During the dotcom era, it was obligatory that all CEOs and VCs drive a Porsche. There was a joke at the time that asked,
Q: What’s the difference between a Porsche and a porcupine?
A: With a porcupine, the pricks are on the outside.
By the time Web 2.0 rolled around, CEOs and VCs had traded in their Porsches for Teslas. It was the car that you had to be driving. It was well engineered, had a nice body, and screamed that the driver was a prick. As the company went down market to capture a larger share, the driver image remained one of a tech savvy, environmentally conscious, insufferable prick. If Tesla stuck with that strategy, it might capture 10% of the car market.
It was Elon Musk’s job to evangelize the E.V. as the car of the future. To back up his claim, he cited all the blue states that had mandated that only E.V.s be sold by some future date. He was also counting on the Obama era endangerment finding rule that allowed the EPA to regulate CO2 emissions. With this rule in place, the EPA could lower the emissions threshold to force carmakers to shift to manufacturing E.V.s only.
However, something got in the way of Elon’s plan for the E.V. future. His oldest son told him that he was a girl trapped in a boy’s body. This flipped Elon out, as it rightly would any father, and he went on a crusade to eradicate the woke virus that he blamed for warping his son’s mind. The rest is history. He bought Twitter, campaigned for Trump, and may have tipped the balance in the 2024 presidential election.
Elon brought to power the one man who could destroy the green blob and scuttle Tesla’s dream of a large E.V. market. Trump immediately got to work appointing Lee Zeldin to the EPA, entrusting him with rescinding the endangerment finding, what Zeldin labels as the “holy grail of the climate change religion.”
Amidst the debate last week on repeal of the endangerment finding, Tesla, with the blessing of Musk, issued a statement urging the EPA to uphold the endangerment finding. For Musk to walk back his position on climate would be an act of self-immolation, and he is not prepared to do it. Musk’s opposition is not going to dissuade Trump from his mission to break the green blob’s grip on culture and politics. Trump has the right strategy in place and will be pissing off a lot of pricks as the green scam implodes.
Image generated by AI.