r/politics • u/Quirkie The Netherlands • Mar 06 '25

Soft Paywall Elon Musk Suddenly Doesn’t Want Credit for Disastrous DOGE Cuts - Musk is warning Republicans to stop blaming DOGE for the cuts.

https://newrepublic.com/post/192415/elon-musk-warns-republicans-doge-job-cuts
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u/rooran Mar 06 '25

500 cybertrucks to the U.S. military vs. the whole european car market. Art of the deal 🤷‍♂️

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u/zzy335 Mar 06 '25

China is Tesla's primary market. And the cars aren't very profitable to begin with. SpaceX getting tens of billions over the next decade is FAR more lucrative. And MUsk hasn't even BEGUN to start tapping those sweet defence contracts.

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u/GTdspDude Mar 06 '25

China is a losing market for Tesla, I was in Shanghai a few months ago, every car on the road (including their version of uber) was an electric car and almost none of them were Teslas. I counted ~15 different brands that I rode in, every ride was a different brand, and I bet you most had the same chassis and drive train from BYD or one of the other big guys - they just reskin the interior / exterior and slap their brand name on it.

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u/eden_sc2 Maryland Mar 06 '25

China's budget electric car market has been running laps around the US market. To the extent that, without tariffs, China would introduce electric cars that were cheaper than the lowest gas cars for sale in the US

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u/Worthyness Mar 06 '25

they're all cheap while being as good or better in build quality than a Tesla. The only really big market he has now is the US and half of them are turning on him too because Republicans don't like EVs and Democrats don't like Elon.

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u/peerless_dad Mar 06 '25

Tens of billions over the next decade is peanuts compared with the damage he has done to the Starlink brand, they were as close as you could get to a worldwide monopoly and almost every government was interested in their service, now he has already lost them billions worth of contracts and has only been on the job for a few months.

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u/LupinThe8th Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25

"Tens of billions" over a decade honestly isn't that much to this guy. Like all the uberwealthy, most of his wealth is in the stocks he owns, not actual money he makes.

The stocks go down, his wealth goes down with them.

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u/Not_a__porn__account Mar 06 '25

When you get a minute google the German military vehicle named the “fennek” and see if Elon even came up with the design of the cyber truck himself

He stole the style of a German recon vehicle and passed it off as a car. They could just buy the German vehicle that was specifically made for war.

But that would require some honesty from Musk. And I don’t think he’s programmed for that.

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u/Ocbard 29d ago

Fennek looks like a capable military vehicle, not something for your daily commute though. Cybertruck looks like neither.

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u/DefNotUnderrated Mar 06 '25

Can’t wait to see how well cybertrucks work for the military lol

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u/Ocbard 29d ago

Very well, and if the military tries to use them against Musk or someone Musk likes they'll suddenly stop working I'm sure.

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u/Ocbard 29d ago

I think it's pretty unfair to the US military too, saddling them with vehicles that can probably be tracked and shut down by a private company. Seems like a security hole.