> However, Tesla vehicles got a $7,500 effective price hike just one week ago, when the federal US EV tax credit was taken away by republicans. Incidentally, Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent $200 million in political bribes to help make that happen, thus increasing the price of his company’s vehicles, and in fact making the “more affordable” Model Y actually less affordable than it was just last week.
A guy who makes EVs spending $200 million to help elect the party that doesn’t believe in global warming can be called many things, but a “bribe” isn’t one of them, lol. He was acting directly contrary to his self interest.
tzs 2 days ago [-]
> A guy who makes EVs spending $200 million to help elect the party that doesn’t believe in global warming can be called many things, but a “bribe” isn’t one of them, lol. He was acting directly contrary to his self interest.
From what I've read Musk believed that the loss of the EV tax credit would hurt the EV programs at other companies such as GM and Ford much more than it would Tesla, with a decent chance it could push the timeline for those programs becoming profitable far out enough that those companies might have to greatly cut back whereas Tesla could still profit without the credit.
If he did indeed believe that then supporting Republicans may have appeared at the time to be in his self-interest. That doesn't mean it was a good idea, of course, because who said that party would stop at just that tax credit? They also killed the emissions credits that ICE car companies were buying from Tesla which were responsible for something like 40% of Tesla's net income.
gamblor956 3 days ago [-]
It was a bribe. And it wasn't against his interests at the time. After all, the GOP has believed many things and immediately believed the opposite as soon as the Orange Man said something.
Musk just wasn't expecting to start a feud with the guy he put into office with that $200 million. Up until that point though, he was getting literally everything he wanted out of the bribe.
jacquesm 1 days ago [-]
You've got Musk's self interest massively misjudged. He cares about power first and money second because power can get you more money when you need it, but in a functioning democracy money still comes with a cap on the power that you can buy.
The $200 million was money well spent, it resulted into Musk staying out of jail and pulling up the ladder behind him now that's he the incumbent. The success or failure of Tesla in the marketplace at some point could have killed Musk's empire but I think we are now past that point: Tesla will survive and more friction for contenders serves him well.
Finally, there is a timing issue here as well: when Musk spent that money he was set to become a favored player at the court of Trump if Trump won, which happened. But that didn't really play out long term in the way he expected. So in a sense you are confusing the position that Musk took prior to Trump's election with the consequences almost a year later, which Musk could not have known with certainty at the time, even if it is a mixed blessing for Tesla, and probably a bigger loss to the challengers rather than to the incumbent.
Swenrekcah 3 days ago [-]
The purpose was to get in a position to gut institutions that were investing his financial and other shenanigans in order to make them disappear.
I believe he succeeded in that.
rayiner 3 days ago [-]
I assume you think the $1.5 billion Kamala Harris spent was out of the goodness of people's hearts?
gamblor956 3 days ago [-]
A candidate spending money on campaign ads is a very different thing from a rich guy literally offering money to voters to vote for his candidate.
A lawyer should know that...
rayiner 2 days ago [-]
That’s not what happened but you know that.
jacquesm 1 days ago [-]
Musk has given money to voters in various elections on multiple occasions. The fact that he got away with it doesn't change my opinion of this.
A guy who makes EVs spending $200 million to help elect the party that doesn’t believe in global warming can be called many things, but a “bribe” isn’t one of them, lol. He was acting directly contrary to his self interest.
From what I've read Musk believed that the loss of the EV tax credit would hurt the EV programs at other companies such as GM and Ford much more than it would Tesla, with a decent chance it could push the timeline for those programs becoming profitable far out enough that those companies might have to greatly cut back whereas Tesla could still profit without the credit.
If he did indeed believe that then supporting Republicans may have appeared at the time to be in his self-interest. That doesn't mean it was a good idea, of course, because who said that party would stop at just that tax credit? They also killed the emissions credits that ICE car companies were buying from Tesla which were responsible for something like 40% of Tesla's net income.
Musk just wasn't expecting to start a feud with the guy he put into office with that $200 million. Up until that point though, he was getting literally everything he wanted out of the bribe.
The $200 million was money well spent, it resulted into Musk staying out of jail and pulling up the ladder behind him now that's he the incumbent. The success or failure of Tesla in the marketplace at some point could have killed Musk's empire but I think we are now past that point: Tesla will survive and more friction for contenders serves him well.
Finally, there is a timing issue here as well: when Musk spent that money he was set to become a favored player at the court of Trump if Trump won, which happened. But that didn't really play out long term in the way he expected. So in a sense you are confusing the position that Musk took prior to Trump's election with the consequences almost a year later, which Musk could not have known with certainty at the time, even if it is a mixed blessing for Tesla, and probably a bigger loss to the challengers rather than to the incumbent.
A lawyer should know that...
I guess that's more the standard for news now but I always considered heavy bias to be a tabloid thing.
Electrek chief editor naively thought he would actually get $500K in Tesla supercars from referral program https://electrek.co/2019/01/17/tesla-roadster-free-killed-re...