Your information seems to be wrong. It looks like Tesla still has the best selling EV in Europe. Not sure where you are getting the idea it’s not in the top 5
Musk should have just made another company and then he’d have another 500 billion but he had that mistake and now it’s over. Then again we’ll see how well open ai does over the long term
Evidence at trial showed that Musk attempted to pursue AGI at Tesla starting in 2017 before he left the board of OpenAI. He was unsuccessful in that endeavor and later restarted his efforts in xAI after the success of ChatGPT.
Musk leaves the board in 2018 I think. And something happens in DX-754 where they've pivoted to AI in SpaceX around then too. I had a lot of trouble telling what "AI" meant in late 2017 at Tesla.
---
Sept 1, 2017 DX-669: Funding paused confirmation. Elon is still on the board for a while. DX-707 specifies the board as of Sept 26, 2017, and even suggests adding Shivon, Jared, Sam Teller.
Jan 31, 2018 DX-748: Elon is still discussing things with Greg. Elon: "The only paths I can think of are a major expansion of OpenAI and a major expansion of Tesla AI. Perhaps both simultaneously"
Feb 3, 2018 DX-754: Sam Teller says Elon "just suggested we use SpaceX email for AI stuff so switching over to that"
Feb 4, 2018 DX-755: Sam Teller and Shivon Zilis discuss disabling Openai
Feb 20, 2018 DX-770: Elon officially leaves board (first document I see specifying)
This is not about money for him, this was always about control. When they wouldn't give him complete control over the project, he pulled out and probably expected OAI to fold without his support. But they survived, and he eventually realised that he had made a huge mistake by giving up all of his influence over SOTA AI research.
I think you are referring to a tweet on March 16th where he said "Btw, the proceeds of any legal victory in the OpenAI case will be donated to charity. I will in no way enrich myself." Not during the trial, not a donation to OpenAI's charity, and obviously not meaningful given his track record of not following through on public statements.
Thanks, couldn't find this. This is essentially a proposal to the court about how the case could be resolved though, not a promise, and he only proposed it after the judge denied his original proposal (https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Musk-...), which was "give me $134 billion". I think it would have been a little more credible if he had requested this originally.
Even taking it at face value, it's just an idea for the judge to consider, not legally binding for anybody.
I genuinely don't know how to make a non-sarcastic statement about Mr. Elon Musk's promises.
I especially struggle to not make a Venn diagram of people who still take Mr. Musk's promises seriously, and current state of American politics.
I simply cannot make a sentence about Mr. Musks promises that will pass Hacker News guidelines of being serious and productive.
...And that's how I feel about Mr. Musks promises, particularly those regarding donations and charities. I think the only way that promise by Mr Musk could've been made stronger, is if it were a Twitter poll :).
Each buck we spend is a vote for a business (which is a bag of ideals and methods) It is surprising that people apparently desire a future where they don't even have to bother listening to those in charge as every word is completely irrelevant. I had considered they don't understand capitalism is quite open to influence but they also do it in elections.
I share all the disillusionment and cynicism about Musk, shared here by others.
But he has also done amazing things. When someone declares they are going to create a Martian colony, something literally "out of this world", and against all odds makes unbelievable progress for years, including re-usable rockets that return and land vertically, more efficient powerful engines, and fast operational turnarounds, while making orbital travel mundane, hanging a criticism of schedules on the weak hook of "yet" is myopic.
There will never be a colony on Mars. Not in the way we think about "colonies".
For starters it's too cold, too dry, atmosphere is too thin, and there's no reasonably sustainable power source.
But all of that is irrelevant because there's no magnetic field. So radiation. So unlivable.
There's also no point in a colony there. If life ends on earth it ends on Mars. There are no materials there we want. It offers exactly nothing we can't do better here, for much less money.
Will we land on Mars? Sure. There's always the goal of being first. But live there? No. Unsupported by earth? Very much no.
I personally believe that the legacy we send to the stars will be silicon.
Robots have landed on Mars. Maybe they will even figure out how to use minerals on Mars to build more of themselves. It is plausible to me that as far as space exploration is concerned that it will be autonomous within a few hundred years.
'..it might be assumed that the flying machine which will really fly might be evolved by the combined and continuous efforts of mathematicians and mechanicians in from one million to ten million years- provided, of course, we can meanwhile eliminate such little drawbacks and embarrassments as the existing relation between weight and strength in inorganic materials. No doubt the problem has attractions for those it interests, but to the ordinary man it would seem as if effort might be employed more profitably.' Oct 9 1903
I think many may not understand your quote, especially given the nature of the language and the apparent non sequitur: https://archive.is/F3nnP
That's an archive of the article it's originally from, from the NYTimes - "Flying Machines Which Do Not Fly", October 1903. The Wright Bros first successful flight would come in December 1903. The NYTimes also similarly published about the impossibility of spaceflight relatively shortly before it happened.
I anxiously await the day for the NYTimes to dismiss colonizing Mars as impossible, as it means we are most certainly on the cusp of achieving exactly that.
The value of flight is incalculable. Especially if we see it as a precursor to satellites. A lot of people invested a lot in getting g it to work. Many people died making it better and better. The cost in treasure and lives was substantial, but the return is worth it.
Contrast to the moon. The prestige was great, the investment enormous. The return was more-or-less zero. There was a reason Apollo 18 was canceled, and we stopped going.
(Current efforts are in no rush, and are mostly about prestige.)
The value of a colony on Mars is precisely zero. We might visit a couple times. But colonize? Nope.
The value of the first Mars colony may be zero depending on how you value it just as the value of the first Wright flier was 'precisely zero' or even negative. It didn't carry cargo and it killed or injured many of those that dared to fly on it.
Assigning zero long term value however to another entire planet worth of resources just seems like a failure of imagination.
You can't get to the 777 without the Wright Flyer.
I'd add to this that Mars also isn't the end, but rather the beginning. The moment the first human steps on Mars, we will already be thinking ever more outward to ever more exotic targets, perhaps Europa being next. The bigger picture is starting the process of putting humans into the cosmos - and so it's not just another planet full of resources, land, and unknown discoveries awaiting us - but an entire solar system, and on a longer time frame - an entire galaxy.
And I think once we start iterating on these concepts, the timelines might not be as long as might otherwise be expected. Forget the 777 - it's completely stupefying that we went from the Wright Flier to the SR-71 Blackbird [1] in 61 years. That beast is another product of the magic of the 60s - long-term sustained flight at Mach 3.2 - 2450+mph. London to New York in less than 2 hours. There really was something in the water in the US in the 60s.
You're right there's a reason Apollo 18 was cancelled, but I'm not sure what you'd reference this. The main issue is that Nixon was increasingly paranoid that there was going to be a catastrophic failure in the Apollo program, and that it would affect his political career. He tried to hard to the cancel the program immediately after the first successful landing. NASA had already drawn up plans for not only getting to Mars, but for a complete human settlement of outer space with large space stations and more. This was all cancelled.
So I think the comparison with flight is perfect. Imagine after the Wright Bros. flight, which countless people had died in the process of seeking to achieve, we had one uninvolved entity able to say 'yeah, I'm responsible for all this' and then canceled everything in a simple self-motivated political calculation to try to 'go out on top' so to speak.
The Moon was never the goal, anymore than the Wright Flyer was the goal. It was one small step on a very lengthy journey - a major milestone for sure, but nowhere near the end of the road. And that's where we remain in space, but thanks to the fact that so much expertise was lost in the ~60 year do-nothing era, we're now having to essentially start over. On the bright side, this time the driver's going to be private industry, just like with airplanes - and there will be no myopic politician to cancel it.
How are robotaxis coming along, versus the promises?
How are Optimus robots coming along, versus the promises?
How is the 2nd edition Roadster coming along, versus the promises?
You need to stop thinking of Musk in terms of a person who has "done amazing things" and letting that lead you to a belief that he has some kind of special ability in this space.
He's the money guy. He's occasionally managed to acquire talent that has done amazing things. This does not give him an innate "make amazing things happen" ability. He can throw money at bad ideas and ineffectual people. He can make something happen given the size of his wealth, but whether that actually achieves any of the stated goals is largely independent of his own actions.
Lots of late deliveries. This seems to be important to you.
On the one hand, we have major advance, after major advance. But on the other hand, we have crossed out dates on a calendar! Cool things that were mentioned but haven't happen yet! Sad calendar! It's a real toss up!
Puzzle question: is aspirational calendar-target overoptimism good or bad if you get things done late, but sooner than you would have, or at least, more things than you would have, than if you had set more "realistic" targets. Like decades. And then been late for that.
I suggest instead complaining, you your time and Elon's tardiness to beat him to the punch! Lemonade punch.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are late at things, but without the contrast of famous wins, nobody complains. It is so unfair!
People don’t look at the complexity of a human character. They take the easiest extreme and run with it. I was on another HN thread where practically everyone was calling Elon a psychopath.
If you think objectively Elon is not a psychopath.
He has a higher body count than any serial killer who has ever lived with DOGE alone. He may or may not be clinically diagnosable, but he's a monster either way
While I share your opinion on his character, the first part of what you say is also true for almost everyone who wielded the kinds and scales power that was given to him via DOGE: Every battleship is a hospital not built, etc.
It's sad that this is believed when it's most often the opposite. Especially in this case we have a literal historical example. You'll never guess what Henry Kaiser built before creating Kaiser, the largest set of hospitals in CA.
I can't imagine why you think that's a good example.
The money spent on the ships* could not be double-spent on hospitals. The workers whose manual labour was dedicated to those later ships could not be simultaneously dedicated to more hospitals. The crew of a battleship cannot be simultaneously working in a hospital, the maintenance teams repairing it cannot be simultaneously repairing a hospital.
Every resource-management game demonstrates this principle, even if they're all gross simplifications.
* Wikipedia says Kaiser's ships were cargo and transport, not battleships, which means they had the potential to be a net positive on the economy. This is better than a battleship, because domestic military gear can't be a net positive: the point is to keep matériel and personnel around to deter enemies, and only use them for training and when enemies aren't deterred.
... Did you just suggest gp is "worse than Hitler" for suggesting Elon Musk, a man who's very publicly called empathy a "fundamental weakness" and "threat to Western Civilization", a sociopath? And you went on to compare the powerless women tried for witchcraft to the richest man in the history of the planet? Please go touch grass, my dude.
I suggested he's not in touch with reality when he accuses someone of being a sociopath who is clearly not.
I compared him to the MOB that burned those women. That's the main comparison. You're the same because you and him would put elon to the slaughter because you're mob mentality is as violent as hitler.
> Here's a test: Given the opportunity to kill Elon, you probably would. Given that you think Elon is a sociopath or evil incarnate.
I'm generally against the death penalty. I'd be fine with just stripping him of his wealth and locking him in prison for the rest of his life. He doesn't need to die, but it would be good to minimize/eliminate his influence on the world.
The destruction of the last vestiges of rule of law in the United States, an act in which Musk played a substantial role, unfortunately means he will likely not be prosecuted - but make no mistake, he has committed many crimes.
And now that we are living in a lawless nation, we will all get to see how bad an idea that is.
The president is using the DoJ to represent him in a civil appeal.
The president is creating a slush fund to pay off people who acted violently on his behalf.
The president has declared himself and his family immune from IRS investigation indefinitely.
The president is selling pardons.
The president is running influence schemes in the form of crypto sales and ballroom "donations".
The president is at a minimum enabling the people who are playing the markets (traditional and these new prediction atrocities) in advance of his on again / off again announcements about Iran, tariffs, etc. It's not out of the question that he approves of the activity and/or receives benefits himself.
The president uses mob tactics. Tariffs and DoJ threats are used to run protection rackets. Play along, pay up, and you can make your problems go away. For a bit. They'll be back later and they'll want more.
I value it. But I value it practically and NOT delusionally in the sense that I understand that even though there is law, there will always be people who break the law.
Then when I take this non-delusional perspective and apply it to the US I understand that the US and every country on the face of the earth has a degree of corruption.
Then I do another realistic comparison about the DEGREE of corruption... and we find that the US is relatively NOT lawless when compared with MANY countries.
Also Elon is not a psychopath. But you and many on this thread are delusional.
Of course there will always be people who break the law. There are always people who are going to attempt to do things they're not supposed to do for a variety of reasons.
Rule of law is about consistent application of the law. Laws that aren't consistently applied are just words on paper.
It seems to me that what you actually intended to say is "there will always be people who break the law and get away with it due to their wealth and status."
And yes, there will probably always be some degree of that too. But in a society that claims to follow the rule of law, the goal should always be to minimize the inconsistent application of the law. Part of that is challenging these events when we see them. Like the extreme corruption of the Trump administration versus every president that came before, including his own first term.
Treating an increase of corruption as inevitable is not, in my opinion, valuing the rule of law. It's at best a half-hearted "whatcha gonna do?" shrug-off.
As a straight answer (for 'one') I'm sure we could think a dozen projects that would ameliorate suffering for countless people before breakfast without trying. However I appreciate that's not your point.
Does anyone seriously still believe this? I thought as a society we had realized Musk is simply BSing whatever he feels like until it becomes untenable.
Does Elon over-hype nearly everything he gets involved with? Clearly yes.
Does he also deliver on some mind-boggling timelines? Well Tesla went from delivering its first cars in 2008 to having the best selling car in the world in 2023, and SpaceX went from not having successfully launched a rocket to delivering about 80% of the world's space payload in roughly the same timeframe. So I'd say that's clearly a 'yes', too.
SpaceX also dropped the cost of kg to space by multiple orders of magnitude, which is a part of the reason they essentially are the space industry now a days. And should Starship deliver we are likely going to be seeing even more orders of magnitude drop in price there.
Elon made some political positions (which he has always hinted at in any case) publicly clear, and the divisive nature of politics in the US which has made a rather vocal minority of people just freak out with regards to him. But the reality is that if he died tomorrow, he would already go down as the Thomas Edison of modern times. And he as of yet still has some years to deliver on Mars which could cement a far greater legacy.
A order of magnitude is a factor of 10x. Multiple orders of magnitude is at least 100x.
SpaceX Falcon 9 has a launch cost of 74 M$ with a payload to LEO of 22,800 kg for a launch cost of ~3,200 $/kg to LEO.
So you are incorrectly claiming that space launch costs were 320,000 $/kg. Elon Musk is a habitual liar, but you should try not to be one as well as it demonstrates your argument to be based in ignorance and deception.
Falcon Heavy reusable is the most $ efficient system at around $1500 $/kg. The Space Shuttle costs were $54,000 $/kg. If you want to nitpick that that's "only" a 97% cost reduction instead of a 99%... well that's the sort of good faith debate I've come to expect from the aforementioned vocal minority in any topic related to Elon, and with all the class you've already demonstrated in your post.
Why are you deceptively bringing up the Space Shuttle? That was never intended to be a serious cost-effective launch vehicle. Also, why are you deceptively talking about 97% and 99% like the difference between 30x and 100x is not a factor of 3?
The Ariane 5, first launching in 2003 which is 7 years earlier than the first Falcon 9 launch, had a launch cost of ~150 M$ in 2015 with a payload to LEO of ~16,000 kg for a cost of 10,000 $/kg. The Soyuz-2, first launching in 2004 which is 6 years earlier than the first Falcon 9 launch, had a launch cost of ~35 M$ with a payload to LEO of ~8,000 kg for a cost of ~4,500 $/kg.
The truth is 3-6% of your claim of 100x cost improvement.
Because the Space Shuttle is what SpaceX replaced. A 97% discount relative to that is what SpaceX has managed, after a commercial profit margin. 99% is 2 orders of magnitude. So you're here bickering over 2% with all the class that one would expect.
No it did not. Nobody launched their commercial satellites on Space Shuttles. Soyuz, Atlas, Proton, Delta, Long March, Ariane; those are commercial launch vehicles. Even considering crewed missions we can look to ISS crew missions which were half Soyuz missions and then entirely Soyuz missions between 2009-2020.
And again, you do not seem to understand how percentages work. If I have a thing that costs 1,000 $ and I find a 99% cost reduction it is now 10 $. A 97% cost reduction means it is 30 $. That is a 3x difference. The difference between 1% and 3% is a factor of 3x. That is half of a order of magnitude right there and here you are claiming it is small.
So you are wrong on history, wrong on comparables, and wrong on math to defend a man who runs a company that is legally, and I quote a actual legal decision: a "greviously reprehensible... grossly racist workplace"[1]. But, you know, racism man good because he slightly lowered the cost of cruise ship internet I guess.
You're engaging in some wild freak out mental gymnastics here. Seriously, just read your paragraph about me not understanding percents, and tell me you don't get hard-core Chewbacca Defense [1] vibes. It seriously reads not only like satire, but pretty good satire! You just need to add a QED to the end. lol
And don't trust flatterbots to argue for you. They hallucinate regularly and just make you look more absurd. The Space Shuttle was flying crewed missions to the ISS until 2011. The reason they stopped is because the Space Shuttle had been retired and commercial crew began, which was ultimately won by SpaceX. Well SpaceX and Boeing in an overt act of insiderism, but Boeing is still - 15 years later - trying to figure out how this whole space thingy works.
The alternatives you mention were never commercially viable against SpaceX. All not only cost multiple times more but come with significantly worse reliability records as well as lacking the payload capacity of something like Falcon Heavy for those missions that require it. And when you look at things like the Soyuz, the sticker price doesn't matter so much as the price companies were obligated to pay. They offered cheap internal launches, and charged dramatically higher rates for foreign launchers - including NASA. By the end NASA was paying $90mil/seat.
Yes, you clearly do not understand how percentages work given that you continue to argue that the difference between 30x and 100x is just "2%".
You are correct that there were Space Shuttle missions to the vicinity of the ISS until 2011. I was talking about ISS crew rotation missions where the last Space Shuttle mission was STS-129 in 2009. The Space Shuttle was still used for ISS assembly flights until 2011. I was using crew rotation missions to highlight that not just commercial satellite launches, but also one of the other important class of missions, crew rotation, also regularly used alternatives to the Space Shuttle disproving your point that the Space Shuttle had some sort of magical monopoly on launches and thus the only alternative to compare against.
You were the one arguing that alternatives cost over 100x more than SpaceX. Even deceptively comparing against the Space Shuttle you were still off by a factor of 3x and comparing against actual competitors your claim is off by a factor of 16x-30x. Your claim is egregiously wrong. Continuing to argue it means you are either completely ignorant or utterly biased or both. I am done here.
I said that the difference between a 99% saving and a 97% was 2%. You're the one engaging in freak out mental gymnastics to try to turn that into 'ACTUAAAALLLY... that's like a 300% difference and the proof is that Elon kicked my dog.'
And no, I obviously know you're just grabbing nonsense from your flatterbot of choice. The tell tale is being easily confused on basic points, making rather nonsensical statements, being oddly precise about irrelevant esoteric details, and then finding yourself in a situation where you're left trying to recombobulate it all back into something sensical, which you're not quite succeeding at. Your post above is borderline incoherent, even moreso than the 97% to 99% = 300% nonsense.
> he would already go down as the Thomas Edison of modern times
A small but important correction - he would be similar to Henry Ford, with capitalistic approach to humans that would make Marx shiver and write second Capital book. Also aligns better with his nazi sympathies.
There isn't a single thing he personally invented AFAIK, but he is a good manager from certain angles and can recognize future value in ways entrenched ivy league managers seemingly cannot. Also a textbook sociopath and few other mental issues, and horrible father for those who care (most should, future of mankind and all that).
Henry Ford literally invented the moving assembly line. He's also the primary reason that we now have a 5 day, 40 hour week as the standard. Prior to him (and his successes with trialing such), the typical work week was 6 days, with 10-16 hour shifts common. Marx, by contrast, achieved nothing of value for the common man, and spent his entire life mooching off Engels' capitalistic successes, while critiquing such. It's trivial to critique systems, but quite difficult to create and build things up in a way that is sustainable and means something.
As for Musk, he completely revolutionized the space industry. In modern times no single person just invents everything around something akin to e.g. the telegraph, but I don't think that really diminishes his impact. It's just a consequence of the fact that a reusable rocket is much more complex than a telegraph machine. But he's quite infamously involved and directing essentially every single step of the process. This is quite different from the detached and profit/metric motivated focus of typical management, but in many ways it's much closer to how things were 'back in the day' rather than a novel discovery. It should go without saying that people running businesses building 'x' should be deeply knowledgeable about 'x'. "Business", as a specialization in and of itself, in modern times is the disease that's killing America.
I would argue that 15 years is not a mind-boggling timeline to go from first car to best selling single model (especially given how few models Tesla has).
Xiaomi Auto reaching a quarter of Tesla's annual output after four years is much more impressive, given it took Tesla until 2019/2020 (8 years, twice as long) to reach that level.
SpaceX is rather more impressive. Unfortunately for everyone, only someone like Musk could have pulled that off: not just the visionary, but also arrogant and litigious enough to sue the US government to reconsider when the government decided against buying from SpaceX. I'm reminded of the phrase "only Nixon could go to China".
I do. It’s not his singular focus. But he continues to personally invest himself in pushing the boundaries of human spacefaring capability. That goal seems more meaningful to him that it does to e.g. Bezos, who seems to have a rocket company to look cool.
I know there's a risk when Musk's name comes up that everyone takes "all against" or "all for" approach - very polarising figure.
But I see a lot of that announcement, and the others someone else pointed to as his "aspirational, but ultimately never going to happen" goals - whether he believes the claims are achievable, or not, he says these things to energise people to working/paying for him to try
It costs him little to nothing to say, and other people's time, effort, and capital to try (and succeed/fail)
Tesla is falling to pieces now, and SpaceX is getting loaded up with completely unrelated projects (xAI) in order to try and make it look saleable (I guess) - it's very difficult to see the Mars announcement as anything but hype.
> difficult to see the Mars announcement as anything but hype
Oh yeah, the announcement is hype. But there is actual work underneath it making real progress in science and engineering that moves us closer to Mars. Some of that, moreover, is work that has limited appeal outside a Martian context.
The real thing is that the moon is a better stepping stone, but Bezos already claimed it so Musk had to out do him, which is why he's shooting for Mars.
> the moon is a better stepping stone, but Bezos already claimed it so Musk had to out do him, which is why he's shooting for Mars
They were contemporaenous. Musk was trying to send stuff to Mars in 2001 [1]. Bezos started Blue Origin in 2000 before any Moon goals had been made concrete or public. I wouldn't say either of their goals really referenced each other until after the financial crisis (that is, after they were both comfortably billionaires with launch-vehicle programs).
That all depends on how much he values his credibility, I think..
But to be fair, for someone as good at self promotion as he is, I can believe that the value of the hype could be greater than the cost in credibility.
Year over year sales are declining. Stratospheric stock price is propped up by promise of selling humanoid robots, a technology (and market) which are unproven.
Having approximately $44 billion in cash on hand is not a massive cash reserve for any company with the market cap of Tesla ($1.3 trillion). Even less so when you realize how capital intensive its current car and non-existent robot business is… The entire EV market is risky right now for margin compression as Chinese EV manufacturers are really pulling ahead. It’s pretty wild to see just how far they’ve progressed while the west mostly does nothing. Even Tesla hasn’t provided any real innovation in years in regards to their core business. And from what I can tell, they’re pretty much outright ignoring their auxiliary businesses.
If Optimus fails to impress, and gain traction, I’d seriously expect Tesla to end up a subsidiary of SpaceX within the next ten years as Elon tries to protect up his net worth.
That's why I think the Optimus thing might make sense from a 'market cap' perspective. Tesla is great at innovation and ramping global manufacturing for new tech. Ten years ago, that was EVs. But now EVs are becoming a commodity and every other car company is catching up.
I do think 'self driving' is still their 'moat' when it comes to EVs. I use it every day, and nothing else comes close. But other than that, building EVs is becoming a cut-throat slim-margin business. I don't think that's where Elon, or Tesla employees, want to spend their energy.
When Tesla was overpromising self-driving cars, the thing they sold was still a pretty nice car. Even without the magical features, customers were still satisfied with the product.
Now imagine you're selling robots. If the robot "disengages" and breaks 10% of your plates while emptying the dishwasher, you're going to be pissed. There's no fallback to manual mode. It has to work 100% of the time out the gate.
Based on past history, I don't think Tesla has an engineering culture capable of hitting a home run with this kind of frontier technology out of the gate. So they either delay it until it's ready or they launch it prematurely, in which case everyone mocks it and the dream crashes (along with the stock price).
Even optimistically (no pun intended), I don't see Optimus justifying the Tesla share price.
There's plenty of other companies making robots. Robots can either be controlled by AI or by humans. In the case of humans, there's no moat because everyone can do that. In the case of AI, it can either be on device or on a server, but we're already hitting power supply concerns for data centres, rising prices and supply issues for the components for even local servers, and the historical timeline over which hardware and algorithms have become more energy efficient (and the available power envelope) suggests that on-device AI sufficient for an Optimus to get into a non-self-driving car and drive it at some competence score* happens around a decade after that competence is reached by self-driving cars.
It doesn't even matter if your perception on the relative ranking of different self-drive systems is right or wrong, we're still not yet seeing Tesla vehicles do as Musk said in January 2016:
I think that within two years, you'll be able to summon your car from across the country. It will meet you wherever your phone is
> Ten years ago, that was EVs. But now EVs are becoming a commodity and every other car company is catching up.
Kind of yes, the competition, especially from China, is catching up, and exceeding Tesla's offers.
Kind of no - EVs were around for a very long time before Tesla, Tesla's sales pitch (at one point) was that it was a software company not a car company.
On that front - almost every vehicle manufacturer has caught up, and Tesla is still stuck /promising/ a self driving car, but still not delivering.
The Twitter acquisition is widely seen as the marking point where Musk lost his appeal - something that was not smart because, coupled with his foray into politics was an attack on his core market - middle class left of centre people who were buying for the environment.. etc
He poisoned his brand, and Tesla's too (because the two brands, his and Tesla's, were so intertwined)
He lost the impetus in European markets, leaving a dying (for him) US market, and Asia (which is largely interested in Chinese made vehicles).
My Anecdata: In Australia, where I am, it used to be Tesla's were fairly common, now, I think I've seen two in the last week, compared to maybe a dozen BYD (and I am in a middle class suburb)
> It’s pretty wild to see just how far they’ve progressed while the west mostly does nothing.
The “west” came up with Tesla and Rivian, and their cars are on the road. And the US tariffed chinese EVs. What else can be done to combat China’s lower priced labor and possibly more lax environmental regulations?
The west needs to combat it by using subsidies and regulations to “spray and pray,” to a large degree. Just as China has… The problem with the occident, at the moment, is that corporations use the incentives to raise margins and not to innovate.
In the US at least we’re gearing
up for massive failure in the automotive industry solely because we’re avoiding competition. Yes, there will be margin compression, but without it domestic businesses become inefficient. It’s going to be “80s/90s Detroit” all over again with bigger bailouts because at some point it’ll be too politically popular to reduce prices. When that happens the public will be the ones footing the bill.
And all that says nothing of the fact cheap labor alone doesn’t make a better car. But the fact China can both make a better car (EV) and with lower labor costs really shows how dependent US automakers are on market inefficiencies. The US, and Europe, were massively ahead in quality but that lead been destroyed.
I’m not a fan of capitalism, but if the US is going to sell it and preach it— we might as fucking well embrace it. Otherwise we’re just subsidizing the rich without rhyme or reason (other than blatant corruption and exploitation). The cost of those subsidies will be stagnation, and the outright capitulation of quality long term.
> And all that says nothing of the fact cheap labor alone doesn’t make a better car. But the fact China can both make a better car (EV) and with lower labor costs really shows how dependent US automakers are on market inefficiencies.
I don’t understand this. Why would COGS impact quality? Are Chinese people inherently inferior “Western” people?
The market inefficiency is partly the difference in price of labor, which is being made more efficient by Chinese manufacturers succeeding.
I looked it up, and the key thing in favour of companies like BYD over the US companies - isn't (just) cheap labour - it's vertical integration.
BYD owns the mines, the batteries, the cars, the USA doesn't have that available, and are having to force other countries to provide their lithium/rare earth deposits to US companies in order to try and become competitive.
> The west needs to combat it by using subsidies and regulations
> In the US at least we’re gearing up for massive failure in the automotive industry solely because we’re avoiding competition
Uhhh - you want to prevent competition by using subsidies and regulations, but then complain the US companies are not competitive because they avoid competition?
The US vehicle manufacturers have been here multiple times - VW, Japanese "compacts", and now Chinese EVs
The Germans were competing on quality and fuel consumption.
The Japanese were competing on quality and price, they started out naff, and became gold standard, whilst US manufacturers were stuck delivering low rate products.
The Koreans followed the same playbook.
And, now, the Chinese are doing it again, following the Japanese playbook - offering better and better quality at a lower price.
It’s in his own biography (the older one) that spacex would pursue mars without distraction. That he went to great lengths to ensure it wouldn’t be used for military, tourism, etc.
You can’t believe musk without simultaneously believing he’s a liar. It’s in HIS fucking book.
> It’s in his own biography (the older one) that spacex would pursue mars without distraction. That he went to great lengths to ensure it wouldn’t be used for military, tourism, etc.
I said I believe he wants to go to Mars and will put in the work to make that happen. I didn't say everything he's said is true. Musk absolutely lies. But his actions speak pretty consistently to Mars being a real goal.
This is a joint project of U.S. government military planners and an ostensible private individual. If Elon disappeared, rest assured, the contracts and development would still happen.
They want mega constellations for always-on drone guidance and for "golden dome" which would allow for the laser-based shoot-down of long range exo-atmospheric missiles. You need reusable spacecraft to make that tenable. This is not about Mars, don't buy the marketing. At best for civilians, this is about making broadband widely available such that America can dominate internet connectivity going forward and increase spying further. As an example, examine a map of Starlink connectivity, you will notice that Russia and Gaza are excluded.
The Artemis missions will eventually enable the placement of communications equipment on the moon, making anti-satellite weapons less effective at disrupting critical communications.
Fortress America will be invincible forever, so so they desire. The macroeconomics are not working out for them though even though the technological edge is still working for them on that level.
> They want mega constellations for always-on drone guidance and for "golden dome" which would allow for the laser-based shoot-down of long range exo-atmospheric missiles
This is a conspiracy theory folks who just Googled In-Q-Tel have been stringing together since Covid. It's not true.
> examine a map of Starlink connectivity, you will notice that Russia and Gaza are excluded
Russia wasn't excluded until recently. That was a problem!
> The Artemis missions will eventually enable the placement of communications equipment on the moon, making anti-satellite weapons less effective at disrupting critical communications
Communications are an exception to the lunar treaty that governs the militarization of space.
Don't forget that the original space program was designed to peacefully demonstrate a high degree of control over ICBM class rockets. They're so good and accurate, we can put a human on top of one. The government does not spend huge amounts of money on things like "art" or "science" without a motivating factor. This is the capitalist empire, not socialism.
I believe the "Wat." is directed at the mandated-by-laws-of-physics fact that it adds a 2.6 second lag, and that at constant path loss and frequency it requires antennas have 768 times larger diameter (or close enough, the maths works out that it's the distance to moon divided by distance to wherever in LEO your default case is and all the other things involved cancel out).
This factor (and that it applies to all EM including both radio and optical) is also why we had to wait for lunar orbiter missions to get photos of the Apollo landing sites rather than take a picture with Hubble.
Oh, and then there's the problem with the moon having much longer and much darker nights than anywhere on Earth that isn't the [ant]arctic circle, though I have previously opined that anyone who isn't ready to put a few thousand tons of aluminium onto the moon and make a circumpolar power line *simply isn't ready for any plan like this in the first place*.
And the fact that there's only one moon, so half the planet doesn't get any signal from it at any given time.
These are good points. I don't really understand your point about the Hubble though that is very interesting. Are you saying that the pictures are too low-res?
Still, in the case of massive destruction of satellite communications, having 50% availability for crucial communications (e.g. continuity of government) etc. isn't ideal but is still something. 2.6 second lag is nothing if you aren't talking about real-time communications. Issuing strategic military orders isn't sensitive to 2.6 seconds of lag.
You can communicate to half the earth at once, you can maybe replace GPS if all the GPS sats are shot down, etc. Your point about large antennas is taken, but for USG installations, I don't doubt they would invest in a few large antennas.
> These are good points. I don't really understand your point about the Hubble though that is very interesting. Are you saying that the pictures are too low-res?
Yes. Owing to the laws of physics, the size of the optics and the wavelengths of its sensors, it is limited to a minimum feature size on the moon of about 22 meters (which happens at the limit of it's ultraviolet sensor range, 115 nm, not visible light). To see the Apollo lander as a single pixel, it would need to have a primary mirror with an 11 metre diameter, to see footprints it would need one with a diameter of 150-200m metres. And proportionally even bigger than that for longer wavelengths such as visible light.
> Still, in the case of massive destruction of satellite communications, having 50% availability for crucial communications (e.g. continuity of government) etc. isn't ideal but is still something. 2.6 second lag is nothing if you aren't talking about real-time communications. Issuing strategic military orders isn't sensitive to 2.6 seconds of lag.
Or you could just use all the stuff on the ground. We used radio well before we went to space, and if the cable-based stuff (and line-of-sight microwave towers) isn't secure then neither is the even more critical power grid.
If you're willing to give up real-time comms, then we have a lot of bandwidth available for text messages that's currently being spent on TV.
> You can communicate to half the earth at once, you can maybe replace GPS if all the GPS sats are shot down, etc.
Nope. GPS fundamentally requires you can see at least four different satellites at the same moment. Also, they're in geosynchronous orbit not low orbit, there are at present no reported anti-satellite weapons that can get to geostationary orbit, nor would this be likely due to the energy budget needed to get there. Consider that while getting to LEO essentially requires the equivalent of an intercontinental missile, getting to geostationary requires the equivalent of such a missile whose payload is itself another intercontinental missile.
> Your point about large antennas is taken, but for USG installations, I don't doubt they would invest in a few large antennas.
I think you've not quite taken on board what I said.
768 times larger diameter.
Diameter, not area.
If your ground station is 1 meter across, like some satellite dishes I see, one 768 times larger is about the size of The Pentagon building and its surrounding car park.
While I look forward to us being able to build structures that size (and bigger) on the moon, the SpaceX website for Starship is currently listing prices to the moon of $100 million per metric ton.
> pushing the boundaries of human spacefaring capability
I guess polluting space with shitty satellites and causing environmental disasters with failed and questionably-permitted rocket launches is, technically, pushing on boundaries of human spacefaring capability.
> guess polluting space with shitty satellites and causing environmental disasters with failed and questionably-permitted rocket launches is, technically, pushing on boundaries of human spacefaring capability
My cat is both cute and fluffy as well as a menace.
I mean, I really dislike what Musk has become but SpaceX has brought about a huge leap in access to space. Last year they launched more than the rest of the world combined, including the rest of the US. They now own more operating satellites than the rest of the world combined. When the rest of the Western world's launchers have had problems over the last few years (Ariane, Vulcan, EU Soyuz, New Glenn, Antares) SpaceX has been able to absorb their payloads with relative ease rather than waiting many years for other arrangements. They've saved the US many $Bs in launch costs by undercutting the incumbent monopoly. Cheaply and easily reusing a rocket was thought impossible, now it's routine and every rocket maker on earth is attempting to copy them.
If you look at their filings, they are now pivoting into an "AI company". (Meaning, that's where the majority of their future value is described as coming from.) It's possible that this is a harmless investor swindle and they'll keep relentlessly innovating. But you should probably be worried.
Musk is like that person on Facebook you know that is really good at <welding / programming / performing surgeries / etc> then they post about their thoughts on some other topic and all you can respond with is “stay in your lane.”
Musk has been successful is pure engineering efforts led by engineers he hired achieving the next big-but-not-too-big step.
Or... you maintain some moral integrity, and consider him POS despite all his deliveries. People clearly can be great and horrible at the same time, why the desperate need to paint everything black & white and ignore all the fine details of reality.
These people are all about massive ego trips and legacies. So let them build their legacy as they truly were with all the + and -, not some idealized, simplified image. Truth always deserves to be told, however inconvenient. Sort of moral imperative of a moral human being if you want.
I genuinely believe he wants to go to Mars. Desperately.
He's fundamentally a very smart socially inept largely sociopathic emotionally immature obsessively driven boy who read a lot of Heinlein as a kid. Everything about him indicates he sees himself as a saviour of humanity and the only person who has their priorities right and everybody should appreciate and adore him and it's so darn frustrating when they don't, oh wait this other party will adore me, now they don't anymore either oh HUMbug.
Do I believe any of his promises? No absolutely not. But I do think Mars is his massive obsession and that he fervently (If completely Implausibly) believes it'll work and help humanity.
Every <unit of currency> not in your pocket is in someone else’s. Greedy narcissists can’t stand that, they need to have it all. They don’t need the extra 500 billion to spend it, they need it so the number goes up. They need to be number one. At everything. Remember when Musk lied about being one of the top players for some difficult video game, then it turned out he was paying someone else to play for him? It’s just an ego thing, which I agree is baffling.
So what to do to be happy? Extreme wealth removes most practical goals like buying things or going places and doing things. Not that you can't do them, but it's not a meaningful goal to work towards.
They have to create their own meaning, whatever that is.
A billionaire trying to create purpose for themselves can be boring, or weird. Which one gets media coverage?
Gates Foundation, Zukerberg's fitness craze, MacKenzie Scott's philanthropy, Bezos and Musk's [whateverness] are all just variations on a theme. And like all people, some will be better at it than others.
Note though, that they will do what it takes to stay wealthy because what would they be without that?
Greedy narcissists are lacking in empathy, that’s what makes them greedy narcissists.
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be empathetic, of course. Someone else’s lack of empathy does not excuse our own. However, consider that billionaires mostly reach that status by exploiting others. Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, they all fit that mould. Being empathetic does not mean being a chump. I’m not going to shed a tear for the poor exploitative billionaire who underpays and overworks people to the point they literally die on the floor of their warehouses and others around them are ordered to keep working.
If given the choice to defend the one billionaire who is fucking up the world and billions of lives in the process, or those who are being exploited by said billionaire, I think it’s obvious where one should place their empathy.
It’s not my responsibility, or yours, or anyone but themselves, that they can’t find meaning in life without being massive assholes. Use some of that money to go to therapy. Use it to enhance the lives of others around you, improve your community and you improve your own well being. It’s not that hard, we’ve known for a long time that a way to happiness is to do things for others.
Musk himself has lamented that money does not buy happiness, and after that expressed the desire to become the first trillionaire. I mean, come on…
I wasn't trying to say all billionaires deserve an outpouring of defence for their actions. Merely that their actions are as human as the rest of us, just in a different context.
And like the rest of us, there are those who cope better or worse, who are morally better or worse. Police are another bunch of people judged similarly.
Which is to say, there are indeed woeful billionaires. Possibly most of them. But don't paint the humans all with the same brush, even if the way to fix society might be to do so legally.
> But don't paint the humans all with the same brush
But that’s not what I did.
From the very first post I was explicit in mentioning greedy narcissists. Obviously that doesn’t mean everyone in every group, it means the greedy narcissists. That’s why the adjectives exist, to distinguish some from the others.
I’m not sure I’m getting your point, because I don’t really see where the disagreement lies.
> Extreme wealth removes most practical goals like buying things or going places and doing things.
Sorry can't agree on this at all. Helping others feels amazing to any sane human being. Doing sports is similar. Experiencing adrenaline sports is similar. Focusing on raising one's kids properly is always exceptionally well-spent time, and feels great if one is not burned out and has some help against overloading with responsibilities. Thats a plenty of meaning for one's life, regardless of fortune.
The fact is, most of those billionaires are broken human beings - various mental issues, imbalances, maniacally competitive, often sociopaths. They can't achieve what society calls 'happiness', regardless of amount of money spent. So they into various status ego competitive 'games'.
I am pretty sure we all met such people in our lives if you looked close enough, I certainly did. Ie one girl I dated even outright laughed at happiness being my life goal, she was such a mess and knew it she rather openly focused on career and money, those were at least somewhat achievable for her. Its logical - if you can't achieve something important, you focus on next best thing, however inferior it may be. And if one surrounds oneself with the right people, one is not constantly reminded how it actually sucks and there is no force in universe to change that.
Money is created, it's not a fixed sum (as we can tell from inflation) and it's just meant to equate to value added/produced by people. Here's a good starting point:
Because money is just a proxy for power, and the goal is not to have cash, it is to have power. Perhaps via being able to make decisions at various businesses, or being able to travel to a different planet, or being able to influence other people, etc.
Could also partly be a curiosity to see what one is capable of, or maybe wanting to be known for helming an organization that accomplishes xyz.
I wasn't trolling, but I have unfortunately deviated from the topic.
What isn't fine is my belief that I'm going to be rug-pulled by my government. From multiple sources I believe New Zealand will tax most savings to smithereens. The lie is that I should save for retirement; when any savings will be taken from me over time via a variety of mechanisms including taxes.
Both our Labour (leftish) and National parties will screw me.
The underlying issue is that our demographics leave little choice to the government. The majority of voters are naturally happy to take everything from everyone who has more than them. Voters are selfish.
I was trying to make a argument based on marginal economics. NZ should be encouraging me to increase my income from export earnings: instead it drastically discourages me. I helped found a startup, so I deeply understand the multiple ways our government discourages us from earning export income. My marginal utility from an extra dollar is already drastically diminished because I already have enough to enjoy my life. The >40% taxation on top (incl GST) reduces my motivation to earn money for NZ to nearly zero. I am not a money chaser and I dislike investing.
After some threshold, money as a marginal value becomes meaningless because other non-monetary factors like politics dominate. It seems like nobody cares how much society profits from you - they only care about their own selfish goals.
That's the difference between builders and consumers. People who are mostly consumers have a realistic number where they could stop contributing to society. Smalltime builders can imagine a lot of wealth, but at a certain point don't want to get too big. Big Dreamers are only limited by what they can imagine and make happen, and only infinite capital, labor, and time could achieve their dreams. Once you surround yourself with people dreaming of humans as multiplanetary, earthly levels of labor and wealth are obviously not going to make it happen.
I used to think that. A simple home. Plus a basic middle class income - to cover necessities and a some extra disposableincome. I figured 1 million for a home and 1 million for investments. Nothing too flash, just cover the basics.
The National NZ median house price is about NZD800k, and the Christchurch average estimated value is about NZD800k. That's about how much I spent in a less desirable suburb (Brighton). And I will have to downsize when I reach 65 because otherwise progressive council taxes (rates) and insurance will drawdown my savings too quickly.
We don't have social security in New Zealand: the government takes our taxes and has paid past retirees superannuation (NZD500 per week). But I'm unlikely to receive that: our government must renege on the expectation because the demographics are unaffordable (tweaking multiple constraints to fuck me - e.g. introducing means testing so that if you save you lose).
In theory we could grow our economy. But our government doesn't understand how to create economic growth via good incentives. I know that because my personal incentives are totally out of economic whack (I'm the perfect demographic for a second startup). I have acquaintances who are living in cars, and their incentives are also completely fucked.
You simply can't look at what your retirees do now and make any projection based on that: governments have to pull the rug on you.
House prices depend on the next generation signing up for ever bigger mortgages (such that their interest payments eat the majority of their income). When the music stops, homeowner's expectations will be screwed.
In New Zealand we prop up our economy using immigrants: but that is an unsustainable engine.
New Zealand is increasing taxes faster than investments accrue. We have a 5% wealth tax on owning overseas shares worth more than NZD50000 in total. Investment gains are taxed at 30% or more - e.g. dividends or investment funds.
We currently have a partial CGT on property, and the CGT will take more and more of property gains (perhaps a good thing to discourage property investors?).
In the past in Christchurch residential property generally stayed ahead of inflation by about 1.5%–3% per year in real terms. A CGT of ~30% could easily make that return nothing. That's the norm in New Zealand: work hard, take risks, get no reward. Need luck.
Individually the taxes (and costs such as insurance) appear reasonable, but they screw any hope of using compounding to maintain a reasonable drawdown. A 4% drawdown could absolutely fuck you if you have the bad luck to live a little longer. See https://paulgraham.com/wtax.html
Getting taxed at an unsustainable rate is probably unavoidable without radically changing one's life or taking extreme risks. I had thought 1 million savings would be enough with compounding, but it is clear our government wants to take a massive bite of any investment gains such that you have wasted time and effort, and your investment risks may have no gains.
We have socialised healthcare, but I think we are heading towards the same reality as the US where you likely have to make yourself broke before getting any help (and the help will be more constrained).
The current retirees get financial and healthcare benefits that I will never ever get. Even though many retirees live on extremely meagre means.
It doesn't matter how much I give to the NZ economy: I believe my politicians when they propose measures to take my rewards from me. I use my engineering to be realistic. I'm not yet a hardened cynic (although perhaps I'm slowly being trained to believe that world view).
I understand the economics of my country better than most.
Most people don't want to see reality. Most people look at what current retirees get, and then assume they will get the same... We aren't being lied to. It is just collectively we all hope too much and trust too much.
You can't just apply One Simple Rule like this ("more money is always better" / "more money never makes a difference"). There is, objectively, an amount of money above which another dollar, or another billion, will never make a meaningful difference in your overall lifestyle[0].
The amount isn't a single bright line, but like with so many things, there's an area below it where extra money unquestionably improves your quality of life, and an area above it where it unquestionably doesn't.
[0] unless "your lifestyle" involves manipulating major governments and controlling the way people the world over think, which I wouldn't consider a legitimate part of "lifestyle"
Right. But why does everyone assume that a billionaire continues to work for the money? Besides, he doesn’t “work” for the money. He’s the primary shareholder in companies that he founded and funded. He gets another billion and another billion when everyone else puts an increasing value on his shares. Even if Elon “retired,” he’d still continue to get richer.
I'd argue that if we don't abstract away resource usage behind currency, we are pretty firmly in negative-sum territory and zero-sum is a pretty rose colored glasses way of looking at things that is currently obscuring us from pending horrors.
These people aren't satisfied with themselves having more, everyone else must have less too.
Not that I am interested in changing your mind on this. I would, though, encourage you to actually say it's "positive-sum" if that's what you believe instead of hinting and then being vague about it for some reason.
The only problem that exists is spending too much money. They could fix this overnight if people were willing to give up public entitlements and healthcare support. But they aren’t willing to so the US will eventually see hyper inflation or less likely bankruptcy
No, you can also raise taxes. The deficit is 4% of GDP. If we raised taxes by 4% of GDP, we'd still be less than the OECD average. We'd be the same as Australia, which is the second lowest-tax Anglosphere country.
We are spending 3 trillion extra dollars than we take in taxes per year. That means taxes would go up by 75 percent. Even then it doesn’t matter because we will spend even more. Everyone agrees to spend, no one agrees to cut
I must have been looking at old data, but it looks like $1.9 trillion in FY2026. So that's 6.5% of GDP rather than 4% like I said above. Taxes as a percentage of GDP is currently about 25%, so going up to 31.5% would be a 26% jump. Not great, but not catastrophic.
But I agree that if we raised taxes we would just spend more. :(
If taxes are raised then the people have to pay for the services, which is exactly what they don't want to have to do. That is the whole appeal of having those services — that they are, for all intents and purposes, free.
I mean this is the problem with half a century of global-hegemony-fueled debt binging. We could balance the budget our taxes would still be $2.7 trillion lower than what they would be if we were at the EU average.
Taxes would have to go up so dramatically that people would completely be protesting in the streets and rioting. Governments always just print more money instead. Which is why we are at the spot we are at.
That would be irrational. Even the UK and France spend 2% of GDP on defense, and they live under America's shield. Cutting our spending down to their level would save $400 billion/year. That's not peanuts, but that's only 1/3 of the deficit.
Having sufficient capacity for violence is indispensable for the existence of a state. You need a military so you can kill people in other countries, and you need police so you can maintain an internal monopoly on violence. You can't have state-funded preschool if you don't have a state. The Ukrainians unfortunately are learning this the hard way right now.
> Even the UK and France spend 2% of GDP on defense, and they live under America's shield.
You mean: America lives under the UK and France's shield. The last time that US soldiers died to defend France or the UK is a long time ago, much more recently French and UK soldiers died for (amongst others) the USA. Not that anybody seems to remember.
Oh and on a per-capita basis more people from the UK died in the Gulf war than from the USA.
But this isn't a matter of keeping score it is standing together and at least trying to maintain some kind of world order. One problem with that is that you may have to refrain from threatening your allies with invasion.
Re: "You can't have state-funded preschool if you don't have a state" - USA is protected by two immense oceans right and left and two huge, weak and pliable neighbors up and down. From all sides USA is well protected without spending hundreds of billions anually. About ballistic missiles threat - USA already has 1,200 nuclear warheads deployed in various forms (submarine, air force, ground silos) so MADD takes care of that.
With 2% of GDP USA would take care of all its defense needs. USA does not need 11 aircraft carrier groups, about 100 nuclear-powered submarines, about 2,000 jet fighters, only God knows how many destroyers, to protect itself.
I agree the US could take care of its defense needs with 2% of GDP. But that would be a 40% cut, not a 90% cut. What we wouldn't be able to do is commit to protecting Europe or backstopping global capitalism.
> What we wouldn't be able to do is commit to protecting Europe or backstopping global capitalism.
We voted "America First" just recently. The 10% of the current budget should be enough to protect us against Canada and Mexico... except of course that budget is not for defense...
Who would ever want to invade the US? You would be destroying nearly everything of value because half the US economy is based on financial services. And it would make middle eastern insurgencies seem like childs play compared to the 10x higher gun ownership rate with better and more modern firearms in the US with a far higher percentage of practiced shooters and veterans.
Effectively, no one. The CCP doesn’t have the logistics capability or manpower to manage the largest occupation in the history of the world from half a world away.
They can and do want to destabilize American hegemony, but that doesn’t necessitate an end to the American state. My read is they prefer something like the British model for ex-imperials.
I’d be more interested in this if Fred didn’t spend his entire existence on saying negative things about Tesla and Elon. They have over 40 billion in cash in the bank. That was supposedly just a made up number as well
I see it like he’s one of the only outlets not regurgitating lying press releases and actually calling out the truth.
I always see Fred attacked on HN, but I never see anyone cite false statements he’s made. He’s just a bad person for hating on Tesla. As if it’s bad for a writer to critically cover a company doing bad things.
I have not seen information that BYD is significantly down in sales.
Forbes says that BYD had lower profits last year, due to intense competition inside China, which lead to lower sale prices.
On the other hand it is said that overseas BYD expects to have in 2026 sales 50% higher than in 2025.
There has been about a half of year during which the BYD sales in car numbers have been slightly less than before, but already in March 2026 BYD reported sales of over 300 thousand cars, compared with less than 200 thousand in February.
If they will continue to grow at this pace they will easily reach their target of one million and a half cars exported outside China during this year.
In any case, BYD already sells in a month about the same as Tesla sells in a quarter, and the distance between them will only grow.
It's noblesse oblige, or rather an example of the end of noblesse oblige, that the super rich don't even have to pretend to do things for others any more. Which, I would suggest, is a short-sighted and ultimately hubristicaly stupid change...
https://www.reddit.com/r/electriccars/comments/1t4slmi/best_...
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