Elon Musk realized too late how badly Tesla will hurt from Trump's bill

[Archived copy of the FT report mentioned](https://archive.ph/A5lD2) for those hitting a paywall.

Thanks for that.

Thanks for posting the article! As so often with Musk, this story brings to mind the following quote, attributed to him: "The right metric for intelligence is probably the ability to predict the future."

But he's a genius

Turns out living in a k-hole makes it difficult to keep up with reality. Shocked. 😮

Shitass company on welfare credits

No. He hasn't "woken up". He thought he could be "the power behind the throne" but turned out to be the court jester. Now, he's just trying to fix the damage to his brand and companies that he did single handedly.

i mean tesla's sales are slowly grinding to a halt and now that tesla's social welfare is being cut tesla's future is gonna be very uncertain. Elon has borrowed a bunch of money against his tesla shares as leverage. So i imagine he's not too happy.

My take as well. He thought the usual billionaire back deals could be made. That sitting at the table would assure that. And most times he would be right. But he trusted Trump. Jokes on him.

And Trump made noises about not throwing so much public money at Space-X either when they were having a bigger spat. Yeah, none of this is a surprise to anyone except Elon. And Tesla stans.

He was warned and had actively discusses it before getting in bed with Trump. He seemed to think it would hurt his competitors more and was fine with it. Shame he didn't consider his competitors also made ICE cars and any reduction in EV subsidies would push people into buying ICE.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I believe Trump is telling the truth this time. Musk needs subsidies and government contracts, that's the only way he knows.

He didn't learn shit. He thought he could puppet master Trump with batshit crazy ideas. Now he is making his own party where batshit ideas are the point. It is going to get so much worse for Tesla.

I think Musk was perfectly fine with losing the EV credits, because he figured he'd get 10x back in government contracts for spacex, AI, starlink and even Tesla. And the competition to Tesla would probably go bankrupt in the process, so win-win. But something happened (we don't know what) and now Musk is on Trump's bad side and up shit's creek without a paddle. He ain't going to get the gov contracts, and he's lost the EV credits. So now he's royally fucked. My wild guess, knowing Trump, is that Trump probably tried to shake him down. Probably said "Give me 5 billion or no gov contracts." Musk probably refused, given he bought Trump the presidency and now here we are. They are doing an A+ job though of showing the world how corrupt the American political system is.

The more I learn about Elon, the more I realize just how stupid he is.

I think it’s both. I legitimately think he’s stupid.

he must be pretty low IQ to be so late to this realisation

He's good at investing, but too on the spectrum for when social knowledge is needed.

Ex-fanboy here. Elon is not stupid, but I suspect he has won way too often, and it has emboldened to the point of making him believe that he can do no wrong, and when things go wrong, he truly believes he did the right thing, but the blame is on others. In the words of Bane: "Victory has defeated you".

Headline reminds me of the ending monologue of *It Conquered The World* (MiSTies will know).

> But something happened (we don't know what) and now Musk is on Trump's bad side and up shit's creek without a paddle. Musk got into a physical fight at the White House, over-promised and under-delivered on DOGE and in general acted like a bull in a China shop in attempting to domineer over government departments that others appointed by Trump were in charge of...then after that he went and attacked Trump with pedo stuff. >My wild guess, knowing Trump, is that Trump probably tried to shake him down. It was the other way around. Musk was taking issue with the BBB like with EV/pollution credits, which Musk himself campaigned for getting rid of those credits last year. Musk was the one who did a 180 and was making the demands.

Wait as second. I was assured that this man is the genius of our time.

Musk is younger, considerably richer, and in his earlier years, infinitely more popular than Trump. That makes him Trump’s target. If Musk didn’t think Trump would use him up and then crush him just for the lols, then Musk is an idiot

Lost in solar. Lost in vacuum tube tunnels. Lost in robots. Lost in EV trucks. I guess in baseball his average would be good, but he’s no sure thing. And another thing. His own over hyped AI hates him.

I think it’s more of a massive Dunning Kruger effect. He’s been very successful stealing other peoples ideas and sucking at the taxpayer nipple so he thinks he is a genius at everything ~ and his cult and drug addled brain reinforce it.

He's only half as smart as his fans think he is, one tenth as smart as he thinks he is. Everyone not high on their own farts knew what Trump.l was going to do to America.

Solar is debatable. Robots are for Elon a future investment, so he won't count them as a loss (and it might not be). EV trucks... I suspect the long-middle term will show it as a flop, but Elon still thinks he will win long term. AI is a perfect example of how this "I am unbeatable" attitude is going to defeat him. Elon will never accept an AI that does not agree with him (and even despite that, it still doesn't in many things) on what "the truth" really is.

one of the most aggravating things about this mew era of stupid is how un self aware the main actors are. It never occurred to Musk that narcissists cannot be friends? that trump would not go fossil fuel heavy and fuck tesla? that he would not be hated for being trumps hatchet man? he really believed buying an election was going to guarantee durable political power with TRUMP as king? There was no 4d chess played (all the media trying to make that idea work, were also stupid). It’s school yard lord of the flies and the main bully just uses people as anyone reading anything about trump from art of the deal onwards, knows. Trump has applied a filter to news now we only read about him vs people stupid enough to get burned by him.

We all knew Trump was an imbecile but it's quite staggering how politically naive Musk is. He's like an idiot child who thinks, because he's an entrepreneur, that he can turn his hand to anything. But he's got all the political nous of a panda with a head injury.

Much like everyone else who rode Trumps coattails and then were shocked when he dumped them (see Rudi G)

Really? Because I saw it coming a hundred miles away.

Trump does not care what you did for him. Only how you can benefit him right now. Musk learnt, like every other contractor - you have to get Trump to pay up front.

Musk wants to crash the USD and End the Fed that’s what happened. He wanted the USA to default.

"The face eating leopards won't eat __my__ face"

Yup. So they are trying to tell us that one of the richest men in the world didn't know EXACTLY how much that bill or bills like it, would cost him and his portfolio? I call BS. He and his companies have TEAMS of people churning approximated numbers out based on the latest sludge coming out of DC.

You think BYD will go bankrupt.🫡

For some reason people seem to think they can "fix" or "control" a raging narcissist where literally no one else has done this before. I think Elon's biggest mistake is thinking Trump is somehow controllable.

He’s actually very famous for firing anyone who says stuff he doesn’t like.

Stupid Leon got trump in office and then trumps stupid bill basically killed teslas only current profit source (carbon credits) along with the EV credit. He thought he helped trump out and after that car commercial Tesla would be good and now it’s in the dumps

With the exception of that ONE Twitter engineer / manager. Employee? There's a story anyway. But if that's the case, he shouldn't have that position. If he's not informed of the best route to take in order to make or keep the business healthy, the board should be kicking him to the curb. Hahahahahahah. I know. It sounded good though eh?

I think it's obvious what happened: Trump got tired of Musk stealing the spotlight. They're both extremely immature narcissists. It has to be about them. That's why Musk gave his "Roman salute" at the inauguration - he wanted it to be about him. And it worked. That's almost the only thing anyone knew about the inauguration. Trump must have been steaming at the time. In any event, once Musk served his purpose it was imperative to Trump's ego to boot him out of the spotlight.

Did he think owning the libs is free? Lmao

Him being on the spectrum has nothing to do with him being a racist, classist asshole.

I honestly don’t think he did. I think in his head he was running DOGE had practically unlimited access and power to do anything and could influence law making decisions Only problem? It proved too unpopular and the savings he actually made are too small to justify the backlash. Two things Trump love, money and popularity, and DOGE is losing both. You can see their first official tiff is shortly after he got kicked out of DOGE thereby sealing the breakup. He lost his influence over the bill making process then.

Musk is stupid and Trump is about as corrupt as you can be. I do not feel sorry for those that will be screwed by the meme aspect of Tesla or Musk himself. But I do worry how much damage Trump will do before he leave his office in 3.5 years.

And the two Nazi salutes. Stop glossing over the sig heils, media!

That’s funny. I think the correct metric for intelligence is knowing how fucking stupid that statement is.

this model y is so fkn ugly, god.

The majority of Musk's wealth is now his private companies of SpaceX and Starlink. He also has a Xai which would compete with Tesla AI directly. Can you say conflict of interest and resource tunneling. He is getting sued in 2024 by some of the major investors over that btw. Of his wealth in Tesla, he wants 50 billion dollar compensation packages. To be paid directly by investors. Yes on paper his Tesla wealth is high but the reality is he could never access that without tanking his stock. I suspect he knows this. I also suspect he just wants the maximum he can get out of Tesla and his real passion is SpaceX.

If you mean Musk's statement, i.e. "The right metric for intelligence is probably the ability to predict the future", I think it's quite sensible myself. However time and time again Musk has demonstrated that he is pretty bad at doing so himself. [He severely underestimated Covid](https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/03/13/elon-musks-false-covid-predictions-a-timeline/), he was supposed to have got people to Mars by now, then there were those million robotaxis in 2020, and I could go on and on. Oh, and he spent millions getting Trump elected, thinking it'd work out well for him!

did you see the thiel interview with his hand picked right wing christian interviewer?. Another staggering self own from a billionaire reptile living in some hallucinated reality. at least zuck is kept behind hedges by his wife and bezos is occupied by a midlife crisis second marriage. These tech moguls. They were so bearable when they stayed out of politics and culture and just argued about who stole what UI design from whom. Ugh. what a decade.

He’s never gonna fix it, the people interested in teslas offerings were turned off by musks antics, now he’s gonna end up the target of conservatives. He played himself

Yes, but you see, he's an incredibly stupid asshole.

> Elon is not stupid There's no evidence to suggest that. He, and his mom, tout how smart he is, and what a great engineer/programmer, but every bit of evidence says otherwise. Everything he touches personally, has been a failure. His insistence that he's great is going to the downfall of Tesla and possibly SpaceX.

> It never occurred to Musk that narcissists cannot be friends? Of course not, because it would require self reflection of his own problems.

Look, man. I take a lot of drugs and I’m not that much of a dipshit, and I’m sure as shit not a nazi.

If only he called his new party the leopards eating people's faces party. Golden opportunity missed.

The board comprised entirely of his family and close friends?

His real passion is snorting lines of ketamine mixed with MDMA. Whatever modicum of talent he might have had building SpaceX and Tesla is long gone.

As I said in another comment any modicum of talent or intelligence Musk once had has long be snorted away. Hes genuinely a moron now, but investors are way too deep to abandon him now.

> Turns out living in a k-hole makes it difficult to keep up with reality. Shocked. Musk was just an incredible carnival barker, just like Trump... thats it. And evidently, as PT Barnum said, *"There's a sucker born every minute."*

All true, especially the irony.

Of course it is. And his hunting dog as well?

Wait wait wait wait. Something's not adding up. He has friends?

He was somewhat smart before all the drugs and the extended narc collapse. Not genius level smart, or even particularly gifted smart. That area between a little higher than average, maybe at the bottom of "high average". I do agree that the guy hasn't been trounced thoroughly enough in his life. Now that he's finally going through it, he's old, stale, and set in his ways and the trouncing is even less fun than it's supposed to be. Surrounding himself with rattling cans of yes men didn't make anything better, either. Guy's always been full of himself; not getting waxed a few times in the market and the court of public opinion allowed him to keep going until the Narc Horizon, where no amount of narc supply is quite enough. Guy's in the "find out" stage. Somehow, I don't think he's learning anything.

Tough, but fair.

everyone is a fall guy for Trump. why I would never be in his cabinet

I don’t know if it’s the system so much as it is *these men*. Trump is notoriously corrupt; Musk is a morally bankrupt clown, and vice versa.

Barker*

So here’s the thing. Musk made a bet. He bet if he could join ‘em, he could head it all off at the pass.what he didn’t realize is that 1.) true believers are exactly that, and 2.) trump cares about exactly no one. He lost the bet.

I want to know who really hit him, lmao

Yeah, the smoke and mirrors are clearing up for the world, haha

Supposedly it was Bessent. But it was after Elon basically tackled him.

Thanks, edited.

Yeah, I think that’s my #1 guess too.

Ya, because you have a soul.

That is surprising because in Q1 2025, Tesla reported $409 million in net income—but that included $595 million in regulatory credits. Without those credits, Tesla would have posted a loss of approximately $189 million, highlighting just how dependent the company has become on carbon credit sales, which made up nearly 30% of its quarterly profit.

Has Trump ever expressed his desire for the USA to move away from fossil fuels?

God I can wait until end of q4 to see how bad the bleed is!

> I think it’s both. I legitimately think he’s stupid. he probably never "read" the bill (or no one told him). he did the same buying twitter, he **purposefully and hastily** skipped a disclosure period, just so that he can buy it "quicker" in April 2022, after which he started backtracking... .. so as it says also below, "Dunning Kruger". Note he's backtracking RN , too

I maintain its the kid calling trump out at the white house.

I thought he is the smart one 😂 😂

He is not well mentally

Turns out it really doesn’t matter since he already killed the company with a couple shitler salutes in Inauguration Day. But I’m sure he can blame the demise on one the bbb

I have no idea why he thought the EV credit would be kept, even though everyone around him kept saying they planned to kill it, or how he rationalized its being eliminated

It's funny how he thought that held be different than rydy Giuliani or Mike the Pillow Guy because he was bigger. But he's literally followed the same trajectory as them.

.Deleted by User.

That one twitter engineer was already an ex employee when that x spaces convo happened

And his own conduct

And now he's managed to make himself the #1 target of the most spiteful and powerful man in the world, while simultaneously alienating the only demographic that supported his companies. It's mind boggingly inept. And yet the stock will still probably go up for completely irrational reasons.

Neglectful of literally everything and everyone he is responsible for.

Wait til you see the Cybertruck.

He alienated his customer base and sided with the party that hates his product. Go ahead and tell me how smart he is again…

Still doesn’t realize. Just started a political party (or is trying to) and that caused tesla stick to go down for a bit bc Elon’s attention is unfocused.

I would tend to agree. Shit his mouth off online about twitter and then bc he made a legit offer for the company in writing, they. Could sue him to enforce it and force him to buy even after he said he was ‘not serious’ or some shit. And then in a book about him there is a credible tale of a relatively new engineer that offered a suggestion for doing something better in a group of folks or some such, and according to the book, Elon had him fired that day bc, I guess, a man with a tiny ego feels threatened by anything. He is a goofball blowhard.

People are smart in different ways; Elon Musk’s strength isn’t social intelligence. 99% of CEOs understand that alienating 1/2 the population is something to be avoided at all costs. 99 % of CEOs understand that becoming Donald Trump's #1 enemy is to be avoided at all costs. Elon understands neither of these things.

He was too focused on "Defeating Woke"

Rudy Guilliani remembers. Lots of roadkills on the way that Elon took.

I’d just love to know how much about these conversations, that materially impact Tesla’s outlook, were being shared with the board.

He’s doing more damage, instead of fixing anything.

Yeah that's actually how it happens. Tesla internally likely knew all this stuff would be disaster and Musk was probably informed of it. He either ignored it or outright called the people warning him stupid and fired them. You're falling into a common cognitive bias which is that there's no way an idiot could be as rich or powerful as Musk is, but in reality there's really no hard checks against it. You would think there would be a host of qualified critics that would shoot down his ideas, but they're generally ignored. You would think that people who are supposed to advise on stocks for HNWI and institutions would have panned the ridiculous statements on Tesla's technology and profitability because they should similarly have access to teams of people who can inform them but they similarly don't bother because the stock goes up regardless and they get more flack for not recommending the stock as a result. You would think regulators would do something to stop the blatant misinformation and securities fraud he engages in but they've been defanged and Musk was viewed as too politically important to the whole green movement to prosecute too heavily and treated with kids gloves for a while and recently just captured the Trump administration and flat out fired the people who would have been responsible for investigating him. Eventually it'll all come crashing down, he's upped the ante so much at this point and literally promised his investors trillions of dollars in company valuation based on the premise of fantastic technology and complete market dominance and there's not really anything bigger to promise next if that doesn't materialize in a few years. It is all ridiculous and very hard to accept because it fundamentally undermines the idea that multiple aspects of our society generally work and things this corrupt and stupid wouldn't happen in plain sight like this, but he's been pulling it off for years and somehow the sitting President of the United States is an even worse and more corrupt businessman. It literally took seeing this idiot on stage giving multiple Nazi salutes at a political rally to really start cluing in the population at large that he might just something different than the genius he's claimed to be for years. Once you start digging a bit you'll find half the crap he's credited with is just a misrepresentation of the events actually occurred and that he largely failed upwards to hundreds of millions of dollars in net worth during the dotcom bubble and leveraged that into taking over Tesla and funding SpaceX initially. He's good at raising capital and courting public funding but that's about it really.

High IQ but zero common sense. Add in the drugs and bipolar and this is the result.

His wealth is an illusion based on fantasy valuations of his companies. His tangible wealth is at most $10B. It's possibly negative when all his debts are considered. Musk's advisers are his family, "friends" and a bunch of grossly overpaid nobodies hired for loyalty. They are telling him what he wants to hear. Because he fires anybody who pushes back.

I think he’s likely below average IQ. But I could be wrong. The people from whom he steals his ideas are high IQ, though.

Then he’s not the smartest man in the world, as he claims. Anyone with even half a brain would have known that the man who has never told the truth a single time in his entire (unfortunately long) life would just keep playing the hits. Musk is a fucking idiot for believing that “this time will be different”.

It's likely dumber than that. A big factor in Tesla's decline and lack of investment in its actual automotive production is simply the fact that Musk has believed for at least the last 3 years that the completion of a fully autonomous robotaxi services and level 5 FSD is imminent. If you go back to his statements about sales growth this year they were literally predicated on FSD for example. So each year when that doesn't materialize the company is left scrambling to try to eek out some kind of growth. In 2023 it was unit volumes, in 2024 it was the energy division and this year it'll likely be nothing and Musk is finally realizing that's the case. He literally didn't think the EV credits would matter because everyone would be buying a Tesla for FSD or they would have robotaxi cash flow streaming in. He flat out insulted analysts and critics who bothered to ask questions about the auto manufacturing portion of the business and margins there in the past because Robotaxi and FSD were all that mattered. That's pretty much how it's always been for Tesla, there's always nothing but sunny days and blue skies ahead and absolutely no planning of contingencies, pushed schedules or product failures. Tesla has in the past always managed to eek by because simply delivering something a bit late was enough or in the case of COVID similar coordinated government and central bank intervention staved off a massive disaster and allowed for a quick turn around which rewarded the massive risk he took on the idiotic belief that COVID was just a worse version of the flu. Everytime things have gone sour in the past he's been able to get everyone focused on some shiny new bauble or promise of insane profitability down the line and if business was good well it was similarly only going to get better as Tesla continued to innovate. They'll probably get through Q3 alright with the demand pull ahead in the US but after that he's going to have either lean hard into hyping robotaxi yet again or someone is going to have to come up with a plan B to pitch to investors to keep them interested.

You can either own a successful electric car company, or the libs, but not both. I’m pretty sure this is an old proverb

For a genius CEO that is really idiotic and lack of vision.

I agree. Politics is a different kind of animal. Then throw in Trump in the mix and it's like a Machiavelli porno. Elon had zero insight. None.

You that scene in Toy Story, where woody is having the dream and Andy says “I Dont Want to Play With You Anymore”…. Thats Elon being tossed away after being used…

IF that's true, he's a Cat5 IDIOT

Bro donated $230 million to lose $23+ billion. Truly a visionary. Nikolai Tesla talking to pigeons phase visionary.

When a jester (clown) takes the throne, he does not become king. The court becomes a circus.

Yea, I've been updated to that I guess. I'm sure I knew that. I mean, it's something that I SHOULD have heard as I make an effort at being informed (while using facts btw. It's a new thing I'm doing - it's soon to be all the rage) My brain may be shutting off access to areas based on the health of the content! A fact about Fox News and those anchors? The ol' brain throws it behind the memory of my first hard on and under that time I called my 5th grade teacher mom. Ohhh I like it. If this keeps up I won't remember Trump!

Then he shouldn’t be the CEO. Foresight is what is required by anyone afforded this responsibility and opportunity.

Surprise: without our taxpayer money, Tesla is a $1Trillion money-losing business.

I agree with some form of the "stupid" hypothesis; I always go back to that interview where he solemnly read the entire Carl Sagan "blue dot" essay, and it ends with a line that says something about Earth being the only planet we have. And then he looks up and does this derisive snort and says "Not true. Mars. We have Mars." For this science fiction techno king to have so fundamentally misconstrued that piece on numerous levels in such an idiotic way, would make me doubt him even if I were a staunch fanboy. More so than "pedo guy," more than no new covid cases by April, and all the rest.

I think he has teams acting as his personal echo chamber.

Elon Musk is the epitome of self harm.

He knew Tesla would fail anyway, now he has an excuse for it.

That would’ve got right under his skin. Just another blow to his ego. I think ultimately, Musk thought he could influence the President more tbh en he already had, but just like all things Trump is so easily swayed by the many Wormtounges around him, he flip-flopped enough to go down a path Elon didn’t like, such as the BBB and the two narcissists fell out.

The only sensible take here. As incompetent and unhinged as he may be, he definitely knew about this bill. In all likelihood, he probably wanted this bill to pass, as it would hurt all his competitors in the EV space, where he WAS situated in a good spot. And then Tesla blew up

" . . . he has won way too often, and it has emboldened . . . " Yep, but even SpaceX almost failed. They were so close to bankruptcy with the Falcon rockets that it was scary, instead it worked & is now the dominate rocket in the world. Most billionaires would have just sat on their fortune.

Well said.

Yep, spot on. As part of the development of his SpaceShip, there were lots of quotes around about how he didn't like the covid-19 restrictions (this also happened at the Tesla factory) & how he was frustrated by the FAA & FCC. Also, part of the reason he moved away from California is because they wanted "woke" employment policies from SpaceX - whereas Musk just wanted to employ "the best."

😂😂

I get the impression he's in his "Surrounded only by yes men, who don't pull him up about all the deluded stuff he's doing" phase that all unchecked powerful people go through. Paranoid mental breakdown usually follows swiftly.

But isn’t he this super genius that will safe humanity? Does that mean Trump is even smarter? /s

yeah his mistake was kicking out his “starter wife”. Out of curiosity I prompted “what happens when two narcissists meet” and it looks like a roadmap: ———- Here's a more detailed look at what can happen: Initial Attraction: They might initially bond over shared interests and experiences, creating an illusion of a perfect match. They may even engage in "love-bombing," showering each other with attention and admiration, as both crave validation. Power Struggles: The core of their interaction revolves around control and dominance. Both narcissists will try to one-up the other, leading to a constant battle for superiority. Manipulation and Gaslighting: They'll likely attempt to manipulate and gaslight each other, trying to convince the other that their perspective is wrong or that they are being unreasonable. Lack of Emotional Connection: Despite the initial intensity, their relationship lacks the deep emotional connection and empathy that characterizes healthy relationships. They may struggle to understand or validate each other's feelings. Potential for Explosive Ends: If the relationship doesn't offer enough supply or if one narcissist feels they are not getting their needs met, it can lead to a dramatic and painful breakup. In essence, when two narcissists come together, it's often a recipe for a volatile, emotionally draining, and ultimately unsustainable relationship. —— but the problem musk has got now is he cannot end it. Trump may he done with him but he cannot escape Trump.

Carbo credits are the only thing keeping Tesla afloat. Everyone keeps taping about the subsidy that largely did not matter to Tesla. \>”Furthermore, the bill also removes penalties for automakers who fail to meet their emission requirements, which, in turn, eliminates the market for emission credits. Emission credits are a significant contributor to Tesla’s profits. In fact, Tesla would have lost money in the first quarter without them.” Then you have all the AI and crypto mining shit, which are also fucked because solar/wind etc… fuel our future AI future overlords. Ignore the car numbers/ EV mandate, and lol at Tesla quarterlies where only carbon credits make them solvent.

Imo he sold them on Doge, it failed miserably, and the Republicans were like ok bro well you're not getting shit until you deliver on these promises

Honestly, even the Mars thing, which he touts as this brilliant, insightful, humanity-saving endeavor is kinda stupid. The middle of the Sahara desert is about 100 times as hospitable as Mars. At least in the Sahara you have Earth's gravity and are only a few hours from civilization. But no one lives in the middle of the Sahara desert. Yes, visit Mars. Yes, send robots. Yes, do scientific research on Mars. But why would anyone want to live there? "They would be pioneers!". But the pioneers who settled the west were moving onto fertile land or were looking for gold or logging or whatever. Hell, even making a colony on the moon would be way easier and we haven't felt the need to do that in 50 years. I say all this as a scientific person. I get that space exploration is essential for us on many levels but this "colonize Mars" crap is just juvenile, poorly thought-out silliness. Even the way he tests his rockets seems immature. Ha ha unplanned disassembly (or whatever he calls it). It's like a kid setting off bottle rockets but they cost tens of millions each.

That's amazing. It plots out pretty much all of Trump's disastrous appointments: \- Phase 1) "I appoint only the best people, like X here" \- Phase 2) The falling out \- Phase 3) "I never even heard of dishonest, ineffective X" Usually, though, the appointee is more junior than Trump so he can sweep them under the carpet and move on. In this case, Musk was one of his paymasters, so it can't end well for him.

"You're falling into a common cognitive bias which is that there's no way an idiot could be as rich or powerful as Musk is, but in reality there's really no hard checks against it." If these guys had kept quiet I might have spent the rest of my life thinking they were geniuses. Figuring out how Musk could have gotten to where he is and still be an idiot got me thinking of all the [Dot.Com](http://Dot.Com) bubble billionaires. Musk and Thiel both invented banking websites and Musk conned Thiel into buying his worse website. Their success isn't because they're geniuses, its because legacy banks were too stupid to try online banking first. Jeff Bezos invented a fucking book store. He should have had his ass handed to him by Barnes & Noble/Borders/Walmart/Sears, but again the executives of all those companies and their competitors were too stupid to take an obvious step. Mark Cuban made his money with Broadcast.com "Hey, we should put a radio station online" Said mark Cuban and the 2 other guys. None of the owners of massive broadcasting conglomerates thought of it first. I'm not saying any of these guys are dumb, they're obviously excellent businessmen, but "Maybe we should do a thing that exists now, but on this new "internet" everyone is talking about." Doesn't take the same genius as inventing a personal computer (Gates/Jobs), or an electric car (Tarpenning/Eberhard) and it was only going to happen in a very narrow set of years before legacy businesses figured out what they were doing.

Yes, he almost failed many times, but managed to come through, which is why now he thinks he can get away with anything.

That's true :D

The Church of Elon has definitely been a problem. I have been part of it, and I regret it.

I do believe that he is not stupid. But arrogance can very easily override that trait.

I second that.

That described the entire administration aswell tbf.

It’s hilarious he is just that dumb to be a “genius”. Republicans have long said they want to get rid of anything they perceive damages oil companies. Getting rid of the credit was something Trump said he would do and believe it’s part of Project 2025 so it was literally in writing as part of the plan. He can’t claim ignorance. He just assumed his money would resolve the problem and of course it didn’t. He was just the useful idiot, GOP never took him seriously.

Well said

They’re both narcissists.

We've watched as trump has thrown every ally he has under the bus. What on earth made Elmo think he was different and special?

No, he just thought he could get that removed from the bill.

He got played, just like every other person who has ever gone into the business with Trump The list if burnt associates is so long it’s not even funny When will they learn?

Pretty much nailed it.

He obviously isn't completely stupid, but people have pointed out how Elon has zero intellectual accomplishments. Everything his companies have done is because he is rich enough to hire a lot of talented engineers who design everything for him.

I was told he was smart tho

If one needs the electric car rebate to buy the car, one can already not afford the car. Folks tell me what finance cars for 5-7 years now. That's horrible. Proper budget ratio financing on any car is based on 36 months. If you can finance it for 36 months without harming your overall budget, then get the car.

I guess it depends how you qualify "intellectual accomplishment". Rarely that can be attributed to one single man, in any of modern history. But yeah, people calling him "genius" is clearly deluded.

Ya. Dealerships/financers do a good job of making the term longer so the monthly payment goes down. But what many buyers don't realize is that the longer term makes the overall cost significantly more due to additional interest payments.

They won't. Each one thinks they'll be the exception to the rule cuz they're "special".

> I do believe that he is not stupid. Great, but your belief doesn't come with evidence backing it up. He talks a good talk sometimes, especially around SpaceX issues, but don't mistake educated for intelligent. Anyone with a reasonable memory can parrot intelligent by being educated, and he has some very smart people working for him at SpaceX - the very type that can easily educate him on talking points. There have been many dissertations on his failures at PayPal, Tesla, and now at SpaceX that describe how poor his engineering work has always been. >But arrogance can very easily override that trait. You're right about that, and he certainly has arrogance in spades, but being arrogant doesn't preclude being stupid as well, nor does it mean he has anything to be arrogant about.

So true

Woken has the word woke in it

Richest man in the world can't see the nose in front of his face

That is absolutely correct.

I do not know man. Blowing up rockets while on ketamine and MDMA seems pretty interesting to me. I would be passionate about that.

Indeed! Stop blaming drugs!

The fight happened in mid April. He had the black eye when he left government May 28th

After Elon left Washington DC he started to ask his advisors how the Trump tariffs would effect Tesla. This alarmed the advisors because this would have been an appropriate question months ago. Look at the man. [https://preview.redd.it/corporate-wants-you-to-identify-the-differences-between-v0-1bp6sy6e6hye1.png?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=ef0cb7caadf668c314c1f08009accb913c7fb7f6](https://preview.redd.it/corporate-wants-you-to-identify-the-differences-between-v0-1bp6sy6e6hye1.png?width=1080&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=ef0cb7caadf668c314c1f08009accb913c7fb7f6) He is wearing two hats and looks like he's fucking blitzed out of his mind (because he is). He was so drugged up he had no idea how to process what was happening around him. After he fell and gave himself a black eye (yeah right, that was your five year old child) he started to dry out a bit and come to realize what a mess he made of his life.

No, he didn't. Do you realize how many analysts and advisors (aka lawyers) someone as rich as him has surrounding him? The idea that Elon Musk is an individual person is wrong. There is a team of people that compose whar we we see as Elon, and it is inconceivable that team of people did not realize what was going to happen in this bill.

Because he's a fucking moron. Republicans have been anti evs for years. Why did he think he was suddenly going to get them to buy his cars?

I disagree.. to make correct predictions you only need factual information and functional models. That's it. Of course, you need enough cognitive capacity to process the information through the model, but usually having basic education is enough to accomplish that. e.g. Anyone can learn to count cards and predict good hands in blackjack, no extraordinary intelligence needed.

It's why all the new Cabinets are near-do-well types. too proud of stupid to know they will be blamed. Like Bondi and Patel getting blame for not releasing the Epstein files, because they know who is on that list or the stupid MAGA who still believe Trump isn't on the list. sad because I thought Giuliani wasn't a terrible mayor and cleaned up NY..he fell hard.

Ego

He is way above average IQ. People who have worked with Musk have said his intellect is extremely intimidating. Musk was accepted into a material sciences doctoral program at Stanford but dropped out after two days, This has been confirmed in writing by the Stanford administration. In 2022 Professor Bill Nix, his prospective doctoral supervisor. wrote to Musk to praise him for his understanding of battery technology. [https://www.livemint.com/news/world/elon-muk-receives-letter-from-his-almost-standford-professor-see-post-11661137610084.html](https://www.livemint.com/news/world/elon-muk-receives-letter-from-his-almost-standford-professor-see-post-11661137610084.html)

And the real question is how long till the stock market realizes Tesla is a sinking ship and dumps their wildly overpriced stock? Thunderf00t might end up pretty close to right on his Musk bankruptcy prediction.

He wanted to be Soros.

One of the problems is people think wealth means smart. Elon benzos and gates came from money already. If Elon was born into middle class he wouldn't have done anything.

They only say that for fear of retaliation. It’s all BS.

No. He knows.

He has one patent on his name and it’s a stupid one. Show me one scientific advance that he’s responsible for and I might change my mind.

I think he backed Trump to stay out of jail.

Head of NASA was just changed Elon mentions the Epstein list and Trumps involvement then suddenly the head of NASA is changed? Trump is ridiculous

He hoped he could get a special "Tesla" credit

If he was a genius, he's not now! Crashing and burning much like Starship.

I also do a ton of ketamine. that doesn't mean it isn't possible for drugs to induced delusion. it's very possible he has a drug problem that has contributed to his lack of self awareness and attachment to reality. k is particularly good at changing your world view and perspective for better or worse. it's literally a dissociative the Nazi part though, that doesn't just come thru from drug use. that is inherit evil deep within someone

If the system allows corruption like this out in the open, then the system itself is corrupt. Not to even mention the hidden corruption must be insane, if the one we can see out in the open is this blatant. It's one thing to do some quid pro quo behind the closed doors. That's just the way world works to an extent. It's a whole another to do it live on TV without any repercussions from the supposed balances of power.

The fact that everyone had the foresight to see this and Elon didn’t speaks to his level of intelligence.

There's no cure for being stupid!

Megalomania.

I don't particularly believe in souls, but musk and trump are pretty damning evidence that evil vs good as primary traits in some core element of a person's being is a real thing. I still lean towards nurture mixed with nature and free will producing these traits and a corrupt society built to prop up evil men is what's going on.. but I can now see more of a point to the belief of evil and good being real.

"The middle of the Sahara desert is about 100 times as hospitable as Mars." Maybe 1000 times -- and the Sahara is about 100 million times easier and cheaper to get to. There are vast, virtually uninhabited parts of the Earth that would be far easier to adapt to, colonize and sustain than Mars.

Musk wasn’t being taken in to anything. He’s just taking ketamine, using his son as a shield while acting like a k-hole zombie, begging women for artificial impregnation and realising he is a fraud and has no friends.

What was the plan though? Arent democrats more pro green energy and space science? What did musk want?

The problem with the dems is they have some (not much, but some) respect for the law. So there was a good chance Musk was going to be in deep shit with all the lies he's told (basically securities fraud, not to mention selling a product, FSD, that didn't work). With Trump, it's straight pay to play. Give him $300M and he keeps the government away from you, no jail no fines.

Ohh. That makes more sense. Thank you for the clarification.

Did MechaHitler tell him?

He has lately been such an inflated frog that I am not surprised he can’t clearly see the road ahead.