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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: Elon Musk, Siren

Late Night Open Thread: Elon Musk, Siren

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There’s an old Yiddish proverb: When you are rich, you are handsome, smart, witty — and you sing good, too!

For all his money (and celebrity), Musk has been able to buy acclaim, but not respect. This shortfall is endlessly irksome to him. Also, there’s plenty earned (free) media in proclaiming his irk:

… “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” Musk tweeted at the weekend.

He said in an earlier tweet on March 25 that “free speech is essential to a functioning democracy,” and he questioned if Twitter “rigorously adheres to this principle.”…

Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told a judge that Musk’s tweets about Tesla will remain a valid subject for government investigation even if a court throws out his 2018 agreement with the SEC.

Musk is seeking to end oversight by the SEC of his Twitter posts, claiming the agreement is being used to “trample” his rights to free speech. He is also asking the court to block a subpoena by the securities regulator for documents relating to the review of his tweets.

Under the SEC settlement agreement, the regulator will distribute funds from the company and Musk to investors who lost money buying Tesla shares after Musk claimed on Twitter he was thinking about taking the company public.

The idea of Musk starting his own social-media platform — or, better yet, buying Twitter, and kicking out Tha Libs! — is extremely exciting to all the wrong people. Musk could certainly afford to have a platform hand-crafted to his exacting specifications, but as enticing as a 24/7 source of free egoboo might be, the chances of getting Twitter-level global reach on a Twitter-quality platform are not exactly the best…

ETA:

Reader Interactions

26Comments

  2. 2.

    Gravenstone

    Tell me you don’t understand what free speech really means without actually telling me that you don’t know what free speech really means.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Also too, mentioning that one of his ventures is literally founded on tunnel vision. Extrapolating to the whole is not a great leap.
    //

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    It’s a fact Teslas are available in Finland (and blow up real good). Dunno about in Russia but if there are any there they could be rendered inert practically immediately.

  8. 8.

    Dangerman

    With all due apologies to Bill Engvall, apparently you can’t fix asshole; here’s your sign Elon.

  9. 9.

    sab

    Jeezus Elon Musk has a lot of kids. I hope he keeps his money to himself, because I doubt he is good at parenting.

    I love my SIL but she admires Musk because he sends up rockets. Can’t understand the thought process

    ETA: I remember how much kay thinks his production sucks after talking to her kid who does contract electrical work for them.

  10. 10.

    sab

    OT Ten year old kid killed in my city by an unsecured firearm that his friends found in the house they were visiting.

    Everyone innocent, just stupid kids. With access to guns.

    Judging by his name, he was from a Nepali immigranr family. To go through all they went through to get here to be safe and then lose a kid to stupid kid firearms.

  11. 11.

    bjacques

    Mike Masnick in his Twitter thread also links to a Techdirt article in which Musk fired a *customer* (Stewart Alsop, a longtime tech journalist) for criticizing a new model Tesla event that ran ridiculously late. That and personally ordering the disabling of the autopilot beta on his former employee’s Tesla are two massive reasons never to buy one of those cars. The Maker movement of the 1990s rallied against No User-Serviceable Parts Inside, but Musk’s pettiness even unto his customers  brings that to a whole new level.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    The number of people who would be banned for criticizing Musk on his new social media platform would be epic.

  15. 15.

    JWR

    Just getting caught up on the day’s posts, and that Applebee’s post is just too “good” to be true. Nobody mentioned it in comments, but in the linked CBS story, we see what passes for what Pankratz sees as the pulse of his employees:

    The Pankratz memo also aimed to provide some advice for managers to “make sure you have a pulse on the morale of your employees” and suggested that many workers “will need to work more hours or get a second job.”

    Pankratz’s advice to managers: “Be conscious of that” and provide schedules early so the workers can arrange their second jobs around their Applebee’s work.

    The “empathy” just oozes, don’t it? God, I hate unregulated capitalism.

    ETA edited for brevity.

  19. 19.

    Starfish

    @JWR:

    zhena gogolia:
    Well, I’ve never been in an Applebee’s, and I haven’t been in an IHop since about 1985, so I think I’m okay.

    TonyG:
    I’ve managed to live my life so far without setting foot in an Applebees. Apparently I’ve been boycotting the place all these years!

    Starfish:
    Imagine going into a restaurant and pay[ing] them money for the stuff that you can buy in the frozen food aisle of your supermarket and put in the microwave yourself.

    Ruckus:
    It’s not that good.

    Not even close.

  20. 20.

    HeartlandLiberal

    So I had to google ‘egoboo’, and as I suspected, first definition:

    is a colloquial expression for the pleasure received from public recognition of voluntary work.

    But right below that:

    Egoboo is a 3D open source dungeon crawling action role-playing game

    Which to chose in relation to Elon Musk? I vote for door #2.

  21. 21.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Musk has been leading the Masters of the Universe around by the nose on Tesla stock with Musk’s crazy tweets and the Masters of the Universe are pissed that how dare someone else cheat like they do (rather cheat in a way they can’t cheat since were talking smug, loathsome math nerds here) So asshole on asshole voilance.

  23. 23.

    Citizen Alan

    I vaguely recall the applebee’s in Tupelo Mississippi as being good back in the early nineties. I mean, the steaks were lousy, but they had probably the 2nd best Buffalo wings in town. Later, when I moved to Oxford, the the applebee’s was one of the worst restaurants I’d ever been to with completely inedible food.  To the point that the huddle house right next door was considered a vastly superior dining experience.

  24. 24.

    different-church-lady

    “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square…

    Somewhere in an underground bunker, Mark Zuckerberg’s beady little eyes squint in agony, and he vows to take back what is rightfully his.

  25. 25.

    different-church-lady

    every brain fart this narcissist has becomes a month long news cycle. Not because what he’s saying is interesting or new, but because the ad-based press makes money from the controversy and fanboy clicks

    Jealous, are we?

  26. 26.

    Dopey-o

    @sab: OT Ten year old kid killed in my city by an unsecured firearm that his friends found in the house they were visiting.

    Everyone innocent, just stupid kids. With access to guns.

    12 y.o. girl found handgun at a family party at 2:00 am here this week. Killed her 14 y.o. cousin accidentally, then turned the gun on herself.
    So much wrongness.

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