never shopping at CVS again, you know? The venn diagram of people who own an iphone and people who think sweatshops are evil is basically a circle, but Musk tweets something moronic about Fauci and everyone loses their shit.
Basically. I think Elon is a blowhard idiot who succeeds despite himself and have thought so since 2017.
But I purchased my Model 3 in 2021 because, after cross-shopping many car models and trying to optimize for the characteristics and features I wanted, it was the best thing at its price-point. And even now, even after the Twitter debacle, I still enjoy driving it every day. I couldn’t care less about the man who made the car; the product won on its merits.
