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Italia: un Paese betoniera


Massimo Franco per il “Corriere della Sera”

«Che succederà all'Italia nel 2023? Secondo me quasi niente. Siamo un Paese mediocre con un governo mediocre, anche se mi pare che Giorgia Meloni stia studiando per imparare i meccanismi del sistema. Sa, la mediocrità non è soltanto un male...». Giuseppe De Rita rimane un entomologo sociale spiazzante. Dalla sua scrivania nella villetta del Censis circondata da un giardino arrampicato sopra piazza di Novella, accanto al parco romano di Villa Ada, viviseziona il Paese. E anche dopo mezzo secolo continua a darne una lettura originale.

Se non succede niente significa per paradosso che la situazione si è in qualche modo stabilizzata.

«Possiamo anche dirla così. Sa, l'assestamento nasce anche per l'assenza di grandi guastatori. In giro non ne vedo. Al massimo c'è Giuseppe Conte, che cerca di contrastare l'assestamento del sistema. Ma la sua mira sembra mediocre: superare un Pd in declino. Meloni può stare tranquilla».

Beh, forse perché il Pd dà l'idea di essere al capolinea e tutti pensano di poterselo spartire.

«Temo che sia una storia finita, purtroppo. Penso a Enrico Letta, un politico che stimo. Porca miseria, sembra che stia facendo una corsa verso il patibolo, con una sorta di masochismo per eccesso di coerenza. Ma questa è la parte di analisi della politica che magari mi fa eccedere in pessimismo, lo ammetto».

Il versante ottimistico qual è?

«Tutti noi che parliamo di società italiana, dimentichiamo che l'Italia è come un bambino tra gli otto e gli undici anni. Vive nella fase che Sigmund Freud chiamava stato di latenza. Ha ossa, carne, cervello, ma non è ancora formato dall'adolescenza, né sfidato dal futuro. E dunque è come sospeso».

Ha l'aria di un eufemismo per non dire che galleggiamo e basta.


GIUSEPPE DE RITA

«In effetti, il galleggiamento dura da un po' troppo tempo. Non andiamo né avanti né indietro, spieghiamo nel Rapporto del Censis di quest' anno. Non usciamo dallo stato di latenza per due motivi: non abbiamo un obiettivo preciso per il futuro, perché il Piano di ripresa non coinvolge. È stato vissuto solo come: arrivano tanti soldi. E poi perché non sono arrivate le grandi crisi che nel passato ci hanno fatto avanzare: il dopoguerra, il terrorismo e la crisi petrolifera negli Anni Settanta, il made in Italy e il craxismo degli Anni Ottanta del secolo scorso».

Non trascura la pandemia del Covid e la guerra della Russia contro l'Ucraina?

«Non le trascuro. Ricorda? Ci dicevano che "dopo" saremmo cambiati, e invece siamo rimasti gli stessi. Nonostante i morti, l'inflazione, quelle tragedie non sono state percepite come crisi trasformative. Socialmente non siamo in terapia intensiva. È come se fossero soprattutto problemi che riguardano gli altri. Anche sulla guerra non abbiamo un'idea collettiva».

Sta dicendo che tutto contribuisce a una mediocre sopravvivenza?

«Voglio dire che gli italiani non le hanno percepite come sfide da affrontare collettivamente: al massimo hanno avuto paura per sé stessi, per esempio con la pandemia. Ma senza uno choc, dalla latenza l'Italia non esce. Le grandi stagioni sono nate da choc, dal dispiegamento di energie come risposta alla crisi».

Per molti, il governo di destra che ha vinto il 25 settembre è uno choc.

«Per ora no. Dire che dietro questo governo ci sia ancora Draghi non è così stravagante. Non nel senso che lo guidi o lo influenzi nell'ombra ma che esiste un'inerzia dei processi economici e politici, indotti anche dall'adesione all'Europa, ai quali Giorgia Meloni non può sottrarsi. Il sistema risucchia e appiattisce tutti. Ricordiamoci la crisi del 2011, lo spread a 500, Mario Monti. Lui e Mario Draghi non sono certo dei mediocri, eppure sono stati costretti a scendere a patti con la mediocrità del sistema».

Niente aurea mediocritas, insomma.

«Mediocrità e basta. Ma io ci credo, alle virtù della mediocrità: se non altro perché ha fatto crescere il Paese nel passato. Il boom degli Anni Sessanta del '900 è stato promosso dallo strato medio dei mediocri Brambilla e dalla quasi banalità della Fiera di Milano. Mediocri ma funzionavano».

Sì, ma ora sembra una mediocrità non da boom ma da declino.

«Purtroppo ci siamo consumati la classe dirigente. E la classe media non è mai diventata borghesia: non ce l'abbiamo fatta. Pasolini lo diceva sempre a me e a Paolo Sylos Labini: l'italiano non sarà mai borghese, rimane un piccolo borghese. Anche nel governo, nel Parlamento, dominano i piccoli borghesi. Ci vorranno cinquant' anni per esprimere un'identità neoborghese e avere una fascia sociale di borghesia medioalta».

Lei descrive una sorta di scissione tra cultura, società e politica. 

«Questa scissione è reale. Manca la capacità di creare identità e punti di riferimento. La politica si fa con i soggetti collettivi, con élites capaci di visione e di sintesi. Con i leader individuali si ottengono vittorie di opinione, intrinsecamente volubili. Esaltare l'opinione è stata la tragedia dell'Italia.

Ha prodotto la cultura della rissa, dell'uno vale uno, dello scontro senza sintesi. Le stesse trasmissioni televisive si costruiscono su format che puntano sul contrasto di opinione: vedi i talk show. Ha creato un mondo di opinione, non di pensiero né di vero dialogo. E il primato delle opinioni ha prodotto prima Berlusconi, poi Salvini, Renzi, i grillini e ora Meloni, anche se lei mi sembra meno volatile e più abile».

Ma quali ambizioni realistiche può coltivare il governo attuale, sullo sfondo che lei descrive?

«Durare due anni, e in questi due anni usare la mediocrità italiana e tirarne fuori qualcosa di buono. Questo è un Paese-betoniera, da governare costruendosi un apparato, una classe dirigente. Meloni deve giocare sui tempi più o meno lunghi, non sognare i sei mesi fiammeggianti di un John Kennedy. Il pericolo, anche per lei, è il presentismo che ha afflitto un po' tutti in questi anni. Il presentismo dà l'illusione di esserci, ma in realtà ci toglie la sfida dei rischi e segnala la mancanza di tempo: senza che ce ne accorgiamo».
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Grazie, carissimo Oscar, per questo post di fine è inizio anno: food for thought, di cui ce n’è un gran bisogno.
L’Italia vista da qui è lontana, sempre più lontana…
”dall’altra parte della luna”, come diceva il grande Lucio Dalla a proposito dell’America.

Auguri per un felice anno nuovo, sperando di rivederti presto!
Emanuela 
____________________________________________________
Oscar, ho sempre stimato De Rita, ma stavolta non sono d'accordo con lui. Mi sembra eccessivamente pessimista (e un pochino menagramo).
I cavalli di razza si giudicano a fine gara (leggasi legislatura) e Giorgia Meloni è una cavalla di razza, una vera purosangue che si è fatta da sola e ha ben chiaro la sua missione politica: il bene dell'Italia. A patto che le sia permesso di lavorare in questo senso.
Auguri a te e a tutti gli italiani!
Ottaviano SILLITTI 
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Bellissimo articolo, grazie.
È impressionante realizzare che lo stesso processo di movimento da sforzi di una borghesia sociale con obiettivi nazionali a piccola borghesia opinionista con obiettivi individuali sia anche avvenuto qui negli USA e ad una velocità maggiore che in Italia .
Clark Misul

Putin si sente isolato



The Washington Post


Putin, unaccustomed to losing, is increasingly isolated as war falters
Story by Catherine Belton 

When Vladimir Putin visited Minsk last week to discuss deepening cooperation, a sarcastic joke by his host, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, seemed to ring all too true. “The two of us are co-aggressors, the most harmful and toxic people on this planet. We have only one dispute: Who is the bigger one? That’s all,” Lukashenko said.



Putin, unaccustomed to losing, is increasingly isolated as war falters

As Putin approaches New Year’s Eve, the 23d anniversary of his appointment in 1999 as acting Russian president, he appears more isolated than ever.

More than 300 days of brutal war against Ukraine have blown up decades of Russia’s carefully cultivated economic relations with the West, turning the country into a pariah, while Kremlin efforts to replace those ties with closer cooperation with India and China appear to be faltering the longer the war grinds on.

Putin, who started his career as a Soviet KGB agent, has always kept his own counsel, relying on a close inner circle of old friends and confidants while seeming to never fully trust or confide in anyone. But now a new gulf is emerging between Putin and much of the country’s elite, according to interviews with Russian business leaders, officials and analysts.

Putin “feels the loss of his friends,” said one Russian state official with close ties to diplomatic circles, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “Lukashenko is the only one he can pay a serious visit to. All the rest see him only when necessary.”

The Washington Post
Putin says Russia’s war in Ukraine will be ‘a long process’

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WIONGravitas: Russia steps up offensive In Kherson, Kyiv



Former Russian army chief dies mysteriously after a cancelled meeting with Vladimir Putin

Even though Putin gathered leaders of former Soviet republics for an informal summit in St. Petersburg this week, across the region the Kremlin’s authority is weakening. Putin spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping over video conference on Friday morning in Moscow in an effort to showcase the two countries’ ties. Although Xi said he was ready to improve strategic cooperation, he acknowledged the “complicated and quite controversial international situation.” In September, he’d made clear his “concerns” over the war.

India’s Narendra Modi this month wrote an article for Russia’s influential Kommersant daily calling for an end to “the epoch of war.” “We read all this and understand, and I think he [Putin] reads and understands too,” the state official said.

Even the Pope, who at the beginning of the war appeared to take care to accommodate Kremlin views, this month compared the war in Ukraine to the Nazi genocide of the Jews.



Putin, shown at the informal summit of former Soviet states in St. Petersburg on Dec. 26, postponed his State of the Nation address and canceled his annual marathon news conference. (Alexey Danichev/Sputnik/AFP/Getty Images)

Among Russia’s elite, questions are growing over Putin’s tactics heading into 2023 following humiliating military retreats this autumn. A divide is emerging between those in the elite who want Putin to stop the military onslaught and those who believe he must escalate further, according to the state official and Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Ukrainians struggle to find and reclaim children taken by Russia

Despite a media blitz over the past 10 days, with Putin holding carefully choreographed televised meetings with military top brass and officials from the military-industrial complex, as well as a question-and-answer session with a selected pool of loyal journalists, members of the Russian elite interviewed by The Washington Post said they could not predict what might happen next year and said they doubted Putin himself knew how he might act.

“There is huge frustration among the people around him,” said one Russian billionaire who maintains contacts with top-ranking officials. “He clearly doesn’t know what to do.”

The Russian state official said Putin’s only plan appeared to lie in “constant attempts to force the West and Ukraine to begin [peace] talks” through airstrikes on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and other threats. Putin repeated the tactic this week by declaring on Christmas Day that he was open to peace talks even as Russia launched another massive missile strike just days later on Thursday, taking out electricity supplies in several regions. “But,” the official said, Putin is willing to talk “only on his terms.”

The billionaire, the state official and several analysts pointed to the postponement of Putin’s annual State of the Nation address, when the Russian president generally lays out plans for the year ahead, and the cancellation of his annual marathon news conference as signs of Putin’s isolation and an effort to shield him from direct questions since he has no map for the road ahead.

The news conference, in particular, could have proved risky given that hundreds of journalists are typically brought to Moscow from Russia’s far-flung regions, which have been disproportionately affected by casualties and the recent partial mobilization.

“In the address, there should be a plan. But there is no plan. I think they just don’t know what to say,” the billionaire said. “He is in isolation, of course. He doesn’t like speaking with people anyway. He has a very narrow circle, and now it has gotten narrower still.”

In the question-and-answer session with the handful of journalists, Putin countered such assertions about the postponement of his speech to parliament. He said he had addressed key issues in recent public meetings, and it was “complicated for me, and the administration, to squeeze it all again into a formal address without repeating myself.”

But his comments on the war have been short on details. He has gone no further than saying conditions in the four Ukrainian territories that he claims to have annexed, illegally, are “extremely difficult,” and that his government would try to end the conflict “the faster, the better.”Putin declares ‘war’ – aloud – forsaking his special euphemistic operation

Putin again sought to lay the blame on the United States and NATO for dragging out the war, in what seemed almost a tacit admission that he had lost control of the process. “How can he tell us everything is going to plan, when we are already in the 10th month of the war, and we were told it was only going to take a few days,” the state official said.

Putin appeared exhausted in his recent appearances, Stanovaya said. And even if he does have a secret plan of action, most of the Russian elite is losing faith in him, she said.

“He is a figure who in the eyes of the elite appears to be incapable of giving answers to questions,” she said. “The elite does not know what to believe, and they fear to think about tomorrow.”

“To a large degree, there is the feeling that there is no way out, that the situation is irreparable,” she continued, “that they are totally dependent on one person, and it is impossible to influence anything.”

Alexandra Prokopenko, a former adviser at Russia’s Central Bank who resigned and left Russia in the weeks after the start of the invasion, said in an interview that her former colleagues “try not see the war in terms of winners and losers. But they know there is no good exit for Russia right now.”

“There is a feeling that we cannot attain the political aims that were originally forwarded,” the state official said. “This is clear to all.” But no one knows how large a loss Russia can sustain before its leaders believe its existence is in jeopardy, he said.

Further underscoring the growing distance between the president and the business elite, Putin also canceled his annual New Year’s Eve meeting with the country’s billionaires, officially citing infection risks.

With such a huge question mark hanging over the year ahead, two camps have emerged within the elite: “The pragmatists who consider that Russia took on the burden of a war it can’t sustain and needs to stop,” and those who want to escalate, Stanovaya said.Using conscripts and prison inmates, Russia doubles its forces in Ukraine

Those in favor of escalation include Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the Putin ally who leads the Wagner Group of mercenaries and continues to publicly berate Russia’s military leadership.

The growing split presents Putin with yet another risk as he heads into 2023, the last year before presidential elections in 2024.

Wagner Group leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin attends the funeral of fighter Dmitry Menshikov on Dec. 24 outside St. Petersburg. Prigozhin has been critical of the Russian war effort.

Even though recent polls show Putin retains the support of the vast majority of the population, who for now continue to accept Kremlin propaganda, the overwhelming perception among the elite is that next year, things could become more precarious.

“We don’t know what will happen in the future,” said a longtime member of Russian diplomatic circles, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “There might be another wave of mobilization. The economic situation in the next year will start to worsen more seriously.”

Sergei Markov, a hawkish former Kremlin adviser who is still in contact with Putin’s team, said it was clear Putin still did not have an answer to the principal question ahead of him. “There are two possible paths ahead,” Markov said. “One is that the army continues to fight while the rest of society lives a normal life — as it was this year. The second path is as it was when Russia went through World War II, when everything was for the front and for victory. There was such a mobilization of society and the economy.”As Russia bombs Ukraine’s infrastructure, its own services crumble

There are also inescapable questions about glaring weaknesses in the Russian military that have become apparent in recent months, including its evident inability to properly train and equip the 300,000 called up during the autumn mobilization.

“The fact is that these 300,000 mobilized do not have enough weapons,” Markov said. “When will they get the military technology? Putin also does not have the answer to this question.”

According to Markov, who supports escalation, India and China’s doubts have arisen because Putin did not win fast enough. “Privately they say, ‘Win quicker, but if you can’t win, we can’t build good relations with you,’” he said. “You should either win or admit your loss. We need most of all for the war to end as fast as possible.”

Others said the reason for the tepid relations with India and China’s leaders was because they were clearly more worried about further escalation. “We hear there is a worry about the prospect of escalation to the nuclear level,” the longtime member of Russian diplomatic circles said. “And here, it seems to me everyone spoke very clearly that this is extremely undesirable and dangerous.”

Inside Russia, every now and then, members of the liberal-leaning elite are voicing their growing concern.

In an interview last week with Russian daily RBK, Mikhail Zadornov, chairman of Otkritie, one of Russia’s biggest banks, who served as finance minister from 1997 to 1999, noted that Russia had lost markets in the West that it had been building since Soviet times. “For 50 years, a market, mutual economic connections, were being built. Now they are destroyed for decades to come,” Zadornov said.

On the whole, members of Russia’s economic elite “understand this isn’t going to end well,” the Russian billionaire said. Prokopenko, the former Central Bank official, said the Russian elite, including many under sanctions, are watching the situation in horror: “Everything they built collapsed for no reason.”

Nella mente di Putin

Elena Kostioukovitch racconta una storia culturale inedita della Russia postsovietica, per comprendere la nascita e la diffusione di un pensiero pericoloso che ha trovato in Vladimir Putin il suo alfiere, fino all’invasione dell’Ucraina. È la dottrina dell’Universo Russo – uno stato ideale dove riunire tuti i popoli russi “geneticamente superiori” – una teoria alimentata dagli scritti di studiosi come Anatolij Fomenko e Aleksandr Dugin, celebrati in patria ma contestati dalla comunità scientifica internazionale. Per scoprire il lato irrazionale dello stesso leader russo Putin, e i suoi legami con un certo “assolutismo magico”, l’autrice si muove tra invenzioni storiografiche, falsificazioni, cospiratori di regime, in un libro abitato da personaggi che sembrano usciti da un romanzo d’appendice, e che invece stanno riscrivendo oggi la storia di tutta l’Europa

Il prossimo anno vedrà molti sommovimenti nella carta stampata


DAGOREPORT

Il prossimo anno vedrà molti sommovimenti nella carta stampata. Giungerà a conclusione l’acquisizione del berlusconiano “Il Giornale” da parte degli Angelucci, già editori di “Libero” e “Tempo”.

Ma l’operazione è in stand-by in attesa del 12 febbraio, data fatidica per le elezioni della Regione Lombarda, roccaforte di vendite per “Libero” e “Il Giornale”.

SILVIO E MARINA BERLUSCONI

Gli Angelucci chiuderanno la trattativa con la Pbf di Paolo Berlusconi (75%) e la Mondadori (18,5%) a seconda dei risultati del bilancio 2022, ma soprattutto di come andranno le elezioni (una vittoria a sorpresa della Moratti potrebbe cambiare le cifre in tavola).

Il quotidiano diretto da Minzolini soffre di 10 milioni annui di perdite su 20 di ricavi. E Marina Berlusconi, in barba a babbo Silvio che non vorrebbe privarsene, non vuole più avere ‘sto macigno in bilancio.

SILVIO E PAOLO BERLUSCONI

Su “Il Fatto” di ieri Gianni Barbacetto ha scritto del tentativo fallito da parte di John Elkann di mettere le mani su “Il Giornale”.

In realtà il piano della Gedi, dopo la vendita de “L’Espresso”, prevederebbe anzitutto di disfarsi de “La Repubblica”, tenersi “La Stampa” e “Il Secolo XIX” e prendersi un quotidiano lombardo. Secondo il ragionamento di Maurizio Scanavino, i giornali locali vanno meglio dei nazionali.

JOHN ELKANN MAURIZIO MOLINARI

E qui entra in ballo Andrea Riffeser, a capo del gruppo QN (Il Resto del Carlino, Il Giorno, La Nazione), che vorrebbe vendere il pacchetto dei suoi giornali.

L’anno scorso il primo a farsi avanti, per poi dileguarsi, fu Caltagirone. Poi venne la volta della toccata e fuga di Cairo. Ora c’è in ballo Gedi di Elkann, interessata al meneghino “Il Giorno” e al bolognese “Carlino”. Ma Riffeser vuole vendere tutto il pacchetto Qn. Intanto quel volpino di Cairo resta alla finestra.

Ma prima di fare acquisizioni, per Torino c’è da portare a compimento la vendita del quotidiano diretto da Molinari. Cosa non facile. Scrive Fabio Pavesi su “Verità e Affari”: “Repubblica è la vera zavorra del gruppo. Si pensi che nel 2021 la Divisione stampa nazionale che raccoglie appunto il giornale fondato da Scalfari con i prodotti allegati e l’Espresso (venduto poi a Iervolino) su 222 milioni di ricavi è finita in rosso operativo per 20 milioni, seguita dalla divisone Gnn che raccoglie La Stampa, il Secolo XIX e i giornali locali anch’essa in perdita per 13 milioni”.

ANDREA RIFFESER MONTI

Negli ultimi mesi gli incontri tra il braccio destro di Elkann, Scanavino, e il vivace acchiappatutto Danilo Iervolino si sarebbero arenati di fronte alla richiesta di 40 milioni più i debiti del quotidiano di Largo Fochetti. Ci penserà il 2023 a sciogliere i tanti nodi della stampa italica.

C'e' da fidarsi della guida autonoma?


I drove hundreds of miles ‘hands-free’ in GM, Ford and Tesla cars – here’s how it went

Michael Wayland@MIKEWAYLAND

Car companies are rapidly expanding technologies that can control the acceleration, braking and steering of a vehicle. In some cases, allowing drivers to not control the car for miles at a time.
CNBC’s Michael Wayland recently tested ADAS from Tesla, GM and Ford. Their systems are among the most readily available and dynamic on the market.
To be clear, no vehicle on sale today is self-driving or autonomous. Drivers always need to pay attention.



The 2023 Lincoln Corsair will offer the company’s next-generation ActiveGlide hands-free advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) for highway driving including lane-changing, in-lane positioning and predictive speed assist.
Lincoln

DETROIT – Letting go is hard. Even if major automakers want to make it easier.

Car companies are rapidly expanding technologies that can control the acceleration, braking and steering of a vehicle. In some cases, allowing drivers to ease off the steering wheel or pedals for miles at a time.

The systems – formally known as advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) – have the potential to unlock new revenue streams for companies while easing driver fatigue and improving safety on the road. But automakers have largely built their systems independent of one another, without industry-standard guidelines by federal regulators. That means years into development, “hands-free” or “semi-autonomous” can mean something very different in the hands of rival automakers.

To be clear, no vehicle on sale today is self-driving or autonomous. Drivers always need to pay attention. Current ADAS mostly use a suite of cameras, sensors and mapping data to assist the driver and also monitor the driver’s attentiveness.

The automaker most often discussed alongside ADAS is Tesla, which has a range of technologies that it haphazardly calls “Autopilot” and “Full Self-Driving Capability,” among other names. (The vehicles do not fully drive themselves.) But General Motors, Ford Motor and others are quickly releasing or improving their own systems and expanding them to new vehicles.

I recently tested ADAS from Tesla, GM and Ford. Their systems are among the most readily available and dynamic on the market. However, none of them were close to flawless during my time behind the wheel.

And even small differences across the systems can have a big impact on driver safety and confidence.

GM’s Super Cruise

I initially tested GM’s system a decade ago on a closed track, and the automaker’s years developing Super Cruise have clearly paid off in overall performance, safety and clear communication with the driver. It’s the best-performing and most consistent system.

GM initially released Super Cruise on a Cadillac sedan in 2017 – two years after Tesla’s Autopilot – before expanding it to 12 vehicles in recent years. It aims to make Super Cruise available on 22 cars, trucks and SUVs globally by the end of 2023.

The system allows drivers to operate “hands-free” when driving on more than 400,000 miles of pre-mapped divided highways in the U.S. and Canada. (Ford has mapped 150,000 miles, and Tesla’s system hypothetically operates on any highway.)


When the steering-wheel light bar illuminates in green with GM’s Super Cruise, drivers may remove their hands from the steering wheel.
Michael Wayland / CNBC

Super Cruise is the front-runner when it comes to highway driving and can handle most challenges, including curves and many construction zones. Its newest updates also added automatic lane changes that work quite well to maintain a set speed by avoiding slower vehicles.

Over hundreds of miles driving the system, I was able to regularly engage Super Cruise for upward of 30 minutes, even stretching one stint to more than an hour without ever having to take control of the vehicle. When Super Cruise did disengage, it would typically be available again minutes, if not seconds, later.

The majority of problems I experienced were likely due to outdated mapping data that the system requires to operate, according to GM. When there’s newly finished construction or heavier temporary work being done, GM’s system defaults to returning control back to the driver until the road is properly pre-mapped.

GM says it has produced more than 40,000 vehicles equipped with Super Cruise, though not all of those represent active users, and has racked up more 45 million hands-free miles.

Pricing for the system varies based on vehicle and brand — $2,500 for a Cadillac, for example — and carries a subscription cost of $25 per month or $250 per year after a free trial period.
Ford’s BlueCruise

Ford’s system is the newest of the three automakers and is similar to GM’s. Besides pre-mapping and stated capabilities, both systems feature in-vehicle infrared cameras to ensure drivers are paying attention. But if GM’s system is a capable and confident “driver,” Ford’s is still a teenager learning, albeit very quickly.

Ford’s system – marketed as Ford BlueCruise and ActiveGlide for Lincoln – first became available in July 2021, though the company has already expanded the systems to more than 109,000 enrolled vehicles with more than 35 million hands-free driving miles through the end of November.

Pricing for Ford’s system varies based on the brand and vehicle. It can be part of optional packages that run roughly $2,000 and include other features for the 2023 Ford F-150 and Mustang Mach-E. Like GM, it requires a subscription after trial periods.

Also like GM, Ford’s system functions well on highways … that is until it doesn’t. It’s less predictable and specifically struggles with larger or sharper curves, construction zones and under other circumstances a human driver would easily be able to handle.

The longest I was able to go hands-free with Ford’s system during my test drives, which largely took place on I-75 and a construction-laden I-94 in rural and urban areas of Michigan, was 20 minutes and about 25 miles.

That’s a problem when you’re attempting to ease driver fatigue and increase drivers’ confidence in such systems.

“Having it randomly disengage when you’re approaching curves in the road, it’s not good enough,” said Sam Abuelsamid, a principal analyst at Guidehouse Insights, who specializes in advanced and emerging automotive technologies.

Chris Billman, chief engineer of ADAS vehicle systems integration at Ford, stressed that the company is being overly cautious with its system at this stage. Despite the warnings to retake control, the system is designed to remain in operation until the driver takes over.

Billman said the system disengages on most large highway curves because it’s not currently designed to slow the vehicle down ahead of a curve – something Super Cruise launched with in 2017. That’s expected to be improved with the system’s next major update, beginning early next year.


Ford’s BlueCruise system displayed on the driver information cluster of an F-150 pickup truck.
Ford

Ford could also improve its system’s interactions with the driver. GM uses a lightbar on the steering wheel and communications in the driver cluster — the best communication features among the three current systems.

That’s not to say Super Cruise isn’t still learning.

Both Ford and GM systems would have likely hit a temporary concrete construction barrier if I hadn’t taken over and disengaged on a large S-curve roadway near Detroit.

Super Cruise and BlueCruise both disengaged several times for what seemed like no reason, only to reengage quickly after. Super Cruise also attempted to merge into a breakdown lane or median in a newly finished construction zone, while Ford’s did a similar maneuver halfway through a curve.

And of course, neither system operates on city streets like Tesla’s.
Then there’s Tesla

Tesla’s technology is by far the most ambitious of the three and operates well on the highway. But it can be nerve-wracking, if not dangerous, on city streets, specifically turning into traffic.

Tesla vehicles come standard with an ADAS known as Autopilot. However, owners can upgrade the system with additional features, for a cost. The Full Self-Driving (FSD) upgrade currently costs $15,000 at the time you purchase a vehicle, or a monthly subscription opted into later costs between $99 and $199 depending on the vehicle, according to Tesla’s website.

I was able to use three Tesla levels of the system with varying functionality in a Tesla Model 3 built in 2019. Driving with the FSD Beta (version 10.69.3.1) was among the most stressful driving moments in my life (and I’ve had a lot!).

During a limited test on the highway, Tesla’s systems functioned very well. The trip included automatic lane changes and navigation-based exiting, although it did overshoot one exit ramp due to traffic. GM and Ford don’t currently link navigation to ADAS.

Tesla’s ADAS is also able to identify traffic lights on city streets and act accordingly, which was very impressive.

One of my biggest problems with Tesla’s system on the highway was how frequently it asked me to “check in” – an action that requires tugging on the steering wheel to prove the driver is physically in the driver’s seat and paying attention. The “check-ins” take some getting used to so the system doesn’t disengage.

I also struggled with the car’s communication about when the system was engaged.

Unlike Ford and GM that prominently show when the system is engaged, the only indication that Tesla’s ADAS is engaged is a tiny steering wheel icon – smaller than a dime – in the top left of the vehicle’s center screen. (The Tesla Model 3 doesn’t have display screens in front of the driver.)

That means to confirm whether the system is engaged, the driver has to actually look away from the road. And if the system disengages it doesn’t communicate that very well, leaving the driver unaware when the system is operating and anxious.

Such problems were even more striking while FSD Beta was operating on surface streets. In addition to the highway problems, the system – as documented in countless YouTube videos – has difficulties with some turns.

Add in what’s known locally as a “Michigan left” – a median U-turn crossover – and the system turns into the equivalent of a young, if not dangerous, student driver. At one point while performing such a maneuver, the Tesla stopped across not one, but three lanes of traffic as it attempted to make the turn before I overtook the system.



On straight, crowded streets of suburban Detroit, Tesla’s system largely worked well. But it lacked the experience to recognize human driver nuances such as stopping to allow others into a lane. It also had some difficulties with lane changes and seemed to be lost when lane markings were not available.

All of these concerns are why no other company has released a system like Tesla’s FSD Beta, which has been criticized for using its customers as test mules. Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on this article.

CEO Elon Musk for several years has promised the vehicles would be capable of fully driving themselves. In a recent argument in response to a lawsuit filed in California, Tesla said that its “failure” to realize such a “long-term, aspirational goal” didn’t amount to fraud and that it would only achieve full autonomous driving “through constant and rigorous improvements.”

Le perdite di Putin sino ad ora

VLADIMIR Putin's cruel regime is facing total collapse in the next year as his own inner circle turn on him, experts have claimed.


As the Russian death toll in Ukraine has surpassed the grim tally of 100,000, insiders have set out how Vlad's regime could crumble in 2023.

3Vladimir Putin could finally be ousted in 2023 over his failing war in UkraineCredit: Getty



Speaking to The Sun Online, US-based Russia expert Olga Lautman from the Center for European Policy Analysis said: "I would not be surprised if his regime collapses in 2023."

She said that the overthrowal of the Putin regime is most likely to come from within, rather than from an organic movement of ordinary people.

And she said that the many conspiracies about Vlad's ill health could have been released by his potential successors in a bid to undermine his regime.

"Rumours about Putin's health are being put out by security services," she said.

"They've been put out since 2008, always around the time of key events.

"They may be laying the groundwork for Putin's removal, they could be a form of distraction for the West, or they could be to discourage uprisings.

"Why bother overthrowing Putin if he is about to die?"

But Olga warns that waiting for Putin to die is not a solution.

"Putin has exhausted all options, but he will drag out the war," she said.

"He will look for vulnerability in the West, friction between allies, such as between the West and Europe, and between the UK and EU.

"Russia is good at dragging out a war. Putin's forces first invaded Ukraine in 2014, in March, we are looking at nine years of war in Ukraine."

She also warned that there is no chance of peace in Ukraine until Putin is gone.

The West needs to work on a post-Putin era of RussiaOlga Lautman

"Peace in Ukraine means Russia packing up its military and going home," she said. "It means Russia de-occupying all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea and the Donbas."

She added: "This won't happen under Putin. If his regime collapses and there is a new face in the Kremlin that wants to make amends, then there may be short-term changes, but ultimately not a long-term withdrawal."

And a Russian insider turned dissident has also claimed that Putin's regime could face collapse in the near future.

Yuri Felshtinsky, co-author of the book "Blowing up Russia" with the late Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko, told The Sun Online: "Putin thought that he would take Ukraine quickly without losses."

But he also says that many Russians who have the means to would rather emigrate abroad than look to overthrow the Putin regime.

"Many Russians have left since 2000," he said. "The second major emigration wave came when Putin invaded Ukraine.

"Those able to emigrate knew that the borders would be closed soon, and mobilisation would follow.

"We don't know exactly how many Russians have left since the start of the war, but it is in the hundreds of thousands.

"After mobilisation was declared on September 21, some 300,000 more fled."

Explaining the reason for the lack of major unrest in Russia, he said: "Unfortunately, Russians do not believe anymore in their ability to take down the government.

"Even those who want to think it is easier to emigrate."

But he believes there are two likely ways in which Putin's regime could fall.

If the war failure becomes apparent to ordinary Russians, then the government could fall very quickly, as happened with the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s.

But he warned that Putin will likely turn to nukes unless Ukraine is given the power to take the war to Russia.

"If the West continues to force Ukraine to conduct a defensive war, and doesn't supply it with offensive, long-range weapons to attack Russia and Belarus, then the war will not end," he said.

"It will continue until Putin destroys Ukraine from the air entirely.

"The entire country will look like Mariupol."

For Putin, he said, losing soldiers on the ground won't affect him, it will simply be a "free war", where he can fire into Ukraine without reply.

However, he believes that the West will change its position next year.

Only this month, US President Joe Biden has agreed to supply Ukraine with some $1.4trillion of weapons.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the money and weapons weren't "charity", they were simply a defence of democracy.

Yuri said that the West is "afraid to provoke a Russian nuclear strike," which is why it is being careful with the current supplies to Kyiv.

"Putin still thinks he has steps to make before he is either forced to accept defeat in Ukraine, or turn to nuclear retaliation," he said.

"If Putin accepts defeat, he will likely be forced out by the Kremlin."

Olga has pointed out that there is the "possibility" of another revolution of Russia, but added that "we shouldn't rely on that as a solution".

She said: "The USSR collapsed thanks to Soviet-Afghan war losses in part.

"The high death toll in Ukraine will eventually catch up with ordinary Russians."

She said that the West needs to prepare for a "post-Putin" Russia, and not make the same mistakes as in the 1990s following the fall of the Soviet Union.

"We have to ensure we don't repeat the mistakes of the 1990s," she said.

"In the 1990s we flooded Russia with money for 'democracy-building' projects.

"Much of that money went to the Russian mafia, the intelligence services, and corrupt politicians.

"The West needs to work on a post-Putin era of Russia. We need to make sure the sanctions and other measures remain in place for some time until Russian society has changed."

So how does the West help create a post-Putin Russia?

"Our main goal is to continue to supply Ukraine with everything they need," she said. "They are fighting for their land, for democracy, and to stop Russia."

She added: "Even with Russia taking heavy losses and failing to achieve any goals, and with such huge logistical failures on the frontline, they are still getting involved in operations abroad."

Olga pointed to the recent attempted coup in Germany led by a far-right prince.

"The prince met with a Russian escort," she said. "This is why it is so important to make sure Ukraine wins on the battlefield, and Russia is destroyed and pushed out of Ukraine."

Yuri has warned that Putin is likely to move his nukes to Belarus before he fires them, as part of avoiding the risk of a direct retaliatory strike on Russia.

Those nukes could then be pointed at Nato countries such as Poland and Lithuania.

"It is very possible that they will try to use a nuke, or sabotage one of Ukraine's nuclear power stations," he said.

Putin has shown no contrition after 10 months of war and more than 100,000 Russian casualties.

In a televised address on Wednesday, he told the Russian people that his country is not to blame for the conflict in Ukraine, and added that both countries are "sharing a tragedy".

During the appearance alongside senior military officials, he bizarrely insisted that he continues to see Ukraine as a "brotherly nation".

He argued that the blame for the conflict lay with outside countries, going back to his long-held claims that Nato is behind the war.

In his address, Putin accused the West of "brainwashing" former Soviet republics, including Ukraine, which he believes should rightly be part of Russia.

He said: "For years, we tried to build good-neighbourly relations with Ukraine, offering loans and cheap energy, but it did not work."

The Kremlin has long claimed that Nato's acceptance of former Soviet allies as members threatens Russia's security.
___________________________________________________

Nel caso si ritenesse attendibile la perdita di Z. di 20.000 soldati, le perdite di Putin (100.000 soldati) verrebbero considerate ancora più gravi.
Si potrebbe affermare che P. non potrà che perdere amaramente.
Non a caso continua a dare disponibilità immediata a sedersi al tavolo delle trattative e non pone nemmeno condizioni.
.
RS
---


Putin continued: "There's nothing to accuse us of. We've always seen Ukrainians as a brotherly people and I still think so.

Solo vincendo la scommessa sul Pil potremo “dare i numeri” su debito e salari



L’anno che verrà – la scommessa sul Pil per “dare i numeri”

Articolo di Romano Prodi su Il Messaggero 

Quando, nelle scorse analisi di fine d’anno, si cercava di riflettere sul futuro dell’economia, lo sforzo intellettuale si concentrava nel trasferire in numeri le probabili future evoluzioni delle maggiori variabili economiche, a partire dall’andamento del PIL per passare ai dati sull’inflazione, sull’occupazione e così via.

Credo che, quest’anno, il compito di “dare i numeri” debba essere inteso non in senso scientifico, ma nel linguaggio familiare di quest’espressione, che si fonda più sulla follia e la temerarietà che non su un’analisi ragionata delle variabili in gioco.


Mai come oggi siamo condizionati da eventi non prevedibili, che nulla hanno a che fare con l’economia.

Siamo infatti ancora sotto l’effetto del Covid che, in tutto il mondo occidentale, sta trasformando il mercato del lavoro e appare dominante sul presente e sul futuro dell’economia cinese. Ancora più difficile è prevedere l’estensione e la durata della guerra di Ucraina, che tanto ha inciso e tanto inciderà su tutti i comportamenti economici.

Tuttavia non deve essere mai dimenticato che non è stata la guerra a innescare il fenomeno inflazionistico che tanto ci preoccupa, perché l’inflazione era già iniziata in precedenza. L’aumento dei prezzi dell’energia ha trovato infatti la sua origine in una lunga caduta degli investimenti nelle fonti tradizionali, accompagnata da una crescita più lenta del previsto delle nuove energie. E’ stata però la guerra a trasformare l’aumento dei prezzi in una loro esplosione, soprattutto per quanto riguarda il gas.


Questo tragico conflitto ha provocato un crollo senza precedenti nell’offerta dei beni e ha sconvolto i rapporti economici fra paesi produttori e paesi importatori, in particolare fra l’Europa e gli Stati Uniti e all’interno degli stessi paesi europei, ciascuno dei quali vuole ancora conservare una politica energetica autonoma.

Questi eventi, non certamente prevedibili, si sono inseriti in una crescente crisi dei rapporti commerciali fra i grandi protagonisti dell’economia mondiale, provocando ulteriori situazioni di scarsità in settori di vitale importanza, a partire dai componenti elettronici essenziali per il funzionamento di molte importanti filiere produttive.

Non ci dobbiamo quindi meravigliare che questo crescente groviglio di problemi abbia provocato un processo inflazionistico a cui le autorità mondiali hanno reagito con colpevole ritardo, ritardo causato dalla difficoltà di interrompere la politica di “moneta facile” e dal fatto che decenni di prezzi sostanzialmente stabili avevano portato alla sottovalutazione del fenomeno inflazionistico. Parlo di “colpevole” ritardo proprio perché, per lunghi mesi, l’aumento dei prezzi è stato interpretato come “temporaneo”. Di conseguenza non sarebbe stato necessario adottare una politica monetaria restrittiva.


Il ritardo ha quindi obbligato a fare uso di un freno più severo, che oggi provoca dibattiti e controversie senza fine. Si possono certo criticare dichiarazioni inopportune e previsioni azzardate da parte dei responsabili della BCE, così come si può discutere su qualche decimale in più o in meno nei tassi di interesse da applicare, ma l’attuale inflazione ha raggiunto livelli allarmanti, di fronte ai quali il freno della politica monetaria è purtroppo inevitabile.

Data la complessità e l’imprevedibilità degli eventi descritti in precedenza, risulta evidentemente difficile “dare i numeri” su quanto durerà la frenata e quali saranno le conseguenze sull’economia reale. La Banca d’Italia prevede che finiremo l’anno in corso con un PIL in aumento di un ottimo 3,8%, per passare l’anno prossimo allo 0,5%. Non si tratterebbe quindi di una vera e propria recessione, ma di una stagnazione, con due trimestri di maggiore difficoltà. Abbiamo evidentemente tutte le ragioni per fidarci di queste previsioni che, per altro, sono assai simili a quelle dei maggiori paesi europei.


Il problema è tuttavia che, in ogni caso, questi dati si accompagnano ad un tasso di inflazione a due cifre, in un paese in cui il livello salariale è fermo da oltre quindici anni e nettamente inferiore a quello dei paesi europei con un costo della vita paragonabile al nostro. Un’inflazione che colpisce le categorie più deboli il doppio di quanto non incida sui più ricchi, anche perché i prezzi dei beni fondamentali, a partire dal pane, sono aumentati molto più dei costi affrontati per produrli: una realtà sulla quale non abbiamo riflettuto abbastanza.

Nello stesso tempo i crescenti tassi di interesse e i costi dell’energia rendono impossibile un aumento della spesa pubblica compatibile con la necessità di tenere sotto controllo il rapporto fra debito e PIL. Come suggerisce il recente supplemento dedicato dall’Economist al nostro paese, il futuro italiano non dipende solo dal controllo del debito (cioè il numeratore) ma soprattutto dalla crescita del PIL (cioè il denominatore).

In parole semplici ci viene detto che siamo sostanzialmente costretti a mettere in atto una politica del bilancio pubblico che, nel suo dato macroeconomico, deve percorrere una strada obbligata dai condizionamenti esterni e dalle particolari caratteristiche del nostro debito pubblico, mentre dobbiamo inventare una strategia innovativa per aumentare l’efficienza del nostro sistema economico.


I passi obbligati per avvicinarsi a quest’obiettivo consistono nell’aumentare la produttività delle piccole imprese, promuovere un più moderno sistema scolastico, una giustizia più veloce, una maggiore partecipazione femminile al mondo del lavoro, un maggiore investimento nella ricerca e una lotta senza quartiere all’evasione fiscale.

Non siamo certo di fronte a suggerimenti nuovi o inconsueti perché si tratta delle famose “riforme” delle quali si parla da decenni, senza fare significativi passi in avanti.

Non c’era certo bisogno di un autorevole e corretto suggerimento esterno per ricordarci di come stanno le cose. Il problema nasce dal fatto che, come è stato ancora reso evidente dal dibattito parlamentare sulla legge finanziaria, vi è una spontanea convergenza dell’opinione pubblica (e dei parlamentari che la rappresentano) nell’innalzare il numeratore, mentre non vi è nessun accordo su come fare crescere il denominatore.


Naturalmente vi sono spinte politiche divergenti su quali capitoli aumentare o diminuire la spesa pubblica ma, alla fine dei conti, i margini di variazione nel risultato finale sono estremamente limitati, o forse nulli. Un accordo finisce quindi con il dover essere raggiunto in termini tali da non provocare rotture insanabili con il contesto europeo in cui ci troviamo ad operare.

I gradi di libertà sono invece quasi infiniti nelle riforme che rendono possibile l’aumento del denominatore, cioè il PIL. Tutti sono d’accordo che queste riforme debbano essere fatte, ma il disaccordo su come realizzarle, le ha rese fino ad ora impossibili. Si tratta infatti di un compito che non può esserci né imposto né proposto dall’esterno e che dobbiamo risolvere solo all’interno del nostro sistema istituzionale. A maggiore ragione diventa perciò difficile fare precise previsioni sul prossimo anno e siamo quindi costretti “a dare i numeri” nel senso popolare del termine, sperando però che una sana follia collettiva trasformi questi sogni in realtà.

Che Natale di ...Twitter, povero Musk

Twitter brings Elon Musk’s genius reputation crashing down to earth

Musk’s intense focus on his social media company purchase has devolved into the culture wars. Meanwhile, Tesla is tanking.

By Faiz Siddiqui (TWP)


Elon Musk has built his reputation on having a Midas touch with the companies he runs — something many investors and experts thought he would bring to Twitter. (Emily Wright, The Washington Post illustration)

Elon Musk was speechless.

The Twitter CEO was on a live audio chat Tuesday night with software engineers when one user started quizzing him about the internal workings of the company’s systems. Musk, who hours earlier said he would keep control of Twitter’s software systems even though he plans to relinquish the CEO role, said the company’s code needed a complete rewrite. One of the participants asked what he meant — pushing for him to explain it from top to bottom.

“Amazing, wow,” Musk said after hesitations and pauses. “You’re a jackass. … What a moron.”

The incident highlights the new reality facing Musk, who also runs Tesla and SpaceX: a crisis of confidence in his once-unquestioned brilliance.

That crisis accelerated as Tesla stock prices plunged nearly 20 percent this week to $123 per share on Friday, largely due to concerns about Musk. Also this week, roughly 58 percent of 17 million Twitter accounts that responded to an unscientific poll from Musk said he should step down as Twitter CEO, after helping create, then reverse new policies that proved controversial last weekend.

“Historically he’s been a pendulum between genius and reckless,” said Gene Munster, managing partner at Loup Ventures. “He’s on reckless right now. He’s way over recklessness.”

He added, “It leaves people to view him … as slightly less of a genius.”

The key moments that define Musk’s leadership of Twitter

Musk has built his reputation on having a Midas touch with the companies he runs — something many investors and experts thought he would bring to Twitter when he purchased it for $44 billion in October, paying nearly twice as much as it was worth by some analyst estimates. He is known for sleeping on the factory floor at Tesla, demanding long hours and quick turnarounds from his workers. He is seen as an engineering genius, propelling promises of cars that can drive themselves and rockets that can take humans to Mars.

But that image is unraveling. Some Twitter employees who worked with Musk are doubtful his management style will allow him to turn the company around. And some investors in Tesla, by far the biggest source of his wealth, have begun to see him as a liability. Musk’s distraction has prompted questions about leadership of SpaceX as well, though it is much less reliant on his active involvement. Meanwhile, Neuralink and Boring Co., two companies he founded, continue to lag on promises.

Musk’s net worth — largely fueled by his stake in Tesla, which has fallen by more than half this year — has plunged this year from roughly $270 billion to below $140 billion on Friday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That fall has relieved him of the title of the world’s richest man and called into question his ability to keep up with his billions of dollars in loans.

Musk is repeatedly described as a man obsessed with Twitter in all the wrong ways, who is failing both at protecting his new investment and his previous ones, according to interviews with a half-dozen former Twitter employees and people in Musk’s orbit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution or because they were not authorized to speak publicly about company matters.

Musk this week said Twitter is in a financial hole and facing a cash crunch — even as it slashed more than half of the workforce and closed offices.

“We have an emergency fire drill on our hands,” Musk said on Twitter Spaces. “Aspirationally, I’m not naturally capricious.”

Musk has always been unpredictable and freewheeling with his public persona, but with Twitter, his actions have directly affected the business, turning off some of the company’s users and pushing away advertisers, said Jo-Ellen Pozner, a management professor at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.

“It really feels destabilizing for the whole Twitter community,” she said, adding that the reputation of a CEO does affect businesses and their stock prices — and could even prompt consumers to choose another vehicle.

Musk and Twitter — which has disbanded most of its public relations team — did not respond to requests for comment.

Holed up in a 10th-floor conference room

Musk, who is South African and migrated to North America as a teenager, first forged his image as a tech wizard by founding the company that became PayPal. He funneled much of his around $165 million in gains from the sale of PayPal into two ventures: Tesla and SpaceX. SpaceX went on to become the most successful private spaceflight company in history, pioneering reusable rockets and launching astronauts to the International Space Station.

Tesla, meanwhile, brought electric vehicles to the mainstream with sleek, fast and competitively priced sedans and SUVs that shattered the frumpy image of eco-conscious cars. His closest allies have held out faith even as he has missed major deadlines for selling new vehicle models and rolling out self-driving technology.

Musk has been focused almost solely on Twitter since he bought it, planning to reinvent the company as an engineering-driven operation. He immediately ousted Twitter’s previous executives and embarked on a campaign of harsh layoffs that cut the company in half. Many of Musk’s supporters, who had followed his rise at Tesla, gave him the benefit of the doubt that he had a plan to transform Twitter.

But he immediately spooked advertisers by engaging in a baseless accusation and dialed back Twitter’s content moderation, prompting calls from civil rights groups for advertisers to suspend their marketing on the site. And he had to pull back his first major product launch — Twitter Blue Verified — after a day when a swarm of impersonators wreaked havoc.

Musk appears to be struggling to grasp Twitter’s business, the people said, and he demands a stance from his employees that stifles discussion of problems. “He doesn’t see from the zoom-out view at all,” one of the people close to Musk and his team said, describing him as “uncovering and solving and programming all night.”

He has been holed up in a 10th-floor conference area with a staging room for visitors — where they often remain for more than an hour before being called in. They are instructed not to speak until Musk does. And when they do finally meet with him, he’s sometimes watching YouTube videos.

Many staffers have quickly learned they can’t rely on the erratic and unpredictable Musk, even as he makes assurances about the various facets of the company they have raised as concerns.

The driving team behind Project Eraser — which carries out functions such as deleting the user data of those who ask, part of compliance with federal requirements — has been gutted. Musk has brought in a new roster of leaders, many who are loyalists.

When one executive met with Musk and voiced concerns about the Federal Trade Commission’s consent decree, Musk assured that person there was nothing to worry about. He said Tesla had plenty of experience on privacy matters, and pointed to his deep knowledge and awareness of the constraints Twitter was under.

Minutes after the meeting concluded, a subordinate of Musk emailed: Would the executive be willing to send over a copy of the consent decree they had just discussed?

Instead of focusing on plans to make the site a competitor to YouTube with video and rolling out other new features that will earn revenue, he instead got sucked into the culture wars, the people said.

That took the form of the Twitter Files, an examination by some journalists of many of the company’s actions before Musk’s arrival, such as the blocking of a New York Post story that dug into the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the ban on former president Donald Trump.

Musk chose Bari Weiss, a former New York Times columnist, as one of the writers invited inside the company to go through documents.

“Please give Bari full access to everything at Twitter,” Musk wrote to a subordinate in a Signal message viewed by The Washington Post. “No limits at all.”

That was concerning to many inside Twitter — particularly those familiar with the 2011 FTC settlement after hacks of high-profile accounts, including that of then-President Barack Obama. Staffers responsible for her onboarding pushed back and refused to grant Weiss the full access Musk had requested, believing it would violate the settlement.

One former employee described that step as “super unprecedented” and “highly inappropriate,” saying Twitter would never have granted that level of access to an outside party who might suddenly be able to read direct messages, for example.

The pushback, however, was not taken as seriously at senior levels.

Days later, Musk announced deputy general counsel Jim Baker had been “exited” from the company, as the CEO cited what he called his “possible role in suppression of information important to the public dialogue.” Former employees said it would have been normal for an attorney to review documents for release.

That same day, Alan Rosa, Twitter’s chief information security officer in charge of access matters, was fired from the company as well. Employees that week found Weiss’s name searchable in Slack, the company’s internal messaging service. But her access was overseen by a chaperone, new Twitter Trust and Safety chief Ella Irwin.

Irwin’s name appeared in a watermark on the Twitter Files. When Twitter suspended more than half a dozen journalists last week over alleged violations of its rules on doxing — the sharing of private information — the suspensions were labeled in internal systems “direction of Ella.”

Musk had also publicized an old message from his previous Trust and Safety head and took aim at Twitter executives, unleashing a swarm of criticism on employees — sometimes while they were still working for Twitter.

“These guys did amazing damage,” one former employee said of Musk’s circle at Twitter, which included employees of his other companies and friends who lacked expertise on Twitter. “They are basically bullying their way to getting ‘super god’ access to these things. All they’re doing is they’re witch hunting for Elon, so they can find people talking [about him] so they can fire them.”

Musk is running the newly private company largely on his instincts — mirroring the workflows of his other major technology company: Tesla. The electric car company, the world’s most valuable automaker, has eschewed market research in its dominance of the electric vehicle space, seeding the automotive industry with a raw and authentic expressions of Musk’s id. Tesla’s stainless steel Cybertruck pickup, which shocked automotive analysts with its angular sci-fi looks, has served as a key example of that ethos.

At Tesla, employees often find out about deadlines and major product changes through tweeted edicts. But they have also grown used to the CEO’s shoot-from-the-hip attitude, his reliance on his gut instincts rather than the research and development arms typical of multibillion-dollar corporations.

The unraveling

But Tesla’s stock price has plummeted — which Musk frequently attributes to economic trends.

“As bank savings account interest rates, which are guaranteed, start to approach stock market returns, which are *not* guaranteed, people will increasingly move their money out of stocks into cash, thus causing stocks to drop,” he said in a tweet Tuesday.

But analysts have pointed to problems more specific to Tesla and concern with Musk’s time at Twitter, suggesting in essence that the sheen has worn off a company whose value was not rooted in its fundamentals.

“I felt for a while he was given a pass,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst at the website iSeeCars. “‘Oh, it’s Elon. He’s Midas: If he’s touching it, it’s going to be successful.’ Now a certain number of people have stopped giving him a pass on things that probably should have been looked at a little more critically or acknowledged as potential downside.”

The crisis in confidence in his leadership accelerated when Musk began making changes to Twitter to address his personal problems and concerns.

Last week, he reneged on a previous commitment to keep an account on Twitter that published the location of his private jet, which he held up as an example of his free speech principles. After abruptly suspending @ElonJet, Twitter suspended journalists who tweeted about it, drawing ire from both sides of the political spectrum.

He launched a poll, which directed Musk to allow them back on the site.

“The people have spoken,” he tweeted that Friday.

Musk jetted around the globe to Qatar for the World Cup final on Sunday, where he was spotted alongside former President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Qatari leaders.

Jared Kushner and Elon Musk during the FIFA World Cup Qatar on Dec. 18. (Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

That day, Twitter announced a new policy: It was banning the promotion of outside social media sites on its platform, including Facebook, Instagram and Trump-backed Truth Social. Users would no longer be able to promote outside links to those sites and others including Mastodon, Tribel, Post and Nostr. Twitter said cross-posting of content would be allowed, but it would no longer permit “free promotion.”

The criticism was swift, and even loyalists expressed concern. Musk apologized.

“Going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes,” he tweeted. “My apologies. Won’t happen again.”

Then Musk launched a new poll. “Should I step down as head of Twitter?” he wrote in a tweet. “I will abide by the results of this poll.”

By Monday morning, the result was clear that Musk should step down. He went silent on the platform for much of the day — one of his longer stretches as a prolific tweeter to his more than 120 million followers. He responded to a few tweets later in the day calling the results into question.

On Tuesday, he said he would resign — with caveats.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!” he wrote in a tweet. “After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.”

Gerrit De Vynck and Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.

Americans Are Realizing Tesla Isn’t the Only Electric Car






Not long ago, Tesla’s electric vehicles were far and away the best on the market. If you wanted a stylish, long-range, easy-to-charge and feature-packed E.V., Elon Musk would be your most likely supplier — even if you hated his guts. (DNYUZ)

But not anymore. In the past year I test drove many fantastic new E.V.s that hit the market in 2021 and 2022 — cheap ones, expensive ones, big ones, small ones, strange ones, boring ones. Ford’s F-150 Lightning, the electric version of the longtime best-selling vehicle in America, and its Mustang were terrific inside and out — nicely designed, roomy and fun to drive. The Kia EV-6’s striking, futuristic exterior had strangers stopping me to ask what cool ride I was driving. There are also great models by Chevy, Mercedes and Rivian. Although I liked the Teslas I drove — the uber-expensive Model S Plaid, which can launch from 0 to 60 m.p.h. in about two seconds, was terrific fun — the truth is that many of the best electric wheels on the market today are not made by Musk.

The new competition makes Musk’s recent role as the town crier for the redpilled online right especially puzzling and, for his car company, perilous. Musk’s chaotic and polarizing tenure as Twitter’s chief executive — during which he’s embraced far-right tropes about gender and journalism and public health, and generally behaved like a rich bully on a power trip — already seems to be battering Tesla’s brand. The Wall Street Journal reported last month on a survey by Morning Consult showing that perceptions of Tesla have been falling steadily since May, shortly after Musk began his bid for Twitter; between October and November, the period when Musk took ownership of Twitter, sentiment among Democrats toward Tesla plummeted, while favorability among Republicans rose slightly.

“He’s talking people out of buying cars that they want to buy,” Ross Gerber, the C.E.O. of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, told me.

Gerber, whose firm holds shares of Twitter and Tesla, has been needling Musk on Twitter over Tesla’s terrible stock-market performance this year, which Gerber says is due almost entirely to Musk’s focus on Twitter and his overt embrace of partisan politics. Tesla’s sales and profits remain strong, its production capacity keeps ramping up, and it’s likely to benefit greatly from clean-vehicle tax credits passed in the Inflation Reduction Act that President Biden signed in August. But its success could get sidelined by Musk’s tweets.

“I don’t care if you’re selling pizza or popcorn or whatever you sell — getting into politics with customers never wins,” Gerber said.

It’s hard to disagree. A few weeks ago, I test drove Chevy’s new Bolt EUV, the squat electric crossover that is the slightly larger cousin of the Bolt EV, the entry-level electric car that General Motors began selling in 2016. I was bowled over by the new Bolt. I found it surprisingly roomy and much nicer on the inside than its staid exterior would suggest. I also liked that its interior felt a lot more like a normal car than Musk’s all-touchscreen automotive design style. In the Bolt you can control the air-conditioning and other systems with hefty buttons and knobs that are easy to find and manipulate while you’re driving; in a Tesla almost everything is controlled by touching a big screen mounted in the center console.

The best thing about Chevy’s Bolt EUV: The model I tried, which was kitted out with nearly every available option, including G.M.’s fantastic driver-assistance program, Super Cruise, carried a sales price of just under $38,000. Tesla’s cheapest car, the Model 3, sells for upward of $45,000. As I drove the Bolt, I asked myself a question that came up often this year: With such great alternatives that carry none of Musk’s political baggage, why does Elon keep acting as if customers have no choice — as if he’s the only game in town?

Tesla’s new vulnerability is a surprising development. At its towering peak, last fall, Musk’s car company hit a stock market valuation of more than a trillion dollars, greater than the combined value of the five largest automakers in the world. Tesla looked unstoppable. While rival manufacturers suffered punishing supply shortages that held back sales through much of 2021, Tesla’s once-mocked investments in building its own software and components allowed it to ride out supply-chain kinks, resulting in record sales.

Then, inexplicably, Musk turned to Twitter and pushed Tesla off a cliff. This year, as he sold tens of billions of dollars of Tesla shares to finance the Twitter deal and seemed to stake his reputation on taming the squabbles roiling one of the most divisive places online, Tesla’s shares plummeted by more than 60 percent. Its slump is deeper than that of most of its rivals and far more than that of the S&P 500, which is down about 19 percent for the year.

Not all of Tesla’s problems are of Musk’s making. Like other global manufacturers, the company has faced Covid-related production delays in China. It has struggled to ramp up production at its new facilities in Austin, Texas, and Berlin. The Federal Reserve’s steady increases in interest rates and the looming prospect of a recession have also dampened Tesla’s fortunes. On Twitter, Musk has repeatedly blamed the Fed for Tesla’s stock swoon.

But analysts and investors I talked to said these were side issues. “Tesla is Musk and Musk is Tesla,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities who follows Tesla. Unlike just about every other carmaker, Tesla spends almost nothing on advertising. Musk is and has long been the company’s sole marketer and chief evangelist, the main force driving the world’s desire to buy Teslas. And so any alteration in Musk’s cultural standing will affect the company’s standing, too. Musk’s time running Twitter has been “a massive brand destruction for Musk and for Tesla,” Ives said.

It’s not impossible for Tesla to shake off these problems. Musk has pledged to step down as Twitter’s chief executive as soon as he finds a replacement; Ives and Gerber told me that if this happens relatively quickly and Musk somehow becomes newly disciplined at keeping away from polarizing stances online, Tesla could quickly recapture its former glory.

Tesla still enjoys some advantages over rivals, especially its network of over 40,000 chargers around the world, making Teslas easier to juice up than other E.V.s. But the federal government plans to spend billions installing chargers across the country, most likely eroding Tesla’s lead. (Tesla has opened up its chargers in Europe to cars made by other automakers; it has said it plans to do so in North America, too.)

Colin Rusch, an analyst at the investment firm Oppenheimer & Co., pointed out that Tesla also enjoys a multiyear lead in certain E.V. technologies. It has invested deeply in advanced battery design and more efficient manufacturing processes, areas in which its rivals are only just getting started. Still, Rusch recently downgraded his expectations for Tesla’s stock price, citing increasingly negative sentiment toward Musk.

A lot of people think of their cars “as a way to signify a kind of identity,” Rusch told me, “and the Tesla brand and what it signifies has come to mean a few more things than it did before.”

‘ONE MAN’ TO BLAME


Jan. 6 report blames Trump, aims to prevent return to power
By MARY CLARE JALONICK (The AP Morning Wire)




WASHINGTON (AP) — A massive final report released by the House Jan. 6 committee late Thursday places the blame for the 2021 Capitol insurrection on one person: former President Donald Trump.

The dense, 814-page document details the findings of the panel’s 18-month investigation, drawing on more than 1,000 witness interviews and more than a million pages of source material. The committee found a “multi-part conspiracy” orchestrated by Trump and his closest allies, all with the aim of overturning his 2020 election defeat.

By laying out the extraordinary details — his pressure on states, federal officials and Vice President Mike Pence — the committee of seven Democrats and two Republicans says it is trying to prevent anything similar from ever happening again.

The panel is also aiming to prevent Trump, who is running again for the presidency, from ever returning to power. Among other recommendations, the panel suggests that Congress consider barring him and others who helped him from federal office for his role in the insurrection, in which a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

“Our country has come too far to allow a defeated President to turn himself into a successful tyrant by upending our democratic institutions, fomenting violence, and, as I saw it, opening the door to those in our country whose hatred and bigotry threaten equality and justice for all Americans,” wrote the committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, in a foreword to the report.

A look at the findings and what’s next:

‘ONE MAN’ TO BLAME

The report traces Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud to conversations with some of his allies ahead of Election Day, evidence that his plan was “premeditated,” the committee says. After he carried out that plan by questioning the legitimate results on election night — “Frankly, we did win this election,” he told the TV cameras — he purposely disseminated false allegations of fraud.

Many of Trump’s White House advisers told him the lies were not true, according to multiple committee interviews, and his campaign lost a series of lawsuits challenging the results. But the former president did not waver.

“Donald Trump was no passive consumer of these lies,” the committee wrote. “He actively propagated them.”

The false claims “provoked his supporters to violence on January 6th,” the committee wrote. Trump summoned them to Washington and instructed them in a fiery speech to march to the Capitol even though some “were angry and some were armed.”

And after the violence started, Trump waited hours to tell them to stop. That was a “dereliction of duty,” the committee said.

PRESSURE ON THE STATES

As he lost in the courts, Trump “zeroed in” on key battleground states Biden had won and leaned on GOP state officials to overrule the will of their voters. The plan was wide-ranging, the committee shows, from pressuring state legislatures and election officials to creating false slates of electors. The panel obtained emails and documents showing talks within the White House and with outside advisers about how such a scheme could work.

Perhaps the most stunning attempt to pressure a state official was Trumps’ remarkable Jan. 2, 2021, phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, in which he asked him to “find” votes. Raffensperger did not comply.

After speaking with election officials from several states, the committee said that Georgia call was “one element of a larger and more comprehensive effort — much of it unseen by and unknown to the general public — to overturn the votes cast by millions of American citizens across several states.”

The panel assessed that Trump and his inner circle engaged in “in at least 200 apparent acts of public or private outreach” to state officials between the election and the insurrection. At the same time, the president was trying to get Justice Department officials to go along with his plan.

“Had enough state officials gone along with President Trump’s plot, his attempt to stay in power might have worked,” the committee wrote. “It is fortunate that a critical mass of honorable officials withstood President Trump’s pressure to participate in this scheme.”

PENCE’S LIFE AT RISK

As Trump aggressively pushed Mike Pence to illegally object to the congressional certification of Biden’s victory as he presided over the joint session of Congress, the vice president’s life was increasingly in danger, the committee found.

At 8:17 a.m. on Jan. 6, Trump tweeted, “Do it Mike, this is a time for extreme courage!”

By the start of the joint session at 1 p.m., Pence had announced that he would not. By then, there were hundreds of Trump’s supporters outside the Capitol, some chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!” Pence eventually fled the Senate chamber and narrowly escaped the rioters.

According to Secret Service documents provided to the panel, agents were aware of growing threats against Pence. In one instance, an agent in the intelligence division “was alerted to online chatter ‘regarding the VP being a dead man walking if he doesn’t do the right thing,’” the report says.

“It was an unprecedented scene in American history,” the committee wrote. “The President of the United States had riled up a mob that hunted his own Vice President.”

A THWARTED TRIP TO THE CAPITOL

Trump was determined to go to the Capitol with his supporters, the investigation found, but nearly everyone thought that was a bad idea — most of all his security detail.

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide, testified over the summer about a conversation she had with former Trump security official Tony Ornato, where he recalled Trump lashing out at his security after his speech and even grabbing the wheel of the presidential SUV.

In the report, the committee writes that Ornato denied Hutchinson’s story in a deposition last month, saying he was not aware of a genuine push by Trump to join his supporters at the Capitol. The committee said it continues to have “significant concerns about the credibility” of his testimony.

The driver of the presidential SUV testified that he didn’t see Trump and could not recall if Trump had lunged toward him. The driver, who is not named in the report, did recall Trump asking within 30 seconds of getting inside the vehicle whether he could go to the Capitol. One Secret Service employee testified to the committee that Trump’s determination to go to the Capitol put agents on high alert.

“(We) all knew ... that this was going to move to something else if he physically walked to the Capitol,” a unidentified employee said. “I don’t know if you want to use the word ‘insurrection,’ ‘coup,’ whatever.”

Trump stayed at the White House, watching the violence on television for hours while refusing to ask his supporters to leave.

FOREIGN INTERFERENCE

The report includes an appendix on the role of foreign influence in the 2020 presidential campaign, saying that while adversaries including Russia, Iran and China sought to sway American voter opinion, there was no evidence to support Trump’s repeated claims that foreign actors had interfered in the voting process or did anything to manipulate the outcome.

“President Trump’s relentless propagation of the Big Lie damaged American democracy from within and made it more vulnerable to attack from abroad. His actions did not go unnoticed by America’s adversaries, who seized on the opportunity to damage the United States,” the report states.

The report suggests that even Trump himself did not believe some of his allies’ claims about foreign actors.

According to testimony from longtime Trump aide Hope Hicks, Trump appeared somewhat incredulous when he was talking on the phone to lawyer Sidney Powell, who had pushed theories of hacked voting machines and thermostats.

The report says that while Powell was speaking, Trump muted his speakerphone and laughed, “telling the others in the room, ‘This does sound crazy, doesn’t it?’”

WHAT’S NEXT

The committee is dissolving over the next week as the new Republican-led House will be sworn in on Jan. 3.

But the panel ensured that its work will live on, officially recommending that the Justice Department investigate and prosecute Trump on four crimes.

While a so-called criminal referral has no real legal standing, it is a forceful statement by the committee and adds to political pressure already on Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith, who is already conducting an investigation into Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions.

The panel recommended the department investigate charges of aiding an insurrection, obstructing an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to make a false statement, all for various parts of his scheme.

The committee is also making its work, including transcripts, public for the Justice Department and the public to see.

“We have every confidence that the work of this committee will help provide a roadmap to justice,” Thompson said.