Elon Musk seen as working counter to U.S. interests in dealings with Russia, China
Elon Musk's financial interests put him in a position of having his own personal foreign policy, but new reporting shows that whether it's manufacturing in China or the Starlink network being used in Ukraine, Musk’s decisions can run counter to stated US policy.
What the hell? Look, man, I hate the guy but he's remarkably consistent: he works for his interests. Even when he does dumbshit things like buy Twitter, the thinks he's operating in his interests.
He's not complicated. He's a self absorbed piece of shit. That's really all you ever need to know about the fucker.
"Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it," Altman added.
From an interview with Sam Altman. It's grandoise narcissism, plain and simple.
He is the main character.
But he’s also a contrarian asshole.
Which he is also pretty consistent about. Yet somehow these children's cartoon evil/greedy businessmen are just handed power and trusted by such a shocking amount of people. It is kind of impressive in a "we're fucked" kind of way.
He bought Twitter WITH $22B OF SAUDI MONEY. Should tell you everything you need to know about the purchase, the motivation, and why he's "doing so badly" with it.
It really is the case. There is no accountability for the 1% in the world. Yet they are consuming more than the poorest 50% according to latest report.
He posted the other day about being proud American etc. and yet he's actively giving comfort to hostile adversaries like Russia and screwing US allies. I think if I were the US federal government I wouldn't touch SpaceX or Starlink with a shitty stick given the mercurial, manchild in charge of them with his own agenda.
A proud American who takes money from the US military to provide Starlink service to the military in Ukraine and then deliberately defeats US military interests there when it comes to the pinch. There's a word for that - a couple actually. Traitor. Treasonous.
It'll be interesting to see how much the US invests in his companies post Twitter shit show.
There's an interesting thought.
While there's no doubt the US government could withstand any difficulty inflicted on it by Musk's corporate empire, would the foot shot to their own efforts be worth it to sever ties with Musk?
Giving comfort is preventing nuclear war? Comfort me up then!
pretty sure that vid is fake do you have the entire interview? i cant find it
He's juggling fire. His money can only do so much to protect him if he makes enough mistakes fucking with these dangerous governments.
Remember folks, the rich only care about one thing and one thing only, getting richer. A bunch of these shit heads got together and started actively planning on overthrowing the US government because the election of FDR was going to affect their interests.
Prescott Bush (the father of George and grandfather of W) was their liaison with the Nazis.
Kind of the same thing thats happening right now, only instead of plotting they are spreading conspiracy theories and rage bating people into supporting them.
Smedley Darlington Butler, there is a great Behind the Bastards about him
I'd argue Musk cared more about being able to bloviate on Twitter than he did about getting richer from that transaction.
Of course there's the very real possibility that he was foolish enough to believe he could make money on the deal.
The irony of this is FDR wasn't exactly lacking in wealth or at least access to it at any point in his life.
Then he'll have to be sanctioned. Which would be a shame.
Sanctioned or...
Dramatic pause
"Sanctioned"?
I just wish he’d be sectioned.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/SK2eKWk_SkQ?si=VQ9apt5LM4f_oLtp
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
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Shocking. Truly shocking.
Truly, the pinnacle of modern journalism: YouTube.
...sometimes, absolutely!
Youtube is a video hosting platform, just saying a piece of news is hosted on youtube says exactly nothing about it's credibility.
Youtube did not create this video, if you want to say anything useful about its validity you'll have to be a bit more specific about the actual video itself or it's creators.
But I guess cheap pot shots make for easier upvotes.
A YouTube clip interviewing a New Yorker journalist from a news station’s official channel. 🤨
The article in question: ❓
I know dude what the fuck... I saw the "headline" and looked at the source. what in the real fuck
Yes, MSNBC’s YouTube channel posting clips from their TV programs is definitely not a valid news source 🙄
It’s wild how quickly some of y’all love to (smugly) dismiss things at a glance.
Like you can't even argue that this is at least a perspective from a foreign state. It's literally the thoughts of one guy.
it is really wonderful that someone truly wants peace to settle in my country
Oh look a Russian tanky.
The only person capable of settling peace is that dictator Putin just stopping their illegal invasion into a sovereign nation.
It's not that simple, you know, ukr soldiers base their camps in inhabited places so after they ve been struck they could blame russians for killing innocent people, well don't hide behind your citizens then
The past half century has been moving production out of the west and into China but it's somehow just bad when it's Musk?
Come on, this circle jerk is getting more retarded by the day.
Tis a good time for Macarthism to return
Said no one ever, until you just did it right there.
As they say in Danish “talk about shooting sparrows with cannon-balls”.
Musk is South African. We should expect his loyalties to reflect his home country more than the US.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Elon Musk is a US interest. The US is a bunch of business interests in a trench coat, and they don't always agree on everything. Some want to do business with China, some want the Chinese competition destroyed, and some want to create tension so they can sell more weapons.
The idea that Musk is "counter" to US interests is wrong, he just represents a faction of the ruling class that's not on board with the (trade) war on China. Since it's not in the interest of the working class to have a US-China (trade) war, neither in the US nor anywhere really, he is inadvertently aligned with the interests of the majority of humanity on this one.
I see, so it’s not in the working class interest to have a trade war with, checks notes… A genocidal authoritarian government whose stated aim is to subjugate a smaller Democratic neighbor. That same China who is allied with a war mongering mafia state and has aggressively targeted whole industries with intellectual theft, product dumping, and unfair trade practices which has hollowed out whole domestic industries and has been one of the leading causes of low wage growth.
It is now a terrible thing for workers, that the US is in a low intensity trade war which is decoupling it's economy from said genocidal power and rebuilding the industrial plant in North America. Reshoring millions of jobs and keeping the unemployment rate at historic lows despite increased interest rates.
It was a lot to unpack, I just wanted to make sure I understood that correctly.
You're just thinking of the worker aristocracy in the West, not the global working class, clearly. China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. And it's neat how you blame China for something done by your own ruling class. Furthermore, this trade war (not to mention a war war) will be terrible for workers everywhere. Do you think the billionaires are going to bail you out? No, they're going to squeeze workers even more to finance this conflict, and they'll tell you suffering is your patriotic duty.
And imagine thinking China is the genocidal one out of those two. The US has had a hand in so many genocides and has directly and indirectly killed millions in the last decades. If you compare this to what China has done recently they look like angels.
A genocidal authoritarian government whose stated aim is to subjugate a smaller Democratic neighbor.
It's absolutely terrible what the genocidal US regime is doing to Cuba, but the rest of your comment doesn't make a lick of sense.
If Rachel Maddow says it, then it must be true.
If you’re skeptical, here’s the article the interview was about.
I know redditors and lemmies are eager to fight to the last Ukrainian, but atleast half the country wants to stop unlimited Ukrainian funding. So Musk prohibiting Ukrainians to use his tech for offensive warfare against another country, is him saving the world from nuclear war.
In his own words, "The United States Congress has not declared war on Russia". And that is 100% true.
I know many of you guys had your bunkers ready for the nuclear fallout. But understand that many others want to live normally.
Here is Walter Isaacson (on whose book this story is based) himself saying,
To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.
https://twitter.com/WalterIsaacson/status/1700342242290901361
She does an excellent job of backing up what she says. Unlike you.
Ad hominem.
You do know his public image has been slipping for years unrelated to this right? He tied himself so closely to the tesla brand and pushed so hard that liberals either thought positively of him or neutrally until he started spewing right wing BS at which point he was alienating his own target demographic who saw owning a tesla as bad.
You're mad at Musk for this???
Musk has done so many terrible things. Treats his workers like shit, destroys the environment, platforms racists (he's a racist pos himself), false advertising, siphons government subsidies, scams investors (including pension funds, I don't particularly care about scamming venture capitalist and the like), lobbies against public transport and god knows what I forgot right now.
But oh no! He only supports the war effort up to a point, and he doesn't want to have a cold war with China. For once he's kinda reasonable, and for that the libs are calling him a traitor.
We are calling him a traitor for having Starlink turned off in Ukraine to protect Russia from a counter attack.
traitor to whom?
Last I heard, he simply didn't turn it on when Ukraine asked him to, before the DoD had explicitly contracted him to support Ukraine's military. The narrative of him throwing a switch mid-attack and laughing maniacally as Ukrainian drones drifted helplessly to shore has been spreading like wildfire but that seems to be based on a quote from one guy who has since walked it back.
Is there some Fediverse equivalent to /r/enoughmuskspam? My feed is starting to get flooded with these five-minute-hates of Elon Musk and it's wearying.
Civilian space assets cannot be used for warfare or they become legitimate targets in a war. When the US commits to defending and replenishing starlink satellites lost in conflict I'll blame Musk for not enabling his network to be used for warfare.
That's because you identify with the US empire, which is not, and never was, on your team. And neither was Musk.
Musk isn't even against the US empire, he just didn't want to escalate. The White House regularly does (not) do a thing because they don't want to escalate. They're all traitors to the US too, are they?
Treason is not wanting total war, got it.
We’re mad that one person could have this much power, especially because they’re a narcissistic man child who thinks he knows better than everyone else and is quickly becoming radicalized to the far right.
This is why billionaires shouldn't exist they are treasonous
They should exist, but we are not utilizing them correctly. Once someone has reached a billion dollar networth then they are thrown a big party and then sacrificed to a valcono. I believe this would curb emissions and fix climate change.
There was a native American tribe that every ten years had individuals return all personal wealth back to the tribe and the threw a big party, then start it all over again
Maybe we just seize all their assets, nationalize them and make them start over with nothing. Call it new game +.
Wealth Piñata monetary policy
Polluting a volcano with a bag of shit isn't really green. I say we just bury them so they can at least be used as fertilizer.
Just too much power for one person. Even if they're not in charge of a global internet provider, your average billionaire can singlehandedly affect the lives of millions of people (employees, customers, bystanders) with no democratic oversight at all. It's just not something that should exist.
China seems to do a pretty good job of keeping their billionaires in check. Maybe we should take notes?
You: Want to abolish billionaires because they do not support the war enough.
Me: Want to abolish billionaires because they exploit and oppress the working class.
We are not the same.
I want to abolish them because of both - checkmate
Well you've jumped to conclusions there, I'm not talking about the war but Billionaires in general and their respective countries in general.
Billionaires have too much power, live outside the existing system of government and laws, gained their money and power through exploitation and in general are undemocratic.
So I agree with your second statement, but not the first
Yeah, because of that. This isn't the gotcha you think it is, you aren't uncovering a double standard. People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.
My ilk?
You're jumping to conclusions.
Billionaires are treasonous because they live outside the laws of their country, hold power over the government there and gain their money through exploitation
We live in a society