Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Industries? You mean agencies.

And yes, something like nearly every branch of Federal government with regulatory power is (well, was) investigating him.

Transportation, Justice, Labor, Interior, and Agriculture departments, as well as the National Labor Relations Board, EEOC, EPA, SEC, FCC, FTC.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/20/us/politics/elon-musk-fed... or https://archive.is/x7chR

I seem to recall that Tesla alone has set the record for the largest number of active investigations with the NLRB and EEOC. The sheer number of incidents of blatant racism alone are shocking. At one point Telsa factory employees were spraying racial slurs on the walls and management ignored it.

Do I think the ripping apart of the federal government will further entrench the Oligarch class? Yeah. But honestly Musk seems to just be doing this because he's just getting vengeance on all the departments and people who he thinks won't let him be his very best genius self.

So tell me, how do you start a business in the US?

If you have Transportation, Justice, Labor, Interior, and Agriculture departments, as well as the National Labor Relations Board, EEOC, EPA, SEC, FCC, FTC to answer to, how do you do it?

How do you start a business in the US?

That fucking pisses me off. I know that's not the intent of your post, but that really does piss me the fuck off.

On an off chance you are serious, here is one option:

https://www.sos.ca.gov/business-programs/business-entities/s...

Otherwise, wait until fascists complete their takeover, it will certainly be much easier then.

The fascists that want to reduce the size of the federal government? Those fascists?

Yes, the ones currently plundering and sending money to their private companies. I’m not sure what argument you’re trying to make with this.

Fascism isn’t defined by the size of the government. This is a weak argument that only works in a vacuum.

Reducing what? Reducing why? Reducing where? The choices have meaning, and your neglecting to address that show your wilful ignorance.

My insisting you lose weight in your GUT is not the same as losing weight in your SKULL. Where, when, how fast determines whether fitness, torture, or murder.

BE MORE DISCERNING

The truly horrible thing is, that it might not be possible. That the federal government has grown so complex, that it is no longer possible to maintain a modicum of control or to stop its further growth without destructive action. Simply because it is beyond anyone to refactor the thing is a more constructive manner.

Uh there are plenty of people with constructive ideas about government reform.

Congress needs to be responsible for restructuring the government. Even if you support what President Trump is doing, it'll all be reversed on day 1 of the next Democratic administration. Avoiding this kind of yoyoing every four years is one of the reasons the Founding Fathers made all proposed major changes to the government receive public debate and approval at least five times (House+Senate committee then House+Senate floor then president).

Yes, those

Yeah nobody has managed to make a successful business in the USA in 30 years, including Elon.

Nope, it's simply impossible. Look at all the failures like Tesla, SpaceX, Meta, Rivian, Bluesky, etc.

Someone think of the CEOs!

One could start by not violating every labor, environmental, and financial law all at once. Does it make more sense that every business in the US has the constant attention of every federal agency? Or that Elon has done some particular things - for instance, things he's constantly bragging about on his own social media sites - that would tend to arouse suspicion, if not serve as direct evidence, that he's in violation of obvious regulations?

I assure you, you have to go out of your way to be as unethical as possible... and you still won't get investigated this hard.

Now when you do that while sucking up hundreds of billions of contracts... yeah, your contractor is gonna start asking questions.

Maybe there are valid reasons to go after Musk, but the propensity of the previous administration towards lawfare clouds all of these investigations.

There are no real checks and balances when it comes to launching investigations into your political rivals for political purposes.

Considering the barrage of regulatory, reputational and legal attacks Musk faced, it shouldn't be surprising that he seeks to neuter the ability of the bureaucracy to weaponise the government again in future.

The problem with the lawfare argument, is that people can claim 'lawfare' even when the investigation is fully warranted. The classified documents in the Trumps bathroom, for example. This wasn't lawfare, this was a guy breaking the law and being investigated for it.

In Elon's case, he is not a truthful person. He was recently caught lying and cheating about being good at video games of all things. Just for cred. Imagine what he's capable when the stakes were higher.

'Lawfare' is just a way for the out-of-power party to cry victim even when they fully and absolutely did the crime. It means that when they get back in power they not only get a free pass but also an excuse to crush anyone who had the gal to even try and hold them accountable.

It goes both ways.

Innocent people can be genuine victims of lawfare, just as easily as guilty people can claim to be victims of lawfare.

The previous administration is widely regarded to have engaged in lawfare, so I would prefer to assume that their political rivals are innocent until proven otherwise, rather than guilty by default.

Trump is widely regarded as having committed crimes. It is the persons actions that make them guilty. And in Trumps case, his actions are public record so no assumptions are necessary.

And for a hypothetical, if he was in fact guilty and the investigations were warranted. And then he used his presidential power to punish and fire everyone remotely associated with those cases. Would this be a good or bad thing in your opinion?

> The previous administration is widely regarded to have engaged in lawfare

Widely regarded? You're already dealing with a goofy subset of humanity when you're using words like "lawfare."

> The previous administration is widely regarded to have engaged in lawfare

No, it wasn’t. That was claimed by a specific subset of people who wanted to evade consequences for the crimes they committed, but that wasn’t backed up by even a cursory review of the facts.

You can see a similar example with claims that Eric Adams suffered from “lawfare”, which might be an effective political tactic but are clearly contradicted by the evidence against him. Lots of criminals claim they’re innocent but that doesn’t mean they’re right.

You disagree with “lawfare”, as in the biased application of the law to further individual interests?

Having presented no hard evidence for your claims, I can only assume the standard you demand is the scrupulous separation of interests, conflicts, and bias to demonstrate the absence of bias beyond a reasonable doubt which is a laudable standard.

Yet, you applaud to the clear, unabashed, unapologetic, intentionally biased application of the law to further individual interests. By an entity whose interests, conflicts, and bias are so thoroughly intertwined that the presence of bias is beyond a reasonable doubt.

Can you please explain why you apply diametrically opposed standards of evidence based on their alignment to your in-group?

Let's look at a single example of Elon Musk's alleged crimes. He bought Twitter stock in 2022 and did not follow disclosure laws, which led to him getting an extra $150 million. It took the SEC more than two years to investigate him and decide to proceed with charges. That's more due process than most people get. https://www.sec.gov/enforcement-litigation/litigation-releas...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com