Elon Musk’s Biggest Local Enemies

you know, be out there in the streets just trying to get a message out any way they can because elected officials are maybe being corrupted by the influence of like a special little guy that's in our backyard. I don't know. I'm just, I'm just asking questions. Just, I mean, we're just throwing spaghetti at the wall. We're spitballing. Who knows? I do want to say, it is very Austin. It is, it is, like, I just remember seeing. I just remember the video of him on the side of the building doing the salute. And I was like, yep. Yep. That is absolutely something I would see in my city. I am not confused by that at all. I'm not. I'm like, yeah. I like it. He did it, you know. We just, you know, they just made it big and put it on the side of a building, you know. Exactly. He's making the content. Yeah, just the case someone didn't see it. Just a case. Yeah. Just the case. Yeah. Just the case. So, y'all are part of the FAA-F-O-512 collective, which is connected with Tesla Takedown Austin. And that is a part of a national movement, which started in February as Elon Musk's involvement in the federal government, like you said, Doge grew. And now that he's out and back at work in Austin, is that not like mission accomplished for the group? Well, Doge hasn't ended in a lot of states, especially Texas. We've got Texas. Right. Doge happening now. And so there's that aspect of it. Everyone's got their own local robber baron that they got to keep tabs on. And Austin's just happens to be the one that everybody hated for a minute there. All eyes were on him during the beginning of the Tesla take down. Unfortunately, the folks of Austin have an ongoing responsibility to, you know, shine a spotlight on. his actions. And, you know, he continues to have way too much influence over, you know, which candidates he can buy and therefore our political system. So, you know, we got to kind of, we got to keep babysitting him. And that's kind of part of what Tesla takedowns about. I guess everybody is really quick to forget what. what he was responsible for. How many people's lives were ruined, how much we've been set back in terms of research and the funding that was cut. And, you know, not only that, but all of the gross inflation of all of these like just untruths, we're still pissed. You know, we're still very much pissed. And so, you know, we're here to continuously bully him, you know, and to get him out of Austin, you know. And so what do you have to say? You know, some people think that the government had some fat that needed to be trimmed.

and that Elon Musk was brought along essentially to do that. And that's what he was doing. I'm curious how you respond to that idea, that in some way he did exactly what the government asked him to do, and that's trim the fat. You know, I think these things were not true. It's a pattern for him is to inflate. You know, he just inflames like these untrudes. So, you know, the other piece of that is, How much did he actually mess up to the point of, you know, having to rehire all of these workers, all of that career and institutionalized knowledge that's gone? And, you know, maybe there was, you know, some places where we could have cut. But he definitely needs to be held accountable. And that's just something that rich white men don't ever do. You know, they're never held accountable. True. And bringing it back to Austin even, I mean, look at... The Doge cuts right here at UT, right? They cut birth defects research. They cut early biomarkers for autism research. They cut the McClellan Lab, which was partially responsible for ending the COVID pandemic, but with their contributions to the COVID vaccine. They... have not, you could not look at the cuts that were made to our world-class research institution here and say that that was fat in any way. There are, they're crippling, you know, the biomedical research world, basically, not just on a global level with the contributions that we make. from right here in Austin, and that's what makes one of the things it makes Austin a place that people come and want to live and, you know, why we attract luminary researchers and folks with the big ideas that are world changing. That's not cutting fat, right? That's what are we doing? That makes no sense. A lot of the cuts have been restored. It seems like him and a lot of people in charge right now, they do things because they can. Yeah, it's just, it's just a show of power. They don't even think about the repercussions or what it could mean for them or anybody else. It's just like, look at this thing that I did because I'm so powerful and I'm so rich. And they're like little little kids on a playground. It's really, it's really shitty to be a part of and watch. But specifically, so here in Austin. Like, Elon Musk's footprint is huge here, right? Gigafactory, Tesla headquarters, and the Boring Company and Starlink, which is nearby in Bastrop. Like, all of this crap is essentially in our backyard. So Tesla takedown here also involves, you know, Elon Musk's interaction with local governments, too. It's not just, you know. on the national federal level, Travis County gave Tesla a 20-year rebate deal that would give the company millions in rebates in exchange for employing local residents and other things. The FAAFO-512 collective has brought this contract up before with Travis County Commission's court multiple times. What is the big concern with this rebate program and where?

Are we five years into it? Five years into this, where are we? Oh, Barf City, that's where we are. It's just the barfiest process. You know, you see Judge Andy Brown out there helping the community, preventing wildfires, getting his hands on things that are important to people. At the same time, we have this insane contract with this tax rebate contract with the richest man in the world. Just hoarding wealth. Most people come to Austin. They're like, yeah, let me get in the mix here and be in Austin. No. Elon Musk came here and he was like, I'm the worst health guest ever. I'm going to put my feet up on the sofa. I'm going to leave my dishes in your sink. I want to dig a tunnel under your city. I want to dig a tunnel. Like, no, bro. But yeah, so this contract is. been in progress for five years. And he's broken multiple labor and environmental laws and upended a lot of, you know, things. including just like roads and traffic in the Far East community of Austin. And the deal does not make sense. The deal is the deal is bad. I think that our representatives, you know, can see that. And that's why the process has been ongoing for so long. They are taking the compliance process very seriously. However, we can't get any answers about that. We can't see any data. You know, we go, we visit the county commissioners. We ask for an update and a timeline on the compliance process. And like, at what point do you cancel the car? contract because he's not keeping up his end of the deal. And we get, you know, these very vague, very like, well, it's ongoing and we can't, what are we doing? Come on. This is Austin. This is, this, this is a progressive city. We don't do business like that. And so we just, we're still trying to get answers about it. We don't know what's going on. It's a bad deal. And it's time to shine a light on that. And that's, that's what we've been trying to do.

So I talked to Judge Andy Brown about this recently. And he said, same thing. It's under compliance review. And so far, no money has been rebated to Tesla. Now, he wouldn't say how long that's going to take. But so far, Elon Musk has not been given a dime. Are you encouraged at all by the fact that no money has been paid so far? I think that they have acknowledged. that there's something wrong, right? We don't have the criteria. We don't have the specifics. And the language doesn't even provide for us to hold them accountable. So them not having the rebate right now may seem like a victory on its face right now. However, you know, what does it look like when they, you know, just pencil push out a report? you know, a week from now that says, we're fantastic. We did everything. Yeah, we talked with Commissioner Gomez yesterday in a meeting. And, you know, she described the process, which we've seen through some open records, requests of back and forth emails between the county and Tesla that, you know, they're basically trying to renegotiate the terms of this contract, you know, and slow walking this process where there, you have the county on one hand saying, well, we need reports about this. And Tesla saying, what? Hold on. Give us another few months or like, you know, providing impartial information. And so at what point do you just go? You know, like this, there are rules, and they're really simple, basic rules, you know. It's like, don't break the laws. Treat your workers fairly. Make sure that you're not frying electricians accidentally. You know, there are worker deaths. Victor Joe Gomez was killed at the Gigafactory. And the fines are like 50 grand. That's it? 50 grand. 50 grand for somebody's life. Yeah. You're not following the rules. And, you know, it's been five years you've had to comply. I mean, listen, I've never had a job that has let me take five years to get my shit together. Ever. Ever. It's like, yeah, fine yet. I've never had that kind of runway, ever. Yeah. And not only that, but it's like all of the, all of the pieces about being a good neighbor and being a good community steward. None of the, none of the things that. He has promised have come to a fruition for, you know, the community surrounding Hordesbend. And just coming back from their community meeting last week, it's very clear that the community has significant grievances with Tesla and that Tesla is not cooperating, not keeping up their end of the deal. They're sending the rockets to space, but they can't get their community another way out in case of a flood or a wildfire. They promised a Harold Green extension that was going to assist their community.

community with the increase in traffic and with egress. And this was promised years ago when the gigafactory was going to be built, has not been done. At the meeting last week, they told me it was going to take another two years to even break ground. They were promised environmental parks. They were promised additional infrastructure and Tesla has not. has not upheld their end of the deal yet they've really been taken for a ride. And so they see the same things that people in Fremont saw. They see the same things that happened in Memphis. They see the same things that happened in Buffalo. And unfortunately, what's happening down in South Texas as well, it's all the same formula. He shows up. He harvests all our resources. He gets in trouble. They try to hold him accountable. And then he bails. Yeah, he takes his toys and goes home. And in the meantime, you know, look at what's going on with us. We've got, you know, proposed property tax increases. People are struggling. People, their budget, their shortfalls in the budget all over the place. Why are we haggling with a trillionaire, you know, over small change for him. Yeah, for him. For him, small change for the city, a huge, you know, millions of dollars is huge. Yep. We need a better bullshit detector, you know, with these promises. It's like Andy Brown's very concerned about wildfires in this area. I said, he's out there talking about burn bands and making sure that everybody's safe. Those folks can't get out if there's a wildfire, you know? Oh, my mom lives out there and a couple of my really good friends live out there. I'm sorry to hear that because that, yeah, that's dangerous. Yeah. And again, richest man in the world, trillionaire. As of, you know, his new pay package that just passed at the annual general meeting here, it's trillionaire. Crazy. Finish the damn, bro. Finish the road. Come on. Let the people, you know, get their ambulances get through. Let people, you know, be safe just going to work at school. We're not asking for, like, him to build a Elon Musk to build libraries or anything that the wealthy of your did. We're just asking for him to do. Children's hospital. Yeah, God forbid. No, we're talking about basic stuff. Build, finish the road. You said you would build as part of the deal. Come on. And just to note, we did reach out to Tesla with some questions about their end of the tax rebate deal, but they didn't respond. So my consistent concern with Elon Musk is that. You know, and what he keeps showing is that we are so far under his radar. We're so far under his radar. Yet he is, to your point, it's such a great term. He is just mining us for resources. He doesn't, it's like faceless. You know what I mean? Like he's not worried. He's not concerned about citizens. Mm-hmm. So another way that Austinites interact with Elon Musk is through his fleet of robo taxis, these autonomous vehicles. They've been driving around the city since June. We've also seen the video of the kids trying to get across the street that like fake dummy kids getting dragged by the rubble taxis. Do we know if there had been any local safety incidents with these robo taxis?

Oh, yeah, there's a whole tracker of safety incidents on the city's website. Really? Yes. And the rate at which the full self-driving software, you know, quote unquote, full self-driving software of Tesla's fails compared to other similar technologies is exorbitant. It's not road ready. That's a site we've got not root ready.com. All the details, you know, can be found there. And yeah, we don't want to be guinea pigs for all that. Yeah, the robo taxis are just all hype. All hype and no LIDAR. No equipment that, you know, competitors who have a pretty good track record have. He's just relying on his shitty little cameras and that just fails in comparison. I think that there have been several YouTube videos and creators who have literally put up like a picture of a road. And because there's no lighter equipment or technologies, the car just goes straight through the picture of the road. Yeah, and it can be tricked by several different factors. I mean, rain, water. I mean, without the additional sensors and technologies, it's just relying on some shitty little cameras. And the data, you know, again, with the transparency issues, you know, Tesla's delayed reporting critical. crash data and even regulators, you know, are chomping at the bit for them to fully report their crash data. The robo taxis, first of all, I'm not trying to be funny. And this is not to talk shit to anybody that has used a robo taxi. But you can pay me to get one of those things. They don't. They don't look safe. They don't look. Do you know what I'm saying? No, you're right. I mean, because when you see Waymos, they've got that, you know, big conkin thing on top. That's radar, it's LIDAR. That is technology that Tesla Robotaxis don't have, you know. Exactly. Get in the one that has the tested technology, the crash data to show its safety at least. And, you know, the things that make sure that you're going to get from point A to point B. So here's the thing. So like we have more data on Waymo right now because Waymo has been here longer. They have more cars on the road. They've been doing the work longer. So if you go on the site right now, it'll say that Waymo has had more collision or more issues than the rubble taxis have, right? But I think it's because Waymo has done the thing. Waymo has done the thing to figure stuff out. I remember the first time I went to, in my old job, I went and just. did a tour of a Waymo car. And they took us around. They showed us every little tiny camera, every little radar, every lidar, every little thing that makes all of the bells and whistles run on the Waymo's. And I left that tour, that introduction to the Waymo thinking, okay, like, I would never get in one because I'm superstitious and an old lady like that. But like, I can see how this would work. I could see, because there have definitely been times I've gotten into lifts or I've gotten into Ubers and I have not felt safe. I have not, you know what I mean? Like I've had to do, especially as a woman, I've been like, okay, this might have been a bad day for me to take a lift, right? So I can see why it's necessary. And I understand that like this is the next thing that's happening. I get it, right? What I don't understand is why anybody would get into one without.

having all that knowledge of why it works and how it works. Like I need to see it. It helps me when I see a Waymo that I see all that shit. It just helps me because I'm like, science is happening. Yeah, I'm just like science is happening. You know, they can totally fool me. It could be nothing. It could be aesthetic. It doesn't matter. It works for me, bitch. It looks like science is happening. And that helps me, that helps me feel a little more secure. 100%. And aside from the technology, just look at the profiteering that's going on with the robo taxi. A lot of people on Wall Street think Tesla's robo taxi success is the key to Tesla's long-term success. And given the overall decline in Tesla's business, investors are betting that the robo taxi is going to scale, become popular enough to overcome the decline in car sales. So Wall Street's watching and waiting to see if they can even... and remove their safety monitors from the robo-taxies during this robo-taxie pilot and start operating truly driverlessly. So they're very motivated to move to this stage. and get those safety monitors out. Now, is that the situation you want to put yourself into, get into that car where it's somebody's really betting that they can really push this technology so that they can make money. Cost of their fingers. Right? Girl, you're safer in the creeper Uber than in that situation. You know, if the driver monitors are removed, you know, the stock would skyrocket based on that. So does that matter to you? know you want to make sure that it's going to see stop signs it's going to stop for buses you know it's going to it's going to do what it's supposed to do it's basic stuff and it's not it's not about you know this this guy's quest to become the the biggest deal in the world it's about you know is am i going to get from a to be

I always ask a nosy question. I'm curious. So, you know, I have seen a couple of times where people will have a Tesla, not the cyber truck, but they'll just have like a regular little Tesla and there'll be a sticker on it that's like, I bought this before Elon Musk or like, you know what I mean? Like it's just like and. And I think it's because, you know, we've seen kind of like a rise of people vandalizing Tesla's, specifically vandalizing cyber trucks for sure. Sometimes in my brain, I compartmentalize the regular Teslas and the cyber trucks. For some reason. Because they're fugly. Yeah. And it's sending a really specific message. I mean, the cyber truck in itself to me. looks aggressive. Like it's just like an aggressive, ugly car, right? But then I'll see a Tesla and I'm like, oh, that's a cute little car. I can't figure out how to get into it half the time. But that is a cute car. I can appreciate that it's a cute car. And so I'm curious if you guys are seeing, because I'm seeing more cyber trucks in Austin daily. Really? And it feels to me... There goes a neighborhood. Well, that's what I was, that's what I'm going into. The regular Tesla cars, blend in. They blend in a little bit to me. But a cyber truck is a statement. To me, it's a statement. And I'm seeing that statement being made a lot in Austin. And let's also be real. Like, you know, Elon Musk did not invent a lot of the tech and a lot of the good things that made Tesla. You know, people use Tesla for, you know, a slew of different reasons. I mean, even one of those is, you know, people, some people with disabilities. you know, favor Teslas for all of their adaptive tech. And we all think that that's awesome. We do feel for the people who, you know, are stuck with their Tesla. I mean, we even had a debadging event where we assisted with popping off the emblems of the Tesla. You know, we allowed people to use different brandings. I think some people chose Bentley. Mustang. Yeah, Mini Cooper. Yeah, Minnie Cooper, Kia. You know, we think that that's funny. Our beef is not with Tesla drivers. Our beef is definitely with Elon Musk and definitely trying to get it out from underneath him. Yeah, and here's my thing, Nikki. Look, Austin is like a great tradition of like badass outlaws, right? Like, that's awesome. And here comes Elon Musk. the least cool outlaw of all time, the biggest friggin' dork of an outlaw, you know? Like, he is not a cool symbol. But Mimi, you didn't see his photo shoot? You didn't see his cool cowboy photo shoot? Oh, Lord. Gross. Check, check, please. Gross. Uh-uh. Ain't nobody got time for that. I mean, come on. Give me Willie Nelson. You know, we got like the coolest outlaw tradition here. Yeah. This guy comes like, you just don't fit in, man. You don't fit in with the vibe. Read the room. Austin is not like us. He's not like us, girl. So is there anything else we should be aware of?

and watching here in Austin, like when it comes to Tesla and Elon Musk, what should Austinites be paying attention to right now? Well, as far as the robotaxies, you know, we want to ask regulators to just pause the pilot until Tesla's current software can be assessed under the new laws. And with the tax rebate situation, we're keeping an eye on that because the public pressure is so important. You know, it's, again, it's chump change to Elon Musk and makes a huge difference for this city. If this is a county tax rebate, what's the connection to the city? There's a city connection in that, you know, the county services are important to the people of the city. And also where there's a budget shortfall in the city, the county can sometimes, you know, with the county budget, create stopgap measures and... you know, come to the aid of anything that's experiencing a shortfall in different ways. You know, and also like the... the gigafactory just outside the city limits, you know, for a reason so that county officials are the ones doing the oversight. But, you know, ultimately it's the people of the city of Austin that are, he's still not like one of the number one employers of people who live in Austin. And we've got our county officials ear right now. We've got to tell, we've got to continue to tell them and support them when they. come at Tesla, like they need to have their constituents at their back saying, yeah, we don't, we're paying attention to this too. We care who our big employers are in the city. We care about, you know, safe jobs in the city. And we're not going to give out free money if you're going to come here and, you know, create trash jobs and trash technology. So we just hope that, you know, Austin folks being the cool. cats that they are will be hip to that. We'll continue to pay attention and keep the pressure on so that we're not giving handouts to the world's worst house guest and dorkiest outlaw. And to heed the warning of the communities that have dealt with him beforehand, I mean, at the meeting that I was at last week, the community is just grappling with this ever-growing. industrialization. And they learned at our meeting also that there's going to be an even larger company moving in north of the airport as well. That's just separate from all the expansions that they're going to be seeing under Elon Musk there. So, you know, it's just very important to pay attention to what's going on, what kind of pollutants that we're going to be looking at and our water. Our water is such a huge deal here. And, you know, seeing that 3,000 gallons of untreated wastewater was released into our, you know, under our waterway. I mean, that's, that should be huge and it should be something that people are paying attention to and holding these huge companies accountable. I mean, you know, just all of these, all of these things that they can do to move mountains for.

their shareholders at the end of the day, they need to be doing that for their neighbors. They need to be good stewards. Law and order. It's basic stuff. Yeah. Well, Mimi, Sordy, thank you so much for being on and talk to me about this. Thank you. This is awesome. Yeah, great talk to you. I'm going to encourage everybody that's listening to keep your eye out for, I don't know, any more fun things that might be coming down the pipe or been illuminated on the sides of buildings. I have a feeling. You know, I have a feeling there's more where that came from. I have a feeling, too. Yeah, just as my spidey senses are telling me. Keep an eye out.

That's all for today here on CityCast Austin. You can find links to the stories we discussed at FafO 512's information in our show notes. And if you enjoyed the show, tell your friends, rate our show, leave us a review, and of course subscribe to our Hey Austin News Center. And you know, if you really, really love us, we'd love for you to support us by becoming a neighbor today. Go on over to membership.cadcass.fm. to find out more. We'll be back tomorrow morning with a special holiday episode before taking off for Thanksgiving. Bye, y'all.