The great thing about Elon Musk is that he speaks the truth

[LevelUP]

There's a counterargument to everything.

This is a man who while chairman of SolarCity, assured Tesla investors that it was in good financial health, had his hand-picked board approve the takeover - then revealed it was in serious financial trouble and full of debt.

SolarCity relied on installing solar panels for free, with customers paying off the cost through government rebates and energy savings over time. However, this was never a sustainable business model. Telsa's stock was up huge after the acquisition, hitting record highs, so investors made money despite the SolarCity problems.

You're not disputing he was dishonest in his dealings re SolarCity, he certainly made a huge profit on the deal and the stock did rise - Tesla was the meme stock during the covid lockdown where millions of Americans invested their stimulus checks, they benefited more than probably any other.

One of Elon Musk's goals is to achieve 100% sustainability, with solar power playing a significant role in that effort.

You've made a subjective argument about dishonesty in the SolarCity deal, suggesting that Elon made overly optimistic projections. However, CEOs make projections all the time, and they aren't always accurate—it's part of doing business. That doesn't mean they're being dishonest. SolarCity's financials were publicly accessible, so the information was available to anyone interested. At worst, you could argue that Elon was trying to put lipstick on a pig.

This is a man who regularly complains about public expenditure yet all of his companies rely or have relied on public funds for years.

Tesla took a loan but repaid it in full. SpaceX generates most of its revenue from launching satellites. PayPal didn’t require government funds. Whatever assistance he received, the government has made back tenfold through job creation and the profitability of these companies. 

PayPal didn't require government funds, although the success of PayPal can't really be attributed to Musk anyway. He was forced out after 7 months in charge due to disagreements over his plans to move it to a whole other platform - he was forced out, it stayed as it was and it then took off. When he was forced out, it had about a million users, within 5 years it went to over 50 million users, another 5 over 100 million, etc and has grown at similar rates since.

Elon founded X.com, which later merged with another company to form PayPal. He made a substantial amount from the sale of PayPal, which he used to fund SpaceX and Tesla. You mentioned that "he was forced out," and now you wonder why he handpicks his boards to prevent this in the future. Steve Jobs was forced out of Apple, and the company nearly went bankrupt before buying out Jobs' OS company and turning Apple into a trillion-dollar business.

Tesla survived solely due to the carbon credits scheme, a government subsidy for low carbon car manufacturers. It still attributes a sizeable proportion of it's income from selling these, essentially gifted by the state. It's earned about $9 billion dollars in profit from this subsidy, which is a sizable proportion of its lifetime total profit of $26 billion.

Electric cars now cost less to produce than gasoline cars. They don't need any help—any subsidies only accelerate the adoption of electric cars. People buy Teslas because they're status symbols, much like the iPhone, and they would purchase them even without tax credits.

SpaceX gets about 60% of revenue from government contracts now, but historically it's been much higher, often over 80% - without the massive government expenditure it wouldn't exist.

SpaceX generates over half of its revenue from Starlink, and that figure is rapidly increasing. The government has a choice of which rockets to use for satellite launches, and SpaceX is the most cost-effective option, which saves the government money—ultimately saving taxpayers money since it's their money, not the government's.

This is a man who is regularly factually contradicted on his own platform by community notes.

Like everyone else, he has made mistakes in trying to stay up-to-date with the news. Even reputable sources like the AP once incorrectly reported that Russia had fired missiles into NATO territory, which turned out to be false.

And they could be considered mistakes if he didn't keep repeating the same 'mistakes' or mis-stating such obvious falsehoods. You're absolutely correct, reputable mainstream media can make mistakes at times, yet they correct and withdraw them. Musk and people like him either just delete, ignore or double-down and claim conspiracy's. Although much derided, the mainstream broadcast media is still the most reliable and trustworthy on the whole - partly because they are usually legally bound to be.

The mainstream media (MSM) has been known to repeat falsehoods for years, which is why most people today don't trust the media.

This is a man who has been promising 'full self driving cars next year' for about ten years.

Tesla now offers a full self-driving feature. Which other car company provides this feature to individual consumers on a large scale?

Tesla sells cars with a feature called autopilot, with an option upgrade to a feature named 'full self-driving', however, even Tesla is clear this is not 'full self-driving'. It is a driver assist feature. Just back in April, Tesla repeated their annual claim that by the end of this year, they will reveal a prototype for full self driving, with production to begin in 2025. Given that this feature has been getting worse in Tesla cars because of cost cutting in the technology in newer models, that seems very unlikely. It's present technology is considered a Level 2 self-driving system.

As for other manufacturers, Google has fully autonomous self-driving Waymo taxi's with no human driver present, this is considered level 4, however, this isn't available to consumers.

What is available to consumers is the level 3 Mercedes system, Drive Pilot, which is considered the most advanced system in the world available in production consumer models at present. 

Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) system can drive from point A to point B for extended periods without the need for driver intervention.

Recently, someone tested Mercedes' system, which required over 40 interventions. They are years behind Tesla, and only certain models have it, starting at $100,000+.

Waymo taxis aren't for sale, as you mentioned. If they were, they would cost over $200,000 each and still wouldn't be as good as Tesla's FSD, as Waymo's system is geo-restricted to specific areas.

This is a man who promised that Tesla cars would defy convention and appreciate in value rather than depreciate - yet they've broken records for depreciation.

Tesla vehicles have experienced far less depreciation compared to other electric cars and luxury brands. He suggested that if FSD works on older models, it could potentially increase their value.

This is completely false. Tesla cars have been dropping faster than anything, in large part due them dropping the sticker price of new cars by thousands in order to maintain sales against cheaper competition. Who's going to by used if you can buy a new car for thousands less?

Studies have shown them losing 30% of their value after a year.

https://diminishedvaluecarolina.com/study-shows-tesla-cars-depreciate-70-times-faster-than-chevy

https://www.carscoops.com/2024/03/elon-musk-said-teslas-were-appreciating-assets-unsurprisingly-he-was-very-wrong/

"On average, your typical new sedan depreciates 39 percent in its first three years. Trucks go down 34 percent. But electric vehicles drop an astonishing 52 percent."

"The outlier is the Tesla Model 3—both compared to other EVs and the market as a whole—which iSeeCars estimates is worth only 10 percent less coming off lease after three years than when it was new."
Source: Car and Driver

A large part of the cost of electric cars is the batteries, and since battery prices have dropped, electric car prices have followed suit. Now, people jump on the strawman argument to attack Elon by saying last year's prices are down, ignoring the fact that for many years, there was little depreciation.

This is a man who days ago re-tweeted the UK government was planning to open up remote island penal colonies and deport rioters.

The UK imprisons people for years over memes and speech.

Does it? Really? People who have been convicted over 'speech' are those who've generally been convicted over hate speech or incitement to violence - a very reasonable standard that is the norm worldwide. These cases are also very rare.

In the US, while hate speech is generally protected, incitement to violence is more nuanced and must pass the 'incitement to immediate lawlessness' test.

However, this nuance didn't help the shock comedian Kathy Griffin, who took part in a photo shoot holding a severed head of Trump, a bad taste joke that found her being investigated for months for 'conspiracy to assassinate the President' with a potential life sentence.

On the other hand, you have literal book banning spreading across the Republican states like wildfire in recent years.

People on the left often support speech laws until they find themselves affected by them.

Republicans aren't banning books. Amazon and eBay caved to pressure from the far left to stop selling certain books, which amounts to de facto book banning.


Do they really need remote island penal colonies to maintain a totalitarian state?
As for being a totalitarian state? Really? Compared to what? Suffice to say that if you're comparing to the US, the UK typically comes out higher in international 
'freedom' indexes.

For example, Freedom House, Index on Censorship and the Human Freedom Index all rate the US below European countries generally speaking, and mostly below the UK. Voter [/b[b]disenfranchisement [/b][b]is a real concern in the US for example.

If you can't think and speak freely, you're living in a totalitarian state, much like North Korea. No "freedom" index is going to change that.


This is a man - actually, I could list two dozen false promises and false statements that he's been making for years, so why list them all?

And I could list a number of false claims made by Mark Cuban.

Elon Musk is neurodivergent, which might explain why his brain seems hard-wired not to lie and why he is so passionate about social justice and fairness.

Again, this is just patently false - he lies and spreads falsehoods all the time as I've demonstrated. I'm not sure what relevance Mark Cuban has to a discussion about Musk? Billionaires lie? Sure. As Upton Sinclair said "It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

You're more likely to hear the truth from Elon than from just about anyone else in the business community.


You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed, and you believe whatever you want to believe.
[/b]