this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2025
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[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 hours ago

A symptom of a failed society

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 hours ago

Musk should have the most expensive handcuffs slapped on him

[–] SeventySeven@sh.itjust.works 7 points 16 hours ago

Cool, many Americans are struggling to pay their bills and are close to being on the street...

[–] AndyMFK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 27 points 23 hours ago
[–] Gudl@feddit.org 21 points 22 hours ago
[–] mintiefresh@piefed.ca 23 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

This guy could solve world hunger and all kinds of other things and just chooses not to. And does all kinds of destructive things.

He's an asshole.

[–] lepinkainen@lemmy.world 11 points 19 hours ago

He could literally be a legend who is remembered forever for his philanthropy, but he chose to buy a president and fuck up a whole ass country with his techbros.

[–] demonsword@lemmy.world 14 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

He’s an asshole.

Such an understatement. He is evil. No other word cuts it.

[–] TheMinister@sh.itjust.works 3 points 20 hours ago

He’s rotten shmegma discharge mixed with pus

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 9 points 19 hours ago

At this point if you are still using a Tesla you are supporting racism and sexism

A more fitting photo

[–] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

To recover the gold, we must slay the dragon.

[–] Severus_Snape@lemmy.world 78 points 1 day ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (3 children)

I don't like him. He is a cunt.

But he is extraordinarily smart. No doubt about it.

He called himself the Chief Engineer at Space X. In fact, he doesn't know shit about engineering. He has no engineering degree. He just hires young engineers, make them work like dogs, and constantly takes credit for anything they achieve. Once they burnout, he kicks them out and replaces them.

He uses his celebrity to attract more young engineers. He actually has an entire team that visits engineering schools and tells young graduates "You have the ability to work for a genius and go to Mars. Wanna join Elon ?". Again, he knows nothing about engineering. He has a financial degree from the Wharton School of Finance.

Elon Musk presents himself as the founder of Tesla. Tesla was actually created by Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard. He simply invested in their company, fired them both, and sued them both. Then, he called himself the original founder of the company.

In exchange of a confidential legal settlement ($$$), Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard must agree to stay silent. A lie repeated 50 times, 100 times, 1000 times, becomes reality. So, many outlets now call Musk the founder of Tesla. Perception shapes reality.

One of the reason he bought X is to shape the algorithm. He has urged millions of dumb people to buy Tesla stocks. And it's working. Dumb people regularly see random accounts on their X feed praising Elon Musk as a genius. And these dumb people actually believe it.

The same way, dumb americans on X constantly saw random accounts attacking Kamala Harris during the 2024 election campaign. At no point did they find it actually suspicious ("Why am I seeing this content ?"). And it played a key role in the election of Donald Trump.

Before the election, Musk was asked how much money DOGE might save. “We can do at least two trillion” he said. At the end of the day, he didn't save shit. But he successfully fired every regulator that was investigating SpaceX or Tesla. That was his real goal.

Reuters and the New York Times published two very good investigations about how Musk knowingly sold defective cars:

🔵 https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-musk-steering-suspension/

🔵 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/17/magazine/tesla-autopilot-self-driving-elon-musk.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qU8.QSjO.OObnmYGrrZh2

You will never guess how Elon reacted 🙃

He started telling people on X :

Translation: "Please don't read quality journalism. That would be super bad for me."

This man is the proof that technical knowledge doesn't matter in business. If you are absolutely shameless and skilled at manipulating fools, you can be highly successful.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 5 points 16 hours ago

Elon Musk is not smart, it's just that his investors are exceedingly stupid.

[–] ztwhixsemhwldvka@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Quality post

[–] Steve@startrek.website 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I’m going to throw out one counterpoint.

You have not addressed the RESULTS.

Look at his actual tangible successes and tell me how that could happen in a vacuum. Why no other person in history (at least recent history) has achieved these things.

[–] Severus_Snape@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

He is a lying piece of shit. But I'm definitely not saying he is dumb.

I actually wrote "he is extraordinarily smart."

He is very good at hiring smart engineers and making them work like dogs.

He tells them BS about how sleeping at work will save the world and save humanity. He hires smart people then takes credit for whatever they produce.

A lot of these engineers are technically good but they have zero life experience. Musk love young people like this. It's exactly the kind of people he hired at DOGE.

[–] Steve@startrek.website -1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Agree. I just hate it when people try to say his efforts didnt make it happen.

I wish he would shut the fuck up about politics and let me enjoy cool rockets and fast cars 😞

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 21 hours ago

Then what's needed is to organize smart engineers. This doesn't need anyone like Musk. It can happen in a nationalized company connected to state-funded universities; tends to be easier to do when you don't have a whole political party dedicated to sabotaging any attempt at this and then claiming it can't work. All Musk does is extract value from the process for himself, and then make sure that political party stays at the top.

[–] slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org 17 points 1 day ago

Imagine being the one who kills the first half trillionaire. Wouldn't that be pretty neat?

[–] neomachino@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 18 hours ago

fuck this guy

[–] Twofacetony@lemmy.world 54 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Half a trillion in equity is so unfathomable in my reality.

$500,000,000,000

Let’s say I ask him for 0.001% of his wealth… I would get $5,000,000.

Now let’s put this into perspective of my reality. If I had $1000 and someone asked me for the same 0.001% of my wealth, I would be handing over $0.01.

One cent.

I understand that this wouldn’t be sustainable if I give everyone one cent from my pot of a thousand… but still. Have a trillion dollars makes me sick.

[–] Botzo@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

More perspectives:

If you divided this amount equally across every human on earth (8,142,000,000), they'd each get about $61.

Only 9 sovereign wealth funds hold more value. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_wealth_fund

[–] venusaur@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It’s also different having equity worth that mush vs liquid assets

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not in the grand scheme of things. It is mostly only relevant when it is a about whether he can afford various impulse buys, like purchasing twitter.

One person owning that much wealth, whether it be equity or assets is not something that should happen at all.

Sure, I think their point was just that this is different than cash. If you start selling a bunch of stock to buy things, this would impact the value of your remaining stock negatively. How negatively is pretty hard to predict, but I imagine trying to liquidate that would net far less than half a trillion.

[–] Flamekebab@piefed.social 31 points 1 day ago (2 children)

But if we were to tax him he'd... What's the current lie again?

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 points 16 hours ago

All we have to do is seal up the loophole that says money borrowed against stock value isn't income.

But I don't even understand why capital gains are not considered income.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 16 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It would be very bad for the economy. Exactly what economy "the" stands for is not specified, I can only assume it must be "the" Elon Musk economy.

[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

That's at least the economy of top 10% and very often the top 1%. It's a different world up there.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It's so much a different world, they lose contact with reality.

[–] Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 23 hours ago

Top 1% still includes people who fail to pay bills sometimes. This is the economy of the 0.01% at most.

[–] Cheems@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Not taxing him is also bad for the economy

[–] Ziggurat@jlai.lu 33 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Tesla sales dropped by 60%, X is getting Empty, people mock Grock, but he keeps getting richer. It makes no sense

[–] probable_possum@leminal.space 16 points 1 day ago

It is not about product sales or healthy conditions for employees or customer value. It's about using property to get more property. And about financial speculation.

[–] Impound4017@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 day ago

SpaceX lifts more raw tonnage into orbit than all other agencies and private organizations combined iirc, and directly controls an ever-increasing proportion of US government space-based assets, to say nothing of Starlink. Tesla, while sales have dropped, has not really seen a corresponding sustained drop in stock price (where most of his corresponding net worth from Tesla is actually located) in the meantime, though we will see if that can be sustained long term (I, for one, hope it falls off a goddamn cliff). As for your other point, Twitter (now X) and Grok by extension are, frankly, not a major factor in his worth, when assessed next to those other factors.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That shit means nothing. A happy community is worth may more. It has value.

[–] goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 22 hours ago

Can't say the person who's used their children as human shields would know that

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 2 points 16 hours ago
[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Maybe he could also become worlds first halved half-trillionaire?

[–] shai_hulud@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

The important thing is that they are equally sized.

[–] Pat_Riot@lemmy.today 13 points 1 day ago

Fuck that guy. I hope he gets pancreatic cancer.

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm pretty sure he's aware how "wealth" is calculated and plans his "wealth" accumulation so it looks higher in those stats.

And as the sub-headline says: as soon as Tesla stock fails (wtf did it rise?) he is not ultra rich anymore, I daresay he might be in serious trouble.

[–] monogram@feddit.nl 0 points 1 day ago

What are these numbers?