Musk vs Trump

[The Great Zaganza]

The Superrich love to talk about the Merits of them having so much wealth: they deserve more because they are so much smarter.
Is Elon over a million times smarter than the median American ?

 

[Flo]

The main predictor of a person's wealth is their father's wealth. You really don't need any brains to be rich, just luck.

It's not so simple, you need some brains to make the wealth you inherited fructify. I've known at least one person who pissed his parents fortune in only a few years, not to mention lottery winners who ended up poorer than before their big gains …

That said, you can question the intelligence, and sanity, of the kind of greed exhibited by so many billionaires !

 

[P.J. Denyer]

The main predictor of a person's wealth is their father's wealth. You really don't need any brains to be rich, just luck.

Innate ruthlessness & a disregard for rules helps too.

 

[Darat]

Innate ruthlessness & a disregard for rules helps too.

Or a good dash of old-fashioned psychopathy and sociopathy.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

on that top 10 list, there's only 1 or 2 guys we really know anything about due to them over sharing on the internet. idk how smart any of those other guys are, it's just a list of names of rich people. maybe steve ballmer thinks tariffs work, that satan is a real guy and that there's lizard people running the government, and that dei is ruining the government. how would anyone know if they're smart or dumb?

there was a time when i had assumed billionaires must be brilliant businessmen to become that successful. then elon musk lifted the curtain. he is not smart, there's incredible amounts of quotes and footage of him voluntarily being stupid for me to know that. and he's the richest one on the list

What disabused me of the notion that being smart was necessary to be rich was a stint working for Dell in Limerick to save up to repeat Uni.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

It's not so simple, you need some brains to make the wealth you inherited fructify. I've known at least one person who pissed his parents fortune in only a few years, not to mention lottery winners who ended up poorer than before their big gains …

That said, you can question the intelligence, and sanity, of the kind of greed exhibited by so many billionaires !

If you inherit wealth, you need no intelligence to live off the interest. It takes a special breed of stupidity to piss it all away.

The simple fact of the matter is that most wealth is generational, even amongst the so called self-made.

 

[Mojo]

It's not so simple, you need some brains to make the wealth you inherited fructify. I've known at least one person who pissed his parents fortune in only a few years...

Did he manage to go bankrupt running casinos?

 

[dudalb]

I have a lot more respect for somebody who comes from a modest background and gets rich then somebody who inherited their money.
And sorry, but I an getting a real sense of hatred of private business and a market based economy here. Count me out. I am most defently NOT an Anti Capitilist, I don't care how fashionable Anti Captialism is at the moment.

 

[Norman Alexander]

I have a lot more respect for somebody who comes from a modest background and gets rich then somebody who inherited their money.
And sorry, but I an getting a real sense of hatred of private business and a market based economy here. Count me out. I am most defently NOT an Anti Capitilist, I don't care how fashionable Anti Captialism is at the moment.

False dilemma fallacy. Also, the USA is hardly likely to go commie any time soon.

Also, nobody really cares if "businessmen" like Trump run their criminal enterprises into the ground and fail spectacularly...except, perhaps, the employees and shareholders who are bilked while their bosses enrich themselves and get off scot-free.

For every criminal like Trump, there are millions of other ethical businesses that make good legitimately, enrich their shareholders and support their employees.

 

[Orphia Nay]

"Musk, the richest person in the world, said Tuesday that he would be spending less on political campaigns. The announcement came as Musk is stepping back from his role in the Trump administration, saying he will spend more time focused on his businesses, and just seven weeks after the candidate he backed in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race lost by 10 percentage points."

"Musk spent at least $3 million on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race himself. Musk-backed groups America PAC and a Rebuilding America’s Future spent another $19 million in support of the Republican-backed candidate Brad Schimel."

Elon Musk's pullback from politics comes after his last big investment was a flop

Musk said Tuesday that he would be spending less on political campaigns.

apnews.com

 

[bruto]

"Musk, the richest person in the world, said Tuesday that he would be spending less on political campaigns. The announcement came as Musk is stepping back from his role in the Trump administration, saying he will spend more time focused on his businesses, and just seven weeks after the candidate he backed in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race lost by 10 percentage points."

"Musk spent at least $3 million on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race himself. Musk-backed groups America PAC and a Rebuilding America’s Future spent another $19 million in support of the Republican-backed candidate Brad Schimel."

Elon Musk's pullback from politics comes after his last big investment was a flop

Musk said Tuesday that he would be spending less on political campaigns.

apnews.com

"Big investment" is relative, though. Remember that a billion is a thousand million. Someone recently estimated that Musk's income is more than ten billion a year. Whether that's accurate or not, still, dropping three million on a campaign is about the same as the rest of us putting a quarter more than we need to in the parking meter.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I have a lot more respect for somebody who comes from a modest background and gets rich then somebody who inherited their money.
And sorry, but I an getting a real sense of hatred of private business and a market based economy here. Count me out. I am most defently NOT an Anti Capitilist, I don't care how fashionable Anti Captialism is at the moment.

Do you consider Fortune 500 CEOs "Business Men" ? What about Hedge Fund Managers? Private Equity Investors?

Seems to me you are falling for the trap of grouping the worst vultures of the country in with dedicated small businesses owners.

If you are in favor of The Market Economy you should absolutely want the destruction of companies that spend more money on lobbying than on product development and customer service.

 

[Pixel42]

Whatever happened to Elon Musk? Tech boss drifts to margins of Trump world

The president’s billionaire backer was ever-present at the start of Trump’s term but is now pulling back from politics – and Republicans want to keep it that way

www.theguardian.com

Khanna warned: “We’re going to be living with the consequences for years to come because unfortunately they’ve managed to totally destroy USAID, they’ve destroyed NIH [the National Institutes of Health], they’ve destroyed FDA [the Food and Drug Administration], they’ve destroyed EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency], they’ve hollowed out so much of the state department and it’s going to take a generation to rebuild.

Tyler observed: “The polling numbers, Trump suffering politically, which would hurt his party, which is going to hurt his agenda, caused enough strife that I’m sure he heard from enough members to say, could we just not talk about Elon Musk any more?”

Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, added: “It was a trial balloon on how they would reduce federal employees. If it worked and people thought it was great, maybe they would keep going with or without Musk, but they used him as the front person for it and the punching bag. When it backfired, they cut him loose. Not surprising at all.

“There is nobody that you can sincerely believe Donald Trump thinks is important to his popularity or his standing in a positive way because he believes he generates all that himself. And I don’t think he’s wrong about that. But if you become a liability, you’re gone pretty quickly.”

 

[Mojo]

Whatever happened to Elon Musk? Tech boss drifts to margins of Trump world

The president’s billionaire backer was ever-present at the start of Trump’s term but is now pulling back from politics – and Republicans want to keep it that way

www.theguardian.com

Khanna warned: “We’re going to be living with the consequences for years to come because unfortunately they’ve managed to totally destroy USAID, they’ve destroyed NIH [the National Institutes of Health], they’ve destroyed FDA [the Food and Drug Administration], they’ve destroyed EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency], they’ve hollowed out so much of the state department and it’s going to take a generation to rebuild.

And it will be ruinously expensive, so that the Republicans can complain about all the money that the Democrats are spending fixing Trump's sabotage.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Whatever happened to Elon Musk? Tech boss drifts to margins of Trump world

The president’s billionaire backer was ever-present at the start of Trump’s term but is now pulling back from politics – and Republicans want to keep it that way

www.theguardian.com

I've been reading "Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter" and the similarities to DOGE are obvious, outside agents from Musks other busineses in to takeover things they don't understand, mass layoffs with no planning or notice, vital infrastructure payments stopped, demands to justify your employment by arbitrary reports to arbitrary deadlines orbe auto-terminated, even an arguement with Tim Cook & Apple.

 

[gabeygoat]

Elon says Trump's budget sucks

I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,

 

[Orphia Nay]

Elon Musk bids farewell to White House but says Doge will continue

Musk's exit comes after he criticised the legislative centrepiece of the president's agenda.

www.bbc.com

 

[Norman Alexander]

Elon Musk bids farewell to White House but says Doge will continue

Musk's exit comes after he criticised the legislative centrepiece of the president's agenda.

www.bbc.com

Musk will be back as soon as the price is right.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

After the hit his various stocks have taken, is he still the richest man in the World or is Bezos back in the top slot?

 

[Norman Alexander]

After the hit his various stocks have taken, is he still the richest man in the World or is Bezos back in the top slot?

Who the ◊◊◊◊ cares, frankly.