02-26-2023, 09:21 PM
Carnos Jax wrote:
I don't know about the rest of what you quoted, but this is SPOT on. However it's not a 2023 thing....it started in April of 2022, when Musk started talking about Twitter. Initially his supporters were divided about it, but by the last quarter the majority were non-supportive (to put it mildly).
I think there's another big part of the puzzle here:
The fans have their Teslas.
Now, Tesla needs to find a way to bring average folks into the fold to continue to enjoy the same growth.
But Musk draws attention to their failures more than their successes. He's becoming a massive liability. (And this is not unusual.)
Most people don't want to drive a deadly autonomous robot programmed from afar on the whims of a madman to work or to their kids' baseball games. They want a car that makes their commute easier, more comfortable, and safer for their family. They want to buy from someone who is going to ensure quality and provide fast, reasonably-priced after-sales service.
They don't want a car from a company with an absentee CEO making sex jokes on Twitter and antagonizing regulatory agencies, nor a car that takes a month to schedule a basic service-appointment or a year to get a simple body-repair done.
People with powerful personalities drive innovation. They rebuild the paradigm. And then they inevitably fail as others take what they've built and turn it into their own successes.
Because it takes one set of skills to make a successful startup and a different set of skills to bring mainstream success.
There are few exceptions.
It will be surprising if Tesla makes it in the long run.
But it's been interesting watching them shake things up.