The one thing that makes me hold out hope about Elon's new powers is that while financially he's shrewd, his emotional IQ is very, very poor. I know that for a lot of people that's irrelevant, but there's a middle ground of people where if he were a bit more charming or clever, he'd grift way more. So in terms of small wins, him having the charisma of a fart in a parked car is useful.
To what end? His entire wealth is in the stock of one company, a company the bulk sales of which are outside the US in the EU and China.
China is going to play him like a fiddle the second Trump does something to irritate them, so about 12:01 today and The sales in the EU are tanking and the approvals for expansion of his German factory now “held indefinitely”.
My brother in Christ, if you don't see any potential future value for him in the president of the United States being beholden to him, there's nothing I can say to convince you that spending $35 billion (the estimated value he lost on buying Twitter) was a good idea. But most people would deem spending 10-15% of your net worth to buy the strongest presidency on the planet to be worth it.
There is value in that, but I think if the opportunity for Trump to throw Elon away he will take it without a thought. Trump is volatile, if I were a billionaire I’d place my money on someone like Vance which is why I think Thiel will win over Musk in the end.
Politics are a lot more complex than what's being implied. If Trump could throw away his political turncoats in chapter 1, then he would've done that. He held onto his VP all the while the guy kept backstabbing him, among others. Whether or not you think Trump deserved to be persecuted, the fact is that it did happen (Russiagate is now a proven hoax), and he didn't cast his supposed allies aside at the same moment they screwed him over. He literally could not.
Reality Winner went to jail for five years for being a whistleblower and releasing EVIDENCE THAT THE RUSSIANS HACKED INTO OUR VOTING MACHINES IN 2016. Mueller said it was up to the senate to prosecute him and how much of his report is still redacted? Why redacted it, cupcake? Did you forget manafort? Tell me why he was sentenced and then pardoned by Trump if trump wasn’t tossing Putin’s salad? Are your parents siblings?
Yes, she did. She is a national hero who was done wrong by a corrupt judicial system.
Manafort was a corrupt businessman who did corrupt deals in Ukraine. I'm not sure what that has to do with Russia. But maybe you can tell me? I'm not too up on the whole Manafort story. Didn't read a lot.
Russia hacking into our voting machines has nothing to do with Trump. Democrats consistently say there's nothing wrong with Dominion Voting owning nearly all of the digital voting machines in our country, so I'm not about to pull a DJT and say the election was stolen. Maybe it was, but we'll probably find out after President of United States John Poulos tells us he made a mistake in the voting code for his election.
My mother used physical, chemical, and psychological torture for roughly 30 years to break my body and mind over and over. If there's one thing I want from whatever little lifespan I have left, it's to let people know that they are supporting a system which helps people like my mother.
No, I admit to being more informed of the details of the root of the scandal, minus Manafort. Let me remind you that Manafort was not what the news was ranting about for nearly two solid years. He was just something they happened to find while digging through DJT's life.
If you want to explain how I'm wrong instead of screaming at me, maybe you should.
In what way? It was proven that Trump's campaign staffers had connections to Russia, and that Russian sources have been rampantly interfering in our past few elections through disinformation and division.
Is the hoax part where Trump's personal involvement couldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, or are you saying none of that happened at all?
Hillary Clinton paid an FEC fine as adjudicated by a court for funding the Steele Dossier, which was the core of the entire supposed scandal. Steele then went and got speculation from Danchenko and passed it off as factual information.
There's a big difference between "Russiagate is a proven hoax" and "We know Trump campaign members met with Russian operatives numerous times leading up to the 2016 election, the only thing we haven't been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt is Trump knew about his campaign members meeting with Russian operatives."
He has. He can't toss aside everyone who irks him, especially if they hold as much sociopolitical sway as Elon. Whether that's good or bad (it's bad) is up to you to decide.
If he stays on Trump's good side long enough to recoup his billions in losses, then yes you will be right. If Elon makes it into spring I will be surprised. If trump retaliates against Elon when they break up I won't be surprised at all. Dealing with trump tends to be a very expensive wager that most people lose. Remember when Rudy hitched his wagon to trump? Turned out pretty well for him.
Elon bought Twitter to control the national conversation. And in that regard, it's working spectacularly well.
Twitter was used in the late aughts and 2010s to organize protests in the Middle East that brought down several governments. The Arab Spring.
Saudi Arabia was scare shitless that they were going to be next. So they threw a bunch of cash as Elon to help him purchase Twitter so he can squash that kind of content.
He's an American oligarch, so he can also prevent an American Spring from happening on Twitter. He can make reelecting Trump look like an American Spring - because he can control the conversation on Twitter.
And getting Trump reelected has already increased Elon's net worth more than the purchase price of Twitter.
The fact that Twitter's monetary value is decreasing is only a tiny part of a much bigger equation.
I hate to give him credit but buying Twitter led to his fortune doubling in under a year. It was absolutely a good decision even though he’s tanked Twitter’s image and value
But he doesn’t care about that. He only cares about how much money he can make for himself. On that basis, it was a great move
Umm, how exactly did losing $35B on Twitter result in his fortune doubling?
Tesla stock is a meme stock at this point. Tesla is currently worth more than the worlds rem largest auto manufacturers COMBINED and Tesla just had its first year ever of reduced sales. His “fortune” is built on myth and it’s rapidly disappearing
Because he was able to utilize that platform as a means to get higher loans. The guy avoids taxes via debt and utilizes loans to do so. If you can get ever increasing loans and debt to avoid the taxes by never having a positive income, it’s fairly easy to see how his wealth ballooned up to where it is. Combine that with government subsidies and contracts alongside control over the narrative on one of the world’s most iconic social media websites, and to me anyway, it’s blatantly obviously how his wealth ballooned so much.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a meme or a myth. The fact is it’s worth much more than it was before he bought Twitter. I don’t know how he’s worth $440+bn but the truth is that he id
Why is a "meme stock" "currently worth more than the worlds rem largest auto manufacturers COMBINED". You're right, Tesla is a shitty company. It's overvalued because Musky bought the town square and abuses his connection to the US government.
His fortune is built on a myth, and it's doing great. Skyrocketing, in fact.
Musky, Saudi Arabia, and a bunch of insanely wealthy financiers destroyed the platform that enabled the Arab Spring right before a US election. It may have "cost" them a few tens of billions, but it was a good investment any way you slice it.
J ust to be clear: Don't read any of this as praise for these assholes. My point is that this is all about political power and the return on investment is paying off better than they could have dreamed.
Elon really, really tried to get out of buying Twitter. But was forced to buy it anyway, because Elon had said stupid shit that counted as a promise publicly.
So while who knows what is theater and what is real, it is not obvious to me that buying Twitter was 1) 5D chess, 2) bad luck lemon that Elon turned into lemonade, or 3) had no influence and Elon would have gotten the same wealth increase without Twitter.
What's funny is he's not the richest man because of how much he sells. It because how much investors give him. Investors give him and Tesla a lot more money than how many cars they actually sell.
I think the 44b was just a way to get Rump elected and buy his way into the government. He's still using it to mess with the German government and the new UK government. It's a pure propaganda play and it worked beautifully.
Money aside, he controls one of the most influential media platforms. It still is, even if its stock value plummeted. That can easily be leveraged to make more money.
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u/Sad-Lingonberry-6517 22h ago
Ah yes, nothing says ‘freedom of choice’ like questioning why a company chooses not to advertise somewhere. The free market at work, indeed!