Factually! with Adam Conover - The Tesla protests are working.

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

(In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!)Elon’s not invincible, and now we have proof.Visit https://groundnews.com/factually to stay fully informed, see through biased media and get all sides of every story. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through my link.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I Did a New Thing, 30 Days to Living Free. In the audiobook, Tab shares her own stories and those of others alongside gentle guidance and encouragement to create these incredible changes for yourself and see what good can come from them. Trust me, listening on Audible can help you reach the goals you set for yourself. Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wonder ECA. That's audible.com slash wonder ECA. So last week Trump's big billionaire buddy, Elon, finally fell down the K-hole. You know, for a while there, it seemed like Elon was on top of the world.

I mean, he's basically the president. He's firing scientists who are way smarter than he is, and he's deciding whether people live or die since hundreds of thousands of people are literally going to be killed by Elon's cuts to disease prevention programs. But hey, Elon don't care. He's way too busy playing with his favorite chainsaw.

Dude has been living the dream. But all of a sudden, Tesla stock started dropping and protests of Tesla started popping up in Philadelphia, Chicago, the Bay Area, Florida, Waikiki, New Zealand, and even France, where an angry Frenchman set a bunch of Teslas on fire. Huh, say what you will about the French, but I guess they really don't like Nazis for some reason. Even Sheryl Crowe announced that she was getting rid of her Tesla.

Yeah, Elon, all she wants to do is dump your s***y car. And yeah, the first cut is the deepest, but I'm pretty sure there's gonna be a lot more. Now, I'm not gonna lie, all of this has been pretty satisfying to watch, but it's more than just Schadenfreude. The turn against Tesla in American society is proof that Elon is not invincible,

but that in fact he and Trump are extremely vulnerable to public pressure, and it provides a roadmap for how average people can push back against what is happening in this country. And in this video, I'm gonna tell you about it. But real quick, before we get started, just wanna mention I'm on tour right now, London, Amsterdam, Rhode Island, Vancouver,

Eugene, Oregon, Charleston, Oklahoma, Tacoma, and Spokane, Washington. You can get all those tickets at AdamKonova.net and you can support this channel directly at Patreon.com slash AdamKonova. So ever since Trump took office, protesters across the world have been disrupting business at Tesla dealerships to show their contempt for Trump and Elon's fascist policies. And while most of them are standing in front of the dealerships with rad ass signs, some people are getting a little bit more physical by graffitying cars, burning down Tesla charging stations,

and even destroying entire dealerships. And look, some might say that vandalism and property destruction are bad, but one might also argue that unconstitutionally vandalizing an entire government that serves hundreds of millions of people is a bigger f***ing deal than a little spray paint on the most taggable car I've ever seen. I mean literally, Cybertrucks are flat and made of stainless steel. It's the perfect canvas. How is a graffiti artist supposed to resist? And look, if you bought a Cybertruck, I honestly don't know what's wrong with you. Owning a Cybertruck is the sh** post of car buying.

It means you know people hate you and you don't give a f***. But I do feel bad for regular people who just bought a Tesla a couple years ago because they wanted a nice car to drive. They were probably busy doing normal people stuff when Musk started going off the right wing deep end. You know, until recently, you had to be chronically online to know that Elon became a shitbag. Remember when he called that heroic cave diver who saved a dozen children a pedophile? That was weird as hell, but it didn't make the news the same way destroying the federal government has.

But now that the Musk is out of the bag, countless liberal and left-wing Tesla owners are so embarrassed to be seen in them, they're either selling their cars or buying anti-Elon bumper stickers to let people know where they stand. These stickers are literally flying off the shelves just like Elon's cars aren't.

And this anti-Tesla backlash is not just an empty gesture, it's actually affecting Elon's finances. Before all this happened, Tesla's stock was already ridiculously high. It had a price to earnings ratio more than nine times any other car maker. That means the stock was valued far higher than it should have been,

compared to how much revenue the company actually generates. Why? Well, that insane valuation seemed to come from the hope by investors that Elon would revolutionize the entire transportation industry with advanced AI and robotics. That's why Elon was constantly holding these ridiculous, gigantic events where he announced often fake products that Tesla was not even selling or even knew how to manufacture. Like we covered in one of my other videos, the advanced robots that Elon showed off last year were literally being puppeted by a teenager in the next room over.

That's not the future, it's just the animatronics they have at Chuck E. F**king Cheese. Elon doesn't really sell cars to Wall Street at all. He sells a science fiction fantasy of unlimited growth. But every time the bill comes due and he actually has to show the product, he says, oh, no, don't worry, that's coming soon and I'm gonna invent something even bigger next year.

But now, it seems like investors are finally wising up to Elon's vaporware grift, because since December 17th, Tesla has lost half of its value. And Tesla isn't just struggling in America, its European sales are almost non-existent. That headline, by the way, is from this video's sponsor, Ground News. You know, I use Ground News a lot,

especially if you're researching these videos, because I really like how you can see the factuality ratings for every source, as well as bias ratings to help you make sure that you're getting the news you might have missed. It's a really great way to check your biases and make sure that you're not stuck in an information bubble and that you are getting the real news from every angle. So, if you want to try Ground News for yourself, you can get 40% off if you use my special code, Factually, go to groundnews.com slash factually. So here's the crazy thing.

The fact that Tesla is struggling as a business means that Elon is suffering personally. He lost almost $30 billion in just one day. And that might not seem like a big deal since apparently he's still worth $301 billion, but losing all that value in Tesla is an enormous problem for Elon. Because here's the secret about his finances.

He doesn't pay for anything using cash. He pays for what he buys using Tesla stock and the understanding that Tesla stock will continue to rise. That's literally how he could afford to overpay for Twitter. So if Tesla stock is crashing, that gives Elon less literal power in the world in a real way You know we think of billionaires as being omnipotent and untouchable But the amazing thing is that the sustained protests at Tesla actually seem to be hurting the richest man in the world

Check out this clip when this news anchor asked Elon about Tesla, he literally seems to be holding back tears. You're giving up your other stuff? I mean, how are you running your other businesses? With great difficulty. Yeah, I mean... But there's no turning back, you're saying? I mean, But there's no turning back, you're saying. I'm just here trying to make government more efficient, eliminate waste and fraud.

And so far we're making good progress. Oh buddy, you're so busy destroying the government, you don't have time to do your real job. Even billionaires can't have it all. You know, this clip could almost make you feel bad for the guy, but Elon f**king chose this. He didn't need to do this. He could have spent his whole life being the rad guy who makes sick cars and has tons of money. He could have just kept being a legend. But instead, he decided to go right-wing and destroy the federal government and make everyone in America hate him.

That was his choice, and now he's paying the price. I mean this is having such a big effect on Elon that his best buddy, the President, Donald J. Trump, actually decided to take a break from driving up egg prices to hold a Let Them Eat Tesla's press conference in front of the White House. It's very safe, it's very strong, heavy, it's all steel, stainless steel, so I have a lot of information, including the price. I wanna make a good deal here. You know, I do notice this.

They have one, which is $35,000, which is pretty low. I mean, all you can say to this is, holy sh- Trump is such a bad used car salesman, he does not even realize how out of touch this sounds. You know, it would literally take a minimum wage worker over 600 days of work, pre-tax, to earn enough to buy that fucking car. In the same week that Elon fired thousands of Americans and Trump instituted tariffs that are going to make life even more expensive for the entire country, they have the gall to ask Americans to buy their fucking cars? Get the fuck out of here.

But even more importantly, we have to recognize that this is pathetic. I mean, these guys are supposed to be the most powerful men in the universe. Trump is the president of the United States. Elon is the richest man in the world, and they are out on the White House lawn hawking products like

Billy Mays and the ShamWow guy. And they're even on just as many drugs. I mean, these guys are supposed to be so much more powerful than you. But a few days of low stock prices and they're begging you to spend 35 grand on one of their dumbass cars. Trump and Musk are fascists, yes, by any definition, but first and foremost, they're grifters. And that means they depend on us buying their garbage. From ex-premium subscriptions to patriot Bibles made in China to meme coins. They need you. They need you to buy their bullshits so badly that Trump literally wants to make it a crime not to buy a Tesla.

Think about that. Trump is so upset about the richest man in the world's falling stock price that he thinks it should be illegal for you not to give him your money. And they don't just need your cash. They need you to like them. Remember, Elon's entire fortune, his overvalued stock, his social media influence, all of it has been based on being idolized, on being described as the real-life Iron Man, remember that?

On being loved by the public. But now, according to polls, 53% of Americans have a negative opinion of Elon. And that's a huge number, considering that research shows that if even only 3.5% of a population engages in nonviolent protest, political change happens. So if just a fraction of those people sell their Teslas, or show up with signs in a dealership, or vocally refuse to buy Elon's bullshit, it makes a f***ing difference. Trump and Elon are like Tinkerbell. Their power comes from you believing in them. They need your money, your approval, your complacency to win.

If we stop buying into them, they die. These guys are f***ing weak. They have everything and they can't even stand to be disliked or live through a few days of declining stock prices without freaking the fuck out. Everything that you've had to fight for, your job, your savings, your safety, they've had handed to them. And now they have made it clear

that they think they are entitled to your money too. But they're not. The harder you boo, the more you protest, the more their stock price drops, the more you turn their fantasy into a nightmare. These protests work. Refusing to comply works. It is easy to see the future you fear as inevitable,

especially when it's being sold to you by a couple of billionaires, especially when the people you are up against are so rich and so powerful, but their fantasy of the future is not any more inevitable than ours. By working together, we have the power to build the future that we want,

and I suggest you get busy f***ing doing it. That was a hate gum podcast. Hello and welcome, or hi, my name's Cole. My name's Andrew, we host a podcast called Podcast, but outside where Cole and I set up a table on the sidewalk and talk to strangers who are walking by. We have a sign on our table that says, hi, be a guest on our podcast and we will pay you one dollar. We are the only ethical podcast. We're the only podcast that pays. We have really interesting conversations with really fun folks. Like who?

Like Marilyn. Okay. And I was somebody else's wife for a while. But the second one worked out. Well, until he died. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Who? Like Marilyn. Okay. And I was somebody else's wife for a while. But the second one worked out. Well, until he died. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. It turned out he had a double life.

What? What was the second life? He was a crack addict. Wait, how do you hide that? Hold on, how do you hide? I don't know, he was a nice old Jewish guy. How did he get addicted to crack? He started smoking it. I know, but I just, I'm just trying to, I know.

That was a good clip. Hey, thank you. And sometimes we even have celebrity friends of ours helping us to interview these random people off the street. Like who? Like John Hamm, Adam Scott, Nick Kroll, and Otsuko Okatsuka. So please subscribe to Podcast But Outside on YouTube and podcast apps.

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