Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

I was promised a recession.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Republicans don’t trust women.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

White supremacy is terrorism.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Let’s finish the job.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

The willow is too close to the house.

You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / He Was Never Going to Buy It

He Was Never Going to Buy It

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I’m wondering how serious the bids are to unseat Elon at Tesla and SpaceX:

Elon Musk is threatening to pull out of his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter if the company does not provide more information on how it calculates the number of fake accounts.

In a letter delivered to Twitter on Monday and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Musk’s lawyers at the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom argued that Twitter was “actively resisting and thwarting” Mr. Musk’s rights under the terms of his deal to acquire the social media company. His lawyers accused Twitter of a “clear material breach” of its obligations and said that Mr. Musk had the right to break off the agreement as a result.

The letter said Mr. Musk had “repeatedly” requested more information about how Twitter measured spam and fake accounts on its platform and that he had “made it clear that he does not believe the company’s lax testing methodologies are adequate so he must conduct his own analysis.”

He must be an absolute nightmare as a boss.

Reader Interactions

238Comments

  1. 1.

    germy shoemangler

    it’s so funny to me that elon musk thinks twitter is half bots because his replies are full of crypto scammers. no dude, they just know your fans are the easiest marks on this entire website

    — soul nate (@MNateShyamalan) June 6, 2022

  4. 4.

    germy shoemangler

    He must have been such a charming kid:

    Elon Musk’s father, Errol, says that Elon had to be hospitalized after he mocked the suicide of a schoolmate’s father and he pushed Musk down a flight of stairs pic.twitter.com/GCae5JlPj3

    — Michael Ballaban (@Ballaban) June 4, 2022

  5. 5.

    Phylllis

    I’ve had bosses like him; you know they either aren’t going to follow through or are going to change their mind about a thousand times on how to proceed. The best course of action is to reply “I’ll get right on that.”, which is Phylllis-speak for I plan to either ignore or only do busy work around your ridiculous request until you are distracted by the next shiny thing that crosses your path and I can get back to my actual work.

  6. 6.

    lollipopguild

    Elon is a very bright 9 year old who thinks that he is always the smartest person in the room.

  7. 7.

    Baud

    Twitter was “actively resisting and thwarting” Mr. Musk’s rights under the terms of his deal to acquire the social media company.

    Unlikely, since he overpaid for Twitter by a lot.

  8. 8.

    germy shoemangler

    I once had a tech CEO tell me “I’m terrified you are telling me there could be racist groups organizing across my company” and I said “Start a very public diversity initiative and you will not wonder, you will know, they will make themselves heard. https://t.co/85rOMMYbbQ

    — Karla Monterroso (@karlitaliliana) June 4, 2022

  11. 11.

    ian

    What is a couple of billion dollars lost compared to the free publicity?  I mean, don’t we all have a few billion to waste like this?

  12. 12.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @germy shoemangler: 

    crypto scammers. no dude, they just know your fans are the easiest marks on this entire website

    The same people who cry, “fEw UnDeRsTaNd! eArLy AdOpTeRs! EnJoY bEiNg PoOr!”

    As they proceed to lose thousands or tens of thousands on craptocurrencies and NFT garbage. One of the big positives about crypto from the proponents was that it wasn’t supposed to move w/ stock and bond markets, but recently it has been, and down much worse YTD than total market indexes

  13. 13.

    Ruckus

    Elon is a rich guy who thinks his shit doesn’t stink. I’m pretty sure that’s not news.

    He’s done one decent thing, he invested enough money in electric cars to make them in large numbers and reasonably engineered. He made it possible for the electric car to become main stream. That’s it. And if he hadn’t done it, it still would have happened, it just would have taken longer. He made electric cars viable. If I had the money and needed a car, I’d still buy something else.

  15. 15.

    SpaceUnit

    Elon Musk is one of those people that can enter a crowded room and just make everyone instantly tired. “Oh God.  Not this guy again.”

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    Ah.  About Elon Musk.  Yes indeed.

    When I saw the blogpost title, I wondered if it was about one of the WaPost’s latest ridiculous headlines.  From the weekend.

    How the White House lost Joe Manchin, and its plan to transform America

    Moar goldfish memory from the shit-tastic Sally Buzbee’s minions.  Why yes, one of the reporters formerly worked for both Politico and Bloomberg News.

    Anyway, the issue is with whatever sucktastic editor wrote the headline.

  19. 19.

    Danielx

    He does sound like a first class Olympic quality prick. I’ve always classified bosses like that as firefighters – if there aren’t any fires handy, they’ll light one.

    Eta: fuck Joe Manchin with a rusty farm implement.

  22. 22.

    NotMax

    Perhaps he’ll switch his sights to buying Greenland.

    “What a rip-off! Barely any green at all!”

  23. 23.

    germy shoemangler

    I remember reading somewhere that every one of Musk’s projects involved dying in a confined space:  a locked, burning Tesla, an underground tunnel for cars that’s too narrow for rescue vehicles, the mini-submarine that was supposed to save those kids in the cave, the space x rocketship, etc.  It’s like a weird kink for him, hiding in plain sight.

  24. 24.

    Spanky

    the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom

    A law firm made up of random syllables?

  26. 26.

    terraformer

    TBH, I wish he would just go away

    I’m so tired of having to see and hear rich sociopaths’ meanderings and missives just because they’re rich sociopaths

  27. 27.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I’ve said from the beginning that I doubted that the deal would go through.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    I wouldn’t blame shareholders trying to oust Musk. This whole Twitter episode, along with a million other things he’s done over the years, proves he’s not a stable person who can successfully lead a business

  29. 29.

    Hoodie

    @Ruckus:  He got a bunch of other people to invest, including the federal government. That is a skill, but he’s mostly a salesman, evangelist and, lately, cult leader.

  31. 31.

    El Cruzado

    I live in SV and know a few folks who have worked at Tesla. I don’t know anyone who wants to work there now that the share price party is over.

    Yes, he’s a nightmare to work for.

  33. 33.

    pat

    Duwee, Cheetum and Howe.

    Not sure that’s how to spell them, but I loved that show. Car Talk. The law firm.

  34. 34.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Musk sounds like the sort of guy who’d pay a regular retainer fee to the firm of Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe, Attorneys At Law.

  35. 35.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Truthfully, I never paid too much attention to Musk until recently, didn’t know he was a such a flake, so I figured it was probably a done deal.

    He’s wasted billions of his own money and has hurt Tesla

  36. 36.

    Hoodie

    The letter said Mr. Musk had “repeatedly” requested more information about how Twitter measured spam and fake accounts on its platform and that he had “made it clear that he does not believe the company’s lax testing methodologies are adequate so he must conduct his own analysis.”

     

    Utter bs.  Elon knew going in that Twitter was infested with this stuff.  Skadden would have known this going in and would have asked for specific reps and warranties going in if he was all that concerned about it.  He’s trying to find a way out of the deal that won’t cost him the liquidation fee.

  37. 37.

    citizen dave

    I do wonder how much more successful Tesla might be if Elon wasn’t in charge of it.  I also got this weird thought that Elon and Rand Paul should be neighbors.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    Joe Manchin has them printing his press releases now. I don’t get the gullibility regarding him, I really don’t. He comes thru on absolutely nothing. They just love the West Virginia weasel and no matter how many times he makes them all look like fools they insist he operates in good faith.

  40. 40.

    Pharniel

    @Hoodie: ​
    Still going to be a rough go.

    Jurisdiction of choice is Delaware, and Delaware courts have enforced this type of merger before.

    Normally, you’d assume that Elon can’t afford the deal anymore, and was looking for a way out that allowed him to pay 80% of the breakup penalty, but Big Divorced Energy Elon probably thinks he can get Twitter to pay him, which is….a notion I’ll give him that.

  41. 41.

    NotMax

    ‘@Hoodie

    “I’m shocked — shocked — to discover everything on the internet is not 100% valid and true.”

    //

  43. 43.

    Kay

    Feb. 6, 2022
    WASHINGTON — Two senators working on an overhaul of the little-known law that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election pledged on Sunday that their legislation would pass the Senate, saying that recent revelations about the plot made their work even more important.
    In a joint interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Senators Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, and Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, said their efforts to rewrite the Electoral Count Act of 1887 were gaining broader support in the Senate, with as many as 20 senators taking part in the discussions

    Over and over and over. They fall for it every single time.

  44. 44.

    Kay

    “Absolutely, it will pass,” Mr. Manchin said of an overhaul of the law, which dictates how Congress formalizes elections.

    Guffaw.

  46. 46.

    Ruckus

    @Hoodie:
    No disagreement from me.

    My only point is he got the ball rolling.
    He’s not an engineer, he’s not a good human, he’s not in it for anyone but himself, his only actual good point is he doesn’t always wear golf spikes when he steps on his dick. So slightly brighter than average – maybe.

  47. 47.

    Calouste

    Musk’s plan is suck up to the shitgibbon and the fascists (he’s doing that actively anyway), get the unavoidable courtcase with Twitter in front of some shitgibbon appointed or fascist judge, and win without any legal merits whatsoever. And I think that’s a very workable plan from his perspective in the current day USA.

  48. 48.

    JaneE

    He must be an absolute nightmare as a boss.

    That is even without the apparent tolerance for racism on the job.

    I put the whole thing down to failure of due diligence. If he does have his own metrics, and the deal does depend on meeting them, they should have been defined as a contingency in the original agreement.

    Brilliant in some regards, dumb as a rock in others, and always an a-hole.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    ‘@Kay

    “Sources who wish to remain anonymous tell us that Senator Collins is not only concerned, she’s very concerned.”

    //

  50. 50.

    sukabi

    Someone needs to figure out how many of Musk’s Twitter follwers are bots he paid for….a couple of weeks ago someone figured it was 10s of thousands…

  51. 51.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:  They got Manchined.

    I think we could make that into an expression for “they got fucked because they were so damn gullible.  Sucks to be them!”

  52. 52.

    germy shoemangler

    @matt: 

    “That’s typically Elon,” said the father.

    He also recalled a time when Elon made a hurtful comment to a schoolmate about his father’s suicide.

    The boy pushed Elon down a staircase at school, injuring him so badly he had to be hospitalised.

    When he heard what had happened, Errol wanted to defend his son.

    “But I realised Elon overstepped the mark with this little boy. I had to drop it,” he said.

    After that incident, Errol moved Elon to the prestigious Pretoria Boys High School.

    https://www.yahoo.com/now/stern-south-african-childhood-fuelled-152910283.html

  53. 53.

    MattF

    I lost any trust I might have had in Musk since his ‘pedo guy’ remark. It surprised me at the time, now I’m only surprised it took me so long. It seems he’s getting worse.

  55. 55.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Yes, Musk is a jackass, but he’s not wrong about Twitter. The app is awash in bots, fake accounts, and romance scammers.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    They don’t do it with Sinema! Joe Manchin basically shivved Joe Biden for a year and a half and they’re still like “I can tell he wants a deal on climate!”

    How? How can they tell this? It’s identical to the rest of his bullshit. Is some petty grudge he’s holding supposed to be an excuse for this behavior? Perhaps he could grow up?

    He so obviously REVELS in the kingmaker slot, although even that’s bullshit because he accomplishes nothing. He’s even a useless king. Blah, blah, blah. All talk.

  59. 59.

    Quaker in a Basement

    @Hoodie:

    He’s trying to find a way out of the deal that won’t cost him the liquidation fee.

    Oh, clearly. He’s not even bothering with conciliatory language like, “I hope we can clear all this up soon and proceed,” or anything like that.

  60. 60.

    Ruckus

    @citizen dave:

    The two of them in the same neighborhood?

    Damn that’s bad for everyone else within 2 hundred, or is it thousand miles? What’s the limit for 2 pompous arrogant windbags being within distance of each other to avoid serious damage to the earth and it’s inhabitants ?

    You must be imagining the verbal “sparing” that the 2 of them would be doing – and laughing your ass off.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Captain C:

    It’s because they think West Virginians are “real Americans” and he’s “authentic”.

    He’s the opposite of “authentic”. He’s a shifty liar who has harmed Biden every chance he got. I don’t know what more they need. Pretend he’s from New York or California. Would this ridiculously credulous coverage have happened?

  63. 63.

    lowtechcyclist

    In this thread, we’ve had references to Discworld, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and Car Talk (although Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe considerably predates the latter).  Now we just need some Monty Python, Firesign Theatre, and maybe some Marx Brothers.

  64. 64.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:

    Manchin may be a useless king, but I can absolutely imagine him on the throne.

    ETA:  That said, praise be that he supports Biden’s judicial nominees, and is a vote against Majority Leader McConnell.

  66. 66.

    Eljai

    Pre-pandemic I worked at one of the many law firms handling Tesla accounts. It seemed like there was always high turnover with the contacts there, it was hard to reach decision makers about imminent deadlines & they were not punctual about paying bills — just a chaotic client. My philosophy being that fish rots from the head on down, I always wondered if Elon’s business acumen was overrated.

  69. 69.

    Old Man Shadow

    He’s an idiot.

    And it will probably cost him less than 44 billion, but higher than the 1 billion dollar buyout on the contract.

  70. 70.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    I think the fact that he accomplishes nothing is the point, tbh. He likes being a kingmaker, but he’s also corrupt so he tries everything he can to prevent any progress on climate change, because he comes from a state where the extraction industries own the state government, basically. And he’s heavily invested to the tune of millions in coal, IIRC. It’s sad that he’s the best we can get in WV. After he’s gone, that seat won’t even be good enough for nominees

  71. 71.

    Almost Retired

    “Skadden Arps” sounds like something that’s treated with a prescription antibiotic ointment. However, having been up against them in litigation, I don’t think there’s any medication that would help.

  73. 73.

    trollhattan

    Florida Man, Florida Woman, Florida Car, Florida Fun (for a Florida Minute, anyway).

    Well, there’s really no way to put this delicately. A Florida driver distracted by receiving intimate services from his passenger lost track of his surroundings and crashed head-on (it only gets worse from here, folks) into a FedEx delivery vehicle in Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday, resulting in “injuries to his private area,”

    The driver and passenger were apparently driving northbound in an SUV on North Ocean Boulevard when the driver became distracted by his passenger’s performance and crossed the center line, striking the delivery van as it traveled southbound near the intersection with Northwest 19th St. Neither occupant of the FedEx vehicle was injured.

    https://autos.yahoo.com/florida-man-passenger-crash-fedex-172900159.html

  78. 78.

    Mo Salad

    @trollhattan: ​
      You forgot the best part of the story, “the only package harmed was the one being attentively gift-wrapped by the passenger of the SUV.”

  79. 79.

    Gravenstone

    He must be an absolute nightmare as a boss.

    Ruling by royal decree has rarely been a stable affair. Especially when one’s whims change with the weather stock portfolio value.

  80. 80.

    Mike in NC

    @NotMax: Who will ever forget the time Trump was almost talked into getting on a plane and flying to Copenhagen to offer the queen a check to purchase Greenland? What a maroon, as the kids say.

  81. 81.

    Captain C

    @Kay:

    He’s the opposite of “authentic”. He’s a shifty liar who has harmed Biden every chance he got. I don’t know what more they need.

    Like I said about Doocy in the previous thread, I don’t think they’re here for the hunting.

    Pretend he’s from New York or California. Would this ridiculously credulous coverage have happened?

    Given that in either he would have peaked as a backbencher rep from a purple district, in the immortal words of Marion Wormer (the Dean’s wife from Animal House), “…doubtful.”

  82. 82.

    Old School

    @trollhattan: 

    The next line should really be included.

    the only package harmed was the one being attentively gift-wrapped by the passenger of the SUV.

  83. 83.

    Gravenstone

    @David Fud: Frankly they’ll probably for it, as the jobs market is still pretty hot and that can find better work for better employers.

  85. 85.

    WaterGirl

    NotMax,

    This is your code for your reply to trollhtttan.

    @<a href=”https://install.local/he-was-never-going-to-buy-it/#comment-7748″>trollhattan</a>

    You don’t need the part that starts with https: followed by //install.local/he-was-never-going-to-buy-it

    Your code reloads the entire page.  If you just use the code below, it doesn’t reload the page when you click on @trollhattan, it just pops you up to that spot on the page.

    @<a href=”#comment-7748″>trollhattan</a>

  88. 88.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

     

    @Gravenstone:

    The funny thing about the 10% layoff announcement? It was a day or so later Tesla announced they were still hiring more workers

  93. 93.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: It never made any financial sense – how is Twitter ever going to make sensible amounts money before the backers decide to stop setting their money on fire?

    But that didn’t mean that Musk wouldn’t buy it.  He’s weird.

    (I think I read somewhere that he plans/planned to sell it/go public with it again/etc in 3 years – it was never going to be a main thing for him.)

    It’ll be fun to watch him have to buy it because actual contract law isn’t the same as shooting one’s mouth off in tweets…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  97. 97.

    RaflW

    @Ruckus: Right. Musk’s recent “I have a bad feeling about the economy” was such a transparent oh-oh being muttered by a guy seeing that both Ford and G.M. are stepping up big time into the EV market he’d previously relatively dominated.

    He may be smart in some aspects. But he telegraphs his insecurities and weaknesses hilariously. I hope Detroit starts seriously kicking Tesla’s ass. Because the sooner he’s half as rich as he’s been, the better in terms of his way overinflated self-regard.

  98. 98.

    Peale

    @RSA: I waved “due dilligence. So what? What does that have to do with you opening your books for inspection?”

  103. 103.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

     

    He so obviously REVELS in the kingmaker slot, although even that’s bullshit because he accomplishes nothing. He’s even a useless king. Blah, blah, blah. All talk.

     

    Performative cosplay bullshyt artist.

  106. 106.

    Ryan

    His ass is signing contracts his body can’t cash.  Or however the saying goes.

  108. 108.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Betty:

    Laughing all the way to the bank because they’re taking Elon’s money for a meritless case?

  112. 112.

    Another Scott

    There is a growing sense that the outcome of tonight's vote could actually be extremely close – and Johnson could even lose.

    Many Tory MPs who've publicly declared confidence are apparently now saying the opposite privately, and Tory whips are said to be absolutely shitting it.

    — Evolve Politics (@evolvepolitics) June 6, 2022

    Lots of intrigue going on in the back rooms (supposedly the big money Tory donors have said they won’t donate any more if BoJo is sacked).

    Democracy! Will of the People!! Yada yada yada. :-/

    (via gavmacn)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  114. 114.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Another Scott: 

    Lots of intrigue going on in the back rooms (supposedly the big money Tory donors have said they won’t donate any more if BoJo is sacked).

    That’s interesting. You’d think they’d want somebody else at #10 given Tories have lost so many seats to the Lib-Dems and Labour in recent elections

  116. 116.

    Layer8Problem

    @Peale: “Smithers, I’m beginning to think that Homer Simpson Elon Musk was not the brilliant tactician I thought he was.”

  117. 117.

    lowtechcyclist

    @dm: Nooooooo!!!!!!!!!!  That fair really would be ‘no fair to anybody.’

    Maybe I’ll just go marching to Shibboleth.

  118. 118.

    dm

    Arguably, the Marvel movies ruined Elon Musk.  His public persona was (according to Jill Lepore in her “The Evening Rocket” podcast) fairly modest until the comparisons to Tony Stark started going to his head.

  119. 119.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Elizabelle: That WaPo article was interesting, and the headline was awful. It boiled down to “Manchin bailed and refused to take calls after the White House said he was the focus of current negotiations”.

    That was it. Manchin threw everything out because of a (correct and obvious) statement.

  120. 120.

    Hoodie

    @Eljai: There are people who can succeed in the start up phase  if they are able to put together a talented team of people who have no objections to working ridiculous hours and taking ridiculous risks with the promise of massive awards.   That usually wears off after the first big payoff hits, requiring a totally different kind of management style as the original team is gradually replaced by people who do not stand to make a killing and need something stable that won’t  kill them over the long term.  That’s when you start to see a lot of turnover if the company culture does not evolve to something more sustainable.   The presence of an egoist founder often doesn’t help that evolution because they’re used to getting their own way and everyone telling them how brilliant they are.   I would venture that most startups don’t last as long as Tesla has because the usual path is acquisition by an established company, who then either strangles the company due to internal inertial or somehow figures to create a product that can be sustained over time.   Tesla probably didn’t get acquired because they needed to get past the battery production scaling threshold, at which time their stock was too expensive to acquire.

  122. 122.

    Ihop

    @lowtechcyclist:  I’ll bite. From Monty python, a law firm of Bunn, whackett, buzzard, stubble and boot.

    Not as profound as Jethro Pugh walrustitty, but still….

  123. 123.

    debbie

    Yuck. A match made in some circle of hell:

    NEW: Far-right provocateur and former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos has found a new gig: Capitol Hill intern for MAGA firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. https://t.co/6PH35NABnv
    — The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) June 6, 2022

  124. 124.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Elon Musk’s father, Errol, says that Elon had to be hospitalized after he mocked the suicide of a schoolmate’s father and he pushed Musk down a flight of stairs

    THIS totally make sense, as we’ve watched him move towards self-destruction over the past few years.

    Head injuries sustained as children or adolescents can develop into middle-age personality and mood changes, even though the person seemed to cope well in their earlier years.

    I’ve said for a long time he acts like either an high functioning autistic person or a head injury patient with his erratic, impulsive behavior. Excessive pot use may not be helpful in an injured brain either.

    That aside, I’m puzzled at how the SEC doesn’t see right through his shenanigans with Twitter and Tesla as stock manipulation.

  125. 125.

    BC in Illinois

    OT: Confidence in Boris Johnson

    out of 359 Tory MPs

    211 – confidence

    148 – no confidence

    59%-41%

    Let the bickering begin.

  130. 130.

    Tony Jay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): 

    They haven’t lost many Parliamentary seats. The one in Shropshire was a big one, and they’re almost definitely going to lose the two later this month, but mostly it was local council and mayoral seats in the regional elections last month.

    BTW, result in .

    Keep Flobbing – 211 (59%)

    End the Flob – 148 (41%)

    That’s considerably worse than Theresa May, who got 2/3 of the MOs to back her.

    Lame duck. Bleeding out. Only going to get worse. Love to see it.

  132. 132.

    Emily B.

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Jamie Dimon just predicted a “hurricane” for the US economy. Which might be true, but I do find it interesting that his pessimistic take comes soon after JPMorgan Chase shareholders voted down a $52.6 million retention bonus for Dimon. (I’d be in a sour mood, too, honestly.)

  134. 134.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @debbie:

    For someone who goes on about groomers and pedophiles, she doesn’t seem to mind hiring someone who defended 13 year olds having sex with older men

  136. 136.

    Kay

    @MisterForkbeard:

    He didn’t throw anything out. He never intended to support any of it. What the White House did or did not do mattered not at all. His role- his job- was to protect the Trump tax cuts and kneecap Joe Biden’s agenda and that’s what he did.

    And now every Democrat running for election is going to pay for it. He has done more damage to them than any Republican could have.

  138. 138.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Tony Jay:

    OK, I thought those were parliamentary seats. Still, as long as they’re self-destructing, it’s all good. You love to see it

  139. 139.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    And now every Democrat running for election is going to pay for it. He has done more damage to them than any Republican could have.

    You make it sound as if it’s a done deal

  141. 141.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Kay: Sorry. What I meant was that Manchin’s story is that he had a hissy fit and bailed after the White House accurately said he was their negotiation target.

    That’s the best possible spin from Manchin. That he was so angry over a truthful and neutral statement that he killed the whole thing and threw a fit on Fox… and then refused to take Biden’s phone calls about it.

    So yeah, the truth is even worse. He never expected to vote for it and he spent 12 months lying his ass off about a deal before returning to lying about gun safety and electoral reform.

  143. 143.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Proud Boys leader Tarrio, 4 top lieutenants charged with seditious conspiracy in widening Jan. 6 case

    Federal prosecutors previously leveled the historically rare charge of seditious conspiracy for the first time in the Jan. 6 attack against the founder and leader of the extremist group Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, and 10 associates. Since filing the charges in January, a year after the mob violence, two of Rhodes’s co-defendants and one other Oath Keeper member have pleaded guilty to the charge and are cooperating with the Justice Department: Joshua James, 34, of Alabama, Brian Ulrich, 44, of Georgia, and William Todd Wilson, 44, of North Carolina.

    But the new charges show that prosecutors are pulling together a wider picture of organization within extremist groups that shared overlapping if not common goals.

    At the same time, the deepening criminal investigation has exposed hints of coordination among groups, even as the FBI and Justice Department are expanding their probe into the ranks of former president Donald Trump’s political orbit. The House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is expected to shine a spotlight on such connections in public hearings beginning Thursday.

  144. 144.

    PJ

    @dm: ​
     
    Yes, I’m sure it was watching comic book movies that ruined Elon Musk’s behavior and decision-making. I have put off watching The Eternals because I fear it will be the last straw that sets me off on a narcissistic coke-fueled stock-value-destroying rampage.

    “Power doesn’t always corrupt. Power always reveals.” – Robert Caro

  145. 145.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay: 

    It’s true. I despise Manchin. I would smile if I heard his daughter the Epi-Pen price gouger was indicted. (She too is a sociopath.) Manchin has imperiled Democrats nationwide, in addition to his poor contituents.

    And: he is the best we can hope for. At present. Because, West Virginia.

    Manchin has some good qualities, apparently. But he is selfish and corrupt and all about numero uno. Fuck him.

  146. 146.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @Gary K:  The problem with locking two awful people in a room is simple: One of them will come out alive.

    Lock them in with a leaky cannister of poison gas, however…

  147. 147.

    Burnspbesq

    @Alison Rose : 

    Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom” sounds like a law firm in Ankh Morpork.

    Skadden is the real deal: thousands of lawyers in dozens of offices worldwide. M&A has been a core competency from the beginning; many of the most commonly used techniques in contested takeovers were invented by either Joe Flom of Skadden or Marty Lipton of Wachtell Lipton.

  148. 148.

    Calouste

    @Baud: Thatcher *spit* won a leadership challenge in 1989 with 90% of the vote. She was out within a year.

  150. 150.

    Tony Jay

    @WhatsMyNym:

    Starmer doesn’t ‘do’ anything. His handlers run focus groups with Real British (English) voters and tell him what to say and think through the medium of yellowing New Labour policy papers from the 90s.

    He’s sitting in his ‘quiet chair’ outside Peter Mandelson’s assistant’s secretary’s deputy administrator’s office right now awaiting instructions.

  152. 152.

    Burnspbesq

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I’ve said from the beginning that I doubted that the deal would go through.

    The only remaining questions are (1) will Elon manage to weasel out of the $1 billion bustup fee and (2) how hard is the SEC going to land on him.

  155. 155.

    trollhattan

    @Calouste: ​Did hear this a.m. that PMs who survive a no-confidence vote commonly have a half-life of scant months, after.

    Let us hope.

  156. 156.

    Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)

    @Calouste:  A common mistake. I made it only once, never again

    Wait awhile if you must open the door. Six weeks is good, eight is better. While it’s time consuming to set up, the “Cask of Amontillado” approach has great merits.

  157. 157.

    FelonyGovt

    @Alison Rose : Skadden Arps (at least in my day) was known as a very aggressive, scorched-earth, bordering on (or perhaps crossing into) unethical law firm. Figures that they’re Elon’s attorneys.

  158. 158.

    misterpuff

    @Spanky: 

    Skadden has a history of representing clients with ties to the Vladimir Putin regime in Russia, such as Alfa Bank, Roman Abramovich, and Viktor F. Yanukovych’s pro-Russian regime in Ukraine. In 2020, the firm paid a $4.6 million settlement for misleading U.S. authorities regarding its lobbying on behalf of a Russia-aligned Ukrainian government.

    Wikipedia

    I guess they were trying to facilitate the merger of Russia and Ukraine.

  159. 159.

    JustRuss

    @Kay: Joe Manchin has them printing his press releases now. I don’t get the gullibility regarding him, I really don’t. He comes thru on absolutely nothing.

    He’s so mavericky!  Bonus points for being mavericky against a Democratic administration.

  160. 160.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lollipopguild: All of Elon Musk’s preoccupations are the things I thought were the coolest things in the world as a geeky teenager.

    I still think a lot of them are cool. I no longer trust this as a sign that anyone working on them is morally unimpeachable or that they are the salvation of human civilization, though.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    Oh, there are other states besides West Virginia. He’s actively harmful to Democrats. Just another deficit bullshitter. Anyone who voted for the infrastructure bill is not seriously concerned with the deficit. They didn’t pay for it. This stupid game he and Sinema play where he says I won’t repeal THIS part of the Trump tax cuts and she says I won’t repeal THIS other part is so transparently bad faith it’s insulting.

    If he’s so concerned with the deficit he’d raise taxes to what they were before Trump’s big windfall to rich people. These people act like there’s only side of the ledger. It’s nonsense.

  170. 170.

    Hoodie

    @Burnspbesq: The latter is probably the biggest concern, seeing he has reams of funny money Tesla stock to give for the liquidation.  The “they’re withholding information” ploy may be to build a defense that there was nothing fraudulent about his jerking around the value of Tesla and Twitter stock.

  171. 171.

    Kay

    The Washington Post has suspended reporter David Weigel without pay for retweeting a sexist joke, a person familiar with the matter told CNN on Monday.

    I think he’s a good political reporter. In many ways I think he’s the only major political reporter in the traditional sense of “going to political events and reporting on them” without a lot of editorializing.
    He also doesn’t treat Democratic candidates and supporters as some kind of fringe sideshow to “real America” (which is of course conservative and Republican). He just covers them straight. Ya know, like we’re normal- which we ARE!
    But I guess a month off won’t kill him. And it was an awful joke.

  172. 172.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay:

    I guess Buzzby must’ve gotten some blowback for telling everyone to “make nice” and not hold Weigel accountable

  173. 173.

    HinTN

    @Ruckus: He deployed Starlink, too. Those of us who cannot access high speed broadband or the cell signal aggregators really like it. It’s fast enough to stream to multiple devices, not metered like HughesNet, and cheaper than Nomad (or similar cell-based systems).

  174. 174.

    Baud

    @Kay: I know I am old, but the whole idea of professionals being edgy on Twitter in their professional account strikes me as … well …. unprofessional.

    If he wants to be offensive, do it under a pseudonym like jackals decent folks.

  175. 175.

    Another Scott

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    1000 pardons in advance.

    UE points us to a story which includes this line:

    But the new charges show that prosecutors are pulling together a wider picture of organization within extremist groups that shared overlapping if not common goals.

    Sentences like this drive me up the wall.

    “overlapping if not common”

    “this if not that”

    What does that even mean?? It’s a bunch of words thrown together that obfuscate.

    If things overlap, by definition there is commonality. Did this writer skip out of Venn diagrams?? The boards overlap – that means at least part of them occupy the same space in a projection. They have surfaces in common. It’s what the word means for crying out loud.

    Grrr…,
    Scott.

  176. 176.

    Barbara

    @Baud: ​That’s my view as well. We received training from a marketing person about how to use twitter, and a lot of it is basically building appeal to people without being too complex or using legal jargon — like, you know, the people who would never be in a position to hire us. I do understand the utility of LinkedIn, though I am beginning to despise it because of the volume of useless junk — but the useless junk is almost never unprofessional or controversial. It’s definitely a good way to keep up with people who have changed jobs.

  177. 177.

    Leto

    Tesla employees unhappy over Elon Musk’s return to office policy get job offers from Microsoft, Amazon

    A technical recruiting leader at Amazon Web Services(AWS), Zafar Choudhury, posted on LinkedIn (post now deleted), inviting Tesla employees to AWS. The post stated, “If the Emperor of Mars doesn’t want you, I’ll be happy to bring you over to #AWS.”

    “If you don’t like to be micromanaged by the Elon Musk’s of the world, come to #AWSIdentity!” said Choudhury. “We’ll find you a happy home here that respects you, your time and your profession. We will find you a team that treats you with dignity,” Choudhury added.

    He’s his own worst enemy. He’s his companies worst enemy too.

  178. 178.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    Yeah, it is unprofessional. They’re public figures whether they like it or not

  181. 181.

    Roger Moore

    @Hoodie: 

    He got a bunch of other people to invest, including the federal government. That is a skill, but he’s mostly a salesman, evangelist and, lately, cult leader.

    Yep. People forget that Musk was not the founder of Tesla Motors; he was brought in to be CEO by the founders. I’m not sure how he wound up with so much stock, but he probably brought some of his PayPal money with him. And yes, he is much more of a salesman and carnival barker than he is an engineer. I think he’s a good choice as long as that’s what the company needs from its CEO, but once they get past the startup phase and mostly need competent management he needs to get kicked to the curb.

  183. 183.

    Another Scott

    @Baud:

    Nicola twists the knife.

    That result is surely the worst of all worlds for the Tories. But much more importantly: at a time of huge challenge, it saddles the UK with an utterly lame duck PM. And for Scotland, it just underlines the democratic deficit – only 2 of 59 MPs have confidence in the PM. https://t.co/2EQE5LSYWL

    — Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) June 6, 2022

    I suspect that BoJo is going to – yet again – lash out at those who dared oppose him rather than actually try to govern sensibly. It is his nature.
    Presumably he’ll be gone within 6-12 months.

    Here’s hoping Labour gets its act together. (sigh)

    (via gavmacn)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  184. 184.

    Calouste

    @Leto: Amazon is maybe not as shitty an employer as Tesla, but they’re not that far ahead. (for engineers anyway, they’re probably worse for warehouse/factory workers). Everyone I know who has worked at Amazon are glad they’re gone.

  185. 185.

    Ksmiami

    @Elizabelle: I’ll be happy when he’s six ft under. Sorry not sorry- we have too many ppl in government who serve only themselves. Enough

  186. 186.

    Kay

    @Baud: 

    Oh, I agree. I woud be sorry to see him go though. He doesn’t do “deep dives” like the (horrible) NYTimes team where they go to Youngstown and interview one sad sack Democrat outside the dollar store and then nine GOP operatives, but he does do the sort of reporting I’m interested in, where he gives political background – “he ran in Maryland in 2010 and lost…” that sort of thing. Newsy!

  187. 187.

    JanieM

    @Another Scott:

    Did this writer skip out of Venn diagrams??

    Don’t blame the math teacher! ;-)

    I think what the writer skipped out of caring in the slightest about was language (but granted, also logic). There is so much bad writing and so much misuse of vocabulary these days it drives me crazy — i have hundreds of examples stowed away in Word documents, for what purpose I can’t tell you except to satisfy a sort of OCD-ish dark fascination.

    I used to be so naive as to think that people who wanted to be writers must love language. Now I’ve decided that’s not true; what most of them love is gossip, broadly speaking. Maybe that was always true, but these days there’s precious little time or $ for copy editing, so we see the garbage straight from the source.

  189. 189.

    VeniceRiley

    @Tony Jay:  So he’s lost the vast majority of the backbench who aren’t actively on the payroll in some position? That’s … I honestly thought he’d do better. And so did he, apparently. TeeHee!

  193. 193.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott:

    “overlapping if not common goals”

    This one I understand:

    Let’s say I have 5 goals.  You have 3 goals.

    Let’s say that we share two of the same goals.

    Our goals are not the same – because I have 3 goals that you don’t and you have 1 goal that I don’t.  So you can’t say we have common goals.

    But our goals do overlap.

    edit: common goals might also imply that we shared our goals with one another, which may or may not be the case.

  196. 196.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Kay: 

    . He doesn’t do “deep dives” like the (horrible) NYTimes team where they go to Youngstown and interview one sad sack Democrat outside the dollar store and then nine GOP operatives

    Is this deliberate in your opinion?

  197. 197.

    Kay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Reporters and writers also use Twitter to promote their work- they are are perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of Twitter – and they pay nothing for it, so maybe don’t offend people? Since they’re the big winners in this game and everyone else is playing a supporting role and gains nothing financially from it?

  198. 198.

    Nettoyeur

    @Kay:  I guess there is something special about West Virginia to WaPo staffers. I may be because (unlike VA and MD), it is a poor, undereducated state close to DC, ideal for taking stock of what MAGAs talk about in diners.

  200. 200.

    Kay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I think it’s conventional news reporting. He doesn’t feel he has to “add value” with his analysis of what’s happening in front of him. He doesn’t set any scenes. “Outside this rust belt dollar store Dave the unemployed Democrat with a masters in critical race theory is feeling unsettled”. Since I don’t think that type of reporting “adds value” I prefer it stripped down. I’ll fill it in. Or not.

    It’s like how they all pretend to love “town halls”. So earthy and commonsensy!

  201. 201.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl:  Maybe, but in the context of January 6 they had overlapping, common goals – they wanted TFG to stay in power, and they wanted to increase their own power by helping bring about that outcome.

    Be that as it may, and notwithstanding your eloquent exposition, I maintain (with great vehemence) that the self-contradictory verbiage in the aforementioned article fragment is needlessly obfuscatory.

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  202. 202.

    Tony Jay

    @VeniceRiley: 

    I know. He’s got the usual mouthpieces out there banging the ‘MOVE ON, MOVE ON’ drum, but it’s not going to work. When virtually every single political pundit from across the Right to Centre-Right media divide are declaring him dead in the water while the resurrection effort is still ongoing, that’s the ballgame right there.

    What a marvellous Jubilee present.

  207. 207.

    Kay

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    When Common Core was controversial – ha!- back when we had minor problems like that- the NYTimes must have contacted Ohio public schools and someone in my public school must have sent them to me.
    So they emailed me asking me to be interviewed, but not just me, also my then-9th grader. He didn’t know anything about Common Core – he was doing the work they put in front of him and it really wasn’t this massive change- he had been doing “common Core math” for 5 years and it’s almost unfair to ask him because kids feel they must answer adults questions so they say …something. It’s just checking a box “I got my kid opinion! Ship this thing!”
    I declined.
    The “value add” doesn’t add any value to me.

  209. 209.

    Another Scott

    @Kay:

    Weigel was sort of a “Republican whisperer” for a while. I think that’s his beat in general, but he got burned on the old JournoList (from 2010).

    I personally get the feeling of being used when I read stories by “plugged-in” reporters who have a wealth of anonymous sources.

    Washington Post suspends correspondent Pablo Escobar for sexist retweet. https://t.co/zzXl43NTnF

    — DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) June 6, 2022

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  210. 210.

    Fleeting Expletive

    I’d love to see Senator Manchin in a cartoon Gypsy Rose Lee fan-dancing routine. His strip-tease ought to be set to music/animated/Natalie Woods footage: “Let me entertain you…”, indeed.

  213. 213.

    MisterForkbeard

    @HinTN: Musk has really done 3 good things:

    1. Highlighted and made EVs a thing maybe 5 years earlier than they would have been otherwise. Normalized the idea of EVs as ‘good, fast, quality’ cars rather than what people thought of the Prius in 2005.

    2. Had SpaceX really push Boeing and other established MIC to do better in the space setting. SpaceX is doing very good cool things in general

    3. Starlink is one of the those things that works pretty well and is somewhat transformative in certain spaces. Though I’m very skeptical about longer-term life (maintenance in space for a few thousand starlink satellites is no bueno) and space clutter.

    None of those three things ‘required’ Musk and they were going to happen anyway. But he was a force for good on those 3 things. And he’s done a lot of stupid stuff too, and his companies are notoriously terrible places to work.

  214. 214.

    Kay

    Olivia Nuzzi
    @Olivianuzzi
    I’m sad that all of us who subscribe to the Washington Post for their journalism won’t get to read
    @daveweigel
    ’s coverage of the primaries taking place this month because the paper has put optics and politics before ethics and fairness. It’s a disservice to readers.

    Although me and my colleagues are literally the only people who benefit financially from promoting our work and careers on Twitter, we only want the up side of that exposure and none of the potential downside when we do something dumb and unprofessional.

  215. 215.

    WaterGirl

    @Another Scott:

    …the self-contradictory verbiage in the aforementioned article fragment is needlessly obfuscatory.

    I’ll see the language in that article and RAISE YOU the language in all the so-called “communications” from “341” data centers.  If they had chosen some words and let a program randomize them into a sentence – I predict that there would have been more discernible meaning than what they wrote.

    Their communication was the bastard child of lawyers, PR people and sociopathic liars.

  217. 217.

    pacem appellant

    @MisterForkbeard: I’m not giving you 3, and I’m so-so on 2, but yes, on 1 you are correct. I begrudgingly admit that Tesla made EVs the cool car to have. And it demonstrated to the big automakers that they could sell EVs. And that EVs could look like real cars, not parody Simpsons cars (I drive a Nissan Leaf, I know what I’m talking about here).

    I’m not convinced that m7sk was essential to Tesla’s success. But I’m not not convinced! And the way things are going, he’s going to be instrumental in pushing Tesla out of its spot of dominance in the EV space.

  218. 218.

    Another Scott

    @WaterGirl: True, but 341DC at least had an obvious excuse – they don’t want their words used against them (any more than they already will from the website scrapings) in the various lawsuits.  What’s the excuse of the writer in the UE excerpt??!

    I’ll back out now.  It’s time for me to change the onion on my belt.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  219. 219.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    I only saw it once when he wrote about “ballot security” which is an absolute wingnut term invented by the WSJ and at the time was used by no one outside Right wing lawyers. They mainstreamed this whole invented panic about “ballot security”. It’s come back to bite them. We had an idiot former Trumpster sheriff who ran and lost (by 20) in a GOP primary and they had to hold a whole hearing where his wife read nonsense from a sheaf of papers she had prepared. They better get used to it. That’s the base. Sore losers.

  220. 220.

    zhena gogolia

    This was a good thread sorry I missed it because I’m so sick of musk

  221. 221.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @WaterGirl:  And I think I read something recently that explained that if you enter a conspiracy for goals 1-3, but the actions help advance all 5 goals, that Another Scott could still be charged for Conspiracy of all 5 even if he only tacitly agreed to 1-3.

    I’m not a lawyer, and I may be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that I read something about that with regards to 1/6, written by former prosecutors. It gives DOJ much greater flexibility in charging and trying to flip people into cooperating.

  223. 223.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @PJ: Although I don’t buy it myself, there’s more to it than that. Robert Downey Jr is supposed to have based his interpretation of Tony Stark on Musk, and Musk’s legions of fans have made plenty of comparisons of Musk to a real life Tony Stark. Musk had a cameo in one of the Iron Man movies, too.

    Having said that, I personally think he’s having a bit of a mid-life crisis after his recent split with Grimes. His courting of the alt-right seems to have picked up after it was reported that Grimes was dating Chelsea Manning.

    Then again, he’s never been able to keep his ego in check (witness the Thai diver fiasco) and his offer to buy Twitter has given him so damn much attention.

  224. 224.

    RaflW

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My dad was in the oil biz. He used to say “the cure for high prices is high prices.” We’ll see, but in the past, energy shocks did tend to send a fairly strong recessionary signal.

    The oil companies get richer, but everyone else has to deal with higher input costs. Wether they can pass it thru to the consumer varies, and if the consumer does pay, then they may forgo something else.

    I still think Elon was blameshifting for issues more immediate than the global business cycle, tho.

  225. 225.

    prostratedragon

    @RaflW:  Bera-esque wisdom, which as usual does check out. “Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

  226. 226.

    Ruckus

    @MisterForkbeard:

    You give him more credit than I do, mainly because while 2 and 3 are not bad, are they really necessary at this point? We have a number of problems here on earth and ICE vehicles are very much part of that. It will take a long time to replace anything like a majority of ICE vehicles on the road, something that has been an issue for a rather long time, with minimal possibility of change. He kickstarted that because none of the prior mfg would take that economic risk unless forced. His early start forced them and a large number are doing what needs to be done but the switch is costly and certainly slowish, one reason the other mfg had to be shown that this is in their best interest.

  227. 227.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle:

    ETA: That said, praise be that he supports Biden’s judicial nominees, and is [ Sometimes ! ] a vote against Majority Leader McConnell.

  228. 228.

    Roger Moore

    @MisterForkbeard: ​
     
    There are very few indispensable people without whom something just wouldn’t have happened. Musk deserves some credit for seeing that things were going to happen and how to make them happen sooner rather than later. Tesla had about 3 or 4 really good ideas that all worked together really well to get the project off the ground. Off the top of my head, these are:

    • Using COTS laptop cells to make the battery packs instead of doing something custom. This let them make their batteries faster and cheaper.
    • Selling to the luxury market instead of the economy market. That let them show off some of the real advantages of electric vehicles: massive torque, very quiet ride, open interior not intruded on by mechanical parts, etc.
    • Building out a national charger network before they had sold enough cars to make it economical. Charging for long-distance travel is a chicken and egg problem, and Tesla just bit the bullet and paid for it before it could pay for itself.

    Having all those things in one place made electric cars really take off well before they would have happened otherwise.

  229. 229.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    I suspect that BoJo is going to – yet again – lash out at those who dared oppose him rather than actually try to govern sensibly. It is his nature.

    Problem is, BoJo has never tried to govern sensibly, and this “victory” will only result in more misery for the UK.

    Opposition is too broad for Johnson to try to lash out against anyone. And he is still subject to further investigation related to the various parties at Number 10 that he lied about.

    Still, he is just going to put his head down and keep going, until he is yanked out of office or loses a general election.

  230. 230.

    Roger Moore

    @Obvious Russian Troll:

    Having said that, I personally think he’s having a bit of a mid-life crisis after his recent split with Grimes. His courting of the alt-right seems to have picked up after it was reported that Grimes was dating Chelsea Manning.

    My basic feeling is that Musk has always had severe personality problems.  When things were going well for him, they tended to get tamped down in favor of general exuberance.  Now that he’s hit a rough spot in his personal and professional life, all those negative sides to his personality are coming out.

  231. 231.

    TriassicSands

    @Elizabelle: I wondered if it was about one of the WaPost’s latest ridiculous headlines.

    The Post must have done a galaxy-wide search to find the absolute worst headline writers this side of Andromeda. They succeeded.

  232. 232.

    J R in WV

    @Elizabelle: ​
     

    Manchin has some good qualities, apparently. But he is selfish and corrupt and all about numero uno. Fuck him.

    Your first quoted sentence directly contradicted by the second one. He is selfish and corrupt and self-centered, and has no redeeming “good qualities” whatsoever! None!!

    I retired from working in IT for WV state government, so Manchin was my boss, 3 levels above me. He introduced a hiring wrinkle some might find interesting.

    In interviewing potential new hires, in my case for highly technical software developer positions, we were required to ask everyone what the minimum salary they would accept to take a job with WV government was.

    Then when we sent paperwork to state personnel office to hire someone, the approved salary was ALWAYS deliberately much lower than the declared minimum the potential hire said they would accept. Institutionalized lying in the hiring process of the state of WV. I rest my case. He is a despicable creature.

    We should have just padded the minimum acceptable salary to get our offers where they needed to be, but that would be scurrilous too.

  233. 233.

    Butter Emails!

    @Roger Moore:

    Musk didn’t found Tesla. He was brought in because he had money, was good at raising additional money and excels at self promotion.

    As far as I know his major contribution on the idea front was making his chargers incompatible with other electric vehicles due to a patented connector design.

  235. 235.

    john b

    I know the thread is dead, but I just wanted to add that I met a recent college grad at a wedding maybe 5 years ago who was about to start a job at SpaceX. He said that Musk was known to go around to random people’s desks at SpaceX and Tesla because he knows THAT much about all the minute details about his companies and that after you explained to him what you were doing for 30-45 minutes, he would offer his thoughts. This young man spoke about this as if it were a good thing. I had to nod my head and smile. Sounds like the most unbearable prick to work for.

  236. 236.

    Ruckus

    @Butter Emails!:

    Most of us who think he did something good with Tesla I think understand that he is an ass. In my mind the actual only really good thing he’s done is invest in Tesla and the idea of electric vehicles. The cars are not bad as they have had a while and a lot of miles to work on the bugs. That they still have some reasonably big issues really isn’t unusual in the automotive market, especially as they are relatively new to production and he seems to be a somewhat shitty boss. Over all, as someone who has manufactured high precision metal products for a long time, I can state that they aren’t doing too bad. I think their direction of innovation is getting ahead of the curve and that’s not good in a production environment but that is not unusual and can be handled. But as a human, he needs things that most of the rest of us don’t, like an ego restraint/adjustment, you know, chains, small dark rooms, people who really don’t like him operating the locks on the doors, banks that won’t talk to him, that sort of thing.

  237. 237.

    2liberal

    @trollhattan: A Florida driver distracted by receiving intimate services from his passenger lost track of his surroundings and crashed head-on (it only gets worse from here, folks) into a FedEx delivery vehicle in Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday, resulting in “injuries to his private area,”

     

    the world according to garp had a scene like that

  238. 238.

    Bobby Thomson

    I’ve read the Merger Agreement and it imposes very few requirements on Twitter, which makes almost no representations and warranties.  It’s essentially the equivalent of an “as-is” home purchase.  The agreement requires Twitter to provide Musk any information for any reasonable business purpose related to the consummation of the deal, which is the hook he’s using to try to create a paper record to get out of the deal now.

    tl;dr: Musk spiked the ball and it not only cost a touchdown, the other side ran it back inside the 5.

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