Elon Musk claimed in a 2018 tweet that he had lined up the financing to pay for a $72 billion buyout of Tesla, but it never materialized. Now Musk will have to explain his actions under oath in federal court. The trial begins Tuesday with jury selection. https://t.co/F6WuLdyrq4
— The Associated Press (@AP) January 16, 2023
You may have too refined a media palate for such frantic antics, but *I* am here for it…
Heckuva job, genius disruptor https://t.co/0vsfZJFCfY
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 18, 2023
Twitter’s staff spent years trying to protect the platform against impulsive billionaires who wanted to use it for their own ends — then one made himself the CEO. @ZoeSchiffer , @CaseyNewton , and @alexeheath report, in collaboration with @verge https://t.co/Trw0ulxWeP pic.twitter.com/JWifgB7zzv
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) January 17, 2023
He’s so far over his head, he doesn’t even grok how much he doesn’t understand:
… On October 26, an engineer and mother of two — let’s call her Alicia — sat in a glass conference room in San Francisco trying to explain the details of Twitter’s tech stack to Elon Musk. He was supposed to officially buy the company in two days, and Alicia and a small group of trusted colleagues were tasked with outlining how its core infrastructure worked. But Musk, who was sitting two seats away from Alicia with his elbows propped on the table, looked sleepy. When he did talk, it was to ask questions about cost. How much does Twitter spend on data centers? Why was everything so expensive?
Alicia was already tired of Musk’s antics. For months, he had gone back and forth about buying the company where she had worked for more than a decade. He’d tried to back out of the deal, but Twitter sued, and the chief judge of Delaware’s Chancery Court said a trial would move forward if the acquisition wasn’t complete by October 28. Facing what many legal observers called an easy case for Twitter, Musk caved. So here they were, trying to show Musk what he was about to buy, and all he wanted to talk about was money…
Fine, she thought. If Musk wants to know about money, I’ll tell him. She launched into a technical explanation of the company’s data-center efficiency, curious to see if he would follow along. Instead, he interrupted. “I was writing C programs in the ’90s,” he said dismissively. “I understand how computers work.”…
Unlike some of her colleagues, Alicia wasn’t reflexively anti-Musk. She respected what he had done at his companies and felt hopeful that, as someone who thought of himself as an engineer, he would support her highly technical work. But Musk had a different interest that day. Twitter, he said, should immediately get into video.
“We really should be able to do longform video and attract the best content creators by giving them a better cut than YouTube,” he said, according to Alicia’s recollection. The infrastructure engineers in the room agreed that adding support for longform video was technically possible, but their job was building stuff — not strategy or marketing. It seemed as though Musk didn’t understand the basic organizational structure of a social-media company; it was as if a rich guy had bought a restaurant and started telling the cooks he wanted to add a new dining room. Might he want to speak with the media product team instead?
Just then, David Sacks, a venture capitalist and friend of Musk’s who had advised him on the acquisition, walked into the room. A fellow native of South Africa, Sacks had worked with Musk at PayPal and later led the enterprise social-networking company Yammer to a $1.2 billion sale to Microsoft.
“David, this meeting is too technical for you,” Musk said, waving his hand to dismiss Sacks. Wordlessly, Sacks turned and walked out, leaving the engineers — who had gotten little engagement from Musk on anything technical — slack-jawed. His imperiousness in the middle of a session he appeared to be botching was something to behold. (Musk did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)…
Those who remain at the company mostly fall into two camps: those trapped by the need for health care and visas or cold-eyed mercenaries hoping to ascend through a power vacuum https://t.co/Trw0ulxWeP
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) January 17, 2023
hahahahaha fucking owned pic.twitter.com/Oi26EDbuLw
— fell out of lulag watchtower (@michaelleung) January 17, 2023
i would be extremely curious to see what this looks like plotted out on a month to month chart, because i'd bet cold, hard cash that most of the finding out began once he started fucking around https://t.co/RPq6GfX3o5
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) January 18, 2023
he was never going to be able to cut enough cost to afford the debt service (and the banks were either fools or foxes to let him do it), but he single-handedly created multiple other existential problems for them, all by himself
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) January 18, 2023
anyway, still very bullish on the idea that he will not be running twitter *or* tesla by the end of this year
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) January 18, 2023
It’s funny how Twitter was actually making a profit, then Musk bought it because he took a bit Too Far, then came in with an agenda of Making Everything Worse https://t.co/vEpngsJsTZ
— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) January 18, 2023
“Bankers are in discussions with Musk to replace about $3bn of expensive unsecured debt that has an interest rate of 11.75 per cent, with margin loans, backed by Musk’s stake in Tesla, according to two people close to the matter.” What. https://t.co/se0lVE1Oa5
— Joseph Cotterill (@jsphctrl) January 17, 2023
The bill for Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is coming due, with the billionaire facing unpalatable options on the company’s enormous debt pile, ranging from bankruptcy proceedings to another costly sale of Tesla shares.
Three people close to the entrepreneur’s buyout of Twitter said the first instalment of interest payments related to $13bn of debt he used to fund the takeover could be due as soon as the end of January. That debt means the company must pay about $1.5bn in annual interest payments.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief financed his $44bn deal to take Twitter private in October by securing the huge debt from a syndicate of banks led by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays and Mitsubishi. The $13bn debt is held by Twitter at a corporate level, with no personal guarantee by Musk.
The company’s dire finances — it made a loss of $221mn in 2021 before the acquisition and Musk has said revenues have declined since — have led the new owner to regularly raise the prospect that the company could crash into bankruptcy.
How Musk deals with the looming interest payment is a crucial test of his leadership of Twitter, which has so far been marked by chaotic management that has alienated its corporate advertisers…
Tesla stock down 46% in the last 6 months, interesting
Interesting
Twitter interest payment due end of January, looking into this now
Looking into this now pic.twitter.com/KyQOjXQSyH— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) January 18, 2023
War for Ukraine Day 328: A Rough Start To the Day
lgerard
The ball has only just started rolling down hill.
HumboldtBlue
Chico, Chet and Elijiah, that’s what I sang as a kid to some Steve Miller.
Big ol’ jet airliner came through the fog later.
Sometimes you just get the words wrong.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Musk is one of those men with the rare ability to kick themselves in their own balls.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Apparently it’s dipshits with delusions of grander all they way down too with Twitter.
Just wow.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
This is truly the FAFO decade (for those who don’t know F*** Around and Find Out)
opiejeanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: So he has a portrait of himself dressed like Napoleon, but I don’t know what the rest of that sentence means, not at all.
Shalimar
@opiejeanne: It means the team member who sold the most ads gets to be the biggest musketeer. Lot of big words to say something blindingly obvious.
Tony Jay
Musk is living proof that however rich you claim to be and how untouchable you think you are, life is a series of Acts, and if you don’t play the role seriously and with due respect for the character, a’fucked you can be.
Also, with each revelation from the Fantastikal Life-Stories of Codename: George Santos I’m growing steadily more convinced that what we’re witnessing here is actually the most amazing sting-operation carried out by a team of renegade con-men and hackers on an international assassin known for adopting meticulously prepared false identities to get close to his targets.
“I’ll steal the identity of a wet behind the ears Republican Representative. No one knows or cares what they look like. Let me just Google this year’s intake, cross reference with ‘wears big glasses’, aaaaaand bingo!”
Hunched over a laptop in a nondescript white van parked nearby the cast of The Hustle triumphantly fist-pump.
“He’s hooked. Give it a week and start deploying the truth-torpedoes.”
Baud
Musk should declare interest payments to be woke and refuse to pay them.
NotMax
OT mini-rant.
Because it was irresistibly sale priced and had garnered praise online, bought a package with two plastic tubs of Kirkland lobster bisque during last Costco visit (two servings per tub). Checked the ingredients list first – lobster is the second ingredient listed, which is a good sign.
Anyhoo, pried the lid off one tub and was faced with a film of plastic sealing the contents. Nothing out of the ordinary, right?
First, the little tab which one is supposed to grab is very short and what little of it I was able to grip and pull accomplished precisely nada. So brought out a pair of pliers to clamp onto it.
Result – nothing. even with full strength, plastic film would not peel off. Eventually the little tab snapped off, though.
Really believe the plastic film is attached to the rim of the tub by either epoxy or superglue. It’s that fixedly stuck on there.
Finally had to resort to sawing away around the rim with a pen knife. Out of curiosity, stopped halfway around and tugged with all my might on the released half, trying to get the other half to peel. No such luck. It’s on there firmer than white on rice.
Oh, how was the soup? Not bad at all. Very lobstery (mmmm). The bisque has an unexpected mild but persistent undertone of vinegar, which is not ruinous but neither is it standard. After the first couple of spoonfuls, got used to that. Thing I was worried about was it would be salty, which thankfully it wasn’t. BTW, package prominently states the sealed tubs are freezable (no room in the freezer to shove in a gnat at the moment).
/mini-rant
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
I think we’ve all had that experience of having to battle the packaging and vanquish it in single combat, ere we may at last partake of the PRODUCT. At leasr your lobster bisque did not disappoint.
Citizen Alan
@Tony Jay: To me, it’s just more proof of my personal theory that wealth beyond a certain point will cause anyone to become both stupid and evil.
Basilisc
I think the Delaware court said he had to acquire the company – or pay a $1 bn “breakup fee”. He’s going to lose a lot more than that LOL.
Tony Jay
@Citizen Alan:
The evidence would appear to be in your favour, but I’d like to volunteer to be a test subject for this theory if you could sort out the funding.
Basilisc
@HumboldtBlue: I always thought it was “Big ol’ cat outta ‘lina”, like it was from N or S Carolina or something.
Basilisc
opiejeanne
@Basilisc: There’s a bathroom on the right.
WereBear
@Citizen Alan: He was born rich and they are often obsessed with trying to come up with ways to justify their existence.
But rarely in a good way, because that would imply they care what the rest of us think.
Brent
@Basilisc: Musk would have been ecstatic to get away with paying that fee. His problem was that the court would not let him get away with that. That fee was only applicable in the circumstance that he could not feasibly complete the deal on the terms to which he had already agreed. And that was never the case. He was always going to be on the hook for 44 billion. The issue at court was that they were likely going to penalize him beyond that if he proceeded. That’s why he quit.
NotMax
@opiejeanne
The chair is not my son.
Basilisc
@Brent: Ah, OK. Thanks.
Chris T.
@opiejeanne: AKA mondegreens.
Geminid
@Basilisc: Musk made an offer on April that was way more than Twitter was worth. He seemed to spend the intervening months trying to wriggle out of it, then folded six months later and went through with the purchase. If all he had to pay was a $1 billion charge that was the second of two impulsive decisions.
A lot of Musk’s actions since seem passive-aggressive, like he’s resentful of the situation he put himself in and is taking that out on the company he made himself buy. This of course is amateur psychology on my part.
There definitely is a large component of irrationality in Musk’s actions though, and no checks on it. I suspect that Musk has no one around him who will be critical. The way David Sacks, a man who seems to think highly of himself generaaly, just crawfished out of that meeting with the engineers is telling I think.
I wonder if some of Musk’s behavior is drug related. Maybe he consumed too high a grade of cannabis for too long. I think that can screw up a person’s thinking. Another possibility is that Musk is taking a designer pharmaceutical(s), sort of a super-Adderall that makes him feel like Superman. There have been rumors of this, and it would be more sustainable than extreme cannabis use, I think.
So it could be that Musk’s narcissim is being aggravated by chemical means. Whatever is going on, I think Musk’s best hope is that he “crashes” mentally. Generally, I would not wish a long bout of deep depression on anyone, but that could be what Musk needs. There are people who could salvage Musk’s companies if he was mentally paralyzed for a year.
But he’s the only one who could choose them, and that’s another problem. What a mess.
@Citizen Alan:
Geminid
@Brent: I guess this knocks out part of my analysis above, although I kind of knew this. It does underscore the impulsiveness of Musk’s imprudent offer price.
Do you know why the banks stuck with this deal? Were they locked in also, or was this a choice on their part?
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
I’ve heard he has a history of exactly that kind of thing. The problem is, he owes the money to people as rich as he is now, who can afford to bury him in court. Plus, the contract he signed with the banks is draconian. They will ruin him if he doesn’t pay. Big chances he’s about to lose Tesla.
Musk’s path to gigantic wealth has been buying a company and then getting bought out for vastly more. Failing upwards, but with Hype. This time, they don’t have to pay him.
@Brent:
And the discovery process was humiliating him publicly. Little Lord Fauntleroy is a slave to his own ego.
Frankensteinbeck
@Geminid:
As I said, the contract with the banks is brutal. Their guarantee he would succeed with Twitter seems to have been that they held a financial axe over his head and he would be committing suicide to indulge his worst impulses.
Gvg
What always gets me in these stories about stupid over priced purchases of companies that then inevitably crash into bankruptcy is why the super fancy big banks are stupid enough to agree to the financing when it is obvious from orbit that the fundamentals are not profitable and this is going to leave them holding the bag? I mean, in theory I get that the super rich you already have a loss to, can bend your arm for some more money to try to salvage that loss to not be a loss, but their is a limit to that. This deal does not make sense and never did.
There have been a bunch of stories that make me think our big finance banks are decadent nuts and going to suddenly go under any day now. I hope other smarter corporations are ready to take over so the finance world doesn’t spread to much chaos down to me. Elron can be a stupid story and I don’t really care, but Morgan Stanley and those other big names just walking into this mess so easily, not the first time, gives me the heeby jeebies.
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: I strongly suspect that maintenance and spec-checking has suffered in the quest for profits, and been drastically reduced.
I worked in a factory long enough to know tolerances are narrow and they are fussed with all the time. But not anymore. Trash bags arrive glued together. Nothing zips closed again, even if you can cut it open without ruining something.
Getting to the product without spilling it all over the kitchen is just a new global sport.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Chris T.: The ants are my friends.
WereBear
@Basilisc: Classic right winger. Gotta double down.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
That’s the part that confuses me. My recollection of earlier reporting was that the billions in loans to Twitter were ultimately backed by Musk’s personal wealth, but the story above says that’s not the case. But it’s hard for me to believe that the likes of Barclays and Morgan Stanley could be that stupid; I can’t believe they’d have made those loans unless they were backed by Musk’s own money.
JWR
Twit related, from NBC:
Workshopping ideas for his first angelic tweet? That’s just, weird. I mean, they’re not cutting an Adele album.
The article also has some juicy bits about TFG’s burning desire to expand his digital footprint. Not that his truthy site is small bananas, mind you (nudge, wink), but here’s a bit about ending his suspension.
Anya
Apartheid Clyde fucked around with the Feds. I hope he finds out.
WereBear
This is their art. They have enough money to be irrational. Which might be even better than FU money.
Now I want irrational money.
Princess
If none of the debt is personally backed by Musk, doesn’t that mean what is most likely to happen is Twitter will declare bankruptcy and Musk will walk away scathed only by the reduction in value of his Tesla stocks, leaving the banks holding the Twitter bag? Not a bad outcome for him.
Geminid
@Frankensteinbeck: Musk’s pride seems to have been a factor here, and probably in a lot of his decision making. This may be more proof of the adage, “Pride goeth before the fall.”
WereBear
@Geminid: If you listen to Musk and his pals, and then listen to an MLM pitch… you find the same reliance on buzzwords and confusion and pumping up mindless ambition in search of money.
I now see this kind of high finance and the desperate housewife trying to unload her Arbonne as the same thing.
different-church-lady
@WereBear: Everybody wants irrational money. What I want is surrealist money.
Geminid
@Gvg: I think these seven banks could survive the hit they take even if they end up with 10 cents for every dollar lent. The responsible executives will likely get the axe, though.
different-church-lady
@Geminid: Musk will probably respond by trying to buy the banks.
Betty Cracker
This Charlie Warzel piece in The Atlantic documents the cringy sycophants who surround Musk, and given that he operates in that bubble, it’s no wonder he stepped on the biggest financial rake in the history of the world. If there’s a wonder at all, it’s that the U.S. built an enduring tech sector with such an embarrassing set of fart huffers in key positions.
WereBear
@different-church-lady: Oh, you like to live dangerously.
Baud
@Princess:
Twitter is probably still worth more than $15 billion. So the banks should be ok.
WereBear
This is late stage, Financial Shenanigans, of tech, because there is a bedrock of Making It Work out there now. Fart huffers don’t do that, that’s why they do into finance.
Which is now very much like Hollywood, in that it’s all made up and it’s numbers on a screen. A con artist can really work with stuff like that.
Musk’s Boring company is the next MLM, only he never has to come up with a product. I guess that’s his “genius” but it needed a few billion to get going. Hardly combustible, you ask me.
p.a.
I always heard “737 comin outta the sky”
as “saffron collie saffron comin outta the stot”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not sure what that says about me, but it’s worrying.
Princess
@Baud: so that explains their motive. They loaned roughly what they thought Twitter was really worth so didn’t worry Musk was not securing the debt. He’ll lose his stake and that’s it. Can’t happen soon enough.
Geminid
@Princess: I think that Musk sank $25-27 billion in the purchase so he’ll be out that money at least. He’ll also have degraded his reputation with lenders at a bad time.
Musk’s biggest hit* will be the damage done to his Tesla holdings. There is a double whammy here. Tesla’s high stock price was supported by Musk’s prestige, now a rapidly depreciating asset. His prestige may also have attracted some buyers to the car; now there may be an even greater repulsion, and right when his brand is finally facing competition by formidable rivals.
Not that Musk will have a bad life in objective terms if he loses 99% of his wealth. He might think it is, though.
* Title for a future business school lecture: “Elon Musk’s Greatest Hits.”
Kay
But he’s the hero of the anti woke crusaders. He VANQUISHED the earnest 24 year olds who actually cared about what they had built at Twitter. That’s worth 44 billion right there.
All of these people are just so mean and ungenerous. Poorly raised. Why does he have to interrupt the engineer? Why is every single reported encounter with them shot thru with this wholly unneccesary nastiness? Elon Musk has never wanted for anything. What’s he so mad about?
The Thin Black Duke
@Kay: Musk is angry because the people whose approval he craves see him as the pathetic joke he is. We saw that when he was booed at that Dave Chappelle concert. No matter how much money he has, Musk can’t buy their respect, and it’s killing him.
Kay
I mean, maybe Twitter doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things and obviously Twitter employees are paid well, but why do they deserve this scorn from their awful owner and the anti woke crusaders? Most of the shit engineers make is not strictly necessary for survival. 90% of it. Why does he have to come in and shit all over them? He didn’t build it- they did.
NorthLeft
Memo to Musk; Just go broke already and disappear back into the veldt with enough money to pay a large personal security force for the next thirty years or so.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
He’ll definitely lose his fandom, though. If he ‘only’ has $10B in cash, Tesla, and SpaceX holdings, all but his biggest fans will realize he doesn’t have ‘colonize Mars’ wealth anymore, and what he’s doing here on planet Earth won’t be so impressive either.
And the world can go back to not paying any attention to him.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: It’s not just grifty late-stage finance guys who were exposed as fawning idiots when the Delaware court released Musk’s texts and emails (the basis for Warzel’s article). Some of those guys are long-term heavy hitters in Silicon Valley, founders/cofounders of massive companies. They come across as the most vapid toadies imaginable.
NorthLeft
@Geminid: “the responsible executives will likely get the axe”?
That is not the way that modern capitalism works. The executives are never accountable. I could see a few thousand low level employees getting laid off to ensure any losses do not impact the quarterly dividend, but that’s about it.
SFAW
@Baud:
Is Tweetie HQ in Florida? Because it just might work, what with DeathSantis helping rid the world of Teh Woke Scourge.
Florida or no, your comment is a thing of beauty.
Kay
Remember when the anti woke Substack crusaders all took big bucks to work for Elon on The Twitter Files and then didn’t release anything that was unflattering to either Elon Musk or any conservative or Republican? The information was carefully edited to please The Boss?
“Information wants to be free!” Say the Substack gatekeepers who decide what’s “liberal” and what’s not. They sure showed those young Twitter employees what’s what, though. Their work is SOLELY about increasing wealth for a spoiled, entitled lucky heir billionaire. That’s why they were put on this earth. Thank God the bitter, ungracefully aging grownups showed up to remind them of that.
SFAW
@Kay:
Because he wants EVERYTHING? Either that, or because he was raised by the South Africa equivalents of Fred and Mary Anne Trump.
MisterForkbeard
@Gvg: Honestly, it was really obvious that the banks (and everyone else!) didn’t perform any due diligence at all on the deal.
On the partners side of things, it was just “lol Musk is going to buy leftie twitter, have a billion”. For the banks, they just shrugged and said “sure, here’s a really bad deal and you can have it”.
Literally no one involved was concerned with the health or success of Twitter at all. It was owning libs, backing up a fellow superrich tech bro, and wrecking things. That’s what was important. And the banks are going to squeeze Musk for everything he’s got.
Geminid
@NorthLeft: I’m sure many share your cynicism. But I will wait and see; executives have been canned before over crappy decisions, and they might get canned over this one. I’m not thinking of the top ones like Brian Monaghan here, but rather rather the next level ones who actually handled these loans.
CindyH
@Kay: his penis size
SFAW
“OK, let’s talk tech, Ms. Smarty-Pants. Code is, at the end of the day, basically a bunch of 1s and 0s, right?”
“Uh .. yes, Mr. Musk, that’s more-or-less true, but that’s not what … ”
“Well, then, if that’s the case, why don’t we move all the zeroes to a single data center in a high-cost area, move all the ones to a data center in a highly-profitable area, then close the one with the zeroes? Or maybe vice versa? Why must I think of EVERYTHING — I pay you @#$%^&* to come up with genius ideas like this, time to start earning your money!”
” Umm, Mr. Musk, that’s not really the way it wor-”
“Shut UP! You’re fired! Get out of my sight, and go be ‘woke’ somewhere else!”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Like the Rs in the House
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I read somewhere yesterday that Musk and Weiss had a falling out and he unfollowed her. LOL!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid: I need a chainsaw to open Talenti gelato
Kay
More taxpayer funded bullshit from this fraud:
Musk recruited skilled trades out of the rust belt- they got bonuses to go work for him. Most of them came back because “bonuses” is not a way for middle class people to build wealth so they take the bonus and stay the minimum and then come back for decent wages, and they all said the quality wasn’t there at Tesla and the “manufacturing innovations” were actually work arounds to get around the lack of investment in proper tooling and equipment.
This was YEARS ago – they got to the plants and they knew it was overhyped bullshit. Why would supposedly smart venture investors not know this? Do they do NO due diligence? They’re all just blinded by celebrity? They so hate liberals it’s enough that Musk “owns” them?
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Oh, thanks, I’ve given up on clicking to known paywalls because it’s rarely worth the trouble.
So I will take your assessment, and wonder if it’s the buccaneering they like more than the tech, now. Because look at the things with outright cons like the bloodtesting machine.
No one ran an independent lab to double check? A bunch of engineers, not thinking like engineers?
I do think it can be like a mind virus. And apparently a lot of these kinds of folk get into mental performance enhancing, AKA speed.
I’ve been concluding that anyone really can fall for a con. Especially if it was custom-tailored for them.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
The Substack anti woke crusaders are actually smarter than Elon. They’re making a million dollars a year scolding 22 year olds and Musk paid THEM for (still more!) of that garbage they churn out.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Gvg: As a friend who’s a retired banker says, “There were a lot of crooks at the bank.”
Kay
I talked to a (small) Tesla investor and fanboy here – I like him, although I’m sorry he made a bad investment. Anyway, he’s betting on the “cybertruck”. It’s his belief that it will be a 40k workhorse truck all over the world – ubiquitous – like the little Toyota truck
I don’t believe this and I’m not sure where he came up with it but I was glad that a Tesla investor actually has a theory (no matter how fanciful) other than “Elon is my daddy-hero because he slays liberals”.
gvg
@Baud: How can it be worth anything if it can’t make a profit? After years of building up? I don’t see it.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: You were expressing your well founded concern about a default yesterday. I noticed a relevant item when I finally got around to reading Dana Milbanks Sunday WaPo column. He said that Republican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick and others are already discussing a potential discharge petition for a debt ceiling bill with House Democrats (probably members of the notorious Problem Solvers Caucus).
Fitzpatrick represents a relatively affluent district near Philadelphia that (I believe) Joe Biden carried in 2020.
sab
OT A couple of years ago my stepson had a DUI. So after all the court stuff his car now has a breathalizer. Problem is it runs down his car battery. So the car is always needing jumping, and he can’t drive anywhere without the breathalizer kicking in. Awkward for him, inconvenient for us, always having to rescue him. Currently he is finding it impossible to get an e-check on a car with a sick battery, so he can’t renew his car tags.
First world problems, and a lot less inconvenient than a family coping after a drunk driver had killed their breadwinner ( as I keep telling him) but interesting approach the county has for rehab.
Geminid
@Kay: Tesla would have done well just to build a truck like that little Toyota truck you speak of, that Toyota ditched in favor of the Tacoma. I think that there would be demand for a similar electric one, but Musk turns up his nose at such “legacy” products. I don’t think that weird Tesla truck will ever take off.
gvg
@sab: If he has a garage to park in, he needs to get a trickle charger with a fully charged safety off switch. Plug it in every night when he gets home. Not sure what he could do for at work. Maybe have 2 batteries to switch off to? Seems like someone would have already invented a solution. Some clever mechanic could install a second battery somewhere else in a car and run wires through the car with switchable clamps. After all, this is a routine court order. It’s like being handicapped. Some mechanic can figure out a way to make this work better.
My dad installed a backup camera on my car aftermarket by looking up youtube videos. It showed him exactly how to run the wires through the car. Lot’s of other people had already done it. He just looked for the best explainer. Checked link after link, tried various descriptions in google. He was an engineer, so he was more confident than I was about doing it. I don’t know how your family is, so that is why I suggested a mechanic, but you may need some video or such to suggest what you mean. If your son has an apartment it will be more of a problem, but even that, he isn’t the first person so someone may have solved it.
eldorado
at least elon can always depend on the support of a top 10k blog to drive traffic to his site
Kay
I’m glad Hochul’s Right wing judge was rejected yesterday – whatever gross quid pro quo was going on there probably isn’t worth thinking about – there are a lot of mediocre governors and she’ll just be another one- BUT I will now have trust issues with Jeffries on womens rights since he jumped in.
I’m sorry. This isn’t a disagreement over a public option or an increase in the earned income tax credit. He has to be rock solid on basic human rights, liberty and boldily autonomy for women. 100%. Anything less is unacceptable to me. So for me he no longer gets the benefit of the doubt as an “unknown” quantity on this issue. I don’t care why he wanted the judge. A judge and his promotion and some NY political deal just doesn’t matter given what’s at stake. I’ll be watching. Jeffries is no longer just a NY Democrat. He’s a national D leader.
Frankensteinbeck
@lowtechcyclist:
They’re backed by the source of his wealth, Tesla stock, and lots of it. If Tesla is bankrupted or he gets pushed out of control, Musk is in trouble.
@The Thin Black Duke:
I think you’ve made a really good point here. It’s something we often see in conservatives, too. Being worshiped by other conservatives isn’t enough. Musk wanted to be Lord and Master of liberals, and instead we’re laughing at him.
@MisterForkbeard:
That sounds about right. I’m sure plenty of bank executives fell for his hype too, but they still made sure they can squeeze his ass if he fails.
Elizabelle
Elon Musk. They found someone willing to do a Milgram experiment. On his own junk.
sab
@gvg: Thank you. That sounds like helpful advice.
Hope my husband isn’t furious about me broaching this anonymously (sort of) on line. It is actually a big problem for us, but I understand the county shrugging it off, what with the devastation drunk drivers cause.
Kay
And I know there are anti choice Dems in the House. Hell, Marcy Kaptur and Tim Ryan are or have been wobbly on womens rights and I supported both of them because they are the best I will get in Ohio BUT the anti-choice Dems are NOT national Dem leaders and Jeffries is now. It’s a different job. He needs to be rock solid.
sab
@Kay: I agree with you on Jeffries. Whatever the phuck is going on in NY politics, some issues shouldn’t be negotiable.
Apparently in NY every issue is negotiable, which is how TFG got into the White House when he should have been in jail years ago.
Delk
Florida Republican ‘falls’ off roof…
Looks like Vern is on the attack, lol.
Source
Anne Laurie
Aspiring pedophiles become church / Scout leaders; aspiring thieves go into banking…
Geminid
@sab: I don’t think a woman’s right to choose is negotiable either. But LaSalle’s record in this area was distorted early on and the label stuck. I thought there were good reasons to reject his nomination but that was not one of them.
sab
@sab: Just ran it by husband. He’s not angry and your suggestion is feasible. Thank you so much.
ETA Also too, there are anti-anxiety and other pharmaceuticals for drunks. AA does not have all the answers or even the best answers. Lots of drinkers are self-medicating for other real issues.
Kay
@sab:
Mystery to me why he would jump in, given that we just had an election where Ds in swing states did quite well on the issue AND it’s a 65% + issue nationally. This isn’t even like, centrism or sticking it to the Left. It’s just a bizarre betrayal for no reason that anyone outside of NY Dem politics understands.
Women gave enough these past couple of years. They took real hits. Look elsewhere for a political chip to trade.
sab
@Geminid: I trust you on this.
ETA And mostly on everything else.
ETA But see Kay.
Feathers
Sad but beautiful vid, in case anyone else wants to snuffle: Great Dane eats 6 double cheeseburgers (prescribed by vet after terminal cancer diagnosis):
https://twitter.com/crsripley/status/1615841185842565120?s=46&t=RPbpbzT–U27zaX-kmDW2Q
Kay
@Geminid:
Oh, please. Republicans were thrilled with him. They were fawning all over him at the hearing. There’s a reason for that.
And to present it as some kind of “due process” issue! This is ONE JUDGE who is already on the bench and was apparently promised a promotion by Hochul. The whole process is wholly political. Give me a fucking break. The women bleeding out in bathtubs because they are denied proper medical care deserve better than “we think he’s secretly liberal, but are willing to roll the dice”.
Starfish
@Baud: Why not? He has already declared rent to be woke and not paid it. Unfortunately, Singapore frowns on people not paying rent and kicked all the Twitter employees out of the office.
prostratedragon
@opiejeanne: Sounds to me like homing in to a wall, mountain, or something: “impact-focused.”
Ken
What Musk says: “I was writing C programs in the ’90s.”
What I hear: “My coding skills are 30 years out of date.”
SFAW
@Ken:
That’s why I tell people that I’m writing programs in D + +
Geminid
@Delk: I think “routine maintence” is a misnomer once someone’s more than 15 feet above the ground. Steube is lucky to be alive.
I bet he’s pretty messed up though. McCarthy will be down to a 3 seat majority for a while.
Starfish
@Kay: The Twitter employees were not *that* young. The ones I knew were in their thirties and forties and had worked there about seven or eight years.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Kay: I heard it can pull a “near infinite” amount of mass. That’s pretty good. Most existing trucks can only pull a finite amount of mass.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ken: My thought was, “and did they compile?”
Geminid
@Kay: I am aware that Republicans praised LaSalle at yesterday’s hearing. That does not prove he’s anti-choice. Like I said, there were other good reasons Hochul should not have nominated LaSalle, that would have made him a good judge in Republican eyes.
Plus, they were making political hay out of the controversy. There’s been a lot of propagandizing going on ever since Hochul announced this nomination four weeks ago. Some is being done by the Hochul camp, trying to tag LaSalle’s opponents as leftists when most are in fact standard liberals and union leaders. Republicans are glad to amplify the lies, for general purposes as well as persuading New York’s large Puerto Rican community that the “leftists” did their guy wrong.
Geminid
@Geminid: I guess it’s possible Steube did not fall 25′, but maybe was 25′ feet up to begin with but rolled or bounced some on the way down. If not, it’s likely he’s really messed up, with a lot of broken bones and maybe brain injuries.
Now, my cynical side wonders if McCarthy and DeSantis can conspire to declare the seat empty so a quick special election can send McCarthy a replacement ASAP.
Ksmiami
@Kay: they’re just so mad and mean that not everyone groks their shit… the GOP and it’s billionaire owners in a nutshell….
Kristine
@NotMax: I run into that with induction seals all the time. I always end up slicing through them and peeling off the pieces.
Kay
@Geminid:
Ah, yes it’s all 7 dimension chess. The conservatives ween’t supporting him because he’s one of them but instead to own the libs. Maybe it’s simple. Maybe she made some kind of political promise to appoint a Right wing judge and that’s exactly what she tried to do. She wouldn’t be the first. Cuomo did the same thing. Ted Strickland did it when he was governor of Ohio. He had some dumbass idea that voters would reward him for Right wing judges and we had to kowtow to Appalachia Ohio when the fact is “voters” couldn’t pick any judge out of a lineup.
There just seems to be an enormous amount of energy being devoted to denying this guy is Right wing. Maybe the most obvious objection they had to him -he’s too conservative- is the actual truth.
Kay
@Geminid:
It was all deflection too. It’s ridiculous to respond to “are you anti union?” with “I was raised by union members”. Excuse me? Is that an answer? Ronald Fucking Reagan was a union member at one time. It’s a slippery non-answer.
Ken
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: “Near infinite” is still finite. Though this is another “what Musk says / what I hear” moment, since I’m hearing “I don’t want to give its actual towing capacity”.
Kay
@Geminid:
I’m just putting down a marker. I’m following the womens autonomy issue closely (difficult as that is with the media blackout on it). I was willing to compromise, negotiate, wheel and deal 5 years ago. I no longer am. Enough. Take this off the table. Trade on fucking tax cuts or something.
Geminid
@Kay: I think LaSalle was a bad choie and I’m glad he did not advance. I don’t accept the framing that he is right wing though. Five Representatives from New York City endorsed him. Most are in the Progressive Caucus and their districts are all in or adjacent to LaSalles appellate district. I think they knew his record as well as you, and maybe even better. They would not have endorsed a “right wing” judge.
sab
@Kay: John Kasich was raised by a Union postal worker. One of my extremely RWNJ bosees was raised by a Union railroad worker.
Another Scott
Good banksters are always looking a couple of steps ahead. So, I guess they figured that they would earn high fees on the loans, high fees on the refinancing, and take control over Tesla on the cheap.
After that, I guess the goal is to force Musk out at Tesla, take it private (and earn big fees there), reorganize it, then do a fancy (high fee) deal to bring it out public again on 2-3 years, or sell it to VW.
Musk ruined a lot of lives and set a mountain of money on fire, but all this may be a footnote by January 2028.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Kay: And comparing what I said to a “seven dimension” chess analysis is very weak and tends to undermine your core argument. The factors I referred to are obvious, more like checkers.
Kay
@Geminid:
I think they’re complacent. One Right wing judge won’t overturn womens rights in a state like NY. The same smug complacency that led to such piss poor results in 2022 in that state.
I don’t have any patience anymore with complacency regarding basic bodily autonomy and dignity. That’s a luxury. Everyone who told us it was all FINE were wrong. It’s not fine and it’s getting worse.
azlib
It is so precious Musk thinks that because he wrote a C program in the 90s, he thinks he can run a social media company. I was writing C programs in the 70s. I guess that means I can lead just about any technology company. What an arrogant idiot.
dm
Probably a dead thread, but I have no idea what Ed Zitron is trying to say in that tweet with the four pictures.
Another Scott
@dm: Made me look.
From the comments, I did a google search on “interlink meme”.
It’s from Bladerunner 2049, something about interlinked (2:16).
It’s hard work to keep up with popular culture!
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
LivinginExile
@sab: Another option is a small solar panel on the dash.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think the “trade” thing is the core. NY state Democratic leaders are used to working in an environment where Republicans are relevant and need to be cut into important deals to keep things running. It’s a reflex now to give the Republicans something to keep them happy. My impression, though, is that the Democrats could actually cut the Republicans loose and give them nothing, and they have enough of a majority to still get stuff done.
We had something similar here in California for way longer than we should have. Even as the Republican caucus in the state legislature shrank and shrank, the Democrats still cut deals with them. A big chunk of that was that we needed a 2/3 majority to pass a state budget, and the Republicans still had more than 1/3 in at least one house of the legislature. Once that was no longer true, though, the Democrats learned pretty quickly to ignore the Republicans as much as possible. I think part of the Democrats’ continued election gains are because Democratic voters are happier seeing the Republicans sidelined. The New Yorkers need to figure that out.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
I’m not sure how much his record was “distorted” with regard to women’s rights. In a previous election (possibly several) he ran on the Conservative Party ballot line—apparently not uncommon for judges to do—but he also donated money to them, and they are strongly anti-abortion.
He also ruled, or signed on to a decision, that a so-called “crisis pregnancy center”—where people are pressured into carrying unwanted pregnancies instead of obtaining abortion care—should be shielded from a state attorney general’s investigation into whether the facility was practicing medicine without a license. He cited their First Amendment right to publish pamphlets and other materials.
Some say that critics are distorting LaSalle’s record by cherry-picking a few cases, but there are relatively few cases with his fingerprints on them. I think he signed only seven opinions on the appellate court and voted with the (conservative) majority on the rest. So people go with the evidence they have.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
Cleaning gutters comes to mind. A lot of idiots think that’s a simple chore.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
If the trade thing is the core then I’m appalled. I feel like I’m reasonable. They can trade all sorts of things without putting this one thing one thing on the table. Trade one of those stupid “enterprise zones” and give Elon Musk another hundred million not to create any jobs in Buffalo. Give that to conservatives. Give them some deregulation or a get out of jail free on tax fraud or something
But don’t trade womens bodily autonomy and dignity. Their, our, bodies. Our physical selves. Think about that. This is no longer ordinary horse trading. They are busting into our bedrooms, pawing thru our trash and barging into examining rooms and transactions at the drug store. Our pregnant young women are posting Tik Tok videos where they beg to be spared by the clerics tribunal if they have a complication in pregnancy. It’s a grave situation. Trade something else.
Another Scott
@Steeplejack: +1
My bottom line is – it’s the responsibility of the executive to vet nominees and make sure the names she throws over the wall will be supported with as little controversy on her side as possible. If she wants to push the envelope, for whatever good or bad reason, she still needs to find a way to win with as little controversy on her side as possible or she damages herself and the party.
She didn’t do that.
Nobody knows what’s “in his heart” or whatever he “really” thinks. All we can go by is what he’s actually done. Democrats with a voice on his nomination say that he should not be on the court, so he probably should not have been nominated.
It seems like political incompetence on Hochul’s part.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Steeplejack:
Why do we keep those things so high in the air anyway?
Ksmiami
@Kay: you mean the same totebaggers that called us hysterical because the Supreme Court would NEVER overturn Roe… yeah fuckem all. Women’s health, dignity and personhood isn’t a negotiation point. Not now and not ever.
Ksmiami
@Kay: at this point, anyone who is sympathetic to the forced birther movement isn’t worth listening to or ffs nominating to any position of power. Fucking troglodytes.
different-church-lady
@SFAW: I write programs in A+ summa cum laude
different-church-lady
@Ksmiami: When people tell you who they are,
believe them the first timewrite a contrarian op-ed as fan service.Miss Bianca
@sab: Jesus. A couple of *years* ago and he still has a breathalyzer on his car?
Not that I’m a fan of drunk driving or anything, but I am definitely NOT a fan of the means used to combat it, which seem to have become increasingly draconian and ruinously expensive. Drunk driving rehab has become its own goddamn industry, and that’s just wrong.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
Oh, I was reasonable! “Let Bart Stupak do his stupid shit because we need the ACA”. That was me!
But no more. Enough. They need to back the fuck off.
I erred on the side of “reasonable” and now look where I am. I have trust issues with men and this. One of the things I loved about Obama is he got the DIGNITY and PRIVACY part. He was absolutely eloquent on it when the Catholic lobby went berserk on ACA and birth control and were screeching that they didn’t want to cover the whores prescription drug costs. He didn’t say “women need birth control for painful periods”. He wasn’t fucking BEGGING. He said “government should not be directing grown womens reproductive decisions”. Respectful. Decent.
Not all liberal men get it- maybe MOST liberal men don’t, I’m starting to think. No more benefit of the doubt from me. They gotta prove it.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
I edited out a last snippet from my previous comment, to the effect that even before the “controversy” LaSalle was at or near the bottom of the list of proposed nominees. That should have been it right there.
Steeplejack
@different-church-lady:
Inorite. Seems like a design flaw.
artem1s
So basically the genius boy wonder manage a business if they have to pay the same interest rates the rest of the world has to pay on a personal loan. The banks CEO’s should be fired for agreeing to unsecured loans in the first place. If he uses his remaining stake in Telsa to secure the loans, can he legit claim to be a majority stakeholder? Tesla’s board need to vote this asshole out as CEO as soon as he does this. It’s the responsible thing to do on behalf of the stockholders.
Dopey-o
AA explicitly says ‘Go to a doctor and follow their advice….. much of our trouble comes from us playing doctor…’
i can testify from personal experience that abstention, meetings and the right antidepressants (prescribed) have kept me sober and alive for 30+ years.
You could look it up.
JaneE
When Twitter’s directors told the shareholders that Musk’s offer was going to get them the most value out of their shares, it was pretty obvious that the company would not be making any more money or increasing its value anytime in the near foreseeable future.
Musk overpaid even before he started destroying value.
He was the shiny new thing for a while, but now he just looks like a stupid fool who got lucky a few times.
JAFD
@Geminid: Fitzpatrick’s district is basically Bucks County and a few adjacent bits. There are some rich folks with estates around New Hope, but mainly just old-fashioned middle-class America. I drove thru there back in October. His road signs said “Congress’ Most Independent Representative”, IIRC, and didn’t give his party.
J R in WV
@gvg:
I ordered a big power pack from DeWalt — or maybe I found it at the local lumber yard? Anyway, it recharges by being plugged into the wall, and has enough juice to start any of my cars, which are not big diesel engine powered, which takes lots more power to spin that big high-compression motor.
I flew out of town one winter, and when I flew back in late at night, it was around zero outside, and my car didn’t make a sound when I tried to start it. Not even a glow from a dome light! So I got my big DeWalt power pack out of the trunk, which weighs something like 35 pounds, got into the driver’s manual since the battery isn’t under the hood, and saw the specific posts to clamp my power pack onto.
Fired right up.
No mechanic needed, just the purchase of the big DeWalt power pack, and keeping it topped up with electrons frequently, at least every time you use it. Was scary at first, until I remembered the power pack was in the trunk, and still had plenty of juice.
There are many of these power packs on the market, Amazon offers comparative reviews of most of them. Look up how many amps your car needs to have to spin, the battery specification, that’s the lowest number of amps your power pack needs, but I recommend getting many more than the minimum required, as in double at least~!!~
dnfree
@Ken:
I’ve been retired for more than ten years after a 45-year career as a programmer/systems analyst in at least 10 languages on multiple systems, many of which no longer exist. Ten years out, I wouldn’t brag about ANY of that experience to someone working now. And C wasn’t much of a language to brag about. At the end of my C class, the instructor wrote a short instruction on the blackboard (yes, way back when) and asked us what it would do. We….couldn’t agree. When she explained it, we understood, but it wasn’t clear. Not a language I’d brag about knowing.
Geminid
@JAFD: I saw that with Tom Rice when I drove across his district in October, 2020. He just had dark blue signs with “Tom Rice” at the top, “Congress at the bottom, and a silhouette of a Palmetto tree in the middle. No mention of party.
Rice held that seat for 6 terms, but he voted for the second Impeachment and lost the primary last year.
Tehanu
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
At my job I sit through endless corporate meetings listening to exactly this kind of BS and I really wonder if the people who spout it are actual humans or lizards in human suits.
@Geminid: I dunno, seems like a fairly bog-standard midlife crisis to me, with Twitter standing in for the red Porsche most balding men in midlife crisis go for.
@The Thin Black Duke:
Just like Dump, innit?