Elon Musk is a twat

[SerendipityJane]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/07/elon-musk-women-testosterone

@MarieDeGournay
Elon is not just poking in UK politics, but also Germany (election next month), as @delphin showed, and he will probably take part in more debates as the time goes on. He said it was to protect his business interests - there is a Tesla factory in Germany and he bought a couple engineering/tech companies whose work is relevant for Tesla and other main outputs.

But again he behaves as if it was a completely new idea that business owners influence politics. Of course they do; all the PR companies lobbying the EU on behalf of all kinds of firms, and decrying their laws, and every country has national organizations of business owners who are heard in the law-making processes. EM posing as if he is the first business owner to "protect his interests" is a bit ridiculous.
And usually they don't wade in like that, clearly favouring this one party AfD (except for Mueller Yoghurt, if you like to eat these, their owner donates to the AfD).
https://www.rnd.de/politik/afd-weidel-kann-sich-muellermilch-chef-in-regierung-vorstellen-OM2OQAUYVFISLBV56T5IKFDUJY.html

Anyway, that is why I said the context makes a difference; the photo and Elon's connection to the AfD seem to send a message, as in, look, I got the crazy person elected president, now I'll support you, too.

I agree with others in that two erratic people like Musk and Trump will probably fall out with each other sooner or later, though. They both are not reliable and can pivot in seconds. And I assume that when the AfD suggests laws that are against his interests, he'll turn against them in seconds, too.

And I assume that when the AfD suggests laws that are against his interests, he'll turn against them in seconds, too.

Night of the Long Knives springs to mind .

@SerendipityJane
for example the case of the electric car: the right-wing parties and some of the conservatives are against phasing out traditional fuel cars in the next years. The e-car infrastructure is heavily subsidized as it is a new technology (that in itself is often necessary, so not a problem per se). There are tax breaks and subsidized loading infrastructure and for many years you got some kind of financial bonus for buying an electric car.
Since the right-wing party is mostly denying (man-made) climate change, there is no case for electric cars or hydrogen infrastructure or anything. Already when the current governing coalition reduced (or cut, I'm not sure) the bonus for e-cars, their market share went down.

If there are more cuts, even without the AfD in goverment but because of their negotiating power in parliament, and the electric cars never get off the ground into the mass market, it would hurt EMs business interests very much and he can close down his factory. I don't know how he can square that.

Actually it's the same in the US, on a bigger scale, so it probably won't be long until the fights break out.

I'm a little more inclined to think it wasn't meant as a Nazi salute than it was, but that leaves a lot of room for ambiguity, but I don't have much patience for people who say it "obviously" was and anyone who disagrees is nazi-adjacent or something like that. To me, it seems that they are very much seeing what they already had determined is the case.

I am not sure what Musk thinks about race issues, though I suspect he has ideas about eugenics I wouldn't be happy with given his transhumanist leanings. Eugenics don't have to manifest through a racial lens, however.

He is an American citizen though so being involved in American politics isn't any more appropriate than for any other immigrant citizen.

Definatly agree with the person up thread who said his political ideology is all over the place though I think you could pull a few joined up threads from it all. I don't think he'll keep it together with the Trump people long term.

The whole push for EVs is a crock. And I believe in climate change. It is a hugely scaled up version of trying to force those ghastly cardboard straws on a highly unhappy public.

You will never win the masses over if you insist on serving up salty porridge where they have been used to a proper meal. Unless you really are fighting a war.

As several car dealers have told me, I am the poster child for an EV. 95% of my journeys are less than 20 miles. I have enough space to park 4 cars off road with a charger each. And the chances of me getting an electric car are probably up there with the chances of me winning the lottery. And I have a BSc(Hons) and a Tufty Badge.

We will get electric cars, I know. But I can also promise you the vast majority of the public won't be happy because of the other thing that has to happen first.

There are still a lot of votes in not rushing to electric cars. As long as you are bothered with democracy. Which - being honest - isn't really compatible with dealing with climate change.

'Ghastly cardboard straws'--- you mean like the way straws always used to be before they were changed to indestructible and polluting plastic straws? Funny how humanity managed perfectly well with 'cardboard straws'. It really is an odd issue to highlight - a bit like all those end-of-the-world over-reactions to <gasp> tethered bottle-tops, which look extremely silly now.

And nobody is 'forcing' anybody to use any kind of straws. Most people can just drink directly out of drinking vessels; anybody with a disability who really needs to use a straw to drink makes sure they have an appropriate kind of drinking straw with them, they're not going to leave being able to drink to the mercy of what kind of straws may or may not be randomly available.

If you don't want an EV, don't get one. If you don't like cardboard straws, don't use them. If you like democracy, protect it. If you're proud of your Tufty Badge, wear it. If you don't like salt in your porridge... you get my drift!
Cardboard straws and EVs are straws and cars.

"There are still a lot of votes in not rushing to electric cars. As long as you are bothered with democracy. Which - being honest - isn't really compatible with dealing with climate change."

@SerendipityJane

I hope very much that democracy and dealing with climate change are not mutually exclusive. There are also often many solutions to one problem, instead of only one.
Before the Greens went off the rails in various countries, there was huge support there for adding filters to power plant chimneys and reducing the amount of nuclear plants. This received another push after Fukushima (remember, anyone?) Actually after Fukushima, the Green party in Germany received their biggest growth in votes.
A lot of changes were made within democratic rules. If we didn't have all the environmental laws on keeping air and water clean(er), the current situation would be much worse and people would complain about the smog and impurity of water (as they are currently doing regarding poisoned water from fracking in various US states).

What is saved in energy costs by availability of cheap energy is added in environmental costs and health malaises of the individual and costs for society. You only get one or the other.

But people in bad economic or social situations will chose the immediate future over long-term future. This is certainly a topic for democratic discussions. I don't think it requires a dictator.

An electric car is just one possible solution to the problem of transport. Other options could be made available, including better public transport (and affordable tickets) and for rural-ish areas taxis / buses on demand, which are part of the public transport system and the tariffs. There are already experimental set-ups for this, but they are probably not viable for very rural areas. All of these require subsidies anyways.
The battery problem for electric energy is still very much on the beginner's level and requires enormous amounts of rare metals, though, so people invest in this concept and it is unknown for how long that will work.

However, the right-wing parties could combine the idea of ("mini") nuclear reactors with electric cars, so there's (on the surface) "clean and cheap energy", which they are touting so much. It would play well together with the electricity needed for data centers and computing.

Bill Gates commented on his buddy Elon today, but I think he has his own interests, too, including getting money for his health projects (vs. RFK jr).
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/27/bill-gates-elon-musk-far-right

The issues around sustainable travel etc makes me lament even more deeply the Greens' lurch into trans territory. There are so many half-truths and downright lies spread about EVs - a current one doing the rounds is 'Don't buy and EV because it will cost £20,000 to replace the battery!' Which is neither here nor there, because why would you need to replace the battery? They last for yonks, they can be tweaked and upgraded, and even when they are no longer suitable to power cars, they can still function as storage devices.

This is the kind of disinformation that a respected Green Party should be challenging, as well as the old chestnut that all EVs are expensive; but the concept of 'a respected Green Party' is on the compost heap of history😞

@MarieDeGournay
I don't want to go too off-topic, but with regards to batteries, I mean on an individual level they work for an acceptable time, and they are much better than they used to be, and as you said, old car batteries can be used for other functions. I read about a company that creates battery banks out of used ones from cars and home storage for solar power, and in this group setting, they will last another couple of years.

But the systemic problems of where you will get the resources from in the long run, and that they could still be even more efficient have not been solved yet. At the end of their life cycle, they still need better recycling broken down into individual metals, too.

The same problems exist for fossil-fuel powered cars, too - where do you get the fuel from, how do you properly recycle them - but because we've lived with these problems for such a long time, they don't really seem to be at the forefront anymore.

To loop this back to EM's technocratic approach, most of his solutions (AI, gigantic data centers, Neuralink, Robocars,...) require either vast amounts of energy or vast amounts of giving up your privacy - that includes the self-driving cars, too, as they often require cameras to navigate, so everyone is filmed involuntary.