If you still think the World’s Richest Man™ is also the Smartest Man Alive™, we’re laughing at you, too.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
If you still think the World’s Richest Man™ is also the Smartest Man Alive™, we’re laughing at you, too.
I want a t-shirt that says “I hated Musk before it was cool”.
@ Erlend Meyer, # 1: If you start marketing them, I’ll buy one!
South African diamond mine heir with more money than South Africa. I mean, what did you expect?
@3 I expected him to be complete asshole, I did not expect this to turn out a Tunguska level desaster!
Was Musk EVER the richest man in the world or is that just an internet meme?
Mordred @ 4 wins!
@5: Yes he was, but that stuff is all fake. Musk doesn’t have warehouses full of dollar bills, he has stock in Tesla and SpaceX. So his worth fluctuates substantially based on stock prices. And also, those stock prices are fake: since he owns so much of it, you cannot buy lots of it on the free market.
Who is the richest person in the world? Top 10 richest people in the world 2022, Elon Musk net worth
I can only frame my experience in clinical terms these days i.e. psychopathy, sociopathy, off the charts narcissistic personality disorder. His acute and overt ignorance of the limits of his personal knowledge breaks the Dunning-Krueger meter.
Tom Tomorrow is great – Bleating into the Blither indeed. Maybe not a bad idea for a social media site. Big Grin. ;-)
@5 @7:
Elon Musk’s Wealth Drops by $8.6 Billion in One Day
There was a bonus panel as well: https://mailchi.mp/232e3b328d37/sparkys-list-how-government-works-625986?e=24b72e3a2c
Slightly off topic, but … what was that visual joke about the kitchen sink supposed to mean? I’m aware of the phrase everything but the kitchen sink so ….. Musk is saying he is bringing everything to twitter? I don’t really get it.
It’s really wierd when a guy you knew you disliked but didn’t really know very much about turns out to actually be vapid tool far worse than you imagine. I mean I didn’t like his business analysis but that didn’t mean he would be vapid or right wing but… gosh, darn if he isn’t utterly vapid and right wing. I mean really vapid.
woozy, it could not have been more literal: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1585341984679469056
(Not worth overthinking that one)
Reginald, fake? So fake he liked Twitter, so he bought it. With fake wealth.
(But any day now, he’ll be a pauper, right?)
Tangential ish but this quote :
Sums of one of this suppsoedly “smart” man’s decisions surperbly. Of course, there is a difference between intelligence and wisdom – and intelligence itself is hard to define – but yeah.
@ John Morales : I’m wodnering if he might up a prisoner rather than apuper perhaps?
Might there be legal consequences for what Musk is doing?
@5. Ray Ceeya : “Was Musk EVER the richest man in the world or is that just an internet meme?”
Not just a meme it seems :
(Yeesh, this blog is weird with adding numbers in lists like this – numbers didn’t appear when done conventionally withdots after numerals here.)
Source : https://www.gobankingrates.com/net-worth/business-people/richest-people-in-the-world/
Published 8 days ago.
See also :
https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/
For a much longer list of billioanires also starting with Musk and Wikipedia (yeah, Iknow but still) has this article :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires
going back over time showing Musk took over from Jeff Bezos this year whilst Bezos replaced Bill Gates in 2017 who replaced Carlos Slim & family in 2013 who replaced Gates in 2009 who repalced Warren Buffett in 2008 etc .. Been a long time since it was the Sultan of Brunei..
StevoR, legal consequences? For what?
Possibly — depending on jurisdiction (I’m thinking EU) — if he breaches data/access laws, but I doubt they’d be the sort that puts him behind bars.
And it’s not like he can’t afford fines.
cf. Tesla’s Elon Musk says tweet that led to $20 million fine ‘Worth It’.
Point being, it’s his business now, he can run it how he likes. Worst that can happen is that he loses a few billions, maybe a few tens of billions.
But, as Reginald holds, it’s only fake wealth, and if so, it’s only a fake loss ;)
Actually, thank you for that. I knew it was literal but “Let that sink in” did not occur to me. For an obsessive/compulsive brain like mine not understanding things like this really bother me. (And, no, it has not been a good couple of decades for me and it looks like the rest of my life is going to be equally frustrated.)
[FWIW: nice to see you around, woozy]
@ 17. John Morales : Misrepresentation to the stock market? Deliberately destroying your own company claiming to want to improve it but actually intending to destroy it seems to be potentially legally dubious to me. False pretences, breach of contract, breach of duty of care to stockholders & employees and the market, labour rights and employment laws – albeit I know the USA is dreadful in that regard so ..dunno? I am NOT a lawyer and just wondering here but surely what Musk is doing – which seems dishonest and deceptive and is using other people’s money as well – is legally dodgy somehow? Aren’t there regulations and things with penalties about taking over companies and then just (seemingly deliberately) destroying them?
StevoR, the takeover was a full acquisition. A buyout.
It’s now a private company.
The company’s stock ticker was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange) on 8th of November.
Are there? In what jurisdictions?
(Do you think maybe Musk can afford to pay the very best lawyers?)
How does Musk have more money than Bezos? Something doesn’t smell right. He has a car company and a couple of websites and a space startup. I’m betting that if you audit his assets you find a lot of missing money. Especially after the Twitter buyout. He paid something like $54B but he’s quickly running it straight into the ground so in a couple months all that money is gone if it ever existed in the first place.
IMO the money I give to my bartender for a pint is real, but those Billions the Billionaires are not. If they were real, then they would be doing something beyond amassing more wealth. Like, you know HELPING PEOPLE SURVIVE.
Ray Ceeya, and yet he bought Twitter lock, stock and barrel with his imaginary wealth.
(What you feel is called cognitive dissonance)
Ray Ceeya @22>
People don’t become billionaires by being concerned with issues like, oh, the survival of others…
It’s an achievement marker that selects for the worst people in the world.
@#23, John Morales:
As people have pointed out to you on other threads, you pointy-headed Musk apologist, he “bought” Twitter by leveraging his stock in Tesla — which has lost about 25% of its value since November 1 more or less because he did so. Since his “wealth” is mostly stock ownership (he even rents living space now, no actual real estate) it can entirely vanish overnight if his stocks tank. (Even more fun: if he ends up selling enough of his Tesla stock to service his loan — which he will probably have to do because Twitter is losing money and he very obviously has no clue how to make it profitable — he’ll lose control of Tesla.)
And, incidentally, apparently the employees at SpaceX have known for years that Musk is actually a moron, and “manage” him by feeding him made-up stuff to make sure he doesn’t actually try to do anything which would change the day-to-day operations of the company. (Given that one of the things he did at Tesla was to make them get rid of yellow safety markings because he doesn’t like the color, which led directly to injuries, that is just par for the course.)
He’s a moron, an analogue of the pointy-haired boss from Dilbert (in fact, since a lot of those strips are based on reader-submitted stories, it’s entirely possible that some of the ones about the clueless boss are about Musk) and if he hadn’t been born rich, he’d just be some mediocre lower-middle-manager somewhere, at best. It even turns out that apparently he’s been lying for years about having a physics degree! Because he has always been wealthy (his parents owned an emerald mine operated by child slavery, because of course that’s exactly where someone like Musk would get his family wealth) nobody has been willing to raise the issue in all this time!
Vicarish, you do amuse me:
Heh. Such acumen!
(What I am is a realist, not an apologist, and — unlike you — not a fantasist)
Ah, right. “bought” it, not bought it. So he doesn’t actually own it.
(So it’s just your imagination that he now controls it)
LOL. The irony!
(It’s Hillary’s fault; it’s Biden’s fault)
I want to press “sike” on that comic like we do on Blither.
@21. John Morales : “Are there? In what jurisdictions?”
I’m not sure. As noted earlier I’m not a lawyer. I just would expect some rules and regs in that area that
you’d thinkI imagined surely would apply here to what Musk is doing / has done. Even with taking the company private. But I don’t know. I’d have to research that.Oh there’s NO “maybe” about it! I cannot imagine any lawyer would be too costly for Musk to afford although whether they’d have ethical reservations about taking him on is another matter.
Here’s a helpful guide for using Mastodon.
https://youtu.be/zV8Q0WOYoag
StevoR:
I’m not a lawyer either, but then, I don’t assert on the basis of what I imagine.
Well, more than one person here goes on about how it’s only supposed wealth, so they kinda deny the possibility.
(Unless, of course, they reckon the best lawyers are the stupid ones who get taken in by a moron)
They’re perfectly safe so long as they only offer him professional advice… which is kinda the point — Musk has access to the very best guidance, should he care for it. He need not access it, he need not heed it… but available to him it is.
—
Anyway, I’ve addressed your #30, and your substantive response is
“But I don’t know. I’d have to research that.”
To which I can but say: yeah. Maybe a bit of research before opining.
[#20, obs. Bah]
Before Scott Adams went over to the dark side, the Dilbert comic strip delivered some good stuff.
Like , what if you feel the things you do at work ought to be illegal?
@ John Morales : “I don’t assert on the basis of what I imagine.”
For a smart person you’re pretty good at missing the searingly obvious – like all the question marks in my #20 that mean I am asking / suggesting rather asserting something.
Eg. Assertion : “What Musk did was a crime.”
Versus asking / suggesting possibilities :
“This metaphorically seems so dodgy, it gives off the vibe of being a crime doesn’t it?”
Language, how does it work again? (Pretty badly for some of us obvs!)
I already noted in #20 that I didn’t know and was asking with possible suggestions for what legal things might be involved.
Your “addressing” is basically repeating and adding extra questions of your own eg your #21 :
So.. did you research and have constructive suggestions there for which jurisdictions eg. New York City jurisdiction, American jurisdiction, International laws? Or did you ask me to elaborate and expand on what I asked whilst stating my own uncertainty and without you providing any factual or solid info of your own there in your “addressing?”
Maybe. But where’s the fun in that?
Do you expect every comment here to be an expert one backed up by hours if not years of research or can people y’know, converse and offer opinions and suggestions and vent and express their thoughts without needing a whole academic treatise on everything?
Musk has already broken laws in the UK and Europe over dismissal with out notice, and expecting people to work long hours without overtime.
StevoR, you might be amused by this:
@ ^ John Morales : Cheers for that! Yes.