Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick, Indra Nooyi to Join Presidential Advisory Council | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk, Travis Kalanick, Indra Nooyi to Join Presidential Advisory Council

reuters.com

210 pointsrandomname2173 comments

So many of the comments here have to do with "his position keeps changing"

I'm not defending Trump personally - but as a concept, lets dig into this a bit.

So someone gets into a position of gaining a vast amount of knowledge over a short period of time from experts and consultants...

Do you expect that their perspective hasn't shifted, or that they will stick to their guns no matter what?

Because that's politics as usual - ignoring new evidence an voting/acting in a manner to support your original stance... never changing (especially drastically)

But isn't the way it should be just this - that new information should inform your decision and, if you're open minded, you should consider changing your stance if the new information supports it?

I'd take someone who changes their mind with new information over someone who sticks their fingers in their ear when information that opposes their viewpoint comes to their attention. Even if their decisions are in disagreement with me, their ability to change their stance says that they are at least making those decisions as opposed to having those decisions decided by what party label they strap on their chest...

There's a difference between changing one's opinion based on evidence and thought... And having, say, mutually exclusive policy positions on the minimum wage during the campaign. (Eliminate it federally, raise it at the federal level, don't raise it at the federal level, let the states decide, let the states decide but it must go up.)

Or mutually exclusive positions on a ton of policy issues: http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/full-list-dona...

There isn't, to me, evidence of evolution or evaluation. Or a rapidity of such that calls to mind comic-book mutation. We can't get the full view into his mind, obviously, but it seems like we don't have access to a base set of principles from which Donny makes his decisions.

Watch what he does and who he appoints. Having a meeting with someone isn't always that substantial. The crazy stuff he says is just for shock and awe value. This is how he controls the narrative and keeps it away from weightier investigative criticisms of his actions Which are far more damaging and substantial. A remark can always be played off as a joke, bluster or banter. His supporters see that, and get a kick out of seeing him troll the media.

This way he makes some off the cuff remark that has people in news and social media tripping over themselves to denounce and loudly proclaim righteous indignation. His supporters laugh, the crazy fringe love him, and the media and the left chase their tail around in circles until he needs to distract them from something else.

Please, name for me one thing that he has successfully distracted the 24 news cycle away from

The silly Hamilton bullshit distracted people from him settling the Trump University lawsuit.

http://mashable.com/2016/12/13/donald-trump-distractions/#.4...

Edit: This also works by keeping the focus on shallow things that can't be legally damaging. The media is in a cycle of reacting to gaffe after gaffe rather than digging into boring details that might lead somewhere.

My favorite one is when USIC released their statement saying they were confident Russia had compromised U.S political organizations to try and influence the election[1] and the "grab em by the pussy" tape was released that same day[2]

1. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2016/10/07/joint-statement-departme...

2. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/10/07/donald_tru...

I'm not so sure he leaked that one. It seemed actually damaging. The DNC/Clinton hacks stuff is win for trump no matter how it ends up because what the leaks exposed is far more damaging than who leaked them.

Those leaks showed that the DNC and Clinton were colluding with the media to give Clinton an unfair advantage in the election. Broaching this subject can't escape that.

I think what happened next was accidental, Trump didn't expect to win. Right before the election He goes out of his way to make claims about how the election was rigged beforehand. This sparked rebuttals from the left including president Obama. Now that he's won, the people recounting and investigating the election look like hypocrites.

If Trump lost all of MI,WI,PA by a fewer than 80K votes, I doubt any Democrat would consider a recount particularly outlandish - especially if he won the popular vote by close to 3M votes.

As for the leak, we may never know who released it. But I wouldn't put it past them. Some people spend their entire lives studying psyops and it may have been a gamble that paid off.

The problem is political interface. How do I vote if politicians can just change their position just a month after the elections? Or if I can't even pin down their position, because they're not sure themselves? What am I actually voting for?

So if you are an issue-based voter, you don't vote for the right person (in which case you'd be principally evaluating their personal qualifications), instead you vote for specific policy positions (here you principally evaluate policy qualifications).

The politician who changes their views according to new information is simply less comprehensible to outside parties. It may be better to be a more easily understood politician who sticks to position in a way that is <too> sticky.

It's an odd time when someone is criticized for changing their mind based on new or changing information.

Changing your mind based on new information is excellent. We should all strive to do this.

Constantly changing your mind based on nothing in particular beyond whoever you talked to last is not the same thing, though.

Trump appears to have no real opinions. He says whatever he last heard, or whatever he thinks the people he's talking to want to hear. For example, he used to be pro-choice. When he started running for President he suddenly became anti-abortion. And not just anti-abortion, but hardcore anti-abortion, talking about jailing women who obtain them. When everybody on his side recoiled from this, he instantaneously backpedaled.

Or take climate change, for example. During the campaign he maintained that it was nonsense, a Chinese hoax, etc. After the election, when interviewed by the New York Times, he said "I think there is some connectivity" between human activity and climate change. And after that, he continued to build an administration utterly hostile to doing anything about it. All while explicitly citing climate change as a danger when e.g. applying for permits to build sea walls for his property.

Pick just about any position Trump has expressed, and you'll see this pattern. He changes constantly, and not based on a careful evaluation of new information, but just whatever the environment happens to be at that moment.

This probably means he's lying and he doesn't give two fucks about the country. Just get power no matter the means.

Have we had Presidents who couldn't have been described thus? Not in my lifetime.

Most of them only lie try to blatantly lie about important things (Or at least, when they feel like there's something resembling a fig leaf they can cover up with.)

He lies just about every time he speaks. We really should not be listening to anything this man says.

There is no point to performing Kremlinology on Trump. There is no consistent narrative, there are no secret subtexts to his utterances, that can be gleaned through careful inspection and comparison. He says whatever comes to mind, which is usually the most expedient thing to say at that particular moment.

That's what worries me about Trump. If he merely lusted for power and was willing to lie to obtain it, like a normal politician, it wouldn't bug me as much. Not that this is good, but it's something we can deal with.

I'm not sure it's even fair to say that Trump lies. He's outright incoherent. The words are just meaningless. Is it even a lie if there's no underlying intent? Consider, for example:

"I don’t want to have guns in classrooms although in some cases teachers should have guns in classrooms, frankly, because teachers are, you know, things that are going on in our schools are unbelievable, you look at some of our schools, unbelievable what’s going on – but I’m not advocating guns in classrooms, but remember, in some cases, and a lot of people have made this case, teachers should be able to have guns, trained teachers should be able to have guns in classrooms."

A normal politician might come out in favor of banning guns from school, then later on say that teachers should be allowed to have guns. That might be a rational change of of heart based on new information, or a response to big sacks of money dropped off by the NRA, or an attempt to pander to a new voter base. But when the change comes in the same freakin' sentence you just can't make anything of it.

I'm not worried that Trump will cause problems because of a lust for power and willingness to lie, I'm worried that he'll cause problems because he seems to be entirely detached from reality.

This is why I'm glad to see these people advising him. Maybe they can influence him in good directions. But I'm not terribly optimistic, because I'm sure Steve Bannon and friends will cancel it out and more.

Not at trump's level, but I agree. Why aren't we doing something about it?

You don't seem to be distinguishing between the things he might be saying as part of his true views and the things he might be saying to achieve some type of goal, so I don't think your interpretation of his behaviour is accurate.

I wouldn't know how to begin figuring out which ones are his true views.

Yet you assume they are negative...

Where did I do that?

No it's not. People have always been criticized for it.

What new information are you talking about?

Are we really seeing an open minded person learning from new information? Or is this simply the standard playbook of populist politcs?

Say anything that wins you the election, regardless of how vile, untrue or unworkable it may be. If you win, come up with some plan that doesn't make the idiocy of your campaign proposals glaringly obvious right away.

(from the press release)

  > Members of the [President's Strategic and Policy Forum] will be charged with
  > providing their individual views to the President — informed by their unique
  > vantage points in the private sector — on how government policy impacts
  > economic growth, job creation and productivity. The Forum is designed to
  > provide direct input to the President from many of the best and brightest in
  > the business world in a frank, non-bureaucratic and non-partisan manner.

There are an initial 16 members on this council, all current or former business leaders.

I wonder if having both Musk and Kalanick on this council signals anything about Trump's position on driverless car regulation, or will otherwise influence it going forward.

The person he's appointed to be Transport Secretary, Elaine Chao, is very hands off (no pun intended) when it comes to regulation, which is likely to be a good sign for driverless cars.

Being hands off about protecting the public is not a good sign for any industry. It allows bad actors to flourish.

But this will conflict with job creation given that the first casualties of autonomous vehicles will be truckers (long distance drivers). So I am interested to see how this actually pans out.

no pun intended? what's the pun?

She's "hands off" when it comes to regulation, which may advantage cars that can drive with "hands off" the wheel.

Ah, I must be a bit dense this morning. I was wondering if she had lost her hands in an accident or something.

I missed it at first too, and started thinking: "I guess she has no hands maybe...?" Then I realized I'm an idiot.

Is it now? Because lack of regulation will not hurt adoption when youll get a completely retarded accident caused by lets say...half blind Tesla lane assist "autopilot" plowing into something at full speed because the obstructiom doesnt take full lane It will take one fucking viral video of something like that

So you say. Autopilot has already been responsible (in part) for at least one death, and hasn't seemed to slow adoption or interest at all. Look at driving itself: there are all sorts of horrible accidents that we see on the side of the road, but we still get behind the wheel every day. People are very willing to accept risk for convenience.

The real backlash will occur when an autonomous car kills a pedestrian or another driver and the wealthy owner of the autonomous car walks away without a scratch.

Even in that situation I would think that in the current climate the circumstance of the accident would also be taken into account by the public / the press. I.e. did it occur in a situation where a human driver might also have been unable to avoid it.

It would take a shift in perception, perhaps caused by mass layoffs resulting from the widespread adoption of self-driving trucks, before people would be disposed to hold self-driving cars to a higher standard than human drivers in order to feel safe. But it is not clear if such a shift in perception will occur. People still love Uber, even though the taxi drivers are upset.

I think that as things stand, most people would be OK with self-driving cars if they were convinced that AI drivers are at least as good as human drivers at avoiding accidents (wherever and whenever AI drivers are allowed to drive).

I'm sure a horse-and-buggy owner said that about automobiles too.

His secretary of transportation is pro-gig economy and pro uber/lyft.

SpaceX depends on government contracts and Elon's companies all seem to be intertwined somewhat financially,so it makes sense he would want to be close to the President.

Uber also heavily depends on gov policy with the contractor/employee debate. Uber is also heavily lobbying governments to privatize public transit which would benefit it.

I also wouldn't be surprised if they pushed for that new in-between employee/contractor designation that they've been claiming is necessary for the new economy.

SpaceX depends on government contracts far less than say ULA; so far SpaceX has had 17 successful private commercial launches and 15 successful government paid launches, and ULA has only had 1 private commercial flight on an Atlas rocket since 2010 (WorldView-3 Digital Globe). And to top it off ULA gets USD1B a year for flight readiness regardless of how many launches it makes (although this will probably go soon).

EDIT: company name fix.

He may depend less on gov contracts than ULA, but he still depends on them, so I'm not sure what point you're making. Not trying to be rude, I would just appreciate it if you would explain it to me, so I can understand what you mean.

I think its more of a response to the growing misconception that Elon's companies are exceptionally and fully dependent on government money in the form of contracts, loans, and tax breaks to its customers. This suggests the companies are being artificially kept afloat on the backs of the taxpayer and are not "good businesses". Reality is, of course, more complicated. SpaceX, Tesla, and SolarCity of course each benefit(ed) from the above, but not any more than their competitors and are not entirely dependent on them. Loans were paid back, contracts were competed and won fairly, tax breaks incentivize desired behavior and are common industry-wide in transportation/energy.

Your original comment could imply that SpaceX is more dependent on the federal government than other launch providers, hitting a sensitive spot for those fighting the above misconception, but that's not the case. Governments have the money and motive to fly expensive satellites (or people) and are the biggest customers for nearly all launch providers.

I get that. There has been a lot of anti-Elon stuff published in the last 6 months.

All these comments about Trump changing his mind or being swayed miss the obvious indicators that he's just following the Putin/Surkov strategy for creating a managed democracy. You destabilize the narrative coherency with opposing, even random, signals (meet with Al Gore, then appoint Rex Tillerson, add Kanye for good measure). As your opponents scramble for some logical imperative along the lines of received political/economic narratives, you dismantle the institutions that oppose you(both literal and civilly constructed), so you can rob and rule however you see fit.

My read is that Trump doesn't have any particular plan beyond fame and feeling important. If that means holding completely opposing views one day to the next, so be it.

This is dangerous, don't get me wrong. And he's absolutely going to get used as a tool in smarter people's schemes. Let's just hope the good smarter people can get control of him instead of the bad smarter people...

He may be an incompetent businessman, but he is not an idiot. After near bankruptcy his current wealth is based on connections and an aura of competence. Basically, he puts his name up but not any wealth while getting a cut of a deal. But, his stick of saying things and then retracting them as 'not serious' statements is a very useful tool.

Over time people notice they heard what they wanted to hear and his words are meaningless signals. But, there is a really long line of suckers ready to believe anyone that says what they want to hear. Making a moonshot for the presidency viable in ways where a career politician would have a long line of failures to follow though using the same approach.

>After near bankruptcy

He declared chapter 11 bankruptcy 4 times.

Edit: his businesses filed 4 times

His companies declared bankruptcy, but he personally did not. I recall some clip where he references walking with his son past a homeless guy and say "that guy has a billion dollars more than I do." referencing his at the time negative net worth. However, he continued to service or refinance that debt without declaring bankruptcy.

PS: This is actually fairly common with real estate fortunes. They are based on leverage so dips can erase fortunes, but if they keep making payments they can get past that and end up positive.

Here, failure and bankruptcy is normally celebrated as part of the process of building successful companies.

That seems more true of small companies than large ones. Pet's.com style failure tends to be ridiculed, but failure at the early stages is viewed as reasonable experimentation.

IMO Theranos, get's all kind of hate in part because it scaled without a real product.

He filed for chapter 11 as an individual? I don't think that's correct, is it?

That seems pretty naïve to me. Remember he is not (solely) acting as an individual but as the front man for interest groups (Army, Exxon etc, not dissimilar to the Cheney gang)

Yes, a major part of Trump's success is convincing both his supporters and opponents that he is the sole conduit through which power will operate. To his supporters, anything untoward among his underlings will be checked by the great man himself, while simultaneously, to his opponents, his obvious character flaws will be his undoing. Both create a false of impression of the need to withhold judgement/action, which allows his agents to continue their work unabated.

> he's absolutely going to get used as a tool in smarter people's schemes

This is already happening. Just see how the president of Taiwan played him, calling him up without going through the state department, in the full knowledge that he was probably not aware that he shouldn't take the call. She essentially forced him into a position where he had to say that changing the relation with Taiwan was his plan all along.

If anyone's playing him, it isn't the President of Taiwan.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bob-dole-trump-taiwan-...

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/henry-kissinger-meets-china-...

I want to bookmark your comment, because I think you are so on point with what is happening.

The greatest threat to the moderate people of this country is our insistent on believing that everyone is good, and that everything will be ok.

We want to believe that so much we don't see the veil that has been pulled over our eyes.

All his cabinet picks, all the things he has done with his businesses are a clear factual indicator of the kind president he will be, yet everyone in these high-minded forums, educated journalists, still want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

It saddens me greatly that so many educated people continue to believe they can work with him, when it's clear that he has no intention of working with anyone, for anyone, but himself.

I think this is because most of us have lived in relatively peace and prosperity our entire life.

I hope I am wrong and that my stupidity will be laughed at in the coming months.

I think that you're overestimating Trump's ability to dismantle institutions, even if we stipulate that he's a machiavellian schemer who's successfully sowing chaos among his opponents by "destabilizing the narrative coherency."

Institutions in the United States, because of our size and emphasis on Federalism, have always existed in a tenuous position from the beginning. Throughout our history, we have seen the large parts of the judiciary, criminal justice system, and in practice, whole state governments collapse in pursuit of things like racial and economic inequity (robber barons, civil rights era south, populist leaders like Huey Long, Mafia control of Providence). By fanning the flames of racial and religious intolerance, as well as economic populism, Trump has set the stage for a similar collapse under whatever local conditions most conveniently serve his interests. Maybe in Arizona, we have to suspend the rule of law because the immigration situation is out of control, in West Virginia it's because of economic conditions, New York is at risk from terrorism. All of these circumstances have some truth to them, which is why the make great pretexts.

And yet, Joe Arpaio lost re-election, New York is still reliably and deeply blue, and it is still the case that nobody at all cares about West Virginia.

If the US is in fact constantly on the brink of collapse, it sure is a wonder we made it this far.

Well, his chief strategist is Steve Bannon, whose stated goal is to destroy both sides of the establishment in a Lenin-esque uprising through misleading narratives and clever media manipulation.

Neat. My stated goal is to have my current stock options be worth $20 million+ in the next three years. It's possible that both Bannon and I will be disappointed.

Well, you're just a dude on the internet, while Bannon got a Trump elected so I'd say his odds of success are a little higher than yours.

His goal is also a little more ambitious than mine. And it's far from clear that Bannon was anything like dispositive in getting Trump elected.

Having a stated goal doesn't mean that you have the means to make that goal happen.

Also: You're just a dude on the internet, but you've apparently deciphered the evil scheme of this master of media manipulation. Are we supposed to believe that you're uniquely talented, or what?

> but you've apparently deciphered the evil scheme of this master of media manipulation.

Uh. He paraphrased, but could've just copy-pasted for same effect. Jeez man, just do a search before you challenge...

> “I’m a Leninist,” Mr. Bannon was quoted as saying by a writer for The Daily Beast who met him at a party in 2014. He later said he did not recall the conversation. “Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal, too,” the site quoted him as saying. “I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/us/politics/stephen-bannon...

Okay, so here's the deal:

Bannon shot his mouth off at some point and made some grandiose claims about his goals. There's no particular reason we should believe them, and no particular reason we should think he's capable of those goals even if he does actually hold them, rather than being something he said to sound cool at a party.

But, if we accept for the moment that Bannon really is going to destroy the state by manipulating the media, and that we should take seriously for just one second that he might be capable of that, we find immediate direct evidence that he is in fact not capable of directing a secret conspiracy to manipulate the media after all: because he told people he was going to do it, got quoted by the media, and ended up in the crosshairs of people like you, who are now presumably going to be watching his sinister schemes and warning other people.

What's with this belief that the only way something can work is if it's kept secret? It's not a "sinister scheme": it's a plan. And it works not because of deception, but because plenty of people believe in it, or are willing to follow it. "Warning" people about manipulation doesn't stop manipulation at all, especially not when the goal is simply to reduce trust all around.

Dismantling institutions will not be done secretly, it is being done openly (which is what you initially seemed to doubt.) There's no secret conspiracy. Secret conspiracies are not the only thing a person could possibly be worried about.

You should proofread your comments before you hit "reply" to avoid easy downvotes and flags.

> stated goal

and

> deciphered the evil scheme

very directly conflict as concepts. The above poster did not have to "decipher" anything because the goal is "stated."

This is probably what they said about many other of the world's worst dictators and human rights abusers until they actually did dismantle all the institutions that opposed them.

But he doesn't have to do any of the dismantling work himself. He's just installing the loyalists and sycophants who already understand that the mission is to raid the institutions/country of riches and integrity. He doesn't even need to openly give them instructions, just nod and say "Fantastic job."

You don't feel like your rhetoric is a little overblown? How does one "raid the institutions of integrity"? Even if that were your explicit job? Do you visit in the dark of night and go to their integrity safe, crack it, and then bring your stolen integrity home to add to your family's integrity store?

At any rate, I wasn't saying that Trump is personally incompetent (I'm agnostic in that respect), and thus that he will not succeed in dismantling institutions. I'm saying that he's a figure within a Constitutional democracy with limited power, who does not have any kind of enormous political support, in a country with a long, stable government, and going up against entrenched interests.

Might he do some damage? Of course. But in general, Presidents break against the entrenched powers in Washington, not the other way around.

Four years from now, we'll have another election and probably Trump will be gone. Eight years from now, he'll definitely be gone. There's no sign that Trump has the ability to dismantle the government in the way that Putin did in Russia.

> You don't feel like your rhetoric is a little overblown?

I hope it proves to be! Also I lol'ed at the integrity safe metaphor.

>I'm saying that he's a figure within a Constitutional democracy with limited power, who does not have any kind of enormous political support, in a country with a long, stable government, and going up against entrenched interests.

But to be serious, I think this response is making a number of dangerous assumptions, which I hear from a lot of moderate voices urging hope/non-alarm/give him a chance. To address them point by point:

- The power of the executive branch relative to the others has steadily risen in the modern era.

- I think he does have significant political support - the senate would likely have flipped if not for the party line support he generated.

- Our "long, stable government" is only 238 years old, not really that significant on any timescale, even compared to other governments in recorded history. And has already included a catastrophic civil war that almost ended it. It's a hard cognitive bias to buck, underestimating our society's fragility.

- Who are these entrenched interests he's going against? The "entrenched interests" of the left, well they may be entrenched, but they don't have trillions or even billions of dollars in their war chests. The actually powerful ones are all going to be represented on his cabinet.

Like I said, I hope I'm being wrong and alarmist, but it seems like the prudent side to err on.

I agree that the executive branch has gained in power recently, and I hope probably against hope that the next time the Democrats are in power they do not continue their long-standing tradition of waving off concerns about the imperial Presidency because probably nobody they despise will ever be President.

Trump is the incoming president with the worst approval ratings in modern history, who lost the popular vote by a considerable margin, and did so after a lengthy public fight with the Republican leadership. He doesn't have "no" political support, certainly. But he doesn't have the kind of overwhelming popular support that might allow him to bend or break the rules that govern him with impunity, certain that his political enemies are too cowed to make a fuss.

238 years is a pretty long time by governmental standards. Our government is much older than Russia's, China's, France's, Germany's, Japan's, etc. Older than essentially every government in South America or Africa. The UK hasn't had an actual revolution in the last 238 years, but 238 years ago it was a genuine monarchy, and now it's not. Etc.

The entrenched interests of Washington are the government itself, and Congress, and they do have all the money they need. Also, money, it turns out, is not actually as big a deal as people would have you believe. Clinton's campaign outspent Trump's about 2:1.

I agree somewhat, but I don't think that it's going to be Trump specifically disrupting institutions, so much as everyone else round him.

They said that about GWB too. No institutions got dismantled. Despite the rhetoric, there is broad, bi-paratisan support for our big institutions: http://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/201....

87% of Americans think there is a "major role for government" in ensuring safe food and drugs. 75% of Americans think the same about protecting the environment. 70% think the same for education. 61% think that about healthcare. The FDA, EPA, Dept. of Ed., DHHS aren't going anywhere.

Americans don't dislike our institutions. They dislike the people running our institutions (74% think politicians put their own interests ahead of the country's).

Exactly. I feel like some of this rhetoric is a little overblown.

That said, there are, I feel, realistic causes for concern. Although GWB didn't "dismantle institutions" he did get us into an unnecessary war with Iraq. Similarly, I'm getting a little afraid with Trump's appointments about what's going to happen in Iran. (That said, had Hillary won, I'd be feeling the same right now, probably, but towards Russia.)

Exactly. The disheartening thing is that he's so persuadable it's conceivable that damage could be prevented, but anyone half decent abandoned and denigrated him during the campaign, and he cares about loyalty, so his inner circle is already self-selected for maximum sycophancy and valuelessness.

All autocratic rulers are some form of a cipher, both for the cabal that does their dirty work and the totalitarian masses that enable them. It's irrelevant whether this is done by Trump directly, his administration, or thugs on the street. You can employ whichever tool accomplishes your aim, then reign it in to give the appearance of political normalcy.

Seems like a sound strategy, but there's nothing preventing people Page, Musk, Gore, Bezos and others from walking out and speaking out in the future.

"We know the man, tried to work with him, but he's a danger to society" sounds better than "we think he will be dangerous".

Page, Musk, et al are the figures at the front of massive economic/political organizations with inertia far beyond their individual moral compunctions. So while you might see superficial defections, the collaboration will continue unabated by the larger forces that drive them.

The more non-sycophants advising Trump the better, I suppose. Maybe Elon can move Trump a bit on global warming?

FWIW, Trump stated in a recent interview that he would keep an "open mind" on climate change. He was probably informed by his advisers that climate change is real.

I believe with politicians, it's better to just judge them on what they do. They make so many conflicting statements(especially now), it's hard to tell where they actually stand, and they prefer it that way.

Trump has appointed an energy secretary and head of the EPA who both believe climate change is a hoax and want to gut any carbon related regulation. The questionnaire they sent to the energy department also makes it seems like they're preparing to purge climate researchers. The only silver lining is that Perry seems to be very open to renewable energy tech based on his time in Texas, and I think the economic argument for it becomes stronger each year, so it becomes harder to deny.

Here's the reality: fossil fuels will only be replaced by something that's more economical (assuming we don't run out, which doesn't seem close to happening). If renewables get to that point, we won't need regulation to get rid of fossil fuels. It'll happen automatically.

His policies seem to change based on who is in the room with him, so I guess it's best to get the right people in that room.

Except that's not how protecting the environment works. You can't undo damage to the environment as easily as you can destroy it. So if in one minute he thinks its ok to do something destructive, in the next minute it will be too late to undo that.

Please keep this in mind.

This applies to other areas of life as well. If you are an undocumented child living in this country. You can't have a normal life if all you know is that Trump might change his mind. You will forever live in fear. That's not fair to anyone.

Oh, I don't disagree.

Which makes his cabinet appointees all the more unsettling.

Agreed.

Because he has an attention span of 5 minutes (according the the ghost writer of his book) We are doomed.

We've had worse, and we've seen worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_and_Sedition_Acts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal_Act

A President Trump very well might be a step backwards, but I'm pretty confident that it will only be a temporary setback.

That it's a "temporary setback" is small consolation to the native Americans.

I'm sure the Holocaust was also just a "temporary setback" too, right?

Godwin's law strikes again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/14/...

>We've had worse, and we've seen worse While true, I'd like think things are different now.

Today he has an open mind, tomorrow he might be a die hard convert, and next week he'll be back to believing it's a Chinese hoax. There's literally no point in taking anything he says at face value.

Trump doesn't necessarily need to believe in climate change; renewables are becoming competitive and make sense from an energy security standpoint. Trump just needs to be convinced that subsidising coal makes no sense. Elon may be able to convince him that the jobs that the renewable energy industry can provide are better than those the coal industry can offer.

I'm slightly shocked that people talk about this as if he truly believes that it's not real.

With most politicians everything makes perfect sense if you assume they know it's real, but they have some narrow selfish reason to pretend otherwise e.g. connections to coal industry.

I'm not sure if it's scarier to believe that he's happy to spread propaganda from the fossil fuel industry, or that he's simply stupid enough to believe it.

(edit: and now I'm considering the terrifying prospect that he genuinely thinks Barack Obama faked his entire life story up to and past Harvard, and was some kind of muslim secret agent plant, which is much more terrifying than him just pandering to ignorant racists on the same topic for years)

You're assuming he either believes a thing (Global Warming, Obama's birth history, etc) is real or believes it is false. He actually doesn't give a single crap either way on anything.

China might help here - if they ramp up their subsidies & innovation in the green energy space, US/Trump will have a lot of motivation to follow suit!

Or by reducing regulation on lithium mines.

Might flip West Virginia back to the Democrats, though. Unless he can find some other way to keep them on board (and I wouldn't put it past him at this point).

Don't know if anyone outside of West Virginia really cares about keeping the coal industry going.

It don't have to be coal - just stable blue collar jobs. Those people that drill in the mines will be as happy building and maintaining wind turbines. Or dams. Or solar.

Also we may be able to use coal for other stuff - has anyone tried to make ground coal into soil with bacteria and worms - with growing soil erosion problem that could be a market too.

If that is true then they should probably have voted for the candidate that promised $30 billion in tax breaks and re-training to lure green energy jobs to their state.

While he told you he would keep an open mind on climate change, he also sent a memo to the DoE seeking the names of every scientist who has worked on climate change related issues.

Personally, I believe a persons actions much more than their rhetoric.

Have you seen his appointments so far? They matter a lot more than an interview, and he is not surrounding himself with people who are going to tell him that climate change is real.

I think the summary is the number of things that Trump has said "in an interview" which are is direct opposition of each other is high. It is unusual to find something he has said consistently in any interview and it is the basis of his appeal (everyone can find him saying something they approved of whether or not they are referring to a time when he said he was for something or when he said he was against that very same thing)

As a result, what he says appears to have little relation to how he actually proceeds.

Or he knows it exists, knows it is an issue, but does not give it priority over all else. He is anti PC, that means he won't fit in the PC box.

My take is that after having won the election, he's moving from saying what wins votes to what helps govern.

I'm really confused by all the Trump haters who assume he's always telling the truth when he says things they don't like.

More likely he's pandering to someone else.

i wanted to believe that but then you who he appointed for secretary of state(exxon ceo), the EPA and rick perry in charge of the department he forgets the name of.

Ya because a bunch of business leaders wont just say yes to whatever business friendly ideas they can exploit.

We're just getting rid of the veneer that business interests don't run the country now.

There was a veneer?

I remember Elon tweeting "Anything but Trump" when someone asked about his thoughts on twitter. Seems that tweet is deleted.

It bothers me that Twitter is frequently considered an original source, and yet comments can be deleted willy-nilly. It's too close to 1984-esque Newspeak. The HN model seems much better: You can only delete comments for some amount of time after initially posting; after that, they're fixed in stone.

(But I am glad this new council is somewhat bipartisan!)

So is this when someone makes a HN post about how he's developing a block-chain based, distributed Twitter alternative?

No need it's already here - https://steemit.com/ . But i haven't looked how it really works under hood. Given recent events with CEO of reddit who did edit negative post about him [1] it becomes more and more actual.

[1]:( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/reddit-ceo-edits-user-co... ).

I didn't know that one, I did use http://twister.net.co/ some time ago (and gave up because of the chicken/egg effect).

Yeah but it's usually archived immediately, especially for popular accounts so there's no chance of denying the tweets existence.

The issue with that is that you have to trust the archive now as well.

I felt the same way, but I'm happy that he can be sensible about it and accept that Trump is President for the next 4 years whether we like it or not. We need to make the best of a crap situation.

It's debatable if trying to make best of this situation is better than hoping for swift failure we can quickly recover from.

Yeah, Elon was very vocally opposed to Trump, in an interview just before Trump's election he said Trump was "not the finest moment in our democracy" and that his character "doesn't reflect well on the US.

Still, these guys are businessmen, and part of being a good businessman is a willingness to put aside personal differences and disagreements and be able to work together.

I for one am very glad to see Trump reaching out to and including those who opposed him in his advisory council.

This remains: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/donald-trumps-character-refle...

Can Elon, Travis influence Trump's policies in any meaningful way by being part of the PAC?

A lot of Trumps plans such as opening up fossil fuel reserves, not believing in climate change (though Trump said he would keep an open mind in a recent interview), going hard on immigration go directly against what Silicon Valley stands for. Will it be possible to influence Trump's plans on these issues? I remain skeptical.

I have a hunch Trump is influenced by whomever is standing in front of him at any given moment.

His attraction to wealth and celebrity might actually be beneficial to the tech scene here. The more he meets with people like Musk, Cook, Gates, hell even Kayne West, the better in my opinion.

Honestly, I think the Democrats could actually turn Trump into a left-leaning President given enough careful attention and subtle manipulation. The GOP has been in a mode of "our way or no way" the last eight years and it's a hard habit to break. It could backfire with Trump.

Given that Stephen Bannon will be the white house advisor, I don't see that happening. Trump seems to trust his advice the most.

In what way? He's a different kind of conservative, yes, but I highly doubt he'd adopt the irresponsible fiscal and immigration policies, for example, of the left.

It seems pretty obvious based on Trump's choices for head of EPA, DOE, etc. that even if he is "keeping an open mind" he is appointing people to positions of power that have anything but an open mind in regards to climate change and environmental stewardship.

His recent interview was probably just political posturing so he doesn't get lambasted by the media while he is making these appointments.

I'm hoping these appointments are political posturing, despite how absurd that sounds.

Personnel is policy.

That is a historically true statement, this situation has strayed from historical norms in several ways.

Yes, I think people are in denial still, hoping everything's going to be okay.

I hope so, we need more libertarians like Travis close to power.

Didn't see that one coming.

I admit I didn't, but 20/20 hindsight.

Trump has been known to wax lyric about "smart guys" and how he listens to them (even though he hasn't really paid attention to the majority of 7bn people). Tesla, by Musk's own admission[1], was doomed to fail - yet he made it work. Uber faces still opposition no matter where it goes and yet still ekes it out. Pepsi took on a Goliath and succeeded. As capitalists, they align very strongly with his vision for America. Trump has shown concern about how complex the office is[2]. He knows that he needs these people.

Musk is an interesting one, specifically. Trump: your harshest critic can sometimes be your greatest ally. Musk: keep your enemies close, change the status quo from the inside. After Gate's little chat with Trump, he might be warming up to climate change (especially because Gates is connected to Trump). There might be a little more to that specific position than merely a businessman who succeeded against all odds, at least I hope there is.

[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-thought-tesla-would... [2]: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/14/trump-reportedly-surprised-by...

Considering that Trump thinks higher of business-men than career-politicians, this is actually not that far-fetched.

Yup. I was expecting tech elites to move to Europe or other liberal place and stick to principles.

Did any of the people in the article, specifically, claim they would move to Europe?

Most of those people only have one principle.

Why not? We're all facing the choice of moving to Europe, or, given the troubles there, a remote cabin in Canada. Musk has apparently, and admirably, considered and rejected those options. Once he's made that call, the only thing left to do is to try your hardest to keep the ship from going too far off course. And if that's your agenda, better get as close to the ship's bridge as possible.

Just sent this note to Tesla Sales:

Please tell your CEO that he needs to focus on one thing at a time. Delivering the Tesla Model 3 as promised should be his ONLY priority. Activities such as serving on a Trump economic advisory panel or thinking about solar shingles are a distraction and a waste of his valuable time.

Thanks, Craig

(Model 3 reservation number xxxxxxxx)

If anyone on earth can multitask, it's him.

Hrm ok. I thought Elon was a smart man

And a smart man would know he has a lot to offer society by advising someone like Trump.

Please no more politics!

I thought we were on a one week long hiatus. If you have the ability, please down vote this article.

Unfortunately, the experiment was ended early. Mostly the mods gave up because it's hard to define politics.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13132782

That experiment would have been over yesterday anyways.

It was wonderful to read about tech while it lasted.

Wow has it still only been a week?

now if he tapped up Elon musk to make the next air force one a reusable rocket that would be cool.

Elon Musk explicitly said it would be disaster if Trump wins and now he is Trump advisor. Hypocrisy and love for money obviously Tr(i)umphed again.

I don't see the hypocrisy. Trump never said he wouldn't be advised by Elon Musk, nor did Musk say he would never advise Trump. Agreeing to advise someone who you didn't want to win the office (but who nevertheless did) is not hypocritical.

Can you explain the hypocrisy?

Elon Musk has a couple of well defined, over-riding goals: to make humans a multi-planetary species and to see humanity move to sustainable power. To those ends he's fully committed. Making a lot of money is one necessary, interim step along the way. As is working with/coordinating with the US Government.

Hypocrisy means he is bad for country but sense he is now in power I'll join him to make my business better and now Trump is not so bad. Saying one thing and doing another is definition of hypocrisy.

> ... and now Trump is not so bad

I'm pretty sure most people's basic opinions of Trump haven't changed.

In fact, I think it's a pretty admirable trait to be willing to work with someone that you might personally detest in order to make the best of a bad situation. The easy but wrong thing thing is to refuse any cooperation if someone you don't like is in power. That's largely what the Republicans in the House have been doing for the past eight years. That's not a way forward, that just deepens divides and future gridlock.

That's as hypocritical as going to New Orleans to help with relief efforts after saying that Katrina would devastate the city. I.e. not even a little bit.

No, it's like doing relief efforts with Katrina

If you can't make it go away, there's nothing wrong with doing what you can to help reduce the impact.

Edit: the dispute here probably comes down to consequentialism versus deontology, as is so often the case. If you think that reducing the harm caused by Trump is what matters, then working with him after opposing him makes sense. If you think that working with him is immoral and that the outcome doesn't justify it, then this would look like hypocrisy.

The best and right thing for Elon ( and anyone other awesome person ) to do is try and influence Trump. Being on his advisory board is a means of doing that.

Maybe he is trying his best to minimize the disaster? That is how I read it.

I'm sure Hillary Clinton would take part in advising him if he asked. I'm not sure where they hypocrisy is.

Advising is not agreeing.

Space travel is an almost certain reality in the near future. If anything Trump wants to be first in line to open an elite casino and Trump Tower on Mars for the ultra wealthy. Elon can make it happen.

I wonder if Mr. Trump will attend, he seems not terribly interested in briefings. Perhaps he will since they are business related instead of intelligence.

Despite how cool Elon's companies are, don't forget for a moment that Elon Musk is just another crony capitalist who likes government money.

Let me fix that for you; "Elon Musk is just another capitalist who likes money."

Minor snark aside, Musk's companies have not availed of any government money that wasn't available to others. And in many cases Musk's companies weren't even the beneficiaries of said government money, quite often that money went to the purchasers of products made by Musk's companies (Tesla, electric car subsidies go to car owners, not manufacturers; Solar City, feed in payments go to the owners of the solar equipment (and yes I realise sometimes that is to finance companies and/or to Solar City)). In other cases like SpaceX they have competed for government contracts and won those contracts.

But at the end of the day Musk's companies typically attract less subsidies (Tesla / Solar vs other car companies / oil / gas / coal companies) or charge the government less for the same work than others (think ULA). So in effect they are better for the government's stated goals than a lot of other companies. And yet at the end of the day Musk's companies need money to survive and grow just like any other company; government or otherwise, and compared to many other companies in their respective arenas their revenue from government contracts can be substantially smaller pro rata.

So in the end Musk's companies will use whatever influence they can (this is called hustle in start ups), and they need money (and do whatever they can to avoid being solely dependent on government cash). And to top it off they actively support competition, even when they could afford to stand still and reduce the rate of innovation.

No argument that he is a Capitalist that likes money. Just emphasizing that he is a special type of Capitalist who is willing to engage closely with government to obtain benefits. The fact that other businesses in his industry may also obtain these benefits he lobbied for is in fact on the spectrum of cronyism in practice:

"Crony capitalism exists along a continuum. In its lightest form, crony capitalism consists of collusion among market players which is officially tolerated or encouraged by the government. While perhaps lightly competing against each other, they will present a unified front (sometimes called a trade association or industry trade group) to the government in requesting subsidies or aid or regulation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism

Actually the push for NASA to use commercial style contracting was started under President Regan (Commercial Space Launch Act of 1984 and followed by further laws under G H W Bush in 1990), while Elon was at Pretoria Boys High School (Transvaal, South Africa); so to say that his lobbying had anything to do with NASA moving to awarding competed fixed price contracts for orbital services rather than using the previous cost plus model of contracting amounts to crony capitalism is entirely wide of the mark and bordering on wholly false.

EDIT: fixed grammar

I don't disagree with the main point of your post, but I do disagree on this minor statement here:

    > electric car subsidies go to car owners,
    > not manufacturers

I don't know the specifics of buying an electric car, but most tax-break subsidies like this do in fact end up going to the manufacturer, just indirectly.

How? Say it costs $10K to make an electric car, and the manufacturer thinks the market will support a 50% profit margin, so they price the car at $15K. Now the government wants to induce consumers to buy this car, so they offer a $5000 tax rebate if you purchase one. The goal is to incentivize customers to think "Wow, I can get this car for 2/3 of what it would otherwise cost me." And if the only two actors in the scenario were the government and the consumer, it would work that way. But the manufacturer is not naive. If they thought consumers were willing to purchase it at $15K outright, they'll still be willing to purchase it at $20K (less the $5K tax rebate). In effect, the price of the subsidized good goes up by some amount close to the subsidy.

I'm not merely theorizing here. I built a house in 2011 and was pricing out HVAC solutions. My subcontractor said conventional heat+AC would cost me $7,000. Geothermal (the energy-saving option) would cost me $21,000. The hard costs of a geothermal system are twice as much as a conventional system (it costs the HVAC subcontractor ~$3,500 in materials for conventional and ~$7,000 for geo), yet the cost to me was 3X! I got similar quotes from multiple subs.

I questioned this price difference, and all the subs said, "Yeah, it's 3X, but there's currently a 30% tax break if you buy the geo system, so it's like it's really only $14K, or 2X".

There should be an economic proficiency test that all legislators are required to pass. sigh

Is Elon musk on HN by chance? That'd be awesome.

Any capitalist likes any money. Being crony or not doesn't change it.

He may very well be a crony capitalist, but he is OUR crony capitalist. And if money is going to be dished out to cc's I, for one, would much rather see it burn on the altar in the Church of Musk than anywhere else.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com