jj4211

Also, Elon rolled most of that 'future AI empire' stuff into SPCX instead. Meaning that even if investors wanted to believe it that, they know that Elon can play shell games and put the prize wherever he wants and the investors are not able to control that.

Yeah, while there are some folks that are die-hard must have gas cars, lots of other folks experience instant torque, smoothest and quietest drive imaginable, and replenishing range without having to go out of your way to a station. Wondering when the next maintenance needs to come and there's no oil, no wearing belts, no super hot engine bay, just some things like wiper blades and a bit more rough on tires owing to generally higher weight.

There are downsides and awkward fits for some people. My apartment dwelling colleague would be screwed since his place has no available residential charging. Road trips can be more inconvient (though viable and perhaps worth it if you are taking a road trip every few months but spare yourself a weekly trip to the gas station). But certainly there's a market for which EVs provide more value than combustion vehicles.

I want you to be right, but I'm more skeptical. I see all over the place companies explicitly targeting a profitable subset: the biggest suckers of the available suckers. Higher margin, fewer whiny customers. Bonus points if it creates a cult-like fanbase (a lot of big brands manage to cultivate this).

Saw a story where a company explicitly had a strategy of "increase prices by 10x, and it may scare off 90% of customers, but the 10% left will be a wonderful gold mine". Particularly shortages in the tech industry swayed a lot of folks that advocated for high-volume, low-margin to low-volume, high-margin.

So if 20% are ride-or-die for Tesla and Musk, then it might be a decent enough move to double down on those 20%.

Not defending, just an explanation, and one that if anything would enrage Elon more.

He's still an absurdly over-wealthed taint stain, but the specific numbers over that threshold were just not quite as substantial as other (also somewhat imaginary) numbers.

Point in fact, he was a trillionaire, and now he is not, but he didn't lose anything real. He still has every bit the amount of real wealth and control over all that stuff you listed that he had before, just the number shifted by billions of dollars while preserving every last thing of import that was wrong with his wealth. He is no longer a trillionaire but that means absolutely nothing about the problems his wealth pose in real terms.

At some point, the numbers cease being a thing for meeting their needs, their comforts, and at some point even their every whim and preference they could possibly imagine. It just becomes a score and they peg their egos to the score. This is a level no one should ever be at.

Didn't help that he pissed away the carefully cultivated "Tony Stark" image. Now people don't shrug off his failures like they were inclined to do.

Note that while that sounds ridiculous, we demarcate value using a currency system that makes standing still look like mild growth. When you ultimately are controlling currency, you can create the appearance of growth under any real world condition you like.

So a company that looks flat in a system designed to make flat look like grown is actually experiencing some decline.

Of course whether that is a decline in product, results, or just random investor sentiment is all up in the air.

He didn't particularly benefit, his trajectory could have been just as productive under the Soviet government. It's not like he was a total outsider. If anything it might have stalled his political career advancement a few years.

Putin is old and generally well hidden. He likely doesn't see that he has that much to lose, when it comes down to it.

Yeah, that doesn't account for his loss in the opening days, when the NATO nations were clearly preparing to write off the conquest of Ukraine as a terrible thing but do nothing substantive about it.

Putin wanted to be cemented in history as bringing back a powerful Russia, and now he has an embarrassment. Dude is 73 and knows he has fewer years ahead than behind and it is now or never for his legacy.

He might not be afraid for his safety or his people, but for his legacy.

Far as I have heard, Ukraine was the industrial and agricultural backbone of USSR.

Beyond that, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics, notably on Ukraine. They see Ukraine as a key political necessity for resurrecting the power structure that they see as having been lost in the early 90s. Read about UK and US and you'll see a lot of familiar material there in terms of what Russia has actively worked toward.

Yeah, in the opening days of the invasion, the western powers were primed to wag their fingers and write sternly worded letters at the presumptive conquest of Ukraine. They weren't happy, but I think they were all too ready to just let it happen.

Only after Ukraine showed that it actually had some capability and will to successfully resist, then it became worthwhile for more substantial, though still indirect support from a lot of NATO nations.

While the US certainly does that broadly, Putin is not the beneficiary of such a ploy. That's one of the few major bad things in global politics that the US did not do.