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Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

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Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#383

This is the biggest thing to happen to twitter since the trump presidency. Both big for twitter, and awful for society.

And both might be related. Motivation for any billionaire to back Republican top candidates is to repeal all Billionaire Tax legislature that might pass soon.

Considering we only have 2 political parties in the US, if you oppose the policies of the party in power you only have one other option. I'm a libertarian and don't have a team I root for, but it's a fact that plenty of hyper-wealthy people support the Democrats.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#384
post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that Elon's pure objective is to get rich and live a lavish lifestyle, you haven't followed him very closely. My impression is that he uses his wealth mostly to invest in other ventures that he feels are important causes to him.

But he makes money from those ventures and is therefore immoral! /s I don't understand why so many people seem to hold the attitude that the only acceptable response to someone having money is to pressure them to squander it by giving it all away to atrociously inefficient systems (government, charities, etc). Making money is not immoral. And neither is using money to make investments to make more money.

Anyone can be critqued...

1) He exploits his workers with typical tech bro enthusiasm, working them to the bone. I hear terrible things about the work culture at his companies. 2) He claims the throne of innovator but many of his successes came from acquisitions which came from his rich parents who ran an exploitative emerald mine. 3) He manipulates the stock market openly. 4) He rarely keeps his promises.

That being said I think he's alright. But it's not just the fact that he uses his money that people complain about him.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#386
post #85

I have obviously missed something but what is the main objection to Musk being part of Twitter's board?

One problem is the culture he's created at his other companies. "Black Tesla employees describe a culture of racism: ‘I was at my breaking point’ " https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-25/black-tesl... "California sues Tesla, alleging rampant racism at factory" https://www.npr.org/2022/02/15/1080884899/california-sues-te... "Black workers accused Tesla of racism for years. Now California is stepping in" htt…

Tesla answered that quite well on their blog https://www.tesla.com/blog/dfehs-misguided-lawsuit

I've not heard Musk being accused of being personally racist - that was more one contractor used racist language in the presence of some other contractor stuff.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#387

Hypothesis: this is not about Elon running Twitter, controlling society, insuring free speech, or any other such thing. It's simply that he wants insurance against being de-platformed, and now he has it.

9% is a hell of an insurance policy. I don't disagree, the man does not do small things, but I do wonder if he just bought insurance for more people than himself.

You're assuming there was some cost/benefit analysis here. Elon has enough money that only the benefit is a factor.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#388

Hypothesis: this is not about Elon running Twitter, controlling society, insuring free speech, or any other such thing. It's simply that he wants insurance against being de-platformed, and now he has it.

9% is a hell of an insurance policy. I don't disagree, the man does not do small things, but I do wonder if he just bought insurance for more people than himself.

Not if you're able to influence the market in a meaningful way from your Twitter handle. How is anyone underestimating Twitter's power at this point?

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An employee exodus from Twitter would only be a good thing in my eyes. They're all too ideological from my experience.

The company will still be ideological, but will simply follow Musk's ideology. Whether that's good or not depends on if you agree with him - I don't.

Not everyone has an ideology. Having an ideology is a bad thing. It generally means you reduce the complexity of the world into a simple narrative, and this results in you having incorrect beliefs, making bad decisions, and supporting bad causes. The goal should be to abandon all ideology, not change to a different, better one, although better is always an improvement over worse.

Re: Elon Musk to join Twitter’s board of directors

#390
post #140

I know it's not popular but I like the fact that he's annoyed and did something about it.

Doesn't hurt that him buying 10% of Twitter is equivalent to the average person buying a new computer.

This incorrect idea that there's any trivial way to make a $4 billion purchase is popular because most people don't understand money in those amounts. It's fine if you have a problem with extreme wealth, but if this is how you think of it, you might not be seeing the actual problems.
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