Elon Musk allegedly has citizenship in three countries and has served in none of them.
And he’s known for being a self proclaimed dumb blowhard, never knowing anything about what he’s talking about and not caring about consequences for being dead wrong.
His lack of experience, coupled with his lack of knowledge, coupled with his lack of accountability is on full display again as he tries to swing Twitter to support Russia (by interfering with smart military aid to Ukraine).
I’ve written before on this blog about air superiority and tank combat in Ukraine, easily proving Musk wrong on both those points below. And he’s wrong in comparing it to WWI.
The mistakes Musk makes here are similar to all his mistakes. He tries to rush into shortcuts and drive at high speed off a cliff to the wrong conclusion.
Reports out of the Bay Area this morning say that a man and his 2014 were found at the bottom of a cliff off the 1A in Sonoma county north of San Francisco. The man was pronounced dead at the scene and represents the first owner fatality of a Model S driver. It isn’t clear yet if the crash was an accident. […] The crash represents the first owner fatality behind the wheel of a Tesla Model S though a stolen Model S that hit a pole at over 100mph and split in half killed the suspect who was then revived and died a few days later in Los Angeles. Tesla previously boasted how safe its Model S was including the 0 fatality record which will obviously have to be revised.
Tesla’s CEO “boasted… the 0 fatality record” in its first year with cars on the road. Since then it has gotten worse every year, allegedly killing more than all other EV companies combined. A death trap, by the numbers:
Deaths from a Tesla as of today have reached 348 (when using autopilot, 19), which is truly shocking when you consider just how fast that toll increases.
What is a death trap?
Ok, let’s start with what is a death trap in war?
Everything can be one in theory, because… it’s a war and by definition someone is turning everything they can into a trap.
A vehicle OR the lack of that very same vehicle could be a death trap.
It’s like Eisenhower recognized that under General Fredendall tanks were a death trap, so he dismissed him and promoted General Patton who turned the same exact tanks into a victorious revelation.
Even more to the point, when the Sherman light tank first showed up in 1942 Africa, it quickly turned German tanks into a deathtrap and Rommel was completely outclassed.
The Bradley “fighting vehicle” shipping to Ukraine thus looks to be extremely wise — opposite of a deathtrap — in a repeat of canonical military history strategy. The brilliant General Grant would cheer such a move, as would light tank namesake and American hero General Sherman.
This is where experience and expertise matter. Many factors are required beyond a yes/no question (is it a tank), and nobody should be satisfied with such simplicity.
And yet an anti-democratic con-artist like Musk thinks he can step in and manipulate uninformed public sentiment for some political reason.
But this isn’t a game, and Musk’s right-wing extremism repeatedly shows up as though he’s intentionally using his social media platform to get Ukrainians killed by Russia.
Musk should be shamed for soiling himself everywhere in public on Putin’s behalf, making actual experts clean up all their mess.
The recent clarion calls were meant to prevent exactly this kind of defecation from Musk.
…the idea that tanks won’t have a place in future wars is incorrect, said Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe, commander of the Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning. They absolutely will, he said, but they won’t be working alone. As Doland said, a “tank is really good, but a tank by itself, in some woods? Not really good.” […] “[Combined arms] is what prevents the lunacy we’re watching of what the Russian Army is doing,” Donahoe said. “I mean, you’ve just got to watch some of the videos of their forces being ambushed — they apparently are a poorly trained army that cannot fight as a combined arms team.”
The tank isn’t an inherent trap, any more than a plane or a building is inherently in all cases a trap after they are shot down and bombed.
When does something become a trap?
Hint: the answer has to do with being prevented from successful operation in any other capacity. That’s the nature of the brain-dead Tesla being centrally planned and controlled, definitely not the case with a properly deployed Bradley.
Suffice it to say that Tesla has provably been trending towards being classified a death trap since at least 2016 — worse year after year.
Any EV on the road is likely far safer, which is why for example a best-selling EV on the road for a decade (e.g. Nissan LEAF) reported zero recalls and zero crashes compared with Tesla’s growing lawsuits, complaints, investigations and funerals from far too many preventable deaths.
The Tesla CEO, as if aiming to repeat the worst chapters from the past, has rushed dangerous shortcuts and repeatedly wrong decisions with zero care for human life; delivering perhaps the worst engineering in history.
The Ford Pinto killed half as many people in fires as Tesla, for example.
You’d be safer in a Pinto because Ford was forced by regulators to stop making deathtraps, whereas Musk clearly ignores the definition, flaunts safety rules and doesn’t care about truth or consequences.
He told everybody he’s buying Twitter because he wants it to be sort of apolitical, and on the eve of the election he says you should vote for Republicans,” Lasoff told Insider. “He can have his opinion, but the thing I really despise in people is hypocrisy.”
John Byrne, a software CEO in Maryland, hadn’t been a huge fan of his 2020 Model X SUV for some time. He said it was creaky, vibrated at times, and was of an overall build quality that didn’t justify its $95,000 price tag.
But Musk’s behavior since the Twitter saga — particularly his broadcasting of right-wing views and attack on Anthony Fauci — was the final straw. Byrne traded in his car for an electric Audi in late 2022.
At this point, someone surviving death in or around a Tesla is headline news.
And that’s why Twitter and Tesla both are tanking. Musk knows tanks.
