Yeah, every time a stock is down a 100 “analysts” come pouring out of the woodworks and gives a 100 different reasons for why. I find it more likely that the reason Tesla is doing worse is that the EV market is just way more competitive than before (but I don’t know, that is my point). Like you say, Elon has been saying polarizing shit the entire time. I don’t think common consumers care about that. Something else must have changed.

Given the amount of his personal wealth he put into Tesla and the financial tricks he pulled to get further funding (if what is said in Elon Musk by Ashley Vance is true), then it seems likely that Tesla would have gone bankrupt without him. Maybe any rich person could have done it, and electric cars would always eventually be on the trajectory they are now, but he was the rich person that actually did it. He should get some credit for that, I think. But it is right that he didn’t create Tesla, and he should definitely stop implying that he did, I agree with that.

That is not “very clear”, no. The Cold war did not end in another world war even though everybody built up their militaries. If the power distributions are about even, then most likely nations will stand around waving their missile dicks around until someone goes bankrupt or everybody collectively finds out that keeping that level of military on standby is fucking expensive and slowly powers down again.

You live in the most peaceful time in our species history (ignoring some flareups lately). The vast, vast majority of humanity lives in peace. Turn of the news and go touch some grass my dude.