Hello, my friends. For some of you, what I'm about to talk about is long overdue.

For others, it's making a mountain out of a molehill. But after deliberating about this for quite

honestly weeks now, as somebody that's covered Tesla for the past almost 10 years on this podcast,

I've decided that now is the time to speak up. And I've decided to

do this as its own separate mini episode so that if you're not interested in this topic, you can

skip it and continue to listen to the regular podcast as it has always been and will continue to

be. So, whether anyone likes it or not, and I'll be clear, I definitely do not,

Tesla has become quite politicized.

And I have very deliberately tried to avoid politics on this podcast,

because quite honestly, it seems like to me,

everything has been politicized in modern society. And while some people love that, some people thrive on that, enjoy that, others

find it exhausting. So I always wanted Ride the Lightning to be a refuge from that. And I don't

want it to sound bigger than it is. It's just that's, from that. And I don't want, I don't want it to sound bigger

than it is. It's just that, but that's how I think about it. And more to the point,

I started this podcast almost 10 years ago to talk about cars. That was what I wanted to do,

cars that I was super interested in and a company that was making them and had plans for more cool cars.

It was nothing more, nothing less.

I didn't have any inkling of ever having this podcast be about politics.

And my hope is actually that by the end of this, that will, you'll still feel like that's the case.

But at the very least, as I hope you'd agree, I have intentionally kept Ride the Lightning as a politics free space.

I have friends and family members alike on all sides of the political spectrum.

And I love them all.

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