Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope it escalates into a pay per view cage match.
The last time Elon proposed a cage match he pussied out.
And then lost a fight to 5 year old son?
Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
161–170 of 799 posts
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Elon thought he was buying the presidency in exchange for favors, he wasn't thinking things through. This is the funniest part to me, in the context of THIS president. The guy that demands fully loyalty but gives none? I can't imagine being the richest guy in the world, and embarrassing myself to such a degree all for.. what? He paid maybe $300M to help elect the guy, wore all the stupid hates, lavished orange m…
This crop of billionaires was created from a time when capital was ascendant and state power was on the decline. I think as a result they’ve come to believe that the state is mostly there for their benefit especially during Republican administrations.
Not that both the Republicans and Democrats are very pro large business. Remember Harris raised at least _twice_ as much money from billionaires than Trump.
They're just pro different big businesses, largely based on their demographics.
Personally I'm still annoyed that Obama's administration had the DOE take over servicing federal student loans to "protect students" only for them to somehow be sold to a private company based in Chicago from what I can tell.
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Usually this comes towards the end of a dictatorship. It doesn't seem that way to me, e.g. Putin arrested Khodorkovsky (the richest man in Russia) in 2003. The way I see it, the politician needs the oligarch's money to gain political power, but then he has actual state power, including guns and the judicial system. At that point the oligarch has no purpose -- after all, the politician can just make new ones -- so i…
> If Elon thought he was buying the presidency in exchange for favors, he wasn't thinking things through. This is the funniest part to me, in the context of THIS president. The guy that demands fully loyalty but gives none? I can't imagine being the richest guy in the world, and embarrassing myself to such a degree all for.. what? He paid maybe $300M to help elect the guy, wore all the stupid hates, lavished orange m…
It was weird to see all those billionaire tech bros lining up to kiss his arse. What is the point of spending all that effort to be super rich and powerful if it means you have to grovel to a terrible human being like Trump? Does not compute.
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#164Apparently, 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…
It's really that simple. If you want to know what MAGA supporters believe about any topic, just look up what Trump last said about it. He could change his mind three times in a single day, and they would also change their mind (and talking points) in lock step three times.
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
July 4th we commemorate getting rid of one mad king overseas and replacing him with.. oh wait.
You should always self-host your foreign mad king. The latency to England is just too high.
Canada has done it the right way. Self host but have a redundant backup across the pond.
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
It turns out that when elections are fought on the basis of identity (race, religion) etc corruption is actually considered a benefit! This is because the loyalists interpret this as "we" are winning and "they" are losing. I witnessed this up close in India where parties openly exist to benefit certain constituencies based on caste, language, religion and so on. It is horrifying to see this attitude take root in my a…
Vote banks and patronage politics has always been a thing in the US, especially at the local and state level. The main difference is a significant portion of governance was temporarily de-politicized in the 1960s-90s period as leadership on both sides of the aisle had formative unifying experiences during the World Wars and the Korean War, but has been re-politicized now that activism on both sides of the aisle has r…
Low-level corruption at the local/state level is related but its effects are different though. In fact even today low level corruption in the US is extremely low by global standards - you can't bribe your way to a drivers license openly, for example. I'm sure it happens but it's not common or openly boasted about (parts of CA or DC could be an exception).
Here the corruption is openly displayed as a kind of peacock-tail to the beneficiaries.
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
6 of the people who think all this is completely fine are Supreme Court justices. All of this is enabled by the completely illegitimate Supreme Court decision that made the president a god-king by inventing out of thin air the concept of "presidential immunity". Not only is the scope of "official duties" so broad to make prosseuction next to impossible but the majority went out of its way to say you can't even examin…
This contract dispute has nothing to do with Presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. Cancelling SpaceX contracts for political reasons would be wrong but not criminal.
The point is we won’t find out because presidential immunity also protects against discovery. Cases that previously could have been decided on the merits won’t even make it to adjudication.
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#168It'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…
I've said before that by the time Trump is through America will lie in ruins. I may have been too optimistic, it might happen earlier.
> by the time Trump is through America will lie in ruins
If you had to make that concrete, what would that look like?
GDP growth under 2% annually for >3 years? Dollar losing >50% of its value against a basket of major currencies? Credit rating downgrade below AA- by major agencies? Loss of reserve currency status (measured by 30 days? Mass emigration of >2 million Americans annually?
I'd happily take the other side on any of those, name your price.
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#169"one in eight Americans thinking women are too emotional to be in politics" [1]. Well, I don't know, maybe men should not holding high political offices /s [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/03616843221123...
Maybe neither should. The problem is the power existing in the first place, waiting around for someone like Trump.
Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vote banks and patronage politics has always been a thing in the US, especially at the local and state level. The main difference is a significant portion of governance was temporarily de-politicized in the 1960s-90s period as leadership on both sides of the aisle had formative unifying experiences during the World Wars and the Korean War, but has been re-politicized now that activism on both sides of the aisle has r…
Low-level corruption at the local/state level is related but its effects are different though. In fact even today low level corruption in the US is extremely low by global standards - you can't bribe your way to a drivers license openly, for example. I'm sure it happens but it's not common or openly boasted about (parts of CA or DC could be an exception). Here the corruption is openly displayed as a kind of peacock-t…
I'd rather not have a whole discussion over this atm (I'm out rn - maybe later), but I recommend reading Yuen Yuen Ang's paper on "Unbundling Corruption" - there are different typographies of what "corruption" is, and some nations have always had a similar type of corruption compared to others.
In addition, low level corruption is orthogonal to grand corruption as can be seen in Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and the US.
Finally, Indian public discourse around corruption is non-targeted, and fails to contextualize significant institutional differences in how local, state, and federal governments operate in India compared to other states (be they democratic like the US or authoritarian like China).
[Feel free to add questions or points of contention, but I won't be able to reply quickly]