• ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    260
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    Maybe his politics are complicated. Did y’all consider that? That a white South African industrialist who dabbles in eugenics, treats employees like shit, and thinks catturd2 is funny might be a complex enigma?

  • BlameThePeacock@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    155
    ·
    2 months ago

    Just pointing out that Musk is an immigrant.

    Born in South Africa, immigrated to Canada to avoid military service, then used Canadian citizenship to apply for and obtain US citizenship.

    • DogPeePoo@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      33
      ·
      2 months ago

      Unwashed deviant asshole who Putin holds kompromat over forced to help another pedophile, who Putin also holds kompromat over.

      Both met with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell…

      • LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        2 months ago

        Don’t forget about Elon’s significant financial ties to Saudi Arabia

        https://www.axios.com/2022/11/01/elon-musk-twitter-saudi-arabia

        “The Saudis could have cashed out, like most everyone else. That would have been the financially sound thing to do. Instead, they allied with Musk … There’s a clear political motivation to their decision, and CFIUS should get to the bottom of it.”

        A source familiar with the situation adds that Murphy’s concern is exacerbated by the large amount of debt that Musk/Twitter now must service, and what demands that may enable Saudi to make. Particularly given that Musk, at least for the moment, is Twitter’s sole director.

        Murphy on Monday asked the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) to investigate “potential national security concerns” arising from Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s involvement in Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

        Saudi Arabia and members of its extended royal family are regular investors in U.S. tech companies, both directly and via private equity and venture capital funds. But they’ve been largely ignored by CFIUS, which investigated just six Saudi-involved deals between 2019 and 2021. CFIUS is empowered to recommend to the President that mergers be blocked on national security grounds, including for transactions that have already closed. Many of its recent recommendations to that effect have involved China.

        https://fortune.com/2023/01/23/elon-musk-says-he-had-saudi-backing-tesla-trial-testimony/

        Elon Musk returned to federal court Monday in San Francisco, testifying that he believed he had locked up financial backing to take Tesla private during 2018 meetings with representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    94
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    2 months ago

    At this point, how is owning a Tesla car not just like walking around wearing one of those stupid red hats?

    • AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      56
      ·
      2 months ago

      I agree and I drive a Tesla, unfortunately it’s paid off so for the time being it just makes sense to keep driving it because it costs me basically nothing.

      But I feel like a POS in public and it sucks.

      • M500@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        57
        ·
        2 months ago

        I’m sure there is a bumper stick that’s says “I got this before musk was crazy”

        • v_krishna@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          26
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          2 months ago

          Those bumper stickers are bullshit. Musk was a nut job who profited from apartheid and then bought his way into the public mind as some kind of low rent Tony Stark from the get. San Francisco 2012 people thought I was nuts for claiming he was a huge charlatan and now those same people rock those bumper stickers.

          • Mnemnosyne@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            22
            ·
            2 months ago

            Despite Musk, Teslas did have some positive effect as they helped push electric car adoption. The big automakers were not interested in taking risks, and nobody was eager to build out large charger networks.

            I certainly don’t credit Musk himself for it, but no one should feel ashamed of having bought one of those cars back then. Today there are other good options for electric vehicles from companies run by slightly less bad people, but let’s not kid ourselves. Everything we buy comes from some company that is enriching monsters…it’s just that some of them are more monstrous than others.

            • EarthShipTechIntern@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              9
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 months ago

              True enough.

              Just because shitheads run companies didn’t mean you can’t enjoy & appreciate the actual work, design, creation of brilliant, hard working people that made the actual product.

              Musk never made anything. Nothing new, anyway. He made a hostile collar workplace noose and roped a group of companies into our modern, uncontested (except by unions) version of slavery.

              The people at Tesla are groundbreakering pioneers of the future of transportation. Unfortunately, they’re not geniuses about how to properly deal with a strangling grifter owner.

              That kind of terrible management, terrible treatment of people, workers is rampant across (most?) all companies. Musk just screwed the best of the brightest lights on the road to the future. Fucked everybody harder than the other CEOs cause, well, as others mention, he was born to it (Emerald apartheid slave driver heritage).

              • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                What’s sick is that what he did at Twitter was something many in the C-suite were in some cases privately cheering, and, in places where they were permitted, wanted to openly emulate. Sure, the excuse was that (some) companies overstaffed in the early covid days, but at X, they cut things to the bone and beyond when Musk took over, and it mostly seemed to be ideologically driven (“own the libs” but also, and this is the part others want to do as well, and in some cases, did: “crush those uppity tech workers”). This, combined with AI, was providing a beacon of hope to the corporate overlords eager to make even more undeserved money.

          • die444die@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            13
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            2 months ago

            Ok so people didn’t know, that doesn’t make them bad people and it doesn’t make you as smart as you think you are.

              • dev_null@lemmy.ml
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                13
                ·
                2 months ago

                I’m sorry but I have no idea who is the CEO, of say, Nissan or whatever, and I’m sure 99% of buyers don’t research that.

      • Jarix@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Well fucking stop feeling like a POS.

        Please?

        Its just a car, and regardless of who elon turned out to be.

        And ya know what? Elon is the reason they arent better cars. He is not the reason they are as good as they are.

        Take politics out of it for a minute and just remind or consider, how is your tesla a better car than the ICE car you did and/or would have instead.

        You can feel good about that. Its okay. Elon is a piece of shit. He didnt always seem that way and that does suck. You dont, he does.

        When you decide to get a new car you are going to have so many awesome options next time.

        And you wouldnt have those options then, if Teslas werent/hadnt pushing everyone else in the world into getting away from ICE

        • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          20
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          Yes. They should be. Fuck the downvotes, I’m done with this shit.

          Sell your fucking Tesla if you own one. It’s a dog whistle.

          • dev_null@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            2 months ago

            In many countries outside of the US, Musk isn’t a well known figure, and people buying a Tesla don’t have to know who is the CEO any more than who is the CEO of any other car manufacturer.

          • skeezix@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            2 months ago

            Effecting change in this world sometimes requires personal sacrifice. Things are the way they are because too many don’t want to inconvenience themselves. Downvote away.

    • synae[he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      ·
      2 months ago

      I have a friend with a tesla who put on a bumper sticker along the lines of “I got this before he became a raging asshole”

    • BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      He’ll turn back to the left as soon as the he gets too clingy with his current audience and they turn on him.

      Musk is worse, he doesn’t care about his political leanings, he only cares about where he can have the most people simping for him.

      • idiomaddict@feddit.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        He used to be different politically, because that was cool. Now he has enough money that people will tell him he’s cool no matter what his politics are, so he now supports the causes that benefit him. I don’t think he’s ever going back.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      8
      ·
      2 months ago

      Could say the same about any American made truck, except they’ve had the association with stupid rednecks for decades so it’s just not talked about as much.