Within a year of the election, will Trump publicly disparage Elon Musk?
This could be for any reason, provoked or otherwise. Things like belittling nicknames and personal insults would count, or "I never liked him anyway" type statements.
As this might be somewhat subjective, I won't trade.
Update 2025-05-14 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator clarified that for a statement to count as disparagement, it should be clearly bullying or belittling Musk specifically. An ambiguous statement (e.g., an anecdote about "a fat person" rather than a direct insult to Musk about his weight) may not count if:
It appears primarily intended to support a policy rather than to personally attack or distance from Musk.
It is accompanied by simultaneous positive statements about Musk.
Update 2025-05-19 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator elaborated that statements constituting 'back-handed praise' of Musk (e.g., comments that are 'not exactly nice' but are combined with explicit praise) do not meet the threshold for disparagement for this market. Such statements, on their own, are considered 'not particularly close to resolving the question' if they are not clearly bullying or belittling Musk specifically.
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2 hours ago on Truth Social
@Balasar 2 reasons:
1) Elon’s displeasure on the front of the NYT and we know Trump reads and responds to things like this
2) Elon is unpopular now which makes him an easy target, especially on his way out the door
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/us/politics/elon-musk-trump-spending-bill-doge.html
Here it comes! This was the obvious storyline. Play the storylines!
@vitamind that’s part of the path we are on. they need the drama! they’ll get back together in the end.
@jdilla (WSJ) - President Trump recently posed an evocative question to his advisers about billionaire Elon Musk’s promise to slash $1 trillion in government spending.
“Was it all bullshit?” Trump asked.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-elon-musk-relationship-64773ad1
Tesla has achieved reliable L4 capabilities with the latest FSD (source: personal experience), Musk will likely want to stop being associated with Trump to ensure Tesla can deservedly crush their competition without the distraction of the Trump-Elon relationship. I suspect this will lead to at least one disparaging remark even if they remain on friendly terms.
@nsokolsky the timelines just don't add up here. Even if you, a Tesla owner, believe L4 FSD is here, Tesla announcing this is still probably years away. L4 has been talked about and talked about, but it's still not here
Regardless, I'm struggling to connect the dots: just because of L4 FSD, Musk will end his relationship with the President of the United States? Seems far fetched.
The relationship has probably damaged Tesla sales, yes, but I would argue most of that is from Musk's own actions, rather than his endorsement of Trump. The Nazi salute; the endorsement of AfD; the outlandish South African white apartheid claims. These have all arguably contributed more to the sales impact than the Trump endorsement; but the headlines will still focus in on 'Trump-Musk'. Moreover, a much larger and more convincing factor affecting sales - one you actually mention - is competition. Regardless of Trump endorsement or no Trump endorsement, Tesla sales were probably going to drop anyway.
Another factor worth mentioning is that Tesla is not the only factor... When we talk about whether the Trump-Musk relationship has been a net positive for Musk, it probably has. SpaceX and XAI are thriving, and will probably continue to do so with the assistance of Trump; and he has managed to turn around the disastrous acquisition of Twitter which is now generating decent revenue, advertisers are returning, and has managed to eliminate it's debt.
@vitamind I've seen flawless driving over the past few days where the car took me where I wanted to go end-to-end with zero interventions - including parking. It doesn't matter what Tesla announces - knowledge of flawless performance will slowly spread and when people realize what a fantastic car Tesla now has, they'll see demand rapidly increasing. They've also fixed up the biggest quality-control and cabin noise issues with the latest Highland refresh for the Model 3 and Y. Give it a few months and you'll see a massive amount of buyers getting a Tesla solely for the sake of FSD.
Note: only the HW4 cars (2023+) are at this level, the older generation isn't and possibly never be at the (subjective) L4 level of operations. Again: CYA statements by Tesla, the government, state authorities, etc, hardly matter - only actual performance on the road.
@SoullessScythe a back-handed "compliment" isn't a compliment, it's even more disparaging. Because it insinuates the person being disparaged, wond even understand a back handed compliment is actually an insult and he thinks Elon is too stupid to catch onto it. So. My question is do you understand human sociology, or psychopathy well enough to understand he has already been disparaged. And do you have the adequate education to understand your own bet?
@SoullessScythe kindly omit the condescending and disrespectful comments and instead include your basis for this resolving to "Yes".
"Twice by my count", and, "Pretty sure musk was publicly disparaged" is not a sufficient basis to resolve this question. Instead of providing commentary, provide some actual evidence.
If I had a position in "Yes" and I believe something has occurred which should have resolved this to "Yes", I'd be personally going out of my way to provide a detailed comment of why this is the case - why are you not doing the same?
@SoullessScythe Evan is, in my 10+ years of knowing him, a very thoughtful and evenhanded person. It's also very difficult for me to to imagine that he'd have any particular personal stake in resolving the question one way or another. I took an early Yes position because I expected something a lot more blatant and I agree we still haven't seen it.
He just personally insulted him for being fat (I think)
@EBITDA Kinda? But it seems pretty unclear and he's also busy calling him a "brilliant businessman" and such. I watch that and I see an anecdote about a fat person, not bullying or belittling someone for being fat. It also doesn't sound like Trump is trying to distance himself, he's using the anecdote to support a policy of his own.
What's the case for Yes based on this quote?
@EvanDaniel after reading the inital comment, then going on to watch the video, my inital response was, "how the heck does one think this would be sufficient to resolve the question?". So your response is slightly worrying in that you seem to be tentatively considering it...
Am I missing something here, either in your response or in the resolution criteria?
@vitamind Not really. Just didn't want to dismiss the possibility of a reasonable argument out of hand if there was one, or if there was somehow more to the video that I hadn't seen. The video doesn't seem exactly complimentary to Musk, but it's quite a ways off from disparagement. He's basically praising Musk but being a bit back-handed about it, as I read it... not exactly nice, but not particularly close to resolving the question. Perhaps less kind than usual, and therefore perhaps evidence towards a positive outcome eventually, but not even close to the standards of this question on its own.
Sorry about the confusion.