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The Trump-Musk friendship had already crumbled, but now it seems like it's actively imploding.
Musk went nuclear against Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill", calling it a "disgusting abomination". In response, the White House is "very disappointed" in the criticism. In other words, they're probably saying "fuck you, Elon" behind closed doors. Trump had previously been anomalously deferential to Musk, but if you read between the lines you could see there was trouble in paradise. Musk feuded with other members of the administration and Trump didn't back him up. Musk was causing enough chaos that he was starting to be seen as a political liability, and so Musk was somewhat gently pushed out of his role. People like Hanania who claimed the bromance would last have been proven incorrect, at least on this point.
Trump's budget is broadly awful, exploding the deficit to pay for regressive tax cuts, so I hope it dies.
Tesla is Musk's biggest source of capital, and it's sales, at least in Europe, were fueled by virtue signalling. Now imagine the look on the face of the exact type of person, that wants to be seen as saving the planet, suddenly being seen as a Nazi instead. Tesla's sales are tanking accordingly, so I consider Elon to be a dead man walking, if he loses political backing. The drama being about the budget, I wonder if he wasn't hoping for some bailout to be included there, which didn't materialize.
Anyway, if being cut loose is a foregone conclusion, he might figure that he might as well drag everyone else down with him.
That's an interesting play, since a fair amount of Trump's base isn't so hot on exploding budgets, so maybe he'll manage to stir the pot this way. But these days it feels like the budget can only explode, and if anyone tried doing something crazy, like balancing it, the whole system would collapse.
If you want a top tier electric car these days, get a BYD, not a Tesla. Tesla only has the best self driving these days and if that's not important to you or you don't think regulations will permit it in your jurisdiction any time soon there's no reason to go Tesla anymore. It has nothing to do with virtue signalling.
I don't know what to tell you man, from my neighbors to coworkers, it's a very specific type of person that even thinks of buying an EV.
Absolutely this. Firstly the choice to want an EV in the first place is purely virtue signalling - nobody I know ever justified it with anything other than highfalutin saving-the-planet rethoric - and secondly the choice to not pick a Tesla might have been justified by practicality, but let's be frank: it isn't. What it is is "Musk man bad". EVs are like anything related to the whole "carbon is killing the planet" narrative and its associated Ablaßhandel (Indulgence/Pardon Industry) - 100% virtue signalling.
It's so very obvious that as far as I'm concerned, any claim to the contrary will need thorough justification. I'd have to contort myself into a pretzel of charity to pretend otherwise.
I broadly agree. For a certain subset of owners, they've literally labeled themselves as virtue signalers.
I have now seen Tesla's with bumper stickers that read "I bought this before Elon was a Nazi" or something to that effect.
Publicly broadcasting that you feel the need to qualify your previous purchase with a political semi-re-(un?)-justification is a sign of deep commitment to virtue signalling above all other considerations. I have zero tolerance for such people.
Regarding EVs in general, while I am not categorically against them, they still fail a very simply problem for me that gas 100% solves (and has for sometime).
Say that I am in the mountains (because I am!) I want to drive around to some various trails and fishing spots and whatnot. Uh-oh, running low on gas, and I'm 30 miles from a gas station. Thankfully, I've got a 5 gallon gas can on the outside of my truck.
With an EV, I don't believe a "pony battery" is possible? Correct me if I'm wrong. Even more to the point, with US infrastructure construction permitting being what it is, how long would it realistically take to get EV supercharger stations in all of the same rural locations that currently have well functioning gas stations?
This points to another issue with EVs but Tesla's specifically. The people who are really into them are inherently bought in to the idea of complex system dependency. It's hilarious to me that, in Teslas, if your car needs a software update - you can't drive it. If your main dashboard panel breaks for whatever reason, you can't roll your windows down. When planning a road trip, the Tesla software cannot simply plot the fastest route from A to B, but it must factor in recharging stations and battery life. Because of how battery recharging works, you will also likely be driving at between 20 - 50% charge for much of the time. Hilarious. How do we use this complex system we've created? Well, we hack it so that it kind of works in a counter-intuitive way. Also, don't deviate from your pre-planned course to much.
This is the very definition of over-engineered. But, I believe, for many Tesla owners, that is also the very point.
They are showing themselves to be virtue signalers, but that doesn't mean they bought an EV to signal how much they cared about the environment. It just means they claim they wouldn't buy a Tesla in 2025, which is just being sensitive to social stigma; perhaps it also means engaging in political boycotts.
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