I don’t think he cares all that much about Tesla and probably sees the writing on the wall for the company. Its reputation is mud. He got what he needed.
He’s on to the next thing, only using Tesla as a stepping stone to the next grift.
Here’s my assessment of him -
He started out exploiting people - His family used aparthied and slave labor to build their wealth.
From there, he used his family’s wealth to woo/partner with engineers with good ideas.
Then he moved into his business exploitation phase, using his lack of morals to claim ownership over the companies he founded with others ideas and sell them off (Zip2 and the first X . com).
Using those proceeds, he entered the government exploitation game. Space X, which is held afloat by government grants. Or Tesla, which was also held afloat by government grants at first, and then later, largely by over-enthusiastic stock market investors, whom he began to experiment with manipulating.
Naturally, he moved on to trying his hand at stock market manipulation in a big way. It’s where instead of making millions for himself and billions for companies (or billions in ‘assets’), he could have personally made actual billions in liquid cash. That’s what all the ‘will he, won’t he?’ was about regarding purchasing Twitter and its massive stock price fluctuations.
But he got outfoxed by Twitter’s then-lawyers, and now he’s desperately trying every knob at his disposal, including Putin and Xi’s, in the hopes that his empire of grift does not collapse. It’s why he’s attempting to turn Twitter into an online bank (like the first X . com), and wants the husk of Twitter to cater exclusively to stupid and manipulable people - things he sort of knows, because he recognizes the mythos has been broken and he can’t pull the same confidence tricks.
I don’t think he cares all that much about Tesla and probably sees the writing on the wall for the company. Its reputation is mud. He got what he needed.
He’s on to the next thing, only using Tesla as a stepping stone to the next grift.
Here’s my assessment of him -
He started out exploiting people - His family used aparthied and slave labor to build their wealth.
From there, he used his family’s wealth to woo/partner with engineers with good ideas.
Then he moved into his business exploitation phase, using his lack of morals to claim ownership over the companies he founded with others ideas and sell them off (Zip2 and the first X . com).
Using those proceeds, he entered the government exploitation game. Space X, which is held afloat by government grants. Or Tesla, which was also held afloat by government grants at first, and then later, largely by over-enthusiastic stock market investors, whom he began to experiment with manipulating.
Naturally, he moved on to trying his hand at stock market manipulation in a big way. It’s where instead of making millions for himself and billions for companies (or billions in ‘assets’), he could have personally made actual billions in liquid cash. That’s what all the ‘will he, won’t he?’ was about regarding purchasing Twitter and its massive stock price fluctuations.
But he got outfoxed by Twitter’s then-lawyers, and now he’s desperately trying every knob at his disposal, including Putin and Xi’s, in the hopes that his empire of grift does not collapse. It’s why he’s attempting to turn Twitter into an online bank (like the first X . com), and wants the husk of Twitter to cater exclusively to stupid and manipulable people - things he sort of knows, because he recognizes the mythos has been broken and he can’t pull the same confidence tricks.