Musk, Tesla, Twitter, And SpaceX Had A Hell Of A Year

Tesla sales are tanking, Twitter is a mess, SpaceX is coasting on Boeing's failures, and xAI is burning through billions. The world's richest man and his actions in 2024 have only expanded his ridiculous mythos. In spite of telling advertisers "go f*** yourself," Musk became the first human being in history to cross the $400 billion net worth this year. According to Forbes this man has failed upward into $443 billion. He could soon be the world's first trillionaire.

While Jalopnik has been covering Elon's descent into madness for years, he's finally cracked the surface of normal everyday media with his massive involvement in the Donald Trump re-election campaign and his push to shape public policy in his image. When he isn't begging Tesla investors to give him another $56 billion, Musk is tweeting hundreds of times per day, playing Diablo IV, claiming his "son was killed" because she transitioned, and promoting conspiracy theories.

In 2023 Elon Musk wasn't all that different from any other weirdo billionaire, but in 2024 he took his mask off and showed the world who he really is.

In March the world's wealthiest man said he would be staying out of politics. Musk had, prior to 2020, been a shrewd bipartisan down-ticket donor, giving to politicians as it suited him and his businesses, giving tens of thousands of dollars to Gavin Newsom and Rahm Emanuel, as well as Ted Cruz and Kevin McCarthy.

Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2024

When it came to presidential campaigns, however, Musk was a staunch Democratic Party supporter, giving to the Obama, Clinton, and Biden campaigns. So, when he said he wasn't donating to either presidential campaign, it was a clear split with Joe Biden over his alignment with the United Auto Workers and perceived slights against the ultra-billionaire union buster.

While Elon has been playing President, Tesla did the Silicon Valley thing of inventing the city bus again. The electric car company's continued push to sell self-driving autonomous cars that neither drive themselves or are autonomous, was on full display this fall at Tesla's We, Robot event.

As a perfect encapsulation of Elon and Tesla's lies to pump the share price, a series of Optimus "autonomous" robots were on hand to pour beer for guests of the event. It was later revealed that the robots were all controlled by humans. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, his "autonomous" taxis will also be driven remotely, potentially for several years.

Elon has been promising self-driving cars for over a decade. It has always been a lie.

Tesla was on top of the world in November of 2019 when the Cybertruck was first unveiled. It promised otherworldly aesthetics, best-in-class everything, and a bargain-basement price tag that seemed impossible. As it turns out, five years later when the vehicle finally hit regular production, almost all of that was, in fact, impossible. The specs didn't align with what people were promised, and the price was almost double what had been promoted.

In spite of the company getting allegedly over a million deposits for potential Cybertruck owners, Tesla admitted that it has basically delivered a Cybertruck to everyone who wanted one less than a year after the first truck left the factory. Only about 27,000 trucks were delivered in the first three quarters of 2024, and just like that demand is sated. Tesla is slowing production and freezing the assembly line for hours or days at a time. Yes, the Cybertruck has outsold all of the other electric pickups on the market, but that's probably a sign that pickup buyers don't want EVs and EV buyers don't want pickups.

In part, Elon and his heel-turn jabroni followers have turned the Cybertruck into the token sculpture of the current culture war. It's difficult to get excited about this poorly assembled monstrosity that looks like a dorky dumpster.

Tesla, once the global leader in Electric Vehicles, has rested upon its laurels far too long. With an aging lineup and uninspiring products marketed on untruths, stock market share price, and vibes, plus a company CEO actively working to alienate a huge percentage of the company's target demographic, it's no surprise that sales aren't hitting targets. Competition from Europe and China are growing rapidly, pushing Tesla out of markets it once controlled. Tesla is going to struggle to even match its 2023 sales, and looks likely to fall short of the mark.

Elon's brain-computer-interface pet project Neuralink was successful in implanting a chip in two human brains in 2024, and both operations seem to have been successful. The company's chip, called "Telepathy," is currently being trialed in quadriplegic patients, and allegedly allows them to control a cell phone or computer screen simply by thinking.

This is, unequivocally, a pretty great thing for delivering capabilities and quality of life to people who need them. I have reservations, however, about Elon's desire to eventually implant these chips in the brains in able-bodied human adults to archive memories, better interface with AI, or human-to-human telepathy. There are many reasons not to trust the world's richest man to put a chip in your brain, but perhaps the biggest one is that he's probably lying.

Redefining the boundaries of human capability requires pioneers.

If you have quadriplegia and want to explore new ways of controlling your computer, we invite you to participate in our clinical trial. pic.twitter.com/svqfAkVV1M

— Neuralink (@neuralink) May 16, 2024

It has been seven years since Elon first stood on stage and promised customers with a straight face that they would receive their Tesla Roadsters in 2020. Back then 1,000 people gave Tesla the full boat $250,000 for a Founders Edition Roadster, while presumably thousands more put down deposits. Nobody has seen hide nor hair of that car in the time since.

This summer Musk promised that the Roadster was back on schedule and would be delivered in 2025. Then in October during the company earnings call, Musk walked back even that promise.

Back in April Tesla was undergoing massive layoffs to the tune of ten percent of its global staff. Some 15-20 percent of the charging network team had been laid off, something that really put a damper on plans set forth by then-department head Rebecca Tinucci. About two weeks after the layoffs, Musk requested that Tinucci meet with him to discuss the future of the department.

Allegedly Musk was much displeased with her ideas for the network and told her to fire an additional chunk of her team. According to Reuters reporting, pushing back against Musk was Tinucci's undoing. "When she balked, saying deeper cuts would undermine charging-business fundamentals, he responded by firing her and her entire 500-member team."

One must not displease His Highness.

The Elon compensation plan saga has raged all year. In 2018 Elon asked the crony-packed and allegedly coerced Tesla board to approve an astronomical compensation package linked directly to the company's share price exceeding anyone's expectations. Using tactics that could be described as lying or manipulating the share price, Elon made that number a reality.

That pay package, valued at $56 billion, was shot down by a Delaware judge back in January, saying it was unfair to shareholders. Tesla went to bat for its embattled CEO already worth nearly half a trillion dollars. The company even went so far as to run advertisements, something it doesn't typically do, aimed at convincing TSLA investors to vote to reinstate the pay package, which for some unfathomable reason, they did.

Earlier this month the same judge shot it down a second time.

In 2023 Elon Musk said on social media that he would fight Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg. Zuck, a trained MMA fighter, took the fight, but Elon quickly backed down when it came time to schedule the fight.

In July Musk once again said he would fight Zuck "any place, any time, any rules" but it seems Mr. Facebook is done humoring Mr. Twitter's egotistical quips.

Following Musk's purchase of Twitter in 2022 a bunch of the site's advertisers jumped ship, largely because they didn't want their products and services showing up alongside the antisemitic content Musk continues to push. Musk, the adult in the room, responded by telling the advertisers to "go f***" themselves. After walking that back and hiring a new CEO to woo advertisers back, Musk once again fired up his antagonistic side by threatening to sue companies which did not choose to advertise on Twitter.

In backing Donald Trump for president, the EV company head and one-time promoter of solar and battery tech has made an about-face in his environmental promises. It seems the half-trillionaire is no longer worried about fixing the problems on Earth and instead is focused almost exclusively on getting to Mars. Back in August he hard-launched his environmental heel turn by hosting a discussion with candidate Trump on Twitter. In that discussion Musk claimed that CO2 isn't a problem, burning fossil fuels had minimal effect on the climate, and went so far as to claim the oil and gas industry isn't to blame. He has also tweeted that climate change is "tracking to be solved" and "definitely will not end the world as we know it."

For those impacted by Hurricane Helene, or looking to support response and recovery efforts in affected areas, Starlink is now free for 30 days.

Learn more here → https://t.co/SmoEBQdj1j https://t.co/pfWsdREYMb

— Starlink (@Starlink) October 2, 2024

Following the damage and disaster that was Hurricane Helene many people affected by the storms were left without reliable access to internet. Elon Musk and SpaceX generously offered hurricane victims hoping to connect to the world and rebuild its satellite internet Starlink "free for 30 days." Wow, that sounds like an incredibly philanthropic thing for the world's richest man to offer his fellow Americans down on their luck.

Except what he was offering was basically a coupon code for 30 free days of service if a new customer purchased a $400 Starlink unit.

In spite of an overall economics-driven plunge in total car sales in the Chinese market over the summer, BYD is rallying in the second half of the year. In the third quarter of 2024 BYD was singularly responsible for 40 percent of global PHEV sales, and is essentially tied with Tesla for total sales in the first 9 months with Tesla on a downswing and BYD on a huge upswing.