no. I called it domestic terrorism when that guy exploded himself in a cybertruck in front of the Trump hotel. I also don't think there's some mysterious civilian mastermind behind it; rather, the same base the brand was built upon was always going to exact retaliation in Elon's 'betrayal' of it.
imo, much of the new right wing rhetoric from Silicon Valley's elites is disingenuous, and they seem to recognize this or else Elon wouldn't be attempting to make the ideological comparison to 90's Democrats. almost the entire brigade was deeply involved in radical leftist politics for decades. do we want to relive the Clinton era through Trump or is the mixed messaging coupled with intermittent pushes for total compliance and confirmity just getting tiresome for everyone?
clearly, the money that pours into anti-Tesla demonstrations is coming from the same very wealthy people who initially supported the brand because it served the ethos of their 'revolution' well in the beginning. the media hates Elon, though I think it goes both ways for obvious, logical reasons.
I simply think it was unwise for Elon NOT to step down as CEO prior to getting heavily involved in politics, which anyone with a brain could see was inevitable, and especially before starting his work with doge. doge isn't a bad thing though – I don't think anyone intelligent disagrees with cutting wasteful government spending – but there's a LOT of facetious bullshit going on in politics right now and the right is trying to clamp down on even dissenting opinions from within, which seems kinda pathetic and unhinged.
the fact is that the fomenting of violent extremism has a source in NGOs and the media, and it started long before most people even formed an opinion on it. I think that's worth examining and Elon needs to take a look within to figure out how his own past has affected the future of his companies. granted, I think his enemies are far bigger than most people can imagine and some of his own allies have become enemies to our freedoms, too. it's a shitty situation and people do shitty things in the name of whatever.
obviously, I am neither rich nor famous, so from my perspective, whether I support all the xcorp technologies and products is a non-indicator of correct political positioning, but that's what Elon's push into politics seems to be poised to do. some of it IS great. I just don't think the White House is where "if you don't fully align with us then you're an enemy of the state" kinds of ideas need go to be weaponized by the government again.
"absolute power corrupts absolutely."
the dude has spent years antagonizing the same base that built his brand, which seems to have added a lot of fuel to the flames; and as some have said, using exorbitant political donations to get the whole crew into the White House without any public oversight is a factor.
personally, I think the cars are cool and the AI is great, I like the rocket chopsticks thing, and I don't have heavy criticisms of the brand nor the people who support it, but the guy hasn't done a very deep or meaningful job in addressing his own customer base's spectrum of concerns about the impact of his political endeavors. there's only so much political hype someone can drum up to make stock prices go up, and his being involved in both the government and the companies is a conflict of interest no matter what side you're on.
other than that, it's questionable whether these things are preventable, but if investors are also concerned about the impact of Elon's involvement in government then the company should do its due diligence in addressing that.
imo, the government work is more important at the moment, and it's good that it's getting done. I also don't know what the 90's edge dot com curriculum that Epstein and Elon learned together taught, but repetitive reinforcement only goes so far in the age of social media. there are always going to be outliers in the debate whose actions undermine the debate, and they should be dealt with, but the discourse still has to happen.
as a country, we have been through enough foreign and domestic propaganda ops to know that the same operators who play both sides in politics also play both sides in commerce. I don't think you have to be an Expert Pattern Recognition Autist to see that. afaict, we have never had a situation in this country where someone who owned and controlled so many different companies was in charge of cleaning up government corruption.
no, people shouldn't be destroying cars or anything else for that matter, but we should be asking about this conflict and what that means for how things will be done to improve the government. the smartest thing to do would probably be to engage with the "Freedom Technology" base more and I hope he does that for the sake of implementing these technologies into his work in reforming the government.
seems important to know how to turn down the heat when you have an audience that big. most normal people can get away with playing both sides, but I'm not sure Elon was ever capable of doing that just by virtue of running so many international companies and being so well-known.
that is a scary position to be in but I hope he's able to deescalate those wars for the sake of himself, his family, his customer base, and all investors.