Split Thread Musk, SpaceX and future of Tesla

[dirtywick]

yeah, i sure do believe. musk rarely disappoints.

but perhaps this is the one yeah? history of fraudulent business endeavors this was the one that was on the up and up, it's possible sure. a telecommunications company that couldn't stop talking numbers about ukraine goes no comment after it's signed seems fine.

and as i said before and again, i could be wrong. it's as speculative to me as anything else.

but it's enough for me to believe.

 

[Aridas]

But SpaceX's business model isn't analogous to $20 water bottles after a hurricane. They offering the same service as other companies at a lower price, and are able to do so at higher volumes for even lower cost. Of course they're making money.

Where's the hurricane in the launch industry here? Your analogy requires that SpaceX is charging higher prices in a time of increased demand. But that's not what happened. They lowered costs, while at the same being able to increase volume (the number of launches). The thing that makes this possible is reusability with (relatively) cost and high turnover. They are making money by doing the opposite of the thing you are opposed to.

Whatever your views on price gouging, they aren't relevant to the case of spaceX.

It's fair to say that. I suspect that it doesn't really get to the root of dirtywick's position, though.

The mere existence of billionaires speaks to distinctly unhealthy systemic issues with how money moves, in short, and how very much the people actually doing the work are being exploited and rewarded dramatically less than the value that they produce. As someone who's done quite a bit of base production work and generally been compensated with maybe roughly 1% of the value that the company derived from my labor, there's a limited amount of ambiguity at that point, even with everything else involved. dirtywick is forgetting that side of things and focusing more on customers potentially needing to pay significantly more than production costs, though. That's a more vague and contentious realm of concern, though, which makes for a much more difficult argument in general and even more so in a case like this.

I think the real reason people hate Musk is the same reason people who hate celebrities hate celebrities: Because they're celebrities.

Musk is objectionable in a bunch of ways and has been pointedly trying to force us to pay attention to him. Especially when it comes to Twitter and how he's effectively taking that away from the people and highlighting his objectionable side immensely in the process. Naturally, that means that his flaws get more attention. Not just because he's a celebrity, in short, but because he's reasonably clearly working to screw us over in ways that are difficult to ignore even if one wants to do so and has a general history of... shadiness on top of that. That then colors perception of him and his actions across the board for emotional reasons, whether correctly or not.

 

[dirtywick]

It's fair to say that. I suspect that it doesn't really get to the root of dirtywick's position, though.

The mere existence of billionaires speaks to distinctly unhealthy systemic issues with how money moves, in short, and how very much the people actually doing the work are being exploited and rewarded dramatically less than the value that they produce. As someone who's done quite a bit of base production work and generally been compensated with maybe roughly 1% of the value that the company derived from my labor, there's a limited amount of ambiguity at that point, even with everything else involved. dirtywick is forgetting that side of things and focusing more on customers potentially needing to pay significantly more than production costs, though. That's a more vague and contentious realm of concern, though, which makes for a much more difficult argument in general and even more so in a case like this.

thanks

i wasn't making an analogy. it was a direct question that, if you don't have a problem with it, you're not likely to have a problem with my other criticisms. which is fine to have a different point of view on it.

which, in it's original context, was my thoughts about why i don't find his company's services to be praiseworthy, his piles of money are his reward and i'm going to keep my praise for better people, and why a guy who's various business dealings have created so much value but he's kept so much of it for himself.

 

[Ziggurat]

since you don't have a problem with my $20 water bottles after a hurricane example earlier i don't think your explanation is going to land with me. completely different view on ethics on this.

Your water bottle example isn't a parallel to what's going on with SpaceX. As far as I can tell, either your ethical concerns don't even apply here, or they're just an categorical objection to any high profit margins at all, which is really just a form of special pleading.

Here, imagine this. Water bottles sell for about $1. Let's say most manufacturers can make and distribute a bottle for a cost of about $0.90 (this is a hypothetical, it doesn't matter if that's the actual cost), for a 10% profit margin.

Suppose someone comes along and figures out how to make and distribute a water bottle (which is just as good) for a cost of about $0.10. They sell that water for $1. They're making a margin of 90%. They're going to get very, very rich, and they didn't exploit a single customer. They provided the same product as everyone else, but just at lower cost and higher margin. Do you really think that's exploitation?

Or to go back to your hurricane example, if it costs me $19 to transport each water bottle into a hurricane stricken area (because the disaster makes transporting stuff harder), do you still think it's unethical to sell that water bottle for $20? According to your ethics, how much would I ethically be permitted to sell that water bottle for?

But perhaps you're only talking about water that was already located in the area. Even there, your ethical considerations are shallow at best. Transportation costs may not have been any higher, but it costs to stockpile water. The increased profit margin on that water incentivizes stockpiling before a disaster. Isn't it better to sell a water bottle at $20 than to not have any water available to sell at all? If you remove the incentive to stock extra supplies as a contingency, then people won't stock as much extra supplies, and when disaster strikes, everyone is worse off. Why is that ethically preferable? You seem to be prioritizing fairness over any real consideration of outcome. That's not enlightened, that's immature.

 

[Ziggurat]

It's fair to say that. I suspect that it doesn't really get to the root of dirtywick's position, though.

The mere existence of billionaires speaks to distinctly unhealthy systemic issues with how money moves, in short, and how very much the people actually doing the work are being exploited and rewarded dramatically less than the value that they produce.

This means far less than it sounds like. How exactly do you judge the contributions of different people working together? What role does risk play in these calculations? Do you think management roles are worthless?

As someone who's done quite a bit of base production work and generally been compensated with maybe roughly 1% of the value that the company derived from my labor, there's a limited amount of ambiguity at that point, even with everything else involved.

No, there bloody well isn't. How much did your work depend upon what was done before? How much did your work depend upon the existence of capital that YOU didn't produce? How much of the risk of the endeavor did you take on? I bet there's a **** ton of ambiguity that you're brushing under the rug. There's a reason you did that work for a company and not on your own.

Musk is objectionable in a bunch of ways and has been pointedly trying to force us to pay attention to him. Especially when it comes to Twitter and how he's effectively taking that away from the people and highlighting his objectionable side immensely in the process.

Taking Twitter away from the people? Are you delusional?

It was never in the hands of the people in the first place. And to the extent that he's reduced censorship, that doesn't take power away from "the people", it only takes power away from the censors. You're probably not one of those censors so you have lost nothing, and if you were, good, you shouldn't have had that power in the first place.

 

[Aridas]

This means far less than it sounds like. How exactly do you judge the contributions of different people working together? What role does risk play in these calculations? Do you think management roles are worthless?


No, there bloody well isn't. How much did your work depend upon what was done before? How much did your work depend upon the existence of capital that YOU didn't produce? How much of the risk of the endeavor did you take on? I bet there's a **** ton of ambiguity that you're brushing under the rug. There's a reason you did that work for a company and not on your own.

Not gonna delve into this much now beyond simply saying that this is probably not a good thread to go in depth on this, which is part of why I didn't, it's an aside, and that I'm quite unimpressed with your kneejerk response. "Even with everything else involved" included a fair bit, to say the least, either way.

Taking Twitter away from the people? Are you delusional?

It was never in the hands of the people in the first place. And to the extent that he's reduced censorship, that doesn't take power away from "the people", it only takes power away from the censors. You're probably not one of those censors so you have lost nothing, and if you were, good, you shouldn't have had that power in the first place.

Was that a whoosh that I just heard? Just like with the above, your attempted counter-argument is off. Musk's choices made Twitter more and more unpleasant to use for both users and advertisers. He's also on course to run it into the ground completely with his bad decisions and bad conspiracy theory level of rationalizations for his actions. That's changing a place for people for the worse and likely taking it away from all, in short.

Also of significant note is that what I addressed here was all about an emotional response, so I was addressing it with regards to emotional logic. You can try to whine about how people aren't allowed to react in entirely normal ways to things, but I'm under no onus to humor you.

 

[Ziggurat]

Musk's choices made Twitter more and more unpleasant to use for both users and advertisers.

Nice goalpost move. You didn't say people were unhappy with changes to Twitter. You said he was taking it away from people, and he's not. Furthermore, I don't think your view is uniformly shared by all users. And if one group of users is upset that another group of users isn't being sufficiently censored, why would you assume that this is a net negative for all users? Why would you expect me to agree?

As for advertisers, it might be unpleasant to get called out by Media Matters for advertising on X, but, well, Media Matters might face its own unpleasantness.

Also of significant note is that what I addressed here was all about an emotional response, so I was addressing it with regards to emotional logic.

In other words, you're explicitly appealing to the illogical. Why should I care?

You can try to whine about how people aren't allowed to react in entirely normal ways to things, but I'm under no onus to humor you.

Again, which people?

 

[theprestige]

While making Twitter worse for users and advertisers is not particularly praiseworthy, I find it hard to dislike a villain whose main claim to villainy is making Twitter worse. "Ocean of Piss^TM - now with 20% more piss!"

 

[Ziggurat]

While making Twitter worse for users and advertisers is not particularly praiseworthy, I find it hard to dislike a villain whose main claim to villainy is making Twitter worse. "Ocean of Piss^TM - now with 20% more piss!"

Reminds me of the response to Russia banning Twitter in 2022: "It still doesn't make up for invading Ukraine".

 

[tyr_13]

While making Twitter worse for users and advertisers is not particularly praiseworthy, I find it hard to dislike a villain whose main claim to villainy is making Twitter worse. "Ocean of Piss^TM - now with 20% more piss!"

His 'main claim' to villainy has a lot of competition, and includes at best enabling racism inside his businesses and you know, all the fraud.

Regardless if that '20% more piss' made something people found useful unviable, that's a way better argument to be displeased with him than 'you can't say he does fraud because every business does fruad' is to defend him.

Both are better than citing a vacuous and hilariously poorly done defamation suit that admits to the claimed defamatory statements are true at least five times.

 

[theprestige]

And to be clear, making Twitter worse does seem to be Musk's main claim to villainy these days. That and his absurdly gratuitous slapfight with the cave rescue guy. (And the totally fictional "disabling Starlink to sabotage a Ukrainian operation in progress" thing.)

 

[Roger Ramjets]

There's a reason you did that work for a company and not on your own.

Yep, so you could get a regular pay check without any of the stress and risk of being the business owner. I've been on both sides and appreciate the benefits of being an employee.

Taking Twitter away from the people? Are you delusional?

It was never in the hands of the people in the first place. And to the extent that he's reduced censorship, that doesn't take power away from "the people", it only takes power away from the censors. You're probably not one of those censors so you have lost nothing, and if you were, good, you shouldn't have had that power in the first place.

Twitter was a cesspool before Musk bought it, and that was a good thing. I want to know what people really think, but I don't want it in my face. The purpose of a cesspool is to keep the filth away from us. Twitter was doing a great job of that - until businesses tried to exploit it. But Twitter was dying and the filth was leaking out.

Musk has done us a favor by keeping Twitter X going at great personal expense. If you don't like what's on it then don't go there. If businesses don't want to be associated with the filth they can take their BS elsewhere. The filth that's left might be appalling, but at least it's honest filth.

 

[angrysoba]

And to be clear, making Twitter worse does seem to be Musk's main claim to villainy these days. That and his absurdly gratuitous slapfight with the cave rescue guy. (And the totally fictional "disabling Starlink to sabotage a Ukrainian operation in progress" thing.)

In terms of making Twitter worse, he seems to have led by example by boosting anti-Semitic accounts and saying that the anti-Semitic content was “the actual truth”. Now, he had already been considered a villain before that, but promoting those types is not great.

He seems also to be happy to push right-wing conspiracies such as insinuations about Paul Pelosi’s attacker and also involved in that doxxing of a student who he accused of being a false flag operative in a fight with the Proud Boys. That’s the subject of a lawsuit so it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

And sure for some they will be upset about political views that he holds that they disagree with, such as on unions, etc…. Democrats are not likely to warm to Musk given that he has essentially said that he will vote Republican because the Republicans are more caring (seriously!) than the Democrats.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-226
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/01/elon-musk-insider-trading-dogecoin-lawsuit
https://www.propublica.org/article/...ds-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax

this stuff is not hard to find

According to the SEC’s complaint against him, Musk tweeted on August 7, 2018 that he could take Tesla private at $420 per share — a substantial premium to its trading price at the time — that funding for the transaction had been secured, and that the only remaining uncertainty was a shareholder vote. The SEC’s complaint alleged that, in truth, Musk knew that the potential transaction was uncertain and subject to numerous contingencies. Musk had not discussed specific deal terms, including price, with any potential financing partners, and his statements about the possible transaction lacked an adequate basis in fact. According to the SEC’s complaint, Musk’s misleading tweets caused Tesla’s stock price to jump by over six percent on August 7, and led to significant market disruption.

Pretty weak sauce if you ask me. In truth it was more about the SEC imposing their rules than an actual attempt at fraud. Pity they don't use their substantial powers to go after all the other actual fraudsters, like Toyota who keep telling us lies about solid state batteries and hydrogen.

Elon Musk is being accused of insider trading in a proposed class action lawsuit by investors. They say the Tesla CEO manipulated the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, costing them billions of dollars.

In a Wednesday night filing in Manhattan federal court, investors said Musk used Twitter posts, paid online influencers, his 2021 appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live and other “publicity stunts” to trade profitably at their expense through several Dogecoin wallets that he or Tesla controls.

Investors said this included when Musk sold about $124m of Dogecoin in April after he replaced Twitter’s blue bird logo with Dogecoin’s shiba inu dog logo, leading to a 30% jump in Dogecoin’s price.

The Dogecoin lawsuit is ridiculous. The 'coin' itself was started as a joke. Musk didn't promote it any more than any other crypto has been. If he is guilty of manipulating the market then so is every media outlet that published gushing stories about Bitcoin that caused it to become the largest distributed Ponzi scheme in history.

These 'investors' played the crypto game and lost. Now they want their money back and more? Pathetic.

Elon Musk's $258 Billion Dogecoin Lawsuit: DOGE Architects Reject Allegations

In the latest chapter of the legal saga surrounding Dogecoin, the investors' lawsuit against Elon Musk and the Dogecoin Foundation has taken a surprising turn. The case, which seeks a staggering $258 billion in damages, mentioned several major influencers associated with the popular cryptocurrency. These individuals are accused of aiding the defendants by generating positive content on social media in exchange for undisclosed benefits, including royalties linked to impressions on X (formerly Twitter).

Among them is Billy Markus, one of the creators of Dogecoin, who is known by the pseudonym Shibetoshi Nakamoto, and a prominent DOGE community member known as Mishaboar. However, both Markus and Mishaboar have denied the allegations and expressed their bewilderment at being included in the court documents. Markus, in his response, pointed out the inaccuracies in the lawsuit, stating that he is not associated with Elon Musk, has posted negative comments about Dogecoin and resigned from his nonrole in the Dogecoin Foundation some time ago.

I'm inclined to think that if the 'investors' are lying about this then they are probably lying about the other 'insider trading' allegations too.

In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.

But hold on, the graphic shows Musk paying a 'true' tax rate of 3.25% from 2014 to 2018, whereas the other rich dudes mentioned paid 1.3% or less. In 2016 Musk paid $424 million in taxes, hardly what I would call fraud (and the IRS agrees).

According to that article the 'worst offender' was Warren Buffet, who many give credit for advocating higher taxes for the rich. He says he would pay if they made him.

BTW in case you didn't know, tax evasion (a crime) is not the same as tax avoidance - using deductions, credits, and other legal means to lower your tax bill.

It is your legal right to avoid paying taxes that you don't have to, and the responsibility of a business to do the same. One year my business paid way more tax than it should have due to an accounting error. I didn't even know it about until several years later when I changed accountants. She presented a revised tax assessment to the IRD and I didn't pay any tax for the next 3 years. Guess I am a 'tax evader' too, huh?

Overall I rate your claims of fraud as BUSTED.

 

[theprestige]

OLOL @ the "income tax" canard.

Income tax is generally a tax on revenue from labor for hire. Elon Musk and Warren Buffet perform very little labor for hire. The corresponding tax on revenue from investment of capital is the capital gains tax. Musk and Buffett both pay plenty of that.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Musk doesn't

 

[Aridas]

Nice goalpost move. You didn't say people were unhappy with changes to Twitter. You said he was taking it away from people, and he's not.

I said a bunch more than that. But hey, when all you've got is dishonesty to work with, I suppose that you're willing to engage in dishonesty.

Furthermore, I don't think your view is uniformly shared by all users. And if one group of users is upset that another group of users isn't being sufficiently censored, why would you assume that this is a net negative for all users? Why would you expect me to agree?

Let's go back just a little to verify who this tangent is about, specifically.

I think the real reason people hate Musk is the same reason people who hate celebrities hate celebrities: Because they're celebrities.

The people who hate Musk are the specific focus of this tangent. You seem to have either missed or forgotten that with how badly you've been triggered. Also, "your view" is incorrectly personalizing things. "I" don't hate him. I do think of him as a POS that I don't want shoved in my face all the time so I can go back to happily ignoring him, but the strength and nature of my feelings doesn't rise to the level of hate, in my opinion. I do think that those who actually do hate him have far more potential grounds than "because he's a celebrity," though, which is what I had elaborated upon a bit.

As for advertisers, it might be unpleasant to get called out by Media Matters for advertising on X, but, well, Media Matters might face its own unpleasantness.

Yeah, that's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Twitter having become more and more unpleasant for advertisers. Technical issues and customer service issues rose quite a bit after Musk fired most of the staff handling those things, last I heard. Who likes being charged for ads that they didn't actually buy, for example?

When it comes to the suit against Media Matters, well... Here's Legal Eagle's take on it. Really short version, it's BS. It does follow similar tactics as a bunch of utter chicanery done by Republicans that are swallowed without question, though, so I'm not surprised that you would try to invoke it.

In other words, you're explicitly appealing to the illogical. Why should I care?

Why should I care about your attempt here when it seems to have far more to do with your failings than anything that I said actually being wrong? Kneejerk rejection doesn't make for much useful discussion, either way.

While making Twitter worse for users and advertisers is not particularly praiseworthy, I find it hard to dislike a villain whose main claim to villainy is making Twitter worse. "Ocean of Piss^TM - now with 20% more piss!"

If that's all it was, it really wouldn't be all that bad, I think. There's something to be said about how the means shape the ends, though. If the means include very publicly showing off how much of a jackass one is, one should expect to be treated like a jackass as one of the consequences.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

T

Let's see what I said:
"Musks initial involvement in the war in Ukraine was to give free access to Starlink to the Ukrainians. That is something that I think was fully praiseworthy."

Did Musk give free access to Starlink? Yes. Was that praiseworthy*? Yes.

Is he still giving free access to Starlink? No. Did I say he was? No.

*It's been suggested that he didn't this for PR purposes. Sure, maybe. I can't read his mind. I find it entirely plausible that like millions of other people around the world he was concerned about the plight of Ukrainians and wanted to do what was in his power to help. I certainly felt that way. But even if he was just self-interested and his internal mind-state wasn't praiseworthy, his actions still were.

No, Galaxy Brain said he was giving free access, did so for about a week and then said the was revoking all access until the US government stepped in and ponied up.

He basicly acted like the drugs pusher giving a few free samples until their victim is addicted and then forcing them (or in this case the US, to pony up at overinflated prices to feed the addiction). But then again, what do you expect from a man whose income derives mostly from welfare payments.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Cars are so expensive now that I don't think the price would put me off if I wanted one, but I don't.

• The Rear-Wheel Drive model, coming in 2025, starts at an estimated $60,990. It offers an estimated 250-mile range and a 6.5-second 0-60 time, and can tow 7,500 pounds.
• The All-Wheel Drive dual-motor version starts at $79,990. Its specs are more impressive, with 350 miles of range, 600 horsepower, a 4.1-second 0-60 sprint and 11,000 pounds of towing. It comes in 2024.
• Finally, the Cyberbeast also comes in 2024, with an estimated price tag of $99,990. With 845 horsepower, it will do 0-60 in 2.6 seconds on the way to a top speed of 130 miles per hour. Tesla estimates 320 miles for the Cyberbeast, and says it'll also tow 11,000 pounds.

The fact that it's not street legal in the EU nor will it ever be without massive design changes should, though.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

The fact that it's not street legal in the EU nor will it ever be without massive design changes should, though.

... which is conclusive evidence that Tesla assumes the Cybertruck will be a failure.