Elon Musk’s financial interests put him in a position of having his own personal foreign policy, but new reporting shows that whether it’s manufacturing in China or the Starlink network being used in Ukraine, Musk’s decisions can run counter to stated US policy.

  • Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    This is why billionaires shouldn’t exist they are treasonous

    • Lexam@lemmy.ca
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      10 months ago

      They should exist, but we are not utilizing them correctly. Once someone has reached a billion dollar networth then they are thrown a big party and then sacrificed to a valcono. I believe this would curb emissions and fix climate change.

    • jonne@infosec.pub
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      10 months ago

      Just too much power for one person. Even if they’re not in charge of a global internet provider, your average billionaire can singlehandedly affect the lives of millions of people (employees, customers, bystanders) with no democratic oversight at all. It’s just not something that should exist.

    • zephyreks@programming.dev
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      10 months ago

      China seems to do a pretty good job of keeping their billionaires in check. Maybe we should take notes?

    • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      You: Want to abolish billionaires because they do not support the war enough.

      Me: Want to abolish billionaires because they exploit and oppress the working class.

      We are not the same.

          • dumdum666@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            I chose it so you could jerk yourself off about it and feel good at least once in your life :)

            • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              “Patriotic socialist”, someone who claims to be a champion of the working class, but is actually more of nationalist. They only care about the working class of a certain nationality or racial group, and are generally bigoted in their view towards marginalized groups. Real socialists are internationalist. You wanting to get rid of Musk, because he’s not sufficiently gung-ho about a war fought between capitalists on the back of workers, implies you consider the national interest more important than the lives of workers. This is anti-worker class collaborator shit, which is what patsocs are really.

              • dumdum666@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                What the fuck are you even talking about? Russia is throwing thousands of „working class“ lives away, since it wants to expand its territory in aggressive moves since decades. They are forcing Ukraine to defend itself and yes, those are also working class people.

                So you, as a good socialist, are probably on the barricades because of this unprovoked attack on the Ukrainian working class. How are you fighting to defend them from getting killed? Please don’t answer something in the likes of „Ukraine should give up“ because then everyone would only see that you are actually advocating the Murder of the Ukrainian people.

              • Varixable@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                10 months ago

                Lol what the fuck is this? “You’re an enemy of the working class because you don’t support Elon Musk!”

                This is some brain worm shit my dude.

      • Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Well you’ve jumped to conclusions there, I’m not talking about the war but Billionaires in general and their respective countries in general.

        Billionaires have too much power, live outside the existing system of government and laws, gained their money and power through exploitation and in general are undemocratic.

        So I agree with your second statement, but not the first

      • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        Meanwhile, until he was supporting USA and Ukraine, he was the good white hero for your ilk.

        Yeah, because of that. This isn’t the gotcha you think it is, you aren’t uncovering a double standard. People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.

        • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.

          Only Anglo people and white worshippers. The rest of the world has over 6 billion people, that you conveniently choose to disrespect and ignore.

            • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              It has to. You generalised that all people hate Russia and love Ukraine. A lot of the world is NOT what you imply to be the whole world, and is a mere 10-15% of the world’s population. Rest of the world fears the Nazi disease brewing in Ukraine, having the potential to travel around to Asia and Middle East. We do not want America-funded Mujahideen clones. Russia is helping us.

          • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            No I didn’t, I didn’t ignore anyone. I am answering your statement. We are talking in the context of whom was considering him a “good white hero”. As per your statement:

            he was the good white hero for your ilk.

            I’m not going to specify the whole context of the conversation when it’s clear whom I’m talking about. You established the group of people that worshipped him in your original comment, I explained why.

            • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.

              Oh you did ignore over 6 billion people that condemn Ukraine’s Nazism issues on the UN voting, and their support for Russia. Anglosphere consists of merely ~12% of the world’s population, and their Russia bashing undemocratic stance is NOT representative of what the whole world thinks. What white people think or say is not that important.

              • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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                10 months ago

                You seem to not understand how context in a conversation works. Look, The original comment said the following in a post about how Elon is acting agaisnt US interest:

                This is why billionaires shouldn’t exist they are treasonous

                So they are probably american. Then you answered them with:

                he was the good white hero for your ilk.

                Then I said the following, to you, after your comment:

                People deem helping Ukraine righteous, and helping Russia treasonous, this is no secret.

                In this context, “People” can mean everybody, yes, but can also mean the subset of people we are talking about already, which I obviously was mentioning. I don’t really get why you are being so confrontational because I didn’t include the opinion of everybody in the world when trying to explain why americans or the west now think that Elon is a traitor.

                Let me give you an example in good faith. When there’s a meeting between neighbours, they vote on X, and the president of the community states “The people have talked”, are they also ignoring the other 8 billion people that exist in the world? No, because it’s obvious that “pople” in that context refers to the subset of people only referring to the neighbours.

                I really can’t explain to you more how context works, if you are that hellbent in chastisizing me for explaining to you why “those people” think like that in general, we have nothing more to talk about.

      • Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        My ilk?

        You’re jumping to conclusions.

        Billionaires are treasonous because they live outside the laws of their country, hold power over the government there and gain their money through exploitation

        • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          Were you opposing Musk and billionaires since forever, or are you one of the fresh new liberal “converts” that hate Musk just because he shat upon the toilet of the town square?

          • Blaiz0r@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            Yes since forever, they’ve always been a problem for the same reasons I mentioned above, same story with oligarchs.

            I don’t care about Musk, I feel the same way about Bezos, Gates and whomever else

            • TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              I am usually skeptical of people calling out on posts with such polarised headlines and hypocritical standard. My bad, perhaps you are not one of those people.

  • s20@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    What the hell? Look, man, I hate the guy but he’s remarkably consistent: he works for his interests. Even when he does dumbshit things like buy Twitter, the thinks he’s operating in his interests.

    He’s not complicated. He’s a self absorbed piece of shit. That’s really all you ever need to know about the fucker.

    • Hot Saucerman@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      “Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it,” Altman added.

      From an interview with Sam Altman. It’s grandoise narcissism, plain and simple.

      • d-RLY?@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        Which he is also pretty consistent about. Yet somehow these children’s cartoon evil/greedy businessmen are just handed power and trusted by such a shocking amount of people. It is kind of impressive in a “we’re fucked” kind of way.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      He bought Twitter WITH $22B OF SAUDI MONEY. Should tell you everything you need to know about the purchase, the motivation, and why he’s “doing so badly” with it.

  • arc@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    He posted the other day about being proud American etc. and yet he’s actively giving comfort to hostile adversaries like Russia and screwing US allies. I think if I were the US federal government I wouldn’t touch SpaceX or Starlink with a shitty stick given the mercurial, manchild in charge of them with his own agenda.

  • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one
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    10 months ago

    Remember folks, the rich only care about one thing and one thing only, getting richer. A bunch of these shit heads got together and started actively planning on overthrowing the US government because the election of FDR was going to affect their interests.

    The Business Plot

    • Storksforlegs@beehaw.org
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      10 months ago

      Kind of the same thing thats happening right now, only instead of plotting they are spreading conspiracy theories and rage bating people into supporting them.

    • cobra89@beehaw.org
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      10 months ago

      I’d argue Musk cared more about being able to bloviate on Twitter than he did about getting richer from that transaction.

      Of course there’s the very real possibility that he was foolish enough to believe he could make money on the deal.

    • exploding_whale@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      The irony of this is FDR wasn’t exactly lacking in wealth or at least access to it at any point in his life.

    • FiskFisk33@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      …sometimes, absolutely!

      Youtube is a video hosting platform, just saying a piece of news is hosted on youtube says exactly nothing about it’s credibility.

      Youtube did not create this video, if you want to say anything useful about its validity you’ll have to be a bit more specific about the actual video itself or it’s creators.

      But I guess cheap pot shots make for easier upvotes.

    • stopthatgirl7@kbin.socialOP
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      10 months ago

      A YouTube clip interviewing a New Yorker journalist from a news station’s official channel. 🤨

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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      10 months ago

      Said no one ever, until you just did it right there.

      As they say in Danish “talk about shooting sparrows with cannon-balls”.

      • finally debunked@slrpnk.net
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        10 months ago

        It’s not that simple, you know, ukr soldiers base their camps in inhabited places so after they ve been struck they could blame russians for killing innocent people, well don’t hide behind your citizens then

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      10 months ago

      The only person capable of settling peace is that dictator Putin just stopping their illegal invasion into a sovereign nation.

  • Asymptote@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    10 months ago

    The past half century has been moving production out of the west and into China but it’s somehow just bad when it’s Musk?

    Come on, this circle jerk is getting more retarded by the day.

    • fosforus@sopuli.xyz
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      10 months ago

      Also in a time of moving everything to cheapo countries, Musk founded new car factories in the US and Europe. Also a couple in China, but those were as late as 2019 and 2021.

  • mwguy@infosec.pub
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    10 months ago

    Musk is South African. We should expect his loyalties to reflect his home country more than the US.