Elon Musk

Don't really care to block or mute anyone. I'm a grown-up.

then you should pay 8 dollars. You can afford it pops.

the grown ups in the room social media site.

We exist #grownUps

grow up

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) May 22, 2023

I hid in the clouded warmth of the crowd
But when they said, "Come down" I threw up
Ooh, growin' up

--Elon Musk

the space degrades. and people whose voice you might value don’t feel comfortable posting - because RW libertarian voices are given precedence, because the moderation, poor as it was, is explicitly and deliberately worse, because the experience is *bad*.

lol ganz can give as good as he gets but yes, another one bites the dust.

Fizzles otm in both his posts. This isn’t hard to understand.

xxxp My gut here tells me Elon's involvement in Twitter was 1) not necessarily his choice, he was kompromatted into it (his lawsuit to get out of the sale was about to expose some interesting emails/texts and he instantly caved), and 2) ultimately to help the Saudis (who are investors) and their ilk as well as the interests of Jared Kushner (who he met with during the World Cup and has received billions of Saudi cash for "investments") and Rupert Murdoch (who Elon met with during the Super Bowl).

Him and his investors I'm guessing don't care one bit about the lost $ value of Twitter. I'm guessing they want it dismantled and diminished as it was a viable tool for the left to communicate, advocate and organize world wide (see Arab Spring and women's protests in Iran and many other countless movements and moments). It's an incredibly powerful tool in this regard, worth far more than its lost dollar value if it helps accomplish things like create fascist uprisings in Europe or help a Republican president get elected in 2024, which long term will protect and grow these oligarch and autocrats assets and influence far more. Seeing how the algorithm diminishes the reach of Ukraine posts already shows it being used as a political tool for manipulation.

This whole Elon "is losing a ton of money" thing is just a distraction.

otoh it is quite hard to find stuff like this anywhere else

what a rothko painting is in color and form, a song by the necks is in sound and time

— Toby (@tobyshorin) May 22, 2023

Does Elon Musk really strike you as the type of person who would sacrifice personal gain for ideological gain? Doesn’t it seem more likely he assumed he could just do whatever the fuck he wanted and Twitter would continue to make money because he believes himself to be magic and infallible?

never ever underestimate the ability of a coddled human being to be a 100% ego baby

DJP - Given his motives and the evidence exposed during his suit to get out of the sale, he already knew he was sacrificing personal gain from the get go. Perhaps it's a little bit from column A and B. Given his visible meetings with hard right oligarchs, autocrats et al (which can't be dismissed), at the very least he's being used. I tend to avoid underestimating the ruling class, especially Elon types.

i'm sorry for you that you avoid underestimating the ruling class, seems exhausting.

try overmisunderestimating them

"I'm guessing they want it dismantled and diminished as it was a viable tool for the left to communicate, advocate and organize world wide (see Arab Spring and women's protests in Iran and many other countless movements and moments)."

The movements and protests that failed. Ok.

the Left can only win with pamphlets

Hey maybe I'm overly paranoid, but we underestimated Trump and Russia's impact on social media and its affects on democracy. But yeah perhaps I'll stick to the basketball and music threads here.

Post where you want. But I might ask a question or two. I mean, I thought Facebook took a bigger 'credit' for those uprisings. So why not shut it down as well?

If Musk was blackmailed into buying Twitter (with significant Saudi funding public), why would they let him try to get out of it?

xp Facebook is a reliable medium for disinformation.

I mean, so is every person on the planet earth, ime

Literally nothing about Musk's behavior at any point in this debacle suggests any kind of plan, on his part or anyone else's. I do think he was reacting to and agreed with right-wing troll critiques of Twitter and its "censorship," as he's repeatedly demonstrated he's simpatico with the 4chan view of the world. The Saudis obviously have some self-interest in influencing a potentially powerful communications medium, and that would make sense as a reason for them to buy in. But nothing about it seems organized or orchestrated, Musk seems like he's just been running on incoherent instinct and lazy contempt.

Don't forget the potential value in all the DMs and communications that could be shared to said "investors" as well.

Nobody’s pushing valuable state secrets on Twitter; that’s Discord territory

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/ron-desantis-presidential-bid-campaign-elon-musk-rcna85288

?

oh thank god - he's not running for president

needed a guy with even less charisma as a wingman

he found someone who will love him for who he is, not his wealth

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2023/05/22/08/71259053-12110105-image-a-3_1684741522248.jpg

oh thank god - he's not running for president

If Musk was allowed to run we've have already lived through two terms of President Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Musk I think would get less votes per $ spent than Bloomberg

“Rin Di Santis”

Like that also confirms what I suspect is that Ron is the VC fascists’ choice for president.

Musk I think would get less votes per $ spent than Bloomberg

but ian miles cheong would vote for him. o hang on.

1/🚨 Dorsey is today pushing QAnon propaganda, derived from an apocryphal JFK quote that has also been used by Wikileaks, and which has religious origins. This is QAnon dog-whistling. https://t.co/oI4Q5B828S

— Dave Troy (@davetroy) May 24, 2023

6/This was the first time Jack has tweeted something new in months.

Elon made sure to amplify it with a “!” tweet. And it includes a link to this portrait of JFK. Pure QAnon nonsense, and full Jack/Elon axis in play. pic.twitter.com/FURur3GNq1

— Dave Troy (@davetroy) May 24, 2023

QAnon otm tbf.

Poling etc. "But.."

https://t.co/E2C52R6bNw pic.twitter.com/Wv413ktiIO

— Osita Nwanevu (@OsitaNwanevu) May 24, 2023

Skeptical that "the rest of the country" all know who Joe Rogan is.

it's "donald trump is a good businessman" all over again innit?

I dreamt last night that Musk was involved in some criminal scheme with Donald Trump in which they were somehow trafficking in stolen microprocessors(?) I think it was my mind attempting to reckon with how genuinely sinister a person or phenomenon he is, in light of his recent flood of anti-semitic conspiracy memes posting, his showcasing Tucker and Desantis, the arrogant rich guy "I don't have to pay these bills, what are you going to do sue me?" while putting lives in danger via fire code violations, etc. behaviors... as opposed to the habit of just thinking of him as being a gormless charmless fraud of sorts.

How is someone having that much money and power and fanbase, who is happy to inanely regurgitate qanon-ish nazi memes and just asking questions responses (or for that matter, Trump still supposedly being a viable presidential candidate in 2024...) possibly going to end well, for the country or the world at large?

Years ago when I first encountered his name regularly I ended up blocking it on Twitter because I was weary of hearing about him and people endlessly complaining about him/making fun of him... "Elon Musk". Somehow his name alone manages to be unpleasant. Then a couple years later I came to understand that he was a terrible person in a way that I hadn't previously realized. Now it just seems so much worse and I wish that everyone who were formally blue checks, back when blue checks meant something, the actual public figures/journalists/govt orgs who aren't the dilbert guy or whoever, would abandon the site en masse and let it rot as a Gab/Parler/TruthSocial-style backwater that he dumped billions into and tanked his reputation over.

remember when elon hosted an event to showcase an unbreakable car window and it immediately cracked. now imagine it was a human brain https://t.co/OeLEXAHcU6

— Law Boy (@The_Law_Boy) May 25, 2023

the people who are utterly terrified of the vaccine are gonna be first in line for this

the chip teaches you to be a very good Musk fanboy

the people who are utterly terrified of the vaccine are gonna be first in line for this

For some reason that Bill Hicks about the world feeling lighter already for having lost another idiot springs to mind.

I think reverse Midas touch Musk is the problem, not the tech or concept. This was just a few days ago and is super-cool/nuts:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/24/paralysed-man-walks-using-device-that-reconnects-brain-with-muscles

A man who was paralysed in a cycling accident in 2011 has been able to stand and walk with an aid after doctors implanted a device that reads his brain waves and sends instructions to his spine to move the right muscles.

Gert-Jan Oskam, 40, was told he would never walk again after breaking his neck in a traffic accident in China, but has climbed stairs and walked for more than 100 metres at a time since having the operation.

“A few months ago, I was able, for the first time after 10 years, to stand up and have a beer with my friends,” said Oskam, who is from the Netherlands. “That was pretty cool. I want to use it in my daily life.”

(lol, the quote reads like he wants to use beer in his daily life, which I appreciate.)

That's not Musk's project though, like Tesla isn't the only electric car.

No, I know, that's what I meant. It's not the brain implanting that is the problem, it's Musk being behind his own version of it that raises (AI-augmented) eyebrows.

Maybe his direct competitors have conspired to keep him in the game? Like if he fails epically and publicly at everything he does, other folks doing the same things only need to have like a 60% success rate to look amazing in comparison. Create a self-driving car that only runs over every tenth toddler rather than every third, for instance.