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Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

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Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#81

Post by CamperBob2 »

abxyz wrote: post #48
kaycebasques wrote: post #40

Apparently, Musk is very popular among Republicans: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/06/elon-musk-...

Musk is popular amongst republicans because Trump has championed him. The pro-Musk Republicans are also pro-Trump republicans and their loyalty to Trump will beat out whatever respect they have for Musk. Musk is not a threat to Trump, because Trump’s entire platform is built on Trump-or-bust. Musk was a useful idiot to Trump. Musk thinking that Trump’s Epstein connection was somehow going to hurt Trump shows just how…

If anything, Trump fans will pat him on the back for pwning those 13-year-old libs.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#82

Post by krapp »

Geee wrote: post #79
the_af wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It's also wild that someone who was a major contributor to the election campaign and a major advisor to the president now declares "well, the president is a pedophile" and nobody bats an eye either. I mean, Musk supporters now have to believe Musk knowingly supported a pedophile but only turned against him after he had a falling out for unrelated reasons? In the eyes of his supporters, what does this say abou…

He supposedly learned it after the fact. Also, he didn't say that, although he surely implied that. However, he only said that Trump is in the "files", which has actually been public information for a long time. It's known that Trump had some relations with Epstein, but there's no evidence he went to the island or did something wrong. It's quite obvious that Elon knows that Trump is not on the actual "list", i.e. the…

To be fair Elon claimed that Trump is mentioned in the remainder of files which have yet to be released. Presumably what evidence there is of wrongdoing, if it exists, exists there.

"Pedo guy" Musk being Musk, though, who knows? What is the likelihood Musk would even have access to those files if they were so damning to Trump and still sealed?

Nothing about this is "quite obvious." It could go either way. To be honest I wouldn't put it past either one of them to be on Epstein's "list."

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#83

Post by CamperBob2 »

coffeemug wrote: post #32
jmyeet wrote: post #18

It's wild to me how many conspiracy theories I've seen about how this is all staged, like it's a distraction or it's just Elon repairing his image and trying to rescue Tesla (whose sales are cratering). Psychologically, I think this is reflective of cognitive dissonance. The two conflicting ideas are that two people with much to lose would get in the dumbest fight imaginable and the myth of meritocracy [1]. You see,…

There is no myth. Both Trump and Elon have generational talent in their respective domains. This is the kind of talent that’s so unique, it creates its own domain that didn’t exist before, and that no one will be able to replicate after. But they’re both unstable, and have many other negative features. One can have an extraordinary talent in starting generational companies, and have a social media addiction (among po…

One of their fathers was a successful slumlord, and the other owned an emerald mine in South Africa. Those provide a one-time advantage (which in Trump's case would have been more profitable if he had socked it away in an index fund.) How do they establish 'generational talent' for being POTUS or building rockets and cars?

It will be interesting to see if any of Elon's offspring choose to follow in his footsteps. Probably not the transgender child he disowned, or the one whose name has to be written with Unicode characters, but that leaves something like 20 others to vie for the throne.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#84

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

coffeemug wrote: post #32
jmyeet wrote: post #18

It's wild to me how many conspiracy theories I've seen about how this is all staged, like it's a distraction or it's just Elon repairing his image and trying to rescue Tesla (whose sales are cratering). Psychologically, I think this is reflective of cognitive dissonance. The two conflicting ideas are that two people with much to lose would get in the dumbest fight imaginable and the myth of meritocracy [1]. You see,…

There is no myth. Both Trump and Elon have generational talent in their respective domains. This is the kind of talent that’s so unique, it creates its own domain that didn’t exist before, and that no one will be able to replicate after. But they’re both unstable, and have many other negative features. One can have an extraordinary talent in starting generational companies, and have a social media addiction (among po…

> One can have an extraordinary talent in starting generational companies

I though Musk was just adept at buying certain companies

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#85

Post by rayiner »

mindslight wrote: post #63
rayiner wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. Republicans voted to close the border and deport illegal aliens, not cut the budget deficit. The fiscally responsible republican party hasn’t existed since the 1920s. Trump has been consistent on this since 2016: he considers Medicare and Social Security untouchable. (The other republicans weren’t going to cut those either, but they were going to talk about reforming them.)

One has to love this chameleon of a Republican "platform" where values and ideals are championed to browbeat support for a particular action, but then written off as irrelevant when they're awkward for analyzing other actions - while other values and ideals are dragged out in support. A week ago, "the debt" was really important. Now that Dear Leader has declared otherwise, apparently it's not. Right into the memory h…

There is a platform: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/platform. No taxes on tips was on the platform (#6) as was no cuts to medicare or social security (#14). Balancing the budget was not on the platform.

There are republicans who care about the debt, but the party as a whole doesn’t. The economic libertarians have been thoroughly marginalized in the modern GOP, because economic libertarianism is unpopular.

To be clear, I admire the traditional small government conservatives, though I am not one. The GOP hasn’t been that party since the 1920s. The mass immigration of the 20th century made that approach unviable. We’re a country of machine politics now and it’s only going to become more pronounced. The guy who ran on “No Taxes on Tips” to buy the Latino vote in Nevada was never going to balance the budget.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#86

Post by sidibe »

coffeemug wrote: post #32
jmyeet wrote: post #18

It's wild to me how many conspiracy theories I've seen about how this is all staged, like it's a distraction or it's just Elon repairing his image and trying to rescue Tesla (whose sales are cratering). Psychologically, I think this is reflective of cognitive dissonance. The two conflicting ideas are that two people with much to lose would get in the dumbest fight imaginable and the myth of meritocracy [1]. You see,…

There is no myth. Both Trump and Elon have generational talent in their respective domains. This is the kind of talent that’s so unique, it creates its own domain that didn’t exist before, and that no one will be able to replicate after. But they’re both unstable, and have many other negative features. One can have an extraordinary talent in starting generational companies, and have a social media addiction (among po…

The only talents they are great at are grift and daring someone to enforce rules against them in a society that largely relies on people holding themselves to standards and risk avoidance instead of active enforcement.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#87

Post by tzs »

rayiner wrote: post #21
fullshark wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public doesn't need elaborate schemes to be distracted, no one actually cares about that stuff. Republicans don't even really care about massive deficit spending in the budget which is out in the open.

Correct. Republicans voted to close the border and deport illegal aliens, not cut the budget deficit. The fiscally responsible republican party hasn’t existed since the 1920s. Trump has been consistent on this since 2016: he considers Medicare and Social Security untouchable. (The other republicans weren’t going to cut those either, but they were going to talk about reforming them.)

> Trump has been consistent on this since 2016: he considers Medicare and Social Security untouchable. (The other republicans weren’t going to cut those either, but they were going to talk about reforming them.)

Technically they weren't going to cut them, but they also weren't doing anything to effectively address the upcoming shortfalls in the SS and Medicare trust funds and in fact the tax changes they are trying to enact would shorten the time to those shortfalls.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#88

Post by [deleted] »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #42

It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…

[deleted]

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#89

Post by CalChris »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #42

It's wild that a president can say, "I don't like Elon anymore, so out of retaliation, I'm canceling all his government contracts," and ~40% of the country doesn't see that as corruption in any way, shape, or form. Government contracts should not be based on whether or not the president likes the CEO, and the CEO says enough good things about the president. If you can cancel contacts not based on merit, then it shoul…

Did this only become 'wild' when it applied to Elon? Also, this Elon that you speak of, isn't he the DOGE Elon? Isn't he the Nazi salute Elon? Or perhaps there's some other Elon that I'm unaware of.

This is literally the Department of Goes Around Comes Around. Elon is Trump's Berezovsky.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#90

Post by rsynnott »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #30
jmyeet wrote: post #18

It's wild to me how many conspiracy theories I've seen about how this is all staged, like it's a distraction or it's just Elon repairing his image and trying to rescue Tesla (whose sales are cratering). Psychologically, I think this is reflective of cognitive dissonance. The two conflicting ideas are that two people with much to lose would get in the dumbest fight imaginable and the myth of meritocracy [1]. You see,…

There's nothing invalid about meritocracy, but that's not what we have. We have some other kind of "ocracy": government by the lucky. I lack the Greek literacy to name the phenomenon correctly but that's what it would translate to in English. Neither Trump nor Musk has any business running anything more impactful than a used car lot or a corner Starbucks franchise, but their competition was permanently out to lunch i…

It's been described as kakistocracy (government by the people who are most unsuitable for government).
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