He’s famous for buying distressed commercial properties and for gaslighting, it just makes sense and the whole moral argument was a great way to get people talking about it.
The morality argument is just him rationalizing what he already believes. This isn't the "first principles" thinking that he demands from others.
Tech company profits are declining. Management (especially Boomer management) needs to be seen as "doing something" or they're the ones on the chopping block. So they force everybody back into the office so they can be seen to be managing.
God forbid the cause of declining profits be things like national monetary policy or years of short-term decision-making that propped profits up to unsustainable highs.
No. It must be that Andy works from home. Better bring everybody in to keep an eye on them (to read their faces and find out for sure just how much shit they'll take from you before they quit).
I suspect there are managers panicking about losing relevance in a post-office world, but those will be middle-managers, not CEOs. Much of the panic is from owners of commercial real estate and their flying monkeys in the media who are seeing empty office blocks and declining property values and rents.
As for Musk, who knows. He's in his own very weird bubble of long-terminism or cosmism or whatever it is he believes in. Maybe he thinks if everyone works from home it will lead to a drop in birth rates or decline in Western society or something.
But I also refer to the boards and investors. We'd love to think it's all a young person's VC game, but behind all that money is still, more often than not, someone who panics in Boomer.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like the use of "boomer" as a derogative to be reductionist and ageist, not to mention most of the time incorrect, as I've seen it applied all the way to Millennials.
To be fair, I criticize them for the shit they did when they were my age too, so I'm criticizing them as a cohort, not because of their current age.
Are you sure that the people doing the criticizing are the same people giving out the trophies?
> so I definitely mean it in a derogatory way against people their age
The way you had used it, as commentary on middle managers, seem to include people from Baby Boomers all the way to Millennials.
> I'm criticizing them as a cohort, not because of their current age
In which case it sounds like using the age identifier would be incorrect.
I criticize them as a generational cohort for being the most entitled, wasteful, short-sighted generation that has ever lived, and has done more to screw up the entire world they are handing on to their children than anyone in history.
They have done this at every stage of their lives, but especially once they were old enough to be having children.
I don't mean as a cohort, I mean as individuals. I have my doubts that the exact same person who has given out participation trophies is the one who criticized. I think you are mixing two separate groups into one, by using their birth years as a commonality.
Also, I suspect that participation trophies is a Western creation, perhaps even an American phenomenon, and the Boomers who are not part of those cultures did not participate in those actitivities.
To quote the Princess Bride, "you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means".
Those are filled with people who are clinging to their roles well past their usefulness, because even though they're ruining social supports like Medicare and Social Security by pulling out multiples more funds than they ever contributed, they also failed to save anything of their own or are otherwise refusing to retire and leave the workforce (even though they've already started receiving "retirement" benefits).
FYI, people don't get to "pull out" funds from social security. You get paid what the government computes you'll get.
> they also failed to save anything of their own or are otherwise refusing to retire and leave the workforce
So which is it? They failed to save therefore they can't retire, or they could retire but are "refusing to"?
Remote work => less demand for transportation.
Commercial properties are some of the most valuable assets a company owns, of course the guy wants to keep CRE values up. Just because he owns some transportation companies doesn’t mean he’s allergic to CRE, that’s kinda naive.
That’s like arguing guys at his level don’t donate to both political parties when they clearly do. Because by doing that, you get to own the whole system, not just a piece.
Commercial real estate is foundational in corporate finance. I guess I just don’t this argument that these huge companies aren’t somehow exposed. I guarantee you that if the CRE market tanks, Berkshire is gonna feel it too.
We should assume any public statements on morality from powerful people out of the blue are motivated by a secondary factor.
The man sells cars. He's invested in people commuting.
This is an excellent way to put it and a great observation. I was never able to put my finger on it even though the BS meter was off the charts. Here it is. Thanks.
Without "morally" it's dismissable nonsense (ie. bullshit). With "morally" it requires pulling at strands that make up our world-view.
It's not necessarily a bad thing to question one's world-view on occasion, but causing that level of fundamental questioning, for a comment that would otherwise be easily dismissable, is gaslighting.
(by my opinion of the definition)
If I make a statement that killing is not justifiable even in self defense, and that causes you, who believes that killing is justified as a measure of self defense, to question your worldview, I'm not gaslighting you into believing me, I'm simply sharing a viewpoint. If I repeatedly show you propaganda where innocent people regularly die because they are not allowed to defend themselves, and where people who do are punished, perhaps by being put in mental hospitals, etc. then I'm gaslighting you. Generally gaslighting refers to using lies and other statements that do not reflect reality, repeatedly, to manipulate someone into a false worldview.
I actually think it's dangerous to throw gaslighting as a term around so casually. Gaslighting, very specifically, means to repeatedly question someone's worldview, while ignoring their anecdotal experience, and that of general reality assuming they roughly align, in order to emotionally abuse them into submission or indoctrination. It's pretty serious and ugly. I know it's fun on HN to throw the term around, but Elon (regardless of how much you dislike him, and how many people follow him) arguing that WFH is morally wrong, is not an instance of Musk gaslighting the public at large. Not even really by a fun shot.
For example, repeatedly arguing that you think the idea of unchecked ownership of assault weapons is a stretch too liberal of an interpretation of the 2nd amendment, and that it's crazy to think it's okay for anybody to own one without training, and that you think it'd be a good idea to limit gun ownership and require mental health checks and registered firearms lists of trained individuals, and even that you think it's immoral to allow such easy access to acquire devices that make killing trivial, because it puts too much responsibility in the hands of civilian organizations to protect people from maniacs, which they clearly can't do at scale, and even to go so far as to argue they're insane to think otherwise, is not an instance of gaslighting gun owners or rights advocates into thinking their worldview is broken and in need of an update. But by the casual interpretation, it is, since you're arguing to oppress the liberty of some group of people on practical and/or moral (designation doesn't matter, anything that causes them to question their worldview) grounds.
If I were to refuse to pay my rent. My landlord would post an eviction notice and if I refused to comply, I would likely be arrested or forcibly removed.
Why can’t the landlord “evict” twitter? Does the process look significantly different for commercial real estate? Does twitter provide value to the landlord in some form other than rent? Maybe they’re afraid of bad PR?
The reason this wouldn’t apply to you is that residential real estate vacancies are usually easy to fill, especially nowadays.
That remains to be established. People often have no idea what renter protections are like. If he's in California, he might find that he can't be evicted without the landlord going through a multi-year process.
In his case, it could be solar lighting or else he is not about renewables as he claim to be :)