Elon Musk is Going After Big Candy with Supercharged Gummies

17 thoughts on “Elon Musk is Going After Big Candy with Supercharged Gummies”

1. My knee jerk reaction would be this is a joke. But with Musk’s ego, my reaction is “weird, but makes perfect sense for a guy like Musk” I don’t claim to understand it, I just try not to be runover by whatever “it” is.

2. So, what’s “super-charged” about the candy? Are they basically solid energy drinks? Full of nootropic supplements?

   • Personally, I’m not a big fan of the trend towards vitamins and supplements being delivered in the form of gummies. But to each their own.

     You know what would be REALLY rad, though? A candy with a bit of Alt-711 in it. I had a supply of that stuff for a while, and it was so effective at breaking the glucose crosslinks bacteria use to anchor themselves to teeth that my dental hygienist accused me of having had my teeth cleaned ahead of my cleaning. My teeth were so clean they were literally slippery!

     Imagine a candy that wasn’t just nutritious, but was equivalent to hitting the dentist for a tooth cleaning…

3. So, Musk’s newest business is pushing drugs, mostly to children. How does this embrace conservative family values he is supposedly embracing now?

   • It is a mystery why Musk (Libertarian) has come out all gay for Trump (King, dictator). The rumour, with good probability, is that Trump approached the big oil companies for $1 billion of donations, and in return he would effectively ban EV vehicles. So why has Musk bent the knee? Will he get a cabinet position? Is it protection money so that Tesla is spared tarriffs? Is it actually a family feud to do with trans-rights and his daughter (Musk gave the reason for moving to Texas because of California’s school outing rules, not business related)?

     • California deciding to get between parents and their children was just the last straw; He’d already had business related reasons to leave California, this just got him to act on them.

       And even if he weren’t somewhat ideologically aligned with Trump, the endless bureaucratic war against all his enterprises that began the moment Biden took office would be enough reason to back Trump. But as a libertarian businessman, he has to appreciate Trump’s anti-regulatory tendencies.

       Trump, of course, does not have to ban EV’s, it would be sufficient to just refrain from mandating them, since they’re not remotely cost-effective without subsidies, and the market demand for them is actually quite small absent mandates forcing auto companies to push them.

       • Well yeah, Trump doesn’t have to overtly ban EVs. Removal of subsidies will do that. (Similarly he thinks that wind turbines give people cancer). So we are agreed that on balance, a Trump election looks a very bad thing for Tesla’s prospects. So why the Musk love?

         • No, I don’t think a Trump election is all that bad for Musk.

           First, Telsa sells high end EVs. Nice looking sports cars, really. Their market is less price sensitive than the market for, say, a Nissan Leaf. So, while an end to subsidies would devastate Musk’s competitors, he’d survive reasonably well. The market for EVs would shrink a lot, but he’d be a larger share of it.

           Second, he’s diversifying even Tesla outside of the EV market, turning it into a AI powered robot company that just happens to sell some of the robots in the form of cars. Those robots will soon be Telsa’s primary product, not the cars.

           But also, remember, Tesla is hardly the only thing Musk has going. He’s actually more focused on SpaceX and Starlink than Tesla at this point, and the regulatory assault on them is vicious. It would be a good trade for him to take a hit on Telsa’s profits and in return have the FAA lay off SpaceX.

           Finally, Musk is in an economic position where no plausible economic reversal will have any impact on his personal standard of living. He can afford to have higher priorities than maximizing the profitability of his enterprises.

           • Well, you that’s particularly true for Elon. He lives as if he was a millionaire, or less rich. His house in Boca Chika is a pre-fab that cost about 50k.

             Plus, he is not in it for the wealth, he is in it to reach his goals. Multi planetary life, sustainable energy, free speech…

         • Tesla is actually good enough to survive without subsidies, the rest not so much.

           • Yep, Tesla and the Chinese car manufacturers…

         • Nah, Tesla and the Chinese car manufacturers are soon going to beat gas cars on the sticker price, not only total cost of ownership. Keep in mind that Tesla takes out about 10% of the production cost for any given model per year. This is probably also true for the Chinese manufacturers.

           Electric cars will dominate because of economics, not idealism.. Subsidies are not necessary… unless the goal is to preserve the legacy car manufacturers…

           • Dream on. The subsidies are massive at this point, and you’re not taking that into account, though the consequences of them being dropped is what’s being discussed.

             And worse, for EVs, is the failure to upgrade electrical infrastructure. We’re on a glide path to regular brown outs and black outs by the end of the decade, as things stand.

             We’re retiring reliable sources of power, and replacing them with sources at the mercy of an errant cloud or calm day.

             https://cdn.misoenergy.org/2024%20Reliability%20Imperative%20report%20Feb.%2021%20Final504018.pdf

             “Over the last 10-plus years, surplus reserve margins in MISO have been exhausted through load growth and unit retirements. Since 2022, MISO has been operating near the level of minimum reserve margin requirements. While MISO has implemented several reforms to help avert near-term risk, more work is urgently needed to mitigate reliability concerns in the coming years. In fact, the region only averted a
             capacity shortfall in 2023 because some planned generation retirements were postponed and some additional capacity was made available to MISO.

             However, MISO cannot count on such actions being repeated going forward. Indeed, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) projects the MISO region will experience a 4.7 GW shortfall beginning in 2028 if currently expected generator retirements actually occur. Notably, NERC says that shortfall will occur even if the 12-plus GW of new resources that are expected to come online by then actually materialize. This is because the new resources that are being built have significantly lower accreditation values than the older resources that are retiring, as is discussed in more detail below”

             They’re losing reliable power sources, and replacing them with unreliable ones, guaranteeing blackouts by the end of the decade.

             It won’t take many blackouts to cause interest in adopting EVs to tank even further.

             But, back to my point, this won’t hurt Telsa, because they’re not selling cars that compete with ICE vehicles. They’re a luxury EV seller. People buying Telsas can afford the Powerwall, too, or to have a second ICE vehicle.

             • Brett, what specifically am I dreaming about? Electric cars soon beating gas cars on the sticker price, even without subsidies? Tesla taking out 10% of the production cost each year?

               And electric cars should be able to draw when there is plenty of electricity available and hence not make brownouts worse.

               • A massive increase in electricity consumption after the sun goes down won’t make brownouts from solar panels being in the dark worse? Interesting…

                 Yes, you are dreaming about average electric cars beating ICE cars on sticker price without subsidies. Not going to happen at remotely comparable performance levels.

               • Hello Brett, I cannot reply to your comment below, so I reply here.

                 When there is plenty of solar power, the hourly price for electricity will go down and that’s when car owners will charge their cars. So it should have a stabilizing effect on the grid rather than destabilize it.

                 Furthermore, an average US car goes about 10 000 miles per year, and consumes about 3300 kWh. A normal family of 4 consumes about 44 000 kWh. So an increase by 10%, and that is to replace ALL cars. In reality, even if 100% of new car sales would be electric, it would still take ~1.5 decades to replace all cars.

                 Conclusion: plenty of time and no problem.

               • About subsidies. I see that you quietly accept the assertion that Tesla takes out 10% of the production cost every year. This is probably the same for the chinese manufacturers.

                 A model Y costs about 44 kUSD without subsidies. If we wait 3 years, with a yearly cost attrition of 10%, we get 32 kUSD. But even if the price erosion slows down to 5%, it would only be 6 years before a model Y would be cheaper on the sticker price than a “like” gas car.

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