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

[BritStudent]

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.

No, the point I made, and the point made in the court case was that he had been dishonest, ie, he lied about the financial health of SolarCity, not projections. He flat out deceived the investors. The case was ultimately dismissed because the court found with the rise in the price of Tesla stock around this time period that investors hadn't suffered a loss - but it was Musk who gained the most financial benefit of this deal.

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.

Musk's ownership of the combined company was about 11%, if the other 89% disagreed what he was doing with their company, surely you're not disputing they have a right to fire him? He wanted to change direction from the path that ultimately grew them from 1 million customers to hundreds of millions of customers in the next few years.

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.

The point about them costing less to produce isn't true, although they are hoped to cost less by 2027. However, they are the most subsidised product for sale in America and their sales rely heavily on these subsidies. Consumers get a tax credit of up to $7500 per car sold, while Tesla still takes home about $2 billion per year due to the carbon credit program.

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.

SpaceX announced a few months ago that it's now breaking even with Starlink, although this is alleged to also be a deception and that it's deliberately leaving out certain costs eg launch costs and losses on the terminals.

https://payloadspace.com/starlink-and-ku...money%20on

But again, the point was rather that SpaceX is a company that is reliant on government expenditure, from a man who objects to much other government expenditure - even last night he asked Trump to put him in charge of a new government committee to cut government spending if he is elected.

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

The mainstream media isn't perfect, but it's the most reliable, credible media we have - some guy on Facebook or Twitter is certainly not. Nor is the collective 'wisdom of crowds'.

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.

So the Waymo's are geo-restricted, but surely actual full self-driving in their area, with no driver, is better than Tesla's - or any other current system? How can it not be? Anyway, experts who judge these things judge it to be - same with the Mercedes system. I've seen the test you mention, it was a test clearly designed to favour the Tesla. Other tests have conluded the Mercedes is the superior system.

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.

Come on, your source is 4 years old when there was no competition, my sources are from the last few months. They were aspirational when they were first to market with self driving and before Elon had gone off the deep end, now there is regular surveys of purchasers being embarassed to own a Tesla, not because of the car but because of Elon!

Sticker prices of Tesla's have been cut by up to a third from their peak, in order to maintain market share against the competition which is proving devastating for profit margins and described as unsustainable.

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.

That's simply not true. In Florida, Texas and Tennessee the Republican state legislatures have all introduced legislation to enable the banning of books and sometimes speech in libraries and schools. These recent moves to ban books are just one of the reasons that the US is being judged to be less 'free' then in the past (that and the voter suppression), although by your assessment this seems to mean you'd consider these totalitarian states.

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/11/...20backside

https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/202...ng-the-us/

[b]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.

In all societies we make a social contract, are you suggesting that because you can't legally kill a stranger in the US that you're living in a totalitarian state? What about instructing someone else to commit a murder? Speaking freely? Of course not. A frankly ridiculous assertion.

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]
Again, you haven't really disputed any of the arguments and points I've made, refuting the idea that Elon is  an honest man, let alone THE most honest man. Time and time again he's told lies and misled people, usually when it's profitable for him. His own family members, parents and children have all accused him of being dishonest and a liar.

But we'll just have to agree to disagree on these subjects!