Musk vs Trump

Which one will the MAGA supporters try to assassinate first?

  • Trump

    Votes: 5 17.9%
  • Musk

    Votes: 23 82.1%

  • Total voters
    28
"required permits" - I think you will find those are for the little people, they don't apply to Musk.
I gather most 'disrupters' operate on the notion that it's way easier to just do something and then ask for forgiveness (and have your lobbyists grease a few palms), than having to go through the proper procedures to obtain permission in the first place.
 
attorneyryan
Musk isn’t auditing a damn thing.He’s stealing data, he’s creating backdoors into government systems, he’s searching for “enemies” and finding ways to destroy them.That’s the real DOGE agenda.

DOGE hacking gov't secrets
 
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Must impeach....Musk?

creepyhorrorgal
Just watched Rachel Maddow’s interview with whistleblower Daniel Berulis. I’m SHOOK.Massive breach: 10GB of sensitive gov data handed over via DOGE & Starlink.Access granted by Elon Musk’s DOGE, sent to Russia.Let that sink in.- Labor board logs erased- Union records stolen- Russian IP login attempt- Obstruction when he reported it- Then… threats.Not a leak. This is theft, or treason. Bigger than Watergate.This IS the story.
 
Doge finds people ripping us off, appearing and disappearing! Only, some were in witness protection before DOGE leaked them to other people in gov't who did not have access to all sensitive data.
Exclusive: Some aren’t even fraud but rather known attempts by states to protect victims of identity theft, former top official says

In a series of late-night posts on X last week, Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” revealed the seemingly startling findings of their “initial survey” into unemployment benefits.

They cited examples of claimants who were deceased, between one and five years old, or not born yet. They even cited one case of someone with a listed birthday in 2154 allegedly claiming $41,000.

News of the claims swept across rightwing media, including Fox News and Breitbart, and were attributed to Doge. They were repeated by the secretary of labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who declared during a cabinet meeting with Donald Trump that the revelations were the latest to be “exposed by our partners at Doge”.

“Your tax dollars were going to pay fraudulent unemployment claims for fake people born in the future!” Musk wrote on X, his social network. “There was no sanity check for impossibly young or impossibly old people for unemployment insurance.”

But there was, in reality, a “sanity check” of unemployment claims years before Doge launched its blitz of the federal government – including under Joe Biden. People previously involved with the process say Doge’s claims are lifted from it.

“They’re coming up like they uncovered something brand-new,” Andrew Stettner, who served as the director of unemployment insurance modernization at the US Department of Labor in the Biden administration, told the Guardian. “Going back in 2020 to say there was a lot of fraud – that’s the definition of old news.”


Though Doge and Musk failed to cite the survey, or the agency it came from, the US Department of Labor’s office of inspector general is tasked with auditing state unemployment benefit systems.

“They got some access to data from the Department of Labor and office of inspector general, and are trying to make conclusions without doing a full audit or understanding the content,” said Stettner.

Elizabeth Pancotti, managing director of policy and advocacy at the economic thinktank Groundwork Collaborative, said: “What you have is the issue of an outside person who doesn’t know anything coming in and claiming that everything’s broken. The public should be really skeptical of Elon Musk’s claims.”

“For the most part, he and his gaggle of 20-year-olds are going to these federal agencies of staff who have been there for five, 10, 15, 20 years working on these programs,” added Pancotti. “For the most part, these programs work as intended.

“And now you have people coming in, spending five minutes looking at them and claiming that there’s widespread fraud, or they’re broken or they could be fixed in these ways.”
 
A Tesla owner is suing Tesla, claiming that the odometer was intentionally set up to over-estimate the miles driven so that the warranty expired sooner. According to the owner, the odometer at times recorded more than twice the actual miles driven.

 
A Tesla owner is suing Tesla, claiming that the odometer was intentionally set up to over-estimate the miles driven so that the warranty expired sooner. According to the owner, the odometer at times recorded more than twice the actual miles driven.

I bet it was set to kilometers!
 
A Tesla owner is suing Tesla, claiming that the odometer was intentionally set up to over-estimate the miles driven so that the warranty expired sooner. According to the owner, the odometer at times recorded more than twice the actual miles driven.

A new twist on an old con; pushing back the sppedomaters to show less mileage is an old used car salesman trick. It is illegal in every state and considered fraud, of course, but I guess Musk thinks he is above the law.
 
Apparently Musk is going to reduce his Doge involvment to one day a week.
From which we can speculatively infer any number of things.

Elon Musk's diminished role at DOGE might make it less a product of his capricious whims. That may be safer for the democracy, or more dangerous—who knows? If DOGE is no longer in the limelight because of Musk's unhinged antics, what happens in the shadows may end up being more sinister. On the other hand, if there are elements of DOGE that are no longer pressured to take a chainsaw to everything useful, maybe the good parts of government will survive.

But the larger question for me is the observation of how little time the highers-up actually spend leading anything. If you can take months off as CEO of multiple corporations in order to play government hatchet man, how critical is your role in those other businesses? Are you just a figurehead? Musk wants to present himself as the creative and technical genius behind his businesses, the unique driving force that makes them better than their competitors. Since that's obviously not true, we have to wonder how critical Musk's role was in DOGE. The evidence shows that the more direct involvement he has in the organizations he owns or leads, the worse off they are. A Musk-less DOGE might be a much greater threat.
 
From which we can speculatively infer any number of things.

Elon Musk's diminished role at DOGE might make it less a product of his capricious whims. That may be safer for the democracy, or more dangerous—who knows? If DOGE is no longer in the limelight because of Musk's unhinged antics, what happens in the shadows may end up being more sinister. On the other hand, if there are elements of DOGE that are no longer pressured to take a chainsaw to everything useful, maybe the good parts of government will survive.

But the larger question for me is the observation of how little time the highers-up actually spend leading anything. If you can take months off as CEO of multiple corporations in order to play government hatchet man, how critical is your role in those other businesses? Are you just a figurehead? Musk wants to present himself as the creative and technical genius behind his businesses, the unique driving force that makes them better than their competitors. Since that's obviously not true, we have to wonder how critical Musk's role was in DOGE. The evidence shows that the more direct involvement he has in the organizations he owns or leads, the worse off they are. A Musk-less DOGE might be a much greater threat.
Depends on a) how competent his successor is and b) how willing he is to turf out the Galaxy Nazi's mini me's from the operation.
 
My bad,but the reports about the strong possibility of a stockholder revolt at Tesla remain.
Can they please sack him IMMEDIATELY. His main money source will disappear, and that will make Donny not like him so much.
Would it really have that effect?

Even if other shareholders revolt and remove musk from his position of running Tesla, he will still own his personal shares. And any increase in share prices that result (because of the ending of bad publicity because they are no longer run by a fascist) will give musk MORE cash to do his thing.
 
Would it really have that effect?

Even if other shareholders revolt and remove musk from his position of running Tesla, he will still own his personal shares. And any increase in share prices that result (because of the ending of bad publicity because they are no longer run by a fascist) will give musk MORE cash to do his thing.
More wealth, not necessarily more cash unless he borrows against them.

It would also stop him appropriating billions of dollars of extra shares because of the amazing job he's doing.
 
Would it really have that effect?

Even if other shareholders revolt and remove musk from his position of running Tesla, he will still own his personal shares. And any increase in share prices that result (because of the ending of bad publicity because they are no longer run by a fascist) will give musk MORE cash to do his thing.
The company can remove any shareholder from their shares quite easily. They do that sort of thing as regular business practice. Here's one reference.

 
The company can remove any shareholder from their shares quite easily. They do that sort of thing as regular business practice. Here's one reference.



"Quite Easily" isn't really the description I'd use for a range of options from 'ask them to sell very nicely' through 'withhold dividends' to 'wind up the company'. Plus my reading of that article is they're thinking of smaller companies, not those that are publicly traded.
 
"Quite Easily" isn't really the description I'd use for a range of options from 'ask them to sell very nicely' through 'withhold dividends' to 'wind up the company'. Plus my reading of that article is they're thinking of smaller companies, not those that are publicly traded.
It takes moments and a few dollars to create a new company with only selected board members under an umbrella, and one resolution to wind up a company and sell its assets to another. Then the "new" board minus the troublemaker can carry on. It's how bankrupts avoid owing anything to debtors.
 
It takes moments and a few dollars to create a new company with only selected board members under an umbrella, and one resolution to wind up a company and sell its assets to another. Then the "new" board minus the troublemaker can carry on. It's how bankrupts avoid owing anything to debtors.
I think if you tried that with a publicly listed company the SEC would come down on you like a ton of bricks - and quite rightly.
 
Musk just did it with his own xAI start up...
Which is not a publicly listed company AFAIK so the SEC doesn't have a role to play.

AIUI as long as companies are entirely privately owned then you have significant scope to play around with the ownership structure but if they're publicly traded the options are much more limited.
 
Which is not a publicly listed company AFAIK so the SEC doesn't have a role to play.

AIUI as long as companies are entirely privately owned then you have significant scope to play around with the ownership structure but if they're publicly traded the options are much more limited.
When individual companies are under a holding company umbrella, where not all are public, all is fair game.
 
I can see that XAI made an acquisition & restructured, but who was the shareholder cut out against their will?
issuing new xAI shares to himself means he effectively moved X under xAI’s control while consolidating his ownership.
Sorry, lost that link but it was a finance site.

The other shareholders in Xitter were effectively reduced/removed. Musk has more control.
 
I think we're conflating control & shareholding's here, if you have sufficient shares yourself or through the support of other share holders you can depose or replace board members or restructure the company, and in restructuring the company shareholders might agree (or if they don't have the necessary votes to stop it be forced) to dilute their shareholding in part of the organisation in exchange for a proportional shareholding in the larger one,which could amount to a loss of contro, if they had control in the first place, but it isn't the same as taking their shares away from them.
 
Sorry, lost that link but it was a finance site.

The other shareholders in Xitter were effectively reduced/removed. Musk has more control.
Both companies were privately owned at the time and so there was much greater scope for Musk to act and no need for SEC oversight.
 
Both companies were privately owned at the time and so there was much greater scope for Musk to act and no need for SEC oversight.
The SEC was/is a toothless tiger. The conversations usually went like this:

We did this hostile takeover using this ruthless method.
No, you can't do that!
Well, we already have. Too bad.
.......ok, then.
 
The SEC was/is a toothless tiger. The conversations usually went like this:

We did this hostile takeover using this ruthless method.
No, you can't do that!
Well, we already have. Too bad.
.......ok, then.
Regardless of how toothless they are, I can't find an example of the scenario you've outlined for a publicly listed company - the assets and shares value being spirited away into a holding company with a different ownership structure.

Perhaps you can do so and X isn't an example because it, and ai were privately owned.
 
Ummm... Going from public to private happens often. Here's one example: Barnes & Noble
In September 1993, Barnes & Noble became a publicly traded company by issuing $77 million worth of stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the BKS ticker symbol. The company remained on the stock exchange until August 2019 when Elliot Management purchased all of the company's stock and took the company private.

On October 3, 2018, the board of directors announced that they would entertain offers to buy the company. Among the potential buyers was Leonard Riggio, who owned at the time approximately 19% of Barnes & Noble stock. As a result of the news, the company's stock price jumped by nearly 30%.

In August 2019, Elliott Investment Management acquired the company for approximately $683 million with James Daunt, the managing director of London-based Waterstones Booksellers Ltd., becoming CEO. James Daunt was to become CEO of both Waterstones and Barnes & Noble and was to relocate from London to New York. On August 7, 2019, Barnes & Noble became a privately held, wholly owned subsidiary of Elliott.
 
Ummm... Going from public to private happens often. Here's one example: Barnes & Noble
Yes, but that's not your scenario, and the shareholders are adequately compensated.

In your scenario the assets of the publicly listed company were transferred to a privately held holding company and the shareholders were not compensated for this by being given cash and/or shares in the holding company.

Here's your scenario:

It takes moments and a few dollars to create a new company with only selected board members under an umbrella, and one resolution to wind up a company and sell its assets to another. Then the "new" board minus the troublemaker can carry on. It's how bankrupts avoid owing anything to debtors.

I'd like you to provide an example of this happening to a publicly listed company where the existing shareholders haven't been compensated.
 
Yes, but that's not your scenario, and the shareholders are adequately compensated.

In your scenario the assets of the publicly listed company were transferred to a privately held holding company and the shareholders were not compensated for this by being given cash and/or shares in the holding company.

Here's your scenario:



I'd like you to provide an example of this happening to a publicly listed company where the existing shareholders haven't been compensated.
It's not about compensating shareholders. It's about a company ridding itself of shareholders it would rather not have, using restructuring as a tool. Restructuring can be very creative. For B&N, their board changed as a result of the transition from public to private. I'm sure the new board took that opportunity to remove people not considered necessary. If it took buying them out, so be it.

The point is that it is possible to maneuver out unwanted stockholders, such as Musk. He would not go away penniless. But he could be made to go away nonetheless...if someone had the balls to do it.
 
It's not about compensating shareholders. It's about a company ridding itself of shareholders it would rather not have, using restructuring as a tool. Restructuring can be very creative. For B&N, their board changed as a result of the transition from public to private. I'm sure the new board took that opportunity to remove people not considered necessary. If it took buying them out, so be it.
The process of taking a company private absolutely involves buying the shareholders out. At the start of the process the shareholders are the owners. You can't change the ownership without them selling their shares by definition. Some of them may buy into the new company, of course and you may even "buy" them out by offering them shares in the new company in exchange for their shares in the old company.

For public companies, though, there will be strict laws around what you can do, otherwise everybody would be doing it.

The point is that it is possible to maneuver out unwanted stockholders, such as Musk. He would not go away penniless. But he could be made to go away nonetheless...if someone had the balls to do it.
What do you mean by "manoeuvre out"? Musk has three distinct (well they should be distinct) roles in Tesla. He is the Chief Executive, he is a board member and he is a shareholder. The board can get rid of him as CEO. The share holders can get rid of him as a board member. The only way to get rid of him as a shareholder - and not everybody else - is to somehow force him to sell his shares. That would take billions of dollars and probably electrodes or other torture implements.
 

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