Twitter on Track To Reach Deal With Elon Musk as Soon as Today (bloomberg.com) 201
Twitter is in the final stretch of negotiations about a sale to Elon Musk, a person with knowledge of knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reports. From the report: The social media company is working to hammer out terms of a transaction and could reach an agreement as soon as Monday if negotiations go smoothly, according to the person.
Don't get ahead of yourself (Score:3, Informative)
Reaching a deal isn't the last step(s), shareholder and regulatory approval are.
Re:Don't get ahead of yourself (Score:5, Informative)
No, but it might be the "last stretch of negotiations" which is what was claimed.
Musk's real end game (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's see, Musk makes a Twitter announcement about taking a company private (that he owns a lot of shares in). Share price goes up. Then he rug-pulls. It has happened before [sec.gov], it will happen again.
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Let's see, Musk makes a Twitter announcement about taking a company private (that he owns a lot of shares in). Share price goes up. Then he rug-pulls. It has happened before [sec.gov], it will happen again.
I've heard that last part from Charlton Heston [youtube.com]. The parallel sounds about right... :-)
The Last Two (Score:2)
Regulatory shouldn't be a problem. There are a bunch of social media companies, and Musk doesn't own any others. Unless the SEC pulls something crazy over Musk's paperwork issues (what I've heard from financial podcasts, that's, at the very worst, a medium-sized fine) I don't see why it wouldn't clear approval.
As for shareholder approval, the three largest shareholders are Musk, Morgan Stanley whom is backing musk, and Jack Dorsey whom also approves the purchase.
So it's possible that the majority of the rem
The death of Twitter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Have to wonder if Musk’s bluster is all ego/hubris and if it’ll all end up ruining Twitter rather than improve it. Time will tell I guess.
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"Ruin it"? Lmao, impossible.
Re: The death of Twitter? (Score:2)
Re: The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Informative)
Poison pill is to stop a take over by share purchases. If he buys them outright, which he's put out cryptic tweets hinting at (tender offer), then it has to effect, but requires the shareholders to vote for it.
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Poison pill only activates if the board doesn't approve the sale. That's what the negotiation is about, rather than just a tender offer directly to shareholders.
Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing could be worse than the shithole that Twitter is now.
Well, it could be Truth Social.
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You can actually log in and post to Twitter. Not so much with the other.
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How is that worse, other than it's just a different echo chamber filled with ignorance?
You mean besides Truth Social just being a waiting list?
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You seriously think that Twitter is a "totalitarian platform"?
Are you off your meds or something?
Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Insightful)
You seriously think that Twitter is a "totalitarian platform"?
I always wonder with posters like that what they said to get themselves banned from Twitter.
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It's kind of amusing to think they believe things will get better under Musk. I'm pretty sure they won't like Twitter under his leadership.
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Well, they're pretty quick on the fascism trigger, so it doesn't take a lot of imagination to think of what they may have done to get banned from Twitter...
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Stop being stupid.
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He doesn't have anywhere close to that level of money, and nobody that does would ever give him that much money to mismanage. Not even his friend in Moscow.
Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that Liberals are the most intolerant lot. Liberals want the freedom to tell you what to think, say and do. Same as the Castro brothers in Cuba, or the Sandanistas, or any other "Freedom Fighters".
Ron DeSantis is a Liberal?
Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Informative)
Then perhaps DeSantis should start with the Republican party [courthousenews.com]. They seem to have a lot of groomers [yahoo.com] in their midsts [slate.com].
The only thing DeSantis has done is create the largest safe space in the country for Republican snowflakes.
Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Ha, meanwhile in reality book banning and hyper control of school curriculum at the state level has become a conservative go to but yeah it's the Liberals that want to tell you what to think. I mean, 99% of liberals in this country had never even heard of Critical Race Theory until conservatives took what was pretty much the exclusive domain of doctorial thesis' and turned it into their latest boogeyman to scare voters. Now we cant even effectively teach about our own history of slavery in some states because it might make some poor fragile white children sad.
Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because I forgot that it's the liberals that are banning abortion, gutting voting rights, making it a crime to hand out water to people standing in line to vote, banning books in public schools, banning discussion about certain topics in public schools, passing laws to remove long-standing corporate statuses in retribution for speaking out against culture war nonsense, banning the teaching of subjects in schools that weren't being taught in schools, and branding people that disagree with them as pedophiles.
Fox News is melting your brain and diminishing your capacity for critical thinking. Stop watching that rot. Now.
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I'm having a really hard time thinking of any realistic measure that would make it either better or worse. It's innately shitty, by design, and people use it because they like shit.
It's no less shitty than it can be, but it can't get much shittier either.
Death might be the best outcome here. If that is Musk's plan, I'm all for it. Somehow I doubt it though.
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Musk is an odd fellow. He is difficult to predict, jumping from practical and genius, to crazy and idiotic. The Musk Fans love him, because they focus on what he says that they believe in, and place all their hopes and dreams within him. While the haters focus on his nonsense and stuff he says that they hate.
He does seem to keep his ego in check, with the attempt of his intellect realizing that someone else may have a better idea. I expect a future Twitter isn't going to be like what Musk thinks a future
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Being his career has been one of the King Midas touch with every company he's been a part of, seems odds are against you that he'll ruin it.
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I'll be deleting my account.
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Re: The death of Twitter? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't use Twitter, so I'll put that out front.
But I'm skeptical someone will be able to implement a free speech platform and have it not turn into gab, or parler, or Truth social.
I'm just looking at history and what a "free speech" focused platform (in quotes because that's the marketing hook) does for overall appeal.
For whatever reason it seems to be incompatible with wide adoption.
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The best conversations I've had about my interests have all been on 4chan, since you can express whatever opinion you want without getting your life ruined.
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Honest question, what is an opinion you could express on 4chan but could not on Twitter?
Re: The death of Twitter? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no shortage of that on Twitter. Care to try again?
Re: The death of Twitter? (Score:2)
It's almost like a broad audience doesn't want to ignore the racial slurs and what not.
Politics aside, because I'm not trying to make a political argument, but a size and financial one, 4chan is not as successful as Twitter and has plenty of time to grow.
4chan, with it's preservation of free speech has 1/10th the monthly users as Twitter has daily. I would call a 90% drop destruction if that's what happens to Twitter.
4chan is actually a great example since it wasn't started as a politicized reaction, but ju
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If you dont like someone or something someone said, fine, block them. but its wrong to get twitter to remove them from the platform over you being offended.
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Twitter already is gab, parler, or truth social. It's just the left-wing version and it has the most "marketshare". Twitter shuts down stuff like the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was absolutely true. The idea that they're simply shutting off "fascists" is laughable. You can find plenty of left-wing fascism there. If you think they actually censor "hate", just search for "fuck white people". You'll find endless hate speech that is let through. And we know that Twitter has literally coded racism in
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Maybe just try and peek below the surface just a tiny bit.
It's actually simpler and more obvious that Twitter imply has a preference for notable figures, celebrities and the Blue Checks.
Case in point, people who took things Trump tweeted, just tweeted the statements themselves and got banned:
One Twitter account is reposting everything Trump tweets. It was suspended within 3 days. [mashable.com]
If Jeong wasn't famous he probably would have gotten a suspension. If Owens wasn't also famous she probably wouldn't have gotten
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Except Twitter is far far bigger.
By ruined I mean a mass exodus of users and being a small niche.
Free speech platform does not actually appear to have mass appeal.
Re: The death of Twitter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Elon will be able to call people pedophiles with impunity.
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Something he's never done (Score:3)
Elon will be able to call people pedophiles with impunity.
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
That's a rather strange prediction, since he's never called someone a pedophile (publicly) before.
The trial determined that "pedo guy" is slang for "creepy old guy". That's the definitive answer.
Also of note: the comment didn't happen in a vacuum, it was in response to insults on the other side.
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Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Insightful)
USENET was killed by a number of things, mostly ISPs not wanting the cost and potential legal liability of storing increasingly huge amounts of copyright infringing binaries, and also new users for whom "the internet" means exclusively "the world wide web".
Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Insightful)
USENET was killed by a number of things, mostly ISPs not wanting the cost and potential legal liability of storing increasingly huge amounts of copyright infringing binaries, and also new users for whom "the internet" means exclusively "the world wide web".
And the weird folks with the psychosexual problems who took over many of the groups chased normal people away.
In rec.radio.amateur antenna, I could converse with world class designers. But after an increasing number of nuts offering to buttfuck them or dolts claiming they were wrong about things - with responses like "You're a stupid fucker" or worse, they dropped off. Same with rec.amateur radio.policy. That was a place for spirited convos, but the trolls and weirdos took over that. USENET leaders just said "If someone's posting things you don't like, just killfile them."
Then some of the nuts opened dozens of mail accounts a day, and eventually, the killfiles became enormous, and they really don't work if the perp just keeps making new ones. My final straw was after having that huge killfile, one day I figured that if my wife walked in the room when posts I could only block after they showed up on the screen, she would think I was one of those creeps. So I went away.
I did check in a few years later, and those one time useful groups were a wasteland. Turns out that the creeps biggest part of the fun was annoying the normal users. When it was just an echo chamber for the creeps, all their fun went away.
Which by the way, is why the new "free speech" social media sites don't do well. They bounce non far right opinions (free specch?) and the resulting echo chamber doesn't have their touchstone of "owning the libs". Same thing, different decades.
Re:The death of Twitter? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have similar experiences with forums.
Reddit is a very poor substitute. Frankly, for me the internet has lost like 80% of the value it had in the 90s.
I wouldn't know where to begin asking questions. Used to be on forums you had tobow to ego but part of that ego was showing what they knew by solving your issues.
These days on Reddit they downvote you if they don't like the current weather but help is hardly forthcoming.
So where would one go?
So like Slashdot? (Score:2)
Then some of the nuts opened dozens of mail accounts a day, and eventually, the killfiles became enormous, and they really don't work if the perp just keeps making new ones. My final straw was after having that huge killfile, one day I figured that if my wife walked in the room when posts I could only block after they showed up on the screen, she would think I was one of those creeps. So I went away.
So a lot like how Slashdot now has pathetic basement dwellers purposely creating accounts with handles similiar to those they want to harass?
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Bjorne Soustroup himself used to post in comp.lang.c++ Then he was called a dimit and worse by newbies who can not see an object oriented design if it stopped them in the street and slapped them on the face.
Usenet is alive and well. (Score:2)
Don't know if this is 100% accurate as it's not new, but there is more information available. [wikimedia.org] Here. [reddit.com]
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Shit's got real (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason that the board is now talking to Elon Musk is because, finally, they're afraid of their own hides.
They have no choice. Directors have a fiduciary obligation to their shareholders. It's tough to argue that when someone who walks in and offers far more cash to their shareholders that they hope to ever see, in any foreseeable future, it's not in the best fiduciary interests of their shareholders.
The directors tried to handwaive away Elon Musk's initial offer, citing the fact that his sources of funding were uncertain. Well, they don't have that excuse any more. He showed them the money.
They simply can't come up with a valid excuse for turning him away, any more. They ran out of hands to waive. Otherwise their asses will be class-actioned all the way to the moon, not to mention any possible involvement from the feds, for breaching their fiduciary duties. They can't expect that their political alignment with the ruling class will let them skate.
So, with the directors' own hides on the line, they really have no choice but to sell to Musk. All they can do is haggle about the price. But they don't really have a good position to negotiate. Twitter is as good as sold.
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P.S.: TWTR's annual meeting is on May 25th. Bring popcorn.
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> they're afraid of their own hides
Which means they've found a patsy to pin the NY Post problem on, among others.
Notice how Dorsey has been trying to distance himself from the board?
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But if the Twitter board believes the share price will ultimately go substantially above that,
Future growth is already factored into the current price. The board is delusional.
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The thing is their user share is close to, or has peaked. It will only decline from there regardless of if Musk buys it or not.
I'm assuming if Musk buys it there will be a similar exodus to what happened to MySpace once News Corp bought it but that depends on how both political sides perceive how the company is run. Twitter needs to be perceived at neutral to survive, but I don't think Musk, or anyone for that matter, can accomplish this when the right thinks it's a left echo chamber and the left thinks its
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TWTR into Groomer Central.
Just stop doing this, the word has lost all meaning and now it's just become another "anyone I don't like is a groomer". It's very stupid and produces like negative discourse.
Also Twitters age demographics are like 94% 18+. [statista.com] Adolescents and teenagers don't use Twitter probably because it's full of lame adults talking about stupid shit. Amongst the largerst social media platforms Twitter is probably the least likely to be used for such interactions.
Also Twitter has added revenue and active users year-over-
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TWTR into Groomer Central.
Just stop doing this, the word has lost all meaning and now it's just become another "anyone I don't like is a groomer". It's very stupid and produces like negative discourse.
But, name calling is the only idea "Conservatives" really have anymore ...
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Speaking of circling the drain, can we talk about the breaking trend of accusing people that you disagree with of pedophelia? Why can't you just smear them as "libtards" like normal? Why must you demonize people you disagree with, instead of having a conversation about the disagreement?
Could it be that you have no competing ideas?
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Ok, but I'm not sure anyone would want to use a service named pooper.
The cycle completes (Score:2)
as Twitter becomes more useless than it was before under an Olgarch's control
Re:The cycle completes (Score:4, Insightful)
Define "useless".
Once under an American oligarch, it'll be more useful for the oligarchs certainly.
The illusion that Musk is somehow a virtuous pillar that only wants to do good for mankind is surprisingly well received. He claims that Twitter is the digital vision of free speech, and we cheer as he takes that power under his personal control.
Here's a question... (Score:3, Informative)
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CNN isn't even close to being "MSM" as you call it. Fox has been beating them for 81 quarters now https://www.forbes.com/sites/m... [forbes.com]
Guess what that makes Fox?
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Maybe if people start leaving twitter that could happen. I have a feeling Musk will start shadow banning people who post pictures like this
https://tfipost.com/wp-content... [tfipost.com]
Here's an answer... (Score:2)
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Lemme just say (Score:2)
I hope this purchase of Twitter is as financially successful for Musk as MySpace was for News Corps.
Because I don't care that it's Twitter, and I don't care that it's Elon Musk. I just care that it's being ridiculously overvalued.
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Re: Lemme just say (Score:2)
A little unnerving (Score:2)
Does anyone else find it a little unnerving that there are people on this planet that can just up and casually buy a company worth tens of billions of dollars like it was a cheap car?
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But it probably won't die the horrible death that it should. Social media companies allow a certain sort of people immediate feedback on how special they are. And for those who don't care about the feedback, there's always the self-censorship of following the people who have the same thoughts as they, just no new ones. Any one company might go poof, but as a genre, it is too much like crack for the basic schmoe to ignore. Twitter probably has enough momentum to keep going no matter what Musk does to it.
And
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According to the web, he bought it for $250m. Seems excessive to have your own mouthpiece, but I suppose it had a purpose to him.
Meanwhile... (Score:2)
Short sellers are calling out DWAC, the SPAC trying to reverse merger with Trump's Truth social shit. [twitter.com]
I wonder what a Twitter sale will mean for them ... i.e. If Trump is allowed back, then what?
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It means it's dead in the water and some people are probably out a bucket of cash.
To his credit it doesn't seem like Trump put much of his own money behind Truth. I think he was waiting to see if it caught traction but if you put Devin Nunes in charge of something it's basically destined to fail.
Who are his partners in this takeover? (Score:2)
Anyone with access beyond the paywall seeing info?
I'm curious as to the list of big names that are helping fund his alliance to buy out Twitter.
Seems like that's info people should be asking.
Negotiating for payment to board members? (Score:2)
Knowledge of Knowledge (Score:2)
...a person with knowledge of knowledge of the matter said...
I know it was probably an honest typo, but I still couldn't help but be reminder of Ferris Bueller's Day Off:
"My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31-Flavors last night."
Twitter spaces (Score:3)
Really, twitter has the potential to be a real forum.
They need Twitter spaces - make areas where certain speech isn't allowed. People can add and remove themselves as desired.
Musk has the cash. My analysis of SEC filing. (Score:3)
He is paying about $20 billion in cash from his recent stock sale for which he paid $8 billion in U.S. income taxes. The rest is coming from pledged asset lines (PAL) secured by Morgan Stanley. A PAL is a loan that is guaranteed by assets (highly appreciated Telsa stock). The loan to asset ratio quoted by Morgan Stanley for Tesla is 20%. The interest rate on the PAL will likely be about 1%.
Anyone with stock can get similar PALs through Charles Schwab, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, or others. To get a rate similar to Musks, you'll need about $8 million. For stable companies, like Google, they will loan up to 80% of the stock value. For volatile companies like Telsa only about 20-30%. The lenders have a nearly guaranteed payback so the 1% interest is practically free money.
Hope that helps.
Will he out illegal price manipulators? (Score:2)
But all these things happen, and they wrong doers have developed methods to elude detection and conviction. Given the free of all nature of Twitter, many of them might have let their guard down. Or mistakenly believed using burner phone or something can keep law enforcement away and Twitter to says it will protect pr
Re:Oh boy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't read it. Trump (or really anyone you can think of) is going to do what Trump's going to do. Making him shut up isn't your problem. You know you can un-follow someone on that thing.
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Yeah you can. You just can't make yourself do it. That's on you not Trump or his followers.
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You sorta can but it still bleeds through. It's honestly something that could stand to be fixed better on the platform. I have muted and blocked any mention of Kardashians or Pete Davidson several times but it still bleeds through especially when something gets trending and your follows start talking about it.
Trump was a huge part of Twitter so it could be hard to avoid, he just drove so much engagement. Love him or hate him he was a Hall of Fame Twitter poster for sure.
Honestly if this purchase means he
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I had no problem paying zero attention to what that orange asshat, or any other asshat on Twitter posts. Because I just didn't pay any attention to Twitter at all.
I don't give a fuck what someone tweets. I give a fuck what they do. And neither the Congress, nor the Executive, enact official policy via Twitter. They do that via the seat of government, and via official announcements before the press, or via live statements on national TV.
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There's always been bullshit. You can't escape it and you never could. All you can do is teach yourself to ignore it. I don't have a twitter account so no dog in this particular fight but I agree it's covered widely in the news so you'll hear about it whether you want to or not. You always did hear about things. In the time since Trump has been banned from it his name has continued to appear on news stories constantly on both CNN and Fox. Letting him talk on twitter or not changes nothing. He gets reported
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Somebody tried to write an article arguing that Musk is not pro-free-speech when it's anti-Musk, but all the examples were firing Tesla employees who were acting against Tesla's best interests, e.g. by publicizing proprietary information. Personally I think companies should be free to stop employing somebody who's a net negative to the business, excepting whistleblower provisions (reporting lawbreaki
Re:Oh boy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Elon Musk used to like and retweet The Onion a lot, but when they made ONE litte joke about him he went into permanent grudge mode and started propping up right-wing Babylon Bee. How is that objective? If The Onion was inherently bad, they only revealed it that day -- that's when he realized it? Elon has a Trump-like hatred for being insulted, along with a Trump-like susceptibility to brown-nosing ass-kissers.
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He does seem to have surprisingly thin skin. Getting skewered by The Onion is practically a badge of honor.
Also the "memery" he always talks about loving so much is venturing very much in the "How do you do, fellow kids?" territory. He'll never learn though because the dumbest stuff he posts will get 100K+ likes. 69 and 420 jokes? What year are we in again? You're a 50 year old man.
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He must have seen your post...
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/s... [twitter.com]
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Maybe, I mean .. he does retweet slashdot a few times a week on average. I don't know if he reads the comments though, but I have previously noticed some correlation between things said on here and his Twitter. Well if he does read what we say here, I hope he re-evaluates his hard right turn and acknowledges the fact that Tesla wouldn't exist today if not for the left which provided the carbon credit system and tax breaks that were critical back when Tesla was in financial trouble. He seems to have forgotte
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D'ya suppose Twitter could be slashdotted?
I know we're not supposed to complain about mods (Score:2)
But
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I'd like to think we're better than that. That our community is smart enough to realize an anti-Union rich kid (google "pocked full of Rubies and Musk" sometime) who uses his money for petty attacks on individuals and journalists is something we could see though. That we wouldn't fall for that kind of authoritarian hero worship....
There's been a lot of shitposts lately from the Hillbilly Jihad about how Disney being inclusive of LGBTQ content is pushing "dangerous propaganda" onto our kids.
The propaganda that Disney and its ilk have actually been pushing for decades is that the rich and powerful give even the slightest shit about other people, and that the children born into such families are taught anything other than how to protect their wealth at all costs and who to protect it from. Rich people and monarchial rulers are benevolen
I wouldn't call them "Hillbillies" (Score:2)
That said, I get the temptation to use that kind of language. I do it too sometimes when I'm angry. But it'll just get you downmodded as a troll, which doesn't help.
I will just say "right wing" or "right wing extremists". It emphasizes the political nature. I make it a point not to call them conservative. They're not. They're very radical. They like to call themselves conservatives
Well trolls are trolls (Score:2)
Just like Bill Gates before him Elon Musk has done a very good job of scrubbing the internet of any nega
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He's far far too smart for that.
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