Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Tonitrus]

Musk is bad...but I think some of his underlings might be even worse...

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-shotwell-mad-elon-musk-continued-financing-ukraine-starlink-report-2023-9

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell was upset when Elon Musk kept financing Starlink in Ukraine even after the Pentagon offered to fund the enterprise, author Walter Isaacson wrote in a recent excerpt from his biography on Musk.

"The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally," Shotwell said, according to Isaacson. "Then Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story."

[The Brain]

Was it Elon Musk who financed Starlink in Ukraine or was it SpaceX? If SpaceX then it seems like a valid complaint.

[Josquius]

Musk is bad...but I think some of his underlings might be even worse...

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-shotwell-mad-elon-musk-continued-financing-ukraine-starlink-report-2023-9

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell was upset when Elon Musk kept financing Starlink in Ukraine even after the Pentagon offered to fund the enterprise, author Walter Isaacson wrote in a recent excerpt from his biography on Musk.

"The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally," Shotwell said, according to Isaacson. "Then Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story."

Reads as reasonable until the haters at the pentagon bit, which sounds bizzare.
I guess by bullshit on twitter he means not the actual bullshit on twitter but the reasonable people on there?

[mongers]

I obviously misunderstood Musk. I always thought he was a showman and an attention whore but I thought he was using his powers for good causes, he was the guy getting stuff worked on and then promoting it. I never thought he was some kind of engineering genius, I mean he got big by investing in internet banking.

But I thought he really cared about the environment and space exploration and science and all that. But he seems completely contemptuous of all of those things. So what the hell did he do all that for? He doesn't seem to have any consistent positions or principles on anything.

Ego, therefore I am.

[crazy canuck]

People are overthinking Musk. He's shitlord that is so rich that he forgot which side he is on. He seemed to have always thought laws didn't apply to him.

The Western world should really do something about our capital owning class being a bunch of traitors in the making.

Fyp

Musk is just one example of concentration of wealth ending badly.

[Caliga]

I think I've mentioned before that I think Elon Musk is a piece of shit and a con artist.

Here's what I said when this thread first started. I stand by my words and double down on them.

[grumbler]

Berkut!

I hope you are back.  I've missed your insights and takes on things.

[grumbler]

Musk is bad...but I think some of his underlings might be even worse...

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-shotwell-mad-elon-musk-continued-financing-ukraine-starlink-report-2023-9

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell was upset when Elon Musk kept financing Starlink in Ukraine even after the Pentagon offered to fund the enterprise, author Walter Isaacson wrote in a recent excerpt from his biography on Musk.

"The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally," Shotwell said, according to Isaacson. "Then Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story."

I'm not following the "may be worse" argument.  If the Five-Sided Playpen had a contract in hand, Musk couldn't randomly interrupt service on a whim.

[Jacob]

I'm seeing claims that Musk's actions with StarLink directly prevented a Ukrainian surprise attack in the Russian navy.

If true that's definitely shitty.

Edit: Musk is apparently the person making the claim.

[Grey Fox]

People are overthinking Musk. He's shitlord that is so rich that he forgot which side he is on. He seemed to have always thought laws didn't apply to him.

The Western world should really do something about our capital owning class being a bunch of traitors in the making.

Fyp

Musk is just one example of concentration of wealth ending badly.

No. He's only the most known example.

[Syt]

It appears he and Grimes had another child:
https://web.archive.org/web/20230909163011/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/09/books/review/elon-musk-walter-isaacson.html

The musician Grimes, the mother of three of Musk's children (the existence of the third, Techno Mechanicus, nicknamed Tau, has been kept private until now), calls his roiling anger "demon mode" — a mind-set that "causes a lot of chaos." She also insists that it allows him to get stuff done.

Wiki has a handy summary:

Relationships and children
Musk has 11 children.[452] Musk met his first wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson, while attending Queen's University in Ontario, Canada; and they married in 2000.[453] In 2002, their first child died of sudden infant death syndrome at the age of 10 weeks.[454] After his death, the couple decided to use IVF to continue their family.[455] They had twins in 2004 followed by triplets in 2006.[455] The couple divorced in 2008 and shared custody of their children.[456][457] In 2022, one of the twins (his eldest child) officially changed her name to reflect her gender identity as a trans woman and to use Wilson as her last name because she no longer wished to be associated with Musk.[458] Musk blamed the estrangement of his daughter on what the Financial Times characterized as "the supposed takeover of elite schools and universities by neo-Marxists."[459]

In 2008, Musk began dating English actress Talulah Riley.[460] They married two years later at Dornoch Cathedral in Scotland.[461][462] In 2012, the couple divorced, before remarrying the following year.[463] After briefly filing for divorce in 2014,[463] Musk finalized a second divorce from Riley in 2016.[464] Musk then dated Amber Heard for several months in 2017;[465] he had reportedly been pursuing her since 2012.[466] Johnny Depp later accused Musk of having an affair with Heard while she was still married to Depp.[467][468] Musk and Heard both denied the affair.[467]

In 2018, Musk and Canadian musician Grimes revealed that they were dating.[469] Grimes gave birth to their son in May 2020.[470][471] According to Musk and Grimes, his name was "X Æ A-12" (/ɛks æʃ eɪ ˈtwɛlv/); however, the name would have violated California regulations as it contained characters that are not in the modern English alphabet,[472][473] and was then changed to "X Æ A-Xii". This drew more confusion, as Æ is not a letter in the modern English alphabet.[474] The child was eventually named X AE A-XII Musk, with "X" as a first name, "AE A-XII" as a middle name, and "Musk" as surname.[475] In December 2021, Grimes and Musk had a second child, a daughter named Exa Dark Sideræl Musk (nicknamed "Y"), born via surrogacy.[1] Despite the pregnancy, Musk confirmed reports that the couple were "semi-separated" in September 2021; in an interview with Time in December 2021, he said he was single.[476][477] In March 2022, Grimes said of her relationship with Musk: "I would probably refer to him as my boyfriend, but we're very fluid."[1] Later that month, Grimes tweeted that she and Musk had broken up again but remained on good terms.[478] In September 2023 it was revealed that the pair had a third child, a son named Techno Mechanicus "Tau" Musk.[3]

In July 2022, Insider published court documents revealing that Musk had had twins with Shivon Zilis, director of operations and special projects at Neuralink, in November 2021.[479] They were born weeks before Musk and Grimes had their second child via surrogate in December. The news "raise[d] questions about workplace ethics", given that Zilis directly reported to Musk.[480] Also in July 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk allegedly had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, in 2021, leading to their divorce the following year.[481] Musk denied the report.[482]

[Josquius]

Interesting tidbit about the trans kid there. The timing lines up with Musk becoming visibly nuts too I think?

[Syt]

[Syt]

Well, I guess Elon wants to keep liking things he doesn't want people to know he likes.

[Josquius]

What's the point? Isn't the purpose of a like to say you endorse something?
I guess they're thinking about some kind of shifty digital  kkk secret handshake thing where the OP can see you liked them but nobody else?