[velcrovan]

You're right that Musk does not need to score political points with the everyday person in order for Tesla to succeed.

But by the same token, Musk's "fitting into the current political and cultural trajectory" (whatever that means) is also of no value to Tesla.

The actual concerns people have are much more concrete.

Tesla has already had "a few years of optimization". They have been making cars for ten years now. They are still burning bales of cash. They have consistently failed, by large margins, to deliver on production targets. Major competitors who DO have a consistent history of large-scale production are coming out with comparable products that will actually be possible to buy without waiting in line for two years.

Their accounting chief quitting after a month only adds to the pile. Anyone who has been in management at a failing concern knows the numbers people are the canaries in the coal mine. No, it's not a guarantee they will fail, but only an inexperienced person would ignore it.

[sophistication]

> whatever that means

I mean that he is a rare kind of public figure who is really down-to-earth, yet proponent of the free market & innovation. Like Trump he breaks with the norms, but he's a lot more sincere. He also does not seem to outsource overseas very much, which kind of fits into the MAGA narrative.

[velcrovan]

Well, like you said, the average person does not care about stuff like that.

By the way if you like sincere down to earth people who break with norms and are in favor of tariffs, check out the chapo trap house podcast

[sophistication]

There are good reasons to assume that tariffs are not enough. From the episode I've listened to it seems they are hypergamy deniers.