My recent e-mail on Elon Musk and Tesla; My favorite country
1) I sent this e-mail to my personal Elon Musk/Tesla (TSLA) e-mail list last week (if you wish to subscribe to it, simply send a blank e-mail to: tsla-subscribe@mailer.kasecapital.com)...
A) Ronan Farrow wrote an in-depth profile of Musk in the latest issue of The New Yorker: Elon Musk's Shadow Rule. It's incredible what Musk has built, but a private citizen shouldn't have this kind of power. Excerpt:
In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded.
The government is now reliant on him, but struggles to respond to his risk-taking, brinkmanship, and caprice. Current and former officials from NASA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration told me that Musk's influence had become inescapable in their work, and several of them said that they now treat him like a sort of unelected official.
One Pentagon spokesman said that he was keeping Musk apprised of my inquiries about his role in Ukraine and would grant an interview with an official about the matter only with Musk's permission. "We'll talk to you if Elon wants us to," he told me. In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, "In some ways." Reid Hoffman told me that Musk's attitude is "like Louis XIV: 'L'état, c'est moi.'"
Musk's power continues to grow. His takeover of Twitter, which he has rebranded "X," gives him a critical forum for political discourse ahead of the next Presidential election. He recently launched an artificial-intelligence company, a move that follows years of involvement in the technology. Musk has become a hyper-exposed pop-culture figure, and his sharp turns from altruistic to vainglorious, strategic to impulsive, have been the subject of innumerable articles and at least seven major books, including a forthcoming biography by Walter Isaacson. But the nature and the scope of his power are less widely understood.
More than thirty of Musk's current and former colleagues in various industries and a dozen individuals in his personal life spoke to me about their experiences with him. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, with whom Musk has both worked and sparred, told me, "Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it."
The terms of the Starlink deal have not been made public. Ukrainian officials say that they have not faced further service interruptions. But Musk has continued to express ambivalence about how the technology is being used, and where it can be deployed. In February, he tweeted, "We will not enable escalation of conflict that may lead to WW3." He said, as he had told Kahl, that he was sincerely attempting to navigate the moral dilemmas of his role: "We're trying hard to do the right thing, where the 'right thing' is an extremely difficult moral question."
Musk's hesitation aligns with his pragmatic interests. A facility in Shanghai produces half of all Tesla cars, and Musk depends on the good will of officials in China, which has lent support to Russia in the conflict.
Musk recently acknowledged to the Financial Times that Beijing disapproves of his decision to provide Internet service to Ukraine and has sought assurances that he would not deploy similar technology in China. In the same interview, he responded to questions about China's efforts to assert control over Taiwan by floating another peace plan. Taiwan, he suggested, could become a jointly controlled administrative zone, an outcome that Taiwanese leaders see as ending the country's independence. During a trip to Beijing this spring, Musk was welcomed with what Reuters summarized as "flattery and feasts." He met with senior officials, including China's foreign minister, and posed for the kinds of awkwardly smiling formal photos that are more typical of world leaders.
National-security officials I spoke with had a range of views on the government's balance of power with Musk. He maintains good relationships with some of them, including General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Since the two men met, several years ago, when Milley was the chief of staff of the Army, they have discussed "technology applications to warfare – artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and autonomous machines," Milley told me. "He has insight that helped shape my thoughts on the fundamental change in the character of war and the modernization of the U.S. military."
During the Starlink controversy, Musk called him for advice. But other officials expressed profound misgivings. "Living in the world we live in, in which Elon runs this company and it is a private business under his control, we are living off his good graces," a Pentagon official told me. "That sucks."
B) This is outrageous! An NYU professor with 560,000 followers says he's been locked out of his X account for over 2 weeks after declining to meet with Elon Musk. Musk-the-free-speech-absolutist turns out to be a total hypocrite. Excerpt:
Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at NYU who's also known as an author and public speaker, said he was locked out of his X account after a quarrel with Elon Musk.
"A mutual friend reached out and said Elon feels 'unfairly attacked,' by me, and wants to meet," Galloway posted on Threads. "I declined."
"For 18 days I have been unable to log-on to Twitter," Galloway told Insider in an e-mail. "Filled out form on the site, but no word back."
His X posts also appear not to show up in the platform's search tool.
C) The Washington Post has a related story: Elon Musk's X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes. Excerpt:
The company formerly known as Twitter has been slowing the speed with which users could access links to the New York Times, Facebook, and other news organizations and online competitors, a move that appeared targeted at companies that have drawn the ire of owner Elon Musk.
Users who clicked a link on Musk's website, now called X, for one of the targeted websites were made to wait about five seconds before seeing the page, according to tests conducted Tuesday by the Washington Post.
The delayed websites included X's online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times. All of them have previously been singled out by Musk for ridicule or attack.
On Tuesday afternoon, hours after this story was first published, X began reversing the throttling on some of the sites, dropping the delay times back to zero. It was unknown if all the throttled websites had normal service restored.
D) I don't know what the Department of Justice is thinking here, suing one of America's most successful and innovative companies over, at most, a touch foul... Justice Department Sues SpaceX for Discriminating Against Asylees and Refugees in Hiring. Excerpt:
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit today against Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) for discriminating against asylees and refugees in hiring. The lawsuit alleges that, from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
E) There's a lot of truth here. That said, this chart ignores the greatest threats to Tesla: Ford Motor (F), General Motors (GM), Toyota Motor (TM), Volkswagen, Mercedes, BMW, Hyundai, etc., etc., etc...
F) I enjoyed this six-part podcast on Tesla: Land of the Giants – The Tesla Shock Wave .
G) Here's a collection of other articles of interest related to Musk and/or Tesla:
- Seeking Alpha (podcast and transcript): Tesla Bull/Bear Thesis With Anton Wahlman and James Foord
- Washington Post: Is it cheaper to refuel your EV battery or gas tank? We did the math in all 50 states
- WSJ: Elon Musk's Latest Antics Have Some Asking: Is He Out of Touch?
- Bloomberg: Tesla's New CFO Now Has Two Jobs and a Lot of Question Marks
- WSJ video: Tesla Dashcam Footage Suggests Reasons for Autopilot Crashes
- WSJ: Tesla Cuts Prices in China as Price-War Truce Fails
- Video of the WSJ reviewing EVs: Tesla vs. Ford vs. Hyundai: Which EV Has the Best Tech?
- Video: Why China Is Banning Teslas
- WSJ: America's Most Tech-Forward City Has Doubts About Self-Driving Cars
- CNBC: Cruise will reduce robotaxi fleet by 50% in San Francisco while California DMV investigates 'incidents'
- CNN: Linda Yaccarino was pressed about the chaos on Elon Musk's X. Her answers were detached from reality
2) Because I travel so much, I'm often asked what my favorite country is... My instant reply is, "The U.S.!"
Obviously it doesn't have the thrill of discovering an exotic/ancient country or grappling with a language you don't speak. And if you want to see certain things like penguins in Antarctica or lions in Africa, you have to go overseas. But if you're into the great outdoors and the sheer beauty of nature, it's not even close...
Having visited 80 countries (including two new ones last week, Latvia and Estonia), I can say with authority that the U.S. has, by far, the most varied and spectacular scenery, from the glaciers and wilderness of Alaska to Yosemite to Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon – and so much more.
My friend and New York Times columnist Nick Kristof just wrote an op-ed about this: Hungry Mosquitoes, Irritable Bears, and the Glories of Wilderness. Excerpt:
... there's something still spectacularly right about the United States: our wild spaces. Some 40% of America is public land – a credit to our forebears – and we haven't screwed that up yet (although climate-change-related fires endanger it).
I'm hiking with my daughter and her boyfriend, and it's cathartic: We get up in the morning with the sun, drink from creeks, rest on logs, eat from our packs when hungry, and at dusk we find some flat ground, roll out a ground sheet, unfurl pads and sleeping bags and then fall asleep under the stars to the melody of owl hoots.
For me, wilderness backpacking is a profoundly healing experience. It restores my soul.
If much of modern life is exemplified by what we do on our screens – firing off intemperate and shallow salvos on the platform X, what we used to call Twitter – then wilderness offers an antidote. It is deep. It is enduring. It is soothing. The antonym of X is wilderness...
... wild places provide a rare zone of equality in an unequal nation. There are few places in America where a billionaire and a welder are on equal footing, but a wilderness trail is one; no one can pull rank on you, except a large bear.
As I see it, the purpose of our extraordinary American inheritance of public lands is to go out in them, to experience that healing power of nature. Yet perhaps three-quarters of Americans don't set foot on national forest trails at all.
Many children in particular seem to suffer from what the writer Richard Louv has called "nature-deficit disorder." That's the alienation from the natural world that arises when kids no longer tramp through the mud chasing tadpoles and garter snakes.
Perhaps we parents are overprotective, fearing that mud might be quicksand or that garter snakes might be rattlesnakes. And modern life feels increasingly sedentary and pampered: On a baking summer day, kids no longer cool off in a swimming hole, but rather stay inside air-conditioned rooms playing video games, oblivious to their deprivation.
When young Americans don't interact with the outdoors, something is lost for all of us – including a visceral appreciation of what wilderness is. In our dreams, it may be romantic and Disney-like; in reality, you're always too hot or too cold, all trails are mostly uphill, and that brown lump you just kicked is a wasp nest. All true, but that reality is bewitching.
So, my advice: Go take a hike, and bring the kids.
Best regards,
Whitney
P.S. I welcome your feedback at WTDfeedback@empirefinancialresearch.com.