# Is it Legal? Elon Musk ultimatum. Do ‘extremely hardcore’ work or get out **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 16, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040 "2022-11-16T17:11:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/321 "2022-11-29T10:49:07Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > All of us are operating from almost complete ignorance other than Musk’s tweets and those of a few disgruntled ex-employees. I’m not sure if you can describe what were 80% of the staff two months ago being unemployed and unhappy as “a few” Sure, there _might_ be something amazing going on behind the scenes. Or maybe this was a bad investment for all those guys backing Musk and this ends in tears and ashes. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Musk has big time investment compnanies, Venture Capital, and a who’s who of Silicon Valley backing him. Do you really think they would invest in such an obvious failure? What about all the very ~~smart~~ rich people who backed Theranos? Who backed FTX? Who backed Enron and Arthur Anderson? I don’t care how smart or rich or informed you are - you can still wind up with a failed venture. Listing a bunch of guys and saying “it must be right, these guys are doing it” despite other evidence of a venture getting ready to circle the drain is nothing more than another form of celebrity endorsement. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > All of that should be considered, but balanced against it is the chance to work closely with the most successful entrepreneur of our time - a person who, if he is convinced you are an asset, could make your career take off. Or, you know, if he doesn’t like how you kiss his ass or you have some problem where you can’t work 80 weeks or you’re not willing to put his interests above your own or your own family he can smash your career. There are many other companies to work for, most of them less chaotic right now. Sure, the risk vs. reward currently at Twitter will appeal to some single, unattached, very aggressive people. They are free to take that course. But for most people working 80 hours a week for a megalomaniac who changes the rules hourly, breaks the law, with no guarantee of a reward at the end of the ride is completely unappealing. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Yeah I do, because we’ve seen time and time again that rich white men are invested in the success of other rich white men. That you’ve provided a list of rich white men (one of whom I’ve already mentioned is likely to bail him out) really isn’t a surprise. ^ This. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/322 "2022-11-29T13:21:38Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > No, what Imwas saying was that Marc Andreesen posted that if he was a 20-year old coder again, he’d love the opportunity. I made no claim other than that. To me, it suggested some confidence in what Musk is doing and the opportunity it presents for young coders. I wasn’t really looking for subtext. I understand what you posted. Ignoring the subtext–specifically, the first and second points that I posted–is an odd choice. Marc is not an unbiased observer, and his Tweet should not be read free of the context of his financial interests. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/323 "2022-11-29T13:49:06Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > My doubts are more along the lines of whether their ideas are any good or will work, not whether they have them at all. So far, his ideas haven’t seemed to be any good. He rolled out a checkmark plan and had to roll it back after a week. He laid off a huge chunk of his workforce, apparently with many of them people who actually have to do the things to keep the lights on, like make payroll and pay bills. He reviews programmer coding skills with little to no notice and what appears to be little to no time to do the job properly. Large numbers of his biggest customers are suspending their use of Twitter. He may have ideas, but I don’t see a plan. Granted, I don’t have to see a plan, but the high quality workers he wants to keep need to see a plan. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/324 "2022-11-29T21:43:14Z")
Sam, on the one hand you’re saying > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > If I were a young softwre developer again, I would have jumped at this chance. If you can impress a billionaire that you are special, you might leapfrog years or decades of advancement the traditional way. […] > > Musk is the richest man in the world. The opportunity to hitch your wagon to him is extremely valuable. […] > > But if my kid worked at Twitter and came home and said, “Elon Musk is firing everyone except a core group pf coders! I can take a payout now, or try to be in that group. What should I do?” > > I would tell him that there is a real opportunity here for career advancement, but he’d have to be confident that his work is good enough and that he’s willing to put in long hours and put ip with some frustration for a time. If yes, I’d tell him to stay and take a awing. […] > > […] the chance to work closely with the most successful entrepreneur of our time - a person who, if he is convinced you are an asset, could make your career take off. […] And on the other hand you’re saying > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It’s possible that Musk would just be such a lousy boss that hitching your wagon to him would be a bad idea. […] > > Musk’s tweets often seem counterproductive. It seems sometimes like he’s a kid with a new toy. […] > > My suspicion is that Musk is going to get hooked on the next thing at some point and take his focus elsewhere and appoint a new CEO who will calm everyone down. If Musk is in fact a lousy boss who’s screwing up his company and its only chance of survival is having Musk wander off to “get hooked on the next thing” and let a competent leader replace him, then where the hell is the long-term advantage to “impressing” Musk or “working closely” with him or “hitching your wagon” to him? The whole point of an employee throwing their cap over the windmill, so to speak, to go all in on a risky venture with an adventurous boss is that their confidence in the vision and trustworthiness of the boss outweighs their fear of the accompanying risks. This standard trope of inspirational business folklore premises that you hitch your wagon to the boss’s crazy moon-shot idea because you have faith in your boss, and have very good reason to believe that he/she has what it takes to make the dream happen, and also that he/she will be loyal to you in return for your beyond-the-call-of-duty service. But if you’re confronted with a situation where (a) the business venture is high-stakes and high-risk and also (b) it’s highly likely that your boss is a petulant bastard with no personal loyalty to employees and a disastrous lack of impulse control, then that makes the wagon-hitching choice a much more questionable one. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2022, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/325 "2022-11-29T23:49:29Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > Maybe Twitter needs a songbook. About 20 years ago, my late husband was on the Tandem Employee Choir, but I don’t recall there was an official Tandem song. > [@Voyager](#): > > At Y2K time we discovered a lot of COBOL programs running 30 years later. And probably now. Up until two years ago, I was doing user administration on mainframe and there was definitely stuff written in FORTRAN and COBOL merrily running along calculating interest on your mortgage, managing loan syndication, etc. The code and hardware are so good at financial transaction processing that the bank would periodically hold classes to teach programming in those “dead” languages. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/326 "2022-11-30T01:27:09Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > All of that should be considered, but balanced against it is the chance to work closely with the most successful entrepreneur of our time - a person who, if he is convinced you are an asset, could make your career take off. Musk has lots of irons in lots of fires. Any relatively junior software developer - no matter how good - who thinks he is going to be in Musk’s field of view after he signs on is kidding themselves. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m not sure they are going to even retain the advertising model, or at least if it’s the plan to be the major funding model. Twitters income last year was $5.08 billion. At $100 a year, that;s going to take 50 million people signing up for the green checkmark to replace. However in behavioral economics we know there is a vast difference between free and not free - even very cheap. Musk may be convincing himself he’s going to replace revenue with what is basically a subscription (but without nearly as much value) but he’s kidding himself. And once people game the system making certification not trustworthy, he has even less chance of getting those users to sign up. How many Twitter users do you really think give a shit about certification. Politicians, businesses, influencers (who aren’t only on TikTok) and who else? I have a Twitter account for the conference I’m involved with, I sure as hell aren’t going to pay Elon to be certified though we can easily afford it. As for YouTube, I follow YouTube far more than Twitter, and I can’t dispute your complaints about it. But do you think advertisers on a TwitTube that allows the same kind of content Elon is allowing on Twitter going to be any happier? Or do you think people will pay for what YouTube gives for free. I don’t know how subscription YouTube is doing but based on its lack of mention in articles about streaming services, I suspect not well. Plus, Google has deeper pockets than Musk. Advertisers care about who is watching and reading. If the increased user base - if it really exists - consists of trolls and extremists, they won’t be coming back. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/327 "2022-11-30T01:37:55Z")
Young officers of the Empire who don’t bail to join the rebellion may wind up in positions of authority. Or they may get choked by Lord Vader when he decides they screwed up. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/328 "2022-11-30T01:40:46Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > How many Twitter users do you really think give a shit about certification. Especially after the whole $8-chan blue checkmark sale shredded the credibility of any sort of “certification” Twitter might attempt to offer in the future. What else is there to offer that someone would pay eight bucks a month to get? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/329 "2022-11-30T01:46:35Z")
All of those are very reasonable points. I agree that if Musk thinks he dan raise billions in subscription money, he’s kidding himself. Even if he only charged $1, he’d be lucky to get 1% of users paying. Most sites find that even getting people to register for free captures only a small percentage of the audience. But I don’t know if that’s the plan. I assume there is a plan - a lot of people invested big money in this, including some large VC firms, and I can say from experience that the #1 thing potential investors want to see is a plan for profitability and repayment. But I don’t know if Musk’s current behaviour is part of that plan, or helping to destroy it. I find it interesting that Jack Dorsey is endorsing him and invested 1.5 billion in the new Twitter. Hard to believe he hasn’t been given any plans for Twitter’s future direction that he thinks is at least feasible. I still suspect Dorsey is part of this - probably with Bluesky. He and Musk go back a long way, and Dorsey has said that he fully supports Musk buying Twitter, and in fact I think he said that Musk is the best person for the job or something to that effect. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/330 "2022-11-30T02:02:01Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > All of those are very reasonable points. I agree that if Musk thinks he dan raise billions in subscription money, he’s kidding himself. Even if he only charged $1, he’d be lucky to get 1% of users paying. Most sites find that even getting people to register for free captures only a small percentage of the audience. In _Predictably Irrational_ Dan Ariely tells of a study that showed people rejected better quality stuff (candy) that cost almost nothing versus worse quality stuff for free. So 1% would be optimistic. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/331 "2022-11-30T02:05:59Z")
What we know so far about what $8 gets you: 1. Verification (I think they are taking ID now and doing it properly) 2. Your tweets show up in the verified list, which is promoted above non-verified 3. Musk is negotiating with paywalled media companies to allow a Twitter Blue user to bypass the paywall for a linked story. In return, some of the $8 will be used for micropayments to the media company. It’s a good idea, but given Musk’s negotiations so far, I wouldn’t count on too many media companies participating. 4. Access to long-form posting and long video posts. I’m not sure if this is that valuable, at least now. 5. Encrypted DMs 6. 50% fewer ads Some of these might be available without verification - it’s not clear. One of Musk’s plans is to incorporate digital payments so that content creators can set their own prices and users can pay them directly. He also wants to expand this to a general feature allowing payment transfers between users. This potentially could be a rival for Patreon or GiveSendGo. It could even turn into a Paypal-like service between members. Obviously, the payment functionality would require a verified account. > **[Elon Musk brainstorms plans for how payments could work on Twitter](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/09/elon-musk-brainstorms-plans-for-how-payments-could-work-on-twitter.html)** > > During an audio broadcast with advertisers on Wednesday, Musk outlined some plans for a payment system on Twitter. The article describes him as ‘brainstorming’ and making it up as he goes, but he’s said all this before that call in the article. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/332 "2022-11-30T02:12:00Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > In _Predictably Irrational_ Dan Ariely tells of a study that showed people rejected better quality stuff (candy) that cost almost nothing versus worse quality stuff for free. So 1% would be optimistic. Yeah. Huge audiences on the internet are there because it is frictionless. It’s amazing how much even a tiny bit of friction can ahrink an audience. Or consider how much more money Amazon has made because of 1-click buying. Even Amazon users with accounts will abandon sales if they are forced to do a single extra click. Being a UX specialist, I’m really familiar with this. A chunk of my career was spent trying to shave little bits of friction out of user experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/333 "2022-11-30T02:16:49Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I find it interesting that Jack Dorsey is endorsing him and invested 1.5 billion in the new Twitter. Hard to believe he hasn’t been given any plans for Twitter’s future direction that he thinks is at least feasible. Is there information on Dorsey’s Twitter stance/status more recent than Nov. 6? I haven’t found any public references by him to Twitter after that. Admittedly, three weeks is not a long time, but things have been happening fast at Twitter. There is also [a school of thought](https://davetroy.medium.com/no-elon-and-jack-are-not-competitors-theyre-collaborating-3e88cde5267d) that holds that making Twitter profitable is not the actual objective for either Musk or Dorsey in the near term, but I don’t know how accurate that analysis (from 29 October, which is even longer ago than 6 November) is. > [@](#): > > The foundation of the Internet is built on protocols that we mostly take for granted now. TCP/IP and HTTPS enable the web. Modern e-mail is built on top of SMTP and IMAP protocols. Usenet newsgroups are built on top of NNTP. Dorsey envisions a foundational “Twitter” protocol that anyone can implement and run. This would need to become a formal Internet standard, which requires going through the [Internet Engineering Task Force](https://www.ietf.org/)’s “Request for Comment” (RFC) process. This can take a long time. This is what Bluesky has been working on starting to map out. […] > > The goals are more ideological in nature. Musk and his backers believe that the global geopolitical arena was being warped by too much “woke” ideology and censorship, and wanted to fix that by first restoring voices that had previously been silenced —and then implementing technical and algorithmic solutions that allow each user to get the experience they want. They think this can “solve” the problems that people cite about social media content. Making money, they figure, will come from the secondary effects of enabling “free speech” and the possibility of building other services like payments and replacing government on top of such an app. Plus the company’s social graph data is a goldmine for other businesses that may wish to benefit from detailed knowledge of the makeup of society. […] > > Musk and the people backing all this are more interested in reshaping the global order than in earning fake “fiat currency.” Their real goal is to usher in “hard currency” and re-base global currencies around scarcity and physical assets. So no it really doesn’t matter much what happens to Twitter’s ad model in the meantime. It will probably do alright, and they can probably find other ways to make money, like adding in payments and weird Dogecoin schemes. […] > > As the world plunges deeper into war and economic chaos in 2023–2024, there are real (perceived) opportunities to advance cryptocurrencies and [asset-backed tokens](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-07/russian-billionaire-potanin-says-tokens-can-displace-crypto) to replace the dollar. Whether any of this is realistic or not remains to be seen, but this is what they’d like to pursue — Musk and his deal backers in particular. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/334 "2022-11-30T02:34:46Z")
The last thing I saw from Dorsey that had to do with Musk was basically an apology to Twitter users for all the layoffs. Mind you, he didn’t blame Musk - he blamed himself for trying to grow Twitter too fast - an admission that there was a lot of employment bloat. > As for the other stuff, I said exactly that earlier. I have a suspicion that the Twitter duture includes a federated model, a payment sustem, probably with crypto (both Elon and Jack are crazy for crypto - an enthusiasm I don’t share), Bluesky as the API forma federated system, etc. It’s entirely possible tht the people investing the money are not doing this for profit, but for ideology. Most of the main investors are either libertarian or lean that way, All of them are free speech focused. I think they want to make lots of money from this, but I’m not sure they’ll bail if they don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/335 "2022-11-30T03:10:57Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Musk and his backers believe that the global geopolitical arena was being warped by too much “woke” ideology and censorship, and wanted to fix that by first restoring voices that had previously been silenced … Making money, they figure, will come from the secondary effects of enabling “free speech” I can’t believe that Musk is a paladin of free speech when he’s constantly whining about lefties exercising their right to free speech to put pressure on advertisers. And criticises the advertisers for not wanting their speech to be next to anti-semitic garbage speech. He only is a “paladin” for speech he agrees with. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/336 "2022-11-30T03:38:36Z")
Nitpick: That excerpt that you quoted from me was not something I wrote but rather something I quoted from the linked article in my post. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/337 "2022-11-30T03:57:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I find it interesting that Jack Dorsey is endorsing him and invested 1.5 billion in the new Twitter. The thing is, people are very biased towards their own subjective experience. As we’ve seen over and over again, it’s really hard to believe that your spouse / family member / buddy is really guilty of the crimes that they are, in fact, guilty of; how much easier is it to fool yourself into thinking your rich business crony is, in fact, a good businessman? Ockham’s Razor suggests that people are making judgements based on their feelings as well as the evidence vs. just the evidence. Therefore, there’s no knowing how robust that evidence is: maybe Dorsey has seen something really solid, but maybe he’s had a conversation or two and found that to be enough. It also matters a lot where he stands with regard to 1.5 billion. If he is confident in earning more than that over the next couple of years elsewhere, he loses nothing for the risk. If he only has $1,500,000,000.03 to his name and no next paycheque, he’d better be supremely confident. I’m sure the truth is in the middle, but where? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/338 "2022-11-30T07:41:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The last thing I saw from Dorsey that had to do with Musk was basically an apology to Twitter users for all the layoffs. Mind you, he didn’t blame Musk - he blamed himself for trying to grow Twitter too fast - an admission that there was a lot of employment bloat. Nearly everyone in Silicon Valley grew too fast, thanks to raking in money during the pandemic. Meta certainly did. The same thing happened during the bubble. But was Twitter 3 times as large as it should be? Even twice? In the advertising department? In the department that tries to keep out improper posts? I’d love to see the details of the deal like Dorsey got. He is sounding like Patty Hearst joining her captors than an independent former CEO. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/339 "2022-11-30T19:14:09Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > a lot of people invested big money in this, including some large VC firms, and I can say from experience that the #1 thing potential investors want to see is a plan for profitability and repayment. Thanks to the lawsuit, all of Musk’s communications with potential co-investors are now public and we can definitively say that there was extremely little concern about such things by the people who offered to co-invest. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2022, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040/340 "2022-11-30T21:30:22Z")
Extremely wealthy co-investors might be precisely the sort of people who would derive real future benefit from “impressing” or getting close to someone like Musk. The prospect of becoming a close associate of a really rich person can potentially be long-term advantageous enough to another really rich person to outweigh the loss of their initial investment in one of his ventures that turns out to be a turkey. For the non-wealthy “little nobody” coding professionals whom Sam was blithely hypothetically advising to “hitch their wagon” to Musk in the hope of getting significant career boosts, though? Probably not so much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-elon-musk-ultimatum-do-extremely-hardcore-work-or-get-out/975040.md?page=18)