[mrjaeger]

As is often the case, Matt Levine (writer of Money Stuff) had some fun hypothesising about how this might be actually part of his "plan".

'Tesla Inc. is the main source of Musk’s wealth, and his main goal in life is selling lots of Teslas. He has sold all the Teslas that he can sell to coastal elite liberals, and now he faces the daunting challenge of selling electric cars to social conservatives. Acquiring Twitter and turning it into a right-wing media company with himself as the main character might be bad for, like, Twitter ad sales, but that is small potatoes if it is good for selling Teslas to Republicans. “Our cars are electric, yes, but they are free from the woke mind virus” is perhaps a good pitch.'

I don't think Matt (or myself) put much weight into this being his true reasoning, but it's a fun thought exercise :)

[r00fus]

This is the stupidest thing I’ve heard from Levine in a long time.

Any 101 level marketing course will tell you that burning your brand with existing customer base is a horrible way to reach a new market segment.

A Brand is a promise. Damaging your brand with one group doesn’t make you more appealing to another. Just makes you look erratic and untrustworthy.

[rsynnott]

In context, he wasn’t being completely serious, IIRC. I think that was one of a list of fairly comic possible explanations for Musk’s recent behaviour.

Though, it’s probably as good an explanation of his nonsense as any, really.

[ascagnel_]

> He has sold all the Teslas that he can sell to coastal elite liberals

If you think this is true, I have a bridge to sell you.

Tesla right now owns the lion's share of the EV market (a late-November report put it at 65% of the market), but that share has already started to slip (it's down from 71% the year prior). But they're still a small player in the overall auto market (~3.5%), especially compared to established operations like Ford (~13.5%), Toyota (~15%), and GM (~16.25%). And now that two of those three marques are making heavy EV bets, I'd expect the EV market to grow overall, something Tesla is increasingly poorly positioned to take advantage of.

Put another way: Westchester County has the highest rate of Tesla ownership (6,926 total, 69.4/10k residents). Using the tool in the original post, there were 685,843 total vehicle registrations in Westchester County in 2022, so Tesla accounts for just 1.01% of vehicle registrations. What CEO would accept such a low level as the maximum addressable market?

[atomicnumber3]

Matt Levine is great. I spent half a decade in HFT and he was one of the few writers who was actually good to read.

[tosc]

> He has sold all the Teslas that he can sell to coastal elite liberals

If Musk really believes this, then it’s safe to call him a pathetic businessman, since he doesn’t understand the concept of repeat customers.