Assuming Trump has four years of competence left. Vance may find Musk a valuable ally in sidelining Trump. It’s easy enough for Musk to keep his position while they’re looting others. It’s a rich country; it will take many years to pillage.
Again, that stops mattering under fascism. What matters under fascism is force, not money; if Vance (or anyone else) is in charge of a fascist government instead of Trump, then he can be the one who has Musk killed if he feels like it instead. Musk at that point will just be a minion who does what he’s told, if he wants to stay alive. Musk is just too arrogant and stupid to see it ahead of time.
Ask the oligarchs whom Putin has had killed how safe their money made them.
I thought he was already in “useful minion” territory, running a propaganda network and using money for stunts to sway elections.
You’re not wrong; it’s just that I think he can outlast Trump.
Sure; but I doubt that’s how he sees himself. His ego would never allow it. Which is why I don’t expect their cooperation to last, both of them are hypersensitive manchildren who think they are the center of the universe, sooner or later they’ll tread on one another’s egos and go vengeful.
Of course even if you do use optical guidance, that is very short ranged so you still need radar to detect and track the target before launching the missile. Something that Musk would realize if he had even a tenth of the engineering ability he claims.
Yes, very short range and moving at about 1500 mph. Piece of cake for cheap consumer grade webcams, thinks Elon, probably.
That price may be lower than you think. Remember the kid who was (and for all I know, still is) publicizing the movements of Musk’s plane? Elmo offered him $8000 to stop. When the kid asked Elmo to pay his college tuition instead, that was too much for Elmo and he refused.
The funniest thing is that tracking information for civilian aircraft is publicly available, but despite his alleged genius and actually owning at least three private jets, Elmo apparently doesn’t know that. Some tracking sites block tracking information at the request of the aircraft owner, but this is not universal and not a legal requirement.
If someone tells him, I’d expect him to make sure the Trump Administration shuts down all the relevant websites and apps.
Providers of internet access and cell service will be leaned on for a multitude of reasons by the Trump Admin (protecting Elon’s privacy being only one of them). If you don’t control communication, how can you call yourself a good fascist!?!
That’s a good point. It’s also a good illustration of Trump’s standard modus operandi – he would have no legal right to do that, but that’s never stopped him before, and in Trump 2.0 we can expect that to be 10x worse, especially with his new-found immunity protections. Arguing that this is public information will be like arguing that you’re protected by the right to free speech – the answer will be: not any more.
Yeah. Trump’s first instinct might be to assert dominance by using Executive Orders to (for instance) shut down free expressions of opinion on the Internet, but wiser heads will likely prevail and they’ll just resort to threatening internet providers with IRS audits if they continue letting sites such as this one continue in operation.
We definitely should enjoy this while we have it; it may not be long. It’s all too easy to envision a time when the only forum allowed is X. No more comments sections or message boards anywhere, (except for Reddit’s “The Donald”, perhaps.)
Oh yeah, you still totally have the right to free speech. You just have no right to be heard. And never did. Read your constitution carefully. You’re welcome to shout into a wilderness. As long as nobody can hear you.
That’ll be their legalistic fig leaf response. That will carry the day.
as the exodus rolls on…
Elmo is shifting back into “everyone I don’t like is a pedophile” mode.
It’s funny how Musk sees himself as Tony Stark, but everyone else sees Barney Rubble.
I was thinking Zapp Brannigan, myself.
I was not because I do not want to picture Elon without pants.
If anything, he’s that other guy from the 2nd Iron Man movie. Hammer? The tryhard who could only ever poorly copy Stark.
I see Barney Fife.
Too late!
I have to inform the thread that a while back I felt I had to make a doc called “SDMB Gold,” and along the same lines, I felt I had to put this post and its immediate predecessors into the doc.