N A T H did nothing wrong. Make a trolling, antagonistic thread, expect trolling, antagonistic replies. Thread title is hilarious btw. We've reached levels of c ope I never thought possible. Seasonal reminder...

Elon Musk/Net worth
218.6 billion USD
2023

He is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$217 billion as of August 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $219 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in both Tesla and SpaceX. CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.

If this is failure, what does that make the other 8 billion of us? What does that make c ?

Aug 21, 2023 23:55:32 GMT Foos said:

N A T H I think there's a difference between presenting facts (like the model y sales figures) and challenging opinions like you did and purposely antagonizing with posts about going outside, and Elon potentially bullying him high school.

Happy to read about the former. Annoying to read the latter.

Point taken. I appreciate you taking your time here. Apologies c it was below the line.

But also this.

Aug 22, 2023 0:13:48 GMT Baker said:

N A T H did nothing wrong. Make a trolling, antagonistic thread, expect trolling, antagonistic replies. Thread title is hilarious btw. We've reached levels of c ope I never thought possible. Seasonal reminder...

Elon Musk/Net worth

218.6 billion USD

2023

If this is failure, what does that make the other 8 billion of us? What does that make c ?

Aug 22, 2023 0:13:48 GMT Baker said:

N A T H did nothing wrong. Make a trolling, antagonistic thread, expect trolling, antagonistic replies. Thread title is hilarious btw. We've reached levels of c ope I never thought possible. Seasonal reminder...

Elon Musk/Net worth
218.6 billion USD
2023

He is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$217 billion as of August 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $219 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in both Tesla and SpaceX. CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.

If this is failure, what does that make the other 8 billion of us? What does that make c ?

It's not just this thread. It's every thread that c has a strong presence in.

I sent N A T H a PM but I'll put it out here too: thanks for taking my comments like a gentleman.

Well most of the media picked up the drug abuse story. Last time they did this Musk almost lost the NASA contract. SpaceX may need to part ways with him this time to keep it.

As for his cars, everyone is reporting that his price slashes are because he is having trouble moving them and the company has been having near daily scandals and negative press from awful work conditions, to asshole drivers, to the 30% decrease in China deliveries, to the CFO retiring, to design problems, to layoffs, to the massive data leak. It was daily stories for August. Right now the stock is living off hype for the truck to stop the bleeding of value.

Musk's model is now just unsustainable. It was great when he was the only car in town, but now with a rapidly flooding market, his cars are overpriced and underdeliver compared to competitors at the same price points. He also is not using the universal design for charging still, which means soon he his tech will be the minority tech.

It does not help he alienated left leaning people in the US who refuse to buy his car due to his political views, to support right wing people who refuse to buy his car because it is electric.

I keep this thread updated as I am reading the shit anyway, as I want to revel in his fall. Or his overdose from self medicating with drugs that have dangerous interactions, whichever comes first.

///

Musk today after the glitch occured that deleted all pictures and links from a few years before 2014 tweeted that the site could fail altogether. First time he admitted publicly taking the site private and running it as a for-profit is not sustainable. Reports were this winter he may not be able to make a debt payment already due Twitter Blue failing and advertisers leaving.

Speaking of Twitter Blue, to remain verified, people will have to send a picture and a copy of their government ID to a third party ID verification firm. The company also has ties to Israeli intelligence. Many of his alt right followers are raging and cancelling their Twitter Blue over this surveillance.

As for Musk's net worth it dropped almost 50% in two years. Not sure you want to prop him up as genius businessman. Bernard Arnault likely to be the richest man in the world again next year as Tesla stock continues to decline. Can only live off hype for so long.

Musk gets margin called on Twitter, he will drop to third, as Bezos moves to second.

Aug 22, 2023 1:12:52 GMT c said:

As for Musk's net worth it dropped almost 50% in two years. Not sure you want to prop him up as genius businessman. Bernard Arnault likely to be the richest man in the world again next year as Tesla stock continues to decline. Can only live off hype for so long.

Musk gets margin called on Twitter, he will drop to third, as Bezos moves to second.

Damn. The third richest man in the world.

That’s it. He’s a failure for sure.

Aug 21, 2023 23:55:32 GMT Foos said:

N A T H I think there's a difference between presenting facts (like the model y sales figures) and challenging opinions like you did and purposely antagonizing with posts about going outside, and Elon potentially bullying him high school.

Happy to read about the former. Annoying to read the latter.

You could argue that turning every single thread into a diatribe on the supposed failings of capitalism is equally wearying... For what it is worth.

I am all for discussion and I like my ideas challenged, but it requires participants to engage and respond.
Not to bait and switch... But whatever, I am equally happy posting nonsense.

Aug 22, 2023 1:09:35 GMT c said:

It was great when he was the only car in town, but now with a rapidly flooding market, his cars are overpriced and underdeliver compared to competitors at the same price points.

According to insideevs.com, mos Tesla models are incredibly well priced and comparable, most float towards the bottom of the chart in terms of price. Higher end models, sure well into +$100,000 but this is no dissimilar any petrol driven vehicles. You can state " there's more affordable EVs " sure, that's true. But that's like comparing a BMW to a Corolla and pretending they're the same thing and refusing to acknowledge the difference in the vehicles, particularly with Teslas, the sheer base performance.

The Model Y is currently the highest selling car in the world regardless of where it gets its power from. It was also the top selling EV of 2022. The 2021 reigning EV champion was.. drum roll... The Model 3 Tesla.

After their two best quarters in history, it's almost like this statement isn't even remotely true, and you're leaning into your political bias.

Aug 22, 2023 4:48:51 GMT N A T H said:

Aug 22, 2023 1:09:35 GMT c said:

It was great when he was the only car in town, but now with a rapidly flooding market, his cars are overpriced and underdeliver compared to competitors at the same price points.

According to insideevs.com, mos Tesla models are incredibly well priced and comparable, most float towards the bottom of the chart in terms of price. Higher end models, sure well into +$100,000 but this is no dissimilar any petrol driven vehicles. You can state " there's more affordable EVs " sure, that's true. But that's like comparing a BMW to a Corolla and pretending they're the same thing and refusing to acknowledge the difference in the vehicles, particularly with Teslas, the sheer base performance.

The Model Y is currently the highest selling car in the world regardless of where it gets its power from. It was also the top selling EV of 2022. The 2021 reigning EV champion was.. drum roll... The Model 3 Tesla.

After their two best quarters in history, it's almost like this statement isn't even remotely true, and you're leaning into your political bias.

I don’t like Musk personally, but I absolutely intend to get a Tesla in the next 18-24 months.

Falling Chinese market sales:

www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-cuts-prices-model-s-x-china-2023-08-16/

Tesla demand being fueled by mostly tax cuts and incentives:

www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/business/tesla-q2-sales-deliveries.html

Investors have concerns on profit margins cut due to needing repeated price cuts to move cars:

www.fool.com/investing/2023/08/21/down-21-in-the-last-month-is-tesla-stock-a-buy-now/

BYD also just started North American sales last month. They are working towards a US release when tax credits fade, which will happen next time the GOP takes both houses.

electrek.co/2023/06/21/byd-expands-in-north-america-new-ev-deliveries-mexico/

Some may still get his cars, but he is not the only game in town anymore.

It's pretty clear that I think Tesla as a stock is a massive bubble that will eventually ruin a lot of people.

This isn't Musk's fail though.
I have been critical of Musk plenty of times, I think he needs to stop tweeting or xing or whatever it's called now and let his comments run through proper regulatory channels...

But I think despite his autistic weird kid nature he does mean well and wants better for the human race.
Maybe that's not a terrible thing...

Eventually the TSLA stock price will pop and public sentiment will turn on Musk... I won't enjoy it.
But then,I don't enjoy watching the downfall of anyone who is having a go.

Pretty sure it is the drugs. LSD and K do not lend to rational thinking. And demanding no one in the room question his decisions, means no one can tell him no.

TSLA around 150 will see the apes sell off I think. They got in between 100 and 150. And anyone on WSBs know TSLA was the original gamestop. He stopped the bleeding now, but it is on hype again. He also cut prices again after the earning calls, and his margins are getting extremely low and net income is dropping month after month.

The plan he has to increase the subscription options for features is not gonna end well either. Consumers do not want to buy a car with features, then have to pay monthly to use those features. Shit like heated seats, remote start, fob unlock, music, fast charging, gps, voice nav, auto driving and even shit like more horsepower all will soon be gated by monthly charges if the subscription plans takes over. Musk's idea was to sell the cars at a loss then recoup here, which some of his competitors are doing.

Car companies see this as easy money, I see it as people learning you can jailbreak cars.

Subscription models aren't unique to Tesla.

BMW is infamous for it.

www.bmw.com/en-au/shop/ls/cp/connected-drive

Is it any surprise in a digital world when every action your car makes is controlled by a computer?

Should something like Beam Assist be a standard feature? Maybe. Is it worth a $30 subscription? Probably not. But it's essentially an app that takes advantage of the little piece of code that fires off any time you flick your high beams on and off. It's that easy to create a feature you can monetise.

But really, if you're in a position to buy a high end vehicle or even a Tesla then a few extra bucks a year to unlock some extra features isn't a big deal. Once upon a time, some guy would install all this stuff manually for an extra couple grand when you purchased a new car. In 2023 the physical components are already there and it's just a matter of modifying or adding to the software to get the desired result.

The problem is you cannot really sell these features. The more common they become, the more common knowledge of jailbreaking your car becomes. Rumors swirled for months about jailbreaking them before this team went public.

So if you lean into the fork model for a car, and consumers jailbreak, they are not eating pie, and you just lose cash per sale.

Total Tesla margins were 7% before he cut costs again. He keeps cutting he will NEED people to buy these upgrades to keep the company profitable.

techcrunch.com/2023/08/03/researchers-jailbreak-a-tesla-to-get-free-in-car-feature-upgrades/

More details of the hack are it is on the AMD chip level, so it is unpatchable and can be done with off the shelf stuff.  Once they hit the hack, they inject their own bootloader, and from there, every feature of the car is unlocked for free.

www.thedrive.com/news/tesla-hackers-find-unpatchable-jailbreak-to-unlock-paid-features-for-free

For anyone who is lit in it, here are the details.  I get the general idea, but not my area.  iNCY may be interested though, seems like somewhere in his tech tinker wheelhouse outside of the cybersecurity side.  

arxiv.org/pdf/2108.04575.pdf

Aug 22, 2023 10:15:56 GMT iNCY said:

But I think despite his autistic weird kid nature he does mean well and wants better for the human race.
Maybe that's not a terrible thing...

There's a quote in the article from a former partner - "Elon wants the world to be saved, as long as he's the one to do it." A bit supervillain-y.

Aug 22, 2023 5:24:53 GMT KJ said:

I don’t like Musk personally, but I absolutely intend to get a Tesla in the next 18-24 months.

I bought a Model Y a couple months ago and I've been very impressed. I was hesitant about everything being controlled through a touch screen but it works much better than I thought it would. I didn't buy any of the advanced autopilot features.

I test drove VW Id.4 and hated the interior and controls. The Kia EV6 was nice and we may have gotten that instead except it doesn't qualify for tax credits. The Chevy Bolt was another option that is much, much cheaper, but it was extremely hard to find and GM announced they were no longer going to manufacture it (then months later announced they would restart production).

Also, I let the free trial of the enhanced data package expire and everything has been fine. The only feature I had been using was current traffic conditions.

Musk just blasted Tesla in an internal email for the poor quality control on the Cybertruck, after test driving one. And it leaked. Stock took a serious hit after.

Aug 22, 2023 15:45:46 GMT Gyro LC said:

Aug 22, 2023 10:15:56 GMT iNCY said:

But I think despite his autistic weird kid nature he does mean well and wants better for the human race.
Maybe that's not a terrible thing...

There's a quote in the article from a former partner - "Elon wants the world to be saved, as long as he's the one to do it." A bit supervillain-y.

Agree big high evolutionary vibes.

3500 investors will get 12k a piece from Tesla for Musk claiming he will take it private.

And in SpaceX news, the damage from the Starship test explosion was so severe Musk may not get FAA clearance for another launch.  Musk plans to launch anyway.

LMAO two people in my old research circle got emails from XAI trying to hire them. Assume more will be contacted as we were a pretty small, very specialized field that did work on quant analysis of expertise on the process level.

Not surprising neither will be taking the job, nor really anyone in this circle, and perhaps subfield. Offers were laughably low as well compared to what the other AI groups offered over the last few years they said too.

Tesla in some serious shit now. After various federal groups said they must force a driver to use their hands on the steering wheel, it appears they simply hid what the complete self-driving mode, internally codenamed Elon Mode, and kept in the cars so users could turn it back on fairly easily. Also disables all warning modes about driving without your hands on the wheel and other things Elon apparently does not want to personally see when he drives the cars.

Tesla's official stance is that a driver needs to have their hands on the wheel to remain intentitive on the road at this time. So including this hidden feature in the general release while claiming it was removed, is very concerning. And getting states like California moving closer to banning the cars from the road entirely.

California AG building a case for it now.

Despite propping him up for a year now, Trump says if elected he will kill all incentives for EV. He actually does this and removes carbon credits from the auto industry, Tesla goes insolvent overnight.

In one thread you're waving the flag supporting strikes in the automotive industry and talking about keeping it American Made and in another you’re getting hot under the collar with the thought of killing off Tesla and putting the reported 127,000 people that work there out of work.

Jesus, pick a side.

Why would an silly human-being want to kill off Tesla? The manufacturer building the world's best selling car.

All The Biden administration has done is pushed to boost electric car sales, aiming for 2/3 of new cars sales being electric by 2032.

It's rhetoric from Trump while he visits a car manufacturer state. That's all.

Serious pressure starting to have the US government cut ties with SpaceX following the news that Musk deliberately interfered in the Ukraine war to aid Russia by cutting Starlink in the Crimea region to stop a drone attack the Ukraine launched.  The attack would have crippled the Russian navy in the Sea of Azov.  Because Musk killed the internet link, the attack failed as the dones lost connection and basically fell into the sea.  Musk was said to have done this after talking with Russian officials.

There's a really important thing to consider here.

Imagine you're literally changing the world through innovation and of all these innovations, you've only ever intended good to come from them.

Which is the predicament Musk is in, and to quote his SpaceX President.. " It was never intended to be weaponized, but the Ukrainians have leveraged it in ways that were unintentional and not part of any agreement. " that is a heavy weight to carry on your shoulders, knowing something that you've built is not only being used in war, but the death of other human beings regardless of which side of the conflict.

It's easy to criticise Musk here, and you're picking some low hanging fruit in your tirade against Musk. For over 18 months, the free world has watched Public Enemy Number 1 in Putin wage an unjust war in Ukraine and apart from throw Zelenskyy a few old toys and send their thoughts and prayers, they're doing nothing to end this campaign, and won't. Despite the extreme loss of life and the destruction of an entire country. Despite Zelenskyy's best efforts begging for help. 22 years ago, a terrorist attack meant nearly 2 decades of war in the Middle East and completely destabilising global political foundations.

What good are these world powers, these titans if they won't help the little guys?

He literally made a deal to supply the Ukraine Starlink for their military with the US Department of Defense. What the hell did he think they were going to do with it.

And this is not me, and a second report came out that other drone attacks failed when the net cut off. US lawmakers are questioning if Musk is actively aiding Putin, who he said he is in personal contact with two weeks ago, at this point, and if so, should we continue to trust him for defense related business.

There is also a chance he could be out at SpaceX over this. Losing federal contracts will be a massive blow to SpaceX, equaling billions of dollars. SpaceX will have to decide if keeping him is worth the potential loss of federal contracts at this point.

I think you're working yourself at this point - Elon Musk, double-agent and Super-villain and International Man of Mystery.

Everyone is covering the story that Musk personally told SpaceX engineers to cut the net to stop a drone attack. Multiple source groups on it already.

But we will know for sure soon. Him publicly saying he spoke with Putin mixed with these rumors means CIA is online to use the Patriot Act to investigate him. He is not going to have another private conversation using electronic means while on US soil.

Sept 7, 2023 23:19:15 GMT N A T H said:

I think you're working yourself at this point - Elon Musk, double-agent and Super-villain and International Man of Mystery.

I agree with Musk, for what it is worth.
He supplied the Starlink (At his own cost) to aid Ukraine in a defensive capacity.
When they were proposing to use his technology for offensive action he stopped support.

I think Musk is 1,000% correct with his take on Ukraine.
The longer this war goes on, the more people die and there seems to be no effort to broker peace talks.
What's the off-ramp?

Sept 8, 2023 3:04:11 GMT iNCY said:

Sept 7, 2023 23:19:15 GMT N A T H said:

I think you're working yourself at this point - Elon Musk, double-agent and Super-villain and International Man of Mystery.

I agree with Musk, for what it is worth.
He supplied the Starlink (At his own cost) to aid Ukraine in a defensive capacity.
When they were proposing to use his technology for offensive action he stopped support.

I think Musk is 1,000% correct with his take on Ukraine.
The longer this war goes on, the more people die and there seems to be no effort to broker peace talks.
What's the off-ramp?

Believe it or not, the support that Zelenski had from his people at the start of the war is wavering and almost non existent. I spoke to my Ukrainians about this at my moms' party and ones who praised him a year ago no longer trust him.  They don't want to give in to Putin, but they want the war over, they want to go home (what's left of it), and they want people to stop dying. We all find it circumspect that there has been no steps towards peace talks and no end in sight. 

There is really no situation where the Ukraine stops the conflict that does not end in them giving up more of their country and this happening again within 10 years. This would be the second time Russia annexed territory and blocked Ukraine from joining a defense pact as well if things end on Russian terms.

Putin wants everything east of the Dnieper. He took the Crimea last time, this time he plans to claim the entire south eastern border of the Luhansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Oblasts. Next time will be Sumy, Karvkiv and Chernikiv.

This would be like Canada just giving BC and Yukon to Russia or Australia giving up Western Australia to an invader, then having them return and demand NW territories and Alberta or Northern and South Australia while insisting again you do not sign any defense pacts.

No other country would allow this shit but people demand the Ukraine do and just trust Putin at his word that he will stop at invading twice.

There also there has been peace talks, demands are the four oblasts and Crimea become formally part of Russia and Ukraine declares neutrality in their constitution barring them from joining any mutual defense pacts.  They would also be required to make Russian a second formal language of the Ukraine.  In return they get a reduction in Russian aggression only, not peace or a cease fire, because Putin still frames this as a war against the nazis in Ukraine that can only be won by eradicating them.