• andrew
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      642 years ago

      I feel like this is an example of the dangers of surrounding yourself with a monoculture. Maybe Elon was always exactly this way, but he was seemingly previously tempered by the notably distinct moderation policies at Twitter. Once he owned it and stripped that moderation, there’s nothing holding the pendulum anymore and he swings pretty far the other direction.

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        Maybe he was always this way and not public about it, but things changed for the worse right around when his trans daughter came out.

        Between that and covid I think he went down a rabbit hole further entrenching things and turned into a MAGA type as that rabbit hole does to those that go down it.

        And now he won’t even listen when his brother and the chair of the board of Tesla tells him he’s hurting the brand.

        Edit: just to clarify, “the woke mind virus” is what thinks took his daughter away, and now he is hellbent on destroying it, not realizing it’s him who’s been infected by hate and bigotry

        • @[email protected]
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          562 years ago

          Between that and covid I think he went down a rabbit hole

          Nahh… he was always this way. If your daughter coming out as trans “turns” you into a right-winger, it just means you were always a right-winger.

          • @[email protected]
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            202 years ago

            I don’t think that’s quite the same.

            You might always lean a certain way, but before, he maybe didn’t really care about trans people one way or another. As soon as his daughter came out as trans though he becomes faced with a choice.

            Some people when they are faced with the choice, even if they might seem like they’d go against their child, don’t.

            He doubled down unfortunately and made the wrong choice.

            • @[email protected]
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              182 years ago

              He doubled down unfortunately and made the wrong choice.

              No, that’s not the choice he made. The status quo rewarded Phony Stark for being a right-wing douchebag - long before he even had a daughter . He chose to remain a right-wing douchebag because he was rewarded for it. He simply made the choice the vast majority of the rich either has made or will eventually make.

          • @[email protected]
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            32 years ago

            That doesn’t make sense.

            Right wing and left wing have actual meanings, not “good guys and bad guys”

            • @[email protected]
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              272 years ago

              Right wing and left wing have actual meanings

              Yes, they do… which is specifically why there is no such thing as a “good” right-winger.

      • @[email protected]
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        512 years ago

        So once he wouldn’t get in trouble for openly being a bigot, he openly became a bigot?

        He owes his entire life to apartheid and slavery in all senses that matter. And even when he was everyone’s hero and a real life Tony Stark, he threw a temper tantrum when divers chose to rescue children and not stroke his ego. To the point he accused one of the divers of pedophilia, ran an investigation, and used a team of lawyers to protect himself from any consequences.

        Musk has always been a dipshit

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        And why democracy is important as a form of error correction. People can have their opinions, and inevitably we all get things wrong (magnitude of things we get wrong varies a lot). But when someone has a large concentration of power we all have to deal with the fallout from their malfunction. Companies the size and import of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit should be democratically controlled, some kind of cooperative.

        • TheSaneWriter
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          12 years ago

          Fully agreed. The authoritarian institution of shareholders and CEOs makes large companies prone to arrogance and short-term decision-making, democratic control of these large companies would make the economy much healthier.

      • @[email protected]
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        62 years ago

        I can’t tell which is the bigger influence but he has certainly gone down the right wing rabbit hole and also insulated himself from all critique as a billionaire who has everyone he talks to regularly on his payroll or otherwise benefitting from him. A bad mix.

        • flipht
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          52 years ago

          I’ve noticed that a lot of these people will lean left for a minute, because they hope that it will get them a get out of jail free card for being problematic in specific ways.

          They find out quickly that the left doesn’t do that. I can support your stance on XYZ while still disliking you and not wanting to do business with you because of ABC.

          So then they switch to regressive stances, because those people will cheer you on for being awful.

          Same thing happened to Reagan. He created the EPA as an executive agency to avoid Congress creating and empowering an independent entity that the executive wouldn’t be able to control. He thought it would get him votes from the left. It did not, and he pretty much immediately stated that he regretted it because lefties didn’t buy his bs.

          • @[email protected]
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            132 years ago

            Same thing happened to Reagan. He created the EPA as an executive agency to avoid Congress creating and empowering an independent entity that the executive wouldn’t be able to control. He thought it would get him votes from the left. It did not, and he pretty much immediately stated that he regretted it because lefties didn’t buy his bs.

            Wait, what?

            The EPA was created by Nixon in 1970, 10 years before Reagan was elected.

            It’s an independent government agency, to this day. The administrator is appointed by the executive branch and approved by the Senate, but it’s not an official cabinet position nor part of the executive branch (but frequently involved in cabinet meetings).

            Reagan tried to dismantle it by appointing Anne Gorsuch, who was very pro-business and anti-“big government”. She ended up slashing their budget by 22% and was held in comtempt of Congress for refusing to provide subpoenaed documents explaining why.

            And Reagan won reelection in one of the largest landslides in US history in 1984.

            (All of this is on Wikipedia.)

    • HuddaBudda
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      112 years ago

      There are days I wait for it, but I imagine one of these days the top is going to pop on South Africa and we are going to not like the skeletons we find there.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        but I imagine one of these days the top is going to pop on South Africa

        What do you mean by this?

        • HuddaBudda
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          82 years ago

          The answer is, I do not know.

          People like Elon’s family didn’t get rich in an emerald mine without Tesla’s business ethics. After all, who do you think Elon learned it from?

          And was Elon’s family the only one? Are we sure of that? Corruption like that doesn’t happen in a vacuum and not without support.

          • @[email protected]
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            2 years ago

            He didn’t get rich from the emerald mine. Its a real thing, but he only made around 400k (in 2021 dollars) on his roughly 200k investment. He didn’t own it either.

            Any actual riches were something else.

            Not to say that 200k is nothing, but it’s not the source of any rich level money his father had.

            The whole emerald mine story has been overblown.

          • @[email protected]
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            122 years ago

            They got rich the same way rich people everywhere get rich - by exploiting impoverished and disempowered labor to the max. The only difference with the Apartheid-regime (to whom Elon owes his riches) was that they were pretty overt when it came to who it was that got to be the impoverished and disempowered labor.

            To be clear… that hasn’t really changed all that much in South Africa. But, then again, it hasn’t really changed in the US, either.

          • @[email protected]
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            92 years ago

            Wait do you mean any day now we could be confronted with the revelation that South African mining companies under apartheid weren’t exactly top of the class in business ethics? But how

      • ZeroCool
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        1102 years ago

        His desperation to impress a bunch of dweebs on the internet is as bizarre as it is pathetic.

        • @[email protected]
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          382 years ago

          I genuinely wouldn’t swap spots with Musk if it meant I had to adopt his character and reputation. Fuuuuck that I’m happy where I am.

          • @[email protected]
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            12 years ago

            I agree, I’d rather make a million dollars ethically than have what Elon has along with his ethics.

    • 👍Maximum Derek👍
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      2 years ago

      Except that so far he hasn’t faced any real repercussions. He keeps selling cars and internet and getting contracts from NASA. A bunch of banks may have to write off their twitter investments but, much like trump for several decades, it will not significantly impact his ability to get new credit.

    • Leraje
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      1202 years ago

      Elon is slowly but surely tearing down everything he has created

      Bought.

      • BarqsHasBite
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        72 years ago

        Always a good distinction. Ever see presentations from the actual founders of Tesla? They are impressive.

    • @[email protected]
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      242 years ago

      Elon is slowly but surely tearing down everything he has created bought.

      Fixed that for you

      Every single accomplishment he has involves buying a company that was already doing it, establishing himself as a “founder”, and then taking all the credit.

      • @[email protected]
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        42 years ago

        He could have gotten away with it too. I never drank the Kool aid with that guy. I know the charismatic sales tech evangelical type too well. I deal with them daily at work. When they stay in their lane they are fine, they bring in the business.

    • Ghostalmedia
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      92 years ago

      Or he’s unlocking the only way to sell EVs to American conservatives.

    • @[email protected]
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      2 years ago

      What has he created? He bought himself into Twitter and Tesla… and the work is essentially done entirely by other people. i.e his employees

      • @[email protected]
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        Yep. And his pet projects that he personally drives always crash and burn. He’s the one that pushed the autopilot feature hard despite his engineers publicly objecting.

      • defunct_punk
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        152 years ago

        what has he created

        One of the best PR campaigns in modern history. Just five years ago people on both sides of the political spectrum were seeing this guy as one of the smartest humans alive, who would actually put man on another planet.

        • @[email protected]
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          82 years ago

          Then he got rid of the PR team and started doing his own PR, and it went as well as it always does when Elon has direct control.

    • @[email protected]
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      182 years ago

      All he had to do was shut up. He could’ve thought all this stuff, maybe done some of it, and still been hailed as a hero. But the more he opens his mouth, the harder he makes it for anyone to overlook who he really is.

      The lack of self-reflection going on here is so painful to watch.

    • Hegar
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      52 years ago

      Other people always did the actual work - he’s just less effectively handled now, so his personal incompetence is harder to hide.

    • andrew
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      202 years ago

      I was about to buy a white Tesla but now I’m not so sure about the Tesla at all, but especially that combination.

      • NumbersCanBeFun
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        292 years ago

        Red or you’re dead to me but I agree. Tesla’s are garbage. They are poorly put together. Just look up some tear down videos of new Tesla’s to witness the horror for yourself.

        Oh also that battery capacity upgrade you can buy? Yeah they can also throttle your battery too via a software update. Imagine if your car manufacturer installed a plug in your gas tank that prevented you from filling it up without paying a fee. The entire business is a complete clown show.

        • andrew
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          2 years ago

          I’m definitely in agreement in general but it’s hard to find anything that quick, which is my favorite part of my aging c63, for the price of a model 3 performance.

            • @[email protected]
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              2 years ago

              Prius is slooooooow :( Bolt EV!!! (though that is not c63 fast and certainly not as nice)

              • NumbersCanBeFun
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                42 years ago

                I’ve never driven one but I tested out the Nissan Leaf through Carvana and I was not a fan of that for sure.

        • @[email protected]
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          42 years ago

          Not to defend deceptive business practices, but software battery limits are slightly different from a fuel tank being smaller. By not allowing the battery to charge as close to its full capacity, a software size limit can actually significantly improve the longevity of the lithium cells. Batteries sustain the most damage when they’re charged completely to full, and even the best battery management systems can’t prevent all of the damage. This is also why charging speed is significantly slower near the end of a full charge cycle.

  • @[email protected]
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    372 years ago

    It’s surely only a matter of time before he becomes a climate change denier, right? He’s gone all in every other right wing weirdo ideology.

    • gregorum
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      32 years ago

      It’s so appropriate that this attempt by Musk to repeat history is just a low-effort reboot.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      Maybe they pulled advertisement but then put in a bid for a human tracking system. They can sell it for pretty cheap because they’ve already got a working system.

  • brothershamus
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    922 years ago

    NOW can we fucking can this guy? SpaceX? Tesla? He’s already flushed the cancer-formerly-known-as-twitter so we’ll leave him that one.

    The significance that it’s IBM calling it first should not be lost on anyone.

  • brothershamus
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    482 years ago

    X CEO Linda Yaccarino has said that most of the platform’s biggest advertisers have returned after dropping the site due to its moderation changes, but Media Matters previously showed that they’re spending far less than they used to. Yaccarino responded later on Thursday, writing that X has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination.”

    “There is no bombing at the airport”

  • Leraje
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    182 years ago

    Yaccarino responded later on Thursday, writing that X has been “extremely clear about our efforts to combat antisemitism and discrimination.”

    To be fair, this is true. Elongated Muskrat is making it very clear what their efforts are.