Musk Throws A Pall Over EVs & Memphis

A brand new research revealed on July 28, 2025, within the journal Nature reveals that the political antics of Elon Musk have accomplished important harm to the Tesla model. Individuals who establish as liberals are completely turned off by his embrace of the MAGAsphere and are a lot much less doubtless to purchase a Tesla then they have been earlier than he did his Nazi salute and was seen leaping up and down like a hyperactive 8-year-old throughout the latest inauguration.

You would possibly suppose his antics would have attracted conservatives to the model, however the research reveals that had not occurred. However ever worse, Musk has had a poisonous impact on electrical automobiles on the whole within the US. Technique to go, Elon. Simply when your dream of transitioning the world of transportation to electrical autos was starting to return collectively, you determined to have a drug-induced meltdown that threatens to ship the entire calliope crashing to the bottom.

“The suspicion is that Elon Musk grew to become so synonymous with EVs within the US that perceptions of him affected the complete class of autos,” Alexandra Flores, a psychologist at Williams School and lead creator of the research, advised The Guardian. “This made them method much less interesting to liberals — he actually dragged down perceptions of EVs on the whole. It’s undoubtedly uncommon to have a chief government have an effect on an entire class of merchandise like this.”

Issues have been going so effectively for Elon Musk. The research factors out that his “public persona was initially considered one of scientist and entrepreneur, as evidenced by his portrayal in standard tradition within the 2010s. He appeared in The Simpsons as a spacefaring inventor and businessman, the place his motivation was explicitly said to be saving the Earth fairly than getting cash. Within the movie Iron Man 2, he appeared as a fictionalized model of himself, pitching an electrical jet to the hero of the movie, Iron Man.”

“In Star Trek: Discovery he was referenced as an traditionally nice inventor, within the firm of the Wright brothers. He additionally broadly offered himself as both apolitical, as soon as stating, ‘I get entangled in politics as little as potential,’ or liberal, as when he resigned from a enterprise advisory place through the first Trump Administration when President Trump withdrew from the Paris Settlement on local weather change.”

Surprising Outcomes

Flores stated the outcomes of the analysis she and her crew carried out  have been sudden. “We thought that liberals can be fairly secure as a result of EVs are so traditionally related to the inexperienced motion and that Musk’s rightward flip would convey conservatives on board. However the reverse occurred. Over time conservatives remained comparatively regular of their lack of curiosity in EVs and Tesla, whereas liberals’ attitudes actually dropped. They’re now equally unlikely to purchase an EV as they’re a Tesla.”

She added, “The perspective amongst conservatives to Tesla could also be barely much less unfavourable than earlier than however that didn’t translate into the a part of psychology of how they supposed to behave. That robust hyperlink to liberalism is an excessive amount of for them to be budged on. It’s extra foundational to them than in the event that they like or don’t like Elon Musk.”

Thanks, Elon, you jackass. Many common readers of CleanTechnica are struggling to know the transformation of somebody they as soon as thought of a local weather hero right into a pariah. One idea is that Tesla is and at all times was only a scheme to money in on regulatory credit. Through the years, the truth that Tesla has been worthwhile in any respect has had much less to do with promoting automobiles and extra to with accumulating funds from different producers whose autos failed to fulfill federal or state emissions requirements.

In fact now, due to the insurance policies of the failed administration Musk labored so arduous to convey to energy, these credit will change into a factor of the previous, at the very least on the federal stage, lowering Tesla’s skill to point out paper earnings every quarter. The corollary to that idea is that Tesla was at all times nothing greater than a Wall Road “pump and dump” scheme designed to complement Elon Musk and the supine board of administrators he surrounded himself with.

It doesn’t matter what the reason, Tesla seems to be in determined hassle. There may be chatter on-line about how probably the manufacturing unit in Germany could must be shuttered, and judging by the corporate’s declining gross sales in China, the Shanghai manufacturing unit could also be in hassle as effectively. Elon could also be a superb engineer (not everybody agrees with that concept) however he’s awful at advertising and marketing automobiles. His modus operandi for years has been to over-promise and under-deliver and folks at the moment are completely sick of his schtick.

Musk Comes To Memphis

Musk positioned himself as a champion of the atmosphere initially, however even that guise has confirmed false. He has thrown in with the local weather denial crowd and made enterprise selections that threaten to wreck the very local weather he as soon as swore to guard. In Memphis, his new shiny factor is Colossus, an enormous knowledge heart constructed inside a former Electrolux manufacturing unit. Its function is to supply the computing energy wanted for Grok, the AI chatbot for xAI.

The issue from the start has been to that there was not sufficient electrical energy out there to produce the voracious wants of Colossus, and so, fairly than wait or choose a special web site, Musk determined to put in methane-powered transportable turbines to make the juice wanted. We all know a factor or two about methane-powered producing stations, which at the very least have some controls over their emissions, however these transportable turbines have just about none compared.

There was numerous backing and forthing about whether or not the required permits have been obtained earlier than these methane turbines have been turned on, with the town of Memphis strongly backing xAI — little doubt due to the cash it’s anticipated so as to add to the town’s coffers. However that previous Electrolux manufacturing unit is in a rundown a part of city and was not paying the best taxes. Now with xAI in there, a monetary bonanza is coming the town’s method and it doesn’t need something to trigger the cash prepare to leap the tracks.

In keeping with the Tennessee Lookout, the NAACP and different group teams have filed an enchantment of a choice by a Shelby County Well being Division determination to grant xAI an air allow for 15 fuel generators at its South Memphis knowledge heart. The enchantment claimed that call violates the Clear Air Act and would enable companies to “set up and function any variety of new polluting generators at any time with none written approval from the Well being Division, with none public discover or public participation, and with out air pollution controls.”

Earlier this month, the Well being Division authorized the usage of 15 methane turbines. Following that call, xAI pledged that “onsite energy era might be outfitted with state-of-the-art emissions management expertise, making this facility the bottom emitting of its form within the nation.” The emphasis right here is on the phrases “of its form,” that means every other knowledge facilities powered by transportable methane turbines.

State Consultant Justin Pearson, a Memphis Democrat, stated in an announcement Wednesday that the well being division’s allow approval “to an organization that ran dozens of huge fuel generators for greater than a 12 months with out authorization sends a troubling message that violating environmental legal guidelines in Shelby County is appropriate.”

LaTricea Adams, the top of a group group referred to as Younger, Gifted & Inexperienced, advised the press, “As a Black lady born and raised in Memphis, I do know firsthand how business harms Black communities whereas these in energy cower away from justice. The Shelby County Well being Division must do their job to guard the well being of ALL Memphians, particularly these in frontline communities like [ours], which can be burdened with a historical past of environmental racism, legacy air pollution, and redlining.”

Some may even see a similarity between the pious promise to make Colossus the bottom emitting facility of its form as simply one other instance of Musk writing checks he can’t money, such because the now notorious video on the Tesla web site that promised the automotive was driving itself. The motive force was simply there to fulfill authorized necessities.

The takeaway is that nothing Musk says may be taken at face worth. He’s merely not a reputable voice. Elon is in it for Elon and anybody who thinks in any other case has been duped. The harm he has accomplished to the EV revolution and the promise of a sustainable world is immense. For individuals who select to do enterprise with Musk, we have now just one factor to say: caveat emptor.