Tesla is reportedly planning a reveal of its self-driving robotaxi on the Warner Bros. lot amid widespread anger in the industry over the brand’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk, resulting in a rejection of its cars.
Tesla is reportedly planning a reveal of its self-driving robotaxi on the Warner Bros. lot amid widespread anger in the industry over the brand’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk, resulting in a rejection of its cars.
This touches on something I’ve been considering for a while. Any time I spend money on a large company’s product, it’s practically inevitable that I’m putting money into the hands of shitty people, whether they be the CEO, other executives, shareholders, etc. And if I want to have a vaguely normal life, and have some time to enjoy it rather than researching corporate drones all day, that’s something I have to accept and live with.
But sometimes a person or situation is so ridiculous that it just becomes unavoidable. In years past I may have been able to overlook the obnoxious musk connection if I liked a certain Tesla and wanted to buy one. I’d tell myself it’s some cool engineering from a young American auto maker or whatever. But in recent years when the brand is synonymous with one person, and that one person isn’t just your run of the mill rich conservative but is actively and publicly using their position to do or promote evil shit, I’m not sure I would wear a t-shirt with that brand much less drive a car with it.
Fortunately I’m not an early adopter of a lot of tech (EVs included) even though I follow the news on it. So now I have lots of options, and I’ll have even more in a few years when I want to actually buy something!
Agreed. I once tried to look up nearby supermarkets that didn’t donate to antilgbt stuff (or just not GOP) and it wasn’t feasible to avoid it with what was in range back then, especially if I wanted any quality. It felt like I had no choice, so accept and live with it is also what I did. I still tried to avoid egregious examples, of course. Tesla now counts, not just because of his personality, but also because of some of the cost cutting practices and regulation skirting he has done.