The sudden pan-global decision to uncrowdfund Tesla and to break the door mirrors off as many of its cars as possible is not funny. But also, it’s kinda hilarious. Especially if you’re me.
Elon Musk and I have history. Back in 2008, I gave one of his early cars a firm but fair review on Top Gear. I said it was unreliable, which it was; that it was ridiculously expensive, which it was; and that because it weighed more than most moons, it didn’t handle very well. Which it didn’t. Musk was very angry about this and sued us for defamation, claiming I had a problem with electrical cars and had written the piece before even setting foot in the car.
He lost the case, and the appeal, and he’s never really got over it. He still claims I was biased and that we pretended his car had broken down when it hadn’t. Even though it had. I should really have sued him back, but I feared he’d call me a paedo, so instead I just waited on the river bank for his body to float past. And now it has.
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After Musk was appointed by Donald Trump to deal with government waste and overspending, the lefties went berserk. So now Teslas are being attacked in showrooms in Belfast, on the streets of Germany and in dealerships in Las Vegas. There are reports they are being set on fire and shot at. Things are so bad that a friend of mine who was trying to save the world (and a few quid on the congestion charge) has now fitted a sticker to his Tesla saying he bought it before he knew Musk was an idiot.
Naturally, this has had an effect on Tesla’s finances. Apparently, its fully diluted stock market valuation has plummeted in just a few weeks from $1.7 trillion to $800 billion. I don’t know what any of this means, of course. I don’t even know what a trillion is. But it doesn’t sound good, especially as it’s Tesla that enables Musk to finance all his private projects, such as X and SpaceX.
The fact, then, is this. I was always scrupulously fair with my car reviews. Musk claimed I wasn’t. And this is his payback. And what makes it so juicy is that he’s being pecked to death by the very people who put him on the pedestal in the first place. The eco hippies. The net-zero disciples of Ed Miliband and Al Gore. They loved his idea of electrical cars running on nothing but wind and sunshine and they swooned when he provided his eco-fresh Starlink communication technology to those poor beleaguered soldiers in Ukraine.
He was a hero to them, and I was hated for having been so rude about his early foray into the car market. How could I have been so nasty to that kind and philanthropic Mr Musk? Yeah, and how do you feel now as you sit in your Tesla while an army of like-minded souls kick its door mirrors off?
Meanwhile, I’m sitting here wondering if this sort of thing might catch on. I mean what, for instance, would happen if we were to discover that the boss of the world’s largest producer of oat milk has a copy of Mein Kampf under his bed? Or what if we found out members of the KKK traditionally smear themselves in avocado before setting fire to a cross?
In the recent past, it used to be health scares that killed off a product. But now it’s almost always a political issue that gets you cancelled. Which gives me an idea. Hitler was a vegetarian. He believed that cutting meat from his diet made him more Aryan. And his disciples adopted this belief as well, so that now a meat-free diet pretty much marks you out as a full-blown Nazi.
We need to get these stories out there because it would be hilarious. I may even use Instagram next week to claim that in certain climatic conditions a wind turbine spinning at full speed looks like a rotating swastika. Because such is the hysteria these days among those of a left-leaning disposition that every single one of these towering eyesores would be flat on its face in a week.
Actually, to be fair, it’s not just the left that get their knickers in a twist — Budweiser can testify to that. But they are by far the most rampant and proactive, mainly because so few of them have jobs to distract them from whatever prevailing political wind blew through their tent flap that morning. Mention Bud Light to someone on the right and he’ll roll his eyes and buy a Coors instead. Mention oil or misogyny to someone on the left and it’ll look as if they’ve caught rabies.
All of which brings me back to this Tesla business, and a bit of common sense. Last time I looked, the company had about 125,000 employees, and it seems a bit unfair that they should all be forced on to the dole just because their boss once saluted an audience in a manner that looked a bit Hitlerish.
Then you’ve got all those deluded fools who bought one of the company’s cars. They made their purchasing decision in good faith and work hard to make the payments each month. Even though I think it’s nothing more than a wheeled white good, it’s their pride and joy. So it’s not fair for someone with hairy armpits and no job to set fire to it. I mean, it’s not as if there’s a realistic eco-alternative. You try finding a fast-charging station for an electric Porsche or Mini.
Of course, I’d love to remind all you Tesla drivers that I warned you 17 years ago that no good would come of your buying choice. But you didn’t listen. You chose to believe Mr Musk.
And now, because of the mob, you must park your car in a locked garage, use public transport and get used to the fact that, as you queue in this increasingly hysterical and unpleasant world, some people are going to drive past you in their proper cars and call you a “bus wanker”.
