So what I have seen him say and do seems genuine and I don’t really think this is happening, but what if the environmentally aware types market is saturated and he is trying to push the brand into a new demographic— pickup truck buyers, I suppose, and interestingly they have a pickup truck planned as well…

That's an interesting take on the situation. I find it hard to believe though - for one thing it would be a huge risk to reorientate your brand like that, and also the designs for their pickups are not exactly conservative. (Incidentally I have a pre-order for the cybertruck - it was only 100EUR, and refundable, so kind of a casual decision. No news on when they will be available still though!).

It depends on whether it impacts “repeat purchases” or “first time test drives”. I could see the political stuff impacting the latter significantly more than the former, assuming the product is good. But again I don’t think it’s actually happening, it would be too Machiavellian for reality.

I think it will impact both - surely a lot of the potential repeat purchases are from people that had ethical motivations to buy an electric car - they probably wont give up on electric, but there are a number of good alternative options now on the market.

I think it basically boils down to whether the political stuff can cause a significant portion of the existing user base to start boycotting the brand. That sounds kind of extreme given the situation but I am not completely in touch with mainstream media driven perception.

Most competent businesspeople can manage to expand their offerings into other markets without alienating the existing ones. Emphasis on "competent."

If hubris were to creep up on anyone, I'd say the richest man on Earth is a good candidate for it.

Formerly richest man.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/12/elon-musk-is-no-longer-the-r...

/pedant

I think you are assuming the hubris arrived only recently...

No, no, I'm merely being pedantic and correcting your inaccurate characterization of him.

I have no doubt that hubris is a longstanding character defect in his case.

There were people claiming his Twitter fiasco is part of some "5D chess" plan, and the only plan I've been able to identify that could make his behaviour somewhat rational, is this all being part of a big gambit where he alienates liberals to the point that conservatives start to love him so much that they will buy his electric cars out of team loyalty.

It sounds like a very long shot, though.