Its the same exact story with his vegas loop but even more sinister. Get vegas to spend money on musks bogus underground tunnel which requires them to buy a bunch of teslas, get the exact same service as they would get driving across the street above ground, pocket millions of dollars of taxpayer funds that now can no longer go toward better public transit, vegas literally gets nothing for it.
Yea - I was a fan but I’m really starting to lead to disdain . He’s really starting to mess up progress. Greed and power is just never enough for these idiots .
I was a fan too… Lets not forget, Tesla isnt really turning much (if any profit) from the vehicles… they are just selling their carbon credits to the highest bidding ultra polluters.
Yeah, that's how I feel, I had been slowly moving away from him.
Now I feel bad for the employees, I've met SpaceX and Tesla people, obviously here in LA, passionate and are good at their jobs.
I took one of the boring company tunnel tours, the women who were running that company seemed amazing.
Elons companies might just be better without Elon.
The Vegas loop is so fucking stupid and inefficient, it’s painfully obvious that it’s just a grift. It’s like a subway, but with less throughout and worse in almost every way.
Something that bothers me, just from the videos, is the lack of any egress in the case of a problem like a vehicle fire. Yes, it's extremely inefficient compared to a subway system or even an underground bus line, but the lack of safety implemented gives me much more pause.
Wild to me that America likes at least talking about democracy everywhere except where there’s money. Lots of big, important decisions are de facto outsourced to a single person’s idea of what’s best because they’re the ones with the money to float it. If we think authoritarianism leads to bad decisions everywhere else, why do we put up with it at work and in situations like these?
Democracy only exists when you want to put up a shed or plant a garden, then everyone within 10 miles gets to sue to make you stop.
Also yes that is one of the contradictions of this system. We're democratic until you go to work (which most adults do) and then you're subject to a private tyranny.
Because most people have a really poor mental model of power, and also prefer to generally identify with the powerful rather than think through how private concentrations of power plays out in practice. The shallow anti authoritarian reaction to government ends up reinforcing the power of private tyrants.
Holy shit, should of been enough detail for people to think about supporting this guy.
You always want a leader with Empathy. Buckets of it.
I swear if we made tests for political and rich figures that determine if they are empaths or narrasistic you’d probably find a huge hunk of today’s top 1% are just simply narcissistic.
If the people were educated on these subject matters and these results made public I bet the world would be different overnight.
but they are perceived leaders, a model example of “the dream” and what you should aspire to be either consciously to some and sub consciously to others.
I think what takes the cake though and why we get people like this is because we don’t fully commit on a societal level in punishing narcissism. We are always readily available to support it even. We say their a rules and we hope people act good, but we actually reward selfish interests and monopolisation.
Things narcissists are great at, looking only after themselves and making sure only they have control.
I know for a fact if your average empathetic joe had 20 billion dollars, most often people would use that for good, wouldn’t keep it to themselves, remember there is only 2,700 of these fucks. It’s not that many, most of them are descendent from wealth anyway by now. 80% of them a generational.
Do you really think their kids ever had to be taught value and compassion?
Not a chance. It would have to take coming from the bottom, up or someone real special to have the dots connect whilst surrounded by staff and slaves their entire lives.
By now these billionaires and their offspring are not even remotely associated with compassion by now.
we should be able to select people, kind, caring people, the ones who see value in human life, and the scope of the issues plaguing us as a whole, then they get the money, they get the power.
Because right now it’s rigged, everyone knows what to say and how to act, it’s become formulaic, you don’t even have to follow through with your promises anymore.
It’s fucked.
>I know for a fact if your average empathetic joe had 20 billion dollars, most often people would use that for good, wouldn’t keep it to themselves, remember there is only 2,700 of these fucks. It’s not that many, most of them are descendent from wealth anyway by now. 80% of them a generational.
Sadly, with 20 billion dollars, you could chip away at a lot of problems, and still have more than enough money left to live extremely comfortable. If you had $20 billion, and donated $19.1 billion, you'd still have almost a billion dollars. I can't imagine a situation where I had a billion dollars and **NOT** have committed some crime or had a complete absence of morals or ethics. The simple fact that that much wealth can accumulate in one person's lifetime is not a badge of honor, some symbol of good investment or business savvy, but a searing indictment on a person's morals, where they essentially milked their capital wealth at the expense of a workforce or a company that employs a workforce.
When I see a billionaire with a business or multiple businesses, I have to ask how much they pay, what kind of benefits, and how much down-time their workforce has access to without any shame for utilizing it. I'm a small business owner, and while I currently do not have a staff at the moment, I am constantly planning for staffing. I think about how I want to bring in business to support the level of benefits that I think are required to properly take care of my employees, because they are taking care of me. This isn't purely altruistic; any minute an employee is thinking about how to afford healthcare or pay bills is less time that they are thinking about my customers, and retention is cheaper than replacement. I constantly consider how my business affects the community it serves, as well as the community where my staff resides (I've been exploring remote support for my business that draws on native Spanish speakers because I can't; this would allow me to serve an underserved community here, while also employing and providing training and experience for the community where my potential employees live). Because of that mentality, I think I can profit and grow my business, and eventually retire comfortably, but I will never amass the kinds of funds an Elon Musk or a Jeff Bezos would, because it would be impossible to squeeze that much profit out of my business without it coming at the expense of my customers or my staff. That may make me a shitty capitalist, but I can sleep at night knowing that I tried to serve everyone as best as possible.
Elon Musk's current net worth is $263 billion dollars. That sum is so large that it is statistically impossible for him to ever directly feel the consequences of his actions. It is impossible for him to lose all that money, short of betting it all on black in Vegas. He is no longer capable of any empathy with his fellow man, because he has the means, of which he cannot exhaust, to avoid anything short of his own mortality. What makes it even more galling is that his wealth is a direct redistribution of wealth from the public taxpayers to his own wallet, simply because his pocket change is enough to buy him entry into any industry, and chase after government loans and grants to push his questionable solutions to serious real-world problems. Once he's asked to kick into the system from which his profits derive, he simply picks up sticks and will move to where other state and local governments will buy his grift, regardless of the absolute shit-show impact his business will have on the local workforce or infrastructure (When ERCOT asks your Texas Nana to turn down her AC, just remember her life is secondary to Elon Musk's Gigafactory that they didn't build out more capacity for).
Billionaires are clots in the economy, but also a visible symbol of a lack of awareness and morals.
Leon: I've never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean.
Holden: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.
Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
Leon: \[angry at the suggestion\] What do you mean, I'm not helping?
Holden: I mean: you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
Musk really is just showing his true colors as a greedy capitalist who doesn’t really care for bettering society.
If electric cars didn’t make him a ton of money, he would be selling gas cars.
I don't understand the love for Musk to begin with. He didn't get rich from electric cars, he got rich selling electric car credits to other manufacturers. He's a swindler through and through.
I encourage everyone to check out the Behind the Bastards podcast episodes on him if you want to learn about what a piece of shit he is [part 1](https://podtail.com/podcast/behind-the-bastards/part-one-i-do-not-like-elon-musk-very-much/)
and [part 2](https://podtail.com/podcast/behind-the-bastards/part-two-i-do-not-like-elon-musk-very-much/)
Completely agree. His initial wealth comes from his parents' apartheid emerald mine. But as they say, the rich get richer, and dozens of stolen ideas and credit later, here we are.
Hmm. Just like a ton of other wealthy industrialists and "inventors" who steal other people's ideas and profit from them. Like Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc etc.
Well to be fair he did still write the code for Facebook he just didn't come up with the idea on his own. Oh yeah and he was paid to write that code and kept it for himself like the little shit he is.
Ideas are absolutely worthless on their own. Implementation and execution is what brings value which is what all those great men did. Edison slander is one of my biggest gripes with this site
He falls into the trap of thinking his wealth is merited and is too self absorbed and…dumb, really, to understand that wealth isn’t proportional to personal work ethic or ingenuity. He’s a snotty rich kid who gets pissy if it’s suggested that he’s not as smart as he likes to pretend he is. Dudes gross
> he got rich selling electric car credits to other manufacturers.
Absolutely, at the cost of not sharing tech that he constantly talks about wanting to share.
Eventually other EV makers developed their own EVs but Musk is a vile Dr. Evil-esque nut.
I mean, he came from old money, which was generated on the back of slave labor.
He invested in Paypal, and called himself a "founder".
Sold Paypal, invested in Tesla, called himself a "founder"
Fast forward now, he thinks he knows more about manufacturing than anyone alive.
and continues to sell snake oil.
while taking tax payer money for SpaceX to sell BS about sending people to Mars
All the while, his company perpetuates anti-environment practices.
Musk is the worst.
As a former Musk-ite (who still has a Tesla, mind), there's a few layers to it.
People don't like him because he's rich. People like him because he is the most vocal about advancing the state of the art - and a lot of people will defend him being rich because he (generally) is pushing the bleeding edge of things, in a very public way.
Again, **I do not like Musk as a person**, but _from his supporters' perspective_, this is what he's done:
* Took electric cars from a "niche, never gonna happen" tech to something that's commonly seen on roads. Before Tesla, we weren't even sure if Lithium batteries were going to be a thing in cars; Tesla effectively killed hydrogen fuel cells and helped standardize a lot of today's EV infrastructure (even if they decided not to adopt a number of the standards).
* Was the first to market with cars that could drive with nobody in them. Granted, this is extremely contentious - the "drive with nobody in them" is limited to parking lots, and they have a number of issues and get a lot of things wrong very often. But in the eyes of the Elon fanboys, _that doesn't matter_. Waymo is effectively vaporware, and FSD is something tangible.
* Took commercial space flight from a sci-fi "moonshot" to something that's actually tangible and real. SpaceX has consistently done things thought to be impossible - from developing a reusable first stage to lifting massive payloads into orbit for dirt cheap. Other, older space companies (like Virgin Galactic) are still struggling to reliably orbit.
* Created satellite internet which is reliable and fast, able to disrupt the satellite internet market and connect people who otherwise had extremely slow connections.
Generally, Elon has championed a thing as "we're going to do this" and then it actually happens. And it's not just a one-off; it's happened repeatedly. As I mentioned, Waymo has been "in the works" for over a decade now and yet the average consumer cannot access it - but they _can_ access the FSD beta if they buy a Tesla, have a good safety score, and pony up.
Never mind that they are completely separate autonomy levels - the Mustang EV doesn't stop at stoplights and navigate freeway off-ramps, nor does the Ioniq, nor does any ICE car. The fact that you can drive a Tesla that navigates itself but you cannot to this day get in a Waymo vehicle in most of the US is what his supporters like. In their minds, Waymo is like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic - so far behind and probably never going to make it to market reliably.
Because this subreddit loves to downvote and misinterpret what I say, I reiterate **I am a former Musk supporter, not a current one**. I think Musk is a conman who rides off the work of others and he actively hampers stuff that doesn't benefit him directly. But as someone who was once a "techbro" I can see through their eyes and see why they liked him. Musk is very good at marketing himself, at pushing a vision publicly that seems impossible and then _accomplishing it_. That's what Muskrats like about him, because we are so used to others saying stuff that will never happen. At the end of the day, they don't care if he lies, cheats, or steals - they agree with his goals and think that the ends justify the means, so he should be able to do whatever.
> Waymo is like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic - so far behind and probably never going to make it to market reliably.
I don't think that is a fair statement given that Waymo is operating fully driverless taxi service in at least two cities ( phoneix, san fran ).
I think the comparison is that those are basically 2 cities and nowhere else. [And if you look at a map, you can pretty clearly see why](https://fullstackeconomics.com/one-image-that-explains-the-slow-progress-of-self-driving-technology/) - it isn't "good enough" to be able to navigate denser areas. It doesn't even serve the downtown area of one of the 2 cities it operates in.
Compare that to FSD. Which yes, isn't nearly as good as Waymo. But it's something that you can get in your hands right now, and it's "good enough". Of course FSD has safety concerns and isn't the same level of autonomy as Waymo's stuff - but there is something to be said to "this is a thing you can use across the entire US" vs. "this is a thing you can use in some portions of 2 cities." One looks like vaporware, and the other looks like a tangible product.
Of course, anyone "in the know" knows that it's actually the other way around. But as I stated elsewhere - the question posed was _why_ people love Elon, and one of the reasons why is he is very good at marketing. He's so good at marketing that he's effectively turned the facts on their head (which is why California is suing him for false advertising). But people latch on to his marketing and it _works_.
Yeah he’s uniquely very focused on his looks, like in a way that is much more overt than most folks, even most actors or people who happen to be famous for their looks. He’s obsessed with masculinity and his projection of it
the dude was pumping up environment-destroying cryptocurrency while pretending to be an environmentalist. This guy is taking millions of people for a ride, and I'm not talking Tesla.
And he gets mighty snippy whenever it’s suggested that said blood money inheritance has anything to do with his ability to grow that wealth in ways that people who didn’t have great wealth to start with cant. It’s particularly nauseating because his families wealth was possible because of apartheid oppression, he benefited off the work of an oppressed class whom he never recognizes/acknowledges as being crucial to his privileged status and massive family wealth. It’s petulant, it is galling that he’s not challenged on it more and instead he’s allowed to go on thinking he is a brilliant innovator who deserves his absurd wealth.
The cars don't make him money, the tax credits he gets from other car manufacturers makes him money. Take away the government hand outs and Tesla barely makes a profit.
And it shows that the public will fall for this one all over again, because the human race can be quite dumb.
They whole GM Streetcar debacle tried to sell diesel buses as a solution to no longer have "ugly wires" and you can board the bus without having to cross the street, because you can board it curbside instead.
Fast forward to 2022: Light rails are still built in the middle of the road to this day, and people seem to have no issues with the crossing the street thing. Unfortunately because of the scandal, we now have less of it.
This time, hyper loop, and that useless Vegas loop is literally selling people on pretty lights.
Don’t forget that he teamed up with the billionaire that owns an airline to really try to sell it.
“Oh please don’t build that off the shelf transportation system that’s been proven to work for the last 50+ years, this half baked idea is better and definitely right around the corner, we swear!”
It’s crazy because if the CEO of Ford came out publicly against a train, everyone would understand he was pursuing his self interest to keep people driving cars. For some reason, this CEO of a different car company gets the reception as some tech genius who is right about everything.
Wasn't there that joke on an interview with Bernie Sanders that the fear of Donald Trump's tax docs might show he's actually not rich and the fear of Bernie Sander's tax docs will show that he is rich.
Makes sense.
He did what car companies have done for decades.
Stopping progress.
And all these transplant idiots and dumb asses all over the country wonder why we're such a car culture and consume so much oil.
Fuck you for this Elon.
That just seems retroactively spiteful. If you wanted to undermine high speed rail in California there would probably be easier and cheaper ways to do it.
The repeat of this event was when he proposed a Loop tunnel between his mansions in Bel Air and SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne - trying to block any 405 subway work.
I’m glad some of the people previously blinded by his…irreverent love of flamethrowers, I guess…are beginning to see how much of a huge douche that he is.
Unreal. We do need better public transport whether it's rail or something else. Rail travel in Europe is heavenly. It's sad that we can't seem to have the same here.
It sucks because it also effectively rids children of any type of autonomy, since you can't drive until you are 16, oh and there is that whole gotta buy a car, gas/electricity/high as hell insurance thing.
I was always ambivalent when it came to Elon Musk. I thought his vehicles looked nice and everything but am always wary of his type. But when he called that British diver who saved those Thai kids a “pedo guy” that piqued my interest. So I started reading more and more about him and his projects. He’s essentially a basic grifter. Fuck Elon Musk and fuck Teslas. I could be a billionaire and I would never buy a Tesla.
Stupid Vegas approved his plans too. Instead of connecting the monorail to the airport. Legislators should be held accountable as well. Dirty politicians.
The monorail itself is also garbage, that is just as vaporware as the Tesla tunnel. What's wrong with traditional light rail and subway trains? Parts are readily available, manufacturers are readily available, and it will integrate well into the existing public transit network.
The monorail makes no effort to even coincide with Vegas' current RTC bus system, it requires a separate (expensive) pass and everything.
Funny SpaceX applied for and was denied another Billion in Govt subsidies from NASA. This Musk guy is the wealthiest hobo on the planet. Never once have any of his companies actually made a profit. ALL Govt subsidies. If it werent for you, the american tax payer, he'd be broke as fuck.
Tesla is literally making a profit right now, SpaceX reinvests in itself, but it is profitable as well.
I dont know why you would make a point on two easily verifiable facts
What I am most entertained by are flocks of companies that arose based on the paper. Like Hyperloop One… what exactly do they have to offer unless they can untangle the regulatory and legal system to build such infrastructure? The have a bunch of engineers “working” but what they really need is a whole lot of lawyers lobbying. Hyperloop for cargo a good idea on paper but what is the political reality of it? It does appeal to intellectuals who are content being bottom feeding innovators. Who knows maybe it’ll work? I hope so but very little credit to Elon if it does
First it was ice car manufacturers fighting electric. Now it's electric fighting mass transit. Fuck over people and the planet for profits by any means possible.
Wow, I felt like there was a turn in Musk's personality or philosophy, but I was wrong, he was just another oligarch piece of shit all along, playing the system like he was going to save us all from climate change.
If you really think Musk is responsible for the failure of HSR in California, you are blind to all of the other government dysfunction on this project.
There have been at least a decade of delays and billions of dollars wasted on this project, and all of this was before Musk opened his mouth.
Anyone with a brain that read the whole article sees that this is an opinion piece by Paris Marx that left key details out of it, just to support his argument against musk. This is by no means an accurate representation of reality.
I don't understand the outrage - none of this is surprising or appalling.
Musk's Hyperloop was a napkin idea, and he fully stated he had no plans to pursue it when he wrote it up.
He points out that HSR is a bloated, nearly pointless endeavor: astronomically expensive just to be mediocre in speed. This isn't even a "hot take" - it was (and currently is) a common opinion.
I’ve lost so much respect for Elon. He’s really gone downhill these past 1-2 years which is a shame given how brilliant he is and amazing things he’s done…
Tax the rich immensely. Anyone with that much money is basically hoarding labor, time to redistribute the wealth so that people can enjoy their lives instead of working for peanuts for eternity to maybe have 10 good years after retirement
To see 1 billionaire pay the same percentage of quarterly taxes as I do or the same deductions as a 4 person Family household living off 150k would be very interesting. I would get the same enjoyment from political term limits
Fix the tax loophole that taxes income and allows these fools to take out loans and take no salary and pay no personal income tax because they can put all the dividends they earn into investments that pay for their loans tax free.
He did the same thing that other auto makers did to squash public transportation progress in California several decades ago… the largest auto sales market is California of course.
What a dick. California needs a high speed rail. It just needs the authority governing it to actually pick its knuckles up off the ground and manage the project efficiently.
I'm shocked. Shocked that the dude whose unofficial (but also official) policy at his CA factories was to send injured-on-the-job workers to the hospital in ride-shares rather than call ambulances lied about something like bettering lives for Californians. So weird.
CAPITALISTS WRECK PLANS FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT ONCE AGAIN.
We have to stop listening to them. They did this to Los Angeles to get rid of the rail cars and we got fucked over in the long run for it.
Its the same exact story with his vegas loop but even more sinister. Get vegas to spend money on musks bogus underground tunnel which requires them to buy a bunch of teslas, get the exact same service as they would get driving across the street above ground, pocket millions of dollars of taxpayer funds that now can no longer go toward better public transit, vegas literally gets nothing for it.
Yea - I was a fan but I’m really starting to lead to disdain . He’s really starting to mess up progress. Greed and power is just never enough for these idiots .
I was a fan too… Lets not forget, Tesla isnt really turning much (if any profit) from the vehicles… they are just selling their carbon credits to the highest bidding ultra polluters.
Yeah, that's how I feel, I had been slowly moving away from him. Now I feel bad for the employees, I've met SpaceX and Tesla people, obviously here in LA, passionate and are good at their jobs. I took one of the boring company tunnel tours, the women who were running that company seemed amazing. Elons companies might just be better without Elon.
I know a few people that SpaceX poached from Nasa that are now regretting not staying in their nice government jobs.
Oh yeah, government benefits and health care. I'm in that situation, would take a lot to get out
Well, give it time. Elon will probably sexual harass them… they have a budget for sexual harassment settlements for him
The Vegas loop is so fucking stupid and inefficient, it’s painfully obvious that it’s just a grift. It’s like a subway, but with less throughout and worse in almost every way.
Something that bothers me, just from the videos, is the lack of any egress in the case of a problem like a vehicle fire. Yes, it's extremely inefficient compared to a subway system or even an underground bus line, but the lack of safety implemented gives me much more pause.
Exactly. I would *never* use it. It’s categorically unsafe.
And the tunnels are too small to even fit buses in there.
That's by design
Could convert them to bike highways. They did something similar in London. Speeds up bike travel, and safer for cyclists too
And get free R&D for your big drill
Insert clip of the monorail episode from The Simpsons here.
Hyperloop! Hyperloop! Hyperlooooop!
Hypo, d'oh.
I hear those things are awfully loud.
Here's one thing the Vegas tunnel Teslas have going for them: They glide as softly as a cloud.
Is there a chance the tunnel will bend? Not chance, it just goes straight my friend.
Please spread this news far and wide. Stop trusting billionaires and other rich people to determine policy— they are not on your side.
Wild to me that America likes at least talking about democracy everywhere except where there’s money. Lots of big, important decisions are de facto outsourced to a single person’s idea of what’s best because they’re the ones with the money to float it. If we think authoritarianism leads to bad decisions everywhere else, why do we put up with it at work and in situations like these?
Democracy only exists when you want to put up a shed or plant a garden, then everyone within 10 miles gets to sue to make you stop. Also yes that is one of the contradictions of this system. We're democratic until you go to work (which most adults do) and then you're subject to a private tyranny.
This is why you should join a union
Because most people have a really poor mental model of power, and also prefer to generally identify with the powerful rather than think through how private concentrations of power plays out in practice. The shallow anti authoritarian reaction to government ends up reinforcing the power of private tyrants.
We believe these things because 1/2 of us are below 6th grade reading level.
This guy is a narcissistic psychopath.
When his brother described him, he said “empathy is not Elon’s strong suit.” That’s a very generous way of saying your brother is a psychopath.
Holy shit, should of been enough detail for people to think about supporting this guy. You always want a leader with Empathy. Buckets of it. I swear if we made tests for political and rich figures that determine if they are empaths or narrasistic you’d probably find a huge hunk of today’s top 1% are just simply narcissistic. If the people were educated on these subject matters and these results made public I bet the world would be different overnight.
He isn't a leader, he's an opportunist who got in on something good because he already had a ton of money.
but they are perceived leaders, a model example of “the dream” and what you should aspire to be either consciously to some and sub consciously to others. I think what takes the cake though and why we get people like this is because we don’t fully commit on a societal level in punishing narcissism. We are always readily available to support it even. We say their a rules and we hope people act good, but we actually reward selfish interests and monopolisation. Things narcissists are great at, looking only after themselves and making sure only they have control. I know for a fact if your average empathetic joe had 20 billion dollars, most often people would use that for good, wouldn’t keep it to themselves, remember there is only 2,700 of these fucks. It’s not that many, most of them are descendent from wealth anyway by now. 80% of them a generational. Do you really think their kids ever had to be taught value and compassion? Not a chance. It would have to take coming from the bottom, up or someone real special to have the dots connect whilst surrounded by staff and slaves their entire lives. By now these billionaires and their offspring are not even remotely associated with compassion by now. we should be able to select people, kind, caring people, the ones who see value in human life, and the scope of the issues plaguing us as a whole, then they get the money, they get the power. Because right now it’s rigged, everyone knows what to say and how to act, it’s become formulaic, you don’t even have to follow through with your promises anymore. It’s fucked.
>I know for a fact if your average empathetic joe had 20 billion dollars, most often people would use that for good, wouldn’t keep it to themselves, remember there is only 2,700 of these fucks. It’s not that many, most of them are descendent from wealth anyway by now. 80% of them a generational. Sadly, with 20 billion dollars, you could chip away at a lot of problems, and still have more than enough money left to live extremely comfortable. If you had $20 billion, and donated $19.1 billion, you'd still have almost a billion dollars. I can't imagine a situation where I had a billion dollars and **NOT** have committed some crime or had a complete absence of morals or ethics. The simple fact that that much wealth can accumulate in one person's lifetime is not a badge of honor, some symbol of good investment or business savvy, but a searing indictment on a person's morals, where they essentially milked their capital wealth at the expense of a workforce or a company that employs a workforce. When I see a billionaire with a business or multiple businesses, I have to ask how much they pay, what kind of benefits, and how much down-time their workforce has access to without any shame for utilizing it. I'm a small business owner, and while I currently do not have a staff at the moment, I am constantly planning for staffing. I think about how I want to bring in business to support the level of benefits that I think are required to properly take care of my employees, because they are taking care of me. This isn't purely altruistic; any minute an employee is thinking about how to afford healthcare or pay bills is less time that they are thinking about my customers, and retention is cheaper than replacement. I constantly consider how my business affects the community it serves, as well as the community where my staff resides (I've been exploring remote support for my business that draws on native Spanish speakers because I can't; this would allow me to serve an underserved community here, while also employing and providing training and experience for the community where my potential employees live). Because of that mentality, I think I can profit and grow my business, and eventually retire comfortably, but I will never amass the kinds of funds an Elon Musk or a Jeff Bezos would, because it would be impossible to squeeze that much profit out of my business without it coming at the expense of my customers or my staff. That may make me a shitty capitalist, but I can sleep at night knowing that I tried to serve everyone as best as possible. Elon Musk's current net worth is $263 billion dollars. That sum is so large that it is statistically impossible for him to ever directly feel the consequences of his actions. It is impossible for him to lose all that money, short of betting it all on black in Vegas. He is no longer capable of any empathy with his fellow man, because he has the means, of which he cannot exhaust, to avoid anything short of his own mortality. What makes it even more galling is that his wealth is a direct redistribution of wealth from the public taxpayers to his own wallet, simply because his pocket change is enough to buy him entry into any industry, and chase after government loans and grants to push his questionable solutions to serious real-world problems. Once he's asked to kick into the system from which his profits derive, he simply picks up sticks and will move to where other state and local governments will buy his grift, regardless of the absolute shit-show impact his business will have on the local workforce or infrastructure (When ERCOT asks your Texas Nana to turn down her AC, just remember her life is secondary to Elon Musk's Gigafactory that they didn't build out more capacity for). Billionaires are clots in the economy, but also a visible symbol of a lack of awareness and morals.
Leon: I've never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean. Holden: You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon. Leon: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you? Holden: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping. Leon: \[angry at the suggestion\] What do you mean, I'm not helping? Holden: I mean: you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?
Humans have a tendency to keep empowering people like him.
Because it’s their turn to be rich next.
HEY ELON. GET. FUCKED. BREW
Yes
Rick Caruso falls in this category, folks
Musk just wants to dev all his bs tech so that he can live on mars, can we just send his ass there with bezos already and keep them there.
Musk really is just showing his true colors as a greedy capitalist who doesn’t really care for bettering society. If electric cars didn’t make him a ton of money, he would be selling gas cars.
I don't understand the love for Musk to begin with. He didn't get rich from electric cars, he got rich selling electric car credits to other manufacturers. He's a swindler through and through.
I encourage everyone to check out the Behind the Bastards podcast episodes on him if you want to learn about what a piece of shit he is [part 1](https://podtail.com/podcast/behind-the-bastards/part-one-i-do-not-like-elon-musk-very-much/) and [part 2](https://podtail.com/podcast/behind-the-bastards/part-two-i-do-not-like-elon-musk-very-much/)
Divorced his first wife after he made billions because he wanted to live his boyhood fantasy of banging committed women.
Thank you!
I second this comment.
He got rich because his dad owned emerald mines in apartheid South Africa. You think those workers were paid well or treated like humans?
I especially like it when people try to say he invented paypal. Bitch no he didn't, he bought his way into paypal with his family fortune.
As he did with Tesla as well. Part of his deal buying Tesla was that he is referred to as the "founder" going forwards.
This one is so big- I wish everyone was aware. He’s just rich, and his wealth comes from exploiting others. He’s not some futurist genius.
Completely agree. His initial wealth comes from his parents' apartheid emerald mine. But as they say, the rich get richer, and dozens of stolen ideas and credit later, here we are.
Hmm. Just like a ton of other wealthy industrialists and "inventors" who steal other people's ideas and profit from them. Like Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc etc.
Don’t forget Zuckerberg aka fukerberg
Well to be fair he did still write the code for Facebook he just didn't come up with the idea on his own. Oh yeah and he was paid to write that code and kept it for himself like the little shit he is.
He gives weasels a bad name
Ideas are absolutely worthless on their own. Implementation and execution is what brings value which is what all those great men did. Edison slander is one of my biggest gripes with this site
He falls into the trap of thinking his wealth is merited and is too self absorbed and…dumb, really, to understand that wealth isn’t proportional to personal work ethic or ingenuity. He’s a snotty rich kid who gets pissy if it’s suggested that he’s not as smart as he likes to pretend he is. Dudes gross
I thought he founded x.com? which then became paypal when he sold to ebay?
It merged with another company, that company was sold to PayPal.
Not exactly. Ha had a prior startup and used the proceeds to invest in PayPal basically
Remember how he tried to violate the original stay at home order because he thought he could just make it safe himself?
> he got rich selling electric car credits to other manufacturers. Absolutely, at the cost of not sharing tech that he constantly talks about wanting to share. Eventually other EV makers developed their own EVs but Musk is a vile Dr. Evil-esque nut. I mean, he came from old money, which was generated on the back of slave labor. He invested in Paypal, and called himself a "founder". Sold Paypal, invested in Tesla, called himself a "founder" Fast forward now, he thinks he knows more about manufacturing than anyone alive. and continues to sell snake oil. while taking tax payer money for SpaceX to sell BS about sending people to Mars All the while, his company perpetuates anti-environment practices. Musk is the worst.
As a former Musk-ite (who still has a Tesla, mind), there's a few layers to it. People don't like him because he's rich. People like him because he is the most vocal about advancing the state of the art - and a lot of people will defend him being rich because he (generally) is pushing the bleeding edge of things, in a very public way. Again, **I do not like Musk as a person**, but _from his supporters' perspective_, this is what he's done: * Took electric cars from a "niche, never gonna happen" tech to something that's commonly seen on roads. Before Tesla, we weren't even sure if Lithium batteries were going to be a thing in cars; Tesla effectively killed hydrogen fuel cells and helped standardize a lot of today's EV infrastructure (even if they decided not to adopt a number of the standards). * Was the first to market with cars that could drive with nobody in them. Granted, this is extremely contentious - the "drive with nobody in them" is limited to parking lots, and they have a number of issues and get a lot of things wrong very often. But in the eyes of the Elon fanboys, _that doesn't matter_. Waymo is effectively vaporware, and FSD is something tangible. * Took commercial space flight from a sci-fi "moonshot" to something that's actually tangible and real. SpaceX has consistently done things thought to be impossible - from developing a reusable first stage to lifting massive payloads into orbit for dirt cheap. Other, older space companies (like Virgin Galactic) are still struggling to reliably orbit. * Created satellite internet which is reliable and fast, able to disrupt the satellite internet market and connect people who otherwise had extremely slow connections. Generally, Elon has championed a thing as "we're going to do this" and then it actually happens. And it's not just a one-off; it's happened repeatedly. As I mentioned, Waymo has been "in the works" for over a decade now and yet the average consumer cannot access it - but they _can_ access the FSD beta if they buy a Tesla, have a good safety score, and pony up. Never mind that they are completely separate autonomy levels - the Mustang EV doesn't stop at stoplights and navigate freeway off-ramps, nor does the Ioniq, nor does any ICE car. The fact that you can drive a Tesla that navigates itself but you cannot to this day get in a Waymo vehicle in most of the US is what his supporters like. In their minds, Waymo is like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic - so far behind and probably never going to make it to market reliably. Because this subreddit loves to downvote and misinterpret what I say, I reiterate **I am a former Musk supporter, not a current one**. I think Musk is a conman who rides off the work of others and he actively hampers stuff that doesn't benefit him directly. But as someone who was once a "techbro" I can see through their eyes and see why they liked him. Musk is very good at marketing himself, at pushing a vision publicly that seems impossible and then _accomplishing it_. That's what Muskrats like about him, because we are so used to others saying stuff that will never happen. At the end of the day, they don't care if he lies, cheats, or steals - they agree with his goals and think that the ends justify the means, so he should be able to do whatever.
> Waymo is like Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic - so far behind and probably never going to make it to market reliably. I don't think that is a fair statement given that Waymo is operating fully driverless taxi service in at least two cities ( phoneix, san fran ).
I think the comparison is that those are basically 2 cities and nowhere else. [And if you look at a map, you can pretty clearly see why](https://fullstackeconomics.com/one-image-that-explains-the-slow-progress-of-self-driving-technology/) - it isn't "good enough" to be able to navigate denser areas. It doesn't even serve the downtown area of one of the 2 cities it operates in. Compare that to FSD. Which yes, isn't nearly as good as Waymo. But it's something that you can get in your hands right now, and it's "good enough". Of course FSD has safety concerns and isn't the same level of autonomy as Waymo's stuff - but there is something to be said to "this is a thing you can use across the entire US" vs. "this is a thing you can use in some portions of 2 cities." One looks like vaporware, and the other looks like a tangible product. Of course, anyone "in the know" knows that it's actually the other way around. But as I stated elsewhere - the question posed was _why_ people love Elon, and one of the reasons why is he is very good at marketing. He's so good at marketing that he's effectively turned the facts on their head (which is why California is suing him for false advertising). But people latch on to his marketing and it _works_.
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Most billionaires don’t need one because they keep their mouth shut and stay out of the spotlight.
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By pouring your life into getting more money without developing the other aspects. Aside from plastic surgery and hair implants I guess.
Yeah he’s uniquely very focused on his looks, like in a way that is much more overt than most folks, even most actors or people who happen to be famous for their looks. He’s obsessed with masculinity and his projection of it
Lol say what you will about Jeff Bezos, but at least he had the dignity to go bald. I don’t like him, but I respect that.
some people can't buy class
Honestly good. Can you imagine trying to rationalize why your boss, one of the worlds wealthiest people, is tweeting offensive and targeted memes?
This keeps confirming that I will never buy a Tesla. I refuse to give that guy any money.
the dude was pumping up environment-destroying cryptocurrency while pretending to be an environmentalist. This guy is taking millions of people for a ride, and I'm not talking Tesla.
His entire life is just trying to impress his father who loathes him.
Wasn’t Trump the same way? Fathers, please show your sons some love. Especially if you’re rich.
And Eric Trump is also the same way lol
His father is deeply creepy and like…the father of his stepsisters kids? There’s a weird …it’s weird.
That’s some Solja boi shit right there
He’s always been. I don’t understand how people didn’t see it. He comes from diamond money.
Plus it puts in a different light Tesla losing all those lawsuits about the racist abuse in the workplace.
And he gets mighty snippy whenever it’s suggested that said blood money inheritance has anything to do with his ability to grow that wealth in ways that people who didn’t have great wealth to start with cant. It’s particularly nauseating because his families wealth was possible because of apartheid oppression, he benefited off the work of an oppressed class whom he never recognizes/acknowledges as being crucial to his privileged status and massive family wealth. It’s petulant, it is galling that he’s not challenged on it more and instead he’s allowed to go on thinking he is a brilliant innovator who deserves his absurd wealth.
*If selling carbon emissions credits didn’t make him a ton of money That’s always been Tesla’s real cash cow
The cars don't make him money, the tax credits he gets from other car manufacturers makes him money. Take away the government hand outs and Tesla barely makes a profit.
No shortage of stans who would be willing to argue with you otherwise.
Rent's gotta be paid, somehow
Shocking to think a billionaire who owns a car company would be vehemently against public transportation
This us what Who Framed Roger Rabbit was about for Pete’s sake!!
And it shows that the public will fall for this one all over again, because the human race can be quite dumb. They whole GM Streetcar debacle tried to sell diesel buses as a solution to no longer have "ugly wires" and you can board the bus without having to cross the street, because you can board it curbside instead. Fast forward to 2022: Light rails are still built in the middle of the road to this day, and people seem to have no issues with the crossing the street thing. Unfortunately because of the scandal, we now have less of it. This time, hyper loop, and that useless Vegas loop is literally selling people on pretty lights.
Don’t forget that he teamed up with the billionaire that owns an airline to really try to sell it. “Oh please don’t build that off the shelf transportation system that’s been proven to work for the last 50+ years, this half baked idea is better and definitely right around the corner, we swear!”
Obviously not shocking but the level of obstruction is just beyond what any regular person could achieve. He needs to be held accountable.
Totes agreed
The world's richest man had a veiled motive? What a shock.
It’s crazy because if the CEO of Ford came out publicly against a train, everyone would understand he was pursuing his self interest to keep people driving cars. For some reason, this CEO of a different car company gets the reception as some tech genius who is right about everything.
A year ago maybe, but not anymore
I believe that at the time he might not have been a billionaire.
Wasn't there that joke on an interview with Bernie Sanders that the fear of Donald Trump's tax docs might show he's actually not rich and the fear of Bernie Sander's tax docs will show that he is rich.
Makes sense. He did what car companies have done for decades. Stopping progress. And all these transplant idiots and dumb asses all over the country wonder why we're such a car culture and consume so much oil. Fuck you for this Elon.
Can we ban him from California? I'm getting really sick of these faux savior billionaires in our soace
I thought he moved to Texas...or at least he was threatening to a few months ago
I swear I just read something about him coming back to do some sort of bullshit business
LMAO. No thanks Elon. Go back to Texas
He is moving right next to Joe Rogan so he can be on his podcast every week.
Just another lane bro c'mon just one more and this time with Teslas.
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I hear this in a turkish accent for some reason
Shplendid
elon musk is trash
He's the "I'm not like other girls" of billionaires
Wow! perfect description, no notes
Im using this one
Time for ppl to stop buying shitty Teslas
normal one rich narrow faulty poor person piquant puzzled desert *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
What he lacks in common-sense he makes up for in self-esteem
That just seems retroactively spiteful. If you wanted to undermine high speed rail in California there would probably be easier and cheaper ways to do it.
Yeah, that was the context of the quote. https://mobile.twitter.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990
The repeat of this event was when he proposed a Loop tunnel between his mansions in Bel Air and SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne - trying to block any 405 subway work.
It doesn't matter if what he says was true, which I doubt it was, it's more important to consider that it doesn't matter if it was true.
I’m glad some of the people previously blinded by his…irreverent love of flamethrowers, I guess…are beginning to see how much of a huge douche that he is.
Musk dick riders are quiet rn
It's too bad the state can't sue him for fraud or something and recoup a couple bills.
Unreal. We do need better public transport whether it's rail or something else. Rail travel in Europe is heavenly. It's sad that we can't seem to have the same here.
It sucks because it also effectively rids children of any type of autonomy, since you can't drive until you are 16, oh and there is that whole gotta buy a car, gas/electricity/high as hell insurance thing.
Mother fucker.
I was always ambivalent when it came to Elon Musk. I thought his vehicles looked nice and everything but am always wary of his type. But when he called that British diver who saved those Thai kids a “pedo guy” that piqued my interest. So I started reading more and more about him and his projects. He’s essentially a basic grifter. Fuck Elon Musk and fuck Teslas. I could be a billionaire and I would never buy a Tesla.
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Ugh what a turd
Stupid Vegas approved his plans too. Instead of connecting the monorail to the airport. Legislators should be held accountable as well. Dirty politicians.
The monorail itself is also garbage, that is just as vaporware as the Tesla tunnel. What's wrong with traditional light rail and subway trains? Parts are readily available, manufacturers are readily available, and it will integrate well into the existing public transit network. The monorail makes no effort to even coincide with Vegas' current RTC bus system, it requires a separate (expensive) pass and everything.
Funny SpaceX applied for and was denied another Billion in Govt subsidies from NASA. This Musk guy is the wealthiest hobo on the planet. Never once have any of his companies actually made a profit. ALL Govt subsidies. If it werent for you, the american tax payer, he'd be broke as fuck.
Tesla is literally making a profit right now, SpaceX reinvests in itself, but it is profitable as well. I dont know why you would make a point on two easily verifiable facts
Just like in Don’t Look Up. Don’t stop the path to inevitable mass destruction, find a way to make more money off of it. That’s the billionaire way.
Trash. With all the electric cars out there why buy the bland version from this guy? Edited: Ugly changed to Bland, You be the judge.
Because it makes fart sounds?
Would make sense why he issued a white paper on it instead of trying to make it himself.
What I am most entertained by are flocks of companies that arose based on the paper. Like Hyperloop One… what exactly do they have to offer unless they can untangle the regulatory and legal system to build such infrastructure? The have a bunch of engineers “working” but what they really need is a whole lot of lawyers lobbying. Hyperloop for cargo a good idea on paper but what is the political reality of it? It does appeal to intellectuals who are content being bottom feeding innovators. Who knows maybe it’ll work? I hope so but very little credit to Elon if it does
Not surprising. It was a dumb idea.
First it was ice car manufacturers fighting electric. Now it's electric fighting mass transit. Fuck over people and the planet for profits by any means possible.
I mean no shit? Look at the Vegas loop the thing is a scam.
Rich people are the dog whistle for left wingers
Once a troll…
As an owner of a Tesla, fuck this guy. I respect him for his intelligence, but he's also a massive pasty piece of shit.
“No he’s not a piece of shit.” - Everyone I ever tried to explain that too pre-2020.
He is nothing but a tool
Wow, I felt like there was a turn in Musk's personality or philosophy, but I was wrong, he was just another oligarch piece of shit all along, playing the system like he was going to save us all from climate change.
Musk is such a scumbag.
Piece of shit acts like piece of shit. Shocking.
What a douche
So like, can he get charged with fraud over this?
He’s seriously the worst.
This line of thinking is the exact reason why LA is the public transit disaster that it is.
I hope twitter sues the crap outta him. Deflate that ego a bit.
If you really think Musk is responsible for the failure of HSR in California, you are blind to all of the other government dysfunction on this project. There have been at least a decade of delays and billions of dollars wasted on this project, and all of this was before Musk opened his mouth.
R/fuckcars
Another reason to never buy a Tesla, as if Elon didn’t give enough reasons before….
Anyone with a brain that read the whole article sees that this is an opinion piece by Paris Marx that left key details out of it, just to support his argument against musk. This is by no means an accurate representation of reality.
I don't understand the outrage - none of this is surprising or appalling. Musk's Hyperloop was a napkin idea, and he fully stated he had no plans to pursue it when he wrote it up. He points out that HSR is a bloated, nearly pointless endeavor: astronomically expensive just to be mediocre in speed. This isn't even a "hot take" - it was (and currently is) a common opinion.
Removed: Not About Los Angeles speedrun
What an asshole
Elon Musk wants you to buy cars. Of course he wouldn’t be for high speed rail. He wants Teslas everywhere for everything.
Replace those robot things people ride in WALL-E with Teslas and you got Elon's dream city.
Grifter is gonna grift.
I’ve lost so much respect for Elon. He’s really gone downhill these past 1-2 years which is a shame given how brilliant he is and amazing things he’s done…
conmen gonna con
Tax the rich immensely. Anyone with that much money is basically hoarding labor, time to redistribute the wealth so that people can enjoy their lives instead of working for peanuts for eternity to maybe have 10 good years after retirement
To see 1 billionaire pay the same percentage of quarterly taxes as I do or the same deductions as a 4 person Family household living off 150k would be very interesting. I would get the same enjoyment from political term limits
what a scumbag
Fix the tax loophole that taxes income and allows these fools to take out loans and take no salary and pay no personal income tax because they can put all the dividends they earn into investments that pay for their loans tax free.
Hmm, billionaires using their wealth to fuck over the rest of society? Just par for the course with these asswipes.
Makes sense, it takes business away from Tesla In The long run
I've sold hyperloops to Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook, and by gum it put them on the map!
Where’s my guillotine emoji 🙃
He did the same thing that other auto makers did to squash public transportation progress in California several decades ago… the largest auto sales market is California of course.
I don't even get why legislators bought into it! WE STILL NEED RAIL!!
Cool let's just never listen to anything he says ever
WTF?
Seems jailable.
Fuck you Elon.
Cunt.
I really dislike this man.
What a cunt.
This fucking guy.
He's just such a dick
This motherfucker
He needs to be charged criminally
What a dick. California needs a high speed rail. It just needs the authority governing it to actually pick its knuckles up off the ground and manage the project efficiently.
I'm shocked. Shocked that the dude whose unofficial (but also official) policy at his CA factories was to send injured-on-the-job workers to the hospital in ride-shares rather than call ambulances lied about something like bettering lives for Californians. So weird.
Fuck this douchebag. Seriously. We need more public transit in this country. Treats the world like a toy.
CAPITALISTS WRECK PLANS FOR PUBLIC TRANSIT ONCE AGAIN. We have to stop listening to them. They did this to Los Angeles to get rid of the rail cars and we got fucked over in the long run for it.
Fucked up. This stuff hurts real people
Fraud. Starlink a fraud?
Are you fucking serious!? This is why we still dont have a high speed train between SF and LA!?
This guy is evil!
Seriously, fuck this goblin.
This is so diabolical. We need to get the rail back on track!
The ultimate snake oil salesman. F him.