How do you capture a moment in time when the world is moving so fast? That’s the problem I grappled with when writing this editor’s letter. Will the words I write today still be relevant when this magazine hits the printer? Each morning in London, like many of you, I find a world dominated by the latest threat of tariffs from the Trump administration or Elon Musk’s mission to “reinvent” government. Uncertainty is the only constant in business today.
Speaking of Musk, inspired by the likes of singer Sheryl Crow and actor Jason Bateman, I recently joined the ranks of Tesla owners who have traded in their “Muskmobiles” for another brand. Since Musk aligned himself with Germany’s far-right during a recent election, Europeans are turning their backs on Tesla. Cars have been torched in Berlin, and a recent informal study found 94% of German respondents said they would not buy one of Musk’s electric vehicles. Other critics, meanwhile, are asking what Tesla without Musk would really be worth. Like countless car buyers, when looking for a replacement, I turned to European brands like Volkswagen and BMW, but found they were still miles behind Tesla. This theme of being slow to adapt to new technology continues to plague Europe. As Samuel Burke reveals while electrically powered robotaxis are cruising the streets of some U.S. cities, they have largely been absent from European ones, hamstrung by red tape.
