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Comment by ulrashida | Hacker News Reader

It's not hypocritical to believe something, but it is hypocritical to act in a way contrary to the belief you are espousing.

A usable definition of hypocrisy is "the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform".

In this case, a belief that car companies should not be subsidized by government while simultaneously accepting subsidies from government. The act (accepting subsidies) does not match the stated belief (shouldn't accept subsidies).

To take it a step further, he could be less hypocritical if he changed his stance to along the lines of "there shouldn't be EV subsidies unless the company needs them to stay in business", but to my knowledge that is not his position.

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Giving a handout is not the same thing as taking one, so it's really not hypocritical to take a handout while believing the handout should not exist.

For example, someone could be opposed to student loan debt forgiveness in principle, but that same person would probably not rip up their check.

In both cases it depends on how the belief is formed and expressed.

To build upon your examples:

Case 1 Belief: "I don't believe student loan debts should be forgiven." Action: Accepts student loan forgiveness. Outcome: Hypocritical. Action directly conflicts with the belief, ergo the belief is not truly held.

Case 2 Belief 1: "I don't believe student loan debts should be forgiven for everyone." Belief 2: "I believe I fall in the category of people who should have student loans forgiven." Action: Accepts student loan forgiveness. Outcome: Not inherently hypocritical, provided Belief 2 is expressed alongside Belief 1. Not disclosing belief 2 makes the behavior hypocritical, as to an observer only belief 1 is held.

To link this back to the example of Musk, if he expressed his belief as "I don't believe most firms need subsidies, but the ones to my firm are warranted for reason Y" that would help avoid hypocrisy. To my limited knowledge, that is not the approach he takes.

I don't think that case 1 is hypocritical, because forgiving and being forgiven are two different things/beliefs/actions. Therefore, no conflict.

Agreed. Case 1 is not hypocritical. Hypocritical would be forgiving loans while believe they should not be forgiven.

Accepting a forgiven loan is a different action - you don't believe the other person should have done it, but they did, your acceptance of that is a different matter.

Try rephrasing it into the negative: I don't believe anyone should pay sales tax. Is it hypocritical to pay sales tax when you buy something? No, it's not.

At some point this is banging-head-against-wall grade stuff, so I'll probably stop here. You're in the right area on the sales tax example, but it suffers from the same belief construction and expression issues.

Let's play your example out in a conversation:

1: "I don't believe anyone should pay sales tax!"

2: "But you (someone who is anyone) do pay sales tax, are you a hypocrite?"

1: "Of course not. I have to, it's the law."

2: "So you believe nobody should have to pay sales tax, but they must when legally required?"

1: "Yes."

2: "Oh good, that seems reasonable. I also hate taxes."

So to rephrase in terms of a subsidy, not accepting the subsidy is the same as giving the government charity.

Not giving charity while being opposed to subsidies is not hypocritical.

This is a bizarre hill to die on.

> It's not hypocritical to believe something, but it is hypocritical to act in a way contrary to the belief you are espousing

That's not what's happening.

Tesla is taking subsidies because they are available, it would be a poor decision not to. Tesla could take a stand and not accept subsidies but then those subsidies will fall to their competitors and they will lose.

It's like believing the presidency should be decided by the popular vote but not campaigning in California or thinking healthcare should be free but paying for insurance.

One is a belief about how things should be and the other is a reaction to how things are.

Publicly owned companies have a fiduciary duties to their shareholders to pursue all government programs for which they are eligible.

The company, its officers and directors could all be sued by shareholders in a massive class action lawsuit if they did not abide by their legal responsibilities based on personal beliefs.

This is just an urban legend.

Also, Elon Musk acquired solar city and then gutted it. Essentially wasting billions of Tesla shareholder dollars and he basically shrugged it off. What he did with solar city is very obviously illegal, yet the consequences have been quite insignificant. If you don't know what he did: he acquired solar city for 2.6 billion dollars to bail out his brother Kimbal Musk at the expense of public Tesla shareholders. That money literally went up in flames for nepotism. You could say that this subsidy money he took for Tesla has all gone into the solar city bailout.

The problem Tesla board and shareholders have with holding Elon accountable is the value of their shares is completely dependent on the belief that Elon the super genius will lead them to new products. Without Elon it's just just another car company and worth a fraction of what it is now.

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