681–690 of 1001 posts
I think this is a negotiation tactic that aims to eventually block OpenAI's transition to for-profit.
It's also another great view into Musk's character.
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Tesla sales are collapsing globally partly due to Musk's mental breakdown and are not likely to recover much, especially since Tesla no longer really has a CEO.
To me it seems to have very little to do with his antics. Surely inflation, market saturation, and increased competition is more probable?
The robo-taxi attempt is fraught and Musk's mind seems elsewhere -- swinging a wrecking ball on government, turning Twitter into his microphone (with great damage to its value and creating a real opening for competitors), posting videogame results reminiscent of the old North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung-style, where the newspaper would report on his games of golf in which he swung 18 hole-in-ones.
By hitching his wagon to political movements most despised by the consumers of EVs he's alienated Tesla's audience. By his further actions he's shocked and disgusted them so that driving a Tesla is becoming an embarrassment. The brand is kaput.
There's maybe a separate China story but it's no better. Tesla taxis in China, really?
[1] Global electric vehicle sales up 25% in record 2024 - https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/global...
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This is modern day tech ceo/politician playbook 101. And it's because of this that society in general is a shit hole. There is no semblance of honesty nor accountability at all anymore. Grift and lie to everyone's faces because you know that it doesn't matter what the fuck you say, as long as your political stance aligns with the right people bootlickers will lick up anything you say for a chance at being noticed.
You need rabid fans though to make sure your doubters are yelled down. That's one way Musk gets away with this behavior. Thousands of dimwits yelling down anyone that suggests he may not be operating in good faith.
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Given Musk is currently pissing off foreign governments , there is a real danger that one of those governments will just send in a nice looking person with some tea to have a quiet chat with him. After which, he will look very tired, and suddenly stop being "turbulent", as per the meaning several judges have recently noted in Trump trials was once infamously said by a king of a priest. Then I will be sad, because I w…
Like that time he was summoned to Israel and "convinced" to tow the line? He looked like a school kid being told off by the principle.
A lot of people are unsurprisingly throwing shade on Musk being involved here but I think it's really important to understand what this is fundamentally about: stopping or fundamentally changing OpenAI's plans to be spun off. The issue at hand is that OpenAI (the private, currently "capped profit" entity, henceforth in this post referred to as OpenAI-P) is trying to get spun out of control of the OpenAI non-profit (h…
I do not, for a single second, believe that Musk is doing this for altruistic reasons.
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As a thought experiment, I like to wonder what would be the maximal amount of damage to humanity an extremely wealthy person could do entirely legally. Ian Fleming explored that idea rather effectively with Hugo Drax in the original Moonraker novel (which doesn't have much besides the name in common with the movie.) The way things are playing out, Drax must have been Musk's childhood hero.
Yup! You guessed it! https://www.inverse.com/article/32100-elon-musk-favorite-jam... The person who asked 7 years ago never forgot that and made the same connection as you: https://www.threads.net/@pixelastronaut/post/DFFJF9GxE7D?xmt...
It feels like Musk is single-handedly making a great case for why unlimited accumulation of wealth is a bad idea. It's pretty colorful language, but my mind immediately jumps to "financial terrorist". He's using his enormous amount of wealth and influence as a weapon to bludgeon anyone and anything in his way.
I disagree. Wealth accumulation is absolutely a good thing. Elon does good things. EVs, rockets, Starlink, Neuralink etc. This is stuff that people want. More capital is allocated to good things when the same person can manage more capital. Elon's wealth is mostly in the things he has built himself. In addition, Elon isn't even that rich, when compared to other entities, which aren't a singular person. As an example,…
Elon's wealth is mostly in acquisitions. Even PayPal, co-founded by Peter Thiel, was an acquisition by X.com (the bank), at which point Elon was already ousted as CEO. He came back briefly, trying to convert PayPal infra over to Microsoft much to Thiel's chagrin, but then ousted again in favour of Thiel, who renamed the merged company to PayPal.
So PayPal, an acquisition (not made by Elon). Tesla, another acquisition. And like SpaceX, Neuralink, Starlink, they are built by actual domain experts, with wealth bootstrapped from Elon dad's wealth (who funded Zip2), and Thiel. Thiel successfully built and administered PayPal, along with Amazon one of the few companies to make it unscathed through the dotcom bubble by providing actual business value, and gave a massive boost to Elon's net worth, and it was Thiel that enabled him to acquire Tesla. And it's Tesla's absurd valuation, that's enabled him to buy all the other things he fancies, including a seat at the government.
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To me it seems to have very little to do with his antics. Surely inflation, market saturation, and increased competition is more probable?
He said “partly” — seems reasonable that throwing nazi salutes around might have a partial impact on declining sales?
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>I typically like Elon about 70% of the time >I don't quite understand how he suddenly got so much influence. then you don't know much about him
Almost everything that is happening in US politics was telegraphed beforehand if you were looking carefully enough. If Musk's current level of influence and his actions are a surprise to anyone, I'd politely suggest that they augment their sources of information.
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wow I had no idea the level of discourse on that x website was so low, has it always been like this?
I stopped going to Twitter often, but since Elon's tweets always appear in my notifications, they frequently are one or two words. Yes I know I can mute. But the settings can get reset and this has happened several times.
I did delete X this week though because there's been very little there I care about for quite some time that isn't also on Bluesky.