Why would they be upset by the idea of a trillionaire making campaign donations?
All they need to do is pledge allegiance!
I’m taking a class on systems rn and we’re learning a lot of very basic level concepts that also have some overlap with business and economics. I don’t hold a degree in economics like mr. musk, but learning the little I have about systems has really made me question just wtf wealth hoarders (most of whom seem to be much more familiar with systems thinking) envision for the future?
The idea of systems balancing or collapsing seems to be fundamental to ALL systems. So even if the goal is to collapse this one, and that’s why they don’t really care/maybe are trying to ensure it’s as unbalanced as possible, what happens in the next system that emerges as a result of their success?
I really can’t buy they suddenly no longer feel the compulsive need to hoard resources because they’re motivated to preserve their own system.
Has a chat bot convinced them there’s a special loophole and the rules that apply to every other system don’t apply to theirs?
If you’re taking classes on systems, I want to know your take on this vestigial mode of attention coordination we have in our cognition that I experienced one time. The person that wrote this article is a friend who explained much, but he disappeared. I think he still lurks places, but I want to learn more about what I experienced:
His companies operate at a loss. How is this guy a trillionare? Not in my view.
The people who’s money isn’t on the books because it’s too old, pay him to do stuff. These stocks are by far the easiest and cheapest way to do it.
Not starlink, but yes all the others do, and some by a lot (xAI)
xAI is under spaceX, so spaceX is now operating at a loss
SpaceX is worth 1.75 trillion dollars
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He didn’t have that wealth. He has stocks worth that much at current evaluations. The liquidity market wouldn’t allow him to get 10% of that is he tried
How about those stocks get divvied up amongst the workers and converted to multi stakeholder cooperatives where they all then have a vote to remove the Elon? While we’re at it why not do that to every “publicly” owned company?
Tbf those countries don’t have that wealth either
He does have the power of nuisance as a result of that wealth.
Exactly otherwise he would have already bought those countries
Another upsetting thing about this is Elon is just the first of many more trillionaires to come.
It won’t be a huge number, though. Capitalism still works to consolidate wealth. While there never has been any private individual with that much wealth before in human history, that kind of wealth is not unprecedented. The main reason is that people with that kind of wealth have historically been emperors. And make no mistake, anyone with that kind of wealth carries with them the threat of becoming an emperor. After someone becomes an emperor or a dictator, they gain absolute control over the GDP of whatever they control. But even now, Musk’s wealth is not even 1% of the world’s GDP. Someone like Augustus Caesar would have had several times more wealth, and direct control over something like 25% of the world’s GDP. Musk having this much wealth is disgusting - nobody should even be a billionaire. But, at the same time, in the grand scheme of things, he will be nothing more than a footnote in history. He has never done anything actually memorable. People only know him now because he’s a cunt with a lot of power. But power fades, and the world has had countless cunts. In the end, he’s not anyone special. In 100 years, the average person will likely have no clue who he was. Nor will they care.
Not if we can summon the political will to tax them out of existence altogether.
But who am I kidding? The oligarchs in control are just waiting for their turn to be trillionaires themselves.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but trillionaires should be forced to transition into billionaires, and billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
A million seconds is ~11 days. A billion seconds is ~32 years. A trillion seconds is 31,689 years.
He WoRKed HArd tHo!
$3600/hour, 24/7/365 since the Pleistocene? That hard?
Being a CEO mist be the easiest fuxking job in the world. This fucker has the time to work 5 of those jobs and can still be “a top ranked player” in multiple video games!
To be fair, the last bit is a lie, but the fact he wants to lie about it does seem to indicate that he’s just sitting there playing video games though.
Its every bit as valid as his value as CEOs.
CEO’s seem like the most expensive daycare center for overgrown toddlers ever thought up.
They see the problem. They’re getting paid to ignore it.
citizen. yeah, no. i’m not calling that fuckknob a citizen. citizens contribute and participate in society.
fuck elon musk. fuck xai.
build the water treatment plant you promised the people of memphis.
Is he even naturalized?
People growing up now is groomed by the system to not think, only consume! AI was the latest “do not think yourself, do not use your brain” implementation. Make the masses brain dead sheep that is easy to control.
It’s okay, it’s all unrealized gains so he can’t do anything with it except to use it as a collateral, oh and especially NOT pay taxes.
Exactly this. It’s Schrödinger’s money.
Worth nothing so it can’t be taxed and worth billions so it can be used as collateral to take out tax-free loans from the bank.
Upside is if the stock crashes the banks get to harvest his organs or something. Don’t think anybody has been stupid enough to use stock collateral loans as one of their primary money source before, unless someone who threw themselves out a window during the stock market crash leading up to the great depression did so.
Does he work like a piñata? Just curious.
One way to find out.
It’s not one man. It’s one fascist.
Catch-22.
If he weren’t a fascist, he wouldn’t be a trillionaire.
True, but I think it’s the other way round. He’s a fascist because he’s obscenely wealthy. When you have that much power, empathy dies. It’s a downward spiral of negative feedback actually, the more power, the less empathy, the greater the lust for power and the more unscrupulous you can be, and so on.
Its fugazi, this money isn’t real, the worth is made up and expeculated.
The eventual implosion of the American is going to be crazy, I’ve never heard any American politician even say the word austerity, they’ll be eating each other.
Ah yes, uNrEaLiSeD gAiNs.
Simultaneously worth nothing so it can’t be taxed and worth billions so it can be used as collateral to take out tax-free loans from the bank.
Ever the paradox that one.
It’s still fascism, so what you are describing is just Soylent Green but the citizens have the full freedom™ to chose any colour Soylent Green they want. #free
(Also they have austerity, it’s just too big of a word to use publicly, but systemic cutting of programmes that don’t transfer public wealth to a few private pockets has been going on for 50 years now. The talk is the same as “austerity” in eg British politics - gutting the funds for the lazy bastards in healthcare, education, transport, etc … but not warcrime industry or the factory of tax cuts for the rich.)
Well, no money is real.
And unfortunately, it looks like the country is going to go on believing his valuation, right into a cyberpunk corporate dystopia.
Whatever country he dies in gets to keep the money that’s just science
