Musk

[Votanic]

Founders Fund CMO Mike Solana says Elon Musk and Tim Cook are steering Trump to declare an all-out trade war against the EU if he wins.

Tech’s Trump card

Wednesday, less than 24 hours after EU regulators announced they would exempt X from their onerous Digital Markets Act, they interrupted the tech industry’s brief celebration with an escalation of their attack.

X, they announced, would now be pursued under the Digital Services Act for a variety of draconian, speech-related infractions. But — and here’s the crazy part — three totally separate Musk-founded companies could also be fined for X’s “infractions”: SpaceX, Neuralink, and the Boring Company. Obviously, this is just a shakedown, and of a kind we’ve seen for years, which Trump addressed at home.

According to the former president, Tim Cook called him over an $18 billion EU “fine” (again: literally extortion). But unlike Biden, Trump actually seemed to care. This is because he is 1) obsessed with trade, and 2) now has high-profile support in tech. What mean? If he wins the election, get your popcorn. It’s gonna be a trade war.

War is primary. Peace is merely a dessert-like respite, for as long as the winner is able to make the loser behave.

[mookiemcgee]

[ConfederateSS]

---------- People may like Musk or not....I was thinking of him helping TRUMP, helping Hurricane victims....
----------- Elon is a person who comes around like once every 5/6/7 hundred years....
----------- I Guess, that the last Elon , was Leonardo da Vinci...
----------- So like him or not....This is what it must have been like...To be a person in Leonardo da Vinci's time, watching him...Amaze the World...
----------- We all should consider ourselves lucky, to have a chance...To watch someone like Elon Musk...Like those who were lucky to watch Leonardo da Vinci create, magnificent Things, in The Middle Ages...... ConfederateSS.out!(The Blue and Silver Rebellion)...

[Lonous]

When the other auto makers were all sitting on their hands talking about how nice an idea electric was, but just not practical for now, Musk made it happen.
He created Space X and outperformed NASA
He bought Twitter, slashed 85% of the staff, and has it working just fine.

Any of those accomplishments would be enough to cause some narcissism, but all 3 is definitely earned.

I'm giddy at the idea of him going to D.C. and slashing the bloated warmachine that has embedded itself there.

[Dukasaur]

I see he's growing a cute little moustache.



Reminds me of someone...

[mookiemcgee]

When the other auto makers were all sitting on their hands talking about how nice an idea electric was, but just not practical for now, Musk made it happen.
He created Space X and outperformed NASA
He bought Twitter, slashed 85% of the staff, and has it working just fine.

Any of those accomplishments would be enough to cause some narcissism, but all 3 is definitely earned.

I'm giddy at the idea of him going to D.C. and slashing the bloated warmachine that has embedded itself there.

I'm all for giving credit where it's due, and Space X and Tesla are overwhelming success' he deserves credit for!

Twitter is not a success story.

I could argue he didn't buy it to make money at all, but that is aside from the point that having it 'work fine' does not justify an accomplishment. Twitter generated 5 billion in revenue a few short years ago before he bought it, estimates for 2024 are between .9 billion and 1.3 billion in revenue. Monthly users have trended down every quarter for 2 years, there is no area you can look at on paper for twitter and say oh well at least that area of the company is growing.

[Pack Rat]

When the other auto makers were all sitting on their hands talking about how nice an idea electric was, but just not practical for now, Musk made it happen.
He created Space X and outperformed NASA
He bought Twitter, slashed 85% of the staff, and has it working just fine.

Any of those accomplishments would be enough to cause some narcissism, but all 3 is definitely earned.

I'm giddy at the idea of him going to D.C. and slashing the bloated warmachine that has embedded itself there.

I'm all for giving credit where it's due, and Space X and Tesla are overwhelming success' he deserves credit for!

Twitter is not a success story.

I could argue he didn't buy it to make money at all, but that is aside from the point that having it 'work fine' does not justify an accomplishment. Twitter generated 5 billion in revenue a few short years ago before he bought it, estimates for 2024 are between .9 billion and 1.3 billion in revenue. Monthly users have trended down every quarter for 2 years, there is no area you can look at on paper for twitter and say oh well at least that area of the coming is growing.

...and the U.S. taxpayers paid billions to finance Elon's dreams/ego of space travel. Socialism pays out bigtime for billionaires.

[Dukasaur]

When the other auto makers were all sitting on their hands talking about how nice an idea electric was, but just not practical for now, Musk made it happen.
He created Space X and outperformed NASA
He bought Twitter, slashed 85% of the staff, and has it working just fine.

Any of those accomplishments would be enough to cause some narcissism, but all 3 is definitely earned.

I'm giddy at the idea of him going to D.C. and slashing the bloated warmachine that has embedded itself there.

I'm all for giving credit where it's due, and Space X and Tesla are overwhelming success' he deserves credit for!

Twitter is not a success story.

I could argue he didn't buy it to make money at all, but that is aside from the point that having it 'work fine' does not justify an accomplishment. Twitter generated 5 billion in revenue a few short years ago before he bought it, estimates for 2024 are between .9 billion and 1.3 billion in revenue. Monthly users have trended down every quarter for 2 years, there is no area you can look at on paper for twitter and say oh well at least that area of the coming is growing.

...and the U.S. taxpayers paid billions to finance Elon's dreams/ego of space travel. Socialism pays out bigtime for billionaires.

It's true that SpaceX was built almost entirely with subsidies from NASA. However, it did deliver, while similar subsidies to Boeing (for instance) did not.

Let's face it, someone is going to skim the cream from any government project. If at least he ends up achieving the stated goal, he's well ahead of the the 80% of contractors who skim the cream and still deliver a dud.

[mookiemcgee]

When the other auto makers were all sitting on their hands talking about how nice an idea electric was, but just not practical for now, Musk made it happen.
He created Space X and outperformed NASA
He bought Twitter, slashed 85% of the staff, and has it working just fine.

Any of those accomplishments would be enough to cause some narcissism, but all 3 is definitely earned.

I'm giddy at the idea of him going to D.C. and slashing the bloated warmachine that has embedded itself there.

I'm all for giving credit where it's due, and Space X and Tesla are overwhelming success' he deserves credit for!

Twitter is not a success story.

I could argue he didn't buy it to make money at all, but that is aside from the point that having it 'work fine' does not justify an accomplishment. Twitter generated 5 billion in revenue a few short years ago before he bought it, estimates for 2024 are between .9 billion and 1.3 billion in revenue. Monthly users have trended down every quarter for 2 years, there is no area you can look at on paper for twitter and say oh well at least that area of the coming is growing.

...and the U.S. taxpayers paid billions to finance Elon's dreams/ego of space travel. Socialism pays out bigtime for billionaires.

It's true that SpaceX was built almost entirely with subsidies from NASA. However, it did deliver, while similar subsidies to Boeing (for instance) did not.

Let's face it, someone is going to skim the cream from any government project. If at least he ends up achieving the stated goal, he's well ahead of the the 80% of contractors who skim the cream and still deliver a dud.

I'm with you here, loads of companies in sectors like this survive on gov't subsidies for better or worse. It's hard to argue that Tesla isn't the most successful company he built but spaceX is primed to be a bigger deal in the coming decades.

[mookiemcgee]

[saxitoxin]

I believe that analysis. This seems to explain a lot, to be honest.

Still, despite the demonstrations of loyalty, Musk is unwilling to cross substantive lines. Today, Steve Bannon called for Trump to not only retain Lina Kahn as FTC chair (just like saxi!) but to expand her powers. That's not a ladder Musk is going to be able to climb. And there are going to be more and more of these ladders he won't step foot on.

I'm just hoping we can milk him for as much money as possible before Trump asks him to board an American Airlines commuter flight departing Dulles.

[2dimes]

So Elon is Saxi, but with lots more money.

[Pack Rat]

Musk is the new Treasury Secretary?

[jusplay4fun]

Did I see pee-rat in that image above?

AND:

[saxitoxin]

It's become apparent that Elon's posts to X are either being done by a team or some automated system. In the last 72 hours, he posted an average of eight times per hour by my count (both posts and replies). Assuming he sleeps for a few hours per day that means he's posting to X about once every 5-6 minutes ... on top of heading Tesla and SpaceX, and also running an audit of the U.S. Government.

It seems that his R/Ts and trolling and hate-tweeting get the highest engagement and are the most prolific, so I think those must be done by someone else. His long-form posts occur very infrequently and also come across as slightly less like a crazed 12 year-old and I assume must be him. For instance, he just posted this:

To be clear, what the
@DOGE
team and
@USTreasury
have jointly agreed makes sense is the following:

- Require that all outgoing government payments have a payment categorization code, which is necessary in order to pass financial audits. This is frequently left blank, making audits almost impossible.

- All payments must also include a rationale for the payment in the comment field, which is currently left blank. Importantly, we are not yet applying ANY judgment to this rationale, but simply requiring that SOME attempt be made to explain the payment more than NOTHING!

- The DO-NOT-PAY list of entities known to be fraudulent or people who are dead or are probable fronts for terrorist organizations or do not match Congressional appropriations must actually be implemented and not ignored. Also, it can currently take up to a year to get on this list, which is far too long. This list should be updated at least weekly, if not daily.

The above super obvious and necessary changes are being implemented by existing, long-time career government employees, not anyone from
@DOGE
. It is ridiculous that these changes didn’t exist already!

Yesterday, I was told that there are currently over $100B/year of entitlements payments to individuals with no SSN or even a temporary ID number. If accurate, this is extremely suspicious.

When I asked if anyone at Treasury had a rough guess for what percentage of that number is unequivocal and obvious fraud, the consensus in the room was about half, so $50B/year or $1B/week!

This is utterly insane and must be addressed immediately.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1888314848477376744

[saxitoxin]

OK, I've done some more digging on this Philip Low character ... it appears, as far as I can tell, that he created this website (https://stevenlow.foundation/) last month (registered on December 8, according to WHOIS) to rant about a conspiracy he thinks his sister is involved in to steal his inheritance or something --- I absolutely don't follow it as it's a weird stream of consciousness. It's some unhinged stuff.

Also, here's his Wikipedia entry -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_S._Low_(Canadian) -- for background on Steven Low (his father).

I'm a bit more skeptical about the veracity of his views on Musk now.

[jusplay4fun]

Musk .....

I'm just hoping we can milk him for as much money as possible before Trump asks him to board an American Airlines commuter flight departing Dulles.

At some point, the big egos of Trump and Musk will clash. We will learn of this after minor squabbles that we will not hear much about. Will this end in dismissal of Musk by Trump (You're Fired..!) or will they work out their difference of opinions?

I think 4 years "in the desert" and his near death has changed Trump into a more calm and calculating and thoughtful person. So the dismissal of Musk may not be that dramatic, as when Trump fired Steve Bannon. In fact, it may not happen. Musk may decide he has done what he could (somewhat quickly) and decide to move on to other challenges. The disappearance of Vivek Ramaswamy from DOGE was rather quick and a bit unexpected. I thought he would have stuck around longer, but it seems that the bigger Ego of Musk became the dominant one there at DOGE.

Trump is still inclined to speak without much forethought; that tendency did not leave Trump despite the past 5 years. I think too that Trump learned LOTS in the first 4 years. He has also been able to get MOST of the Key Republicans with him to do major changes.

Of course, the Democrats (especially those in Congress), liberals (including at the state level of government), and federal bureaucrats (many about to lose their jobs) will oppose Trump's Executive Orders in the Courts. We have seen that already on several issues.

The Executive Orders are much of what Trump promised in his campaign. The pace of such orders is rather astonishing. Old Joe signed, what? about 100 on day 1? The only ones I recall from Day 1 of Biden were about:
1) Oil Drilling and the XL Pipeline, and 2) immigration, that opened the floodgates at the US-Mexican border.

[Pack Rat]

Musk .....

I'm just hoping we can milk him for as much money as possible before Trump asks him to board an American Airlines commuter flight departing Dulles.

At some point, the big egos of Trump and Musk will clash. We will learn of this after minor squabbles that we will not hear much about. Will this end in dismissal of Musk by Trump (You're Fired..!) or will they work out their difference of opinions?

I think 4 years "in the desert" and his near death has changed Trump into a more calm and calculating and thoughtful person.

So the dismissal of Musk may not be that dramatic, as when Trump fired Steve Bannon. In fact, it may not happen. Musk may decide he has done what he could (somewhat quickly) and decide to move on to other challenges. The disappearance of Vivek Ramaswamy from DOGE was rather quick and a bit unexpected. I thought he would have stuck around longer, but it seems that the bigger Ego of Musk became the dominant one there at DOGE.

Trump is still inclined to speak without much forethought; that tendency did not leave Trump despite the past 5 years. I think too that Trump learned LOTS in the first 4 years. He has also been able to get MOST of the Key Republicans with him to do major changes.

Of course, the Democrats (especially those in Congress), liberals (including at the state level of government), and federal bureaucrats (many about to lose their jobs) will oppose Trump's Executive Orders in the Courts. We have seen that already on several issues.

The Executive Orders are much of what Trump promised in his campaign. The pace of such orders is rather astonishing. Old Joe signed, what? about 100 on day 1? The only ones I recall from Day 1 of Biden were about:
1) Oil Drilling and the XL Pipeline, and 2) immigration, that opened the floodgates at the US-Mexican border.

I think 4 years "in the desert" and his near death has changed Trump into a more calm and calculating and thoughtful person.

4 years in the desert? You mean 4 years of grifting his Cult Followers. Were you trying to compare Trump to Moses who got lost in the desert for 40 years?

Near death? Oh my I didn't know a scratch to his ear was life threatening, fukn funny!

Trump calm and calculating? Too funny!

The Courts will slow the ideocracy and fascist moves of the Executive Branch. The Republicans in Congress have fallen down on their knees and are wiping their asses with the Constitution. Trump could pull an Andrew Jackson and tell the Courts to fuk off.If it comes down to that...could the U.S. military step in to stop this coup?

[jusplay4fun]

Musk .....

I'm just hoping we can milk him for as much money as possible before Trump asks him to board an American Airlines commuter flight departing Dulles.

At some point, the big egos of Trump and Musk will clash. We will learn of this after minor squabbles that we will not hear much about. Will this end in dismissal of Musk by Trump (You're Fired..!) or will they work out their difference of opinions?

I think 4 years "in the desert" and his near death has changed Trump into a more calm and calculating and thoughtful person.

So the dismissal of Musk may not be that dramatic, as when Trump fired Steve Bannon. In fact, it may not happen. Musk may decide he has done what he could (somewhat quickly) and decide to move on to other challenges. The disappearance of Vivek Ramaswamy from DOGE was rather quick and a bit unexpected. I thought he would have stuck around longer, but it seems that the bigger Ego of Musk became the dominant one there at DOGE.

Trump is still inclined to speak without much forethought; that tendency did not leave Trump despite the past 5 years. I think too that Trump learned LOTS in the first 4 years. He has also been able to get MOST of the Key Republicans with him to do major changes.

Of course, the Democrats (especially those in Congress), liberals (including at the state level of government), and federal bureaucrats (many about to lose their jobs) will oppose Trump's Executive Orders in the Courts. We have seen that already on several issues.

The Executive Orders are much of what Trump promised in his campaign. The pace of such orders is rather astonishing. Old Joe signed, what? about 100 on day 1? The only ones I recall from Day 1 of Biden were about:
1) Oil Drilling and the XL Pipeline, and 2) immigration, that opened the floodgates at the US-Mexican border.

I think 4 years "in the desert" and his near death has changed Trump into a more calm and calculating and thoughtful person.

4 years in the desert? You mean 4 years of grifting his Cult Followers. Were you trying to compare Trump to Moses who got lost in the desert for 40 years?

Near death? Oh my I didn't know a scratch to his ear was life threatening, fukn funny!

Trump calm and calculating? Too funny!

The Courts will slow the ideocracy and fascist moves of the Executive Branch. The Republicans in Congress have fallen down on their knees and are wiping their asses with the Constitution. Trump could pull an Andrew Jackson and tell the Courts to fuk off.If it comes down to that...could the U.S. military step in to stop this coup?

Typical pee-rat: a warped sense of REALITY. This explains LOTS. 5150

[saxitoxin]

Musk .....

I'm just hoping we can milk him for as much money as possible before Trump asks him to board an American Airlines commuter flight departing Dulles.

At some point, the big egos of Trump and Musk will clash. We will learn of this after minor squabbles that we will not hear much about. Will this end in dismissal of Musk by Trump (You're Fired..!) or will they work out their difference of opinions?

I think 4 years "in the desert" and his near death has changed Trump into a more calm and calculating and thoughtful person. So the dismissal of Musk may not be that dramatic, as when Trump fired Steve Bannon. In fact, it may not happen. Musk may decide he has done what he could (somewhat quickly) and decide to move on to other challenges. The disappearance of Vivek Ramaswamy from DOGE was rather quick and a bit unexpected. I thought he would have stuck around longer, but it seems that the bigger Ego of Musk became the dominant one there at DOGE.

That's a good point. And Steve Bannon is still operating as the High Priest of MAGAism with sway over a large segment of the hardcore and hates Musk. Lina Kahn's decision to resign from the FTC -- instead of forcing Trump to be put in the awkward place of dismissing her over Bannon's objections -- seems to have prevented this from completely blowing up but it's only a matter of time before there's another split and Trump has to choose between Musk and Bannon.

[saxitoxin]

Update - Musk actually doesn't have any role in the government at all, according to this newly sworn affidavit from the White House. He's just hanging around.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 3.24.1.pdf

So, as of now, the identity of the head of DOGE is a mystery. It could be anyone. Except Elon Musk.