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Elon Musk, Tesla, and the Crumbling Fantasy of Billionaire Invincibility
By Adam Conover
So, last week, Trump’s big billionaire buddy Elon finally fell down the Ketamine-hole.
For a while there, it seemed like Elon was on top of the world. I mean, he’s basically the president. He’s firing scientists way smarter than he is, deciding whether people live or die—since hundreds of thousands of people are literally going to be killed by Elon’s cuts to disease prevention programs. But hey, Elon doesn’t care. He’s way too busy playing with his favorite chainsaw. Dude has been living the dream.
Then suddenly, Tesla stock started dropping, and protests against Tesla began popping up everywhere—Philadelphia, Chicago, the Bay Area, Florida, Waikiki, New Zealand, and even France, where an angry Frenchman set a bunch of Teslas on fire. Say what you will about the French, but I guess they really don’t like Nazis for some reason.
Even Sheryl Crow announced she was getting rid of her Tesla. Yeah, Elon—all she wants to do is dump your shitty car. And yeah, the first cut is the deepest, but I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a lot more.
I’m not going to lie—this has all been pretty satisfying to watch. But it’s more than just schadenfreude. The turn against Tesla in American society is proof that Elon is not invincible. In fact, he and Trump are extremely vulnerable to public pressure. And it provides a roadmap for how average people can push back against what is happening in this country.
Ever since Trump took office, protesters across the world have been disrupting business at Tesla dealerships to show their contempt for Trump and Elon’s fascist policies. And while most stand in front of dealerships with rad-ass signs, some are getting more physical—graffitiing cars, burning down Tesla charging stations, even destroying entire dealerships.
Now that the Musk is out of the bag, countless liberal and left-wing Tesla owners are embarrassed to be seen in them. They’re either selling their cars or buying anti-Elon bumper stickers to let people know where they stand. These stickers are literally flying off the shelves—just like Elon’s cars aren’t.
And this anti-Tesla backlash isn’t just an empty gesture—it’s actually affecting Elon’s finances. Before all this happened, Tesla’s stock was already ridiculously high. It had a price-to-earnings ratio more than nine times that of any other car maker. That means the stock was valued far higher than it should’ve been compared to how much revenue the company actually generates.
Why? That insane valuation came from the hope by investors that Elon would revolutionize the entire transportation industry with advanced AI and robotics. That’s why Elon was constantly holding these ridiculous, gigantic events announcing (often fake) products that Tesla wasn’t even selling—or knew how to manufacture.
Like we covered in one of my other videos, the “advanced robots” Elon showed off last year were literally being puppeted by a teenager in the next room.
“Are you fully autonomous right now or are you being controlled by a human?”
“I am not fully autonomous yet.”
That’s not the future. That’s just the animatronics they have at Chuck E. Cheese.
Elon doesn’t really sell cars to Wall Street—he sells a science fiction fantasy of unlimited growth. And every time the bill comes due and he actually has to show the product, he says, “Oh no, don’t worry. That’s coming soon. And I’m going to invent something even bigger next year.”
But now it seems investors are finally wising up to Elon’s vaporware grift. Since December 17th, Tesla has lost half of its value. And Tesla isn’t just struggling in America—its European sales are almost non-existent.
Now here’s the crazy part—Tesla’s struggles mean that Elon is suffering personally. He lost almost $30 billion in one day. And that might not seem like a big deal, since he’s still worth $31 billion. But losing that value in Tesla is a massive problem for Elon. Because here’s the secret about his finances: he doesn’t pay for anything using cash. He pays using Tesla stock—on the assumption that it will keep rising.
That’s literally how he could afford to overpay for Twitter.
So if Tesla stock is crashing, that gives Elon less literal power in the world. We think of billionaires as omnipotent and untouchable. But the amazing thing is that sustained protest at Tesla actually seems to be hurting the richest man in the world.
Check out this clip. When a news anchor asked Elon about Tesla, he literally seems to be holding back tears:
“How are you running your other businesses?”
“Uh… with great difficulty.”
Man, you’re so busy destroying the government you don’t have time to do your real job.
Even billionaires can’t have it all.
This clip almost makes you feel bad for the guy—but Elon chose this. He didn’t need to do this. He could’ve spent his life being the rad guy who makes sick cars and has tons of money. He could’ve stayed a legend. But instead, he decided to go right-wing, destroy the federal government, and make everyone in America hate him. That was his choice. And now he’s paying the price.
This is affecting Elon so much that his best buddy, the President—Donald J. Trump—decided to take a break from driving up egg prices to hold a “Let Them Eat Teslas” press conference in front of the White House.
“It’s very safe. It’s very strong. It’s all steel—stainless. I have a lot of information, including the price. I want to make a good deal here. They have one which is $35,000, which is pretty low.”
Holy hell. Trump is such a bad used car salesman he doesn’t even realize how out of touch that sounds.
It would literally take a minimum-wage worker over 600 days of work—pre-tax—to earn enough to buy that car.
In the same week Elon fired thousands of Americans, and Trump instituted tariffs that are going to make life even more expensive, they have the gall to ask Americans to buy their cars?
Get the fuck out of here.
But even more importantly—we have to recognize how pathetic this is. These guys are supposed to be the most powerful men in the universe. Trump is the President of the United States. Elon is the richest man in the world. And they’re out on the White House lawn hawking products like Billy Mays and the ShamWow guy. And they’re probably on just as many drugs.
These guys are supposed to be more powerful than you. But a few days of low stock prices and they’re begging you to spend $35,000 on one of their dumbass cars.
Trump and Musk are fascists—yes, by any definition—but first and foremost, they’re grifters. That means they depend on us buying their garbage—from X premium subscriptions, to Patriot Bibles made in China, to meme coins.
They need you. They need you to buy their shit so badly that Trump literally wants to make it a crime not to buy a Tesla. Think about that.
They don’t just need your cash—they need you to like them. Elon’s entire fortune—his overvalued stock, his social media influence—all of it has been based on being idolized. On being the “real-life Iron Man.” On being loved by the public.
But now, according to polls, 53% of Americans have a negative opinion of Elon. That’s a huge number. Especially considering research shows that if even 3.5% of a population engages in non-violent protest—political change happens.
So if just a fraction of those people sell their Teslas, or show up with signs at a dealership, or vocally refuse to buy Elon’s crap—it makes a difference.
Trump and Elon are like Tinkerbell—their power comes from you believing in them.
They need your money. Your approval. Your complacency. If we stop buying into them, they die.
These guys are weak. They have everything—and they can’t even stand to be disliked or live through a few days of declining stock prices without freaking the fuck out.
Everything you’ve had to fight for—your job, your savings, your safety—they had handed to them. And now, they’ve made it clear that they think they’re entitled to your money too.
But they’re not.
The harder you boo, the more you protest, the more their stock price drops, the more you turn their fantasy into a nightmare.
These protests work. Refusing to comply works.
It’s easy to see the future you fear as inevitable—especially when it’s being sold to you by a couple billionaires. But their fantasy of the future is no more inevitable than ours.
By working together, we have the power to build the future that we want.
And I suggest you get busy.
Thank you https://www.adamconover.net/
AKA “Adam Ruins Everything”