What is Elon Musk up to now..

[stevebrooks]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... department

Finally, straight white billionaire men get the chance to influence how government operates! About time i say. They're going to save so much money....i mean elon has saved heaps of money already, he's got hundreds of billions saved, imagine how much he'll have saved in four years time!

It has been seriously suggested that this is just Elon's way of getting around the requirement of the birthright Presidential restriction, he wants to be "President" and can only do it through someone else, for instance it is reported that he has been at Mar a Lardo almost every day since the election buzzing in Trump's ear and pushing for his own picks for important positions.

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... s-election

I'm not sure the likenesses holds up. Maybe there is something Henry VIII about Trump, but i can't see any Thomas Cromwell in Musk. However, history may indeed rhyme in this instance.

So that was the deal then. You give me lots of money and public support and i'll let you dismantle whichever government department you don't particularly like? This is all going to end so badly. Musk though is likely to get bored of the whole thing soon enough and really he doesn't fit the identity profile required. He's not much of a christian and he's not even a true American! Obviously i'm taking about shit i have no real idea of, but i don't think the maga mob really 'love' Elon. He'd have to offer them something directly beneficial, like free internet, to win them over but even then i'm not sure it'd work.

My guess is that Musk will play a big part in collapsing the economy whilst crippling or abolishing the governmental departments that could support a recovery. At that point he'll probably step back and start buying everything. Maybe take about a year. And when things start going really badly for maga, Musk might well find himself being blamed for it all. Can't blame the Dems when they have no legislative power, can't blame immigrants because rounding them up and deporting them has to be marketed as a huge success.

Anyway, if things do go sour for Musk my only hope is that he doesn't decide to move to Australia, because we all know that if he had to skip town we'd defo be an option, what with all our expat South African white farmer types and our completely racist history, and contemporary society. He'd probably buy Byron Bay and cleanse it of all those Hollywood actor types that own it now...and then he could buy the libs and run for PM! Actually, I don't know why he isn't here already!

[stylofone]

Maybe there is something Henry VIII about Trump

The obesity for sure. The syphilis, gout and pus-filled boils... probably.

[stevebrooks]

Getting insulted by intelligent people, oh wait, that's us right"

A ship's horn sounded as she spoke and she joked, "I think it's Elon Musk," before adding, "I'm not afraid of you, fuck you, Elon Musk."
Musk, owner of social network X, reacted to a video of her remarks by posting a laughing out loud emoji graphic. In another post, he added, "They are going to lose the next election," in a reference to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/ ... 024-11-17/

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ned-him-in

This is a pretty amazing article.

The most charitable interpretation is that Musk exists at various points along the Dunning Kruger scale. He’s a fantastic venture capitalist, whose sci-fi-enthusiast investments produced, let’s be honest, far more interesting companies than something like luxury goods or fast fashion. But this provided him with incalculably more resources to be a blithering moron when it comes to things such as geopolitics, or how to build and organise a just society. The less charitable interpretation – the one presented by his former friend Sam Harris on a recent podcast appearance – is that he is “palpably, visibly deranged … snorting ketamine and tweeting at all hours of the day and night”, has been radicalised by his own algorithm and presents himself as Tony Stark while actually being Dr Evil.

It seems incredible but somehow Musk has managed what no one on the right has managed for the last eight years, he's kicked Donald Trump off center stage. Bernie Sanders referred to him as 'president Elon Musk' recently and right at this moment he does appear to be calling the shots.

How this actually goes down in Trumpland remains to be seen. Musk, if anything, appears to be even more deluded than Trump. I suspect that he genuinely believes 'the people' love and adore him. If there is love and adoration it is because he helped get Trump elected but i don't think those maga fans were expecting him to buy the entire government. Or maybe they don't care, i have no fucking clue what these people are thinking.

In any case, my bet would be that this Musk/Trump love affair won't last long. If there's one thing we've all learned in the last decade it is that Trump doesn't enjoy standing in anyone's shadow. When these lovers split up it will be explosive.

[stylofone]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ned-him-in

This is a pretty amazing article.

The most charitable interpretation is that Musk exists at various points along the Dunning Kruger scale. He’s a fantastic venture capitalist, whose sci-fi-enthusiast investments produced, let’s be honest, far more interesting companies than something like luxury goods or fast fashion. But this provided him with incalculably more resources to be a blithering moron when it comes to things such as geopolitics, or how to build and organise a just society. The less charitable interpretation – the one presented by his former friend Sam Harris on a recent podcast appearance – is that he is “palpably, visibly deranged … snorting ketamine and tweeting at all hours of the day and night”, has been radicalised by his own algorithm and presents himself as Tony Stark while actually being Dr Evil.

It seems incredible but somehow Musk has managed what no one on the right has managed for the last eight years, he's kicked Donald Trump off center stage. Bernie Sanders referred to him as 'president Elon Musk' recently and right at this moment he does appear to be calling the shots.

How this actually goes down in Trumpland remains to be seen. Musk, if anything, appears to be even more deluded than Trump. I suspect that he genuinely believes 'the people' love and adore him. If there is love and adoration it is because he helped get Trump elected but i don't think those maga fans were expecting him to buy the entire government. Or maybe they don't care, i have no fucking clue what these people are thinking.

In any case, my bet would be that this Musk/Trump love affair won't last long. If there's one thing we've all learned in the last decade it is that Trump doesn't enjoy standing in anyone's shadow. When these lovers split up it will be explosive.

I am imagining some extreme scenarios, just for my own amusement, I'm not saying this is how things are...

I wonder if it will play out like it does in Russia, where oligarchs who have a falling out with Putin end up falling out of a very high window. What if Trump found that Musk is like a hydra, you cut off one head and two more grow? Trump might have to take him out entirely.

The silicone valley cult includes a dystopian fantasy that governments will collapse or become ineffectual compared to other entities, like multinational online corporations. It will be interesting to see how far the techno-authoritarians have come in that project. Maybe VIce President Trump vs President Musk will be the showdown.

The end of governments is one of the themes in the science fiction of Neal Stephenson, who is (or was) influential on these crazies. This is the setup of "Snow Crash", which was purportedly read not as a dystopian fantasy, but as a business plan by some early tech entrepreneurs. (from wikipedia)

In the 21st century, an unspecified number of years after a worldwide economic collapse, Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States since the federal government has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs. Franchising, individual sovereignty, and private vehicles reign supreme. Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts, while private security guards preserve the peace in sovereign gated housing developments.  Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads,  and all mail delivery is by hired courier.  The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds, where they do tedious make-work that is, by and large, irrelevant to the society around them.  Much of the world's territory has been carved up into sovereign enclaves known as Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities (FOQNEs),  each run by its own big business franchise (such as "Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong", or the corporatized American Mafia), or various residential burbclaves (quasi-sovereign gated communities). In this future, American institutions are far different from those in the actual United States at the time the book was published; for example, a for-profit organization, the CIC, has evolved from the CIA's merger with the Library of Congress. 

[stevebrooks]

Well the good news is, the continuing resolution has passed, without Trumps demands to raise the debt ceiling and etc, only 44 no votes, all the democrats and 170 Republicans voting to pass it, seems they are getting a bit cheesed off with the current president elect and Trump!

[pipbarber]

I wonder if it will play out like it does in Russia, where oligarchs who have a falling out with Putin end up falling out of a very high window. What if Trump found that Musk is like a hydra, you cut off one head and two more grow? Trump might have to take him out entirely.

I'm thinking along similar lines. Musk may decide that he can get whatever the fuck it is that he wants from a more shadowy position and retreat from center stage. But he's quite as deranged as Trump, and his grasp on reality may be even more tenuous than the orange pustule's and so i'd predict that he'll continue to place himself right in the middle of it all. But i don't think he is loved by anyone. His tech bro colleagues are probably jealous and would love nothing more than for him to fail, which would present enormous opportunities for other billionaire vultures. The maga movement worships Trump and christianity, not Elon Musk (even if he does pay the bills...for now). He really isn't one of them though.

When things start to go badly wrong under Trump's presidency (and it's more a when than if), Musk will be blamed first. They'll turn on him and he'll turn on them and Trump has the power of the state behind him, not Musk. Elon is cooked, i reckon. We're entering Musk's moment of supreme power, but it won't last long. There's a lot of hope in that prediction of course, i'll give it until this time next year to be proved wrong, but i don't think it will take that long.

[stylofone]

Well the good news is, the continuing resolution has passed, without Trumps demands to raise the debt ceiling and etc, only 44 no votes, all the democrats and 170 Republicans voting to pass it, seems they are getting a bit cheesed off with the current president elect and Trump!

I was trying to work out what was motivating Trump and Musk, and after a bit of reading, it all just seems to be brainfarts and bullying, and when they try to explain it, it gets even more nonsensical.

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... m-krishnan

Well, that didn't take long. I thought they'd make it at least to the inauguration without a crack appearing.

Maybe Trump's first war will be the one he conducts within his own movement.