Of course, those are sane considerations. I suppose I shouldn’t accuse the Donald of any kind of rational thinking.
That may sound like it gives Elon power. It's the opposite, actually. No US administration will take lightly threats to national security infrastructure like this. The nuclear option for any administration is to nationalize SpaceX, which they absolutely could do.
Less nuclear: the US has a lot of control over what SpaceX does. The FAA (and to a lesser extent the NOAA) has to approve every launch. They could simply gorund SpaceX.
If you think SpaceX could simply move operations elsewhere, think again, The US prohibits ASML, a Dutch company, from selling EUV lithography machines to China.
Apart from all of that, SpaceX is absolutely dependant on US government funding and contracts. Withdrawing those, or even the threat of such, allows the US to wield a lot of power over SpaceX.
What's rather surprising about this feud is that Trump is currently the adult and has been uncharacteristically restrained in his response thus far. Of course, all that could change. It was Elon who heavily implied that Trump was a pedophile, which is an absolutely insane thing to do.
This isn't at all clear. It's clear that they could easily compel them to prioritize and fulfill government contracts. Far less clear that they could just take it. It is clear that the current administration could "try" but such an effort might result in a lawsuit that lasts longer than the administration does and thereby become moot.
An injunction would be entirely logical as it prevents irreparable harm based on a fanciful understanding of the law unlikely to prevail and hurts the government not at all.
Certainly the government trying to steal like a common criminal puts anyone in an uncomfortable position but the only real risk is the fact we live under incipient fascism.
A public-private partnership is the dream for any shareholder. Guaranteed revenue and profits funded by taxes, investment capital from the government on great terms, becoming "too big to fail", etc.
How is it insane to repeat what everyone already knows? The only novelty here is Musk himself saying it to his legions of followers, who would have been otherwise inclined to downplay the significance of it.
This means Musk knowingly contributed to get a pedophile elected! He couldn't have learned this at the last minute, he obviously held this ace in his sleeve.
This already should "impeach" Musk (informally) in the eyes of his supporters: this is a guy who would help get a pedophile elected president if it would suit his business vision.
Why? He could easily have learned this after the election.
So are we supposed to believe Musk just found out about the Epstein link, hidden in unreleased documents, in the last few days? It's extremely farfetched.
He did it randomly to some guy he didn't like in Thailand who saved some kids trapped in a cave. He's probably done it other times.
It's just an Elon Musk thing. Go totally unhinged on social media and defame people without evidence. He does it all the time.
The only guy more famous than Musk for saying absolute nonsense on social media, is Trump.
It is all fake, lame, and nonsense.
What's shocking is that the people running our country are behaving like absolute children. I feel like they wouldn't be able to hold down a job at my company because they're so unhinged, they would have been fired long ago, and yet here they are, billionaires, deciding the fate of 350M people.
To be clear, I'm not debating the veracity of the accusation, I'm asking what it says about Musk that he claims to have knowingly helped elect president someone he knew to be a pedophile.
If the indictment doesn't apply, then why can't Musk play the same card of "I didn't know/believe/accept" while he was supporting, but only recently has he "now come to know" ?
I don't think your objections are fair. Let's go over them:
The average Trump voter doesn't know much about Epstein, and certainly doesn't believe Trump was involved in anything with that scandal. Any evidence that may turn up would be considered "fake news" to them. Whatever you may think of Trump voters, and whatever things they really are to blame for, knowingly voting for someone they believe to be a pedophile isn't one of their sins.
Musk just implied Trump is a pedophile (or is suppressing certain documents because of his links to a pedophile). Musk also claims without him Trump wouldn't have been elected. These are Musk's claims, so he has thrown away any possible defenses of "but I didn't know/believe this" and "but I'm irrelevant in the grand scheme of things".
You also claim Musk could defend himself with "but I didn't know at the time". This is very, very weak. When exactly do you suppose he learned this? In the few days that have elapsed since this very public falling out, maybe even a few days before? Oh, please. You know you don't believe this, these two were heaping praise on each other and calling themselves friends for most of their collaboration since Trump's second term, and only now Musk found out about Epstein? What, an aide rushed this info to him just in time for their current breakup? Absurd.
Any way you slice it, Musk had this accusation up his sleeve the whole time, he just chose to deploy it now.
So again I must ask, what does this say -- in his fans' eyes -- about Musk as a person?
PS: You seem to believe I'm somehow defending Trump here. If that's your worry, let me be clear that I think Trump is a disgrace. I don't know whether he's a pedophile though, unlike Musk I don't claim to have seen any secret documents. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if both Trump and Musk are pedophiles, these aren't exactly examples of decent human beings.
PPS: it has also just occurred to me you could be wondering why I'm focusing on the outrageous things Musk has said, but not on the contradictory, absurd or just plain dumb things Trump is saying about Musk? Well, because Trump has an expiration date. I suppose he can do lots of immediate damage to Musk, but he must do so now. Musk, as the world's richest person, has a much longer shelf life and more time to do damage to the US and the rest of the world, and bizarrely, has a large cult following. So I wonder what his followers think.
Elon stans seem to have a similar mindset.
Getting folks to think critically about Elon's actions would require an Epstein video of Trump engaging in SA with a clearly underage child. Likely only if coming out of police evidence lockers sealed before AI video existed. And it would have to be reported widely and maybe even released publicly without cuts (only blurring).
It is not as if supporters will deny all but a clear video tape of such an incident. There is no evidence this is true and there is plenty of reason to think it does not exist. The fact that Trump turned on Epstein while he was alive and Epstein’s attorney tried to find ways to smear Trump because of his involvement with the prosecution stands at odds with Musk’s claim that many here are granting prima facie.
It's very possible the Epstein files do have (or used to have) damning evidence. Though IME folks who call themselves MAGA are unlikely to take any evidence seriously.
Trump himself has said he believes he could shoot someone on 5th avenue and get away with it.
The real distinction is whether you believe that someone who has done bad deeds can be supported for other reasons, or whether they need to be repudiated in their entirety. For example even if you know Trump is a child rapist (and you condemn child rape), but you think as President he's going to do good for the country, you can still support him for President while being intellectually consistent [0].
This is separate from the issue of whether the person who has done wrong should face justice (eg continuing, you can think that Trump should go to jail but modulo that not happening, that he will do good for the country [0]). And separate from the issue of whether someone in a position to facilitate justice happening has an overriding duty to do so (I don't think Musk is in this position either though. Trump's one actual skill is escaping consequences).
> This means Musk knowingly contributed to get a pedophile elected! He couldn't have learned this at the last minute, he obviously held this ace in his sleeve...
> This already should "impeach" Musk (informally) in the eyes of his supporters: this is a guy who would help get a pedophile elected president if it would suit his business vision.
The second does not immediately follow from the first. Modulo the larger distinction I made above, it may just be the case that every second powerful figure is some kind of child rapist or similarly morally bankrupt, and this has been normalized, so even if you have morals to be applied you just have to hold your nose to get anything done. I have no idea, but I do know Epstein was connected to a lot of people.
You're also imparting a narrower business vision rather than political or moral where such compromises would be see as more justified. So no, these events might indict Musk in your mind further, but I don't think this is a universal conclusion.
> Trump has an expiration date. I suppose he can do lots of immediate damage to Musk, but he must do so now. Musk, as the world's richest person, has a much longer shelf life and more time to do damage to the US and the rest of the world, and bizarrely, has a large cult following.
I've got the complete opposite take on this. Trump has his hands on the actual levers of power, power which continues to acrete the more he destroys our institutions. Whereas Musk seems close to his limit with buying Xitter and blackmailing politicians (about funding opponents). It feels like Musk is just an avatar of the terrible dynamics of wealth concentration, which are present regardless of him personally. While Trump is actively pushing our society off a cliff in a way we will not be able to come back from. Just a feeling per my own heuristics, I'll have to ponder this more.
[0] just to be very explicit this is certainly not my own view about Trump!
Nationalization can't work for a company working at the bleeding edge of tech. Everyone would leave, their stock options now worthless or paid out.
Name one single time in history nationization has worked? I can name 100 counter examples.
Is it?
The statement itself doesn't seem to imply anything other than Musk seems to think he is in those files.
Trump is in some of the JE "files" that were already released (flight logs).
I think the cultural obsession with the unknown surrounding Jeffery Epstein informs what people infer from statements like that.
There are many less-than-flattering ways that Trump could be associated with JE that do not include pedophilia.
And this matters, because Musk was a major campaign contributor and advisor to someone he has now implied to be a pedophile. What does this say about Musk?
You know who absolutely is connected to Epstein? Elon's brother, Kimbal (allgedly) [1].
And while not related to Epstein but is just gross and in a similar ballpark, Elon's father Errol, had a stepdaughter from his wife's first marriage, Jana Bezuidenhout, who grew up in his house from age 4. He later went on to father two children with Jana (the first when she was 30, I believe) [2]. It's unclear when the relationship began. The only public statements are after Jana had a break-up.
[1]: https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfrie...
[2]: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/31886...
It doesn't surprise me at all that a guy so gross in his personal life comes from a gross family. Everything about Musk is deranged.
Do you remember the (not so distant era) when Musk was the nerd's and hacker's darling? SpaceX, his genius, his vision! This was before we knew much about his personal life and opinions. It seems so long ago now... Before he took to Twitter to claim it was OK to coup countries for their resources, or started naming children like mathematical formulas.
He's a symptom. It is our society, globally, that has become deranged. Almost all public figures are a shade of scumbag these days. Maybe they always were and there is no longer any reason to hide it.
I can speak for Argentina, where the situation (the sharp deterioration of public discourse, the "rule by Twitter posts", flamewars between government officials, incredibly aggressive public discourse, obvious fraud that doesn't get prosecuted if it's done by some political factions, etc) mirrors the US in many ways. I would say in Argentina we repeat tragedy in the form of farce, except what's going on in the States is also a farce.
Personally, I don't jump to conclusions based on vague statements or evidence.
> What does this say about Musk?
Who knows? Musk has thin associations with Epstein and Maxwell as well, he is a proven liar, is at times visibly manic, and has been reported to drop relationships at a whim when challenged.
There could be plenty of things driving his behavior, but I don't think this informs anything new about his character.
Especially in the eyes of Musk fans.
This guy is now effectively claiming he helped get someone elected president whom he knew was a pedophile. Musk claims Trump got elected thanks to his support (again, Musk claims this). He also claims Trump is a pedophile.
So what do Musk fans think about Musk (not Trump) in light of this?
When it comes to drawing conclusions about the intent of the person making the vague statement, this is an error. It helps create the plausible deniability that public manipulators use to their advantage.
Healthcare, education, roads, prisons, electricity, transit, all of it is designed in the USA so a company can extract profit.
Why wouldn't SpaceX turn into the funding and political football that NASA is, if it were nationalized?
Like, this isn't a hypothetical. SpaceX only has a market because of the incompetence of the "public option."
That's quite inaccurate. NASA doesn't do much themselves, they hire external contractors but keep significant control over them. SpaceX got more funding and less control and they didn't start from scratch, NASA gave them all of their technical documentation, now-how and working prototypes.
NASA could have done everything SpaceX does if they were given the same conditions and funding, however, they've never had funding for blowing up five spaceships in row, they were held to much stricter standards.
The entire story looks like a blatant attempt to take control of space operations away from NASA and thus from the government.
This may have been hypothetically possible, as are many things that never came to be, but it is impossible to know whether this really would have happened.
However, we have a case of a private contractor trying to manipulate the president by means of "revelations" and decommissioning of a service important for national security. If the president cannot change those contracts the US would be literally on the path to oligarchic Russia... I'm not sure what's worse.
Trump is generally moving in the direction of reducing government control of corporations to the point of risking government capture by oligarchic interests. What's happening now is a direct consequence of his policies and it's ironic that Trump's powers are being questioned when it comes to corporate regulation.
Trump's personal faults are irrelevant at the moment, if the GOP doesn't stand firmly behind Trump we are going to find ourselves in an incredible mess.
Are they though? Trump is on Putins side. Who disputes that?
For example Ukraine just carried out a complex drone attack on Russia's bomber fleet, this was careful planned by Ukrainian miliary without any involvement of the US and US was not informed of this ahead of time. And after the fact USA got upset with Ukraine for doing that.
They are literally just running the Howard Hughes playbook over again. Hes a front guys.
USA isn't currently engaged a proxy war with Russia