Tesla Is 100,000+ Workers, Not Just Elon Musk – CleanTechnica

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As we’ve noted many times here, and many others have noted, Elon Musk’s move further and further to the right — and how vocal he is about that — have led to dramatic drops in interest in buying Teslas from Democrats. Many Democrats have gone from wanting to support a company focused on stopping global heating to not wanting to support a company CEO who is spreading right-wing conspiracy theories (including one about a famous politician’s husband who got his head bashed in with a hammer), endorsing Donald Trump, and falsely downplaying the threats of global heating and climate crisis.

However, there’s something that comes to mind for me on a regular basis. There are still more than 100,000 other people working at Tesla, and many of them are focused on helping with Tesla’s original mission. If you decide to buy a Tesla, you are still supporting these workers and their efforts. Should they suffer due to the misinformation and spite often spread by their CEO on X?

I get it. Elon Musk is the face of Tesla. He’s the largest individual shareholder. His actions are far beyond what any large-company CEO would do in public. He has even denigrated Tesla’s home state of California repeatedly and moved the HQ to Texas. Why should Democrats, particularly California Democrats, not decide that they would rather support another company and enjoy one of many other high-quality, fun, good-looking, compelling electric vehicles? Why not buy from a company whose CEO doesn’t trash you and your values on the daily? I get it.

Though, perhaps we should try to keep in mind that Tesla led the transition to electric vehicles and many of the people who were responsible for that are still at Tesla doing their best. Also, Tesla is still important to the EV transition. If Tesla wobbles, that provides a lot of room for other automakers to say negative things about electric vehicles and step back their EV efforts. In my opinion, we’ve already seen it in 2024 as automakers have used the opportunity of Tesla’s sales drop to make broader claims about not so many people wanting EVs after all and scaling back their plans — even as their own EV sales have increased immensely.

Anyway, yes, if given the choice between a Kia EV6 or Hyundai IONIQ 5 and a Tesla Model Y, and you’re struggling to choose between them, but Elon Musk’s tweets are causing societal disruption on the regular, the choice of which vehicle to buy becomes much easier. If you’re struggling to decide between a Ford Mustang Mach-E and a Tesla Model Y but in the past year have learned that 1) you can count on the Mustang Mach-E getting access to Superchargers and 2) Elon Musk has thoroughly embedded himself in a right-wing echo chamber, well, it’s easy to feel more drawn to buying from Chris Farley’s fun, cheerful cousin Jim.

But let’s just not forget the 100,000+ Tesla employees around the US and the world. I feel bad more and more for some of them, as it’s clear that they must be struggling with how to reconcile concerns about their CEO and the love and passion they have for Tesla’s mission, Tesla’s vehicles, and the work they do. Naturally, once can tell them to just quit. But, again, Tesla’s mission is noble, its vehicles are amazing, and they probably have nice, solid jobs.