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So here's an Elon Musk fact, that I'm not sure has been shared in this thread.
If a person got $3K for every HOUR between when Jesus Christ was born, and now, it wouldn't amount to wealth of Elon Musk?
It does seem there's an imbalance of wealth here.
Do we all agree?
Guy built a number of very successful businesses over the years.
He didn't take it through dishonesty or force from others, but through innovation and execution creating products for others.
Ethically, I'm not sure where we draw a line and say Oprah, Michael Jordan, Buffet, Musk etc. you made too much money building brands, companies etc. we're going to take that now.
Didn't Musk pay like 10bil in US tax last year? We have a lot of Americans that will go their entire lives and not only not pay a dollar of federal tax but will collect on various programs and benefits.
I'd be much more agreeable to your view if the person in question inherited billions never worked or built anything benefitting society.
The irony is that it is the Republican party that is putting up the most resistance to the transition to electric vehicles. Musk is effectively trying to hinder his own business. Details, details.
The irony is that it is the Republican party that is putting up the most resistance to the transition to electric vehicles. Musk is effectively trying to hinder his own business. Details, details.
This was my point a little earlier in the thread. The guy clearly cares about his principles more than his money.
There is no way all his pro free-speech stuff is helping with his customer base or with his political backing in Washington. He's a smart guy, so he has to know this.
He's just like, "Screw it. I'm going to say what's on my mind, and if people don't like it, they can go F themselves."
You gotta admire that, no matter which side of the aisle you sit, don't you?
Yup.
I don't recall Musk ever declaring himself a Democrat. I think he's always been and Independent and has never officially registered in either party.
Is Musk a Republican? No. And he's no Democrat either. He has his own agenda, and it doesn't always involve the political parties to get it achieved.
But when it does, Musk shows his substantial weight to whichever party will serve his purposes of the moment the best. And Musk can turn on a dime when his objectives shift.
I don't believe the Democrats hate him, nor do the Republicans. Both are going to court him, because he can do a lot of good for either party, but it will always come indirectly.
Personally, I doubt Musk has no big political goals or objectives past some short-term private experimental goals. Naturally. He's young and wants to flex his power a bit, like young men do. It's all business, all the time, that consumes Musk. Politics is way too unfocused and vague for him.
But Musk is patriotic. That serves his business instincts very well, as the USA is where his power base is and is most easily expanded.
He's intent on developing space technology as a business opportunity that lies outside governmental responsibility.
He wants to make the entire world's governments his customers so he can develop the moon's resources, and then, possibly, on to Mars to do the same. Both are made up of the same elements that Earth is made of, so the wealth potential is far beyond mere money.
How much wealth could that be? More than enough for humanity to change its ways, I'm sure.
It could be enough to stop global warming, clean our oceans, and give a good start to the restoration of Mother Earth's lands and forests and living creatures.
So I had a glib response earlier denigrating Musk and bemoaning the fact that he has taken his eye off the bolded.
I am a huge SpaceX and lesser Tesla and The Boring Company fan. That means I have to like Musk and what he has done to push forward the SOI. I generally agree with Musk's tweets.
But I wish he would stop. I cringed when he obliquely attacked Repubs and the same now that he's directly attacking Dems. That is not going to help his space ambitions, it's not going to keep the young idealists in his engineering core groups working smoothly, it can only do harm to his important work.
Like me posting in Politics and Other Controversies, nothing good can come of this distraction. I don't know why Musk has turned political and stepped out of the ambiguous to call out Democrats. Maybe he really, truly believes he can make space money off Twitter, but I don't think so.
I really do fear that this literal titan of industry has gotten distracted and is being dragged down by the culture wars and divisiveness of America. I said he got old, fat, and fragile. I'm afraid that a toxic stew of unstable relationships, aging (he's 50 this year), and overwork on projects that are mostly slowed by government regulation rather than technical problems, is causing him to lose focus and veer off into twit-dom.
It is my sincere hope that Mister Musk can pull out of this nosedive into political bickering. The siren song is all but impossible to resist, especially as the radical left baits him more and more while the right holds their noses (on his socially-liberal views) to try to pull this high-profile patriotic success story into their camp.
Musk doesn't innovate Teslas or design Raptor engines. The best and brightest of his legions of engineers do, and those designs are executed by a fanatically idealistic rank-and-file of talent that have willingly signed over their youth to be chewed up and spit out by the SpaceX (and other) corporate machine to keep pushing the SOI. More than half of them are liberal while more than half of the hardworking ground crew welding tanks and lifting rocket parts are conservative. If Elon goes whole-hog into the culture wars--in either direction--that is going to demoralize vast tracts of his underlings, and could cause the entire SpaceX/Tesla/Starlink success story to fizzle.
Some of us believe in the R, some in the D, but almost all of Musk's employees believe in Mars (and improving the lives of everyone through technology). I hope Elon can maintain restraint and keep pushing forward, rather than getting bogged down by the political animals trying to tear our country, society, and economy apart with their idiotic ideologies.
This was my point a little earlier in the thread. The guy clearly cares about his principles more than his money.
There is no way all his pro free-speech stuff is helping with his customer base or with his political backing in Washington. He's a smart guy, so he has to know this.
He's just like, "Screw it. I'm going to say what's on my mind, and if people don't like it, they can go F themselves."
You gotta admire that, no matter which side of the aisle you sit, don't you?
I suppose he's wealthy enough that he can essentially ignore the fallout. Admire it? Meh. Not especially.
The irony is that it is the Republican party that is putting up the most resistance to the transition to electric vehicles. Musk is effectively trying to hinder his own business. Details, details.
Actually the poor products themselves are putting up the most resistance.
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