The ongoing Elon Twitter saga: "insert demographic" melts down

[Energize]

Given that the government doesn't really make much and he creates what they want, yes, he gets tax payer money. I'm not sure why this is a bad thing? His rockets and cars are bought by private sector too.

What failed business ventures paid by the American tax payer are you talking about?

Why is giving taxpayer money to fantasy projects a bad thing, are you serious?

Hyperloop is probably the most prominent example.

Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here's a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received.

Musk's companies benefited from subsidies as recently as April, when SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA. Tesla got subsidies for years.

www.businessinsider.com

In any case he's certainly not self made, he's propped up by the government which was my point.

 

[dlockers]

Why is giving taxpayer money to fantasy projects a bad thing, are you serious?

Hyperloop is probably the most prominent example.

Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here's a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received.

Musk's companies benefited from subsidies as recently as April, when SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA. Tesla got subsidies for years.

www.businessinsider.com

How much subsidy did hyperloop receive? The article you linked conflates it with a SpaceX deal.

 

[Longbow]

Why is giving taxpayer money to fantasy projects a bad thing, are you serious?

Hyperloop is probably the most prominent example.

Elon Musk is speaking out against government subsidies. Here's a list of the billions of dollars his businesses have received.

Musk's companies benefited from subsidies as recently as April, when SpaceX won a $2.89 billion contract from NASA. Tesla got subsidies for years.

www.businessinsider.com

In any case he's certainly not self made, he's propped up by the government which was my point.

Fantasy projects such as?

How much tax payer money has been spent on Hyperloop?

Selling your products exclusively to the private sector makes you self made, but selling them to the government too makes you not self made?

 

[Irish_Tom]

Personally, I have no problem with governments funding early stage research into high-risk/high-reward startups — without that we wouldn’t have half the technology we rely on today because the private sector is rarely interested until something is obviously profitable.

The biggest issue I have with government subsidies for things like Tesla and Space-X is the poor ROI they get from it.

Mariana Mazzucato is an economist who has done lots of research (and written a couple of books) on the subject. She featured on a Freakonomics podcast episode a while ago — well worth a listen.

 

[Energize]

Fantasy projects such as?

How much tax payer money has been spent on Hyperloop?

Selling your products exclusively to the private sector makes you self made, but selling them to the government too makes you not self made?

Hyperloop is a fantasy/vanity project which they partnered with an agency largely funded by government money to the tune of $1.3bill for a feasibility study.

You're not self made if the government funds your business because they are spending other people's money, usually frivolously.

Now if you have an established product that the government are buying that's one thing, but expecting them to fund the development of projects is another,

 

[StriderX]

I've always been suspicious of Musk and question whether he'd have been nearly as successful if the US government wasn't in the background propping him up.

Then again the US has a big interest in revitalising it's lagging automobile sector as well as ensuring it's in the driving seat of commercialisation of paradigm shifting technologies, so I guess someone had to be the face of it and Musk just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

 

[Longbow]

Hyperloop is a fantasy/vanity project which they partnered with an agency largely funded by government money to the tune of $1.3bill for a feasibility study.

Do you have a source for this?

 

[Freddie1980]

you don't seem to care about an informed an electorate and explicitly stated you want disinformation, even if that is foreign, to be allowed on social media to impact democratic processes.

The things your worried about are the sort of things that are going right now. Perhaps a change in management will help alleviate this problem.

 

[Roar87]

Free speech whiners still want cart blanche
to spread lies.

I mean, who gets to decide what are lies, the blue haired leftists who work at companies like Twitter?

 

[chroniclard]

I mean, who gets to decide what are lies, the blue haired leftists who work at companies like Twitter?

Is everyone working at Twitter a lefty....

Though to be fair it's an easy job as the right lies constantly/it's the only way they survive.. Case in point, Trump, Republicans, Tories and Brexit. Constant lies.

 

[ianh]

Is everyone working at Twitter a lefty....

Absolutely not, you'd never have 100% coverage voting just one way. In fact I'm sure if you asked every employee who they voted for there would be a loud majority who voted Biden and a correspondingly quiet minority who would be absolutely terrified to say they voted Trump, based on the reaction towards Trump voters online by their colleagues.

Though to be fair it's an easy job as the right lies constantly/it's the only way they survive.. Case in point, Trump, Republicans, Tories and Brexit. Constant lies.

Back in the real world most of us live in. it's understood that every politician will lie about some things - Left, Right or Centre - and conversely every politician will tell the truth about other things - Left, Right or Centre.

Understanding this basic concept is called "being an adult" and therefore most mature adults understand that this is a basic fact of life, whilst absolute hyperbole is usually one of the traits of a more immature, childlike attitude, alongside shouting that things aren't "fair" when they don't get their way, for example.

 

[chroniclard]

Absolutely not, you'd never have 100% coverage voting just one way. In fact I'm sure if you asked every employee who they voted for there would be a loud majority who voted Biden and a correspondingly quiet minority who would be absolutely terrified to say they voted Trump, based on the reaction towards Trump voters online by their colleagues.



Back in the real world most of us live in. it's understood that every politician will lie about some things - Left, Right or Centre - and conversely every politician will tell the truth about other things - Left, Right or Centre.

Understanding this basic concept is called "being an adult" and therefore most mature adults understand that this is a basic fact of life, whilst absolute hyperbole is usually one of the traits of a more immature, childlike attitude, alongside shouting that things aren't "fair" when they don't get their way, for example.

This perpetual whining about both sides lying is hurting democracy and furthering the global contempt for the right. You are just too indoctrinated and biased unfortunately. The right, as we have seen over the past few years, is far and away then scroatiest liars In the room. Proven fact. So, amusingly, stop lying to yourself.

 

[Colonel_Klinck]

Tbh I've never been a fan of him, he claims to be a libertarian but has received billions of public money, while I'm sure he's a good engineer, he's not a self made man by any stretch of the imagination, he has been constantly propped up with taxpayer money and has had many failed business ventures paid for by the American tax payer.

It can be argued he's saved the US tax payers money at SpaceX. He has delivered to the ISS for NASA at a fraction of the cost it would have been for NASA to develop a new system and at a fraction of what Boeing and so NASA has spent on Starliner, which is a system that still isn't in service today. The US Gov is going to spend a lot of money on certain projects, delivering those projects on a competitive budget doesn't mean he isn't self made. The US Gov didn't spend a penny on the development of Falcon 1.

 

[Roar87]

This perpetual whining about both sides lying is hurting democracy and furthering the global contempt for the right. You are just too indoctrinated and biased unfortunately. The right, as we have seen over the past few years, is far and away then scroatiest liars In the room. Proven fact. So, amusingly, stop lying to yourself.

I don't even know why people like you bother speaking about politics online, you're so far gone, you literally believe the people on the opposite side to you are evil. Why are you sat debating people you genuinely believe to be evil liars?

 

[chroniclard]

I don't even know why people like you bother speaking about politics online, you're so far gone, you literally believe the people on the opposite side to you are evil. Why are you sat debating people you genuinely believe to be evil liars?

Your bias and programming makes you blind sadly. Truth is apparent to any left leaning moderate like me and all normal people.

The right are the primary liars of modern society. It's all there in black and white.

 

[dowie]

Is everyone working at Twitter a lefty....

Nearly everyone yes, like 99% are.

 

[Fubsy]

Nearly everyone yes, like 99% are.

How do you know this? Even with polls, you don't really know.

Could some of them be outwardly this way, but privately not?

I seem to be experiencing more and more people (as we come out of lockdowns) have one set of views online and a tweaked set offline. People say what they need to to fit in.

 

[dowie]

How do you know this? Even with polls, you don't really know.

Data from political donations, it's one of the most skewed out of all tech firms. Obvs most of the California tech companies will lean left in general but for Twitter, it's a 99% 1% spilt.

 

[unwashed potato!]

Well there's a set of facts I will instantly believe and start repeating. Let me check who said them... Ah

 

[BowdonUK]

Your bias and programming makes you blind sadly. Truth is apparent to any left leaning moderate like me and all normal people.

The right are the primary liars of modern society. It's all there in black and white.

The left have been controlling the social narrative for years.

The problem is you think subjects are black and white when they aren't.

All the social media companies are controlled by left leaning people. Businesses suck up to every left wing cause. Yet you're still here whining about the right.

You're assuming Elon Musk is right wing. I would say he's a centrist, which is where most people are.