And various other European far-right parties; it wasn't just AfD.

Also, y'know, the salute (still amazed that he was pretty much given a pass for that in the US).

It is here in the US too. I drive on OG Model Y and silently judge new Model 3/Y purchasers. Trained to do so by the Cybertruck.

>Picking a fight with the European labor unions

Trying to rule when the local custom is to negotiate - US companies keep repeating that mistake. It has not gone well once that I'd know of. Unions are often more concerned about the long term than company leadership, that's an asset!

So, VW as a brand has origins there, but there's little other continuity. It's a fairly different situation.

Same for Ford in the US, right?

I think people are missing the joke here (notice the italicised 'are').

Indeed,"formerly" carries real weight. It's one thing to have car company with highly distributed ownership that was once Nazi aligned the better part of a century ago, and an entirely different thing to today have a personal piggy bank company for a billionaire Nazi active in global politics.

If a VW exec throws a Hitler salute in public, they will no longer have a job the next day.

When Musk does it, he gets a trillion-dollar pay package.

So no, there's no comparison to be drawn here.

Long ago Nazi vs currently another brainfart away from invading

[dead]

It was never super-mainstream, but it was the top EV group in terms of sales for a few quarters (mostly in 2019). It'll likely soon no longer be in the top ten; looks like for Q1 it's on track to be smaller than Stellantis (the company which owns all the brands that you're surprised still exist) and Geely, who themselves are marginally relevant in Europe.