[earthnail]

I can’t speak for most people, of course, but in my environment, which consists of above average wealthy people interested in technology and the environment - i.e., your core Tesla target audience - nobody wants to be associated with Elon Musk in any way anymore. A friend sold a Tesla to get an electric Porsche two years ago, just because of Elon.

It’s usually me who still defends his skills as a CEO, but I also would never buy a Tesla car. I actually don’t think the competition is that strong, but I can’t be associated with a guy who makes a gesture eerily similar to a Heil Hitler at Trumps inauguration. No car can be that nice.

Edit: I’m from Munich, BMW hometown, live in Stockholm and have many friends in London. Interestingly I felt his reputation in my London circles fell even before it did in Germany and Sweden.

[rsynnott]

> Interestingly I felt his reputation in my London circles fell even before it did in Germany and Sweden.

He was making a nuisance of himself in British politics for some time before he got into German, which may be a factor.

[Lanolderen]

I get the dislike for Musk politically but I guess I'm just too broke or something to understand it affecting purchasing decisions that much.

When I buy something I usually look at the product, company history of fucking over consumers and price. I don't really care if the CEO/CTO/CFO/COO/owner was caught at every Diddy and Epstein party to date when it comes to my purchasing decision if his company's product is the best fit.

It only plays a role if I have two equally good products to decide between.

Especially for expensive purchases since I'm not about to burn even a weekly salary to not increase some executive I dislike's worth by the equivalent to him of a prechewed piece of store brand gum.

[orwin]

I think the environment in which you grew up have an impact on that kind of choices. We were told basically all our life, especially during the socdem "third way" era, that we should vote with our wallet if we weren't happy. And the moment we started earning money, we started doing that. Then the same idiots who kept saying "vote with your wallet" suddenly started crying about "cancel culture".

My generation was taught to vote with their wallet more than the previous ones, and probably it is the reason behind Tesla declining sales. Some of use are voting him out.

PS: And by the way, people who ever said "vote with your wallet" or something of that effect like "consumers have made their choice", and _then_ complained about cancel culture, and not made the link themselves are idiots.

[alvah]

“Voting with your wallet” has absolutely nothing to do with “cancel culture”. Lost in translation?

[orwin]

Cancel culture is basically boycotting, unless it's different in the US?

To be more precise, I thought cancel culture is what you get when you boycott in a high information, attention economy. I used to boycott lactalis. I'm now able to find all of it's offshot brands, that I now boycott too. They have a few years ago, pushed a paid promotion to national influencers. I blocked them and all their channels. I am voting with my wallet and my attention.

Unless i missed the point of 'cancelling', isn't it just that boycott and block?

[alvah]

Not buying from companies you disagree with is massively different from trying to get people sacked or otherwise remove their source of income (e.g. Roseanne Barr, JK Rowling, Brian Leach, Christian Webb)

[orwin]

The only example I know is JK Rowling, and so far the only actions I saw against her are not going to see the new movie, not buying her books and refusing to buy her game. Isn't that boycott for you?

[steveoscaro]

Not really that different

[Lanolderen]

You're most likely right. I grew up in eastern europe where essentially up until around my birth/shortly after the fall of communism there was nothing to buy outside of necessities anyway so "vote with your wallet" wasn't a topic really. You even needed connections to get basic construction materials like sand, wood and cement. The lesson for my generation was "Study so you don't (have to) work.".