Speaker 1: I apologize in advance, but this is going to be like a little bit of a rant segment.
I'm really sick of a particular type of message that I received a few of recently about Elon Musk
and Tesla. And it's that you must be ignoring this particular story because of some personal
bias. David And you're a bad person. Here's one example I received like a half a dozen of these
in the last few weeks, and the gist is the same for all of them. This is just one example. So
someone who on Reddit goes by the name, sinker posts, guys, David and Ellen. What's up with
David? Totally avoiding the Elon News. He's barely touched on it. I know he drives a Tesla,
but that can't be why he's dodging this insight. Sorry if it's been asked. So two components. Okay.
The first component is I've been ignoring the story of Elon Musk buying Twitter and
genuinely behaving like a moron. And part two is that it's because I drive a Tesla or I'm
an investor in Tesla. So let's take the questions in two parts. First, have I been ignoring it? No,
I have not. In November alone, we have seven YouTube videos, either directly or indirectly,
about Elon Musk and Twitter. One of those is Tucker talking about an Elon Musk conspiracy
theory. This includes a story yesterday on Elon Musk unbanning Trump from Twitter. We've covered
it on the bonus show, endless additional times since the beginning of Elon Musk
looking at buying Twitter, dozens and dozens of stories. The stories don't do super well.
I consider that a signal that my audience isn't that interested in it, but there has been plenty
of coverage. That's number one. Secondly, and this is really the part that I want to address is the
idea that I'm not covering it or I am covering it in a particular way because I drive a Tesla
or I'm a Tesla investor. We saw another version of this with stuff with the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. I'm not covering it because I'm Jewish. And then it's well, I covered it in a certain way
because I'm Jewish and then I'm covering it a lot because I'm Jewish. Okay. First of all, this
entire Tesla thing is silly, but more importantly, I'm no huge Tesla fan, and in fact, I would gladly
stop being a Tesla driver if I could get out of my Tesla lease without it costing me money. So
let me give you the full story and maybe we can put this to bed. I bought Tesla stock in 2015.
That's almost eight years ago. As of last week, I have now sold the vast majority of the stock.
I plan to sell all of it. I want to wait until January 1st to sell what's left, because I want
to spread out the capital gains that I'm going to owe and not owe a whole bunch of taxes all at
once. Now, if, by the way, the stock is tanking, if it keeps losing value between now and when
I sell in early January, I might not even owe taxes because I'll have you know, my gains will
have evaporated. That's number one. I bought the stock not because of being some Elon Musk fanboy,
but because I believed that Tesla as a first mover into longer range electric vehicles, was going to
do well as a company. The stock did do well, but I also knew, including from driving the car myself.
Tesla's big advantage is being the first mover on the charging network and on the on the range,
the build quality of Tesla vehicles isn't that great? It's not that great. And I can tell you,
as someone who has a Tesla right now, I've driven in BMW electric vehicles, Audi, Mercedes,
Porsche. They are way better cars than Tesla. I've ridden in a friend's Hyundai Ioniq five.
Okay. It's a little bit of a lower priced car, but it's still these companies have been building
cars for, in some cases 100 years. They are way better built vehicles. I believe that the first
mover advantage for Tesla is clearly diminishing. And as that happens, it's less of an interesting
company. So I'm going to be getting out great that Tesla was a first mover and push things forward.
I think its prospects in the future are not nearly as bright now in terms of my lease in
being a Tesla driver. I would bail on it today, but I would have to pay a lease early termination
fee. It's like a bunch of payments. It doesn't matter. It would be 40 $500. If I want to turn
in my lease today, I can do it, but it's 40 $500 wasting 40 $500 because I think Elon Musk
is clearly now a knucklehead, doesn't seem super logical. If you people who are angry
with me about the car want to pay for the early termination fee, I will gladly turn in the car,
turn in the keys. There are no keys and feel myself doing it. Okay. And then we'll turn it into
content and I'll get a different car. The only reason I still drive a Tesla today is I have a
lease and unless I want to pay, I have to keep the car to the end of the lease. Lastly, Elon Musk,
I believe Elon Musk has fallen into the reactionary libertarian black hole.
I think it's a very dumb black hole that many have fallen into. I think his purchase of Twitter is
bad for social media and it's bad for Twitter. I also recognize he's had successful businesses
and people in the past who have bet against his businesses came out on the wrong sides of many
of those bets. I don't find him super interesting as an individual. That's the full story. There's
no hidden agenda. I'm not avoiding talking about Twitter or Elon Musk or Tesla. There's
no secret Tesla driver silence or allegiance or any of it. So please, folks, let's drop it.