Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

spacenews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 799 posts

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#181

Post by thinkindie »

andrepd wrote: post #160
thinkindie wrote: post #148

At least Berlusconi didn't have access to nuclear warheads. Seriously, I visited the US few times between 2005 and 2010 and each time people were raising the topic of Berlusconi. How can you have a president like that, who voted for him, bunga bunga etc etc. Now you know how you can have such personality in power too. With even more power.

The Italians truly invent everything first, eh? Fascism, trumpism, etc

Trumpism is just another league I believe. You may say it's Berlusconism on steroids, but the global impact makes this a thing by itself.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#182

Post by cosmicgadget »

kaycebasques wrote: post #40

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

Trump has unprecedented power of retribution. The best Elon can pull off is swearing at opponents in an interview.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#183

Post by baxtr »

andrepd wrote: post #160
thinkindie wrote: post #148

At least Berlusconi didn't have access to nuclear warheads. Seriously, I visited the US few times between 2005 and 2010 and each time people were raising the topic of Berlusconi. How can you have a president like that, who voted for him, bunga bunga etc etc. Now you know how you can have such personality in power too. With even more power.

The Italians truly invent everything first, eh? Fascism, trumpism, etc

Don’t get me started on Roman Emperors…

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#184

Post by dasil003 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #174
andrepd wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is no longer a serious place. Everybody is turbo-infantilised via social media. I don't know if that's indeed the root cause or if it's a combination of factors, but the fact remains that people don't even feel the need to _ pretend to care _ about honesty, character, seriousness, etc.

I think they might have figured out that a lot of that honesty and character was a facade. Is the false appearance of morality better than just showing yourself as you really are?

You mean that people lie and cheat? That's always been the case. The point of honesty and character is precisely that they reflect a person's ability to value a higher good than their immediate self-interest. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The fact that reputation has been subjected to unprecedented arms race in the face of the internet and social media doesn't fundamentally change the game, it just makes it more exhausting and overwhelming to pay attention to.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#185

Post by cosmicgadget »

bgwalter wrote: post #45

There is so much theater and reality TV in the Trump administration that it's hard to conclude anything. Most of the theater is there to play to his MAGA base. First there was the (staged?) row with Zelensky. A couple of months later nothing has really changed. Now Musk left as planned (he couldn't stay longer than 130 days in that position). Time for another public row to show that Trump is tough on subsidies for el…

The Zelensky interview was only staged (manufactured) by the White House. You may have noticed immediately after the US stopped intelligence sharing just long enough for Putin to take back Kursk.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#186

Post by dh2022 »

rchaud wrote: post #156
yongjik wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the positive side, Trump is so unstable that he'll trash your business one day and then the next day he'll reverse course. So, "if people kiss your ass enough, they get contract" does not seem to be a long-term viable strategy. (Exhibit A: Musk.) I'm 90% sure it will lead to America's ruin, but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. Hey, at least it looks more entertaining! :/

> but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. The end of the Soviet Union as a political and geographic entity was not its ruin. What ruined it and opened the door for a strongman ruler was: a) an inexperienced President (Yeltsin) who lacked a unifying vision for the newly formed republic and wasn't respected by its business elite or by foreign leaders b) the 'free market liberalization' reform…

If you really want to find out the reasons why USSR failed I suggest reading “Collapse the fall of Soviet Union” by Zubok or “Collapse of an Empire” by Gaidar. They are easy to read books. Said reasons are quite different from what is going on in USA at the moment.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#187

Post by medler »

neilv wrote: post #180
alephnerd wrote: post #159

Earlier 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…

Interesting; is there an accessible 10-minute read on this US (edit: governance) de-politicized/re-politicized history, or does it have a name?

The notion that this kind of politicization started in the 90s is fanciful revisionism. It wasn’t really a thing in the US until about 2017. The word it’s known by is Trumpism.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#188

Post by pessimist »

alephnerd wrote: post #170
pessimist wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Fine, I don't disagree with anything you point out. However where we differ is that I believe identity politics is the trigger factor here, all the other changes you mention (loss of balance of power etc) are downstream of this.

Re: Musk-Trump dispute includes threats to SpaceX contracts

#189

Post by paganel »

rchaud wrote: post #156
yongjik wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the positive side, Trump is so unstable that he'll trash your business one day and then the next day he'll reverse course. So, "if people kiss your ass enough, they get contract" does not seem to be a long-term viable strategy. (Exhibit A: Musk.) I'm 90% sure it will lead to America's ruin, but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. Hey, at least it looks more entertaining! :/

> but it might not quite be the same path that led the USSR to ruin. The end of the Soviet Union as a political and geographic entity was not its ruin. What ruined it and opened the door for a strongman ruler was: a) an inexperienced President (Yeltsin) who lacked a unifying vision for the newly formed republic and wasn't respected by its business elite or by foreign leaders b) the 'free market liberalization' reform…

By 1998 the shit had already hit the fan big time for the common people in Russia, all "thanks" to Shock Therapy (which you allude to at your point b)). That was the real tragedy, nothing a more "experienced" president could have fixed (other than doing what Putin ended up doing, which is trying to reverse some of the craziness of said Shock Therapy).

I write this from direct experience, as I grew up as a kid/adolescent in nearby Romania in the '90s, where we had our very own Shock Therapy. In fact my present political stance (a return to nationalism and a reversal of what globalisation has brought about) is heavily marked by that very traumatic period in my life (and the same thing is valid for many of my compatriots).

Post reply on HN