Bootleg Kev

Zach Wilson Verified account @Zachly · 1d

The Cybertruck is getting discontinued after 3 short years and less than 100,000 sales! I paid $110,873 all cash for mine two years ago.

It is still the biggest financial transaction of my life.

I understand why it’s getting discontinued. In order of importance:

- Elon lied to use about range
He offered a range extender package to boost the range from 300 miles to 500 miles for $16,000. I put the deposit on that and then it was abruptly canceled and refunded. This gave me intense buyers remorse

- the cybertruck became a symbol of right wing politics
Driving a cybertruck in SF caused me to get flipped off by so many people on a near-daily basis. Sometimes people would scream at me and tell me I’m a terrible human being.

- they optimized for speed over convenience
I couldn’t use my truck to tow my stuff from SF to Las Vegas in January because charging the cybertruck requires you to unhitch the tow which is insanely cumbersome. On top of that, towing reduces the range from 300 miles to 150 miles! It’s cool it can go 0 to 60 in less than 3 seconds but that’s a fun gimmick more than something that seriously impacts my life.

Do I regret buying my super fast dumpster? Absolutely not. It changed my perspective on the world.

Now I own a 2024 foundation model Cyberbeast which they only made ~10,000 of total. So my truck will probably appreciate in value as Tesla becomes more successful.

It’s also DataExpert.io’s company vehicle so it saved me ~$35,000 on my taxes when I bought it in 2024. So it’s a $75,000 speedy dumpster not a $110,000 speedy dumpster.

It has been a very strange journey with the Cybertruck!

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JD Vance Verified account @JDVance · 4d

One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.

So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we're going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."

Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.

There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.

But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.

Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:

1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel

Our voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)

In the next few months, there's going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I'm open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.

The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.

If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest.

But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.

I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.

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