Commenter Dunc pointed me to a long but fascinating article by Edward Zitron titled The Era Of The Business Idiot where he brutally analyzes how US businesses seem to have been taken over by owners and a managerial class that he calls Business Idiots who have become alienated from the actual manufacturing process of whatever their company produces, and make decisions that tend to work against actual productivity and quality in favor of things that advance their own careers and income. (The thrust of the article is similar to Cory Doctorow’s evisceration of the internet that he calls enshittification and the extension of that idea more broadly to American power.)

The Business Idiot thrives on alienation — on distancing themselves from the customer and the thing they consume, and in many ways from society itself. Mark Zuckerberg wants us to have fake friends, Sam Altman wants us to have fake colleagues, and an increasingly loud group of executives salivate at the idea of replacing us with a fake version of us that will make a shittier version of what we make for a customer that said executive doesn’t fucking care about. 

They’re building products for other people that don’t interact with the real world. We are no longer their customers, and so, we’re worth even less than before — which, as is the case in a world dominated by shareholder supremacy, not all that much.

They do not exist to make us better — the Business Idiot doesn’t really care about the real world, or what you do, or who you are, or anything other than your contribution to their power and wealth. This is why so many squealing little middle managers look up to the Musks and Altmans of the world, because they see in them the same kind of specious corporate authoritarian, someone above work, and thinking, and knowledge.

He lays much of the blame on the late economist Milton Friedman who said that a company’s only responsibility is to increase shareholder value and that any other consideration, such as the well-being of its employees or the community or the environment in which it is based is a dereliction of its duties. This has led to the intense focus on raising short-term stock values at the expense of any long-term benefits, even to the company.

He gives many, many, many examples of which one is Tesla.

Let’s be honest, when you remove all the money, our current tech industry is a disgrace.

Our economy is held up by NVIDIA, a company that makes most of its money selling GPUs to other companies primarily so that they can start losing the money selling software that might eventually make them money, just not today. NVIDIA is defined by massive peaks and valleys, as it jumps on trends and bandwagons at the right time, despite knowing that these bandwagons always come to an abrupt halt.

The other companies feature Tesla, a meme stock car company with a deteriorating brand and a chief executive famous for his divorces from both reality and multiple women along with a flagrant racism that may cost the company its life. A company that we are watching die in real time, with a stagnant line-up and actual fucking competition from companies that are spending big on innovation.

In Europe and elsewhere, BYD is eating Tesla’s lunch, offering better products for half the price — and far less stigma. And this is just the first big Chinese automotive brand to go global. Others — like Chery — are enjoying rapid growth outside of China, because these cars are actually quite good and affordable, even when you factor in the impact of things like tariffs. 

Hey, remember when Tesla fired all the people in its charging network — despite that being one of the most profitable and valuable parts of the business? And then hired them back because it turns out they were actually useful?

This is a good example of managerial alienation — decisions made by non-workers who don’t understand their customers, their businesses, or the work their employees do. And let’s not forget about the Cybertruck, a monstrosity both in how it looks and how it’s sold, and that’s illegal in the majority of developed countries because it is a death-trap for drivers and pedestrians alike. Oh, and that nobody actually wants,

Tesla has become a meme stock, dependent on shareholders wanting to believe in it and Musk. This has enabled it to maintain shareholder value and allow its board to give Musk obscene pay packages.

This video by Martin Adan describes in detail how Musk is driving Tesla into the ground, with his ridiculous Cybertruck leading the way.

Interestingly, Musk seems to have a lot of cult-like fan followers who leap to his defense whenever anyone criticizes him or his Cybertruck. They claim that critics are irrational haters who ignore that he is a genius and that his Cybertruck is the shape of the future. So he does have a core group of customers who will buy whatever he sells. In my area there is one Cybertruck that I see driving around that has painted on the rear panel in large letters ‘TOYOTA’. I am not sure what message the driver is trying to send. Maybe he has buyer’s remorse and is saying that we should not take him to be a Musk fanboy, since Cybertrucks have been known to be vandalized.