I’m not sure if I broke up with Tesla or Elon Musk broke up with me. But my enchantment with the car company has ended, and the Model Y I crushed on has been traded for an Audi E-tron.
A few years back I confessed to Salish Current (“Electric vehicles and the Tesla experience,” Nov. 4, 2021) just how excited I was about my 2020 Tesla, and EVs in general. Emission free. Energy efficient. Cheap to recharge, about seven dollars for a “full tank.” Fast. Quiet. Mechanically simple. I can “fuel” at home. I haven’t been to a gas station or oil change in almost five years.
Back then, Tesla’s CEO still seemed nerdy cool. Musk was a genius entrepreneur and infectious salesman with dorky flair, a South African immigrant who not only was bringing electric cars to the masses but also was building rockets, satellite networks, solar roofs, massive battery “giga-factories,” robots, super computers, and brain implants.
He was so reminiscent of Tony Stark, the hero of “Iron Man,” that he had a cameo in “Iron Man 2.” When Musk hosted Saturday Night Live he explained away his social awkwardness by confirming that he had Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism. He smoked weed on camera and was so frenetic and volatile at work that I couldn’t help wondering about either other drugs or psychological stress.
Despite or because of his man-child adolescent goofiness — Tesla fart sounds, pot references, blinking headlight shows and a hobbling actor dressed as his promised robot — his reality-warping presentations were jammed with fanboys.
Rebranding Twitter to X
Then came Musk’s 2022 rebranding of Twitter to X. His nearly $300 million contribution to Trump and other Republicans in 2024. The powerful DOGE job in 2025 with no need for confirmation and no checks on power. The Nazi salute. The chainsaw on stage. The ever-more vile posts that smack of racism, arrogance, and lack of empathy. The gutting of foreign aid that will cost lives. His dismissal of MY social security, which I’ve paid into since age 16, as an “entitlement.”
This from the world’s richest man who pays virtually no income taxes because he technically has no income, borrowing to live by using his stocks as collateral. Who has reaped $38 billion in government clean-energy credits, contracts, and car subsidies over the last two decades, according to the Washington Post. Who stands to gain tens of billions more, according to the New York Times. And who attacks the civil service as lazy and bloated.
The Tesla I was so excited about in 2000 became, in 2025, “swasticars” to their critics. The once apolitical libertarian allied himself with “drill-baby-drill” Donald Trump, the longtime scourge of electric vehicles and windmills. The president returned the favor by promising to buy a Tesla while displaying them on the White House lawn, in a show dripping with condescension for both greenies and the pair’s own acolytes.
The hypocrisy is stupefying. It’s as if we tree-hugger enthusiasts who married Tesla discovered Musk’s secret affair with a MAGA mistress. The cad clearly thinks he can have both.
Vandalizing Tesla vehicles is just dumb. That’s like beating the cow for the farmer’s sins. But off-loading Tesla stock? Choosing a different EV? Getting judicial and regulatory oversight of Musk, his companies, and DOGE? Yes, please.
Ending the bromance
My bromance with Elon ended in stages. I became annoyed at some of the software changes. I found my Y increasingly harsh-riding and noisy. Service was distant and slow. Radar and physical controls disappeared.
I read two biographies of Musk. They complimented his brilliance, tirelessness, and appetite for risk, but criticized his manic moods, lack of empathy, and employee cruelty. His compensation is wildly excessive. He has been married and divorced three times to two different women and fathered 14 children with four. He shuns his transgender daughter.
My ardor cooled. Musk’s promises pumped up his stock but have yet to deliver full self-driving, robo-taxis, hyperloops, or humanoid robots. His space achievements are impressive, but his biggest rocket keeps blowing up. The cybertruck has disappointed. His freight truck hasn’t caught on yet.
Politics weren’t the reason we traded our Tesla in January of 2024. We simply decided to downsize from two cars to one and share an EV with more instrumentation, a dealer network, and a better ride.
Still, Tesla makes a good car. If the recent flimflam gets otherwise skeptical Trumpkins to test drive one, that’s a saving grace. EVs do tend to sell themselves. But at this writing Musk’s swing to the hard right has cut Tesla’s stock price in half from its peak, trimming about $100 billion from his absurd fortune. To this early adopter who feels jilted, the reversal is satisfying.
Too bad that Musk seems to have become bored with Tesla because there is so much still to do. EVs need to be cheaper, range farther, and charge faster. Work on that, Elon!
The good news about my failed bromance is that there are other fish in the sea: globally more than 400 EV makes and models already, according to the Dutch EV-Database. But I sigh over my Tesla Y. We always remember our first love.
This article first appeared in Salish Current.
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