Elon Musk

Come on Keir, you can do better than a mild dressing down in a press conference. How about sweeping windfall taxes on Tesla and any other company in the UK associated with the Space Karen? Or charge him with incitement/conspiracy and start extradition proceedings? There’s an opportunity here for the UK to lead the world in standing up to petulant billionaires, he should take it.

being a “disruptor”, as professional arseholes call it

Never a truer word. The second someone says they are a ‘disruptor’ in a role you know two things:

1. Most of the time they are a big-headed, ignorant, bullshitting ****.

2. You need to put some metaphorical and physical distance between you and them ASAFP.

In the case of Musk, I wouldn’t give him the time of day if he offered me a million quid merely to do so.

Come on Keir, you can do better than a mild dressing down in a press conference. How about sweeping windfall taxes on Tesla and any other company in the UK associated with the Space Karen? Or charge him with incitement/conspiracy and start extradition proceedings? There’s an opportunity here for the UK to lead the world in standing up to petulant billionaires, he should take it.

Nah. Special Forces ‘hit’. Then just shrug about it when asked.

Why do people think Musk is a genius?

He’s made some astute IT business decisions and made a lot of money.

He’s not an engineering genius building new batteries and developing space rockets.

He’s become more than a genius to his followers they see him more like a Guru, and it’s got to him. He was never known as being a Man who accepted feedback well from anyone. I can’t imagine how sycophantic and delusional his inner circle is. Imagine that ego mixed with the power of being the ‘Richest Man in the World’ and the influence of the US President Elect’s ear.

His house is built on Sand, his wealth is mostly in Telsa shares, currently Tesla is valued at about $1Tr, but that value is partly a market bubble but mostly based on expectation. If you calculated the ‘true’ value of Tesla as a car company, it would be relatively modest. They only made a profit once, in 2020, but that was from other manufacturers giving them money to off-set their own ICE cars. That scheme has ended.

They face some serious issues, other manufactures are catching up AND whilst they might only be 95% there so far with battery tech, they make fundamentally better cars. At the same time, Europe seems to be softening on banning ICE cars and Trump, however much he owes Elon, is never going to push EVs, his base would hate it.

I sense Elon’s is beginning to panic, he’s trying to realise his wealth, but the courts are still blocking his $56bn ‘bonus’, he could sell shares, but he needs the inflated market cap to keep moving.  Maybe he’s jumped on the Trump bandwagon as an insurance against prosecution. He’s got form for market manipulation. An accounting scandal would be enough to cause a run on Tesla shares, after all they only sell 500k cars a year, compared to Toyota who sell 9 million, but somehow Telsa is worth 4x as much?

Genuine question: Is Farage actually that electorally appealing?

He is with certain demographics but he is nowhere as popular with the wider electorate as many people seem to think. In fact his personal ratings are usually about the lowest of any party leader or high profile politician.

His appeal to potential Reform voters is high though and his personal appeal seems to form the backbone of their support. This YouGov poll released on 3 June, the day he announced that he had become Reform leader and would be standing in the GE predicted that Reform would win no seats :

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49606-first-yougov-mrp-of-2024-general-election-shows-labour-on-track-to-beat-1997-landslide

In contrast this poll by ElectoralCalcus a couple of weeks later predicted that Reform would win 18 seats :

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_vipoll_20240626.html

Okay the ElectoralCalcus wasn’t typical as it predicted the highest amount of seats but almost all of the polls were predicted Reform seats after Farage’s announcement, whilst before his announcement many, if not most, were predicting no seats for Reform.

Anyway the point is that Elon Musk is wrong to claim that Farage is the wrong person to lead Reform. He is in fact the perfect person, a subtle far-right racist who some people fail to understand the danger that he poses, or even that he is a racist.

Who does Musk think is the right person to lead Reform? The previous leader, or Yaxley-Lennon?

It’s great to see that he is primarily driven by negative emotions rather than positive analysis, it makes his political interference potentially far less effective.

Erm, have you not been paying attention since about 2015?

Genuine question: Is Farage actually that electorally appealing?

1 in every 6 voters who exercised their right in July would say so.

That’s not to be dismissed.

1 in every 6 people you walk past in the street.

Think on that for a few seconds then try not to feel profoundly sad.

1 in every 6 voters who exercised their right in July would say so.

That’s not to be dismissed.

1 in every 6 people you walk past in the street.

Think on that for a few seconds then try not to feel profoundly sad.

1 in 14 in Scotland.  I assume huge variations across both england and Scotland as well

However 1 in 6 unionists in Scotland would change their stance to independence supporters if he gained power in Westminster

Very much electoral marmite with far more loathing him that loving him certainly in Scotland

Because I have a spectacular inability to focus on a task, I decided to tally up who has appeared on Question time the most since the year 2000.  Here are the top 20.

It is interesting to note that all of these were MPs for years, often decades, except four. Who are all right-wing rabble rousers. Farage has had one appearance as an MP. TBF though, there is at least a fairly even spread of Right/Centre/Left. (if you take Labour MPs as ‘left’ which some here would dispute)

Nigel Farage	37
Kenneth Clarke	34
Emily Thornberry	31
Menzies Campbell	30
Caroline Lucas	30
Shirley Williams	29
Melanie Phillips	29
Vince Cable	28
Peter Hain	28
David Davis	27
Peter Hitchens	26
Lisa Nandy	26
Harriet Harman	26
Charles Kennedy	26
Piers Morgan	26
Theresa May	25
Diane Abbott	25
Caroline Flint	25
Douglas Alexander	24
Alex Salmond	24

they make fundamentally better cars.

I’ve been in a few Tesla taxi’s over in NL.

They are impressively fast and quiet.

The build quality is absolutely shit and there’s little headroom in the back.

Come on Keir, you can do better than a mild dressing down in a press conference. How about sweeping windfall taxes on Tesla and any other company in the UK associated with the Space Karen? Or charge him with incitement/conspiracy and start extradition proceedings? There’s an opportunity here for the UK to lead the world in standing up to petulant billionaires, he should take it.

As fun as it might be, we don’t want Politicians who take revenge on people who don’t agree with them. He’d be not better than Trump.

incels with too much money

incels with too much money

Incellionaire?

It’s great to see that he is primarily driven by negative emotions rather than positive analysis, it makes his political interference potentially far less effective.

.

Erm, have you not been paying attention since about 2015?

Genuinely no, I have very little interest in Elon Musk, what has he been doing since 2015? I assume it has something to do with the EU referendum…..did he interfere?

Starmer was right to just sigh, dismiss him as a Dick, then move on.

Musk is just a blustering bell end, like that annoying kid at school always desperately seeking attention, who just happens to own a social media platform.

He’s obviously got the attention span of a goldfish and by this time next week he’ll have completely forgotten all about grooming gangs and he’ll be on about building Teslas on the sun, annexing Mexico or some other bollocks

Starmer was right to just sigh, dismiss him as a Dick, then move on.

I think we need a much stronger reaction, at least in legislative terms, just ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away will not work, the oligarchs will keep taking more.

Having read what Starmer said I think thats a good counter and well said.  Not just a sigh and move on but a detailed factual unemotive counter.

The only thing I would like to have seen is a better labelling of the far right idiots as racists and neo nazis.  I know its not Starmers style but I would have like to see something closer to the “racist shite” and “traitor” thats been said by scots politicians

I think the point was that negative campaigning has been a huge industry since 2015.

Don’t like something? Here we are to legitimise you pinning it on the EU, immigration, etc. And in any case, it’s all done to a backdrop of “well it can’t get any worse”.

How many conversations between Brits in the street, pub, hairdresser etc do we think are positive and how many are just moan-fests about how the country is “going to the dogs”.

I’d wager 80:20 in favour of miserable, moaning bastards. And a majority of them blame their unhappiness on someone else, rather than critical self-examination.

And a majority of them blame their unhappiness on someone else, rather than critical self-examination.

And whenever anything is suggested to make people’s lives better, they object, whether that’s LTNs, bike lanes, housing, whatever. Because everyone has to be as sour and miserable as they are.

incels with too much money

I would assume not considering how many kids he has.

I am not sure what that has to do with Elon Musk. My point is that Musk’s judgement appears to be particularly poor if he thinks Reform should replace their leader, Farage is clearly an excellent leader for Reform, he ticks all the right boxes for their supporters.

It is obvious Musk is upset that Farage doesn’t agree with him that Yaxley- Lennon is a great asset, and that is the only reason that he is calling for Farage to be replaced.

Musk is allowing his personal emotions to interfere with a sound political strategy. Which I think is great, and I am hoping for a lot more of that.

Just seen that Australia are looking to limit the influence of people like Musk with strict spending caps – https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/australia-moves-to-ban-billionaires-from-buying-elections-387027/

My point is that Musk’s judgement appears to be particularly poor if he thinks Reform should replace their leader,

I appreciate that your point was intended to be specific to Musk, and how you felt that him being driven by negative emotions and not positive analysis meant that the effectiveness of his interference would be weaker as a result.

The point that I was obviously failing to make clearly enough is that UK politics (and elsewhere around the world) has been very effectively hijacked by people driving negative emotions rather than using positive analysis for the last 10 years and more, which is partly why we are in the shitehole that we are in.

I’ve just seen what Starmer has said today,  I’m quite impressed, knocks all the nails on the head imo

In a major speech on NHS reform, Sir Keir Starmer said on Monday: “Those that are spreading lies and misinformation, as far and as wide as possible, are not interested in the victims. They’re interested in themselves. Those who are cheerleading Tommy Robinson are not interested in justice.

“They’re supporting a man who went to prison for nearly collapsing a grooming case. These are people who are trying to get some kind of vicarious thrill through street violence that people like Tommy Robinson promote.”

I do think more focus should be put on pursuing Musk legally though. I was indifferent to Musk until this case emerged and I have disliked him ever since.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-50695593

Obviously the United States legal system is always going to benefit those with money but it would be nice if Musk could face both the courts and legislation outside the United States.

I think we need a much stronger reaction, at least in legislative terms, just ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away will not work, the oligarchs will keep taking more.

The thing we’ve been in Govt is that not only can you create laws, you can backdate them…

Can’t understand why Pedo Guy is taking such an interest in UK politics. Did it just start with the riots last summer or has he been trying to stick his oar in previously? Surely he has enough to worry about on the other side of the pond.

Nothing to see here.

Surely he has enough to worry about on the other side of the pond.

I think it’s about ego more than influencing UK politics. If he really just wanted to influence UK politics, for whatever reason, it would be sensible to do quietly and subtly in the background, as many other billionaires do, not shouting loudly and publicly from his twitter platform.

He certainly has the money to do that but his current public shenanigans are more likely to damage the causes which he claims to support than to help them.

Nothing to see here.

Correct.

Just like nothing to see in one of Sean Combs investment funds buying into twitter and Musk allegedly saying he is a friend.

my work has an x feed which I include on my standard signature . Time to edit I guess…?

Send an email to HR asking them why it’s company policy to promote political bias, foreign interference in UK politics (technically could be construed as treason?) and hate speech, and list some examples.

You could have a lot of fun with it. Also advise them you’re removing the link until they can clarify.

Should keep them busy for a while.

I think it’s about ego more than influencing UK politics.

I think it’s a lot to do with money as much as anything else. Twitter has been configured to amplify a certain kind of rightwing content and appeal to troll-like personalities who get a thrill from both amplifying that content themselves and having their own content amplified.

But it has also been configured to monetises widely shared posts. So Musk is feeding controversy into the system and amplifying controversy because it rewards him/twitter and also gives little cash-packed thrills to the people he wants to keep feeding content into twitter.

Its a factor thats overlooked in the role of social media in relation to events like Southport (and elsewhere) riots – is that the people who were seeding and sharing the misinformation that lead to those riots were getting financial reward for doing so. $0.85 per 1000 views – Musk’s own tweets can get audiences of billions – both with the content he creates and the stuff if shares by others –  by amplifying the likes of Tommy Robinson he’s also giving them a little bit of dough and signalling to keep putting the content in.

The only thing I would like to have seen is a better labelling of the far right idiots as racists and neo nazis.  I know its not Starmers style but I would have like to see something closer to the “racist shite” and “traitor” thats been said by scots politicians

Yes, but Scottish politics especially in Westminster is about perennial opposition.

Plenty of Labour minsters are now having to mumble about things being said in the past and looking forward to a constructive relationship with with the orange Chimpanzee in Chief.  Unfortunately the government benches have to deal with being diplomatic as well as idealistic.

It’s like the Gaza vote, why have an acceptable but useless motion that skirts just the diplomatic side of calling it a war crime when you can have an equally useless motion just the wrong nuance to break up the Labour vote and keep the Tories in power for another 5 years.  This country doesn’t need yet more 6th form common room rhetoric politics to combat Farage,  We could do with a little bit of consensus politics in this country but the way the SNP goes on I sometimes wonder if they’d be politically palatable in any coalition.

Even on Facebook… (I only still have an account to contact far flung friens) it’s just 99% BS on my feed.

I only log in once a week or so now as it’s so bad… The other day I reported a thing that popped up on my feed for hate speech… It was a picture of a migrant boat with a picture of chief Brody (from Jaws) saying “we’re gonna need bigger sharks”.

Apparently that’s totally fine and they didn’t remove the post or ban the author.

(currently established) Social media is just a total cess pit.

Apparently that doesn’t breach guidelines of hate or inciting violence…

I am not sure what that has to do with Elon Musk. My point is that Musk’s judgement appears to be particularly poor if he thinks Reform should replace their leader, Farage is clearly an excellent leader for Reform, he ticks all the right boxes for their supporters.

It depends on what the expectations of Reform are. Farage is good as the leader of a protest party but doesn’t appear to have the ability to take it any further than that. He’s very bad at deciding on and sticking to a logically coherent position, and his wider appeal is very limited as he’s got a lot of baggage from Brexit.

He appears to be like Johnson in not actually wanting to do the work other than campaigning/grifting. For example he’s asked 17 written questions and voted 26 times since becoming an MP. Lowe has asked 631 and voted 44 times.

I think many a true word spoken in jest

co0ncensus politics with Faraqge?

He appears to be like Johnson in not actually wanting to do the work other than campaigning/grifting. For example he’s asked 17 written questions and voted 26 times since becoming an MP. Lowe has asked 631 and voted 44 times.

20+ years as a MEP and on track for a £6k a month pension 🙁

1 in every 6 voters who exercised their right in July would say so.That’s not to be dismissed.1 in every 6 people you walk past in the street.

This is off topic but 1 in every 6 voters is not even close to 1 in every 6 people you pass in the street, turnout in the last election was below 60% so around 1 in 10 at best. I’d say Farage is the reason most people voted Reform and without him they will struggle to get any closer to Government, but that’s based entirely on the views of people I know personally that did vote Reform

I think we need a much stronger reaction, at least in legislative terms, just ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away will not work, the oligarchs will keep taking more.

Yup. There are any number of avenues for Starmer to stand up to Musk and other billionaires’ malignant influence on UK democracy and society:

– Party funding reform

– Media regulation (football clubs have the ‘fit-and-proper-person test, why not newspapers and tv channels?)

And the big one:

– Stringent regulation of social media to prevent harm to kids and vulnerable people, eliminate bullying and exploitative content (you don’t have to go far on xitter to find that), and ban incitement and other nefarious activities.

All the above would have wide public support and are long overdue. Is Starmer going to ignore them because he’s scared of what a rich manbaby says on his internet toy?