When MMM says things like oh, he's buying a Tesla because he wants to support the company and has "nothing better to do with the money", that doesn't mean he's calculated the opportunity cost, it means (I hope) he's calculated it and decided that it's still the best use of that money for him.
If MMM buys a tesla and says he had nothing better to spend his money on, I'm done here. That money can literally save lives.
It could send an underprivileged kid to college, or pay for job training for disabled people, or support a post doc working to cure aids or cancer or Alzheimer's. It could buy immunizations for kids in Africa, or spay/neuter every shelter animal in town, or provide safe haven to every victim of domestic abuse. Hell, if he worries about the environment he'd be better off using it to conserve rain forest acreage than on buying a second (fancier, luxurious motorized throne room) EV.
The
only reason to buy a Tesla, for him or for anyone else in the whole world, is because they value a fancy luxury car more than any of those other things. It's a supremely selfish decision, made by thousands of Americans every day in ways big and small, because we are inured to the suffering the rest of the world endures in order to support our wanton and destructive consumption.
I don't pretend immunity, either. I drive a (much cheaper than a tesla) 2012 Nissan leaf EV and I love it, in part because I wanted to support the early development of EVs, and in part because I covet fun cars. I have made the same decision, on a smaller scale, but I don't use my enormous digital platform to sell people on the ideal of my moral virtue, either. I'm at least cognizant of my choices, and the opportunity costs of those choices, and I recognize and accept the suffering I have caused with my choices. I would rightfully accept the community's derision if I publicly said "there's nothing better for me to spend my money on" because that's ridiculous. Hopefully MMM knows that too, and avoid that particular pitfall.