Ask HN: What happens to Apple and Tesla if US/China tension spiral?
Anyone have an idea of how that would play out for Apple and Tesla if the tensions between the US and China spiraled into a dangerously bad place?
Like with Ukraine, OK, even if you see "Russia get spanked," it's not really that clear cut and there's a lot that goes into that. It may even be hard to know where to start in describing how that happened after the fact.
So there may be some interesting follow-on effects. Including, from what I remember in reading about e.g. WW2: It's even possible you'll see some surprising things like protected facilities in strange places. "Don't bomb here on the map of China, USAF, it's too close to a Tesla resource" or perhaps "NO US MILITARY ALLOWED ON SITE BY ORDER OF US GOVT" by some nice Chinese residential properties, things like that.
In the big picture, Apple and Tesla will of course spin up contingency processes.
With that said, the companies are run by completely different personality dynamics at this point in time.
Musk gets generally excited about these kinds of events, because it makes him feel prophetic when he sees events start to change in a way that he can do something about, or benefit from, or influence technologically. He'll look for opportunities extended by other nations and new platforms. He'll attempt to deepen USG connections as just about every large business with a couple of brain cells should be doing right now.
Apple on the other hand is now led by a potentially broad-historical-timelines-level master of logistics. What Apple would likely attempt is to spin up new supply line efforts, and make that a huge team production of _exceptional_ quality. This is Tim Cook's birthright gift, so to speak. Musk as micro-manager doesn't generally have the patience for this kind of activity.