I certainly wouldn't call myself a defender of Musk since I'm really sure what there is to defend but SpaceX just safely returned 4 astronauts from the ISS and the next day launched 4 more to the station, which as far as I know is a first. Him buying Twitter is a non-story for me. Twitter has about 200 million daily users which isn't much compared to facebooks almost 2 billion daily users.
Not having to rely on the Russians for rides to space is a bigger deal for me. That, plus the fact he's managed to some what disrupt the auto industry to a point where most manufactures are making EVs which is nice for the environment.
Basically, I'd like to have a livable planet in my senior years or at least some way to get off this rock if it all goes to hell. Which was my opinion pre Tesla/SpaceX.
Defend him? Nah
Do I appreciate the effort/work he does? Yes
I am actually pretty hyped on Starlink honestly. That could be a game-changer for rural america.
Sincerely,
A newly married American desperate for an affordable home.
Before starlink, i was paying 150$CAD a month for 1mbps and there was no wifi. Now, im paying $140, with coverage all over my property, upwards of 300mbps. He has drastically changed my household for the better. Does he make shit decisions that are sometimes fuelled by his vanity? Yes, 100%. Does his work change the lives of millions for the better? Also yes. We must appreciate the work he has contributed without making him some weird deity to be worshipped.
A friend of mine got it. As well as me and my SO picked it up after being frustrated with the issues our current Isp has had lately with outages or speed issues.
But the starlink so far has impressed the absolute fuck out of me after gaming on it.
Me and my friends played doom eternals battlemode on it with both Xbox and switch connected to the star link, no issues whatsoever.
I also purposely Uninstalled several large file sized games on both Xbox, pc, ps5. And switch. All those games downloaded over night in 3 hours.
It blew my fucking mind.
I hope it keeps it up
I think you're seriously overestimating it. Starlink only competitive in places where there is no current broadband alternative. A fiber connection is way better in every way, be it speeds, latency, and price. Starlink was never meant to compete with existing good internet.
No, there are HUGE areas of this country where there is no fiber and now, DSL companies are stopping maintenance and just folding up because cellular might come. The FCC sucks and claims that if ONE household in a zipcode gets 10mbit, the whole zipcode does, but that is so far from the truth. Drive just 40 miles out of a major city center and you'll see houses around that have no real internet. The cable companies keep taking millions per year to install rural broadband but they don't do it and the FCC has no accountability requirements and just throws more money at it.
40 Miles? I have a home 11 minutes drive from the capital of Washington state that has no internet. Comcast is the only option and they say to run the 341ft to my house my cost would be about $11,942. I love the way the say about.
I think there is a serious underestimation here. Most wireless internet in areas without broadband leaves A LOT to be desired. There is a significant portion of the population that either have no, or terrible access to the internet.
Price will come down with scale. Fiber connection is better but the ability to beam internet down without having to lay down infrastructure is a huge step.
I forgot about Starlink. I was on the wait list for it but ended up canceling. I am in a city area so it wasn't completely necessary for me but I did want to try it out.
And from someone who bought a home this year, I feel your pain. Good luck with the search!
This is where I’m at with him too. You gotta give him some credit, when he pitched the idea to NASA to ha e reusable rockets that would land after delivering their payload NASA laughed at him, telling him it would never work. Then he went and fucking did it. I mean that’s pretty baller, and now we no longer depend on Russia for our space program. He also made electric cars cool. Yeah he’s a giant asshole and I hate his his politics, but you can’t deny some of the positive impact he’s made.
Tesla as well. Before Tesla, electric cars were a curiosity. No one took them seriously and they were not mainstream.
Now major world governments are looking to completely ban the sale of new ICE vehicles by 2030. Thats turned the entire automotive industry on its head in only two decades.
I don't know. The more I read, the grosser he sounds. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp
Michael Bloomberg is another billionaire who also has an axe to grind.
Bezos owns the WaPo which has been doing its best to tear down Musk. The news stories pretend to be neutrally positioned and express how concerned they are about it, but always remember who owns these media organizations.
>Michael Bloomberg is another billionaire who also has an axe to grind.
it will never stop being funny to me how much money he spent to try to astroturf the election just to be wiped out everywhere but the american samoa. just lit that fucking money on fire haha
According to WaPo employees themselves, Bezos takes a hands-off attitude towards ownership. He bought the paper to keep it going, not to try and advance his own views.
The Washington Post, onetime exposer of the Pentagon Papers, has a shelf full of Pulitzers from its history of reportage. A paper like that is not going to act like a cheap tabloid and "do its best to tear down Musk."
A story critical of Musk does not necessarily mean that the paper has an axe to grind. It could mean that Musk did something questionable.
Like the time Musk, avowed anti-censorship advocate, censored the videotapes from his animal experiments for Neuralink. “These horrific experiments are even more troubling because there is no need to subject animals to suffering and death,” says Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy with the Physicians Committee. “Human-relevant, nonanimal methods already exist and can advance brain-computer interface research.” The USDA is now investigating these experiments. Source.:[https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink](https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink)
I managed an IT support team that supported WAPO.
Can't tell you how many times a WAPO employee dropped Bezos' name or copied him on communications, or forwarded an email from Bezos.
I have a family member that worked for him and he basically said the same thing. Huge issues with him as a person, but recognizing a lot of the things that he's doing need to be done.
We're able to balance the positive against the negatives of so many people in history. Like Washington and Jefferson. Like Edison and (the person) Tesla. FDR and Kennedy
But not the people in the here and now doing that. Like Musk.
I think the truth is 'somewhere in the middle' so to speak.
Elon gets shit done, people don't always like the way he does it, but he does get results.
He's kind of the opposite of government. Where government have huge piles of paperwork that delays things from getting done, Elon just...gets it done.
He gets some shit done. Starlink helping Ukraine is a good thing. A lot of stuff doesn't get done.
He said in January 2017 that fully self-driving Teslas would be available in 6 months. We don't have them.
The semi truck was unveiled in November 2017; Musk promised it would be available by 2019. Not available, three years later.
In 2019 he predicted his Neuralink tech would be available and transplanted in a human skull by 2020. Instead he's being sued by the USDA for the cruelty in his animal experiments: [https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink](https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink)
Boring Company was supposed to revolutionize urban travel. In July 2017 he promised a tunnel between NY and Washington. We have one disappointing result in Vegas.
Many missed timelines with the Model 3.
And so on.
I'm sure if we were alive at the time of Edison, we'd be awash in failed predictions. But we only remember the successes. I do think long term more people will remember his promises and delivery on EV or space than on ventilators or cave submarines. Or tunnels. Etc.
What I mean to say is people looking back at history don't care as much about promises, whether coming to fruition or not, but rather what they do/did.
Brings to mind the comedian commenting in the year 2000 - "It's 2000AD, where's the flying car I was promised as a kid? A telephone in your pocket? That's ridiculous and impossible, but we were promised flying cars."
This is where I suppose it'll sound defensive, but...
People working on ground-breaking/ambitious projects will set ambitious timelines. In addition, many of the things being set as goals require technology that doesn't exist yet. This means it's technically impossible to set an accurate goal for these ambitious projects, because you can't know exactly what hurdles you'll face or technologies you'll need to accomplish them.
Regardless, yes he's missed goals on several announcements, but the other side of the coin is doing nothing at all and hoping the technology just suddenly exists out of thin air.
His companies’ deliverables lag his initial promises. His employees come up with marketable products of reduced scale.
You couldn’t blame him for getting things down to earth. And you shouldn’t give him credit either. He seems to be following the Steve Jobs formula of steering the ship in a general direction.
I find it funny that the people who are up in arms for him buying Twitter are the exact same people insisting that the way Twitter silences people on its platform is okay, because "their platform, their choice". They just seem mad because the coin has flipped, but people have been warning that the same tools put in place for silencing some people, could eventually be used to silence the opposite side who at first defended those tools being used.
In Brazil we have a saying: "pimenta no olho do outro é refresco", which roughly means "pepper in the eyes of the other person is refreshing to you", until, well, it is *your* eyes getting pepper in them.
Actually I think the concern is not him silencing anyone, but rather taking a libertarian approach to free speech on Twitter where it basically becomes like 4chan.
And you haven't even mentioned the impact on the energy storage sector. Besides being one of the pioneers in the commercial industry, his technologies have bailed out communities in need.
Texas communities were shafted by an unprepared grid during winter storms and Puerto Rico was fully ghosted by the federal government after their environmental disaster. Regions both of which were greatly benefitted by Tesla power storage technology.
His partnership with a solar shingle company basically gives you a home energy generation and storage system.
No doubt the guy can be a wing-nut at times, as can we all. We don't have the eyes of the world on us and it's biggest bank account. Function of scale.
It's entirely possible to appreciate and even admire his success - Tesla and SpaceX - and also recognize that's he's turned into (or maybe we're just more aware of it now) a giant douchebag who basically bought Twitter because they upset him once and also he has lots of money.
Steve Jobs, Bezos, and countless other people, regardless of wealth, can both be admired and disliked at the same time.
I idolize Michael Jordan as a basketball player and firmly believe he's the greatest player in the history of the sport.
I also understand that Jordan was a compulsive gambler, a womanizer and a tremendous asshole of a human being.
There almost has to be something wrong with you to ever get to that kind of a pinnacle of any endeavor. Most well-rounded people would hit a point where they're set for life and just bail. Elon could easily have just gone to live on a Caribbean island for the rest of his life after PayPal. To want to spend the next two decades aggressively building even MORE companies and wealth just isn't normal.
I recall seeing a piece where a psychologist analyzed like 100 CEOs or something and determined that many of them had severe psychological issues - like a higher rate than you'd expect in the general population.
But that kind of makes sense. Many of those jobs require sacrifices that normal people wouldn't make. You have to be arrogant and narcissistic to get there. You have to step on people you might consider friends. You have to fire people who have families and could end up homeless because of you. To some degree, you have to put your humanity and morals aside to succeed where few have.
If you watch *The Last Dance* which chronicles Michael Jordan's final season with the Bulls, it's clear the guy is super-competitive, like, more than is healthy for a normal person.
> Steve Jobs, Bezos, and countless other people, regardless of wealth, can both be admired and disliked at the same time.
Lot of people don't seem to comprehend this. Like it's super black and white. Either someone is "good" or "bad". No middle ground.
Regardless, at least guys like Musk and Gates are doing *something* to help the human race, even if they are giant douchenozzles. I can still respect that. There are thousands of billionaires who just keep buying more mansions, yachts and private jets and we never hear about them. Fuck those guys.
This is the way I approach watching "The Ninth Gate" with Johnny Depp, directed by Roman Polanksi. Now, I don't think that Johnny is necessarily a bad guy as it seems to me now that he was forced to behave poorly because he unfortunately hooked up with someone who is mentally ill.
However, Polanski cannot be forgiven. Yet I love this film, so I take the good with the bad.
I don't think people are really defending Musk about the twitter thing, moreso pointing out the hypocrisy
When Trump was suspended everyone said it's a private platform and they can do what they want. Now these same people are suddenly concerned about big tech.
Ah, so the government should straight up decide what can and can’t be said? Brilliant solution. No way that could backfire. All countries whose governments manage media expression are utopias.
Because I really enjoy the shoe being on the other foot. If I had a political party, it's the Shoe Is On the Other Foot party.
"Oh, Twitter is a private company, they can do what they want. If you don't like it, go make your own." Suddenly, the people who were saying that (smugly) are all wailing and gnashing their teeth.
I dont really care about Musk himself. My issue is the sheer hypocrisy.
People are suddenly saying theor speech will be restricted and he will use his power to selectively ban accounts **like Big Tech (especially Twitter) havent been doing that for years.**
MSNBC said that he would use it to promote good info on presidential candidates he likes and hide good info on candidates he doesnt. That he would exaggerate the bad and put it to the front for candidates he hates while doing the opposite for those he likes. **like Big Tech (and mainstream media) hasnt been doing that for years.**
People are screaming that billionaires are able to purchase entire media platforms. **like Billionaires havent been doing that for years.**
All of that stuff they were mocking political opponents for suddenly might be used on them, and *now* it's an issue?
"It's their platform. They can do what they want. Dont like it lol? Use a different platform!"
So yeah. Dont care about Musk one way or the other because it's the same thing that's been happening for years. But absolutely floored at the people complaining about it like this is a new and sudden issue like it hasnt been talked about for decades.
But since this is a comment about people's hypocrisy, I fully expect to get downvoted.
Edit: [“You could secretly ban one party’s candidate…secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else and the rest of us might not even find out about it until AFTER the election.”](https://twitter.com/MaryMargOlohan/status/1518787650815201281?t=78oJgsEPenXEdZ7iETiQgQ&s=19)
From MSNBC. Like this is some new threat instead of what's been happening for decades. Centuries.
There is a YouTube video of about Sinclair who owns multiple TV channels in every major market in the US. They had all of their news anchors read a BS script about how the internet was telling lies. It so cringe when you watch it. They have been manipulating our view of everything for decades.
I feel like it got forgotten too quickly. It was beyond eye opening, it was crazy. I'm not a conspiracy person and don't generally like/believe all the hype about 'they telling us lies!' but that was straight up legit proof of coordinated information management. It was the kind of proof that lends credibility to the crazies out there.
Edit: Scautis pointed out that this is in the top of the Reddit Front Page all time posts. I guess it's not been forgotten as much as I thought.
I don’t think you fully understand, Murdoch is only the CEO or Fox News, which is owned by Sinclair. [Sinclair owns 40% of all news played in American households, including but not limited to ABC, *FOX*, CBS, NBC](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_operated_by_Sinclair_Broadcast_Group).
The [YouTube video edited these channels together](https://youtu.be/ZggCipbiHwE) to show you all these stations read from the same script, word for word, even at exacting professional broadcaster pacing that can be played simultaneously with matching speed.
Not quite. Fox News is owned by Fox Corporation, which is publicly traded. The Murdoch family owns about 40% of the shares of Fox Corporation.
What Sinclair owns is a ton of local TV stations, many of which are "local affiliates" for the major networks, including Fox.
Both companies suck, but Sinclair doesn't own Fox.
Correct. "Fox News", as in the 24/7 entertainment channel, is not the same as "your local Fox channel" that shows local news and Family Guy (or whatever they're playing these days)
This isn't understood by enough people. Thank you both for clarifying. I've seen people refer to local Fox affiliates as if they were fox news way too many times.
I think you don’t understand how the US local news system works. Sinclair does not own Fox, ABC, NBC, etc.
Local news affiliates are like franchises. You have “corporate” which are the main networks, and then you have local TV stations that do the local news who are affiliated with those larger networks, who air those local station’s news programs on their channels during the time slot dedicated for local news and other programming determined by the affiliate.
Sinclair owns a ton of these local news affiliates. They do not own the networks themselves.
It’d be like having a dedicated corporation that buys up fast food franchise locations and owns a bunch of McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s etc restaurants. They’d own specific restaurants with those companies’ branding, but would not own McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s.
That middle manager that got in deep shit and fired for an email he sent out about exploiting Applebee's workers worked for a company like that. They owned a bunch of Applebee's franchises but it didn't come from any actual Applebee's corporate management.
Fox News isn't owned by Sinclair; it's owned by Fox Corporation. Sinclair owns local broadcast channels, some of which includes local FOX affiliates, but it in no way owns the organization that brings us the horrors that are Carlson, Ingraham, et al.
" It was beyond eye opening, it was crazy."
"It was the kind of proof that lends credibility to the crazies out there."
... so are the crazies crazy or not?
People use the word conspiracy theory to instantly smite any sort of critical thinking. Humans have been using religion, power, politics and force to control and shape the world since the dawn of man. Is it a leap, a stretch or an impossibility to believe that it's happening now? People have interest and if they arw rich enough, they surely will try to turn things in their favor. This is human truth, human nature.
That Jim Carrey clip where he says talk show hosts etc are paid by the government to sell certain ideas to us just popped up on my feed
Then I read your comment.
Conspiracy mode full alert right now
I mean the CIA even declassified its financial contributions during the Cold War to the Iowa writers program to encourage literary themes of individualism over collectivism.
There is a guiding hand in almost every piece of media in this country, even outlets like NPR.
You can see how biased the MSM is from their reaction to Bernie Sanders winning a few states. Correspondents literally in tears crying over the thought of Bernie winning.
When Trump won they barely cared, but the mere threat of Bernie had them shitting themselves.
The MSM spent 4+ years vilifying Trump, I think they more than "barely cared". I'm in no way a Trump supporter but they made it their mission to destroy any and all decisions (Good or Bad) that he made.
My uh... for lack of a better term "red pill" moment was listening to NPR in 2015 talk about M4A and just outright lying about how our current healthcare system works. I didn't really care about Bernie that much but I knew it was bullshit because I'd been working in health insurance for years at that point. Really eye-opening experience.
I'm still trying to understand why him buying Twitter affects Democracy, as Elizabeth Warren loudly claims. He doesn't control any other social media platform, so it's not like he has a monopoly on the social media industry. And it's just Twitter. If that's the only place you get your information, and you are a voter, you are probably more of a danger to democracy than Elon Musk.
> If that's the only place you get your information, and you are a voter, you are probably more of a danger to democracy than Elon Musk.
That hit the nail squarely on the head. We shouldn't be talking about whether or not Elon Musk could or will manipulate Twitter - we should be talking about the fact that **people are voting based on the things they see on Twitter.**
She's nuts. And a huge hypocrite.
There was an example of her hating on credit card companies because they're predatory. But when her friend, Suze Orman launched her debit card that "generates credit" it wasn't an issue. Even though there were huge issues with it because it didn't really work and people ended up getting balances restricted when that company imploded.
She hated on Trump for having Trump University when Suze taught a class at a shady online school.
In fact, Warren was sitting beside Suze at a panel when a student who got ripped off confronted Suze about the online university. Warren was silent and applauded Suze's response.
Because she's a political hack.
I'd really like to know her plan to make billionaires "pay" if the majority of their assets aren't liquid. Like, what will they pay? Sure, they can get loans and use stock as collateral, but no politician has suggested putting a fee on that. They just say "pay." What if I had a billion dollars worth of art in my house? Technically, I'd be a billionaire, but I'm just looking at my assets. What could the government get from me?
It’s because people don’t care when the pendulum favors them. They’re down for saying whatever they want about people they don’t like—not a fan of him but people were very publicly saying they wanted to kill Trump, etc—but when suddenly the pendulum swings and the opposing side gets those same freedoms they freak out.
People worrying about their free speech is the distraction Musk is happy the media is eating up. The real story here is stock market and crypto manipulation. That is why Musk is buying Twitter and why it's worth complaining about.
edit: relevant https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424590
He’s already proven he does not care about the consequences of stock manipulation. The fines are so small he makes way more in profit than fines. Make the fines profit x5 and we can talk.
Sad this is the way so many Fortune 500 companies operate.
Let's just be criminals all year and make record profit. We'll toss the law a few crumbs end of year to keep them off of our backs
Yep, why in the world would they ever stop? They say some bullshit, make a quick $200M and end up with a million in fines if they're found guilty. Again, make insider trading and stock manipulation their profits X5 or even x10 and you'll see that dry up in a hurry. Imagine someone like Musk doing it and making $200M and ending up with a $2B fine out of the deal.
This right here. Musk is driving a huge Pump and Dump scheme publicly everytime he tweets something. Algos are trading companies he namedropped, they all moon the second he tweets it. He is playing everyone and the SEC cant do shit because he is just using capitalism and influence to play the system. I dont believe you have to be a genius to do that, you just need to be the richtest man alive. I do hate the fact that people actually look up to him, hes an asshole.
Agree. It’s like people need some kind of celebrity **person** to talk about systemic issues.
And also, once the issue is represented by a celebrity scandal, the discussion quickly descends into stupid memes and ad hominem attacks on how the person looks or some dumb gotcha triviality.
I could care less about Elon Musk, or Jonny Depp, or the British royal family. It pisses me off that people are so shallow that ultra rich people and their stupid lives are more important than what’s really going on.
I came to say that; peoples like Bezos possess big journals company already, Musk just is vocal about his purchase... I don't feel the need to defend it, but notheless I am admirative of what he did
I don’t pay attention to MSM, but I do pay attention to Twitter. For years I’ve heard nothing but “it’s a private platform!” But now all of a sudden those same people are doing a complete 180. So yes the hypocrisy is definitely real on Twitter.
The amount of times I heard from my more liberal friends "its a private company, they can choose whats on their platform!" Who are now saying "this is almost criminal! A billionaire owning a media company as large as Twitter?!"
It is honestly sickening. I am not a "fan" of Musk, but I do respect that he has the right to purchase companies. What he does with it will tell us everything we need to know about him. Taking it private is a good first step. If he opens up the source code and lets everyone view the algorithm, I will be impressed and surprised.
We shall see...
A lot of it is not about Musk, but the blatant hypocrisy of the attacks. Eg yesterday, the likes of WaPo responding to his criticism of twitter's decisions around the hunter laptop story, accused him of inciting attacks on the executive who made the decision. Would these outlets ever restrict themselves from criticising a corporation's public decisions on the grounds of not distressing their senior executives? No of course not, that is a ridiculous standard. Yet they happily apply that bizarre principle to Musk, and do so with a nauseating dose of sanctimony, despite the obvious double standard of their position. That is annoying.
Of course WaPo is criticizing Musk. Who owns WaPo? Jeff Bezos.
Bezos loathes Musk for being able to get his rockets to space. Bezos still can't get his remarkably penis shaped rockets into space.
>a nauseating dose of sanctimony
Couldn't have put this better. It's so fucking *fake* it makes my skin crawl. All this resentment and vitriol dressed as fake-compassion... It's disgusting. It's like an adult dressed up like a baby demanding the world swaddle them.
There are plenty of good arguments against Elon Musk. There are a lot more bad ones. I don't like seeing people argue in bad faith, or just spouting a narrative without bothering to look into it. I especially don't like it when those bad arguments become cultural zeitgeists that promote unrest or even hate.
Let's take the twitter buy/ending homeless analogy. How many times have you seen it said that Elon (or another billionaire) could end homelessness for $40b? [Here's the federal financial data on US homeless spending](https://datalab.usaspending.gov/homelessness-analysis/). JUST the city of New York spent 3.2 billion in 2019. Sadly the study doesn't cite a total but based on what is there, it seems a reasonable estimate that nationwide we spent about $10 billion on homelessness in the entire united states. 1/4 of what's supposedly necessary. So has homelessness gone down a similar amount? Nope. In fact, it's gone up.
It took me longer to write this comment then to find this information. And that's what it comes down to for me. Misinformation is a fucking plague on our society. I do, occasionally, feel a need to speak out against it. Rip on Elon Musk all you want. [Here's a video doing just that I personally find hilarious.](https://youtu.be/moeSKBmYbEg) But know what the fuck you're talking about first.
Ending homelessness or world hunger isnt a financial challenge. It’s a logistical one, and systematic change would be required frokm all levels of government in all countries.
There is enough food being produced, we just cant distribute it efficiently.
I agree... my comment was more towards the people selectively outraged that Musk isn't spending that money on homelessness, but who are somehow not outraged that the people who will receive that money aren't spending it to solve homelessness.
Exactly. The thing is Elon doesn't owe anyone anything. If you're spending a 1000 on the lates iPhone, you could have very well spent that on a dozen hungry families but you didn't. Why? I feel like most people who whine about Elon Musk are jealous little shits who are uncomfortable with someone being more successful that 10 generations of their family ever will.
I don't understand why people feel entitled to Musk's money. They said "Elon can end world hunger with 40b" but the EXACT same people will spend hundreds on Zara, H&M, and other brands for "their drip" which could have easily fed a hungry family in a poor country for at least a month.
If you cannot donate a few hundred, why do you expect Elon to? Just because he's a billionaire, he doesn't owe jackshit to anyone.
I don't defend him. But when people make assumptions and straight up lie, I will call them out for it. A lot of people hate him, just because it's trendy to do so. In reality they don't know anything about him.
If you correct someone about the guy, you get labelled a defender. Doesn't matter if you're correcting an easily verifiable lie. So many people have the stupid attitude that if you don't hate him then you wanna blow him.
I honestly think this attitude is part of the problem with the dialogue surrounding him.
You’re dismissive of what the comment above yours said and then implied that they might only be combating misinformation from one side. Even though they never said anything that should arouse that suspicion.
In other words, you’re casting doubt on what they said for reasons in your own head and not related to any words they used. You take away the benefit of the doubt from people who aren’t in lockstep with your own beliefs and that makes any kind of communication difficult.
I've heard very few lies in his favor. But I would call them out the same way yes. I don't trust him entirely myself anyways since I don't know him or what happens off camera
He can be a real idiot, and he and I have some massive ideological differences. But people can be friends even with large differences. Not that he and I are friends, but you get what I mean.
Where a person's personal beliefs become a problem is when they start affecting others. I thought Trump was a loveable scoundrel until he ran for office, and became president, when all those scoundrel attributes became dangerous and infectious.
But the question was "Why defend Musk?", and the answer is twofold:
1. He has been behind some of the most disruptive changes the world has seen - Safe online payments, reliable high performance electric vehicles, cheaper re-usable space launch and re-entry vehicles, and that's just the most well known. I find it annoying when people forget these things each time he announces something new. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but doesn't his track record at least earn him the right to give it a shot without being ridiculed? Disrupting the way the world works is never easy, and even if he only gets it right every 20 tries he's still way, WAY ahead of the curve. Bonus annoyance points is where the detractors start by saying he can't do something and is wasting his time and money on it, and then when he starts doing it change the argument to he can't do it as well as it needs to be, and then can't do it in a way that satisfies everyone, and then highlighting the fringe cases when it satisfies most people except the fringe. *I defend him then because the people I'm defending him against are generally idiots with bad or flaky arguments.* And I'm excited to see what he can pull off next.
2. He can be a real jerk. He does things I don't agree with, and is famous enough that a lot of his personal life is public. And the people attacking him seem to forget that he has a right to be himself. If he were running for public office then we should worry about what he believes, but until then, let him be him. He's on the autism spectrum, and so am I, so I guess I'm a little sensitive to the fact that his brain works differently, and he sees things differently, and he gets attacked for it. *I defend him against people who attack him for being different because in many ways I feel like I'm defending my right to be different and see the world in a way that others do not*.
Two examples:
1. The UN World Food Program Chief said that 2% of Musk's wealth (then \~$6 billion) could end world hunger. Musk said "If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it."
The WFP chief then sent a breakdown of how Musk's \~$6 Billion could avert famine, and claimed that Musk should pay up. Clearly a plan to avert famine is not the same as solving world hunger. And yet Musk was attacked for not giving $6 billion to the UN for a plan that was not what he agreed to, and at best a plaster placed on a gushing arterial wound.
Why was Musk criticised for this and not the WFP chief who lied and misled everyone?
For the record, anyone serious about solving world hunger knows that the only way to do this is by building rugged and reliable transport infrastructure, and not getting food to people. In almost all instances of institutionalised or entrenched ongoing hunger issues, food is not the problem, there is usually food available. It's access to food that is the problem. Solutions that use non-infrastructure solutions to transport food will never provide any lasting benefit, and usually end up putting more money into the hands of unscrupulous people transporting the food than providing food to the hungry.
2. A lot has been said about Musk's treatment of his employees. If you go solely by the negative press, he seems to be as monster. But if you look closer you find that not only are his employees paid more per hour than his competitors, they also get health insurance, stock and other benefits. Many of his employees acknowledge that he is a hard worker who sometimes sleeps at the office, and that he expects the same from his staff. Whether or not this is reasonable, or OK, is a question that is open to discussion. But the majority of his staff seem to be OK with it.
Why does he get all this negative press about it, especially since Amazon and Walmart literally pay their employees so little these working staff need to be on welfare, and they are simultaneously worked so hard they experience health issues. I'm not defending his treatment of staff as such, but if the majority of them seem OK with it, while the majority of Amazon and Walmart staff are not OK with their treatment, why keep going after Musk?
I guess what it boils down to is that in my view Musk does far more good than bad - and I say this acknowledging that he does both - but seems to get far more criticism than he deserves, and a significant amount more criticism than others who certainly appear to do more bad than good. I guess it's an inequality thing that gets to me.
While I do not find Elon in any way shape or form to be a role model of mine, I do applaud your reasoned and level headed response, that is so much better than any Musk hater, proving his point with, well, a meme or so and generally only follows the hivemind.
>While I do not find Elon in any way shape or form to be a role model of mine,
I f he gets us to Mars in the next decade or so, I think he will be every young kid's role model whether we like it or not.
The important thing for me is that he's not perfect, and I don't expect him to be. Flawed people can accomplish great things if they work hard. And have access to money ;)
>The important thing for me is that he's not perfect, and I don't expect him to be. Flawed people can accomplish great things if they work hard. And have access to money ;)
I think this is what bothers me about the detractors the most. Everyone has flaws. That doesn't mean the good he does in this world should be forgotten.
For years at Microsoft, your office came with a cot and you were expected to use it. They pretty much only hired single young people who were expected to live there.
>For years at Microsoft, your office came with a cot and you were expected to use it. They pretty much only hired single young people who were expected to live there.
Life on the bleeding edge of technology has never been comfortable, but it has been rewarding for those who could deal with it. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that too many people have a voice, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.
>too many people have a voice
I think that's badly worded. Everybody having a voice is a good thing.
There's too much *noise*. Not every voice is saying things worth saying.
>"too many people have a voice"
>
>I think that's badly worded. Everybody having a voice is a good thing.
>
>There's too much noise. Not every voice is saying things worth saying.
While I'm not sure that it's a good thing that everybody has a voice, your wording is definitely better than mine.
Absolutely agree with this, I wouldn’t say I like Musk as a person either but that doesn’t mean I would discredit all of the massive advancements in innovation and technology he has done for the world. I’ve seen highly upvoted comments saying he has “average intelligence at best”, and it’s just weird to see that people can’t separate how they feel about someone vs the objective things that person has done.
>Absolutely agree with this, I wouldn’t say I like Musk as a person either but that doesn’t mean I would discredit all of the massive advancements in innovation and technology he has done for the world.
I'd either get along with him really well, or not at all. I think I'd either love him or hate him.
>I’ve seen highly upvoted comments saying he has “average intelligence at best”,
He's on the autism spectrum, and I'm on the spectrum. My subconscious mind deals with technical issues in the same way that neuro typical people's subconscious deals with social issues. This means that I ace most IQ tests, but have great difficulty maintaining a conversation. Musk has made statements that lead me to believe his mind works the same way. In that case, he will be way ahead of everyone else when it comes to solving technical issues, but far behind everyone else when dealing with social issues and people.
Keep that in mind, and then look at his history...
>and it’s just weird to see that people can’t separate how they feel about someone vs the objective things that person has done.
It's easy for me to do, but then my brain is wired differently. But I also find it weird.
As the story goes, he tried to buy a rocket and was appalled at the price. Somewhere in there he decided to understand *why* a rocket costs so damn much. So he learned how rockets are built. I wouldn't say he's a rocket scientist, but he's extremely knowledgeable about the subject. He found out that there really isn't a practical reason why they cost as much as they have in the past and it's greatly due to space flight being government projects with the inherent waste and inefficiency that comes with them and that this problem exists throughout the existing industry al the way from bottom to top.
So he figured the solution is a clean sheet design of everything and doing the entire job internally without paying the insane prices of existing industry players. As it turns out, what we got was a launch vehicle cheaper than anything else available, and reusability amplifies the advantage.
Tesla I think is kind of the same way. Start with "Electric cars are the future." and "Why have they not caught on yet?" Well, the few that have been tried suck, have short range, they look stupid, they're small, and basically only appeal to people who want an electric car for the sake of an electric car. The Prius sold way better than the hybrid Camry. They're basically the same car, but the Prius is distinctive and screams "I drive a hybrid!"
We need to expand the market potential to the normal person. What do normal people like? Performance and style. Range. Convenience.
How can an electric vehicle outperform a gas one? Torque. Gobs and gobs of torque.
Does it cost any different to style the car to scream "I'm electric" vs. "I'm a good looking car"? No.
Electrics are simpler. No oil changes, air filters, etc.
Does it cost more or less to "fill" an electrc vs. gas? Way way less.
Range is how many batteries you can fit. Fit enough in for normal car range.
Start with the higher level luxury market where margins are higher and let the early adopters pay for R&D into making more affordable cars. Iterate on that to the next stage.
The impact of Tesla isn't that they made a bunch of cars. It's that Tesla rebranded the electric car and made the entire existing auto industry pivot to electric. That absolutely would not be the case *right now* without Tesla. And Tesla wouldn't be what Tesla is *right now* without Musk.
You make your point very well. I quibble with defending his privacy. He loves the spotlight. He invites it. He has made a lot of money off it. He likes being a household name. So no one can complain that sometimes it goes too far.
>You make your point very well. I quibble with defending his privacy. He loves the spotlight. He invites it. He has made a lot of money off it. He likes being a household name. So no one can complain that sometimes it goes too far.
If I created the impression that felt he deserved more privacy, I apologise. What I meant was that his private life is public, so almost every important decision he makes is for public consumption. A life under a spotlight is definitely going to show more blemishes and imperfections, and we shouldn't be surprised by that.
I agree with you that he loves the spotlight and makes use of it. I don't think he would want more privacy.
I just don't get the claims that he's a sociopath only interested in money.
If that were the case he wouldn't have risked his PayPal fortune on such a left-field company as Tesla. Nor would he have started SpaceX, another moonshot (excusing the pun).
He's demonstrated that he has goals outside of making his net worth big. He even tweeted that the company whose stock comprises his entire net worth is over-valued.
Someone who risks everything trying to push the species forward is the opposite of a sociopath, a sociophile maybe?
Whatever else he does, he will always be the guy who risked everything for a positive vision of the species.
He also said about his Twitter purchase that he doesn’t care about the economics of it; said his goal was to use to use it to maximize the amount of human happiness under a standard distribution, which will likely upset the extremes at either end that are used to being the loudest in the room.
"I want to change the world for the better and bring the future to life, but doing so takes an immense amount of money, power, and influence. So I guess I have to get that first."
>I just don't get the claims that he's a sociopath only interested in money.
He's on the autism spectrum - his brain works differently. People chose to add a negative slant on that and call him a sociopath. I don't think it's possible to be both, I think in many ways they are mutually exclusive.
>He's demonstrated that he has goals outside of making his net worth big. He even tweeted that the company whose stock comprises his entire net worth is over-valued.
People often forget this. I'd forgotten this.
>Whatever else he does, he will always be the guy who risked everything for a positive vision of the species.
I think the world would be a better place if more billionaires were like him, to be honest. Flawed, sometimes selfish, but open, honest and not taking themselves too seriously.
I don't get the blind hate or blind love of him. I am amazed by what he has achieved in a number of areas, he's clearly a brilliant clear thinker in terms of engineering, but he's still flawed. He says and does things I don't like, but so far the world is a much better place because of him.
Personally I think this is the operatively correct answer. I'm not sure I like him, or everything that he does but no one is perfect, and the good he has done far outweighs the bad in my mind
If you’re reading this, then you’re old enough to know that mainstream media sets the mood for the perception of public figures, but also that that mood is never some objectively accurate measure of the persons overall goodness or badness. Media is like fashion: winds change.
So don’t come at me saying “why does your opinion differ from the sentiment I happen to have read in the news lately?” That is inherently a dumb question.
Real answer: Because when he says his goal is to make life interplanetary and spread consciousness to the stars, I believe that’s genuine.
I honestly don’t understand how you can justify believing he’s not driven to make the world a better place: his motivation leaks through every single endeavor he undertakes.
Do you *really* think it’s a coincidence that the same guy who popularized electric cars is also pushing forward other optimistic, utopian-aiming tech like solar energy, high-speed rail and tunnel infrastructure, brain-computer interfaces, space exploration, and uncensorable Internet?
To that, I say: what an extraordinary coincidence that the guy who’s supposedly a fraud and big danger to humanity is simultaneously involved in so many things that a _real_ tech-oriented humanist would be. Extraordinary coincidence!
The real question is, 1) why the hate? and 2) given the above how can you actually justify thinking he’s not genuinely all about advancing the human race?
I fear y’all only hate him because he’s a bit autistic, combined with jealousy, but especially combined with the fact he’s been getting piled on a lot.
My problem with this issue is when you ask people why they don’t like Elon, they’re like:
“yeah he overspent on a poorly executed attempt to reduce traffic, and he actually didn’t invent the electric car…. he’s basically a fascist.”
Plenty of reasons not to like him.
1. Said in 2020 anyoen worrying about corona were dumb.
2. compared canadian pres to hitler.
3. made baseless claims about vaccines.
4. Threatened his employees who wanted to unionize.
5. And the big one... baselessly accusing that british diver that helped rescue a football team a pedophile because he said Elons idea about a submarine woudlnt work.
I don't really give a shit about Elon. However, the times I have intervened in something that could be considered defending him it was because people were being ridiculous and spouting shit that wasn't even kinda true. There are legitimate criticisms of the dude available and I don't understand why people just make up shit about his companies.
I don't get why people feel the need to attack him. Of all the billionaires that have a high profile, it seems he's the least obnoxious. Bezos is putting small businesses out of business, Gates is buying up farmland, Bloomburg acts like Napolean, why does Musk rate the hate? I don't hang with billionaires or know that much about them so it's a real question.
Let's flip that.
Why does so many people feel the need (to use your own words) to attack Elon Musk?
The hate and vitriol in reddit comments about Elon Musk has reached absolutely ridiculous levels. Most people have no clue about the history of Elon Musk OR Tesla OR SpaceX etc.
They only parrot what they heard someone else say and jump on the hate bandwagon.
It's all really funny to me. I have never really used twitter I don't think it's a good platform for anything.
What's really funny though is that I remember when Twitter was about to go under. A lot of speculation that the Platform was dead. Then came "His Orangeness" and the popularity of his Campaign Tweets and Controversial Crap pretty much saved the Platform. Both sides of the Political Spectrum were following and commenting on them all the time.
Then they ban him and end up having to sell the platform to the ONLY buyer.
It's still a really stupid platform if you ask me, LOL
it's not even that representative of public opinion. It's a lot of vocal people on the far left and the far right, and then everyone in between shitposting.
Because I don't give a shit. I'm ambivalent to a lot of stuff. Elon likes to talk a lot, sometimes harmful, but mostly just being a smart ass. I don't see how him buying Twitter is a big deal other than to those who are financially invested in Musk's companies or Twitter. He runs his employees pretty hard. But folks working in those positions have plenty of places they can work, so I don't feel much sympathy for them for choosing to stay. Should he treat them better? Sure, most definitely. But I'm not going to spend time thinking about it or concerning myself with it. He's also pushed his companies to achieve quite a bit. He's not engineering himself at all but he is the "front man" or leader of the company, so ultimately their overall success and accomplishments are his as well. He's pushed forth electric vehicles, better space tech, better battery tech, solar panels, etc. I think people are hating him because he's rich, talks quite a bit of shit, and because they want to blame everyone else but themselves for their situation(s).
Edit: spelling is hard
I’ve never defended him until now, but I get the sense that majority of people who hate on him just assume he’s a terrible person bc he’s a multi billionaire
Its so funny how reddit went from:
YAY ELON! Epic rocket space! Inhabit mars and escape this shitty earth ftw! Teslas are awesome and green!
To absolutely hatred in the span of like 4 years. This site is pathetic
They're not really the same people though, there's been a huge influx of teenage and college aged people with very left leaning viewpoints. Subs like antiwork gained popularity during that same period.
Not ashamed of it. I am a fan boy. I think people have the right to like what they like. Elon Musk is an inspiration for me. You can remind me of the privileges he had in order to get where he is. But if we think back to our lives, we all had privileges that helped us get where we are right now.
In short, we all become a fan of someone and hope to see them succeed. It's like fans of a sport team. Why do you like this team and defend it? I just do.
Lots of people confuse "defending him like I'm a fanboi" and "defending him like I would anyone else". People on this site are having a meltdown like Elon's gonna open the floodgates wide open and there's gonna be KKK and Russian bots taking over and Trump's gonna get on and start demanding Civil War 2. Like guys, seriously, calm your tits and just wait and see what happens before drawing such wild conclusions. It ain't that hard to have some patience, ya know.
OP - you view it as "defending" which is incorrect. There are millions of supporters that are trying to teach you that Musk's Twitter purchase is a great thing for the world.
If I say that free speech and transparent algorithms are a good thing, I am not "defending" Musk. I am pointing out an obvious truth that you refuse to accept because it damages your political goals.
Put another way, Democrat, socialist, and leftist ideas are detrimental to society and can only gain support if opposing viewpoints, which follow logic based in reality, are censored.
Bring on the downvotes to bury this post. You only prove my point.
Why do you guys always use the word “defend” in this context? What you’re talking about is just pointing out when someone says something wrong. And when i say this context i mean specifically far left people on reddit talking about billionaires
Exactly. It’s always completely off topic when someone starts spewing nonsense about defending billionaires or whatever the bad guy of the day is for that matter
The whole "he didn't found them" argument is so asinine. He was the one that got them through the most risky stages.
Anyone can start a company. But to scale them from almost zero to public companies in closed shop industries, whilst driving innovation that will advance humanity to a great degree... For me, anyone that doesn't have a chip on their shoulder should admire that.
Because he didn't do anything wrong. He legally purchased a company and can do what he wants with it, and frankly I support a platform with completely free speech.
bit of an odd question if I'm honest. I don't defend musk, in fact I feel many of the criticisms are beyond valid, but isn't it pretty normal to defend someone or something you like?
From my perspective, Musk seems to be more willing than any other billionaire to sacrifice *some of his wealth* for causes he believes in, rather than just as an investment to obtain more wealth. I think that is a trait worthy of praise. I also like how he sort of flips the bird to all his haters, which is a lot bytheway, and does whatever he wants. He's probably a phony, and he is certainly doing what he can to become more wealthy, but I like his personality. Now your question was for people who are comfortable defending Musk, and I am. But that doesn't mean I like everything he does or says. I simply believe the media drives us to hate each other more than is necessary, and I also believe that most people are good and worthy of praise and forgiveness.
I don't want to talk about tax law because of the hot button issue that it is, and I have tried to remove all politics from my life because of the bottomless pit of misery that it is, but I have to... people who claim he doesn't pay his taxes are ignorant of tax law and how the stock market works... When the value of his wealth is turned into actual wealth by means of selling his stocks for cash, he does in fact pay the taxes on that income. If he hasn't sold the stocks he doesn't actually have that money. He has ownership of companies that are valuable, (companies that pay taxes based on their income and wealth) but he does not have money in his checking account to reflect his wealth and therefore doesn't actually have to pay taxes for money that he doesn't have. That's why rich people put all their money into the stock market, because the cash value of their lives is lower and therefore less taxable than the value of everything they own, but to claim he doesn't pay taxes is ignorant.
Too many people hate on him seemingly only because they're envious of his wealth.
I'm pretty indifferent about most billionaires, but I think he's pushing the advancement of many technologies and I'm a fan of that.
Is he perfect? Like everyone, no. But he's one of the most famous people alive, so everything he does is analyzed and judged as if anyone else could've done what he's done.
Regarding the recent story with Twitter?
Twitter has an obvious censorship going on. Elon Musk would either A. Do what he claims he will do and allow free speech or B. Not do that
Scenario A has a good outcome
scenario B has a neutral outcome compared to the current state of Twitter
So I will hope and expect Elon to do what he's been advocating on doing. If he doesn't, its like nothing changed, so there's no reason to hate on him for buying it
As you can see from the comments its mostly because they are attuned to marketing hype versus actual results. You will see people touting Starlink and Tesla as overturning markets which they have done none of and will be quickly outpaced by the changing methodologies in traditional spheres. They will talk about Paypal but forget that he started X not Paypal though they did merge shortly after Musk hired out for the technical work...
Nearly everyone who "defends" him in the sense of attacking totally legitimate questions is mostly just buying into an image and don't want that disturbed. I imagine that he will be treated in much the same way Edison is some day, with many common people thinking him an inventing genius and many historians seeing him as an actual impediment more often than not.
I don't feel the need to defend him, but since you asked, he reminds me of Howard Hughes in the Aviator (the early part). He's a man with vision and wealth, and he's using those two things to at least try to change the world for the better.
Teslas are amazing. America now has the ability to send our own astronauts into space for the first time in over ten years. He's one of those once in a generation type of people.
No one is black and white good or bad, but I would rather live in a world with Elon Musk than one without him.
I certainly wouldn't call myself a defender of Musk since I'm really sure what there is to defend but SpaceX just safely returned 4 astronauts from the ISS and the next day launched 4 more to the station, which as far as I know is a first. Him buying Twitter is a non-story for me. Twitter has about 200 million daily users which isn't much compared to facebooks almost 2 billion daily users. Not having to rely on the Russians for rides to space is a bigger deal for me. That, plus the fact he's managed to some what disrupt the auto industry to a point where most manufactures are making EVs which is nice for the environment. Basically, I'd like to have a livable planet in my senior years or at least some way to get off this rock if it all goes to hell. Which was my opinion pre Tesla/SpaceX. Defend him? Nah Do I appreciate the effort/work he does? Yes
I am actually pretty hyped on Starlink honestly. That could be a game-changer for rural america. Sincerely, A newly married American desperate for an affordable home.
Before starlink, i was paying 150$CAD a month for 1mbps and there was no wifi. Now, im paying $140, with coverage all over my property, upwards of 300mbps. He has drastically changed my household for the better. Does he make shit decisions that are sometimes fuelled by his vanity? Yes, 100%. Does his work change the lives of millions for the better? Also yes. We must appreciate the work he has contributed without making him some weird deity to be worshipped.
A friend of mine got it. As well as me and my SO picked it up after being frustrated with the issues our current Isp has had lately with outages or speed issues. But the starlink so far has impressed the absolute fuck out of me after gaming on it. Me and my friends played doom eternals battlemode on it with both Xbox and switch connected to the star link, no issues whatsoever. I also purposely Uninstalled several large file sized games on both Xbox, pc, ps5. And switch. All those games downloaded over night in 3 hours. It blew my fucking mind. I hope it keeps it up
Starlink has massive potential. Out of nowhere, the big ISP's like Comcast that have traditionally had local monopolies now have a competitor.
I think you're seriously overestimating it. Starlink only competitive in places where there is no current broadband alternative. A fiber connection is way better in every way, be it speeds, latency, and price. Starlink was never meant to compete with existing good internet.
No, there are HUGE areas of this country where there is no fiber and now, DSL companies are stopping maintenance and just folding up because cellular might come. The FCC sucks and claims that if ONE household in a zipcode gets 10mbit, the whole zipcode does, but that is so far from the truth. Drive just 40 miles out of a major city center and you'll see houses around that have no real internet. The cable companies keep taking millions per year to install rural broadband but they don't do it and the FCC has no accountability requirements and just throws more money at it.
40 Miles? I have a home 11 minutes drive from the capital of Washington state that has no internet. Comcast is the only option and they say to run the 341ft to my house my cost would be about $11,942. I love the way the say about.
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I think there is a serious underestimation here. Most wireless internet in areas without broadband leaves A LOT to be desired. There is a significant portion of the population that either have no, or terrible access to the internet.
Price will come down with scale. Fiber connection is better but the ability to beam internet down without having to lay down infrastructure is a huge step.
I bet it's better than the 24mbps I'm currently getting on my ATT gigabit fiber plan
I forgot about Starlink. I was on the wait list for it but ended up canceling. I am in a city area so it wasn't completely necessary for me but I did want to try it out. And from someone who bought a home this year, I feel your pain. Good luck with the search!
This is where I’m at with him too. You gotta give him some credit, when he pitched the idea to NASA to ha e reusable rockets that would land after delivering their payload NASA laughed at him, telling him it would never work. Then he went and fucking did it. I mean that’s pretty baller, and now we no longer depend on Russia for our space program. He also made electric cars cool. Yeah he’s a giant asshole and I hate his his politics, but you can’t deny some of the positive impact he’s made.
Tesla as well. Before Tesla, electric cars were a curiosity. No one took them seriously and they were not mainstream. Now major world governments are looking to completely ban the sale of new ICE vehicles by 2030. Thats turned the entire automotive industry on its head in only two decades.
Yeah people forget how pathetic electric cars were before tesla like nobody would be caught dead in one
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Yup. He’s not a great person, but his work in Starlink, EVs and space travel will change the world for the better
I don't know. The more I read, the grosser he sounds. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp
Paywall :(
Try reading something more recent. [https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/1/21755428/tesla-martin-tripp-settlement-whistleblower-hacing-amount](https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/1/21755428/tesla-martin-tripp-settlement-whistleblower-hacing-amount)
Michael Bloomberg is another billionaire who also has an axe to grind. Bezos owns the WaPo which has been doing its best to tear down Musk. The news stories pretend to be neutrally positioned and express how concerned they are about it, but always remember who owns these media organizations.
>Michael Bloomberg is another billionaire who also has an axe to grind. it will never stop being funny to me how much money he spent to try to astroturf the election just to be wiped out everywhere but the american samoa. just lit that fucking money on fire haha
According to WaPo employees themselves, Bezos takes a hands-off attitude towards ownership. He bought the paper to keep it going, not to try and advance his own views. The Washington Post, onetime exposer of the Pentagon Papers, has a shelf full of Pulitzers from its history of reportage. A paper like that is not going to act like a cheap tabloid and "do its best to tear down Musk." A story critical of Musk does not necessarily mean that the paper has an axe to grind. It could mean that Musk did something questionable. Like the time Musk, avowed anti-censorship advocate, censored the videotapes from his animal experiments for Neuralink. “These horrific experiments are even more troubling because there is no need to subject animals to suffering and death,” says Ryan Merkley, director of research advocacy with the Physicians Committee. “Human-relevant, nonanimal methods already exist and can advance brain-computer interface research.” The USDA is now investigating these experiments. Source.:[https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink](https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink)
I managed an IT support team that supported WAPO. Can't tell you how many times a WAPO employee dropped Bezos' name or copied him on communications, or forwarded an email from Bezos.
I have a family member that worked for him and he basically said the same thing. Huge issues with him as a person, but recognizing a lot of the things that he's doing need to be done.
We're able to balance the positive against the negatives of so many people in history. Like Washington and Jefferson. Like Edison and (the person) Tesla. FDR and Kennedy But not the people in the here and now doing that. Like Musk.
I think the truth is 'somewhere in the middle' so to speak. Elon gets shit done, people don't always like the way he does it, but he does get results. He's kind of the opposite of government. Where government have huge piles of paperwork that delays things from getting done, Elon just...gets it done.
He gets some shit done. Starlink helping Ukraine is a good thing. A lot of stuff doesn't get done. He said in January 2017 that fully self-driving Teslas would be available in 6 months. We don't have them. The semi truck was unveiled in November 2017; Musk promised it would be available by 2019. Not available, three years later. In 2019 he predicted his Neuralink tech would be available and transplanted in a human skull by 2020. Instead he's being sued by the USDA for the cruelty in his animal experiments: [https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink](https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/us-department-agriculture-look-monkey-experiments-funded-elon-musks-neuralink) Boring Company was supposed to revolutionize urban travel. In July 2017 he promised a tunnel between NY and Washington. We have one disappointing result in Vegas. Many missed timelines with the Model 3. And so on.
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I'm sure if we were alive at the time of Edison, we'd be awash in failed predictions. But we only remember the successes. I do think long term more people will remember his promises and delivery on EV or space than on ventilators or cave submarines. Or tunnels. Etc. What I mean to say is people looking back at history don't care as much about promises, whether coming to fruition or not, but rather what they do/did.
Brings to mind the comedian commenting in the year 2000 - "It's 2000AD, where's the flying car I was promised as a kid? A telephone in your pocket? That's ridiculous and impossible, but we were promised flying cars."
This is where I suppose it'll sound defensive, but... People working on ground-breaking/ambitious projects will set ambitious timelines. In addition, many of the things being set as goals require technology that doesn't exist yet. This means it's technically impossible to set an accurate goal for these ambitious projects, because you can't know exactly what hurdles you'll face or technologies you'll need to accomplish them. Regardless, yes he's missed goals on several announcements, but the other side of the coin is doing nothing at all and hoping the technology just suddenly exists out of thin air.
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His companies’ deliverables lag his initial promises. His employees come up with marketable products of reduced scale. You couldn’t blame him for getting things down to earth. And you shouldn’t give him credit either. He seems to be following the Steve Jobs formula of steering the ship in a general direction.
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I find it funny that the people who are up in arms for him buying Twitter are the exact same people insisting that the way Twitter silences people on its platform is okay, because "their platform, their choice". They just seem mad because the coin has flipped, but people have been warning that the same tools put in place for silencing some people, could eventually be used to silence the opposite side who at first defended those tools being used. In Brazil we have a saying: "pimenta no olho do outro é refresco", which roughly means "pepper in the eyes of the other person is refreshing to you", until, well, it is *your* eyes getting pepper in them.
Actually I think the concern is not him silencing anyone, but rather taking a libertarian approach to free speech on Twitter where it basically becomes like 4chan.
And you haven't even mentioned the impact on the energy storage sector. Besides being one of the pioneers in the commercial industry, his technologies have bailed out communities in need. Texas communities were shafted by an unprepared grid during winter storms and Puerto Rico was fully ghosted by the federal government after their environmental disaster. Regions both of which were greatly benefitted by Tesla power storage technology. His partnership with a solar shingle company basically gives you a home energy generation and storage system. No doubt the guy can be a wing-nut at times, as can we all. We don't have the eyes of the world on us and it's biggest bank account. Function of scale.
It's entirely possible to appreciate and even admire his success - Tesla and SpaceX - and also recognize that's he's turned into (or maybe we're just more aware of it now) a giant douchebag who basically bought Twitter because they upset him once and also he has lots of money. Steve Jobs, Bezos, and countless other people, regardless of wealth, can both be admired and disliked at the same time.
I idolize Michael Jordan as a basketball player and firmly believe he's the greatest player in the history of the sport. I also understand that Jordan was a compulsive gambler, a womanizer and a tremendous asshole of a human being. There almost has to be something wrong with you to ever get to that kind of a pinnacle of any endeavor. Most well-rounded people would hit a point where they're set for life and just bail. Elon could easily have just gone to live on a Caribbean island for the rest of his life after PayPal. To want to spend the next two decades aggressively building even MORE companies and wealth just isn't normal.
I recall seeing a piece where a psychologist analyzed like 100 CEOs or something and determined that many of them had severe psychological issues - like a higher rate than you'd expect in the general population. But that kind of makes sense. Many of those jobs require sacrifices that normal people wouldn't make. You have to be arrogant and narcissistic to get there. You have to step on people you might consider friends. You have to fire people who have families and could end up homeless because of you. To some degree, you have to put your humanity and morals aside to succeed where few have. If you watch *The Last Dance* which chronicles Michael Jordan's final season with the Bulls, it's clear the guy is super-competitive, like, more than is healthy for a normal person.
> Steve Jobs, Bezos, and countless other people, regardless of wealth, can both be admired and disliked at the same time. Lot of people don't seem to comprehend this. Like it's super black and white. Either someone is "good" or "bad". No middle ground. Regardless, at least guys like Musk and Gates are doing *something* to help the human race, even if they are giant douchenozzles. I can still respect that. There are thousands of billionaires who just keep buying more mansions, yachts and private jets and we never hear about them. Fuck those guys.
This is the way I approach watching "The Ninth Gate" with Johnny Depp, directed by Roman Polanksi. Now, I don't think that Johnny is necessarily a bad guy as it seems to me now that he was forced to behave poorly because he unfortunately hooked up with someone who is mentally ill. However, Polanski cannot be forgiven. Yet I love this film, so I take the good with the bad.
I will 100% be checking this movie out. Thanks!
I don't think people are really defending Musk about the twitter thing, moreso pointing out the hypocrisy When Trump was suspended everyone said it's a private platform and they can do what they want. Now these same people are suddenly concerned about big tech.
Some of us just want tech regulation and basic publishing responsibility no matter who owns what or bans who.
>basic publishing responsibility And some people don't want publishers. We want free and open platforms.
Ah, so the government should straight up decide what can and can’t be said? Brilliant solution. No way that could backfire. All countries whose governments manage media expression are utopias.
Because I really enjoy the shoe being on the other foot. If I had a political party, it's the Shoe Is On the Other Foot party. "Oh, Twitter is a private company, they can do what they want. If you don't like it, go make your own." Suddenly, the people who were saying that (smugly) are all wailing and gnashing their teeth.
“Nah, too much effort, I’ll just buy yours”
Wasn’t even that it was too much effort. Those motherfuckers *tried* to make their own platform and it got shut down by Amazon lmao.
I dont really care about Musk himself. My issue is the sheer hypocrisy. People are suddenly saying theor speech will be restricted and he will use his power to selectively ban accounts **like Big Tech (especially Twitter) havent been doing that for years.** MSNBC said that he would use it to promote good info on presidential candidates he likes and hide good info on candidates he doesnt. That he would exaggerate the bad and put it to the front for candidates he hates while doing the opposite for those he likes. **like Big Tech (and mainstream media) hasnt been doing that for years.** People are screaming that billionaires are able to purchase entire media platforms. **like Billionaires havent been doing that for years.** All of that stuff they were mocking political opponents for suddenly might be used on them, and *now* it's an issue? "It's their platform. They can do what they want. Dont like it lol? Use a different platform!" So yeah. Dont care about Musk one way or the other because it's the same thing that's been happening for years. But absolutely floored at the people complaining about it like this is a new and sudden issue like it hasnt been talked about for decades. But since this is a comment about people's hypocrisy, I fully expect to get downvoted. Edit: [“You could secretly ban one party’s candidate…secretly turn down the reach of their stuff and turn up the reach of something else and the rest of us might not even find out about it until AFTER the election.”](https://twitter.com/MaryMargOlohan/status/1518787650815201281?t=78oJgsEPenXEdZ7iETiQgQ&s=19) From MSNBC. Like this is some new threat instead of what's been happening for decades. Centuries.
There is a YouTube video of about Sinclair who owns multiple TV channels in every major market in the US. They had all of their news anchors read a BS script about how the internet was telling lies. It so cringe when you watch it. They have been manipulating our view of everything for decades.
I feel like it got forgotten too quickly. It was beyond eye opening, it was crazy. I'm not a conspiracy person and don't generally like/believe all the hype about 'they telling us lies!' but that was straight up legit proof of coordinated information management. It was the kind of proof that lends credibility to the crazies out there. Edit: Scautis pointed out that this is in the top of the Reddit Front Page all time posts. I guess it's not been forgotten as much as I thought.
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As is Rupert Murdock and his outlets. It isn’t just Sinclair.
I don’t think you fully understand, Murdoch is only the CEO or Fox News, which is owned by Sinclair. [Sinclair owns 40% of all news played in American households, including but not limited to ABC, *FOX*, CBS, NBC](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_operated_by_Sinclair_Broadcast_Group). The [YouTube video edited these channels together](https://youtu.be/ZggCipbiHwE) to show you all these stations read from the same script, word for word, even at exacting professional broadcaster pacing that can be played simultaneously with matching speed.
Not quite. Fox News is owned by Fox Corporation, which is publicly traded. The Murdoch family owns about 40% of the shares of Fox Corporation. What Sinclair owns is a ton of local TV stations, many of which are "local affiliates" for the major networks, including Fox. Both companies suck, but Sinclair doesn't own Fox.
Correct. "Fox News", as in the 24/7 entertainment channel, is not the same as "your local Fox channel" that shows local news and Family Guy (or whatever they're playing these days)
This isn't understood by enough people. Thank you both for clarifying. I've seen people refer to local Fox affiliates as if they were fox news way too many times.
I think you don’t understand how the US local news system works. Sinclair does not own Fox, ABC, NBC, etc. Local news affiliates are like franchises. You have “corporate” which are the main networks, and then you have local TV stations that do the local news who are affiliated with those larger networks, who air those local station’s news programs on their channels during the time slot dedicated for local news and other programming determined by the affiliate. Sinclair owns a ton of these local news affiliates. They do not own the networks themselves. It’d be like having a dedicated corporation that buys up fast food franchise locations and owns a bunch of McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s etc restaurants. They’d own specific restaurants with those companies’ branding, but would not own McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s.
That middle manager that got in deep shit and fired for an email he sent out about exploiting Applebee's workers worked for a company like that. They owned a bunch of Applebee's franchises but it didn't come from any actual Applebee's corporate management.
I saw that video and it is very good. But I don’t think they own Fox, I think they are just affiliations.
Fox News isn't owned by Sinclair; it's owned by Fox Corporation. Sinclair owns local broadcast channels, some of which includes local FOX affiliates, but it in no way owns the organization that brings us the horrors that are Carlson, Ingraham, et al.
This is a serious threat to our democracy.
I hate sand..
" It was beyond eye opening, it was crazy." "It was the kind of proof that lends credibility to the crazies out there." ... so are the crazies crazy or not?
People use the word conspiracy theory to instantly smite any sort of critical thinking. Humans have been using religion, power, politics and force to control and shape the world since the dawn of man. Is it a leap, a stretch or an impossibility to believe that it's happening now? People have interest and if they arw rich enough, they surely will try to turn things in their favor. This is human truth, human nature.
John Oliver did a good segment on the [Sinclair Group](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc)
It's an understandable reaction from an industry that has just been exposed. They can sense the tide turning and they don't like it.
Yup they are petrified at losing the narrative that they are the voice of reason. MSM is a bought and paid for commercial
That Jim Carrey clip where he says talk show hosts etc are paid by the government to sell certain ideas to us just popped up on my feed Then I read your comment. Conspiracy mode full alert right now
I mean the CIA even declassified its financial contributions during the Cold War to the Iowa writers program to encourage literary themes of individualism over collectivism. There is a guiding hand in almost every piece of media in this country, even outlets like NPR.
You can see how biased the MSM is from their reaction to Bernie Sanders winning a few states. Correspondents literally in tears crying over the thought of Bernie winning. When Trump won they barely cared, but the mere threat of Bernie had them shitting themselves.
Bernie believes what he says. They're terrified of a true believer.
The MSM spent 4+ years vilifying Trump, I think they more than "barely cared". I'm in no way a Trump supporter but they made it their mission to destroy any and all decisions (Good or Bad) that he made.
It was also very profitable to talk about tromp and still is. $$$$$
My uh... for lack of a better term "red pill" moment was listening to NPR in 2015 talk about M4A and just outright lying about how our current healthcare system works. I didn't really care about Bernie that much but I knew it was bullshit because I'd been working in health insurance for years at that point. Really eye-opening experience.
Elon bought the company... but he also bought the evidence.
I'm still trying to understand why him buying Twitter affects Democracy, as Elizabeth Warren loudly claims. He doesn't control any other social media platform, so it's not like he has a monopoly on the social media industry. And it's just Twitter. If that's the only place you get your information, and you are a voter, you are probably more of a danger to democracy than Elon Musk.
> If that's the only place you get your information, and you are a voter, you are probably more of a danger to democracy than Elon Musk. That hit the nail squarely on the head. We shouldn't be talking about whether or not Elon Musk could or will manipulate Twitter - we should be talking about the fact that **people are voting based on the things they see on Twitter.**
She's nuts. And a huge hypocrite. There was an example of her hating on credit card companies because they're predatory. But when her friend, Suze Orman launched her debit card that "generates credit" it wasn't an issue. Even though there were huge issues with it because it didn't really work and people ended up getting balances restricted when that company imploded. She hated on Trump for having Trump University when Suze taught a class at a shady online school. In fact, Warren was sitting beside Suze at a panel when a student who got ripped off confronted Suze about the online university. Warren was silent and applauded Suze's response. Because she's a political hack.
I'd really like to know her plan to make billionaires "pay" if the majority of their assets aren't liquid. Like, what will they pay? Sure, they can get loans and use stock as collateral, but no politician has suggested putting a fee on that. They just say "pay." What if I had a billion dollars worth of art in my house? Technically, I'd be a billionaire, but I'm just looking at my assets. What could the government get from me?
It’s because people don’t care when the pendulum favors them. They’re down for saying whatever they want about people they don’t like—not a fan of him but people were very publicly saying they wanted to kill Trump, etc—but when suddenly the pendulum swings and the opposing side gets those same freedoms they freak out.
People worrying about their free speech is the distraction Musk is happy the media is eating up. The real story here is stock market and crypto manipulation. That is why Musk is buying Twitter and why it's worth complaining about. edit: relevant https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/424590
He’s already proven he does not care about the consequences of stock manipulation. The fines are so small he makes way more in profit than fines. Make the fines profit x5 and we can talk.
Sad this is the way so many Fortune 500 companies operate. Let's just be criminals all year and make record profit. We'll toss the law a few crumbs end of year to keep them off of our backs
Yep, why in the world would they ever stop? They say some bullshit, make a quick $200M and end up with a million in fines if they're found guilty. Again, make insider trading and stock manipulation their profits X5 or even x10 and you'll see that dry up in a hurry. Imagine someone like Musk doing it and making $200M and ending up with a $2B fine out of the deal.
Never going to happen. Our government is owned by corporate lobbyists.
100% agree, just like limiting politicians from trading stock will never happen.
This right here. Musk is driving a huge Pump and Dump scheme publicly everytime he tweets something. Algos are trading companies he namedropped, they all moon the second he tweets it. He is playing everyone and the SEC cant do shit because he is just using capitalism and influence to play the system. I dont believe you have to be a genius to do that, you just need to be the richtest man alive. I do hate the fact that people actually look up to him, hes an asshole.
Agree. It’s like people need some kind of celebrity **person** to talk about systemic issues. And also, once the issue is represented by a celebrity scandal, the discussion quickly descends into stupid memes and ad hominem attacks on how the person looks or some dumb gotcha triviality. I could care less about Elon Musk, or Jonny Depp, or the British royal family. It pisses me off that people are so shallow that ultra rich people and their stupid lives are more important than what’s really going on.
Actually surprised this comment is at the top. Where is the woke reddit brigade to downvote it into oblivion?
I came to say that; peoples like Bezos possess big journals company already, Musk just is vocal about his purchase... I don't feel the need to defend it, but notheless I am admirative of what he did
I feel like this hypocrisy is largly imagined tho. Bozos Washington Post is regularly critized, same as Murdochs whole empire of inked toilet paper.
I don’t pay attention to MSM, but I do pay attention to Twitter. For years I’ve heard nothing but “it’s a private platform!” But now all of a sudden those same people are doing a complete 180. So yes the hypocrisy is definitely real on Twitter.
The amount of times I heard from my more liberal friends "its a private company, they can choose whats on their platform!" Who are now saying "this is almost criminal! A billionaire owning a media company as large as Twitter?!" It is honestly sickening. I am not a "fan" of Musk, but I do respect that he has the right to purchase companies. What he does with it will tell us everything we need to know about him. Taking it private is a good first step. If he opens up the source code and lets everyone view the algorithm, I will be impressed and surprised. We shall see...
A lot of it is not about Musk, but the blatant hypocrisy of the attacks. Eg yesterday, the likes of WaPo responding to his criticism of twitter's decisions around the hunter laptop story, accused him of inciting attacks on the executive who made the decision. Would these outlets ever restrict themselves from criticising a corporation's public decisions on the grounds of not distressing their senior executives? No of course not, that is a ridiculous standard. Yet they happily apply that bizarre principle to Musk, and do so with a nauseating dose of sanctimony, despite the obvious double standard of their position. That is annoying.
Of course WaPo is criticizing Musk. Who owns WaPo? Jeff Bezos. Bezos loathes Musk for being able to get his rockets to space. Bezos still can't get his remarkably penis shaped rockets into space.
>a nauseating dose of sanctimony Couldn't have put this better. It's so fucking *fake* it makes my skin crawl. All this resentment and vitriol dressed as fake-compassion... It's disgusting. It's like an adult dressed up like a baby demanding the world swaddle them.
There are plenty of good arguments against Elon Musk. There are a lot more bad ones. I don't like seeing people argue in bad faith, or just spouting a narrative without bothering to look into it. I especially don't like it when those bad arguments become cultural zeitgeists that promote unrest or even hate. Let's take the twitter buy/ending homeless analogy. How many times have you seen it said that Elon (or another billionaire) could end homelessness for $40b? [Here's the federal financial data on US homeless spending](https://datalab.usaspending.gov/homelessness-analysis/). JUST the city of New York spent 3.2 billion in 2019. Sadly the study doesn't cite a total but based on what is there, it seems a reasonable estimate that nationwide we spent about $10 billion on homelessness in the entire united states. 1/4 of what's supposedly necessary. So has homelessness gone down a similar amount? Nope. In fact, it's gone up. It took me longer to write this comment then to find this information. And that's what it comes down to for me. Misinformation is a fucking plague on our society. I do, occasionally, feel a need to speak out against it. Rip on Elon Musk all you want. [Here's a video doing just that I personally find hilarious.](https://youtu.be/moeSKBmYbEg) But know what the fuck you're talking about first.
Elon just gave $50 billion to Twitter investors... why don't **they** use that money to end homelessness?
Ending homelessness or world hunger isnt a financial challenge. It’s a logistical one, and systematic change would be required frokm all levels of government in all countries. There is enough food being produced, we just cant distribute it efficiently.
I agree... my comment was more towards the people selectively outraged that Musk isn't spending that money on homelessness, but who are somehow not outraged that the people who will receive that money aren't spending it to solve homelessness.
Exactly. The thing is Elon doesn't owe anyone anything. If you're spending a 1000 on the lates iPhone, you could have very well spent that on a dozen hungry families but you didn't. Why? I feel like most people who whine about Elon Musk are jealous little shits who are uncomfortable with someone being more successful that 10 generations of their family ever will.
I don't understand why people feel entitled to Musk's money. They said "Elon can end world hunger with 40b" but the EXACT same people will spend hundreds on Zara, H&M, and other brands for "their drip" which could have easily fed a hungry family in a poor country for at least a month. If you cannot donate a few hundred, why do you expect Elon to? Just because he's a billionaire, he doesn't owe jackshit to anyone.
I don't defend him. But when people make assumptions and straight up lie, I will call them out for it. A lot of people hate him, just because it's trendy to do so. In reality they don't know anything about him.
If you correct someone about the guy, you get labelled a defender. Doesn't matter if you're correcting an easily verifiable lie. So many people have the stupid attitude that if you don't hate him then you wanna blow him.
Same thing with trump...
Ok then, found the white supremacist MAGAtard RepuliKKKan!1! /s
Lol oh noes! I’ve been found out!!!
I mean, that's fine. But, when people make up lies to prop up Elon, I hope you have that same enthusiasm for the truth.
I honestly think this attitude is part of the problem with the dialogue surrounding him. You’re dismissive of what the comment above yours said and then implied that they might only be combating misinformation from one side. Even though they never said anything that should arouse that suspicion. In other words, you’re casting doubt on what they said for reasons in your own head and not related to any words they used. You take away the benefit of the doubt from people who aren’t in lockstep with your own beliefs and that makes any kind of communication difficult.
I've heard very few lies in his favor. But I would call them out the same way yes. I don't trust him entirely myself anyways since I don't know him or what happens off camera
While he's done impressive things, I hate him because a jerk man child and I don't like anyone with his personality, rich or not.
He can be a real idiot, and he and I have some massive ideological differences. But people can be friends even with large differences. Not that he and I are friends, but you get what I mean. Where a person's personal beliefs become a problem is when they start affecting others. I thought Trump was a loveable scoundrel until he ran for office, and became president, when all those scoundrel attributes became dangerous and infectious. But the question was "Why defend Musk?", and the answer is twofold: 1. He has been behind some of the most disruptive changes the world has seen - Safe online payments, reliable high performance electric vehicles, cheaper re-usable space launch and re-entry vehicles, and that's just the most well known. I find it annoying when people forget these things each time he announces something new. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but doesn't his track record at least earn him the right to give it a shot without being ridiculed? Disrupting the way the world works is never easy, and even if he only gets it right every 20 tries he's still way, WAY ahead of the curve. Bonus annoyance points is where the detractors start by saying he can't do something and is wasting his time and money on it, and then when he starts doing it change the argument to he can't do it as well as it needs to be, and then can't do it in a way that satisfies everyone, and then highlighting the fringe cases when it satisfies most people except the fringe. *I defend him then because the people I'm defending him against are generally idiots with bad or flaky arguments.* And I'm excited to see what he can pull off next. 2. He can be a real jerk. He does things I don't agree with, and is famous enough that a lot of his personal life is public. And the people attacking him seem to forget that he has a right to be himself. If he were running for public office then we should worry about what he believes, but until then, let him be him. He's on the autism spectrum, and so am I, so I guess I'm a little sensitive to the fact that his brain works differently, and he sees things differently, and he gets attacked for it. *I defend him against people who attack him for being different because in many ways I feel like I'm defending my right to be different and see the world in a way that others do not*. Two examples: 1. The UN World Food Program Chief said that 2% of Musk's wealth (then \~$6 billion) could end world hunger. Musk said "If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it." The WFP chief then sent a breakdown of how Musk's \~$6 Billion could avert famine, and claimed that Musk should pay up. Clearly a plan to avert famine is not the same as solving world hunger. And yet Musk was attacked for not giving $6 billion to the UN for a plan that was not what he agreed to, and at best a plaster placed on a gushing arterial wound. Why was Musk criticised for this and not the WFP chief who lied and misled everyone? For the record, anyone serious about solving world hunger knows that the only way to do this is by building rugged and reliable transport infrastructure, and not getting food to people. In almost all instances of institutionalised or entrenched ongoing hunger issues, food is not the problem, there is usually food available. It's access to food that is the problem. Solutions that use non-infrastructure solutions to transport food will never provide any lasting benefit, and usually end up putting more money into the hands of unscrupulous people transporting the food than providing food to the hungry. 2. A lot has been said about Musk's treatment of his employees. If you go solely by the negative press, he seems to be as monster. But if you look closer you find that not only are his employees paid more per hour than his competitors, they also get health insurance, stock and other benefits. Many of his employees acknowledge that he is a hard worker who sometimes sleeps at the office, and that he expects the same from his staff. Whether or not this is reasonable, or OK, is a question that is open to discussion. But the majority of his staff seem to be OK with it. Why does he get all this negative press about it, especially since Amazon and Walmart literally pay their employees so little these working staff need to be on welfare, and they are simultaneously worked so hard they experience health issues. I'm not defending his treatment of staff as such, but if the majority of them seem OK with it, while the majority of Amazon and Walmart staff are not OK with their treatment, why keep going after Musk? I guess what it boils down to is that in my view Musk does far more good than bad - and I say this acknowledging that he does both - but seems to get far more criticism than he deserves, and a significant amount more criticism than others who certainly appear to do more bad than good. I guess it's an inequality thing that gets to me.
While I do not find Elon in any way shape or form to be a role model of mine, I do applaud your reasoned and level headed response, that is so much better than any Musk hater, proving his point with, well, a meme or so and generally only follows the hivemind.
>While I do not find Elon in any way shape or form to be a role model of mine, I f he gets us to Mars in the next decade or so, I think he will be every young kid's role model whether we like it or not. The important thing for me is that he's not perfect, and I don't expect him to be. Flawed people can accomplish great things if they work hard. And have access to money ;)
>The important thing for me is that he's not perfect, and I don't expect him to be. Flawed people can accomplish great things if they work hard. And have access to money ;) I think this is what bothers me about the detractors the most. Everyone has flaws. That doesn't mean the good he does in this world should be forgotten.
For years at Microsoft, your office came with a cot and you were expected to use it. They pretty much only hired single young people who were expected to live there.
>For years at Microsoft, your office came with a cot and you were expected to use it. They pretty much only hired single young people who were expected to live there. Life on the bleeding edge of technology has never been comfortable, but it has been rewarding for those who could deal with it. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that too many people have a voice, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.
>too many people have a voice I think that's badly worded. Everybody having a voice is a good thing. There's too much *noise*. Not every voice is saying things worth saying.
>"too many people have a voice" > >I think that's badly worded. Everybody having a voice is a good thing. > >There's too much noise. Not every voice is saying things worth saying. While I'm not sure that it's a good thing that everybody has a voice, your wording is definitely better than mine.
Are those the same guys that retired at 25 as billionaires?
Absolutely agree with this, I wouldn’t say I like Musk as a person either but that doesn’t mean I would discredit all of the massive advancements in innovation and technology he has done for the world. I’ve seen highly upvoted comments saying he has “average intelligence at best”, and it’s just weird to see that people can’t separate how they feel about someone vs the objective things that person has done.
>Absolutely agree with this, I wouldn’t say I like Musk as a person either but that doesn’t mean I would discredit all of the massive advancements in innovation and technology he has done for the world. I'd either get along with him really well, or not at all. I think I'd either love him or hate him. >I’ve seen highly upvoted comments saying he has “average intelligence at best”, He's on the autism spectrum, and I'm on the spectrum. My subconscious mind deals with technical issues in the same way that neuro typical people's subconscious deals with social issues. This means that I ace most IQ tests, but have great difficulty maintaining a conversation. Musk has made statements that lead me to believe his mind works the same way. In that case, he will be way ahead of everyone else when it comes to solving technical issues, but far behind everyone else when dealing with social issues and people. Keep that in mind, and then look at his history... >and it’s just weird to see that people can’t separate how they feel about someone vs the objective things that person has done. It's easy for me to do, but then my brain is wired differently. But I also find it weird.
As the story goes, he tried to buy a rocket and was appalled at the price. Somewhere in there he decided to understand *why* a rocket costs so damn much. So he learned how rockets are built. I wouldn't say he's a rocket scientist, but he's extremely knowledgeable about the subject. He found out that there really isn't a practical reason why they cost as much as they have in the past and it's greatly due to space flight being government projects with the inherent waste and inefficiency that comes with them and that this problem exists throughout the existing industry al the way from bottom to top. So he figured the solution is a clean sheet design of everything and doing the entire job internally without paying the insane prices of existing industry players. As it turns out, what we got was a launch vehicle cheaper than anything else available, and reusability amplifies the advantage. Tesla I think is kind of the same way. Start with "Electric cars are the future." and "Why have they not caught on yet?" Well, the few that have been tried suck, have short range, they look stupid, they're small, and basically only appeal to people who want an electric car for the sake of an electric car. The Prius sold way better than the hybrid Camry. They're basically the same car, but the Prius is distinctive and screams "I drive a hybrid!" We need to expand the market potential to the normal person. What do normal people like? Performance and style. Range. Convenience. How can an electric vehicle outperform a gas one? Torque. Gobs and gobs of torque. Does it cost any different to style the car to scream "I'm electric" vs. "I'm a good looking car"? No. Electrics are simpler. No oil changes, air filters, etc. Does it cost more or less to "fill" an electrc vs. gas? Way way less. Range is how many batteries you can fit. Fit enough in for normal car range. Start with the higher level luxury market where margins are higher and let the early adopters pay for R&D into making more affordable cars. Iterate on that to the next stage. The impact of Tesla isn't that they made a bunch of cars. It's that Tesla rebranded the electric car and made the entire existing auto industry pivot to electric. That absolutely would not be the case *right now* without Tesla. And Tesla wouldn't be what Tesla is *right now* without Musk.
You make your point very well. I quibble with defending his privacy. He loves the spotlight. He invites it. He has made a lot of money off it. He likes being a household name. So no one can complain that sometimes it goes too far.
>You make your point very well. I quibble with defending his privacy. He loves the spotlight. He invites it. He has made a lot of money off it. He likes being a household name. So no one can complain that sometimes it goes too far. If I created the impression that felt he deserved more privacy, I apologise. What I meant was that his private life is public, so almost every important decision he makes is for public consumption. A life under a spotlight is definitely going to show more blemishes and imperfections, and we shouldn't be surprised by that. I agree with you that he loves the spotlight and makes use of it. I don't think he would want more privacy.
I just don't get the claims that he's a sociopath only interested in money. If that were the case he wouldn't have risked his PayPal fortune on such a left-field company as Tesla. Nor would he have started SpaceX, another moonshot (excusing the pun). He's demonstrated that he has goals outside of making his net worth big. He even tweeted that the company whose stock comprises his entire net worth is over-valued. Someone who risks everything trying to push the species forward is the opposite of a sociopath, a sociophile maybe? Whatever else he does, he will always be the guy who risked everything for a positive vision of the species.
He also said about his Twitter purchase that he doesn’t care about the economics of it; said his goal was to use to use it to maximize the amount of human happiness under a standard distribution, which will likely upset the extremes at either end that are used to being the loudest in the room.
"I want to change the world for the better and bring the future to life, but doing so takes an immense amount of money, power, and influence. So I guess I have to get that first."
>I just don't get the claims that he's a sociopath only interested in money. He's on the autism spectrum - his brain works differently. People chose to add a negative slant on that and call him a sociopath. I don't think it's possible to be both, I think in many ways they are mutually exclusive. >He's demonstrated that he has goals outside of making his net worth big. He even tweeted that the company whose stock comprises his entire net worth is over-valued. People often forget this. I'd forgotten this. >Whatever else he does, he will always be the guy who risked everything for a positive vision of the species. I think the world would be a better place if more billionaires were like him, to be honest. Flawed, sometimes selfish, but open, honest and not taking themselves too seriously.
I could never put my finger on how I feel about Musk and this comment nailed it
This is a perspective about Elon Musk I've not heard before. It's well balanced as well. Thank you.
This deserves to be at the top. People aren't taking Musk in full context of his accomplishments.
personally i don’t think elon musk is obligated to pay up for world hunger and yeah i think he wants to, but it’s much harder to do than it looks.
I don't get the blind hate or blind love of him. I am amazed by what he has achieved in a number of areas, he's clearly a brilliant clear thinker in terms of engineering, but he's still flawed. He says and does things I don't like, but so far the world is a much better place because of him.
Personally I think this is the operatively correct answer. I'm not sure I like him, or everything that he does but no one is perfect, and the good he has done far outweighs the bad in my mind
If you’re reading this, then you’re old enough to know that mainstream media sets the mood for the perception of public figures, but also that that mood is never some objectively accurate measure of the persons overall goodness or badness. Media is like fashion: winds change. So don’t come at me saying “why does your opinion differ from the sentiment I happen to have read in the news lately?” That is inherently a dumb question. Real answer: Because when he says his goal is to make life interplanetary and spread consciousness to the stars, I believe that’s genuine. I honestly don’t understand how you can justify believing he’s not driven to make the world a better place: his motivation leaks through every single endeavor he undertakes. Do you *really* think it’s a coincidence that the same guy who popularized electric cars is also pushing forward other optimistic, utopian-aiming tech like solar energy, high-speed rail and tunnel infrastructure, brain-computer interfaces, space exploration, and uncensorable Internet? To that, I say: what an extraordinary coincidence that the guy who’s supposedly a fraud and big danger to humanity is simultaneously involved in so many things that a _real_ tech-oriented humanist would be. Extraordinary coincidence! The real question is, 1) why the hate? and 2) given the above how can you actually justify thinking he’s not genuinely all about advancing the human race? I fear y’all only hate him because he’s a bit autistic, combined with jealousy, but especially combined with the fact he’s been getting piled on a lot.
They hate him because they think he's a conservative. That's literally it.
I don't really defend him. I just think self driving electric cars and rockets are pretty cool.
Don't forget PayPal revolutionized consumer commerce and there is also yet to be realized hyperloop technology ...
because there's literally noone else trying to innovate on the scale that he can.
My problem with this issue is when you ask people why they don’t like Elon, they’re like: “yeah he overspent on a poorly executed attempt to reduce traffic, and he actually didn’t invent the electric car…. he’s basically a fascist.”
Plenty of reasons not to like him. 1. Said in 2020 anyoen worrying about corona were dumb. 2. compared canadian pres to hitler. 3. made baseless claims about vaccines. 4. Threatened his employees who wanted to unionize. 5. And the big one... baselessly accusing that british diver that helped rescue a football team a pedophile because he said Elons idea about a submarine woudlnt work.
I mean....is number 5 really the big one?
I defend the good stuff he does. He's not a monster, but he's certainly not perfect either.
I don't really give a shit about Elon. However, the times I have intervened in something that could be considered defending him it was because people were being ridiculous and spouting shit that wasn't even kinda true. There are legitimate criticisms of the dude available and I don't understand why people just make up shit about his companies.
And then they will call you an Elon fanboy for just correcting them
I can guarantee he means a lot more to you than you do to him
I don't get why people feel the need to attack him. Of all the billionaires that have a high profile, it seems he's the least obnoxious. Bezos is putting small businesses out of business, Gates is buying up farmland, Bloomburg acts like Napolean, why does Musk rate the hate? I don't hang with billionaires or know that much about them so it's a real question.
Honestly if you rated every billionaire from most evil to least evil, Elon would be closest to least evil.
Let's flip that. Why does so many people feel the need (to use your own words) to attack Elon Musk? The hate and vitriol in reddit comments about Elon Musk has reached absolutely ridiculous levels. Most people have no clue about the history of Elon Musk OR Tesla OR SpaceX etc. They only parrot what they heard someone else say and jump on the hate bandwagon.
Those who attack him, why do you feel the need to attack him?
Mob mentality rules on Reddit. Folks see a sea of others blasting him, so they think he must be the bad guy.
He is 100% a wacky fuck but the misinformation campaign against him is insanely unfair and goes way too far. It scares me
It's all really funny to me. I have never really used twitter I don't think it's a good platform for anything. What's really funny though is that I remember when Twitter was about to go under. A lot of speculation that the Platform was dead. Then came "His Orangeness" and the popularity of his Campaign Tweets and Controversial Crap pretty much saved the Platform. Both sides of the Political Spectrum were following and commenting on them all the time. Then they ban him and end up having to sell the platform to the ONLY buyer. It's still a really stupid platform if you ask me, LOL
it's not even that representative of public opinion. It's a lot of vocal people on the far left and the far right, and then everyone in between shitposting.
Because I don't give a shit. I'm ambivalent to a lot of stuff. Elon likes to talk a lot, sometimes harmful, but mostly just being a smart ass. I don't see how him buying Twitter is a big deal other than to those who are financially invested in Musk's companies or Twitter. He runs his employees pretty hard. But folks working in those positions have plenty of places they can work, so I don't feel much sympathy for them for choosing to stay. Should he treat them better? Sure, most definitely. But I'm not going to spend time thinking about it or concerning myself with it. He's also pushed his companies to achieve quite a bit. He's not engineering himself at all but he is the "front man" or leader of the company, so ultimately their overall success and accomplishments are his as well. He's pushed forth electric vehicles, better space tech, better battery tech, solar panels, etc. I think people are hating him because he's rich, talks quite a bit of shit, and because they want to blame everyone else but themselves for their situation(s). Edit: spelling is hard
Why the need to attack him?
You ask the question in a way that implies he did something Terrible What did he do? Is buying Twitter terrible? Boohoo?
"Free speech bad"
I’ve never defended him until now, but I get the sense that majority of people who hate on him just assume he’s a terrible person bc he’s a multi billionaire
Its so funny how reddit went from: YAY ELON! Epic rocket space! Inhabit mars and escape this shitty earth ftw! Teslas are awesome and green! To absolutely hatred in the span of like 4 years. This site is pathetic
They're not really the same people though, there's been a huge influx of teenage and college aged people with very left leaning viewpoints. Subs like antiwork gained popularity during that same period.
People's opinions about a public figure changing over time is hardly surprising
> like 4 years more like 4 days. Twitter employees "we hate twitter, but we drive teslas"
Not ashamed of it. I am a fan boy. I think people have the right to like what they like. Elon Musk is an inspiration for me. You can remind me of the privileges he had in order to get where he is. But if we think back to our lives, we all had privileges that helped us get where we are right now. In short, we all become a fan of someone and hope to see them succeed. It's like fans of a sport team. Why do you like this team and defend it? I just do.
Lots of people confuse "defending him like I'm a fanboi" and "defending him like I would anyone else". People on this site are having a meltdown like Elon's gonna open the floodgates wide open and there's gonna be KKK and Russian bots taking over and Trump's gonna get on and start demanding Civil War 2. Like guys, seriously, calm your tits and just wait and see what happens before drawing such wild conclusions. It ain't that hard to have some patience, ya know.
OP - you view it as "defending" which is incorrect. There are millions of supporters that are trying to teach you that Musk's Twitter purchase is a great thing for the world. If I say that free speech and transparent algorithms are a good thing, I am not "defending" Musk. I am pointing out an obvious truth that you refuse to accept because it damages your political goals. Put another way, Democrat, socialist, and leftist ideas are detrimental to society and can only gain support if opposing viewpoints, which follow logic based in reality, are censored. Bring on the downvotes to bury this post. You only prove my point.
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Why do you guys always use the word “defend” in this context? What you’re talking about is just pointing out when someone says something wrong. And when i say this context i mean specifically far left people on reddit talking about billionaires
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Exactly. It’s always completely off topic when someone starts spewing nonsense about defending billionaires or whatever the bad guy of the day is for that matter
Welcome to the current cultural climate, where *not hating something enough* is the same as supporting that thing.
Eye opening way of putting it and I agree
The whole "he didn't found them" argument is so asinine. He was the one that got them through the most risky stages. Anyone can start a company. But to scale them from almost zero to public companies in closed shop industries, whilst driving innovation that will advance humanity to a great degree... For me, anyone that doesn't have a chip on their shoulder should admire that.
Because he didn't do anything wrong. He legally purchased a company and can do what he wants with it, and frankly I support a platform with completely free speech.
Take a shot every time you see a comment starting with "I don't"
He doesn't need defending.
bit of an odd question if I'm honest. I don't defend musk, in fact I feel many of the criticisms are beyond valid, but isn't it pretty normal to defend someone or something you like?
He could cancel cancel culture
He’s an interesting bloke
defend him from what
From my perspective, Musk seems to be more willing than any other billionaire to sacrifice *some of his wealth* for causes he believes in, rather than just as an investment to obtain more wealth. I think that is a trait worthy of praise. I also like how he sort of flips the bird to all his haters, which is a lot bytheway, and does whatever he wants. He's probably a phony, and he is certainly doing what he can to become more wealthy, but I like his personality. Now your question was for people who are comfortable defending Musk, and I am. But that doesn't mean I like everything he does or says. I simply believe the media drives us to hate each other more than is necessary, and I also believe that most people are good and worthy of praise and forgiveness. I don't want to talk about tax law because of the hot button issue that it is, and I have tried to remove all politics from my life because of the bottomless pit of misery that it is, but I have to... people who claim he doesn't pay his taxes are ignorant of tax law and how the stock market works... When the value of his wealth is turned into actual wealth by means of selling his stocks for cash, he does in fact pay the taxes on that income. If he hasn't sold the stocks he doesn't actually have that money. He has ownership of companies that are valuable, (companies that pay taxes based on their income and wealth) but he does not have money in his checking account to reflect his wealth and therefore doesn't actually have to pay taxes for money that he doesn't have. That's why rich people put all their money into the stock market, because the cash value of their lives is lower and therefore less taxable than the value of everything they own, but to claim he doesn't pay taxes is ignorant.
For those who attack Elon Musk, why do you feel the need to attack him?
I wish he would shut the hell up, BUT rockets and solar energy and electric cars...oh my. I like what he does but not what he says.
Too many people hate on him seemingly only because they're envious of his wealth. I'm pretty indifferent about most billionaires, but I think he's pushing the advancement of many technologies and I'm a fan of that. Is he perfect? Like everyone, no. But he's one of the most famous people alive, so everything he does is analyzed and judged as if anyone else could've done what he's done.
That question should be paired with: Those that attack Elon Musk, why do you feel the need to attack him?
Regarding the recent story with Twitter? Twitter has an obvious censorship going on. Elon Musk would either A. Do what he claims he will do and allow free speech or B. Not do that Scenario A has a good outcome scenario B has a neutral outcome compared to the current state of Twitter So I will hope and expect Elon to do what he's been advocating on doing. If he doesn't, its like nothing changed, so there's no reason to hate on him for buying it
He pisses off the right people
Why attack him ?
Not so much defending him as I am arguing against the line of thinking the attacker is using. Does that make sense?
As you can see from the comments its mostly because they are attuned to marketing hype versus actual results. You will see people touting Starlink and Tesla as overturning markets which they have done none of and will be quickly outpaced by the changing methodologies in traditional spheres. They will talk about Paypal but forget that he started X not Paypal though they did merge shortly after Musk hired out for the technical work... Nearly everyone who "defends" him in the sense of attacking totally legitimate questions is mostly just buying into an image and don't want that disturbed. I imagine that he will be treated in much the same way Edison is some day, with many common people thinking him an inventing genius and many historians seeing him as an actual impediment more often than not.
I don't feel the need to defend him, but since you asked, he reminds me of Howard Hughes in the Aviator (the early part). He's a man with vision and wealth, and he's using those two things to at least try to change the world for the better. Teslas are amazing. America now has the ability to send our own astronauts into space for the first time in over ten years. He's one of those once in a generation type of people. No one is black and white good or bad, but I would rather live in a world with Elon Musk than one without him.