As much as I think musk is an asshole he did put his money where his mouth is in Tesla which notably almost went bankrupt twice. The reality is that Elon distaste matters orders of magnitude less to buyers than value. I mean people hate Walmart and yet they make a ton of money. Other manufacturers cannot make profitable cars at the price point Tesla is offering. Tesla is going to end up the largest car manufacturer in the world. On Twitter yeah he is running it into the ground arguably on purpose but on Tesla and space x he is doing pretty good. I don't understand what people taking this angle think the founder would have done better. The founder would have just gone bankrupt with Tesla or sold to someone else.
I would also add that people don't deal with Elon when buying a Tesla, but they do have to deal with shitty dealers when buying another brand.
Most people are just going to buy the car that is the best value with the least effort.
I mean people hate Walmart and yet they make a ton of money.
The difference to Walmart is that there are alternatives, especially these days, to Tesla. Walmart on the other hand is known to push out smaller retailers in the town they settle into. The option for people can be really slim regardless if you like them or not.
Not to mention you have to consider demographics. Walmart is a value brand. When it edges out the local businesses, they get de-facto monopoly. There's no where else to go if you can't shop the higher retailers. Tesla had first-mover advantage with the flashy claims and making an EV not look like a Dustbuster. They ran out the goodwill and runway and they will get eaten alive by the seasoned manufacturers. They will have their segment of the market but you'll more likely see the same brands convert people from petrol to EV or H2 if white hydrogen is actually a thing.
From what i know tesla was first really profitable from cars (not investors) in 2020 and elon gave himself a bonus with like 50x value from all the profits (my source is the youtuber thunderf00t).
And if i heard it correctly tesla cars are overpriced compared to the competitors and none is on place one when it comes to the stats.
But to simply buy a tesla is as easy as simply buying the most advertised bs like nestle products.
And to the spaceX thing: they get their money mostly from having launch platforms and overpricing it there, the malket there only could be dominated because of investor money. (no source)
The satelite internet drains more money (with US GOV tax funds, no source) than it generates value outside of specific use cases. (partially thunderf00t)
Another thing (i dont know if it is true) that tesla and spacex are doing better since elon is occupied with twitter