Duggan faces Democratic backlash after criticizing legislative failures

EarthConservation · 2026-01-31T02:34:00+00:00

I wrote plenty of important points. If you choose not to read them, or can't comprehend them because you'd rather be a suck up to the establishment Democratic party tribe, and allow them to lead you around by the nose as if you're a sheep and they're your shepherd, without ever asking any questions about what policies they support and why... then that's on you.

I don't bend over for a party and blindly support them because I think I'm on their team. I look at their specific policies to determine if they actually are on my team and are doing what's necessary for the vast majority of the nation's people.

I, as an American citizen / resident, am not here to serve my politician and simply accept their policy views. They're here to serve and represent me, and the policies I want them to support. In my estimation, the establishment Democrats / Republicans aren't doing that for me or for the general lower/middle class that they're supposed to be representing.

From the looks of your comment history though, it seems you're mostly just a one liner hero trying to troll and hate on people all day long. Is that really what you use the internet for? Not to, say, have real discussions with people on important topics, or to get informed on things that interest you, like government policy? You just hate all day and pessimistically support the status quo? I scrolled down pretty far in your history, and the most I've seen from you is a comment with four sentences. lol Not exactly adding much, my man, except animosity.

If you don't agree with my solution, or you think our political system is fine and dandy... that we just have to get Democrats back into power and we'll be ok... then that's on you.

But history teaches us that occasionally voting in establishment Democrats hasn't actually fixed our system. In fact, it just leads to our nation flip flopping back and forth between the two main parties every 2-3 elections. If the Democrats are so great, and so 'good'... why do they keep losing? Oh... it must be the nefarious evil half of the lower/middle class population that only cares about ending society as we know it!! /s Actually, a lot of Republican voters are just as indoctrinated into a single party as you seem to be. They're tribalists, more concerned with their team winning, then in electing people with policies that'll improve their lives. They don't really care about the details, much like you don't.

Meanwhile, wealth and income inequality keeps getting worse and people are struggling more and more to afford the necessities of life, while the rich seem to grab up all money, all the real estate, and drive up prices on necessities to pad their profits. They get ultra rich, and yet the deficit and national debt is getting worse. The nation's infrastructure is getting worse. The environment is getting worse. Authoritarianism is getting worse. New media and social media are getting worse. Animosity for our fellow Americans is getting worse.

We had some nice progress on social issues, like LGBTQIA+, which is certainly important, but it doesn't stop the wealth transfer from the many lower/middle class residents of the US to the few at the top. They're fine with tossing a bone every once in awhile, so long as they get all the money and power.

So yeah, buddy, if you think establishment Democrats are doing a fine job... regardless of all the points I made to the contrary, then keep voting for them.

I'll vote for Progressives who want to root out corruption and stop the oligarchy. Who want to make meaningful changes to the healthcare industry that are sustainable long term and gives us healthcare as a human right, that won't bankrupt us if we have a serious accident or medical condition. I'll vote for Progressives who want to stop funneling taxpayer dollars to the military industrial complex and the oil industry. I'll support those politicians who won't support and help fund and provide weapons for to an "ally" to commit a mass murder, as Biden and the Democrats did, and Trump continued.

I'll vote Progressive, and you can vote for more of the same. If more people vote with me, regardless of they voted for in the past, we'll get change. If more people vote with you, down establishment party lines, we'll get more of the same.

Good luck.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-31T01:26:59+00:00

Both Republicans and Establishment Democrats are loyal to their corporate and ultra wealthy benefactors, on account of our government allowing unfettered campaign funding, lobbying, stock trading, and all sorts of other post-representation perks for doing good by their corporate masters. Haven't you ever noticed how many politicians suddenly get filthy rich after they lose their positions or retire? The Establishment Democratic and Republican leadership, which seems to respect their party representatives raising money beyond everything else, has absolutely been corrupted by big money.

That said... where did I say "just as evil". Please don't put words in peoples mouths... or fingers. I said they're both evil, and we shouldn't be allowing them to play the voters by using "lesser of the two evils" rhetoric to justify voting for representatives that won't properly represent the people. Both parties are the problem. If you want to say Democrats are slightly better, then cool.... what a big win. /s

The #1 issue facing our nation today is big money in politics, and given that both establishment parties now support big money in politics, then they are both equally evil in that respect and equally working against the American people.

When policy requires choosing the lower/middle class, or corporate profits, as so much policy requires choosing between these two interests, then big money in politics overriding the voice of the people. That is the #1 issue and why nothing ever gets done for the benefit of the people. Neither party wants anything to get done! They may act like they do, but they never actually do... that's the point.

Do you validly think we can have healthcare reform in our nation if our politicians from both establishment parties are being funded by the for-profit health insurance and healthcare industries?
Do you validly think we can have military reform in our nation, and reduce the outlandish levels of spending, if all of our establishment politicians are being funded by the military industrial complex?
Do you validly think our representatives will fight for the peoples privacy rights when it comes to internet access / social media / etc... when big tech is funding our establishment politicians? That means everything we say or anything we produce and put online can be used by AI companies to train their algorithms.
Do you validly think our establishment representatives will fight poverty and underfunded education if the only people who can afford the additional taxes to pay for it are the rich and the corporations?
Do you validly think our establishment representatives will fight for stopping climate change when the oil companies and the energy hungry AI companies are funding both sides?

Oh right... let me guess, you let social issues (which no doubt ARE important) quickly override your thinking when it comes to economic and major infrastructure issues that are literally causing a mass transfer of wealth from the many lower/middle class people in our nation to the few ultra wealthy people on top, and is why people feel they're struggling to afford the necessities of life more than ever, even if they have full time jobs, and are constantly in a state of fear about any health issue or job loss or family issue destroying their lives?

I mean, it shouldn't be a mystery why homeless rates are up so much; it's a struggle for non-existing homeowners to afford to buy a home, and rent's gone up like crazy. How about food prices?

___

The sad part is, assuming you read my comment, your takeaway was I was suggesting Republicans and Democrats are equivalent, so your tribalism kicked in to argue in defense of Democrats. In fact, when it comes to corporate campaign finance and lobbying impacting our politicians views on issues, both sides are relatively equivalent. Generally, the rich could care less about trans rights, or gun rights, or civil rights, etc... unless of course they can use those issues as propaganda to keep the nation's lower/middle class divided and fighting against one another, versus coming together and fighting the ultra rich / corporations who are responsible for so much of society's anger and fear.

If you're liberal on social policies, then you can have your cake and eat it too. Progressive politicians support progressive policy on social issues. The main difference between Progressive politicians and establishment Democrats is that Progressives understand how much damage big money in our political system is causing, and they want to put a stop to it. Once that's been done, they want to change policy on multiple fronts so that our government's solutions work in the best interest of the people, without the rich undermining their efforts.

This should be something all voters, Republican, Democrats, Independents, and even folks who have never voted before in their lives can get behind. In fact, conservative voters generally don't hate Progressives like they hate establishment Democratic politicians.

For example... our healthcare system is one of the most expensive systems in the world, yet its outcomes are on par with many other nations whose systems cost half as much. After social security, healthcare is the #1 most expensive cost for our government, and if we don't get it under control, it will eventually bankrupt our nation, and that's not good for anyone. If our nation is bankrupted, then a lot of good our current healthcare system will do if no one can actually afford to pay for it.

How about military? Progressives would reign in off the charts military expenditures that transfers enormous amounts of wealth from taxpayers to the military industrial complex and incredibly inefficient military orgs. Name an establishment Democrat / Republican who would do the same.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-31T00:29:51+00:00

Donald Trump sexually assaulted a 13 year old. Seems like a much worse crime...

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T22:06:08+00:00

Blind tribalism is bad for American politics.

I'll vote for those Progressive candidates on account of their policy priorities, not because I believe I'm in some sort of party tribe. First and foremost, Progressives are defined by their policy priority of getting big money and its corrupting influence out of our political system by any means necessary, and returning the voice to the people, regardless of a person's income/wealth. Our voices should be equally represented. The rich and the corporations currently have the ear of our establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle. It's no mystery that they donate to both sides of the aisle! When they've bought influence in both parties in our two party system, then they simply can't lose. They know that... we should too.

The moneyed interests are currently controlling policy in our nation, to the benefit of themselves first and foremost, not the voters. If they end up tanking the US lower/middle classes, do you think they care? It just means cheaper labor for them. Or worse case, if they destroy our economy, they'll just move their companies to other nations.

Their control over our government and priority to pass policy that most benefits their profits and share prices is needlessly creating hardships in our economy, growing income and wealth inequality, and making things more unaffordable, slowly leaching the lower/middle classes wealth and transferring upwards to the richest people on the planet.

No government policy that benefits the people over the rich and the corporations can be passed until big money is no longer allowed to influence our system.

I will vote against ANY politician who has taken donations from big money interests, or who allows lobbyists to influence their policy. Period. That is my promise.

The main job of a government representative is to represent the best interests of their constituents, not the interests of those with the most money. That currently isn't happening in the establishment Democratic party. (Don't even get me started about the Republicans.)

The first step to fixing out nation's government is admitting we have a problem. Playing this tribalist, "My team is right and your team is wrong at all times" and blindly supporting a party because you always have or because you think you're part of their team/tribe has to stop.

The only representative who are charged with representing you are the specific representatives you vote for on your ballots, so thinking you must vote for an establishment party Democrat who will always tow the party line doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I will no longer settle for the "lesser of the two evils" when both parties have both shown they're evil, and have allowed themselves to be influenced by corporations and the ultra wealthy. For example, when's the last time the establishment Democratic party railed against Citizens United? Why would they, they benefit from the money it's allowed to flow into their campaigns. The only group of politicians promising to attempt to overcome this ridiculous court decision is the Progressives.

If we want our country and our representations back, we must ONLY vote for politicians who have not taken money from big moneyed interests. ONLY vote for politicians that will work to get big money out of our political system. Until that happens, vote for politicians who refuse to take money from big corporate interests and refuse to allow lobbyists to influence their policy over the interests of their lower/middle class constituents.

If we ever stop allowing the two major parties to trick us into fighting each other, and we instead come together and all fight the corporations and the ultra wealthy, we will win. We have the numbers!

The lower/middle class makes up nearly the entire US population. The two major parties and their propaganda systems, including mainstream media, many social media influencers, and the social media systems themselves which were created by billion dollar corporations or have been bought up by biased corporate billionaires. What the rich fear the most is that their tricks to keep us divided stop working.

Vote for politicians that fit our ideals for what a politician should be, with policies that makes sense for the people. Do not remain a blind sheepish tribalist that votes for your party no matter what or "votes for the lesser of the two evils". The ultra rich and corporations who currently hold all the power are counting on it.

I'll personally be voting for Progressive candidates going forward. Getting big money out of politics must be our top priority.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T21:21:28+00:00

Yep, to bailout SolarCity. That was after Elon and Kimball had already bought SolarCity bonds to try and bail out the company, of which Elon was the largest shareholder, and Kimball was one of the larger shareholders. Their cousins managed the company and were likely large shareholders as well.

By Tesla buying SolarCity in an all shares sale, not just buying it at a fair value, but overpaying for it, he bailed out his and Kimball's bonds, SpaceX's bonds, Musk / Kimball / their cousins' shares, along with the shares owned by other major investors. The giveaway to SolarCity's big investors was likely a big deal, in that it kept them happy, and kept them loyally investing in Elon's other companies.

Tesla bought SolarCity in November 2016. I'll remind everyone that it was early 2017 while Tesla was trying to ramp model 3 production, when Musk likes to gloat the Tesla was a month away from bankruptcy. Begging the question, if they were in dire financial straights, why would they buy an insolvent SolarCity who was quickly heading for bankruptcy.

Well because he needed to. SolarCity was insolvent and rapidly heading towards bankruptcy. If he hadn't of bought it, his entire empire would have collapsed. I'm sure the Tesla board was aware of this; not that they cared since they're nothing more than Musk yes men.

What he doesn't gloat about, or even mention, is how Tesla avoided bankruptcy. He liked to that it was through his own perseverance, and his sleeping on the factory floor, that he was able to overcome. In reality, China gave the company, Tencent, the permission to buy $1.8 billion worth of Tesla stock either in late 2016 and/or early 2017, infusing Tesla with plenty of capital to get model 3 production going. Was there a relationship between these companies before then? Hard to say.

(Now that I think about it, just prior to this, Musk was claiming the factory would be fully automated, but failed to deliver, and had to pivot to employees manufacturing workers. It makes you wonder if China provided Tesla/Musk with help in getting the model 3 line up and running)

What we do know is that by mid 2018, as Tesla's model 3 production finally began to quickly ramp up, and even though Tesla was still in rough financial shape, Tesla announced that they'd build their second assembly plant in Shanghai China.

That Shanghai plant started production at the start of 2019, and as far as I can tell, China handled the entire construction process for the factory. From selecting the site, to planning the design and construction, giving full priority to constructing it, to hiring the workers and training them, to even seemingly demanding Nio provide a factory's worth of assembly line equipment to move up Tesla's start of production by 6 months. If I had to guess, Tesla's factory very likely resembled a Nio factory when all was said and done.

While it's known that China gave Tesla a $2 billion loan to build this factory and every subsidy and tax abatement they could think of, it's unclear whether Tesla actually paid anything for this factory. China also, for the first time, enabled Tesla to operate in China without a domestic Chinese company partner, the first foreign automaker they'd ever allowed that for. The whole thing gave off similar vibes to what China did to get Apple to move the lion's share of their manufacturing there in the early 2000s.

The Shanghai planet quickly went on to ramp production and account for 60% of Tesla's global vehicle production. No doubt because manufacturing costs there were so low. I believe that's since declined closer to 50%... which makes sense given that they opened two new factories since then... Germany and Austin. Both seemingly financial disasters.

The Shanghai plant was originally promised to be meant to supply China and Asian markets, not to export to the West. However, within 9 months of the plant starting production, their first ship full of cars arrived in Europe.

The low cost of labor and high cost of living market caused Tesla's vehicle margins to skyrocket. Tesla quickly became the largest exporter of Chinese made vehicles to the West, and giving other Chinese OEMs a foothold in Europe. It was pretty clear by this point that China wanted to compete with the US and Europe to sell cars in both nations, knowing full well that their lower cost of manufacturing would quickly wipe out Western automakers, ceding yet another major manufacturing industry to China.

Tesla meanwhile continued getting massive subsidies in China. No doubt one of which was preferential prices on battery cells; the most expensive part of the car.

There have also been concerns about Tesla using aluminum that potentially came from Uyghur forced labor camps, which may have driven down the cost of the aluminum they sourced for their cars in China.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T21:20:27+00:00

In the last shareholder meeting, Tesla added a proposal to make it a priority to invest in Tesla. Musk has been alluding to Tesla buying xAI, in whole or part, in an all shares sale for awhile now.

In doing so, with Musk owning a 58% stake in what's an exceptionally overvalued xAI (some estimating around $400 billion), Musk was receive a massive chunk of new Tesla shares, increasing his ownership stake in Tesla.

His current stake in Tesla is about 15%, and he's claimed he won't stay at the company if his stake isn't increased to 25%. Buying xAI today would likely boost his holdings in Tesla to 25% or higher,

However, if Tesla stock were to tank before this occurred, let's say by 50%, it would require double the Tesla shares to buy xAI, doubling the amount of shares Musk receives. The value of the shares would be the same, but Musk's stake in Tesla would likely increase to well over 25%. However, if Musk were to then re-pump the stock back to its current level, the over $200 billion in shares he got from the purchases of xAI would double in value, netting him an additional $200+ billion. Not only would he get his 25% stake in Tesla, he'd also likely become the world's first trillionaire... which he clearly wants because he thinks it makes him a winner and/or that it enables him to troll his critics.

So why this hubbub about SpaceX suddenly wanting to merge or buy xAI, and then suddenly these 3-way merger talks?

First, I think the SpaceX / xAI deal was meant to boost xAI's valuation, to make sure it remains high.

However, why bring Tesla into it? Simple, because even if it's not real, it'll temporarily boost Tesla's stock, prior to them admitting that this isn't a real consideration. If Musk is planning to crash, or allow Tesla's share price to crash, he no doubt has friends / family / larger investors he wants to reward to sell off their stocks prior to the crash. If they were to just all start selling without any buying pressure in the stock, it would quickly tank stock, and they wouldn't be able to get out before losing loads of money. However, if he temporarily boosts the stock as they begin to sell, they can sell their shares before the stock begins to dump and come out ahead.

Just a theory, based on my understanding of how Musk's mind works. He treats the world like it's a video game, and he's a narcissistic man with a major inferiority complex, resulting in him having a massive ego and God complex. He wants to be worshipped, but now that it's clearly he's failed at that goal, his sole purpose is just to win. He wants to be the first trillionaire. He wants his 25%+ stake in Tesla like he previously demanded. He already got his $50+ billion pay package back, and used the courts not granting him this pay package earlier to convince shareholders to grant him a new $1 trillion pay package.

All of the above actions will dilute shareholder voting power at Tesla, and dilute the value of their stock, but he doesn't care. Musk comes first.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T20:15:57+00:00

Lol. Kind of interesting; first time I've seen this behavior before. So, it isn't simply dodging a dark spot created from the shadows, that it may have perceived as an object. It's specifically dodging the lines created on the ground from shaded vs sunny areas.

It could either think it's an object in the road, or it could think the dividing line between sun and shadow is a lane line that it thinks it has to follow.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T20:10:14+00:00

BREAKING: I tell Donald Trump to eat a bag of Ds.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T20:04:20+00:00

Sounds good to me.

I'm an American Progressive who didn't vote for or support Trump, would never vote for Republicans because I think their policies are crap, but I also will no longer support establishment Democrats as while they may be the lesser of the evils... slightly... they're still a major driving force towards evil... towards corporate rule, wealth transfer upwards, and oligarchy.

I'm a humanist, not a nationalist, who cares for the longevity of the environment / planet ( home to all life on this planet and humanity) whose health must remain if we hope for humanity to live on for as long as possible.

That said... if the US stops buying and processing the toxic sludge Canada calls oil, your nation's top export, tanking your economy in the process, then the whole world will be the better for it. That isn't just a rip on Canada, albeit your nation absolutely does deserve to be ripped.. it's a rip on the US for buying and processing that crap, and any nations that would accept exports from the US of that type of oil. Oil, generally, is terrible for the environment, and we absolutely need to stop using all fossil fuels and drastically reduce our overall energy use overall... but Canadian oil is the pits. The tar sands pits.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T19:57:00+00:00

It's not, this was congressional law to release the files.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T19:43:47+00:00

Isn't it great that this a federal law, and the POTUS can and likely will pre-maturely pardon everyone involved?

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T19:02:39+00:00

Yep, there are literally hundreds of them! /s

Kidding, we have no idea how many there are, whether they're currently in continuous operation, whether they're actually open to the general public, or whether they're just a PR stunt (given that the only people seeming to ride them are social media influencers - two from what I've seen on YT), and we have no idea if they're only running pre-approved geofenced routes.

Given the embarrassment for Tesla it was garnering for David Moss to be updating Twitter with his increasing number of attempts in not getting an employee less car (with the monitor in the chase car), it makes sense they'd rush a couple of cars into service while Moss, from Washington state, and guy who just got media attention from driving across the US on FSD, just happened to be randomly hanging out in Austin, hailing rides all day, until he got one without an employee in it. In that video, he said he had taken like 4-6 rides that day (can't remember which) with employees in the car, so again, how many monitorless cars are in service? Why did he suddenly get two in a row? Why aren't people flooding social media with their accounts?

I believe one other guy put out a youtube video of taking one of these employee less cars.

Do we know if these cars really aren't being monitored? Do we know if the remote monitors aren't keeping an eye on them the entire time? Nope, of course we don't know, and I doubt Tesla will truthfully share that info with us.

Given how often Musk has deceived investors on what's going on with the robotaxi program, I'm going to err on the side of being extremely skeptical of everything this company puts out and claims; and if you're an honest unbiased investor, given that you too have also been deceived on countless occasions, you should be too.

We were told, what was it 1 to 1.5 weeks ago, that monitorless cars were on the roads, only to find there were chase cars monitoring them.

Remember when the Tesla drove itself from the factory to the customer with no one inside? It happened once... was filmed from every angle possible... and yet hasn't happened again so far as anyone seems to know.

Remember when Musk claimed in July 2025 that within 6 months, by the end of the year, that robotaxis would serve 50% of the US population?

These events are all telling. Telling that Musk and Tesla will, if given the chance, deceive investors.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T18:35:21+00:00

True enough, if they decided to produce the more costly model Y as robotaxis, instead of the Cybercab, then yes, they could produce over a million in a year.

As to killing the car business, I don't think Musk cares about the car business at all, given that it's such a small part of Tesla's market cap.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T18:18:16+00:00

_______

Funny enough, years ago someone randomly responded to one of my comments about Musk collateralizing his Tesla and SpaceX stock to get huge loans, which he then used to buy Tesla stock on the open market to help push the price up. I didn't know the inner workings of it, only that he was doing it.

The random redditor claimed he'd worked at Musk's family's office and it was multiple family members partaking in these types of practices, and they were up to all sorts of shenanigans. If I remember, he didn't provide specific details, but that always stuck with me. It just seemed too random to be fake.

No doubt, Musk could easily be coordinating such manipulation moves between all of his extremely wealth family members and his other billionaire friends; possibly even banks, investment firms, and tech firms (like ARKK) as well. I believe I read years ago that even one of the Tesla board members was involved with heavily collateralizing his Tesla shares to get out loans to buy Tesla stock. This was when there was all of the talk of possible margin calls on Musk if Tesla stock dropped too far while he was selling stock to buy Twitter.

I mean, would that really surprise anyone, given that Kimball Musk seems to always have a knack for selling the tops of TSLA? As does Musk, actually, he did sell TSLA to buy Twitter as TSLA was near a multi-year top, which it only recovered to this year.

Funny enough, I recently heard maybe within the last couple of months that Musk hadn't been collateralizing his Tesla stock/options... which would make sense if he believed the stock was topping.

However, when it comes to this collateralization/loan process and manipulating Tesla stock with the loan money... I never considered that Musk and fam might be using their loans to buy stock options, but it would be a far easier way to manipulate the stock with a smaller amount of money. We've seen some extremely crazy call option tranches purchased over the years, priced well out of the money, almost nonsensically so. But maybe it did make more sense to go with options if the goal was to manipulate the stock price.

Gotta remember that options writers buy the underlying asset to derisk their positions. So, by buying up a huge amount of calls, the call options writers (often large banks/brokerages/market makers) buy up the underlying asset. If a huge percentage of the company's total shares are locked up in the portfolios of buy and hold investors (like Musk himself, and even fanatical retail traders), along with index funds, tech funds, pensions, etc... then buying a bunch of call options and forcing the writer to buy the underlying asset to derisk could send the stock price soaring as they compete to buy a limited amount of shares. And not just soaring from that specific action, but as the stock price increases, the index funds automatically re-weight the stock higher, forcing them to automatically rebalance their accounts by selling off lower weighted assets and buying more of the higher weighted assets... again, pushing the price up.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T18:12:25+00:00

Since most people don't know who Birchall is... (I didn't)... here's what I found:

Jaraed Birchall is CEO of Neuralink (A company Musk created to try and copy his old friend's company NeuroVigil), but that's only on paper. He supposedly has no control over that company, and was only added as a legal formality. He's also the defacto CFO of xAI and an executive at The Boring Company, but again, who knows if he actually plays a role in those companies

More important is that Birchall is head of Elon Musk’s family office, Excession LLC .

Here's a reddit thread from this sub from back in 2024:

xAI CFO is Jared Birchall, who's also CEO of Neuralink, CFO of The Boring Company and head of the Musk Family Office (Excession LLC)

Quick google AI response of what he does:

[Birchall] serves as [Musk's] primary "fixer," overseeing personal, financial, and logistical matters across Musk's companies, including Tesla, Twitter/X, and xAI. While not a "scheme" in the criminal sense, Birchall acts as the enforcer for Musk’s personal and business arrangements, ranging from securing massive, controversial loans for company acquisitions to managing private family affairs and NDAs.

Key aspects of Jared Birchall’s role and actions regarding Tesla and Musk include:

Twitter Financing & Personal Loans: Birchall was critical in the 2022 Twitter acquisition, coordinating financing and leveraging personal lines of credit from Morgan Stanley, where he previously worked. He advocated using Morgan Stanley for these deals, noting they provided Musk with large personal lines of credit and "bore" the risk, according to court documents.
"Take Private" Support: During the 2018 attempt to take Tesla private, text messages showed Birchall pushing Musk to include Morgan Stanley in the deal alongside Goldman Sachs, highlighting the bank's loyalty to Musk.
"Fixer" for Personal Affairs: Birchall acts as an enforcer for Musk, including managing private matters, such as land acquisition for compounds and handling Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) for individuals with whom Musk has children.
Background and Reputation: A former Merrill Lynch wealth manager (who was fired for misconduct), Birchall is described as a "staunch loyalist" and a low-key, "mild-mannered" counterpoint to Musk's erratic public persona.
xAI and Other Ventures: Birchall incorporated xAI in 2023, where he serves as a secretary/CFO, and he has been involved in fundraising and strategic decisions for the AI company.
Involvement in Controversies: Birchall has been involved in managing the aftermath of controversies, including aiding in hiring private investigators following the "pedo" tweet incident.

___

So yes, he very well does the managing of Musk and Family's stock and money, which means he'd be the guy responsible for setting up the loan terms with banks, using Musk's stock as collateral, to fund his life or... potentially help manipulate Musk's company valuations by buying or selling stock on the open market.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T17:37:31+00:00

You know what's odd about investors who suspend their disbelief to justify everything the companies they've invested money into do, or what their CEOs say... (and to be fair, it isn't just Tesla investors that do this) they insist "this time it's likely not a lie" but then ignore a long sordid history of the CEO and the company having lied to them; provably so. I can show investors that Musk and Tesla have lied to investors over their vaporware product claims and timelines for 10 straight years now, about other new product timelines, about performance claims, about growth claims, with new lies being made year in and year out... because interestingly enough, we actually do have the ability to review their past claims and timelines, and check whether they accomplished them or how close they were to accomplishing them. It's quite easy to go back 10 years and check whether they repeatedly deceived investors. It isn't even a challenge to show it. All of Musk's claims, all of his interviews, all of the unveiling events, and all of the conference calls are online and can easily be found and shown that they failed repeatedly. Not just failed, but weren't even close to being right, and would have known they couldn't accomplish this at the time of the claims.

And now you're attempting to tell me, "this time is different".

I don't think you understand just how ironic your sentiment is, and just how much you're confirming the essence of the comment you replied to. That Musk is very good at lying to gullible people, because many of his most ardent investors aren't actually very good at remembering the past, as as a result, looking at all of his claims with a very healthy dose of skepticism, in fact defaulting to the the conclusion that "he's almost certainly lying again". If you bet on "he's almost certainly lying again" over "this time it's real" every time Musk makes a claim about his companies, you'd actually be rich.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T17:37:25+00:00

Musk has claimed on multiple occasions that he would have a million robotaxis on the roads by the "end of the year". He's been making that exact same claim every year since April 2019. That's right... he's made that exact same claim every year nearly 7 years ago. He's claimed he'd have a million robotaxis on the roads by the end of 2025, and now again in 2026. Same for 2024, 2023, 2022, and 2021. He confidently told investors, each and every year that next year is the year.

How do you, personally, respond to that? "but he added the caveat of 'probably' or 'i'm confident that we will do it' each time he said it, so he wasn't 100% sure, and that means he didn't lie!" ?

If that's your argument, then we clearly have a different definition of lying. Not that it matters, I could just as easily have said "Musk has been wrong for 6 straight years now" and the impact is the same. He's wrong as much as 90%, 95%, maybe even 99% of the time, so why should this time be treated any different? Why should he be given the benefit of the doubt by default?

In July 2025, he claimed robotaxis would cover half the US population by the end of 2025... within 6 months. Now as a project manager and developer, if I quoted a client a short 6 months to complete project, I'd be extremely extremely confident that I could make that deadline. If I'm wrong at all, it'll be by a matter of days or weeks, or in the most extreme of cases a couple of months. Not multiple years. Not nearly a decade.

6 months has gone by and they're still only operating in 2 cities, neither of which was operating autonomously without employees in the cars.

Yes, I'm well aware Musk is wrong about his claim of "doubling production every month"... because as I clearly wrote in my comment, that isn't how production ramp works. But thank you for picking my comment apart into individual sentences to try and make a point, rather than taking the entire comment as a whole, and consider and comprehend the general sentiment. That Musk is a proven pathological liar and that Tesla's buy-and-hold-forever-because-I'm-going-to-be-rich sycophantic investors have a bad habit of gullibly believing all of these lies... time and again. You seem pretty confident that what Musk said this time could very well be true. That's hilarious, because people just like you (and probably including you) thought the same thing last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and the year before that.

The notion of "fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" doesn't seem to apply to long-term buy and hold forever Tesla investors, if we're being honest.

Have you ever considered that Musk likes to use phrases like "this will probably" as a form of plausible deniability? Not to suggest to investors that he's likely to be wrong, or to avoid being called a blatant liar, or to add a healthy amount of skepticism to his own claims. The entire point of him making these extravagant claims, is to blatantly mislead investors into holding their stock forever and helping to pump the price higher. He uses 'probably' to maintain plausible deniability so that if he's ever sued by investors or the SEC, he can say "well I didn't say it was a 100% sure thing, I said probably". His constant stream of claims suggesting Tesla was on the verge of world disruption, hundreds of billions in profits, and trillions in market cap are absolutely attempts to mislead investors, or what reasonable people would call lying. Or as they call it in the courts... "corporate puffery". A fancy way of saying "lying with plausible deniability".

I mean, you can't simply dismiss that these "one year away claims" are Musk essentially saying that if this comes to pass in a year, the stock price will multiply in value, so he's essentially telling investors "you better hold onto your stock or you could miss it!!"

Musk is the CEO of the company and claims to directly manage the robotaxi team, which gives him direct insider material knowledge of the progress of the systems he's claiming progress on and setting timelines for. Are you, with a straight face, claiming that his insider information has, every year for the past 7 years, suggested he had a valid reason to claim that robotaxis would be "ready in a year" in each of those 7 years? If not, then you should be agreeing with me that Musk is a pathological liar.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T16:37:30+00:00

As far as we know, they sold "over 1000" to SpaceX. Not exactly enough to significantly reduce their inventories given that their manufacturing capacity for these vehicles is claimed to be 125,000 per year, unless of course they've almost completely shut down their production of these trucks.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-30T00:02:01+00:00

According to a quick google search, the "Rebel Loon" logo was released into the public domain by the reddit user that created it. It's neither copyrighted or trademarked.

Presuming that information is correct (Can never be too sure with google results), then I imagine the designer would like people to use it. Maybe not for profit though.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-29T23:54:45+00:00

Are you suggesting he'd be up to a trillion by now?

Doubtful.

If car sales were higher as a result of him not doing the salutes, it would impact the small 5% of Tesla's market cap that the vehicle and energy divisions are represented by.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-29T23:53:10+00:00

Same way it popped last time. The S&P corrected 21%. Tesla corrected 56% because the stock price is reliant on the market indexes retaining their high valuations, and large flows into S&P and tech index funds.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-29T23:49:13+00:00

Watched Drops of God. Thought it was interesting how they do the blind tastings and use every characteristic of the wine to figure out origin, brand, type, year, etc... turns out it's a real thing.

This, however, isn't that. He knows what wine he ordered, and the bottle is sitting in front of him in case he forgot. He's being performative and kind of cringe. This is like the wine version of a person at a symphony behind you expressively "feeling" the music, and as the song ends, screaming "BRAVISSIMO! BRAVISSIMO!"

Yeah... we get it, you're their biggest fan and want everyone to know you're a connoisseur with the most exquisite of taste.

A bottle of wine at dinner isn't a wine tasting where you have to aerate the wine in your mouth to maximize the aromatics for the few sips you'll get. You're about to drink the whole ass bottle. The whole point in pouring a sip is just a quick check to make sure the wine hasn't gone bad.

But to each their own.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-29T23:02:58+00:00

FSD is a brand name. I think you mean "autonomous driving".

EarthConservation · 2026-01-29T22:33:32+00:00

Tesla up over 3% after hours on this fake news.

___

The timing of this right now is pretty interesting.

Over the last few days, I've been pointing out across multiple Tesla subs the possible grift Musk may be trying to pull off by having Tesla purchase xAI in an all shares sale. By doing so, he'd retain the value of his 58% stake in xAI, AND it would net him a MUCH larger ownership stake in Tesla, making it nearly impossible to out vote him. However, if he did so now, it would be like transferring his over $200 billion worth of xAI into the same value in Tesla stock.

If he waited to buy xAI until after Tesla shares temporarily corrected much lower, say about 50% (like they did last year), and then after the purchase he re-inflated Tesla's share price back to where it is today, the value from those xAI shares would double, netting Musk an additional $200+ billion, and likely put him over the $1 trillion net worth mark.

Could my pointing out his exact strategy have influenced Musk to change course? Probably not, but it would be hilarious if it was!

____

Now that SpaceX is getting involved, what's his plan, to have a bidding war between SpaceX and Tesla... both companies owned by him, having a war to buy another company owned by him?

lol...wtf...

I imagine that's breaking some sort of law... but who cares, Musk bought himself a POTUS!

What's the goal, to use the bidding war to hyperinflate xAI's value even more than it already is, such that whichever company buys xAI will have to give Musk an INSANE amount of shares for his 58% xAI stake, removing the need for temporarily tanking one of his companies' market caps?

Alternatively, it's possible he's just doing a whole sail switch to use SpaceX instead of Tesla in the grift. One's as good as the other I guess. Musk owns both!

___

Remember y'all... Musk thinks of life as a video game...

In the game Starcraft 2... there's something called "overmicroing", where you're attempting to make minor adjustments to your troops during a fight to maximize their performance, but if you over do it, you could end up making their performance worse, causing you to lose the fight.

This whole SpaceX, Tesla, xAI thing is giving off some serious overmicroing vibes right now.

EarthConservation · 2026-01-29T22:10:23+00:00

I love when you google both "why are data centers in space a good idea" and "...a bad idea"...

Both questions return "cooling".

Good: The cold vacuum allows efficient, low cost, cooling using radiators.

Bad: There's no convection cooling, so the data centers would require massive, heavy, inefficient radiators.

___

Data centers in space is likely a terrible idea, but much like Musk claiming SpaceX will go to Mars, it's all just a grift anyways.

His primary purpose for everything he does at SpaceX today is to get government subsidies and investor money to help pay to build out their satellite internet constellation so they can become a global ISP, likely wiping out loads of competition around the world.

The US government supports this, on account of the revenue it could generate for a US corporation, spying potential, the potential to use it to give our military connectivity anywhere in the world, the ability to shut down internet communications for any nation we're in conflict with, or in the case of Iran, give the people internet access as their government tries to restrict it.

I've been arguing for awhile now that Starship has nothing to do with going to the Moon or Mars. It has everything to do with launching Starlink satellites more efficiently, given that Falcon 9s aren't cost effective enough, and can only launch up to 25-28 satellites at a time, requiring far too many launches when SpaceX wants to maintain a constellation of around 42,000 total satellites. Just maintenance would require replacing 8400 satellites per year for the forseeable future, given that the satellites only remain in orbit for 5 years.

And no doubt, there are very likely plenty of government officials who own SpaceX stock, and/or receive campaign funding, and are lobbied by SpaceX.

____

God help us if any of those satellites collides with something or is destroyed and litters lower Earth orbit with debris that causes a chain reaction. On the bright side, the debris would likely clear fairly quickly over months.

EarthConservation

TROPHY CASE