Photo: Tesla
If you get your news about Tesla from the “fandomsphere,” you may have the impression that the company will save the world with clean cars and people from their lousy driving skills with Autopilot, FSD, and such. When you check more neutral sources, you see a company that is pretty much like all others. Drew Magary painted a portrait of the company in one of his columns that spares no words about how ordinary Tesla and Elon Musk would be.
According to the SFGate columnist, Tesla cars are now so common in the US – particularly in California – that their benefits are pretty much limited to vehicles with no emissions. Despite that, Magary attacked the fact that some of these cars are catching fire and that accidents with Autopilot are more common than they were supposed to be. In his words, that would make them even more damaging than the cars Tesla wanted to replace.
Magary also disputes that Tesla would save the world by comparing that speech to its attitude towards its workers. Musk ordered Tesla to reopen despite the lockdown order in Alameda County. That allegedly led many Freemont employees to get infected with COVID-19. Although it was said that people could not go if they felt unsafe, some reported that they would lose their jobs if they did not show up.
The columnist also brought up recent accusations that Tesla allowed a racist working environment to develop at the Fremont factory. According to a Protocol article, 120 workers are now suing the company based on allegations of "racist swearing, swastika or KKK graffiti" in the factory bathrooms, and so forth. One of the insults is that Fremont would be called a “plantation,” and black workers would be called “cotton workers.”
We have recently reported that Tesla has faced accusations of making both its Fremont and Shanghai factories be “modern-day sweatshops.” The company has prevented all unionizing efforts in Fremon. On March 25, 2021, NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) ordered it to reinstate Richard Ortiz after allegedly firing him for trying to unionize the factory. Ortiz already said he would keep trying that if Tesla hires him again.
The column states Tesla and Musk present themselves as very unique but that they are just following “extremely familiar roads.” Curiously, the author did not mention that Tesla is based on the same model that makes Earth Overshoot Day arrive earlier each and every year. Consuming increasingly more natural resources and selling as much as possible is the current economic model – and it is far from saving the planet. Preventing people from fixing their cars and salvaged cars from fast charging anywhere does not help.
Finally, Magary says that Musk is just another billionaire with “a conscience as phony as the rest of Silicon Valley’s,” obsessed with his own image. Regardless of whether you agree with these allegations, it is worth checking the column and reflecting on what the author brings up. For a company that would change the world, it indeed looks very much like most of the others.
Magary also disputes that Tesla would save the world by comparing that speech to its attitude towards its workers. Musk ordered Tesla to reopen despite the lockdown order in Alameda County. That allegedly led many Freemont employees to get infected with COVID-19. Although it was said that people could not go if they felt unsafe, some reported that they would lose their jobs if they did not show up.
The columnist also brought up recent accusations that Tesla allowed a racist working environment to develop at the Fremont factory. According to a Protocol article, 120 workers are now suing the company based on allegations of "racist swearing, swastika or KKK graffiti" in the factory bathrooms, and so forth. One of the insults is that Fremont would be called a “plantation,” and black workers would be called “cotton workers.”
We have recently reported that Tesla has faced accusations of making both its Fremont and Shanghai factories be “modern-day sweatshops.” The company has prevented all unionizing efforts in Fremon. On March 25, 2021, NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) ordered it to reinstate Richard Ortiz after allegedly firing him for trying to unionize the factory. Ortiz already said he would keep trying that if Tesla hires him again.
The column states Tesla and Musk present themselves as very unique but that they are just following “extremely familiar roads.” Curiously, the author did not mention that Tesla is based on the same model that makes Earth Overshoot Day arrive earlier each and every year. Consuming increasingly more natural resources and selling as much as possible is the current economic model – and it is far from saving the planet. Preventing people from fixing their cars and salvaged cars from fast charging anywhere does not help.
Finally, Magary says that Musk is just another billionaire with “a conscience as phony as the rest of Silicon Valley’s,” obsessed with his own image. Regardless of whether you agree with these allegations, it is worth checking the column and reflecting on what the author brings up. For a company that would change the world, it indeed looks very much like most of the others.
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