Current Affairs Elon Musk

[LostLegend]

There's been some interesting studies over the years on the rates of psychopathy and sociopathy amongst high-end, successful businessmen.
The obsessive focus and unempathetic ruthlessness of these people seems to be a strong trait in this line of work:

The Psychopathic CEO

When it comes to the corporate world, non-violent, corporate psychopaths are not running from the law, but instead, rushing to the executive suite.

www.forbes.com

Most telling:

Roughly 4% to as high as 12% of CEOs exhibit psychopathic traits, according to some expert estimates, many times more than the 1% rate found in the general population and more in line with the 15% rate found in prisons.

 

[ChesterBlue]

My argument isnt "Billionaires are nice", it is that many of them are rich cos they provide sommet millions of folk use or buy. Taxation of them etc etc is a totally different issue. The Ineos bloke, Peter Hargreaves and Steve Lansdown, Stoke owner, JCB bloke all do/did sommet that made them rich. Sure, there will be some generational ones, but very very few family's start life as a Billionaire one.

That’s a fair point and I agree we do need people to innovate. However, we also need them to contribute meaningfully to society. I’d have much less issues with someone who came up with a great invention who personally made say 100 million, but paid their workers well, treated their workers well, gave them a say in the business, and paid their taxes. That would be actively doing good for society as a whole, and not absolutely hoarding everything for themselves.

 

[roydo]

That’s a fair point and I agree we do need people to innovate. However, we also need them to contribute meaningfully to society. I’d have much less issues with someone who came up with a great invention who personally made say 100 million, but paid their workers well, treated their workers well, gave them a say in the business, and paid their taxes. That would be actively doing good for society as a whole, and not absolutely hoarding everything for themselves.

Your final sentence leads us to the outlier I agreed with you about; the corrupt ones.

I have worked for a Billionaire, well 2, the Barclay brothers, who treated me well and paid me fine. I know plenty who work at Hargreaves Lansdown, and they are great employers, and I have dealt with Dyson in business, and again, he was sound.

 

[Walken]

I was told the other day he invented pay pal or sommet similar. I am not defending him, he seems a pretty crappy person, but folk like James Dyson did invent his vacuum, Branson did start Virgin Record etc etc, Gates did pioneer windows and MS, Zuucherman (?) did invent Facebook, Bezos did found Amazon, Steve Jobs at Apple.

And they all did it single handed, with no help or work from anyone else. Also, not one single person you mention has 'invented' anything that comes close to being a necessity aside from perhaps Gates. I mean virgin records hardly altered the course of humankind.

 

[Amw79]

Musk: Sacks Twitter board, massive firing of staff via email, and tweets conspiracy theories about Paul Pelosi in his first week as boss.

Advertisers: ‘Yeah, we might reconsider our contracts with this company.’

Musk: ‘Activists are making advertisers back away from Twitter. They’re trying to destroy free speech!’

 

[ChesterBlue]

Your final sentence leads us to the outlier I agreed with you about; the corrupt ones.

I have worked for a Billionaire, well 2, the Barclay brothers, who treated me well and paid me fine. I know plenty who work at Hargreaves Lansdown, and they are great employers, and I have dealt with Dyson in business, and again, he was sound.

Exclusive: Dyson faces legal action over ‘forced labour’ and exploitation

More than a dozen workers making products and components for Dyson are taking legal action against the company, alleging a string of labour abuses at a supplier in Malaysia, a Channel 4 News investigation can reveal.

www.channel4.com

Barclay brothers lose £1.25bn tax case against HMRC

Supreme court rules the taxman will not have to repay Barclay-owned Littlewoods more than £1bn in interest on historic VAT overpayments

www.theguardian.com

To be fair mate, I’ve worked in corporate my whole career, and have only been really appallingly treated by one employer. However, that doesn’t change me to the fact my employers were/are definitely not ethical. You could argue that if that’s my view I perhaps shouldn’t work in the industry I work in, but unfortunately after 8 years of my career I can’t afford to start again from scratch as I have people who depend on me, and my income.

 

[Lobster Johnson]

Musk: Sacks Twitter board, massive firing of staff via email, and tweets conspiracy theories about Paul Pelosi in his first week as boss.

Advertisers: ‘Yeah, we might reconsider our contracts with this company.’

Musk: ‘Activists are making advertisers back away from Twitter. They’re trying to destroy free speech!’

"Only I may decide what free speech is!"

 

[roydo]

Exclusive: Dyson faces legal action over ‘forced labour’ and exploitation

More than a dozen workers making products and components for Dyson are taking legal action against the company, alleging a string of labour abuses at a supplier in Malaysia, a Channel 4 News investigation can reveal.

www.channel4.com

Barclay brothers lose £1.25bn tax case against HMRC

Supreme court rules the taxman will not have to repay Barclay-owned Littlewoods more than £1bn in interest on historic VAT overpayments

www.theguardian.com

To be fair mate, I’ve worked in corporate my whole career, and have only been really appallingly treated by one employer. However, that doesn’t change me to the fact my employers were/are definitely not ethical. You could argue that if that’s my view I perhaps shouldn’t work in the industry I work in, but unfortunately after 8 years of my career I can’t afford to start again from scratch as I have people who depend on me, and my income.

That was a overseas company that supplied Dyson. The Barclay one was HMRC taking too much VAT, not them swerving it. Unless I missed sommet.

But either way, we have moved on from your initial point that Billionaires are all baddies.

 

[ChesterBlue]

That was a overseas company that supplied Dyson. The Barclay one was HMRC taking too much VAT, not them swerving it. Unless I missed sommet.

But either way, we have moved on from your initial point that Billionaires are all baddies.

I think it’s best that we just respectfully agree to disagree on that point mate, I don’t think either of us are likely to shift our view

 

[LinekersLegs]

Musk: Sacks Twitter board, massive firing of staff via email, and tweets conspiracy theories about Paul Pelosi in his first week as boss.

Advertisers: ‘Yeah, we might reconsider our contracts with this company.’

Musk: ‘Activists are making advertisers back away from Twitter. They’re trying to destroy free speech!’

His pinned tweet is this.


Just spitballing here but perhaps advertisers see this biased framing as a major red flag, along with the posting of gross conspiracy theories and flirting with far right groups, of how the he plans to run the site. And if they wanted to market to that group there are, despite the complaints, lots of sites for that including GAP, Parlor, Truth Social, Fox news, newsmax etc.

Also him whining about how unfair people are to him and his new company at the same time as thousands are getting fired without legal notice is very on brand.

 

[Amw79]

His pinned tweet is this.


Just spitballing here but perhaps advertisers see biased framing as a major red flag, along with the posting of gross conspiracy theories and flirting with far right groups, of how the he plans to run the site. And if they wanted to market to that group there are, despite the complaints, lots of sites for that including GAP, Parlor, Truth Social, Fox news, newsmax etc.

That’s it. Companies (in most instances) aren’t making decisions from a moral position, they’re looking at the bottom line.

I’d be a bit reluctant to have a major association with Twitter at the moment given that I’m expecting a pretty massive increase in abusive, bigoted interactions, on what is already a pretty abusive, bigoted platform.

Companies have looked at what he’s done in his first week and thought ‘F this guy. I don’t want my company reputation damaged by association when it hits the fan’.

 

[ChesterBlue]

His pinned tweet is this.


Just spitballing here but perhaps advertisers see this biased framing as a major red flag, along with the posting of gross conspiracy theories and flirting with far right groups, of how the he plans to run the site. And if they wanted to market to that group there are, despite the complaints, lots of sites for that including GAP, Parlor, Truth Social, Fox news, newsmax etc.

Also him whining about how unfair people are to him and his new company at the same time as thousands are getting fired without legal notice is very on brand.

Apparently (I deactivated my account when Musk bought it) since he bought it tonnes of people have been posting racial and homophobic slurs all over the place. Advertisers probably don’t really want their ads anywhere near a bunch of knuckledraggers posting “kill all [insert slur here].

 

[LinekersLegs]

That’s it. Companies (in most instances) aren’t making decisions from a moral position, they’re looking at the bottom line.

I’d be a bit reluctant to have a major association with Twitter at the moment given that I’m expecting a pretty massive increase in abusive, bigoted interactions, on what is already a pretty abusive, bigoted platform.

Companies have looked at what he’s done in his first week and thought ‘F this guy. I don’t want my company reputation damaged by association when it hits the fan’.

Even if the advertiser was OK with the reputation risk (very unlikely) the fact he is slashing 50% of the workforce and asking for drastic cuts in infrastructure will presumably have an impact on more prosaic aspects such as system downtime, response times, resolving technical issues etc.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Apparently (I deactivated my account when Musk bought it) since he bought it tonnes of people have been posting racial and homophobic slurs all over the place. Advertisers probably don’t really want their ads anywhere near a bunch of knuckledraggers posting “kill all [insert slur here].

Free speech baby!!

And advertisers can also exercise their free speech rights by not using his platform!

 

[Ruairi77]

Apparently there’s a loophole in that CA employment law to allow for sudden redundancies if a company undergoes a sudden major loss of earnings.
he‘d never normally publicly moan about a major loss of income.