Elon be gone!

Poor Elon.

Tesla profits dropped 71 percent over the last quarter. Resale prices for used Teslas were down 10 percent overall in March, and used/abused Cybertrucks now sell for just 58 percent of their original purchase price.

Tesla vandalism has replaced viral TikTok dances as the hot new thing all the kids are doing these days (even if most of those 'kids' are sporting knee and hip replacements), and TSLA share prices are now a bit more than half of their post-election high.

In other words, what Elon did to Twitter and the Federal Government, he's now doing unintentionally to Tesla — destroying it from the inside out. It couldn't happen to a Nazi-er guy. [1]

Will Lockett, author of the Predict newsletter, summarizes this collapse nicely.

It’s fair to say that Tesla isn’t doing so well. Thanks to an ageing lineup and a ket-fuelled, government-destroying, Nazi-saluting CEO, Tesla sales are plummeting across the entire globe. Their revolutionary 4680 battery has failed to materialise and is now obsolete. Their Cybertruck is such a sales flop that they are already pulling its manufacturing capacity. Thanks to Musk’s dogmatic “vision only” approach to self-driving, Tesla FSD is far from being an industry leader and miles away from being functionally safe. As a result, Tesla’s Cybercab and self-driving revolution is now all but confirmed as vapourware. Everything that once made Tesla one of the highest-valued companies is falling apart. It looks like Tesla is spiralling towards death. But can such a giant really die? Oh yes....

Note: By 'vision only,' Lockett is referring to Elon's decision to rely entirely on computer vision and not LIDAR — laser imaging detection and ranging — to identify objects in front of his self-driving cars. This is a little like trying to peer into darkness using ordinary binoculars instead of night-vision goggles, and it’s something no other maker of semi-autonomous cars has elected to do. If you've ever wondered why Teslas in 'autopilot' mode have a predeliction for running headfirst into parked emergency vehicles, you might start there.

In addition to all of that, we recently learned that Musk is attempting to singlehandedly reverse the course of human evolution through excessive breeding. There are now at least another 14 young people in the world who will grow up to hate Elon.

If you are ever in need of an argument for forced sterilization, I think you just found it.

Now it looks like Musk might be forced to take a break from his unelected, unconstitutional, unhinged turn as MAGA God of Destruction (along with his part-time job as a semen dispensary) to go back to running one of his many companies.

Buh bye, bro. Don't let the emergency exit door on Air Force One hit you on the way out.

Get along, little DOGEs

Unfortunately, the Scooby-Doges are still hard at work, destroying in a few weeks what government agencies have taken decades to create.

Yet I still see alot of people on Linkedin praising DOGE's efforts to 'reduce waste, fraud and government inefficiency.' It's hard to tell whether these people are sincere but clueless or just deliberately posting things they know aren't true, because that's how MAGA do.

Listen, I understand the appeal of shrinking the federal government. I am no fan of mindless bureaucracy. Being trapped in line at the DMV for all of eternity is a vision of hell so horrifying even Dante dared not inscribe it on parchment. If you can make massively hidebound agencies like the Social Security Administration or the VA or Health and Human Services operate like well-oiled machines, I'd be all for it.

Unfortunately, that's not what DOGE is about. It's about achieving Ayn Rand supreme fanboy Grover Norquist's oft-quoted wet dream [2], removing any restrictions on what billionaire oligarchs can get away with by eviscerating the agencies that serve as checks on their power.

If the current administration really wanted to create a more efficient government via the magic of technology, there were already two organizations created for that purpose.

Before a certain mango-tinged individual re-inhabited the Oval Office, the Department of Government Efficiency was called the United States Digital Service. It was created by the people who rescued the disastrous Obamacare portal Healthcare.gov and turned it into a working website in a matter of weeks.

After January 20, the agency was renamed, Musk was put in charge, and anyone with any principles or marketable skills was either dismissed or left soon afterward.

There was also another federal geek squad known as 18F (because it was located at the corner of 18th and F Streets in DC), dedicated to streamlining digital services within the US government. The Trump Administration disbanded it in March.

Remember that $2 trillion of taxpayer dollars Musk claimed DOGE would save, which he later revised to $1 trillion, and then $150 billion? Best estimates put that actual figure at $63 billion, achieved mostly by randomly slashing headcount and essential services at agencies (like phone support lines for the Social Security Administration, or the USDA deciding to stop testing milk for pathogens). [3]

For those of you keeping score at home, $63 billion is exactly 0.00926470588 percent of the $6.8 trillion federal budget for 2024. Meanwhile, federal spending has increased by around $130 billion this year.

You can call it the Tesla Effect. Just let the government drive itself, and eventually it will find a firetruck to run into.

Lifestyles of the rich and defamous

Meanwhile, in other good news: Sarah Palin lost her defamation suit against the New York Times. Apparently a jury decided she really couldn't see Russia from her backyard, but could hear Vladimir Putin speaking to her from a tiny boat inside the back of her toilet.

I mention this just so I can include the caption for this photo from Bluesky personality Al Cappuccino: "You usually don't see Madame without Wayland Flowers."

What good news have you heard lately? Share in the comments or email me: [email protected].

[1] I don't know about you, but I prefer my schadenfreude with a nice crisp Riesling and some schnitzel.

[2] Strangely, Norquist's anti-nanny-state beliefs didn't prevent his Americans for Tax Reform Foundation from accepting up to $350K in PPP loans during Covid. The Ayn Rand Institute received between $350K and $1 million. Guess they were banking on a slightly larger bathtub.

[3] Most of these numbers came out of a report from the Cato Institute, an uber-libertarian think tank funded by Koch Industries. When you've lost the Kochs, you know you've really shit the bed.