• Lemminary@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    My pet theory is that Musk acquired Twitter to destroy one of the most effective platforms for anyone on the left to organize.

    • chryan@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      You’re giving Musk too much credit here.

      He bought Twitter because a) he’s addicted to it, and b) he rushed into a buying agreement he didn’t get his lawyers to vet properly (probably due to his massively inflated “I understand more than anyone else” ego).

      He wanted to back out of it, but faced a lawsuit that he was almost certainly going to lose, so had no choice but to go through with the sale. The lawsuit happened because the shareholders at the time realized the company was worth nowhere close to the inflated $44 billion he offered for it, so they weren’t going to back down either.

      Everything else that happened after the sale is a result of a man-child feeding his addiction and recuperate from the dumb deal he was legally forced to uphold.

      • SupahRevs@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        You are right on why he bought it. But he then got funding from outsiders who would benefit from it’s transition away from effective gathering and communicating space

        • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Yeah. I think MUSK bought it because it sounded cool and he got suckered into it. I think he got the funding for it because the people who funded him (like the Saudis) saw an opportunity to get an easy mark to break the system for them.

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            If you remember leading up to him claiming he wanted to buy it he kept claiming it was constantly blocking free speech and essentially calling it a propaganda machine. He made the claims about wanting to buy it because he was claiming he would fix it and run it better.

            Then went on to limit free speech, and use it as a propaganda machine. While shedding a lot of users and worth for the company

        • anomnom
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          5 days ago

          He also didn’t like that kid who was tracking his plane.

          I still think controlling (and ruining) it as a platform was an initial goal.

      • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        To be honest, I’m basing this on screenshots of Musk’s private conversations as reported by Gizmodo.

        I distinctly remember this bit:

        March 24, 2022
        TJ [affiliation unclear] [Edit, October 4: We now know TJ is Musk’s ex-wife Talulah Jane Riley]:
        Can you buy Twitter and then delete it, please!? xx
        America is going INSANE.
        The Babylon Bee got suspension is crazy. Raiyah and I were talking about it today. It was a fucking joke. Why has everyone become so puritanical?
        Or can you buy Twitter and make it radically free-speech?
        So much stupidity comes from Twitter xx
        Elon Musk:
        Maybe buy it and change it to properly support free speech xx

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      We need to regroup ASAP, on other platforms, like here on Lemmy. I’m already seeing some happenings, we just need to beg more people to come here. Let’s make Lemmy the place chuds imagine what Reddit is! Minus the toxic callout stuff, that will be just weaponized against us, and anyone trying to leave the far-right (far-right trollfarms like to impersonate leftists to convince real leftists into attacking each other).

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      That’s an awfully expensive political statement, even for Musk

      • Azzu@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        Does it really matter if you have one billion or 200 billion?

        • AA5B@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Previously he could buy a company like Twitter on a whim. He’d probably have to think twice about doing that again, so there’s a noticeable loss of purchase power.

          Then you see his solar company is gone, drilling never went anywhere, car company may be pinched.

          At least what he spent to buy a seat in government was cheap (for him)

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            He is the reason he has a loss in purchasing power. Imagine if he has focused on upgrading hardware/tech. Roughly 6 million Tesla’s have been sold. We know he spent around 3 billion buying chips from NVIDIA to funnel the money elsewhere used for other projects. That’s $500 dollars extra per car ever sold that could have been put into lidar and other research and development. Since he really wouldn’t need to put it in the older models, he could have used that money alone to produce a cheap well built $25k EV. And had to the money for full self driving in more expensive versions. Poof, Tesla would have gained support instead of losing support.

            His toxicity is what cost Twitter so many users, and advertising money. He could be worth 400billion right now and growing fast if he had focused on his companies growth and not yelling at clouds.

    • freddydunningkruger@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Just wait for the quid pro quo. SpaceX was supposed to get us back to the moon on 3 billion dollars. They are now at 5 billion dollars, and all they have to show for it is a flaming husk of a booster caught by “the chopsticks”.

      For anyone who thinks that was some incredible accomplishment… NASA has been landing rovers on Mars using truly incredible engineering that makes SpaceX look like a bunch of kids eating Baby Ruth bars in the sandbox.

      So if Elon gets appointed to a government position and starts awarding Tesla and SpaceX all kinds of extended taxpayer-funded gravy grift, you will know your pet theory is 100% spot on.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        For anyone who thinks that was some incredible accomplishment… NASA has been landing rovers on Mars using truly incredible engineering that makes SpaceX look like a bunch of kids eating Baby Ruth bars in the sandbox.

        You’re belittling and attacking the thousands of engineers and scientists who really built SpaceX, because their financier is a fascist sociopath. If you knew anything about this at all, you’d understand how exceptionally ignorant, naive, and disrespectful this is.

        • Poxlox@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Musks culture has infiltrated SpaceX to warrant us to make some of those assumptions on the engineers that have currently stayed. Yes they’ve made accomplishments in actual propulsion engines but they’ve overpromised and underdelivered. Worse yet, on public linked posts from SpaceX team leads were spreading pro Russia anti NATO Muskaganda, completely unprofessional and it was praised by some dude I knew from my college who has been working there for a few years now. Their culture is trash and deserves to be ridiculed, and it’s because of Musk influence.

        • freddydunningkruger@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Seriously? Did you just feign outrage for all those employees who blew up 5 billion in taxpayers dollars? The ones who jump up and down cheering like deranged cult members each time one of their rockets blows up, excited they received a Participation ribbon for coming in dead last?

          You do realize SpaceX will never make it to the moon, much less Mars, right? I will never understand how people can watch Musk lie, OVER AND OVER, about his solar tiles, his Boring bullshit, his Hyperpoop, his full-self driving lies year after year after YEAR, but somehow think SpaceX is not run the same way, with the same lies.

          SpaceX employees know they are designing shite, and they are just there for the paycheck. So yeah, much respect.

          EDIT: Should we even discuss Leuders granting them the contract, then leaving NASA to work for SpaceX? SpaceX has missed EVERY SINGLE benchmark, every single deadline. Again, they were supposed to get us to the moon for 3B, and they are at 5B and can’t get an EMPTY rocket into orbit. SpaceX is out of govt money, but that won’t be a problem anymore, will it?

          • evidences@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            and can’t get an EMPTY rocket into orbit.

            I’m not here to argue any of the rest of you post but the last three star ship launches have been to orbital velocity but on a trajectory that purposely didn’t go into full orbit.

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              I understand what you are saying, but doesn’t that back up what he is saying. 166% of the budget spent and they aren’t even aiming for an orbit or further yet

              • evidences@lemmy.world
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                6 days ago

                I mean maybe but I don’t really think it does either way, I was just pointing out it’s kind of disinformation to say they can’t put starship into a stable orbit.

                It’s also weird to say SpaceX is coming dead last when they’re still they one company with a reusable first stage and literally the only company developing a reusable second stage.

                Elon Musk is an absolute cunt but I don’t really agree with the post I responded to.

              • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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                5 days ago

                How about you go research the projected vs actual cost of historic NASA projects, instead of commenting on something you apparently have not researched at all, and know nothing about?

                Wait until you find out how much more most IT and military projects cost than projected…

        • lemmyllama@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Seriously. I have no love for Musk, but what the Space X team has accomplished is incredible. Wait until that guy finds out how much the SLS has cost so far, lmao.

        • Djtecha@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          Maybe but they’ve got me interested in how this actually compares to nasa from a financial perspective.

          • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            The difference isn’t whether or not NASA could do this. The difference is that NASA’s been funded by an anti-intellectual plutocracy who’d prefer to get rich bombing peasants in the middle east than do anything which would actually benefit humanity.

            SpaceX engineers were people inspired by NASA, and would’ve likely ended up at NASA if the 4 year election cycle didn’t sabotage most projects.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      And/or weaponize it for his buddies to do so instead…