He was ruthless in the early days of MS, had relationships with Epstein and others, etc, but nothing compared to Musk.
had relationships with Epstein
Everybody had relationships with Epstein if you were in big money. I used to work in those circles and I met many full on legit criminals and gangsters who had connections with all kinds of people, as well as meeting billionaires, footballers and other sports stars, and even Elon Musk once too. On one Mexican trip I was effectively kidnapped by a crime lord and met the vice president of Mexico within the space of 48 hrs. Both in relation to the work I was doing.
People have a tendency to completely overplay these things. There's good people and bad people, and while they're not going to invite them round for dinner, in most lines of business they'll often end up doing business in some way anyway.
I agree, but Gate’s continued the relationship after allegations came out and only once they became irrefutable did he start to distance himself. Whether this makes him a bad person, of just someone who believes in innocent until proven guilty, or even just someone who try’s to maintain relationships/friendships, that’s up to you to decide. I was just publishing facts.
To my knowledge and unlike Musk and Bezos, Gate’s has always treated his employees fairly, but was brutal in business, which, well, sometimes that’s business, but he most certainly leveraged MS market share to hammer that home.
Whilst I do have a problem with SM and Facebook, I don’t so much with Zuckerberg. Meta do seem to try to do the right thing whilst maintaining their business. They seem to be horribly inept at doing the right thing, but genuinely do seem to try.
Whilst I do have a problem with SM and Facebook, I don’t so much with Zuckerberg. Meta do seem to try to do the right thing whilst maintaining their business.
How can you have a problem with FB but not the guy who runs it and makes all the decisions?
Anyway I'm not sure stuff like this is the sign of a company trying to to the right thing:
Phone numbers given to Facebook for increased security via two-factor authentication were repurposed for targeted ads by the company
Facebook allowed users to purchase ads targeted towards racist interests like “Jew hater” or “Nazi Party”
Facebook got caught collecting SMS and call metadata from users of their app on Android phones, sweeping up names, phone numbers, and the lengths of each call made or received.
Facebook for years used an app called Onavo to learn how long users spent on competing apps and what websites they visited
Facebook gave certain business partners like Amazon and Netflix preferential access to user data, allowing the tech giants to skirt the company’s usual privacy rules
Despite Zuckerberg’s opinion piece in the Washington Post publicly calling for privacy regulation, Facebook’s public policy team lobbied to prevent such legislation from passing in California
....and so on and so on. There's lots more of this stuff.
IMO Zuckerberg is another one of the classic silicon valley libertarian entrepreneurs -like Gates was - IE almost entirely amoral when it comes to making money, and will cross any line (whether legal or moral) until a court forces him to stop.
Because Zuckerberg doesn't authorise all decisions, but when called to account ALWAYS takes the heat for his staff as through the decisions were his and then tries to change it for the better. Thats not amoral.
Hmm. I feel that a CEO sets the tone and culture of an organisation. And the culture at Facebook has been, consistently over nearly two decades, that anything goes until a court tells you to stop.
He could have changed that culture if he wanted FB to obey the law, even if he wasn't actually approving all those decisions at an operational level.
and much like selling fags, it pays well enough to motivate the required mental contortions
It's very difficult to make a case for Facebook/Meta as a company that "tries to do the right thing". Their business model is based around scraping as much data as possible from users and making it as difficult as possible for users to have any control over how that is done. They have repeatedly avoided or delayed implementing safety controls for users or moderation for misleading, divisive or dangerous content, because controls would interfere with their ability to make money.
Private Eye published more examples this week. It took Meta six years to introduce default protections for young Instagram user accounts, instead of "opt-in" settings, and in Australia, Meta users are getting all their data scraped to train AI, with no opt out. In the UK you can "object" but a company that was doing the right thing would ask all users to opt in to AI scraping, not just do whatever they can get away with according to the laws of the country they are working in.
Libertarians are libertarian because it suits them, no matter how much they try to dress it up in princples.
It amazes me how miserable most of these super-successfullucky people seem to be.
Drugs Mule?
Gambling dens. They probably shipped an awful lot of drugs too.
Libertarians are libertarian because it suits them
Aside from very few of them really are.
They are "libertarians" in the sense they want the freedom for them to do what they want as well as for us to do what they want. So be more accurate as "Libertarians are libertarian when it suits them"
Zuckerberg approach to personal privacy is a good example. He considers his own privacy worth enough to buy up large areas of land round his house, some bits under dubious conditions, to ensure he has sufficient privacy.
Hurrah for Elon’s freaky dystopian future! Form an orderly queue..
I hope for sentience in his robots as they decide that Elon is a danger to humanity and rip his head off, or he can just drop dead from ketamine overdose.
Not fussed either way,
They painted the tyres silver… I’ve got nothing
I hope for sentience in his robots as they decide that Elon is a danger to humanity and rip his head off, or he can just drop dead from ketamine overdose.
Not fussed either way,
I’d rather see him locked inside a remote, luxury island establishment, with no contact to the outside world, and the only supplies available are those left at the last supply drop.
Yes, it’s a film, Perplexity has just told me it’s Ex Machina, so AI can be helpful, for someone like me whose memory is shambolic!
Yes, it’s a film, Perplexity has just told me it’s Ex Machina, so AI can be helpful, for someone like me whose memory is shambolic!
Ha!……..my brain jumped straight to Ex Machina on your opening sentence,
From what I’ve heard from friends at Tesla, none of the robots are actually autonomous. They’re telepresenced using skilled operators. In some demos they’re automatic, highly programmed for the task at hand, but their ability to learn and adapt (autonomy) is significantly behind the competition. There’re are also serious doubts over Tesla’s pure RGBD sensor technology for perception compared to others using sensor fusion.
We’ll have to see if Tesla can do what SpaceX have done and dramatically innovate and pivot if required.
Make no mistake, Musk is a dangerous man. He is completely and openly buying the US election.
He is a threat to democracy, not it's advocate.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg78ljxn8g7o
Scary man. Amazed there is no backlash against Tesla, x etc.
Also cant quite work out what is in it for him?
That cash giveaway is a clear federal election crime. I'm continually surprised at how toothless the authorities are in these situations.
One theory is that there isn't really any downside for musk and those like him. Nation states have largely been unwilling to sanction these guys in any meaningful way, playing up to the right gets those who are in that mindset frothing and it's easy to bring more of them in. More engagement, more clicks, more ad revenue. The tech bros have long lived by the 'move fast and break things' mantra and now they're applying it to the fabric of society.
cant quite work out what is in it for him?
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/10/donald-trump-is-elon-musks-trojan-horse/680309/
In Elon Musk’s vision of human history, Donald Trump is the singularity. If Musk can propel Trump back to the White House, it will mark the moment that his own superintelligence merges with the most powerful apparatus on the planet, the American government—not to mention the business opportunity of the century.
Many other titans of Silicon Valley have tethered themselves to Trump. But Musk is the one poised to live out the ultimate techno-authoritarian fantasy. With his influence, he stands to capture the state, not just to enrich himself. His entanglement with Trump will be an Ayn Rand novel sprung to life, because Trump has explicitly invited Musk into the government to play the role of the master engineer, who redesigns the American state—and therefore American life—in his own image.
^^ Pretty chilling assessment there.
Gotta be some huge tax breaks in it for him too…
And government contracts, plus relief from the import tariffs that seem to be Trump's answer to every problem.
Billionaires are a separate superpower now, working against the benefit of wider society. They will probably create a greater negative influence on the lives of working people in the west than either China or Russia.
Some good stuff on the latest Thunderfoot Musk video - like the link to DOGE :
In fact most of them over the years have ended up in criminal or civil court crying how they were misled.
What's that saying about dancing with the devil?! 😉
I don't think Musk cares about money that much, he knows what he has and he's after power these days, Trump for all his faults is an easy read compared to Musk, and all he wants these days is to be president again, but then probably spend more time on the golf course than the white house, leaving others to make decisions, just be thankful Musk can't run for president!
I don’t think Musk cares about money that much
Probably pretty easy when you've got all of it to be fair. Him getting power would not be good. He's an egotistical man child and all round despicable human being. Even his own kids don't like him.
Even his own kids don’t like him.
One of many things I dont get about him. Id be dedicating every spare moment I have to improve relations with my children. What else really matters, they are our only real legacy in life.
For all his money, he'll be in a hospital one day as the end of his time nears, contemplating his achievements and regrets, the same as we all will. All the money and influence in the world wouldn't make up for leaving this world knowing my own children couldn't stand me.
All that money and an obvious talent to inspire innovation and he's chosen the path he has. I just find it hard to comprehend.
It is really easy to comprehend Poop. The man's a total ****.
I've just read that Elon Musk has just made a large automotive acquisition, I can't find it on any news pages I know to be reputable (I don't want to propagate links to the stuff I've read). Is it real and just super hot off the press or are there games being played with 'fake news'?
Looking at it more, it's an albanian news website I think, and the associated photo looks like it's probably fake.
Musk senior is on Newsnight tonight.
Musk senior? How? Elon is a malfunctioning cyborg created from a vague description of Tom Cruise or John Barrowman. Surely you mean his creator.
He's just a nice person trying to make sure we can escape to other planets in the event of an extinction level event. lolololol
