Roundup: The tide is turning on Tesla
Read to the end for a story about Elon Musk being unable to use a toaster
It feels like the negative stories about Tesla, and Musk’s wider empire, just keep accumulating. This week I dig into several recent developments, including an investigation into Tesla’s active misleading of customers about their vehicles’ ranges. It’s pretty damning, and it’s hard not to believe regulators won’t intervene on this one.
To get the full issue, including a bunch of recommended reads, labor updates, and other news you might have missed, make sure to become a paying subscriber and support the work that goes into putting together Disconnect every week. That includes stories like the one I did this week on the fantasy of how ChatGPT is going to transform society.
On top of the newsletter work, I wrote a piece for the New Statesman about the rebranding of Twitter as X and where the whole idea comes from. I also spoke to military technology reporter about whether UFOs are out there watching us and where the story of UFOs come from in light of the recent hearings on flying saucers in the United States.
Have a great week!
— Paris
Tesla doesn’t care about its customers
The fact that Tesla has a strong cult built around it because of its association with Elon Musk is no surprise. Nor is the long history of Tesla owners in that cult looking past the poor build quality and other problems with the company’s vehicles because they felt aligned with Musk’s mission. But this week brought more evidence of how Musk takes advantage of those true believers, and how some of them are finally being turned off by the man they once admired.
