Elon Musk

seems like we should have a thread on this guy, idk

Who he?

It's really an anagram of "Nole Skum."

Suk Lemon

ahe's kinda like tony stark, so i gather from ten mins research, but without the weapons and with clean energy and space

it's kinda surprising he isn't more well known all things considered

seriously. if wiki is even half-accurate shouldn't he be a fixture on Time mag or something?

His family sound really annoying. Was married to, uh, somebody who was in that St Trinians film, uh, the one with Russell Brand.

You realise that if he was ever to become involved in some sort of scandal and subsequent cover-up, newspapers could use the headline, "Elongate"

if he was caught cheating he'd be THE MUSKRAT

dude owes his company's survival to gov programs but
says it's no big deal if Romney wins and makes good on his promise
to obliterate them all.

lots of companies do well out of govt contracts/programs, i'd imagine.

so hyperloop huh

people on twitter so mad. trying to understand why. i guess it boils down to:

1) shouldn't we fix BART / buses / systems that working class people use before building toys for rich people

2) LA-to-SF only is ridiculous, there's like a whole state in there

3) nobody wants to hear half-baked plans from an arrogant rich dude

still, i mean, it's pretty cool, right?

1) shouldn't we fix BART / buses / systems that working class people use before building toys for rich people

There are lots of problems everywhere all the time. Can't let it stop technology from moving forward.

2) LA-to-SF only is ridiculous, there's like a whole state in there

There's a whole country, even! LA-to-SF sounds like a perfectly fine beta test.

3) nobody wants to hear half-baked plans from an arrogant rich dude

Not all rich dudes are arrogant. Elon Musk has never struck me as anything close to that.

people on twitter so mad.

who do you follow?

i'm not getting that impression from all the tech ppl i follow

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

You might be right, Johnny, dunno. I was just trying to figure out why there was this explosion of contempt all over my twitter feed after the announcement.

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

i do follow tim but i guess whatever he said didn't stick

cool monorail bro

lol

i have a plan for a train that goes from boston to atlanta in 10mins, its called lasertrain and ill give you some cool drawings of it in a couple weeks, its ridiculous no one is building it btw it only costs $10

im not gonna build it tho cause im kinda busy

even i can afford that

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

isn't his point that hyperloop would be fraction of the cost and twice as fast?

the douchey thing is that he made a big ol deal abt something thats not at all real

Which is how 70% of architecture and urban planning works.

sure 70% that sounds totally realistic too

I meant 94% sorry.

To me, it really sounds like a kickstarter project... but from a billionaire.

i mean who knows maybe its revolutionary technology but its so preliminary its p comical to call a press conference abt it

maybe this is the best way to convince someone else to give it a shot idk

LOL "elon musk"

This should keep us occupied for a while: http://www.spacex.com/hyperloop

markers, here are some of the people that were entertainingly scathing: kalebhorton, quartzcity, tcarmody, mikesonn

I wasn't scathing about Musk (I am about futurism in general) - if anything, he has a good track record on quixotic tech quests. I hope he's successful with this. I also hope there's a state left that can use it.

unveiling this while CA is deep in the hole with it's bullet-train project (something I support wholeheartedly btw) is pretty arrogant

Knowing how CA politics works (and the CA rail projects are amazingly political), how would you expect a non-arrogant to even get traction with this?

I have no doubt that Musk will solve the Hyperloop technical issues. I very much have doubts about him navigating Sacramento.

I was describing this to my wife today and kept calling it Supertube.

Bad connotations...

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/supertrain-1_7696.jpg

lol @ the "open source" pdf proposal. build a section of the thing and then get back to us when you have it working.

Musk says the Hyperloop is best for distances of 900 miles. Beyond 900 miles, he thinks you're better off in a supersonic jet.

Lol

I never use my supersonic jet anymore as parking is always a total bitch

I have to say I rather like Elon Musk. He's made a massive pile of money and rather than sitting on it or managing it in mundane ways; he's making risky bets on thinks he's passionate about: Cars, Rockets, vacuum tubes.

Hyperloop seems a bit ridiculous to me, vacuum tube powered trains and trains in evacuated tubes are an old chestnut, almost as old as railways themselves. However, he's built a commercially viable private space programme and a car company* in the last ten years so anything is possible.

*Tesla isn't really a car company it's a power train company and if it is still making cars in 5 years I'll be surprised.

ya i'm kinda ll for crackpot genius billionaires actually doing interesting stuff, up until they become str8 up supervillains obv

lol @ the "open source" pdf proposal. build a section of the thing and then get back to us when you have it working.

― wk, Tuesday, August 13, 2013 2:23 AM

he might do this

is this dude one of the crazy silicon valley libertarian types or is he just beloved by them?

iirc he has liberal tendencies mixed in w the libertarianism

xp I heard him speak and he seemed not crazy and to have some kind of social or at least environmental conscience, unlike the usual libertarian types, but maybe he's just better at hiding it

(I like him too fwiw and right now he seems one of the most likely "crackpot genius billionaires" to solve some hard problems which are overdue for solving, so I hope he carries on with that. Also hoping that one day I'll get to see/read his computer game that appeared in some 8-bit micro type-in listings mag in the 80s)

he's not as bad as some of the other silicon valley libtards, I'll give him that.

nonetheless, this is a stupid proposal

trillionaire no more

Elon Musk was no longer a trillionaire by the time markets closed on Wednesday. Plunging shares in Tesla and SpaceX dragged the tech magnate down to billionaire status. As of 4pm ET, Forbes listed Musk’s net worth as $970.2bn.

I honestly don't understand this. Surely he isnt cash-money a billionare, isnt it all pie in the sky "money"? Isn't everything a house of cards of loans upon loans? How does that make him a billionare let alone anything more?

those data centers in space should be ready in 2 maybe 3 years

I honestly don't understand this. Surely he isnt cash-money a billionare, isnt it all pie in the sky "money"? Isn't everything a house of cards of loans upon loans? How does that make him a billionare let alone anything more?

Well he's hardly an outlier there, that's much of the world economy aiui.

Learned recently about bridging loans, which loan out high sums w/ exorbitant interest to a category of rich people known as "asset rich, cash poor".

I'd say it's a lot less pie in the sky than a month ago. Back then SpaceX could say "Well the company is divided into 12 billion shares, and Elon has 6 billion of them and we've been trading some of the rest with private investors for money and providing them as bonuses for the employees" and everyone else would be like sure, do what you want - both of those interactions would have come with the proviso that the receiver couldn't legally resell it, so they only had the value that SpaceX said they did.

And now they've said well we'll release 500 million of them on the open market, where they can be bought and sold, and we hope to raise $75b, which would be about $150 per share (I'm rounding some of the numbers a bit) and that's about what the price is, if you want to buy then someone will be willing to sell for a little higher, if you want to sell then someone will be willing to buy for a little lower. So the calculation is just that he has 6 billion shares at $150 each: $900b. Of course, if he tried selling all of them then the price would crash, but if you just want to answer the question "what's his net worth from SpaceX?" it's not arcane financial calculations: it really is just x times y.

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:bmfpkqzxtmm3wkrpcizzvuoz/bafkreidjog5l4dhbmjksq2i7sa7wyplmvjk5olwz2k4mqtml5jvm7js7p4

i knew that was bullshit even then

(as someone who works for non-federal gummint)

if we had a functional government this asshole would be ruined and in jail for his obvious fraud and stock manipulation.

guess a verbal agreement isn't etc etc

I just got a verbal to to build a Futurama space tube from Mars to Austin in 15 minutes.

You'd better stop posting and get a move on then

Quiet, you, I'm busy tubing!

I haven't seen the Economist site interview with Musk but this site offers an analysis /summary

https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-economist-interview-2000790016

Elon Musk sat down with the editor-in-chief of the Economist for a taped interview that went live Thursday...

...When Beddoes asked Musk about his time with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), he got extremely defensive. She pointed out that people had suffered and died from the destruction of USAID as an agency. Not only did Musk insist that no one died, but he also said that USAID’s functions were transferred to the U.S. State Department and all he did was get rid of the fraud. In fact, there have been many deaths from the cuts to foreign aid...

...Musk defended his actions but really flew off the handle after Beddoes asked about the contradictions Musk seemed to present. She noted that Musk talks about this utopian world that’s just over the horizon, with humanoid robots and AI doing all the work. But how does he square that with the idea that Europe is a hell-hole of immigrants ruining everything?

“On the one hand, we started this conversation, and you described to me this extraordinarily transformative, amazing civilizational changing stuff that’s happening in the next 10 years. And yet you’re also, you know, an ongoing participant in the worst kind of tribalism… cesspit of social media.”

Beddoes asked how he can believe in these “two very different views of the world.” Musk simply responded, “I don’t think they’re inconsistent,” without elaborating further.

there are many irritating things about the guy but whining about the "cesspit of social media" has got to be near the top, the man bought and singlehandedly ruined one of the better social media sites out there by turning it into a Nazi paradise, which would at least make some sense if he would just admit to being a Nazi, but instead he's still like "oh my god I can't believe people are still saying I did a Hitler salute, I'm as anti-Nazi as you can be"

The only way most of this white supremacist and nazi shit gets as much traction as it does is through the persistent apoeals to plausible deniability.

People should be judged on their actions above and beyond anything else, and this guy has been all hat and no trousers for so long it is insane. There's been no Boring tunnels. No Mars landings. No cleanup on Twitter. No success with the cybertruck. He's a fucking joke.

don't forget the poor embattled Afrikaners that he led to safety, like a Boer Moses

He’s so deep in denial about the physical world existing outside of his immediate attention that he wants to deny any effect, and has waved off statistics and charts showing the effects of USAID cuts to the point it seemed you’d have to dump actual dead people on his doorstep previously, but I think it’s finally getting to him. He’s making daily life worse for people on the planet and his extraterrestrial dreams won’t get there in his lifetime, and he has no real heirs to do so dynastically. His DOGE cronies were chuds and his actual children don’t like him.

The funniest outcome would be a misguided attempt to neuralink his brain into one of those useless robots at which point the robot and his brain both explode

was he actually empowered to cut USAID, or just making 'suggestions'? I can't remember how all that went down

the outcome is the same regardless

From the Economist:

“Musk insisted backyard tomatoes weren’t as good as those you can buy from the store, but people still do it anyway.”

I know this guy is constantly plopping out mouth turds, but fucking come on, man. First time he mentions a vegetable in his life and he fucks it all up.

I think he’s being honest when he says his views aren’t inconsistent. He hates human beings and Earth, he fantasizes about robots and Mars. Those are part of the same vision.

he should grow a tomato on Mars and give us all a report

oh also this guy apparently promised to have Grok create a """""historically accurate""""" version of the Odyssey, possibly directed (?) by Mel Gibson (???)

Beddoes asked how he can believe in these “two very different views of the world.” Musk simply responded, “I don’t think they’re inconsistent,” without elaborating further.

he doesn’t elaborate further because the thing that bridges his dystopian present to his utopian future is of course mass death, which is why all these guys are so all in on any policy that might hasten or intensify that

if you’re the editor-in-chief of the economist you’re working at a very high level of professional dedication to not understanding that tho so a real meeting of the minds here

this guy is as close as we've gotten to producing an actual supervillian, Trump is plenty evil obviously but I mostly think he cares about himself, his racism is more of the "I don't care if they don't bother me" variety, Elon seems like someone who gets genuinely giddy at the prospect of genocide

No success with the cybertruck.

I wish. I feel like I see at least a few of these every time I drive around greater Vancouver. The first time I saw one, I thought hmm, that's a sickening novelty, I hope it is never repeated. Then I kept seeing more and more of them.

Notably, among dozens of sightings, I have only seen two instances where something was visibly being transported in the truck bed.

How many of those times was the thing being transported a broken off piece off cyber truck?

How many of those times was the thing being transported a broken off piece of cyber truck?

How many of those times was the thing being transported a broken-off piece of cybertruck?

only you can make it so

every town has a few fascist Musk stans, and/or clueless rich dorks who have not updated their .xls since around 2014, and these people all bought Cybertrucks. the hideous monstrosities are highly visible, so you're aware of their presence. but sales-wise it was a huge disappointment.

if the stock market and "the economy" functioned the way they're supposed to, it would have ruined him as badly as the car Homer Simpson designed, or at LEAST be the punchline on top of "he was left ruined and penniless, after his many failed schemes and stunts, and his ultimate imprisonment, made him synonymous in the public mind with empty promises and delusions of grandeur."

Those cybertrucks, first, they largely look the same, so I wouldn't even know if I saw three cybertrucks around town or the same one three times, lol. I'm not even sure I've ever seen two of them in the same place. Second, they look stupid, so they catch my attention, which magnifies their presence (the same way seeing a Hummer or PT Cruiser catches my eye). Third, I assume a lot of people ordered them in advance and are now stuck with them financially. I can't imagine they are easy to sell/return. But yeah, these things are not a growth market, and for all I know many of the ones I see were sold at a loss and/or massive incentives. That's certainly why I see so many Teslas, including the ones with "Elon Sucks" stickers or whatever. They lowered the prices and raised incentives, and people on the fence went for them. I do know two people that sold their Teslas, and Elon was at least one factor in that, but I assume those cars are easier to get rid of at this point than the stupid cybertruck. Which, btw, is called the cybertruck.

Tesla started delivering its unusually angular Cybertruck in 2023. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk called it the company’s best product ever and estimated the carmaker might build more than 250,000 annually, depending on demand. Tesla sold less than one-sixth of that number in its first year, and the truck’s blocky looks became a punchline.

Edsel sales dropped each year the model was on the market, and Ford discontinued the car in 1959. Cybertruck sales are off to an even worse start. Only 7,133 have been registered in the US this year through May, according to S&P Global Mobility data provided to Bloomberg News. That count is buoyed by Musk’s other companies, with SpaceX building out a fleet of Cybertrucks.

https://archive.ph/fSNxC#selection-1843.0-1847.374

Other reporting says that Tesla sold about 39,000 Cybertrucks in 2024, and only 20,000 in 2025. At the pace through May, they might sell 15,000 or so this year.

So allowing for fleet purchases etc, there are maybe 55,000 or so of these on the road total.

I wonder how that compares to something like Lamborghinis.

Lamborghini doesn't have a pickup truck and they cost a lot more than a Tesla.

Model - Price Range - # Vehicles Delivered 2025

Urus - $241,843 to $280,736 - 7,808
Revuleto - $604,363 to $800,000+ - 2,096
Temerario - $382,000 to $386,649 - 843

Oh, but in terms of sales over time? It looks like Lambo has been trending upward.

2025:
https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/news/lamborghini-sets-2025-delivery-record-with-10747-cars

2024:
https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/news/lamborghini-celebrates-a-record-year-with-10687-cars-delivered

2023:
https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/news/automobili-lamborghini-over-10000-cars-delivered

2022:
https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/news/lamborghinis-record-breaking-2022

if the stock market and "the economy" functioned the way they're supposed to, it would have ruined him as badly as the car Homer Simpson designed, or at LEAST be the punchline on top of "he was left ruined and penniless, after his many failed schemes and stunts, and his ultimate imprisonment, made him synonymous in the public mind with empty promises and delusions of grandeur."

This is something I’ve been thinking about lately. There used to be a chance that a very rich person would take a big risk or make a big financial mistake and be “ruined” and end up penniless. To the extent that it became somewhat of a cliché- the Monopoly guy turning his pockets inside out; the robber baron ending up wearing nothing but a barrel. The risk was there that a hugely wealthy person could lose everything in the process of trying to increase their wealth, or in the pursuit of some personal vanity project. I think this possibility and the stereotype that went along with it made it easier to mock and/or disdain the rich, and fed into some level of antagonism and feelings of class conflict, and hoping for the wealthy to fail.

That risk is gone now- the wealthy have applied their money and leverage over the years to turning our economic system toward the current situation where they no longer have that risk. All of the risk has been transferred to the consumer or the common person. Anyone can be ruined- whether it be due to a health crisis, a bad financial decision, or an economic crash- anyone except for the very rich, that is. They will weather every storm and in fact will only get richer even in what would have previously been a ruinous situation.

I mean there are some exceptions; every once in a while someone will go to prison for financial crimes- but they generally don’t lose their wealth, it just gets managed while they serve their time- or more likely, they get pardoned and are allowed to go right back to what they were doing before.

I would actually like to hear of some historical cases of very rich persons losing it all - it is indeed a pop culture cliché but it's never happened within my lifetime that I know of. Obviously it's a big part of Great Depression mythology but the names don't seem to have survived.

coincidentally, Bloomberg just published a feature about how USAID cuts affected water and sanitation projects in Kenya. (one of the people quoted is a woman my wife used to work with, who later became a USAID official in East Africa.) although there has been a lot of focus on programs that provided life-saving medications (and whose termination led directly to deaths), even the abrupt cancelation of an irrigation project led to increased flooding that produced a spike in diarrheal diseases among young children and a loss of livelihood for people in the area who were dependent on agriculture.

https://archive.ph/LKcUL

The Economist ed in chief rips him a new one in a new interview

the rich as a class are all about mutual aid, “no one left behind”, and have class consciousness to boot.

the main issue as I see it is that for middle and lower class people the economy is a very real thing, it limits what choices you can make and if you're one of the 40-50% or whatever living paycheck to paycheck you're just one random event from being in a dire spot where your only option is a GoFundMe, whereas for the rich the economy is basically entirely made up, companies like Tesla or OpenAI can be valued at insane amounts based on some kind of imagined future value with no relation to reality, you can commit blatant fraud and bleed dry anyone who tries to sue you, or better yet just buy off everyone who would investigate you. I can't really think of any rich people who "lost it all" either by making bad decisions, the only people who come to mind are maybe like Scottie Pippen and MC Hammer, but the problem definitely is worse now thanks to stuff like cryptocurrency which is a whole new source of entirely fake wealth, or these AI companies taking in billions and billions of investments creating products nobody wants that need data centers that everybody hates. it's an idiotic and obviously bad system, as evidenced by the fact that it keeps elevating the dumbest and most evil people, no wonder we're ruled by pedophiles right now we've created an economic system which rewards those who are willing to abuse and defile anyone and everyone

https://bsky.app/profile/jim.chat/post/3mrfim2p6yd2s

That seems to have been removed? I have a subscription to the Economist through my workplace though, so may well be able to enjoy Elon's contributions to the world regardless.