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Musk is Tired of Politics... His Shenanigans Cost Tesla and the Nation Dearly [1]

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Date: 2025-04-21

Elon Musk has repeatedly shown himself to the be the fool by making outlandish, unsupported claims and dishing unfulfilled promises. While he has achieved some notable accomplishments, he has also bungled his way through numerous grandiose ventures. Take for example The (appropriately named) Boring Company, Xitter, and now the DOGE. The book is still open on Tesla as it is protected from reality by the Musk BS Dome defense system and sheer, over-the-top, unwarranted self confidence. His pie in the sky investors are in too deep to back out now and the hens may soon come home to roost. Tesla financial reports are due soon.

His political foray with DOGE, which gave him a chance to show the world his real radical right views, threatens to sink TSLA aided by the economic disaster of tariffs. These are the tariffs he inadvertently brought to bear on the world economy by buying the wrong candidate, Donald J. Trump, AKA, Cadet Bonespurs, Wannabe Despot in Chief. The financial disaster the world is now facing is just collateral damage in Musk’s romp through the realm of politics.

The Boring Company, according to Musk was going to build “3-D network of tunnels to alleviate congestion.” It was to send thousands of Teslas hurtling beneath Los Angeles to their destinations at 130 mph. He added, “For tunnels, you can have hundreds of lanes. There’s no real limit.” This was his announcement in 2017. As of 2021 he had produced one operating tunnel in Las Vegas. There pedestrians can board a Tesla (with a driver) to be whisked along at a blistering 35 miles per hour to their destination, less than two miles away. It turns out that building tunnels in the “unlimited” space below ground is not quite a simple or cost effective as Musk portrayed it.

Xitter (previously known as Twitter) was a beloved social platform that Musk cast as trampling on “free speech”. Which meant it had moderators to ensure civil discourse and prevent hate speech. After initial bluster about buying Twitter and attempting to back out of the deal, causing considerable havoc with the stock, Musk was pushed into actually going through with the deal. His business instincts led him to butcher the company, firing 75% of the staff, stiffing vendors, eliminating rules against hate speech and disinformation. All the while he was able to send advertisers fleeing by opening the door to right wing conspiracy and hate peddlers, and tank the company value. In a few short years it went from a worth of $44 billion at purchase to about $9.4 billion according to Fidelity, a major investor. Was it worth it to save “free speech” and provide a platform for Nazi’s, misogynists, and racists?

Tesla was the shining star of Musk’s adventures. Buoyed along by the rising tide of environmentalism, for nine years, Musk sold the dream that Electric Vehicles, FULL SELF DRIVING electric vehicles would be the only transportation mode of the new clean energy world. Full Self Driving, robotics, is the magic essence Musk proclaims sets Tesla apart from all others and justifies its value despite it earnings.

That balloon is about to pop however, as another withering financial report looms. And, since Musk began supporting Trump, no brand has lost value so quickly. Since December 2024, TSLA has lost over 40% of its market cap. Not to worry, investors, Full Self Driving is just around the corner. Hopefully you won’t meet it head on.

DOGE — With these previous adventures, most of the investors that stand to be hurt can probably afford it. And they willingly took a chance in hopes of outsized profits. They knew what they were getting into. For them, it was exhilarating and entertaining.

With the DOGE however its a much different story. The potential victims of Musk’s snake oil shenanigans are literally millions of hard working lower and middle income families who had no penchant to gamble on a scheme proposed by a flamboyant and spirited showman with overwhelming self confidence. He made grandiose promises of eliminating trillions in waste and fraud from the US government.

The savings have been meager at best and by some estimates have cost more than they save. As this court jester and his DOGE acolytes take down the American Government on a whim and endanger the livelihood of hundreds of millions around the world in the process, no one is amused.

Now he protests that his feelings are hurt by criticism from his victims, and he is going to abandon politics. Not a minute too soon as he has left institutions (like Social Security, the NIH, CDC, FDIC, SEC, Forest Service, National Park Service...) that protected and served American citizens for decades in tatters. And, they may never recover.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/21/2317906/-Musk-is-Tired-of-Politics-His-Shenanigans-Cost-Tesla-and-the-Nation-Dearly?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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