DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Elon Musk

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This man is dangerous. He and his father have been calling the new British Labour government Fascist. I listened to an interview with his dad the other day... Clearly flipping coo-coo. Apparently Elon became a Trump supporter after Elon and Tesla wasnt invited to a Biden event to discuss electric vehicles .... And as for Labours Britain being Facist, thats an absolute fantasy.

He is drunk with his own power.

Calling others are "going full Stalin" while you're joined at the hip with trump is not attractive to anyone paying attention.

In his defense, he did pay trump a cool 100 million for that power drunken position.

I've never seen someone turn heel so quickly.

Apparently money talks and so does BS in the MAGA world.

Bro these wealthy clowns are out of control. Dr. Phil (lol) admitted that he supported Trump cause Kamala Harris didn’t invite him to campaign with her.

The level of pettiness and emotional immaturity these kind of dudes show makes me wonder why we trust men with nuclear codes.

All we ever hear is how emotional women are, yet the current crop of men leading this country is what, a sign of stability? Please.

It’s textbook narcissism.

Strange guy, Pops off about Twitter being too one sided, then offers something like $50 Billion to buy it, when called upon to put up or shut up, he tries to back out of it, then is forced to buy it. (by leveraging his stock in Tesla) and wouldn't you know it, over time, if you don't post what he likes, you get bounced off the platform. Very strange guy. By they way, he didn't invent Tesla.. Two other guys did, he just bought it.

Is anyone surprised that a guy like Musk who holds 13.4 billion dollars worth of government contracts would spend 100 million dollars to support trump, get in his ear to stroke his ego in order to gain power which will allow him to enrich himself even further? I know people of wealth and power use their money to influence politics to work in their favor. But this is by far the most obvious and blatant case of it I've ever seen.

Not to mention the fact that - according to Forbes - for every $1 invested in lobbying, Fortune 100 companies saw a $1,000 return. I think Musk is seeing that metric and trying to take it to the extreme.

I foresee a renewed interest by the Trump administration in space exploration and a change in attitude about electric vehicles.

How can you foresee what's already happening? At least in terms of space....

On the campaign trail he called on Elon to get a spaceship to Mars during his term as president. Then he went with Elon to his sixth Starship test flight to space on Tuesday from Texas. They're pretty much joined at the hip these days.

Elon is certainly getting his 100 million dollars worth.

And all taxes will be paid through PayPal.

Or with crypto.

I think there is a lot more to the big money support Trump got this time around. Coverups to prevent the Epstein and the Diddy tapes info getting out with a lot of elites on them and going after the DOJ to tear it apart and prevent prosecutions of the same. No idea if there is a real link or not, but seeing if Diddy makes it to trial is going to be very interesting.

Now he’s calling out specific names and positions of people he wants fired, and he’s rallying the ignoramus army around it on X. This is disgusting, especially coming from the same guy who cried and banned the account that was tracking his plane.

I’m sure this will lead to death threats and all kinds of nonsense for these people. Hell, it could happen to me at some point. Is this what we really want? Regardless, if you voted for this, own it.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/elon-musk-publicized-names-government-125836798.html

And we both know what we will hear..... Crickets. We knew this was coming. We told them this was coming. And they said it wasn't true. Now that it is they still don't care.

Pretty sure no one voted for death threats and "the left" is sending them to Trump's planned appointees, too. Not excusing anyone, but trying to paint this as a one sided issue doesn't quite feel accurate. It's the world we live in, the crazies on/extremes of both sides get amplified. They are what get clicks. Getting clicks gets money, and that seems to be the driving factor for wide swaths of people on both sides of the political spectrum.

Money and outrage make the modern world go round, sadly.

In a sense, if you voted for either side, you voted for "this." So, I guess maybe others should own it, too. (I don't really think this is a good way to look at it, but telling the other side to own it without owning one's own side's baggage seems a tad hypocritical.) Both sides have large segments that have seemingly lost their minds (or is it "sold their souls?", Starting at the top.)

...What a mess....

Not really directed solely at you dawglover05. There were a few people seemingly intent on placing blame/shaming the right, and your mention of death threats just happened to be the one that plucked an idea that had been percolating. Just the whole this is "their fault" mindset has been weighing on me a bit lately. The mindset definitely has its adherents on the right as well.

Let me know when a jury makes an award like the one against Guliani. Or like the one FOX news had to pay out. I won't claim that both sides don't have their extremes because they do. But trying to compare they are both similar in the amount of death threats and the publishing the personal information of their "enemies", since that's what they call them, doesn't fly.

One sides candidate and now president elect calls all of these people "the enemy within". That's placing a direct target on their back. You can feign a false equivalence if you wish but that's all it is.

Yeah this is not a “both sides” thing. I have been very vocal in my disdain of the Dems on here especially lately, but this is unprecedented. It’s also what everyone should have expected, given what the campaign ran on and preached.

In a sense, if you voted for either side, you voted for "this."

NOPE NOPE NOPE! YOU OWN ALL OF THIS BS TRUMPIANS, ALL OF IT!


And you don’t ever get to go there to that in a sense BS.

No, we are not going to establish a colony on Mars. It doesn’t matter that Eloon allegedly has Trump’s ear, at least until Trump starts to think Eloon is getting too much spotlight. It simply isn’t going to happen.

Please sir, tell me where I can go.

You supported a lousy candidate that somehow managed to lose to Trump, one of the most vilified individuals of the 21st century. Yuuuuge idiot. Horrible case of foot in mouth disease. Slimeball. I didn't vote for either of them. It is all BS at that level of politics now. I can't support any of them.

Both sides manufacture outrage and then deny responsibility when someone acts on it.

I can't help it if you can't admit it when your side does it. The first step in fixing a problem is admitting that you have one. Denial only leads to things continuing to get worse until the inevitable catastrophe. ...or as seems to be the case now, a continuing series of catastrophes.

Someone has to be willing to "go there."

...Nope not both sides. "My side" would never. It's always the other side.

People have such fickle memories.

www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6kj383k4ko.amp

Don't get me wrong. Shame on Elon. But it's not some out of the blue anomaly. It's not remotely unprecedented.

"Public discourse" has become increasingly violent all over the country.

Calling out one's own is more effective than calling out the "enemy." Too much animosity exists for one sided hypocrisy to have any effect on the other side. There has to be some level of trust to get through.

Excusing the poor behavior of one's own leads to increasing violence on both sides. When the outrageous becomes acceptable it becomes practically "normal." Changing "the other" doesn't really happen. Especially when they see the other side doing the same thing but acting like it's something different. Accountability has to start "at home." If you can't admit your own side's problems, no one is going to listen to you about there's.

Continuing a false equivalency....

As usual you make up your own contrived fake narrative.... Daglover hasn't excused anything. That's just you gaslighting.

What DL and others have said is that some instances of grossly inappropriate behavior is worse than others - while still calling out "all sides". In fact it's individuals like you who refuse to point out how extreme some of the actions and statements are that is the issue - your contrived contrarian, superior than thou attitude lets people like Trump, MTG and Musk skate by with the worst of the worst because you turn things around on the people discussing those things. I guess at the root of it it all when you distill it down to the basics of evidence based data - you are fake and a troll like Stiffarm.

More stuff that isn't the same as on all sides:

Musk calls witness against Trump a traitor and says he should face appropriate penalty. I think any rationale person would agree that we all think of the penalty for being a traitor is the death penalty. I'm sure the contrarian in you will want to deny that. As Vindman points out - there is no specifics, there is no proof, just lies and public manipulation.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...indman-treason-impeachment-b2655133.html

Meanwhile he's also whipping up public dissent and animosity across the pond in the UK calling the UK a tyrannical state and wants to replace the recently elected government. Yep - no other main stream political operator is saying such crazy and inciteful and hateful stuff.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/26/elon-musk-petition-uk-election-keir-starmer

The political shenanigans with the UK follow Musk telling the world that civil war in the UK was inevitable recently - another absurd and inciteful post from the meddler in chief that is Musk.

Ohhhh.... and last point. YOU claim that the most effective thing to do is call out "your own side" ... but all you ever do is make excuses for one side. So where does that put you? Other than right next to Stiffarm.

j/c

If Musk is serious about cutting government waste, here is a good place for him to start..................

Elon Musk wants to cut government spending. Tesla and SpaceX benefit from it

Although Musk is now tasked with slashing federal spending, several of his companies are likely to continue to benefit from it, even if the EV tax credit is killed. Over the past 16 years, Musk's business deals with the government total nearly $20 billion, according to federal contracting data.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...it-from-government-spending/76301473007/

But we all know he won't.

https://www.aol.com/elon-musk-uses-...Ebbuji-UHoe8wY6A_wwMWffQCMSpQaMCa3DpbELX

Now he gone called Ben Stiller a retard. I guess because I have looked at a couple of articles now Google wants to force feed them to me. I'll leave it here.

Musk is dangerous - doesn't have any checks or balances to his influence - posts the most ridiculous, hate inducing crappolla on his 'X' account without repercussions. I don't see anyone from the "Right" calling him out. I don't see anyone from the "contrarian" side calling him out. You reap what you sow. The USA is worse off with this clown having this much influence and with any/all social media running free and unaccountable.

That’s actually one of the reasons I do fear for my job. A significant amount of money - far more than what Musk and Ramaswamy are preaching - could be saved by actually giving our federal employees working government acquisition more power to negotiate more effectively.

One thing we could do to save a significant amount of money is just by switching the vast majority of our sole source contracts from firm fixed price to fixed price incentive firm contract types. That’s not a point that is very discussed because it’s not flashy and many in either the press or the general public don’t understand it.

As a very simplistic example, if you pay out $1B to a contractor and their realized costs are only $700M firm fixed price, they realize a $300M profit margin (in addition to the ridiculous cash flow metrics the government provides). This sadly has become the norm. Then the Contractors use taxpayer funds to buy billions in dollars of their own stock back. Lockheed and Raytheon alone have recently spent $20B of their own stock back. Where do you think they got that money? They only have one customer…

If you do that same contract as fixed price incentive firm, you might negotiate a target cost line of $900M and a target profit of $100M with what’s called a “share ratio” that is negotiable, but let’s go with 70/30: Government/Contractor. If they end up like the previous scenario only realizing $700M in costs, rather than the Contractor keeping $300M in their own pocket, 70% of that $300M cost under run would go back to the government (treasury) and the contractor would receive 30% of it (which, great you saved costs and got us money back, so here’s your reward, contractor).

If we did that across federal acquisition in DoD alone for large, sole source contracts and subcontracts (basically contracts going to the Big 5), I would be willing to bet we’d save significantly more money than the BS Elon and Vivek are preaching. Let alone if you expanded that mandate to acquisition agencies and departments outside of DoD.

But here’s the rub: contractors would not continue taking the tax payers over the coals. Elon is a contractor. He doesn’t want that, and his role is a prima facie conflict of interest. So it would logically serve to think he has a vested interest in removing the best negotiators from the federal workforce who would harm his bottom line. I am one such person. I’ll just put it this way, bluntly: Boeing hates me and so does Raytheon. They would love to see a guy like me gone.

But if you can whistle to the dogs and say “We’re cutting these useless federal workers!” All the idiots lap it up and issue death threats against the people that Elon hypocritically doxxes. You can have a pragmatic, very simple solution, like what I mentioned, or you could rile up the idiots while you steal their money. The latter unfortunately has been much more effective in the current political climate.

People being easily distracted is what's led us to where we are now. I certainly hope two billionaires, Musk and Ramaswamy don't cost you your job. I can certainly understand why you think they just might.

And they aren't the only examples of the insiders that will now be in charge of our government. I have no idea why anyone would think this will end well.

What I also find so odd is that they are unelected bureaucrats who are tasked with eliminating an unelected bureaucracy as they put it. Does nobody see the irony there?

Elon Musk on Wednesday suggested retired Army Lt. Col Alexander Vindman “committed treason” and “will pay” after the former Trump impeachment witness accused the tech billionaire and close Trump ally of being unwittingly used by Russia.

“Vindman is on the payroll of Ukranian oligarchs and has committed treason against the United States,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X, responding to comments Vindman made in an interview about Musk’s reported conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Musk added that Vindman, who played a central role in the first impeachment of then-President Trump, “will pay the appropriate penalty.”


https://www.yahoo.com/news/musk-accuses-trump-whistleblower-vindman-213058666.html

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Dude is on a roll. It’s getting dystopian.

Own it.

Some of us saw this kind of BS coming. Some were in denial. Now those in denial have nothing to say.

Oh, your gloat doesn’t work here. These are not apple to apple comparisons.

You can’t compare people who voted for democracy to YOU. That’s disgusting. There is no comparison between voting against you own self interest, the interests of you family, friends, and neighbors, and the democracy in which you have the PRIVILEGE to live; vs voting for a guy convicted of 34 felonies, guilty of sexual assault, hell bent on destroying our institutions, and so damn fascist that even his first chief of staff says he’s unfit to serve the position you elected him for. You did not win a mandate, you won America changing its socks again. Now when all the bad crap we warned about starts happening, I’ll be watching the FAFO NATION crying on tiktok. Will probably see you there too.

So even if you didn’t vote for Trump, you didn’t vote to stop him either. Ones size fits all, here’s your MAGA SIGN.

I understand your point, but an elected person has put them in charge of doing so. I know you understand we can't hold elections for every position in government.

Not even the one's being appointed to some newly created position of one of the most impactful and powerful jobs in the nation?

That's the point here. Musk is being given huge power to wield. It's not just some low level position.

Hold on.

You're predicting death threats? You mean, like, some crazy dude... or mass death threats?

And you could actually be a victim??

Wow. Stay safe out there, dawgie.

Elon Musk’s X is stepping into the legal fight over Alex Jones’ Infowars. Experts say it’s unprecedented
Hadas Gold, CNN
Fri, November 29, 2024 at 2:05 PM EST·3 min read
2.7k


Elon Musk’s X is intervening in the bankruptcy sale of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars, in what is believed to be the first time a social media platform has stepped in to a legal dispute over account ownership.

Jones’ Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, was recently auctioned off to help pay some of the nearly $1.5 billion Jones owes the families of Sandy Hook massacre victims after he was found guilty of defamation. The satirical news site The Onion was declared the winner of the auction, with the backing of some of the families, in a seven-figure bid that Jones and his allies are challenging in court.

The sale includes Infowars’ website, studio equipment, online dietary supplement store and social media accounts, which are followed by millions of users.

In past legal disputes over account ownership, social media companies have left it to the courts and parties involved to work it out. But in this case, X is stepping in, objecting to Jones and Infowars’ X accounts being part of the sale.

“Elon Musk, hands down, is a hero,” Jones said on a recent episode of his Infowars show, praising the billionaire X owner for intervening in his case.

That stands out to experts in social media law.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a social media platform arguing to a court that no one can transfer ownership during a dispute over who owns an account because they will just switch it off,” said Toby Butterfield, who teaches social media law at Columbia University’s Law School.

In a filing this week with the Texas bankruptcy court, attorneys for X said the company does not object to the overall sale of Infowars’ parent company, but “objects to any proposed sale or other purported transfer of any account used by Jones or FSS that is maintained on the X platform (“X”).”

That’s because X says its terms of service make it clear that accounts cannot be sold, and are ultimately owned by X. While that’s not unusual for a social media platform’s terms of service, technology companies usually enforce those terms quietly and do not step in to public court battles, said Eric Goldman, an associate dean and professor of tech law at Santa Clara University School of Law.

“Social media services approach this topic gingerly because they want to encourage their users to invest heavily in their accounts,” Goldman said. “If users fear that the services can moot those investments by taking back or exercising control over the handle, power users will be reluctant to make the desired investments.”

Two things can be true at once, both experts said: Musk may be getting involved because of his political leanings and to set a legal precedent in a high-profile case involving well-known X accounts.

“It’s not that the law has changed here. It’s that Elon Musk as the owner and the people running X are flexing their muscles in a very new and different way,” Butterfield said.

By intervening in the case, X is further showing how the platform is ultimately Musk’s domain, where he can do as he pleases. Musk has shown a willingness to take over accounts in the past, threatening NPR after the public broadcaster stopped posting to its account and seizing the @America handle for his political action committee that supported President-elect Donald Trump during the campaign.

“What conceivable motivation does a company have for destroying the value in their users’ accounts, and implicitly threatening all other users?” Butterfield said. “It becomes an individual person’s playground, rather than a functioning marketplace of ideas.”

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/elon-musk-x-stepping-legal-190530582.html

Sure. Lot's of government positions are unelected positions.

Jack Smith was never elected to anything and he had a pretty powerful position.

So are they unelected bureaucrats complaining about unelected bureaucrats still or not?

Last I checked, the hypocrisy still stands.

It might be interpreted as sad, but I can’t tell if you’re being honest or sarcastic. My apologies if I misinterpret.

But yes, death threats are already increasing for those people named, per the article. My line of work already receives enough grief from the misinformed/disinformed.

I don’t think it’s arguable that the new DOGE’s strategy is going to make things more difficult for federal employees. I’ve already laid out what I think are solutions to obvious problems we have where money could be saved. They are not “sexy” however.

It seems pretty clear to me that the idea is to make a straw man out of people in my field. With current playbooks that Musk and Ramaswamy are running, I expect more ignorant things like “the gravy train ends” cliche quotes to become more prevalent, and yes, I do expect death threats toward us as a group to increase in line with the current cited strategy which has already begun.