• @echo64
    link
    English
    16211 months ago

    He isn’t a “really good business man”, everything he’s made is built on a foundation of lies. Eventually, it’ll collapse or be saved by socialised systems for being too big to fail. Musk is a con man, not a businessman. He’s just made a living out of conning investors and the public alike.

    • TheEntity
      link
      fedilink
      31
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      I don’t know, it sounds like the definition of a business man. Not one I’d admire, but not unlike lots of other business men.

      • @echo64
        link
        English
        2911 months ago

        No, businessmen do business. Steve Jobs did business, he figured out markets, created markets based on what his business could provide. That’s actual business.

        A grifter, a con man, is not a business man, they wear the skin of one to fool people like yourself into buying into the con. Looks like it works.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          911 months ago

          Steve Jobs also conspired with his competitors to underpay their staff. Staff as in the people that helped him do business and make billions

          • @echo64
            link
            English
            211 months ago

            Yeah, thats being an evil, good businessman. Worked in favour of the business. Tech workers need to unionize to protect from the business people.

        • Tar_Alcaran
          link
          fedilink
          English
          811 months ago

          created markets based on what his business could provide.

          As much as I loathe musk, this is exactly what Starlink is. It’s a company founded solely to buy the product SpaceX is making, because other people couldn’t buy enough.

          Of course, Starlink is floating almost entirely on venture capital, but that’s how Amazon got started too.

          • @echo64
            link
            English
            311 months ago

            Here’s the rub. Starlink is not and can not be profitable without venture capital and subsidies. It exists to funnel money away from taxpayers. It’s a con built on lies like the rest. At least some people get to benefit from this, unlike people sold overhyped cars and promises of Mars colonies, but that’s changing with price hikes and service degredations too.

              • @echo64
                link
                English
                311 months ago

                What math do you want? The cost of launching infinite space ships forever is more than what subscribers pay. The satellites fall down in about a year and new ones need to be launched. The subscribers would have to pay for every single rocket launch. Right now American tax payers do.

                • @[email protected]
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  311 months ago

                  The problem is you say this with certainty but have no numbers or evidence to back it up. How do you know the revenue from subscribers can’t cover rocket launches?

                  • @echo64
                    link
                    English
                    111 months ago

                    It got almost a billion dollars in subsidies from America last year. This is whilst being unprofitable.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          211 months ago

          My evil, greedy and manipulative capitalist is better than your evil, greedy and manipulative capitalist!!!

          • @echo64
            link
            English
            111 months ago

            My point is that one is a greedy, evil businessman. The other is a greedy, evil conman.

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              211 months ago

              But only if you draw a very careful line around definitions, what musk does is very standard capitalist business and what jobs did is very much the behaviour of a classic conman. Apples whole business strategy is straight out the carnival con artist playbook, you’ll find all the same tricks at any market stall

      • @4realzOP
        link
        English
        -2211 months ago

        True.

    • no banana
      link
      English
      1511 months ago

      I think it was sarcasm.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        111 months ago

        I think that the criticism is that our system does not raise the smartest or the best to the top.

    • @4realzOP
      link
      English
      -87
      edit-2
      11 months ago

      I understand where you’re coming from, but business is brutal and things like this happen in that world. PayPal (formely X .com) was also started by Elon, I don’t think he “scammed/tricked” anyone on that. And he has made billions for his investors over the years. I mean Tesla is worth over $600 billion, due to the marketing genius that is Elon. [Mistake: Elon didn’t start PayPal, just X .com]

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        67
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        Man, learn something about someone before you go worshipping them.

        X was bought by paypal, but was far from “integral.” It was just its largest competitor for Confinidy at the time because Musk was washing it in money he made from a previous venture.Paypal was the more popular money transfer software, and it’s the platform the new company formed around, even taking its name.

        Musk was a actually briefly the CEO of PayPal, but his decisions were so poor that he was forced out.. He still retained enough shares of paypal to hit it big time, which is when he poured all that money into a long shot bet called Tesla, which he used goverment funds and seed capitol from his rich friends to keep alive until it turned an actual profit a decade later. With SpaceX, he leaned into fanboys like you calling him Tony stark, and managed to hire Gwynne Shotwell, a goddamn aeronautics powerhouse, as CEO the same year it was founded. She has brought SpaceX to success, by all accounts in spite of him. Its rumored that SpaceX keeps people around just to sideline Musk. That how disruptive he is to actual work. SpaceX was also utterly dependent on goverment subsides for most its existence, just like Tesla.

        Dude grew up with emerald mine money, then just kept taking outlandish risks because he had an emerald mine to keep his ass housed and fed, and yeah, eventually hit it big, with a big heaping of help from our tax dollars and mega rich pals. Big surprise.

        Turns out that if you have a wealthy life secured, you too can gamble big and make even more money. Thats how capitalism is designed to work. Capital makes more capital.

        The fact that you’re suckered in by the worlds luckiest gambler playing a game that had no actual stakes for him is sad as fuck man. Be proud of someone who overcame actual adversity. Go find a hero that wants to help people, not to rule them.

        • @4realzOP
          link
          English
          1611 months ago

          Interesting, thanks for sharing. I’ll have to do some more research on Elon then.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          1011 months ago

          Don’t forget blatant market manipulation. Pump&dumps on Bitcoin, doge coin, TWTR, and TSLA…

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              English
              111 months ago

              here it is. The whole thing seems rather murky and somewhat shady too. The most specific statement on it is this:

              Arnold’s story included answers from Errol about the mine, who said he had “very limited involvement” in it. Arnold paraphrased his answers, publishing that he said “it was a handshake deal with a Panamanian man that resulted in something like 110 emeralds up front and then a semi-regular trickle of rough stones over a few years following,” and that “there was never formal ownership.”

              The wealth earned from the investment in the mine was quantified to be about $400,000 USD, taking into account inflation when Arnold’s piece was written in 2021, according to Errol. “Errol also quoted a lower number to me over the phone,” Arnold wrote. “He also claims he was getting emeralds from other sources, with only 60-70% coming from this venture.”

              So maybe not a whole emerald mine, but like an unofficial small stake in an emerald mine? Still, 400k ain’t bad at all for a handshake deal.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                English
                211 months ago

                Honestly it sounds to me like there’s an effort to keep his father’s involvement in emeralds a secret.

      • IWantToFuckSpez
        link
        fedilink
        5211 months ago

        He didn’t start PayPal. It was founded by Pieter Thiel, another billionaire christofascist, and four other guys and non of them are called Elon Musk. X.com was bought by PayPal.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          5111 months ago

          It’s wild how little this dude knows about Elon musk while singing his praises to the heavens, but I guess those two things go hand in hand.

          • ZeroCool
            link
            fedilink
            English
            27
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            Muskrats are always the least informed people in the room when it concerns Elon Musk. It’d be a lot funnier if it weren’t so damn easy to find the actual facts. There’s really no excusing it, they’re just willfully ignorant.

          • @FMT99
            link
            English
            2611 months ago

            “Oh yeah he didn’t actually do that… Still, what a genius amirite?”