[CamperBob2]

1. Why Musk made such a hard-right turn politically, alienating most of his customers. People on the left were always far more likely to buy an EV than those on the right.

I believe a couple of things happened over the last few years that basically broke him. One factor may have been his daughter coming out as trans, and I have a feeling that another factor was a realization that his ambition to start a Mars colony wasn't going to be possible in his lifetime. Being forced to give up a major life goal hurts deeply no matter how much money or influence you have.

He started engaging in irrational, erratic behavior circa 2019-2020, such as getting into the pissing match with Unsworth, offering and then being being forced to overpay for Twitter, and pivoting towards full-blown Trumpism and neo-Nazi-adjacent politics. Before then he was just known as a hard-driving Bill Gates-style nerd CEO. By now, I don't think he cares about any role except that of cult leader.

2. Why traders continue to buy Tesla stock even as sales nose-dive.

See above. It's not a car company. It's a robot company^W^WAI company^W^Wenergy company^W^Wtaxi company^W^W personality cult.

[rsynnott]

> He started engaging in irrational, erratic behavior circa 2019-2020

Hrm, not sure about that. Remember the cave diver thing? He's been fairly unhinged for a while.

[CamperBob2]

Right, that was Unsworth. 2019, IIRC?

[rsynnott]

2018, apparently. Thought it was earlier tbh.

[nebula8804]

I mean his first wife(mother of that trans daughter) wrote the following about him in 2010:

"Still, there were warning signs. As we danced at our wedding reception, Elon told me, "I am the alpha in this relationship." I shrugged it off, just as I would later shrug off signing the postnuptial agreement, but as time went on, I learned that he was serious. He had grown up in the male-dominated culture of South Africa, and the will to compete and dominate that made him so successful in business did not magically shut off when he came home. This, and the vast economic imbalance between us, meant that in the months following our wedding, a certain dynamic began to take hold. Elon's judgment overruled mine, and he was constantly remarking on the ways he found me lacking. "I am your wife," I told him repeatedly, "not your employee."

"If you were my employee," he said just as often, "I would fire you.""

https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start...

I was at /r/RealTesla when it began as an offshoot of /r/Teslamotors. A well known frequent critic of Tesla got banned and him and a bunch of other frustrated skeptics went off on their own.

The people in the auto and space industry were screaming from the rooftops about him for years. The Elon loving crowd were software techies who had no understanding and respect of the history of the auto and space industries totally ignored them.

I'm reminded from a quote from Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of GM (during the bankruptcy era): https://youtu.be/GXJnS9RgKsg?t=2686

Now to be fair to Tesla, they managed to attract tons of amazing talent that screwed up in some ways but produced absolute brilliance in many other ways.

Will Lutz ultimately be proven right just due to chance?(ie. Elon dropping the ball after everything that has transpired) I don't know really. In the end both pro and anti Tesla sides were right and wrong on many things.

[ziml77]

I'm glad you have some evidence of it being nothing remotely new. Reading these comments I was starting to feel like I was crazy for remembering that he had always been pretty nasty.

[CamperBob2]

"Pretty nasty" is one thing. There's nothing in that article that isn't par for the course at his level of play.

The way he behaves now is actively self-destructive. That part is new.