The John Johnston Lounge

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down the news that Tesla has lost its Autopilot fatal crash wrongful death case in Florida, as the jury decided Tesla was partly to blame, and says Tesla has to pay the victims up to $243 million. The verdict will be appealed by Tesla  Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser and nothing in this content is financial advice. This content is for general education and...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down how Tesla has launched a ride-hailing service covering the Bay Area in California. There is a safety monitor in the driver seat, monitoring Tesla’s FSD (Supervised) when needed. So far the stock market is not impressed with this, after Elon Musk has promised an imminent rollout of autonomous robotaxis for many years.  Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser an...

The Art of Value host JJ reacts to parts of a recent Kim Java interview with one of the original Tesla founders, Martin Eberhard, who is critical of some of the ways Tesla and Elon Musk are currently doing things at Tesla. He discusses Tesla vehicle design, robotaxis and autonomy, and how the company has scaled. It’s not all criticism though, he does have some praise for Elon Musk and Tesla.   Ref...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down how autonomous Waymo robotaxis seem far ahead of Tesla robotaxi at this point, and the gap appears to be widening with Waymo’s expansion plans, including a a variety of U.S. cities. Dallas is the latest city Waymo is expanding to. Can Tesla catch up, or will Waymo continue to leave Tesla in the dust? Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser and nothing in this...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down the news that a SpaceX ex-employee is claiming that he was fired for flagging “despicable” safety practices at the company, that put lives at risk. A lawsuit by the SpaceX supervisor says serious understaffing resulted in injuries which overworked staff were “too fearful to report.” Related episodes: Trump's Elon Dilemma: Why He Can’t Escape SpaceX https://...

The Art of Value: Politics host JJ breaks down video clips of masked ICE agents in unmarked vehicles disappearing people from streets around the US, including a health care professional and a U.S. citizen. ICE has just received a massive government funding boost, so these types of actions are likely to become even more frequent.  Related episode: ICE: Trump’s Gestapo in 21st Century Fascist Americ...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down Elon Musk’s latest wild claim, that Tesla will be able to scale its Robotaxi service to half the U.S. population by the end of this year, in just 5 months. He said this in the latest Tesla earnings call, and even his most loyal Tesla influencers are finding it hard to believe. Telsa is also planing to expand the service to a new city as soon as this week, but t...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down the news that anti-Elon Musk and Tesla Takedown protestors are planning to demonstrate outside Tesla’s new Tesla Diner in West Hollywood, highlighting Elon Musk’s recent cuts to humanitarian aid via DOGE, and encouraging people to boycott Tesla products and services. People have not forgotten what Elon did with DOGE. Related videos: Tesla’s Dumpster Fire Earnin...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down Tesla’s latest earnings in an entertaining and digestible way. Tesla’s Q2 2025 earnings were a bit of a disaster for the company, with most figures being down year-on-year, and not much growth to show. Related episodes: Tesla Earnings Live - On A (Tesla Diner) Plate https://www.youtube.com/live/23XiMnfsDV4 Tesla Sales DROP for 7th Straight Quarter in Top US Mar...

The Art of Value: Markets host JJ responds to remarks from investor and fund manager Ross Gerber, about Tesla’s “Garbage” Q2 2025 earnings. Gerber thinks the blame for this rests with CEO Elon Musk alone, and until Elon changes his ways, Tesla sales and earnings won’t improve.  Related episode: AI Bull Market: Perfect Echoes of '90s Dot-Com Bubble? https://youtu.be/DAtozPXTXBI Referenced video...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down the news that Tesla’s car sales have continued to drop in the biggest market for electric vehicles in the United States. The news broke as Tesla opens its first Tesla Diner, in Los Angeles, and Tesla Earnings are due to be reported this week. Mentioned videos:  AI Bull Market: Perfect Echoes of '90s Dot-Com Bubble? https://youtu.be/DAtozPXTXBI Tesla Cybertr...

The Art of Value: Politics host JJ responds to a recent Charlamagne clip, in which Charlamagne states why he thinks Stephen Colbert's political comedy show is really getting scrapped. He discusses how it’s an authoritarian strategy to attack free speech, targeting media people who are critical of the Trump regime.  Related episodes: Journalist Mehdi Hasan Confronts Young MAGA Fascists https://...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down the news that Tesla is facing off with the California Department of Motor Vehicles over claims that Tesla has exaggerated the abilities of its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) tech, and therefor mislead Tesla customers. This lawsuit has the potential to result in Tesla’s dealer license being suspended or revoked in California.  To support The Art of Value...

The Art of Value: Markets host JJ breaks down how a recently updated stock market chart shows that the current bull market, led by AI-related stocks, so far is tracking perfectly with the internet stock boom of the 1990s, which led to a massive bubble and bust. Will this end up being similar?  Related episodes: Stan Druckenmiller on Nvidia Stock & AI Investing Now https://youtu.be/wDxFzG9_dfw...

The Art of Value: Politics host JJ breaks down how journalist and progressive Mehdi Hasan confronted a bunch of young MAGA fascists during a Jubilee “Surrounded” debate. It seemed Hasan was somewhat ambushed, thinking they were far-right conservatives, but as far-right as being openly fascist. Related episodes: What Authoritarians Have in Common & How to Build A Resistance https://youtu.be/5cn...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down the news that President Trump is having a difficult time cancelling any of Elon Musk’s SpaceX contracts, even though he really wants to do that, after Trump and Musk’s very pubic falling out this. We look at why it’s so difficult for the government to cancel SpaceX contracts at this point.  New on The Art of Value: Politics pod: Panicked Trump Continues to Cras...

The Art of Value: Politics host JJ breaks down the news that Israeli forces have opened fire toward starving Palestinians who were trying to obtain food from a meagre aid truck convoy.   Recent episodes: Panicked Trump Continues to Crash Out Over Epstein https://youtu.be/ZHjP5Sl4irA Glenn Greenwald Exposes FAKE PRETEXT for Iran War https://youtu.be/j6IvykZF-P4 Shocking Plans For Expanding Migrant...

The Art of Value: Politics host JJ breaks down how President Trump is continuing to panic over the public reaction to his alleged involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, how he won’t properly release the Epstein Files, and how the story just won’t go away. Recent episodes: Shocking Plans For Expanding Migrant Tent Camps Revealed! https://youtu.be/ya6f2IyQvcw MILLIONS Join No Kings Protests as Trump Para...

The Art of Value: Politics host JJ breaks down the news that the Trump administration’s ICE force is in the process of being greatly expanded, along with a growing immigrant detention centre network. In a concerning sign, ICE will become the most well-funded law enforcement agency in the United Sates, with the intention of detaining and deporting many millions of undocumented immigrants. Related e...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down how the emerging robotaxi wars are starting to heat up, with the expansion of Waymo’s geofenced area in Austin Texas, to make it bigger than Tesla’s expanded geofence. Uber has also announced another partnership with luxury EV automaker Lucid and driverless software company Nuro, to rollout robotaxis in the United States.  Related episodes: DANGER: Tesla FSD Ro...

The Art of Value host JJ predicts that Tesla’s Cybertruck is heading for the scrapyard of history, and has been Elon Musk’s worst idea to date. JJ breaks down how sales of the Cybertruck are dwindling, having not reached anywhere near Elon’s expectations. There have been numerous problems with the Cybertruck since it was unveiled to great fanfare back in 2019. Recent episodes: The Autopilot Jury T...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down how a safety monitor inside a Tesla Robotaxi in Austin, Texas had to intervene to stop the robotaxi blowing through railroad crossing arms, while a Tesla influencer was riding in the back seat. Had the safety monitor not been there, it could have been disastrous. We also look at similar incidents in which Tesla Full Self-Driving (supervised) was involved. Will...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down the news that Tesla is now facing its first jury trial involving a fatal accident in which its Autopilot driving system was engaged at the time. Previous court cases involving Autopilot had been either settled or dismissed, so this is the first case in front of a jury.  Recemt episodes: Musk's Robotaxi Bet: Are Fans COPING with the Reality? https://youtu.be...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down how some of Tesla’s chief social media influencers are coping with the very limited Tesla Robotaxi service so far, and the seemingly slow progress of robotaxi and Full Self-Driving. They claim everything is going to plan, yet after about 10 years, FSD is still making some basic errors in the wild, and it seems unlikely Tesla will be able to scale robotaxis and...

The Art of Value host JJ breaks down some recent financial analysts’ opinions that at this point Tesla is mainly selling Elon Musk’s grand claims for the future, rather than the reality of the company, which is struggling to grow vehicle sales. Tesla’s robotoaxi is also off to a shaky start, and sales of Optimus robots haven’t begun. Can Tesla grow fast enough to justify its lofty stock market val...