Musk Deletes Tweet That Asked Why No One Is Trying to Assassinate Biden, Harris(gizmodo.com)
gizmodo.com
Musk Deletes Tweet That Asked Why No One Is Trying to Assassinate Biden, Harris
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-deletes-tweet-that-asked-why-no-one-is-trying-to-assassinate-biden-2000499085
40 comments
This "The Twitter sale really broke him, didn't it?" is an under-examined angle:
Elon did not want to buy Twitter. He owns it because he was about to lose litigation that would have forced him to buy it or pay what would have to be an enormous settlement - enough to make Twitter's shareholders at least as happy as him buying it. He spent $100M on lawyers before giving up.
He spent what is likely to be his most readily liquid $30Billion. That's gone now. He probably thought he could flip it and come out close to even. But now his most accessible money is gone.
That's got to leave a mark.
Elon did not want to buy Twitter. He owns it because he was about to lose litigation that would have forced him to buy it or pay what would have to be an enormous settlement - enough to make Twitter's shareholders at least as happy as him buying it. He spent $100M on lawyers before giving up.
He spent what is likely to be his most readily liquid $30Billion. That's gone now. He probably thought he could flip it and come out close to even. But now his most accessible money is gone.
That's got to leave a mark.
Elon was forced to buy Twitter because he made agreement to buy it and then tried to back out. He made the offer freely and signed the agreement. He could have put in clauses that let him back out.
> Elon did not want to buy Twitter
Maybe not in the end, but he spent significant time, money, and effort in the lead-up to the acquisition. If he never wanted it at all, well, he shouldn't play those games with their board and the public =/
It's that kind of rash (and brash) thoughtlessness that seem to characterize his recent decision-making, in stark contrast to my former hero who built an entire freaking space fleet from scratch... so sad, too bad... power corrupts and all that, I guess.
Maybe not in the end, but he spent significant time, money, and effort in the lead-up to the acquisition. If he never wanted it at all, well, he shouldn't play those games with their board and the public =/
It's that kind of rash (and brash) thoughtlessness that seem to characterize his recent decision-making, in stark contrast to my former hero who built an entire freaking space fleet from scratch... so sad, too bad... power corrupts and all that, I guess.
>in stark contrast to my former hero who built an entire freaking space fleet from scratch...
That guy never existed, though. At best Musk hired a team of brilliant engineers who built a space fleet for him, and while that isn't nothing, people acted as if he was Zephram Cochrane building a warp drive out of junk in his backyard, by hand, alone. And by all accounts, he succeeds in spite of himself because his staff is able to handle and redirect his ego and bad judgement (exceptions like the Cybertruck notwithstanding.) That infrastructure just didn't exist at Twitter, where no one could stop him going buck wild.
But he's always been that guy, and I'm glad to see the edifice of Elon Musk torn down. No one deserved the kind of blind adoration and hero worship that man got, and still gets.
That guy never existed, though. At best Musk hired a team of brilliant engineers who built a space fleet for him, and while that isn't nothing, people acted as if he was Zephram Cochrane building a warp drive out of junk in his backyard, by hand, alone. And by all accounts, he succeeds in spite of himself because his staff is able to handle and redirect his ego and bad judgement (exceptions like the Cybertruck notwithstanding.) That infrastructure just didn't exist at Twitter, where no one could stop him going buck wild.
But he's always been that guy, and I'm glad to see the edifice of Elon Musk torn down. No one deserved the kind of blind adoration and hero worship that man got, and still gets.
While he does seem to be going progressively downhill, it started a long time before the Twitter thing. Remember the imaginary cave submarine?
That was before Twitter? Wow, it all just kinda blurs together now, one crazy thing after the other...
I mean, he called a diver rescuing children a "pedo", and everyone just shrugged and moved on.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/03/media/elon-musk-testifies/ind...
Apparently, you can win a defamation suit by claiming that "yeah, I made it up and just said it".
I feel like at the time his celebrity carried him. Not sure this would play today.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/03/media/elon-musk-testifies/ind...
Apparently, you can win a defamation suit by claiming that "yeah, I made it up and just said it".
I feel like at the time his celebrity carried him. Not sure this would play today.
I feel like in general the isolation of COVID, combined with extreme wealth, broke some rich people's brains.
Musk has always been an awful person, but people like him sort of knew where the societal red lines were and kept their worst impulses under wraps.
Ever since we entered the "post-shame world", he is not hiding his awfulness any longer. He is actually proud of it.
Oh, and he is also convinced that he is absolutely hilarious.
Musk has always been an awful person, but people like him sort of knew where the societal red lines were and kept their worst impulses under wraps.
Ever since we entered the "post-shame world", he is not hiding his awfulness any longer. He is actually proud of it.
Oh, and he is also convinced that he is absolutely hilarious.
You mean he was more respectable when he didn't talk so much his mind?
Was he really always like that? Or did the fame and megaphone get to him?
Kinda sucks :/ He used to be one of my personal heroes, before he got all weird. I miss Musk 1.0.
Kinda sucks :/ He used to be one of my personal heroes, before he got all weird. I miss Musk 1.0.
He was always like that, as near as I can tell. He became intolerable to me years before any of the Twitter nonsense.
I get that it makes folks uncomfortable to think that at the base of a lot of techno-utopianism lies a lot authoritarian and anti-human thought.
Maybe it doesn't have to be that way.
Maybe there is no necessity to believe that all of us mere humans are a weakness which must be transcended on the progressive path to some as-yet unknowable future.
But it feels like that undercurrent has always been in much techno-futurist thoughts which we can read in Musk's specific interests and grievances. Maybe that is just a problem with a view of history as the product of historical necessity- maybe it's just easier to see when the changes are specific technological changes instead of more abstract political or economic changes.
Anyhow, that's how Musk (and basically anyone who promotes implementing mass, top-down changes to the world) has always felt to me.
Maybe it doesn't have to be that way.
Maybe there is no necessity to believe that all of us mere humans are a weakness which must be transcended on the progressive path to some as-yet unknowable future.
But it feels like that undercurrent has always been in much techno-futurist thoughts which we can read in Musk's specific interests and grievances. Maybe that is just a problem with a view of history as the product of historical necessity- maybe it's just easier to see when the changes are specific technological changes instead of more abstract political or economic changes.
Anyhow, that's how Musk (and basically anyone who promotes implementing mass, top-down changes to the world) has always felt to me.
> at the base of a lot of techno-utopianism lies a lot authoritarian and anti-human thought.
This is certainly true. At the very least it's obvious in terms of the attitudes that circle has been expressing over the last decade or so.
This is certainly true. At the very least it's obvious in terms of the attitudes that circle has been expressing over the last decade or so.
I used to be a techno-libertarian until I outgrew Ayn Rand as an undergrad. I can understand that as an immature mindset. But it now seems to be worse. The people who were merely techno-libertarians seem to have morphed into techno-fashy authoritarians, with a side order of eugenics. Eww.
>Maybe it doesn't have to be that way.
It does. All utopian ideals are at their core anti-human and authoritarian. The only way a utopia can realistically exist is by fundamentally re-engineering human nature, or killing everyone who doesn't get with the program. Eugenics or genocide. Probably both.
It does. All utopian ideals are at their core anti-human and authoritarian. The only way a utopia can realistically exist is by fundamentally re-engineering human nature, or killing everyone who doesn't get with the program. Eugenics or genocide. Probably both.
Is Musk specifically an authoritarian transhumanist? His recent ramblings seem to me more like someone who's on the spectrum or perhaps just really stoned all the time. They don't seem to congeal into any sort of cohesive philosophy, but maybe I'm just not paying enough attention?
Less "Borg Queen" and more "stoner college roommate with too much money and powerful friends, who never learned to censor himself"...
Less "Borg Queen" and more "stoner college roommate with too much money and powerful friends, who never learned to censor himself"...
No one owes anyone else ideological consistency, so it's certainly possible Musk is just some dude musing on the world.
However, it's also possible that there are finite families of ideas in the world which all have similar flavors and consitencies, and when we have seen many of them we can start to draw conclusions both about their obvious and more nuanced features.
We might consider that no one really has a "cohesive philosophy" into which our thoughts congeal:
we might not need someone to write a manifesto in order to draw some reasonable conclusions about their thoughts.
And, further, when the conclusions we draw about those thoughts (less so about being-of-people, if you will, but about thoughts) are validated, we might take that as data for how well we are listening to what folks are saying.
In the case of Musk, since I had been exposed to a lot of ideas about technology in the 90s and 00s, what he has been saying over the last 15 years or so has seemed both very clear and, to my ears, very consistent. And very authoritarian and very anti-humanist.
However, it's also possible that there are finite families of ideas in the world which all have similar flavors and consitencies, and when we have seen many of them we can start to draw conclusions both about their obvious and more nuanced features.
We might consider that no one really has a "cohesive philosophy" into which our thoughts congeal:
we might not need someone to write a manifesto in order to draw some reasonable conclusions about their thoughts.
And, further, when the conclusions we draw about those thoughts (less so about being-of-people, if you will, but about thoughts) are validated, we might take that as data for how well we are listening to what folks are saying.
In the case of Musk, since I had been exposed to a lot of ideas about technology in the 90s and 00s, what he has been saying over the last 15 years or so has seemed both very clear and, to my ears, very consistent. And very authoritarian and very anti-humanist.
That's fair, and well said!
"... who's wearing a MAGA hat and has a vacation home in Russia"
Pretty much.
This Behind the Bastards two-parter was recorded before Musk went full Red Pill:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/part-one-i-do-not-like...
The host off the bat says that he is conflicted about this episode because of Musk's contributions, but I am confident this would go differently now. Back in 2020 Musk could still pass for an "eccentric billionaire" and not a complete fascist-curious shitbag.
This Behind the Bastards two-parter was recorded before Musk went full Red Pill:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/part-one-i-do-not-like...
The host off the bat says that he is conflicted about this episode because of Musk's contributions, but I am confident this would go differently now. Back in 2020 Musk could still pass for an "eccentric billionaire" and not a complete fascist-curious shitbag.
Good to know how he jokes in person to his group.
This reads more like tin foil hat than a joke.
With his platform, influence and money - this is just dangerous.
Forget how morally wrong it is to joke like that in private, to then think that THE ENTIRE WORLD would find it funny and it would not incite additional violence - especially in this climate? This dude also offered to impregnate Taylor Swift a few days ago. We can't keep venerating this guy.
He is either in desperate need of intervention/mental health assistance, or a clear and present danger to democracy - or probably both.
I admire some of his achievements, but he isn't Tony Stark. Stark found his conscience.
Forget how morally wrong it is to joke like that in private, to then think that THE ENTIRE WORLD would find it funny and it would not incite additional violence - especially in this climate? This dude also offered to impregnate Taylor Swift a few days ago. We can't keep venerating this guy.
He is either in desperate need of intervention/mental health assistance, or a clear and present danger to democracy - or probably both.
I admire some of his achievements, but he isn't Tony Stark. Stark found his conscience.
If a guy making odious jokes on his large social media account is enough to constitute a "danger to democracy" why are we even bothering with such a rotten structure? If the institutions of the US are in such a condition, when does someone who believe that decide it's time to give up the ghost?
The structure is rotten BECAUSE him and trump and all of these other clowns are making these "jokes" that aren't really "jokes" because he has to make excuses after making them. It didn't start with him. It's trump "asking a question about Obama's birth certificate" and Fox News "just asking questions/just making innocent jokes" but repeating them an infinite number of times.
It's death by a thousand cuts.
It's death by a thousand cuts.
The rhetoric is just as bad on the other side.
What rhetoric? Simply explaining what they’re doing?
This isn't an "odious joke". This is a call for violence.
Nobody believes it's a question, any more than we believe that Henry II was merely inquiring why no one would rid him of that turbulent priest.
It likely doesn't rise to the level of a criminal act. But it's the kind of thing that earns one a stern talking to from the Secret Service. And if somebody actually does take him up on it, there may yet be charges.
Nobody believes it's a question, any more than we believe that Henry II was merely inquiring why no one would rid him of that turbulent priest.
It likely doesn't rise to the level of a criminal act. But it's the kind of thing that earns one a stern talking to from the Secret Service. And if somebody actually does take him up on it, there may yet be charges.
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It feels to me like he's envious of Trump's ability to say and do anything, social norms and morality be damned. They both want a world where those at the top can do whatever they want and the little people don't matter because big daddy knows better... democracy just gets in the way.
They're nearly there.
There is a chance that 1) he actually believes it and removed it because someone pointed out how bad the optics are for it or 2) it was a joke and was removed for the same reason.
Here's my point: at least with characters like Musk and Trump you know where you stand. Zuck recently only admitted to the shady actions during the last election cycle, Jack was proven to have been shadow-banning when Elon took over.
IMO none of them are exemplars of character and righteousness, one group is just much more covert about it than the other.
Here's my point: at least with characters like Musk and Trump you know where you stand. Zuck recently only admitted to the shady actions during the last election cycle, Jack was proven to have been shadow-banning when Elon took over.
IMO none of them are exemplars of character and righteousness, one group is just much more covert about it than the other.
I wonder if it's crossed his mind yet to take a break from the internet or if any people close to him have tried to tell him he needs to stop
People like Elon Musk do not suffer the presence (or continued employment) of people who tell them no.
Does he really not get it? really?
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The Twitter sale really broke him, didn't it?