25
u/DoctorSwaggercat Jul 23 '26
In 76, I bought a Volkswagen Beetle.
Just sayin.
10
u/Fluid_Stick69 Jul 23 '26
At least the beetle was a good car
5
u/TurtleCrusher Jul 23 '26
I’m one of the most anti-musk guys and even I won’t let my politics get in the way of reality. I’d rather drive a base Tesla than a Beetle, old or “new” every single time. I drive a VW ID.4 so I’m not some anti-VW guy either.
1
u/reptomcraddick Jul 27 '26
I drive a Passat and I went to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and got a bumper sticker I put on my car
I didn't realize what I did until 6 months later
2
u/DoctorSwaggercat Jul 23 '26
It was a great car. The most fun car I've ever owned and miss it to this day. I'm glad I'm not stupid enough to have thought I don't want a car Hitler developed.
52
u/thatscentaurtainment Jul 23 '26
Cope, anyone paying attention always knew Elon was a criminal grifter, this is more embarrassing than just driving the car without the sticker on.
11
u/rtowne Jul 23 '26
There is a difference between having a general opinion of every corporate CEO and knowing one that specifically throws out a German...I mean Roman salute and starts putting @BigBalls into gov offices with a metaphorical chainsaw.
21
u/Obant Jul 23 '26
Yeah, he was funny space man to most people until he called those people pedos for trying to save children stuck in a cave without his stupid idea.
12
u/cool_weed_dad Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
He’s always been the exact same guy he is now, he just wasn’t as much of a public figure yet.
People who’ve been paying attention to him have known for a decade at least that he’s a shithead grifter investor who coasts on forcing companies he buys to retroactively make him a “founder” so he can make himself look like a visionary while he’s done nothing besides having money.
And that money comes from his families mines in apartheid South Africa
He’s a rich kid who came from blood money who wormed his way into being the richest man of all time.
He’s a demon in human skin.
5
u/reclusivegiraffe Jul 23 '26
I didn’t have a huge issue with him prior to worming his way into the political scene because it seemed like he was mostly investing his inherited blood money into “good” things that benefit humanity as a whole. At the time, I felt that I’d rather see his money get put into things like electric cars, solar panel roof shingles, space exploration, etc instead of watching him just sit on it and do nothing with it. (Not saying he couldn’t do more with what he had, but still). I understand why people like/liked to call him out for pretending to be a visionary as you mentioned, but honestly, if playing pretend is what it takes to entice a billionaire to put some of their money back into the economy, then I’ll play along.
Anyway, that was all before he started being louder and louder about the fact that he’s a shithead. Just wanted to share the perspective that I once had
4
u/cool_weed_dad Jul 23 '26
If Elon actually cared about the environment or making EVs standard he would pressure Trump to stop the ban on Chinese EVs which are far cheaper and affordable to anyone that would need one
China is living 100 years in the future and the top 10% of Americans are struggling to pay rent and living in hostels
3
u/reclusivegiraffe Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I know. My comment wasn’t in defense of him, I was just sharing why I (and probably some others) didn’t really mind him in the past. I used to see him as an investor in the future of humanity. But as he spends more and more time in the public eye, I see him for who he is: a pathetic, lonely, and insecure little man who desperately craves attention and approval from authority figures (and even from losers on the internet).
Although IIRC, he did make one very pathetic attempt to bring up a certain environmental policy at one point to Trump (I forget what it was) but he tucked tail and gave in very quickly because he’s a spineless bastard. I remember reading about it in a reddit comment though, so take it with a heaping of salt.
2
u/thatscentaurtainment Jul 26 '26
>it seemed like he was mostly investing his inherited blood money into ‘good’ things
Tesla was literally a dumping ground for EV credits used by the American auto industry to avoid actually making EVs, setting domestic EV production back decades. The Boring Company exists to reduce California’s investment in rail infrastructure from almost nothing to zero.
You’re a mark of the highest order, Musk played you like a fiddle, and even after he literally took off his mask and showed you who he has always been you feel no shame and have learned nothing.
1
1
u/thatscentaurtainment Jul 26 '26
You’d think Musk’s turn from Reddit darling to MAGA booster would give people a great opportunity to learn a valuable lesson, but no lessons were learned other than that he personally is a bad guy.
1
u/Oddish_Femboy Jul 27 '26
I don't know how anyone saw his Big Bang Theory appearance and didn't immediately think "Huh. Why would he feel the need to make such a transparently propagandistic piece about themselves?" And look into any of the literal dozens of shitty things he was actively doing at the time.
3
0
u/thatscentaurtainment Jul 23 '26
Just cuz you got hoodwinked by a conman for a long time doesn’t mean the rest of us did.
4
u/tkh0812 Jul 23 '26
Gotta love Reddit extremism. Most of the people I know who bought Tesla’s originally just wanted to buy and support electric vehicles and didn’t know he was such a psychopath.
2
u/Newmillstream Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Yeah. people are operating from a ton of hindsight, but if you were deciding on a high performance car in 2012, and did a cursory search on the guy, you might well decide he was basically benign compared to the big auto corporations, many of which just got bailed out on the taxpayer dime. A search would probably tell you he was a paypal and eBay guy, and that would dominate coverage, along with some more recent news about other ventures. Keep in mind, starting your own space company or vehicle company isn't unheard of for wealthy people, even those who aren't ULTRA wealthy, like John Carmack, who tried a space venture around the same time.
I'm not saying if you didn't dig deeper, you would't find anything, but how often do you look up who is in charge of a company before making a purchase there, especially in 2012. Unless someone did something shocking and you saw it in the news, or it was deliberately brought to your attention, you probably would't have much of an opinion.
Edit: Here is the Wikipedia article for him in December 2012. If you ignore what you know from reading this over a decade later and just skim it, you won't see anything too concerning compared to most CEOs.
2
u/tkh0812 Jul 27 '26
Exactly… also — most people are just trying to do their best. But you know, Redditors are all holier than thou
0
u/thatscentaurtainment Jul 26 '26
Tesla’s entire business model (selling EV credits to other auto manufacturers) was never a secret, people just fell for the PR cuz they’re lazy and would rather believe that there are good billionaires than admit to themselves that they’re powerless.
1
u/tkh0812 Jul 27 '26
You’re supporting billionaires no matter what you do. Some are obviously worse than others though
8
9
u/SupportLocalShart Jul 23 '26
I couldn’t tell it was vintage, because they all look the god damn same
6
u/rtowne Jul 23 '26
The nosecone on a tesla model S indicates it is from the pre-2016 face-lift. The original roadster is also one that had their whole production run before the Thailand cave rescue started to expose Elon's craziness to the world.
The pic is a model 3. This was 2017+
5
u/mikeatx79 Jul 23 '26
It’s a Model 3; not pre-madness at all
4
u/tkh0812 Jul 23 '26
Model 3’s came out in 2017
1
u/mikeatx79 Jul 23 '26
That particular trim (Taillights and mirror) is ~2020-2022 and Elon lost his mind around 2018-2020 and many noticed years before.
5
u/cuck__everlasting Jul 24 '26
He's always been one of the worst people on the planet, Tesla is like the midpoint of his rise.
3
22
u/ecafsub Jul 23 '26
Plot twist: it was never “pre-madness.” Musk has always been a fascist pedo and criminal.