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Comment by ldbooth | Hacker News Reader

I just wish this guy would take the loss and sell twitter and go back to being an uncontroversial tech legend. Mixing with Social media has corrupted every positive thing he has done and maybe will do if he keeps it up at the current pace. People tire of the drama king. If you don't know what I mean.. he said his transgender child is dead to him in a publicly aired interview. That's where this guy is in his personal relationships.

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I never thought I would miss old Elon. Can't we get back to pointing out why Mars colony isn't going to happen while secretly wishing it happens?

Drama is the only way for him to continue covering up the massive Ponzi that his businesses have evolved into.

Tesla won't last much longer. Their numbers are objectively terrible, and they're puffed up, the truth is even uglier. Boring is losing money fast, X is losing money fast, xAI is losing money fast, NeuraLink is losing a bit slower, but losing. SpaceX is propped up by US govt and Starlink is the only real asset here, and governments around the world won't permit a private company led by a lunatic to have a monopoly on the world's communications, so Elon is really in a VERY BAD NOT GOOD AT ALL situation.

I will say on the positive side ... Starlink/SpaceX is a huge asset. And the Tesla Energy Megapack has a huge forward market opportunity (utility grids are just getting started with battery energy storage for smoothing out renewables). And the Tesla charging products are the gold standard.

Li-ion batteries will quickly show themselves a terrible way to smooth out renewables. I mean purely economically. Initial cost, unreliable range in hot or cold weather, and over time.

Although considering they needed helicopters dropping 50 tons of water over ONE BURNING TESLA SEMI for like a full day, imagine when a megapack catches on fire. Oh my God, it will scorch the skies of the entire f*kin' planet. I'm kidding (I hope), but you get my point.

Yes SpaceX is the key asset 100%. But he can be kicked out of SpaceX if he keeps upsetting Some Important People, and he's a deeply unserious man-child, and he doesn't know when to stop.

>>I just wish this guy would take the loss and sell twitter and go back to being an uncontroversial tech legend.

Why do you care, he is spending his own money. Isn't it more important that we now know Brazil has no rule of law. A single party overtook all the subsystems in the country and now Brazil is in the company of countries like Iran or North Korea regarding X censorship. Eye opening is also how many people would condemn an entire nation to censorship only to see one guy they don't like hurt.

You are overstating enforcement of corporate laws vs. a government censoring an entire nation. Similarly banning X in the US would not be censorship if the company flouted and refused to obey US laws.

He is spending many people's money, not just his own. He's human, he can be both a tech legend and a polarizing, drama-magnet of a human being, I just lament him leaning into the latter when the benefit is winning a pissing match.

No no no no no no. It's not as black and white as "oh they failed to obey US laws" - that is a highly deceptive portrayal of the situation! We are talking about free speech laws. What if the law says "no hate speech, according to a floating definition of hate speech drafted by those with power who are the scions of rightthink" What if the law says "no disinformation, according to the custodians of rightthink and rightinformation. Very 1984! And it's 2024, how a propos, 40 years off. "No disinformation" itself is highly dubious! Wow, there's an information expert who instantly can detect correct versus incorrect "facts"? Can they review all science ever and suss out what's right, using their infallible power? Because that's the politically constructed facade we're dealing with here.

No, Eli Musk had it figured out. Speech is free and free is speech. If someone has misinformation, let the people beat them down for it. If someone is wrong, let someone call them out.

The power to make speech is to the people, the power to call out and regulate speech is also to the people. For the state to usurp such a power, is 1984-esque big brother manipulations, for the purpose no more nor less of political control and manipulation

Your argument is no content moderation by social platforms. Your point is if it's hard, don't do it. Courts and legal interpretations exist for this reason, to parse the grey areas, and in this case they are ruling against Twitter's lack of content moderation.

Free speech doesn't equate to the freedom to spread misinformation, supporting and then organizing an attempted a military coup in Brazil.

Do you perhaps have a link to the definition of misinformation. What exactly counts as misinformation? Telling someone a fact you maybe misremembered from a while ago, would that be misinformation and as such punishable?

>>He is spending many people's money, not just his own.

Whose money not freely given to him is he spending?

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