Elon Musk’s financial interests put him in a position of having his own personal foreign policy, but new reporting shows that whether it’s manufacturing in China or the Starlink network being used in Ukraine, Musk’s decisions can run counter to stated US policy.
There’s an interesting thought.
While there’s no doubt the US government could withstand any difficulty inflicted on it by Musk’s corporate empire, would the foot shot to their own efforts be worth it to sever ties with Musk?
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How is it a shot to the foot? Just install a new CEO or privatize SpaceX. Ford is going to eat Teslas lunch in a few years (maybe GM too if they stop being idiotic about car play) so I am not all too worried about Teslas value to the consumer.
Slightly OT but I think Ford’s chance to beat Tesla has flown out the window. Ford is partially withdrawing from Europe - it might linger on selling commercial vans & tractors but as a consumer brand they’re nearly gone. GM has pulled out of Europe (and China). GM sold it’s European Opel operation to Stellantis. There is talk of GM trying to enter Europe with EVs but we’ll see.
Anyway the point is they both kind of blew it and are retreating to their domestic market, probably hoping they can cling on there, weather the storm and come back later. I think Tesla has taken over as the dominant auto maker and it’s unlikely to change unless Elon does something spectacularly dumb or drops dead.
Tesla doesn’t even have the production capacity to satisfy domestic markets. By 2025 Tesla plans to up their capacity to 2 Million cars a year, meanwhile Ford alone should be puming out around that amount of vehicles, and they are more affordable. And that doesn’t even bring in GM or any other car company.
Unless they change their plans and grow production dramatically, Teslas doesn’t have the capacity. They are only 10% of the global market and most of their competitors have just gotten started. And China is rapidly starting to export cars to the EU, to the point where they are considering raising tariffs even higher.
By 2030, China is projected to be a third of the global market. So if we are talking internationally I think Tesla needs to worry about companies like BYD, NIO, GAC, etc. I mean BYD is set to beat Tesla in production and sales very soon already.