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Tag Archives: Elon Musk
ImageTwitter faces the ‘nightmare’ of being forced into free speech, by Jonathan Turley
The Twitter board opens itself up to legal action if it scotches Tusk’s takeover bid without seriously considering it. From Jonathan Turley at thehill.com:
Twitter’s board of directors gathered this week to sign what sounds like a suicide pact. It unanimously voted to swallow a “poison pill” to tank the value of the social media giant’s shares rather than allow billionaire Elon Musk to buy the company.
The move is one way to fend off hostile takeovers, but what is different in this case is the added source of the hostility: Twitter and many liberals are apoplectic over Musk’s call for free speech protections on the site.
Company boards have a fiduciary duty to do what is best for shareholders, which usually is measured in share values. Twitter has long done the opposite. It has virtually written off many conservatives — and a large portion of its prospective market — with years of arbitrary censorship of dissenting views on everything from gender identity to global warming, election fraud and the pandemic. Most recently, Twitter suspended a group, Libs of Tik Tok, for “hateful conduct.” The conduct? Reposting what liberals have said about themselves.
Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Government, Media, Politics
Tagged censorship, Elon Musk, Twitter
Video: Tucker Carlson Outlines How Twitter Is “Where Elite Opinion Is Incubated”, by Steve Watson
Go, Elon! From Steve Watson at summit.news:
Tucker Carlson explained Thursday why Elon Musk’s attempted takeover of Twitter is “the single most important development for free speech in the modern history of the United States,” noting that the platform is “where elite opinion is incubated.”
The host declared that Twitter “is the single most important forum for speech possibly in the world,” but that it is currently being used to foment mass group-think.
“As Musk put it, Twitter’s potential is to be ‘the platform for free speech around the globe.’ Twitter will neither ‘thrive nor serve the societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company,” Carlson said.
He further highlighted that “if Twitter’s board rejects Elon Musk’s offer, they will need to explain why to their shareholders. They turned down a deal that would make the shareholders much richer.”
Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Government, Media, Politics, Propaganda
Tagged Elon Musk, Twitter takeover
Elon Musk’s Bid Reveals Twitter is the Poison Pill to be Cured, by Tom Luongo
Twitter may find that its increasingly heavy-handed censorship may lead it down the same path as CNN. In which case, Musk’s bid, if he ends up buying the company, may be the best thing to ever happen to it. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:
Posted in Business, Financial markets, Government, Media, Politics, Propaganda
Elon Musk’s Big Move on Twitter, by Jeffrey A. Tucker
Twitter is getting exactly what it deserves. Let’s hope this kind of First Amendment capitalism spreads to Google, Facebook, et. al. From Jeffrey A. Tucker at brownstoneinstitute.org:
As you undoubtedly have heard, Elon Musk – ever the rebel – has offered to buy the whole of Twitter for more than $43 billion. He says that the offer is final. No negotiation. If it is rejected, he will likely sell his 10% stake.
I’m personally excited about the prospect because so many of my friends have been canceled by the platform. I’ve seen the way this has affected their lives. Yes, they move on eventually but the platform has become poorer in their absence. The range of opinion is more narrow and the links to vital research materials more and more thin. Plus, many of us who remain are more careful than we should be: self-censoring.
Elon’s bid threatens this entire model, which is why right now shockwaves are shooting through the many powerful quarters. Twitter is already packed with legacy users clutching pearls and confessing how “frightened” they are.
Twitter is probably the most powerful communication tool on the planet Earth today, as instrumental in the election of Donald Trump as it was in driving the Covid narrative toward lockdowns and mandates. Its influence far outstrips its market capitalization.
As Revolver News puts it:
Twitter remains, by Elon’s own admission, the de facto public town square. Despite its severe censorship, it is still the only major digital public space where anonymous accounts can interact with celebrities, journalists and business titans (including Elon), where world leaders engage in spirited public diplomacy, and where dominant cultural and political narratives incubate and spread.
Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Government, Media, Politics, Propaganda
Twitter’s Chickens Come Home to Roost, by Matt Taibbi
Enjoy the screaming while it lasts. From Matt Taibbi at taibbi.substack.com:
Elon Musk has reportedly attempted to purchase Twitter, and I have no idea whether his influence on the company would be positive or not.
I do know, however, what other media figures think Musk’s influence on Twitter will be. They think it will be bad — very bad, bad! How none of them see what a self-own this is is beyond me. After spending the last six years practically turgid with joy as other unaccountable billionaires tweaked the speech landscape in their favor, they’re suddenly howling over the mere rumor that a less censorious fat cat might get to sit in one of the big chairs. O the inhumanity!
A few of the more prominent Musk critics are claiming merely to be upset at the prospect of wealthy individuals controlling speech. As more than one person has pointed out, this is a bizarre thing to be worrying about all of the sudden, since it’s been the absolute reality in America for a while.
Posted in Business, Civil Liberties, Media, Politics, Propaganda
Elon Musk and the Chinese Temptation, by Peter Schweizer
The Chinese market and China’s government pose huge dilemmas for Elon Musk and other U.S. entrepreneurs. From Peter Schweizer at gatestoneinstitute.com:
- “Other American CEOs have close relationships to the [Chinese Communist] Party. But [Elon] Musk is the only one who loudly praises Beijing while running a space company with incredibly sensitive and powerful defense applications.” — Isaac Stone Fish, Barron’s, November 13, 2020.
- Musk’s dilemma is not unique. The close technology-sharing relationship between Tesla and SpaceX poses national security risks to his adopted home country, but so do Google’s and Microsoft’s work with China on artificial intelligence. U.S. government policy is predictably slow in catching up to the speed of hard-charging, globe-spanning enterprises like Musk’s, and the Chinese are only too happy to increase that gap.
- At some point, however, companies such as SpaceX, Google and Microsoft, and the individual Americans who own, direct, or invest in them, will face a similar choice between their obligation to America and their pursuit of more profits abroad.
“Other American CEOs have close relationships to the [Chinese Communist] Party. But [Elon] Musk is the only one who loudly praises Beijing while running a space company with incredibly sensitive and powerful defense applications.” — Isaac Stone Fish, author of America Second: How America’s Elites Are Making China Stronger. Pictured: Musk meets with China’s Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing on January 9, 2019. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/AFP via Getty Images) |
Elon Musk has fans all over the ideological spectrum. People on the Left love him for popularizing electric cars with his Tesla company, or maybe for openly smoking pot on podcaster Joe Rogan’s show. Conservatives love him for his entrepreneurial dash and penchant for standing up to politicians and Big Tech censorship of the internet. And everyone loves Musk for responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and severing of its communications links by making his Starlink satellite broadband internet service available in Ukraine and donating Starlink terminals to Ukrainians. The Starlink connectivity, according to one report, may even be helping armed Ukrainian drones target Russian military vehicles.
A Tale of Two Geniuses, by Eric Peters
Henry Ford goes down in history as the man who mass-produced cars. Elon Musk will go down in history as the man who mass-produced government subsidies. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:
Elon Musk is hailed as a “genius” by some.
And he is – but not in the way they mean it.
Like Henry Ford, Musk took something he didn’t invent that was essentially a curiosity and recast it in a different way. The difference being that when Henry Ford simplified the car by standardizing parts and mass producing them on an assembly line – as opposed to hand-building them, one at a time, as had been prior practice – the result was a much less expensive and far more practical car that almost anyone could afford to buy.
Musk did the opposite. 
The early electric cars were simpler as well as more practical than non-electric cars; this was a big part of their initial appeal, 100 years ago, when they were (briefly) competitive with early non-electric cars. You didn’t have to hand-crank the engine and risk breaking your wrist – because of course there was no engine. Instead, an electric motor connected to the drive wheels and an array of lead-acid batteries. The car turned off – and on – and off you went.
Posted in Business, Energy, Government, Politics, Technology
Tagged electric cars, Elon Musk, Henry Ford, Tesla
Electrocuting Themselves, by Eric Peters
“Me too” is generally a terrible idea in business, especially when the government thinks it’s a swell idea. From Eric Peters at ericpeters.com:
The key to selling something is to not sell the same thing everyone else is selling. Elon Musk grasps this concept.
His electric emulators do not.
Perhaps the latest sales figures will help them to grasp it. It appears that Tesla is about to become the best-selling luxury car brand in the United States, toppling BMW – which held the title for many years.
Arguably, because what BMW was selling during those years was something different than what Elon is selling.
Some will recall the old BMW slogan about Ultimate Driving Machines. It wasn’t just a slogan. BMW invented the luxury-sport sedan with iconic models like the 2002 of the ‘70s. The numbers signified two-door sedan, two liter engine – connected to a manual transmission. It was a car you drove.
Other luxury cars drove you places.
The distinction isn’t about better or worse but rather about the differences. If you wanted the sounds and sensations of a high-performance sports car Matryoshka-doll’d within the body of a luxury car, the compass needle pointed toward a BMW store.
There was nothing else quite like a BMW.
Mercedes, meanwhile, specialized in overbuilt, under-stressed road-bound tanks that would last 300,000 miles. They were plush and even a little stodgy in contrast to the BMW’s taut and youthful.
These was nothing quite like them either.
“If You Could Die Of Irony, She Would Be Dead”: Musk Slams Liz Warren And Woke Culture In Epic Babylon Bee Interview, by Tyler Durden
SLL posts something from The Babylon Bee almost every night. It has come out of nowhere to become one the most prominent sources of satire against the prevailing idiocy (they never run out of idiocy). Obviously getting an interview with Elon Musk is quite a coup. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com (with the interview):
Elon Musk just sat down with the guys from the Babylon Bee for a 54-minute interview, where the Tesla and SpaceX founder savaged Sen. Liz Warren, and described woke culture as a “mind virus.”
“You were pretty mean to Senator Warren there on Twitter recently,” said Babylon Bee EIC Kyle Mann. “Ya slammed her man.”
“Please don’t call the manager on me, Senator Karen,” he continued – citing Musk’s December 14th response to Warren slamming him for not paying ‘enough’ taxes.
To which Musk replied: “She struck first, obviously. She called me a freeloader and a grifter who doesn’t pay taxes, basically. And – I’m literally paying the most tax that any individual in history has ever paid, this year, ever. And she doesn’t pay tax… basically at all. And her salary is paid for by the taxpayer, like me.”
“Could you even use the term irony, would that work?” asked one of the Bee guys.
“If you could die of irony, she would be dead.”
Posted in Culture, Humor, Media, Politics, Society
Tagged Elizabeth Warren, Elon Musk, The Babylon Bee
