The Daily Reid: maga kneels as Elonworld burns
Protesters and vandals didn't ruin Tesla. Elon Musk, doge and Donald Trump did.
You know you’re trapped in a weird, creepy, kakistocratic oligarchy when the federal government marshals its massive resources to boost a single company’s economic fortunes. That’s exactly what the current regime is doing for Tesla — with the commerce secretary himself stepping in to defend the beleaguered electric car company’s stock and urge Americans to buy, buy, buy!
Lutnick’s attempt to play amateur Kudlow and Kramer worked so well, Tesla stock responded by dropping even more. Apparently, investors aren’t too keen on the Elon Trump administration’s Kremlin/Beijing style of government run capitalism.
Still, that “whole government approach” to saving Tesla from domestic and international loathing, swastika graffiti and other vandalism, against its cars, dealerships and charging stations, protests, record trade-ins and insurance spikes, hasn’t slowed down. And it’s not just Trump debasing the White House by turning it into a cheap TV commercial set, so he could buy an electric car he can’t even drive … even the American Duma is getting involved.
That’s 81-year-old North Carolina Republican congresswoman and professional town hall avoider Virginia Foxx, who leads the House Rules Committee, performatively kneeling before her master by posing beside a cherry red Tesla sedan. No word on whether she’d actually spent some of her 174,000 congressional salary on the car, or whether she just giddily found one parked near the Capitol and skedaddled over to worship it and perhaps gain some favor with the boss.
Not to be left out, Trump’s personal pro bono lawyer attorney general Pam Bondi, taking time off from her almost continual appearances on Fox issued a written statement calling vandalism against Tesla vehicles and showrooms, “domestic terrorism" while promising to bring the hammer of justice down on the perpetrators if they are caught. The release cited arrests of Tesla attackers in Salem, Oregon, Loveland, Colorado and Charleston, South Carolina, saying each of the perpetrators face up to 20 years in prison. Minor detail: the arrests cited are weeks old, according to the New York Times. But you know … you can’t be performative without a performance.
Apparently, unlike the people who sacked our Capitol and assaulted police officers, nearly killing some , permanently injuring others and resulting in nine deaths, including four Trump supporters and five police officers, four of whom died via suicide, all because Trump’s re-election dreams were dashed by voters and he was embarrassed about it, Tesla torchers are actual domestic terrorists, because only crimes against rich people and property are real in Magamerica — just as it was at the Founding.
vs…
Are we great again, yet?
Doing her part, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt demanded that Democrats join in the condemnation, since liberals used to like Teslas before Elon became “dark maga” and began illegally dismantling our federal government, piece by piece.
And despite the absurdity of essentially claiming that property crimes committed in protest are more egregious than actual assaults on capitol police and threats to kill members of congress plus the sitting vice president, Elon’s friends in state media are boldly taking to cable TV to suggest that perhaps those who torch the state’s official most favored vehicles should face the death penalty.
Small point but important one, Harris: if someone were to torch a Tesla with a person inside it, killing them, that would literally be murder. And it wouldn’t the targeting of the car that would be the most egregious crime. The right wing fixation on the Teslas themselves, for whose protection Republicans are displaying more passion than I’ve seen them show to school children who face gun massacres, or to the officers who saved the lives of Republican and Democratic congress members and Senators alike on January 6, 2021, is disturbing as hell. Just sayin…
And not to put to fine a point on it, but Tesla’s biggest problem isn’t even protesters. It’s car quality. Note that Elon Musk did not invent or design the original Teslas, including the Model S, which were actually decent, safe cars (I know a few Hollywood liberals who had them). He took over the company from the actual inventors: two American engineers named Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who founded the company the South African immigrant later became CEO of. And as with most things, the origin story of Tesla Motors involves a relationship crisis requiring the potent man medicine of sports cars…
The seeds of the company go back to 1990 when Tarpenning met Eberhard, then an engineer at Wyse Technology, and they became good friends. The two had much in common including a passion for starting companies, and they soon launched companies including NuvoMedia, which released the Rocket eBook in 1998.
A passion for autos started soon after Eberhard went through a divorce and decided to buy a sports car. He considered entering the electric car industry after investing in a boutique electric automaker named AC Propulsion.
In 2001, Eberhard and Tarpenning met Elon Musk after hearing him speak at a Mars Society talk at Stanford University. At that time, Musk already had a portfolio of successful start-ups. In 1998 Peter Thiel, and Max Levchin co-founded an online payments company.
In 1999 Elon Musk founded a similar company called X.com, and they merged to form PayPal. The group then sold PayPal to eBay in 2002. Impressively, Musk made $165 million in stocks from the sale. Soon after, Musk launched Space X, a company that designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.
Tesla was officially incorporated in 2003 with the goal of inventing an electric car that was powerful, beautiful, and with zero emissions. Other co-founders were JB Straubel—the company's chief technology officer (CTO) until 2019—and Ian Wright, who left Tesla in 2004. Wright later founded the electric vehicle powertrain company Wrightspeed.
Dude is forever naming things (and people) “X” … what’s that about?? Anywhomst, Elon’s actual creation, under his own brain steam, is the Cybertruck, perhaps the ugliest vehicle I’ve ever seen (pause for nausea-inducing fanboy drek by Walter Isaacson) … but a giant, pull-apart can opener that’s become popular with pro athletes, affluent incels and f—kboys, everywhere. Welp … here’s how that’s going…
U.S. safety regulators on Thursday recalled virtually all Cybertrucks on the road, the eighth recall of the Tesla-made vehicles since deliveries to customers began just over a year ago.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s recall, which covers more than 46,000 Cybertrucks, warned that an exterior panel that runs along the left and right side of the windshield can detach while driving, creating a dangerous road hazard for other drivers, increasing the risk of a crash.
The stainless steel strip, called a cant rail assembly, between the windshield and the roof on both sides, is bound to the truck’s assembly with a structural adhesive, the NHTSA report said. The remedy uses an adhesive that’s not been found to be vulnerable to “environmental embrittlement,” the NHTSA said, and includes additional reinforcements.
Tesla will replace the panel free of charge. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed May 19, 2025.
Can’t wait til this weirdo is in charge of air traffic control …
By the way, you know how much money Tesla makes from things other than selling crappy vehicles? A LOT…
Two egos like Elon Musk’s and Donald Trump’s could never share the spotlight if it weren’t for the unifying force of grifter solidarity—two oligarchs teaming up to further tip the scales against everyone else. Just as Trump’s P.R. campaign as a canny dealmaker hid his multiple bankruptcies, Musk’s rogue genius performance serves as cover for the fact that he’s just another billionaire buying up others’ ideas and playing the system with enough of a safety net to repeatedly fail. His whole shtick is built on the idea that he’s a bold, self-made innovator who defies the odds, shuns government handouts, and stands for the unbridled power of the free market. In reality, his empire, built originally on an apartheid emerald mine, has been propped up by public money for years. One of its most consistent sources of income has been Tesla’s exploitation of the carbon credit market.
Tesla, the supposed future of clean energy, isn’t just making money by selling electric cars—it’s making a fortune off a regulatory loophole. In the first nine months of 2024, 43 percent of Tesla’s net income came from selling credits to other automakers that hadn’t met emissions standards. It’s not innovation that’s keeping Tesla’s finances afloat; it’s a rigged system that Musk is milking for everything it’s worth. And all the while, he’s using his newfound power as Trump’s unelected co-president to gut the very government programs that provide working people with a fraction of the support that he’s quietly pocketing.
Read the rest at The New Republic.
BTW heard from a source last night who’s in touch with folks inside of Trumpworld and the word ain’t good. CEOs are frightened, both of Trump — due to his erratic nature and vindictiveness — and of Elon, due to his money and power to control Trump and the government. Companies are fearing losing federal contracts on a whim (or due to Elon stealing them out from under them) and feeling pressured to donate to Trump to fend off vindictive executive orders. They know they need to feed him financially to keep him off their backs. Case in point:
Donald Trump rescinded an executive order targeting a prominent Democratic-leaning law firm after it agreed to provide $40m in free legal services to support his administration’s goals.
The White House has targeted law firms whose lawyers have provided legal work that Trump disagrees with. Last week, he issued an order threatening to suspend active security clearances of attorneys at Paul, Weiss and to terminate any federal contracts the firm has.
But the president suddenly reversed course following a meeting between Trump and Brad Karp, the chair of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, over the White House order.
Trump’s order singled out the work of Mark Pomerantz, who previously worked at the firm and who oversaw an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney’s office into Trump’s finances before Trump became president. Pomerantz once likened the president to a mob boss.
To avoid the consequences of Trump’s order, the White House said, the firm had agreed to “take on a wide range of pro bono matters that represent the full spectrum of political viewpoints of our society”. The firm reportedly agreed to disavow the use of diversity, equity and inclusion considerations in its hiring and promotion decisions and to dedicate the equivalent of $40m in free legal services to support Trump administration policies on issues including assistance for veterans and countering antisemitism.
The firm, the White House claimed, also acknowledged the wrongdoing of Pomerantz, the partner involved in the investigation into Trump’s hush-money payments to an adult film actor. It was unclear whether Karp was aware of that claim.
In a statement issued by the White House, Karp said: “We are gratified that the President has agreed to withdraw the Executive Order concerning Paul, Weiss. We look forward to an engaged and constructive relationship with the President and his Administration.”
Sure sounds like the kind of extortion a mob boss would engage in…
Meanwhile, in violence the right doesn’t have a problem with…
While maga extremists rain death, bombing and impeachment threats on judges who dare to defy Trump and uphold the constitution, yet another judge has slapped the Trump-Elon regime down, ruling that Musk can’t conduct a fishing expedition inside our Social Security files.
But when it comes to a potential U.S. war with China? Apparently, according to the New York Times, Elon gets to sit in.
Sure … why not.
But of course, Elon is now threatening the leakers who told the Times what he’s up to.
And remember that time Trump’s former Svengali said this on a right wing podcast?
I dunno, maybe we should stop these goons from dismantling our government, illegally trying to shutter the Department of Education (thus ending its civil rights enforcement on behalf of racial and gender minority children and the disabled) and closing Social Security offices across the country, including in red districts.
Meanwhile, the White House Incompetents released the JFK files with people’s active Social Security numbers in them … which actually seems very much on brand.
And first, it was the measles, which is still spreading in Texas … now it’s the bird flu. RFK Jr., who to my eternal horror is in charge of our healthcare, wants to let it run wild through U.S. farms to spot the “bird immunity.” A reminder that he is not a scientist, and many consider his ideas to be dangerously insane. From Scientific American:
Kennedy recently told Fox News that by letting the highly pathogenic bird flu spread through flocks, farmers could “identify the birds, and preserve the birds, that are immune to it.”
But poultry experts say that, in addition to causing an unimaginable poultry death toll, this plan wouldn’t work.
“No, not for this disease,” says Rocio Crespo, a poultry veterinarian at the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine. “This is crazy.”
We may not survive this administration, y’all…
And on the international front, Heathrow Airport is scrambling to get back on track tomorrow, following a massive fire that shut down flights all day.
Israel orders its army to seize more territory in Gaza, which seems ominous…
And according to The Economist, the U.S. may be slow-walking out of NATO … which could make for interesting times should Trump one day make good on his threats to try to forcibly annex Canada.
Good luck out there, America.
So grateful for your voice Joy!! Keep shouting out the chilling level of sociopathic insanity that reigns and is destroying all that we hold dear!!! We all have to shout in every way we have power to do to stop the madness which has already devastated so many lives!
Elon Musk and Donald Trump are the most dangerous people of our country.
We must get them out of government before they do future damage to this great nation.