Admittedly I'm very old so out-of-date on many subjects.
US citizens seem more 'whiny' than any others I have encountered also. After living in a dozen countries and working in many more i really thought I'd seen it all. Not close!
Within the last decade the US seems to have reverted to the 1950's 'Red Scare' itself reminiscent of earlier episodes of national self-destructive behavior. Now it has driven many people to extremes, seemingly Elon too.
The 'woke' and the 'anti-vax, anti-abortion, guns for all' extremes become themselves destructive to all. So why does that end out with Elon fixation? I do think the productivity issue has been ignored in this context, and you raise it in clear and concise terms.
Perhaps the most serious recent consequence of all this is that Elon has now ended out exactly drawn into the fray, loudly and actively. This does not end well.
In Brazil we have been flirting with that set of issues. Our election ended out being accepted, and the temperature have been lowered. The issues remain, but the sides still talk with each other.
The question of national productivity as a motivating force for Elon is interesting, and if that is central to his thing we should begin to see new employment centers in countries such as Estonia, Finland, Singapore and other countries with excellent education systems and strong internal discipline. Other than China and Taiwan there are few that have enough sales to support major facilities. If South Korea succeeds in taming union habits they will qualify.
There remains another closely related reality. Tesla needs direct sales in Texas, the second largest auto marketing the US, one which is first in pickup sales. Will they gain that permission with a left-liberal CEO? Whether that is a factor or not, a move to the political right is well-connected to Tesla needs in the US.
If we view all this in terms of crass commercial reality..it makes more sense, albeit cynically.
Students of world history usually observe business interests tend to follow political needs.
The correlation is undeniable, rather less definitive the causality.
This group being rather opinionated I do not extract charts. a simple search provides the pickup data and political structure of Texas. Not causal, conveniently correlated.
