Except that he literally cannot do that. Even if every man, woman, and child in the developed world were issued one of his Tesla cars free of cost it would make a fraction of a percent effect on carbon emissions even before you get into the carbon footprint of new vehicle manufacture and lithium mining and processing.
I don’t want that odious prick as an ‘overlord’ because he’s a contemptible human being who SLAPP sues anyone who criticizes him on top of his Twitter-trolling and appealing to proto-fascists in order to further his business interests. If Elon Musk is truly the salvation of humanity we are not worth saving.
If LVMH could get only a relatively minor adjustment for factors clearly beyond their control, I don’t see how Musk can get jack squat after the amount of trolling and blatant manipulation attempts he’s done. It’s reminiscent of the classic definition of chutzpah: murdering your parents and pleading for mercy as an orphan.
The inertia Twitter has definitely isn’t due to growth. It’s due to just how firmly established it is. In the US, at least, any business that has an online presence has a Twitter. Any content creator or creative person (including musicians, actors, and other celebrities) has one unless they have specifically quit. Nearly every website uses it in some form or fashion.
Yes, Facebook also has this. But it’s a different type of platform. People may go to a Facebook page, but they don’t tend to follow it unlike Twitter. Facebook is treated more like their webpage, while Twitter is more like their email.
There are other types of social media, but they don’t play as well with this. Pretty much all of the ones you mention are more social and less brand heavy.
I don’t interact with Twitter because I like it. It’s just where I have to go for certain things. You can see what the public is talking about, and you can contact creators/businesses/etc. And, since it’s public, they more often respond.
SpaceX, the aerospace firm founded by Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, paid a flight attendant $250,000 to settle a sexual misconduct claim against Musk in 2018, Insider has learned.
The attendant worked as a member of the cabin crew on a contract basis for SpaceX’s corporate jet fleet. She accused Musk of exposing his erect penis to her, rubbing her leg without consent, and offering to buy her a horse in exchange for an erotic massage, according to interviews and documents obtained by Insider.
(I actually intended this for the previous, older, “Why don’t people like Elon Musk?” thread but I suppose it could impact the whole Twitter purchase)
Musk actually just barely breaks my list of Top 10 Most Opprobrious Billionaires but he puts so much effort into thrusting himself into the public spotlight in the most obnoxious, self-promoting, exhibitionistic manner that it is difficult to not have an opinion about him, and unless you are a compulsively venerating idolator it is difficult for that opinion to be anything but decidedly unfavorable. That such opinions also stir up his coterie of devoted followers is entirely incidental and I don’t actually enjoy seeing people riled up about it, especially when it means just repeating the same facts to refute them.
I had hoped that the brouhaha over his attempt at a hostile takeover of Twitter including the clear and unambiguous violations of SEC regulations about reporting ownership stakes to save himself a few hundred million bucks would at least cause some of the followers to doubt his sincerity and integrity, and the subsequent ‘tweets’ about un-permabanning Trump and some other transparent trolls would serve to reveal his real alignment but they seem to have doubled down on Musk as the Lightbringer, Savior of Humanity, his Great Benevolence, and so forth. Personally, I see Musk as an overaged Joffrey Baratheon.
I think you give that crowd too much credit. All they see is the libs getting irritated with Musk’s maunderings about free speech with the word “Trump” tossed in here or there, and that’s all it takes for them to think he’s a swell guy. Never mind the dissonance with Musk’s lefty business enterprises to mitigate the whole climate change thing, with the electric cars and new-fangled batteries. They probably wont see any issue with that, either - “Ha! He’s owning the libs by making them think global warming is a thing so they will buy his electric cars! Suckers!”.
Elon has recruited his mommy to defend him from all those meanies on the site he can’t afford to buy anymore, and she’s defending his claims that the site is hopelessly overrun by bots by questioning the bona fides of a user named “Tony Stark”.
Except a lot of Musk’s devotees are self-identified ‘libs’, including, bizarrely, a Green(ish)/Bernie crowd who overlook the fact that he’s one of their hated billionaires hording wealth and feel that because he claims to be trying to save the environment and defying the SEC he’s sticking it to The Man, man.
Elon Musk is what we would have if there were actual supervillains; people would be lining up to be Lex Luther’s toady and subscribe to his Twitter feed because they want to imaging that they, too, could bend Superman to their will. Elon isn’t actually a supervillain, of course; he’s a somewhat confused ‘bro who has managed to convinced people to invest their time, money, and talent into his visions, some of which have actually been quite successful albeit probably more despite rather than because of Musk.
Why must you be so mean and divisive? Joffrey Baratheon would never have sold flamethrowers. And he would have given the Boring work of tunnel making to Tyrion.
I doubt he could prove the existence of some bots on some (possibly non-random) sample of 100 accounts says anything about the actual number, or would change much if it did - it is not a mystery they were there. I am probably misunderstanding things but if he pledges a price and then further lowers the value by mucking about, the long-term advantages seem hidden to me, if if it is financially difficult to change his mind. Maybe the Iron Bank has further influence than it seems.
Musk is a perplexing man. At one point, I might have bought a Tesla if there were many places you could charge it in Canada and if it did well in the snowy winters. (That was many years ago and one presumes they have made progress). I am too simple to understand the company’s valuation.
If you were smarter you would be truly stupid enough to accept that there is somehow a way that a company with a tiny fraction of the production output of any major rival is somehow more valued than the five largest manufacturers (Toyota, Daimler, Volkswagen, Ford, and General Motors) combined despite barely having made a profit the last two years once you take away subsidies. As it is, in your ignorance you are looking through the fog and seeing the reality is that there is no actual way Tesla could realize its valuation, and if it were parceled out for parts Elon would be lucky to end up with a buck ninety-five in his pocket.
Except they mostly won’t and he doesn’t really care about that part. Sure, they’re much better than the status quo but switching everybody to electric cars today would still not be enough.
It’s a great line to use to sell cars but if it turned out they were value-neutral environmentally, I’m pretty sure he’d still spin them as cool technology in and of themselves to wean us off dependence on those old fuddy-duddy oil companies.
Like most, if not all, billionaires, he cares about popular social issues to the extent they will benefit him personally (money preferentially or social status, if money is not to be had). The second they are of no benefit personally (his workers attempting to unionize, for example, or moving operations to Texas where they welcome mistreatment of workers and have lax environmental standards) he shows his real colors, i.e. his political affiliation is whatever profits him most personally.
Is Bill Gates trying to do better? Most of what he’s involved in now seems to be genuinely trying to do as much good as possible for humanity with his dosh. But I don’t know much about it and I’m sure somebody will set me straight.
