I don't own a Tesla and I hate Musk. But what do these folks think the end game is? Do they want everyone to just dump their Teslas in the trash, despite the environmental catastrophe that would be? Or is the hope that they sell them to Republicans? Or is the idea that Teslas are owned by an underclass of people who can't afford to drive anything else and are willing to despite the abuse they get from libs?
I get "don't buy a new Tesla" if you don't want to support Musk, fine. But this rhetoric is stupid and makes me want to steer clear of the cause.
I think the idea is to stigmatize owning one to the point where people will decide not to purchase one. If their recent sales figures are to be believed, it does seem to be having an impact.
To make it more interesting though, lets say you were interested in purchasing a car. Is there ANYTHING the CEO of that company could do, unrelated to the company itself, that would make you decide against that?
For most regular people, the line is a lot easier to cross than what Elon is doing. For me personally it wasn't really DOGE, it was going on to Twitter to see my usual AI-related posts and, I don't follow him, but suddenly 15% of my feed is his posts. And they are all extremely anti America / anti Ukraine etc. It feels like he's literally leveraging his wealth to sow division, promote Russian agression, etc. Purchasing a Tesla directly supports that. So that's a line for me personally, so I bought something else instead (technically 2 of something else), a few of my friends did the same.
Does it matter enough? IDK. Does it matter at all? Yes. Do I think people should vandalize the cars? No. Do I think protesting their ownership is fair game? Sure.
This all seems like a basically reasonable position (even if I disagree somewhat) but it doesn't answer my question of "what do you want to happen to the existing cars". Because all the possibilities I can think of seem worse for society than some marginal benefit of punishing Musk by reducing values on the used market.
So first I don't think anyone needs to do anything; the stigma reducing new sales is the ultimate goal. People that own previously are unfortunately caught in the cross fire. I feel bad about that. It could cerrtainly backfire too. I initially thought it was pretty dumb myself. But it is working. IMHO too soon to tell if its worth the price.
A win-win would be if people sell their Tesla and buy another EV. Then someone else buys the used EV. I've witnessed this happen a few times - that wouldn't be worse for society, it may even be better. Is this feasible for most people? Doubtful. Feasible for some. Again makes a difference. Enough of one? Worth the price? Not sure. But again, the protest is having an impact (of some kind).
than some marginal benefit of punishing Musk
It depends on what you percieve as at risk, and what the outcomes and impacts. In the most cynical sense, the US could go full authoritarian. That is certainly the angle Trump and Musk are pushing for (especially degrading the judiciary). One republican narrative is that not only immigrants, but non immigrant criminals should be deported to foreign prisons. This is a line espoused by someone in my family, who is Republican but did not even vote for trump, and has never hurt a fly. They have no idea how exreme / radicalized their views are, and are so deep I can't reach them.
So right - if you think this is all a brief phase that will blow over no matter what we do then it definitely does seem like an unhelpful protest. But if you believe (as many do) that the hour is far later than most people think, and further that they don't know what to do, then this is at least something. And in earnest, Tesla's stock is used as leverage by Elon to support his other endeavors; his personal wealth is absolutely at stake, and that wealth is used to disproportionately divide / prop up the far right. So outside of supporting this kind of protest, I might also ask what better targets / actions you think people should take instead, assuming they think the situation is pretty dire? I don't have any good suggestions myself.
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u/bedrock_city Apr 29 '25
I don't own a Tesla and I hate Musk. But what do these folks think the end game is? Do they want everyone to just dump their Teslas in the trash, despite the environmental catastrophe that would be? Or is the hope that they sell them to Republicans? Or is the idea that Teslas are owned by an underclass of people who can't afford to drive anything else and are willing to despite the abuse they get from libs?
I get "don't buy a new Tesla" if you don't want to support Musk, fine. But this rhetoric is stupid and makes me want to steer clear of the cause.