Tesla came from nowhere, developed essentially one world-dominating product (lumping the 3 and Y together), then the CEO basically ruined everything.

Imagine Tesla with a "normal" CEO and marketing department. They would have a bunch of different trims and options for the 3/Y, a redesigned X, a functional truck, and a market cap of 400 billion!

After successfully teaching China how to build EVs and embracing fascism, I thought they moved on to AI/robotaxi/robots/(insert your preferred fantasy here)?

If Musk were aware that Tesla was going to lose this much ground due to factors beyond his own mismanagement, including the threat of Chinese imports and a widespread shift away from EVs due to a right-populist sentiment swing that was already under way, then maybe his goose-stepping and Trump-humping act was an attempt to sync up with a trend that he saw as inevitable.

That's about the most charitable spin I can put on it. Either way, Tesla now has to pitch electric cars to right-wing climate-change deniers, which is not a great strategy to adopt voluntarily or otherwise.