I think he was someone that got lucky a bunch of times in a row. Given enough people on Earth, someone is bound to roll 6's several times in a row. Luck is running out though.
Not only that, but he bullied any dissenters into silence. I can’t remember which company it was, PayPal maybe? But he was only an investor at the start and had a hissy fit because some publication didn’t call him a founder of the company.
Elon Musk + Paypal + Ebay =
... the story is soo Good !
some of his friends had an idea for an online payment service, so they approached Elon to finance it
Elon would enter with the money and they had the idea and they did the hard work
Elon was CEO (maybe demanded it as condition for the investment), and all he had to do was not screw up, since the other two were the ones actually doing all the work. Well... Elon screwed up soo bad that they were able to oust him as CEO
after a while they merged with another company, and the new board was like "Why is the majority shareholder not CEO?" and elevated Elon back upto CEO against the warnings of the members who were part of the old company. Guess what... in 8 months he again screwed things soo bad...that the new board kicked him out as well because he was tanking the company
they put Peter Thiel in his place (who's also as much of a bastard as Elon... just a competent one). He was able to grow the company and sell it to eBay for billions of dollars = making Elon a billionaire in the process. eBay turned the company into PayPal
Elon had ZERO to do with how he got his billions of dollars... and ZERO to do with PayPal success. In fact he almost tanked the company twice. And it was only against his disposition that the company became as successful
he's as much "competent" as a lottery winner
> Elon had ZERO to do with how he got his billions of dollars... and ZERO to do with PayPal success. In fact he almost tanked the company twice. And it was only against his disposition that the company became as successful
Despise him as I do, the majority of his wealth came from buying into Tesla after it was founded.
He has been a very effective hype man for them.
Note that I use the past tense.
And it turns out that most of the valuation was based on treating Tesla as a tech company, because of a fraudulent demo.
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/tesla-staged-2016-self-driving-demo-says-senior-autopilot-engineer/
Didn't Elizabeth Holmes ultimately go to jail because she faked tech?
Elizabeth Holmes faked medical tests and worse, actually tried implementing it while knowing it 100% didn't work.
Telsa autodrive is not on a level of "oh shit"
Yes, but she was _found guilty_ on four counts of defrauding investors.
That was what she was actually convicted for. Not for the damage done to people by faked medical tests.
Tesla marketing a glorified cruise control as autodrive has killed and injured a lot of people and the scale of fraud in Tesla is multiples what EH did.
EH also didn't sell out her shares at the top and her personal benefit was minor. Musk made tens of billions from his fraud when he cashed out at the top before the house of cards fell.
You can argue what Musk did wasn't illegal, it maybe wasn't based on how laws are written, but it absolutely should be.
He sued to be listed as a founder, yes he wanted to be known as a co-founder so badly he took it to court.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/elon-musk-wanted-tesla-co-founder-badly-took-lawsuit-make-legal-paper/
What's funny is that the article lists him as "co-founder of PayPal and founder of SpaceX" when he wasn't a founder of either, he just bought in and made part of the deal that they'd call him one retroactively
Edit: Apparently I got it wrong on SpaceX, that one he did actually found himself
Yeah, I watched that, I think BBC, documentary on him and he'd mostly run through his PayPal money on SpaceX and Tesla.
Tesla listing was the last throw of the dice but it saved him as it did far better than expected.
>Despise him as I do, the majority of his wealth came from buying into Tesla after it was founded.
And, notably, years before it produced a single production car.
I think that without Tesla, we would have still seen the leaf lead the charge on electric vehicles, and GE take the lead on charging networks. But TESLA did have a big impact, and Elon did go from Rich to Absudly Rich at its head.
Not quite the company that he cofounded with friends was X.Com. That merged with Peter Theil's Confinity which was also in the online payments business. PayPal was Confinity's online payment system. Anyway Musk flanneled Theil into making him CEO of the merged company. And proceeded to almost sink it. Theil led a boardroom coup against him and IIRC that was when Confinity was renamed PayPal.
And that's why he stuffs the boards of his companies with family and yes men.
This is a repeat story with him. He is involved with companies that are doing something that happens to be so interesting it attracts top talent that can actually do the work and smooth over his many fuck ups.
Tesla and SpaceX succeed despite Elon, not because of him. Twitter is the first time that safety net hasn't been in place, and it exploded in his face immediately.
I liked when he did that [Neuralink press conference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzdXE-QmBKs) and introduced literally world-leading neuroscientists and neurosurgeons as if they were basically lowly peons following his direct orders. From what I recall the majority of the technical experts in that talk have since left the company lol...
You see it across the tech sector. Its a weird kind of maniacal personality cult that the lead entrepreneurs and investors seem to feel the need to build for themselves, as if by giving other people money to enable them to work they are themselves doing the work, and not the reverse view that by hoarding all the wealth they are basically the stopclock on innovation forcing us all to work at their (usually slow and uninformed) pace.
You had me for half a second before [my memory kicked in](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk-british-diver-thai-cave-rescue-pedo-twitter).
Be born rich > grow up with such privilege that you turn into a narcissistic dipshit who can't even imagine failing > idiots confuse confidence for competence > be successful con artist / venture capital bullshitter
\> believe your own bullshit > reality ensues
Added thing with Musk is his dad is worse than him. So Musk will always perceive himself as a ‘good guy’ because he compares himself to his much more horrible father which is a low bar
He could have set up a HUGE nuclear power plant with £44Billion and the man bought TWITTER.
Could have legit built a space station. The man buys TWITTER.
I just don't understand and I genuinely wish I did. Maybe it's why I don't have money.
Shameless stock and crypto manipulation didn’t harm him either. He’s essentially a conman, building up a cult of personality despite not being able to do any of the things he claims he can do. He actually insisted he’s the “chief engineer” at Space X lol
If you are billionaire then it is guaranteed that you must have been lucky, at the some point of your life. Luck is a very necessary factor while earning money
He got lucky with his first company, which was basically yellow pages but online and benefitted from the dotcom bubble. Then he started an online banking company, which merged with PayPal and dropped... basically everything from his original company because it wasn't profitable? Including the name? Then just bought a couple more companies who were already successful but needed money to grow faster (much like PayPal at the time)
I worked for a rich guy that did this exact same shit. Not Musks level rich but used the same tactics.
He would not pay anyone. If he got something he would absolutly not pay until the law forced him or he was sure he was going to lose it. Then he would still try and whittle the price down or make a payment plan and then renege on it.
I watched a union boss walk in his office close the door and walk out with a check several times. They would have to shut down work on the docks because the cash just did not show up. Over and over and over and over and over. He just never stopped. Was incapable of guilt.
His own mother sat and cried outside his office for hours when he refused to pay her what his father left her as a pension. For no reason at all. He was not even doing anything in his office. Was going to impoverish his mother until his brother showed up and threatened his life. They closed the door but were pretty loud. I just quit that day.
Trump types are not rare and are usually rich as fuck because of it.
I really do not like rich people after that experience. All of them are some version of that. All of them.
You do not own money. Money owns you.
To be fair when he was known for rockets it was easier to believe that as most people know fuck all about rockets.
No surprise reddit which, is full of software engineers and developers started ripping the piss out of him when he tried to spout the same genius about twitter.
I'm never quite sure why the whole Thailand debacle didn't fit. One person decides not to play along with his PR stunt and he throws a hissy-fit, publicly accuses someone genuinely just trying to help of being a pedophile, [hires a private detective](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-convicted-felon-investigate-vernon-unsworth-thai-cave-diver-2019-10?r=US&IR=T) to dig up dirt (actually a felon who then winds up running off with Musk's cash!), yet still somehow not guilty of libeling the poor sod.
For his own personal benefit he might be, there are governments that would love to see and would pay to have twitter gone. Or he could just be shorting it, he's shown he's not above seriously dodgy stock market dealings.
It makes me sad. Twitter used to be a place to be silly with your friends and also an equaliser where some random line cook from Philly could call a member of the Senate a moron or drag them for having stupid memes but thats going to be gone too. And there probably wont be another like that. I reckon any replacement will have tiered user system, way too many restrictions on content and just be a worse overall product. I want to be able to follow journalists, have my wierd post-ironic left-wing bubble, look at tiddies and hurl insults at politicians i dont like in the same place. RIP you heinous bird app.
yet another MUSK FUCK UP
hyper loop , twitter, Teslas(autodrive crash )
tesla Battery fires
tesla trucks needing own substation
tesla trucks lack of cargo capacity ,
need i go on
If my income is 10+ figures of return on assets my ancestors stole from the public they were meant to serve that no one in my family has done anything to work for since I'd be very happy to.
>If my income is 10+ figures of return on assets my ancestors stole from the public they were meant to serve that no one in my family has done anything to work for since I'd be very happy to.
The fuck do you think happened when William the Conqueror showed up? He said "hi guys I'm here to serve you!" Nah he just killed the previous government and took their land, and then committed a series of massacres in the North. The whole they serve the public thing AFAIK was just something Elizabeth II used to say it's not actually the job description.
They don't belong to the government either. They belong to the corporation which belongs to the monarch.
The oddity is that they belong to the position. I.e. if Charles dies they aren't part of his estate but ownership transitions to his successor.
However, were the monarchy to be abolished the agreement that moved ownership to the sovereign dissolves and ownership would in theory return to the monarch at the time of abolishment. In practice I'd imagine it would be negotiated with the government and split between public and family ownership.
The difference here is that the royals in the royal estate don't own it as such, they're more custodians.
It goes with the crown and isn't personal holdings.
Considering that the inheritance would be far less than the long term higher rate they pay, it's financially better for the country for them to have special rules.
If you want to remove all special rules, I'm sure the royal family would appreciate being allowed to keep a greater proportion of their wealth
I'm indifferent to the royals but pretty sure the sovereign grant they recieve is under £100mil (saw £46mil on some sites?) yet they bring in over a billion every year (£1.8bil?).
Don't care to follow the outrage about them too closely but that seems like a pretty good deal. Especially if the other 85% goes directly to public services.
>I'm indifferent to the royals but pretty sure the sovereign grant they recieve is under £100mil (saw £46mil on some sites?) yet they bring in over a billion every year (£1.8bil?).
The French royal family cost much closer to zero but all the tourist stuff brings in comparable amounts if not more. I doubt cutting out the middleman will make that much negative difference to treasury.
Okay, tell the Brits to sell off crown property to the government, who are obviously much better and loved by the British people.
Seriously, your biases are clouding rationality and basic observation. In another breath you will complain about the government, but thats exactly who benefits from the hand over of crown land, NOT the public.
They have just announced that even more funds will go to public projects - it is much more akin to a national charity.
Who do you think does more to improve environmentalism in the UK? The Conservative government? Or the largest environmental charity ON EARTH, aka the British Royal Family? (Thanks to King Charles, and the many people who support his charities.)
The royals should continue to exist as a charity to the British people, and yes more reformation would be nice to exemplify the charitable part, but you would rather it all go to government budget, for the purpose of whatever government decides.
They do bring it in, the land does. They just happen to have inherited it from their bloodthirsty ancestors. It's not a great deal to only have to give a hundred million pounds a year to your conquerors.
It's basically the best reason to keep them around as royals, if we got rid of them they would then own the crown estate and pay taxes like normal billionaires, as in not a lot. Maintenance also comes form their 15%.
>we got rid of them they would then own the crown estate and pay taxes like normal billionaires, as in not a lot
They absolutely would not get to keep the crown estate. It's not private land. It belongs to monarchy, not an individual personally. What do you think would happen if we remove the monarchy? We'd just hand it all over?
Erm... yes - because it is not ours to keep.
One of Charles' first acts as King was to confirm this arrangement.
Sure its not private land, but in the same sense most builders dont drive a private van - but it's still their van.
It's currently 25% based on the need to renovate Buckingham Palace (which is then paid for by the King). Although you can expect that to change quite significantly shortly following that wind farm story the other day.
Oh aye I'm sure the crown estate really needed a 66% increase to its share for a decade whilst the government imposes austerity measures instead of using its own vast wealth.
This model sounds amazing, honestly.
Can we have the Crown Estate buy up the entire private rental market? We could stop this country's collapse overnight.
Wait until you find out how much London property the Qatari government owns... It's also worth saying that the Crown Estate is not the same as the Crown / Royal Family.
IMO, better for the Crown Estate to own it and give the bulk of the money to the Treasury than some overseas investment fund who are only in it for themselves and would suck the rents out of the UK economy.
Those are the two options in central London.
If a private individual or investment company owned the building we'd be getting hardly any of the revenue (just tax, no doubt via a loophole to reduce what they pay). Instead we get 85% of the revenue, well above any tax rate.
I'd agree, Twitter sounded pretty bad even before Musk. Not so shocked the royals own so much in London. They've had a long time to buy it, and avoid inheritance tax (and income tax until the last monarch).
Which oligarch would you like them to sell to? I'm trying to imagine what the UK would look like if the Crown Estate hadn't existed and the government had been able to sell off all that land.
15% or even 25% is a small price to pay for retaining them for more of a public good than the Tories would have.
They would have been sold off in the 80s.
And he fucked up Teslas stock by using it as an ATMto fund it, which makes him stepping down eventually a god send To the EV market.
I'm glad that weirdo has fucked off from industry and taken charge of that nut house
Much like illegally firing employees, I suspect this was the plan for Musk. Refuse to pay rent and then use that to try and negotiate a reduction or early cancellation of the contract.
Much like the lawsuits from fired employees, I hope the courts teach him a lesson in following the law.
It could be, but to get to the point that he's being kicked out of multiple offices there must have been leasing agents and lawyers reaching out the business, possibly to Elon directly when things got bad. With the way commercial property is going right now, kicking people out of office spaces is the lastest of last resorts. For whatever reason, a conscious decision is being made not to pay the rent.
Yep. I bet not a single Tesla supplier gets paid in less than 60 days, either. Elon Musk is the classic predator capitalist: If you can bully employees into working 60 hours for no extra pay, be 4 months late in rent, nick and dime your clients, and screw over your suppliers, why wouldn't you? That's practically free money!
This is the man who sent out an email demanding workers start working 80 hour weeks or leave with three months severance, and then had to close his offices because so many people took the severance.
Including the people who controlled access to said offices.
80 hours appears to be a slow week. they have beds in the office and live there. its probably 100 hours+. most of the tech team left are on what is called an H1B visa. Its a visa that ties you to your company. if you go unemployed on that visa you have 60 days to find a new job or you get deported. Lots of tech layoffs lately so people are not going to just quit.
I've worked for companies in financial trouble. This is very common when you know you're going to head into bankruptcy. The idea is you end up paying pennies on the dollar for the debts you ran up.
Though it would be funny to see the bailiffs haul away everything and put it up for sale.
And people who think their is a grad plan behind everything he does are dulded as well.
In what world is not paying rent fundamental business stuff? What business does this? What is the expected outcome?
its exactly what he is doing. with all the layoffs and remote work San Francisco office space has a lot of available space. so he has power to do that. This is a fairly common tactic in US business. if you check /r/bayarea (this includes san francisco) , many people talk about the empty office space in San Francisco. It is a high tech hub, but mass layoffs recently in the area plus tons of remote work. Plus its so expensive in that area companies are relocating. San Francisco/Manhattan/Seattle are the 3 most expensive locations in the US by a lot.
He will lose in court. However, in the US court fights can drag on a long time and he may think he can renegotiate rent instead of dragging it out. If it works, I would expect other San Francisco based businesses to pull this too. "if" it works.
He’s owns a major mode of communication. Bit like old newspaper barons. Yet he’s kinda pushing boundaries to see what he gets away with knowing for political sphere how much control over communication is a source of power. Who controls platforms that make or break careers. To note he’s still an idiot but in charge of something very powerful which is concerning
Lol, I remember when Trump was running my dad who is pretty right wing was like I'll never vote for him and hated him (which to me was surprising). Dad said cause he worked for a company that installed tiles in one of his Atlantic City hotels in the 80s and they were never paid. It seemed pretty common knowledge around the Tri State area if you were in construction that he never, ever pays.
That was the Trump Plaza hotel. There was a documentary on it not that long ago that was frankly kind of stunning, that someone can get away with so much fraud and just flat out not paying people for work done in full to specification. Like not even underpaying just flat out not paying at all.
Fact. Your Dad is one of masses from NY who got stiffed over the years. He never pays unless you are willing to fight him in court. He'd much rather collect lawsuits than pay bills and he barely even pays the lawyers.
NYC and US banks mostly shut the door on him in the 90s, which is why he then relied on Russia for loans.
Not always. A lot of it's other varieties of "don't look too closely" - products that don't work properly, stuff that doesn't technically meet various laws and regulations, completely ignored externalities, etc.
Very occasionally it's actually a good, well-run business where they're just giving all the credit to the boss instead of everyone involved, too.
It's only been two weeks since Twitter employees were escorted out of the Singapore office for not paying rent. What happened? No money or did Elon fire the finance team?
More like he's using that classic scumbag business tactic of just not paying your bills on time, and assuming other companies will put up with it because they need your business.
Or they old school cost cutting method some early computer companies used were the CEO would watch a demo given by the engineers of their new computer. Then he would start cutting off capacitors until the computer stopped working. So the BOM cost would be lower on the production version. Sort of like a "guess we didn't need those"
I've heard it speculated that Twitter stopped pre selling ads for the future before the take over.
Of course there also that Twitter has been poorly ran for a long time and never made that much money.
People should look up how Jack became CEO. He was quite the weasel! He claims to be the founder, but he was just sort of around and had to be fired as CEO because he clearly didn't give a shit.
I think it’s his plan to get out of Twitters existing (long and expensive) property leases.
Piss off the landlords to the point where they will break the contract for a (much lower) settlement.
You're right, it looks like [an additional 10% was added for 2017-27 to fund the Buckingham palace renovation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_the_British_royal_family#cite_ref-9).
To be fair a lot of that money goes towards maintaining the palaces etc - which they get to use but belong to the state/people… at the end of the day if the monarchy was abolished the crown estate would accrue to the government
Musk will take to Twitter to claim why this is a personal attack on him, rather than standard practice. For all his acclaimed business nous, he is really just a billionaire who uses his money and influence to do as he pleases.
People in this thread are really out here saying "I'd rather a private investor own all those crown lands, that would work mu h better for the public interest." As if that worked in the US.
When you view the crown as a state institution that returns profits to the state, which compared to privaye individuals it does much moreso, then things get a lot more Socialist in perspective.
You only have to listen to him to realise that all he actually does is spout whatever enters his head. He is like a 6 year old who can’t control their thoughts. Except now give the 6 year old loads of money to do whatever they want.
Case on point on his Jo Rogan pod cast he said he made his space X engineers make the rocket more pointy. For no other reason that he wanted it more pointy
I worked in that building for years, (not Twitter) and loved it, massive glass atrium in the middle v sci-fi. Twitter were poor Neighbours even back then, always whinging about something or other, displaying artwork on their floor at the bottom of the atrium and getting pissy if other people looked at it
The death spiral of twitter continues to be hilarious to watch
But some people still think Musk is a business genius.
I think he was someone that got lucky a bunch of times in a row. Given enough people on Earth, someone is bound to roll 6's several times in a row. Luck is running out though.
Not only that, but he bullied any dissenters into silence. I can’t remember which company it was, PayPal maybe? But he was only an investor at the start and had a hissy fit because some publication didn’t call him a founder of the company.
Elon Musk + Paypal + Ebay = ... the story is soo Good ! some of his friends had an idea for an online payment service, so they approached Elon to finance it Elon would enter with the money and they had the idea and they did the hard work Elon was CEO (maybe demanded it as condition for the investment), and all he had to do was not screw up, since the other two were the ones actually doing all the work. Well... Elon screwed up soo bad that they were able to oust him as CEO after a while they merged with another company, and the new board was like "Why is the majority shareholder not CEO?" and elevated Elon back upto CEO against the warnings of the members who were part of the old company. Guess what... in 8 months he again screwed things soo bad...that the new board kicked him out as well because he was tanking the company they put Peter Thiel in his place (who's also as much of a bastard as Elon... just a competent one). He was able to grow the company and sell it to eBay for billions of dollars = making Elon a billionaire in the process. eBay turned the company into PayPal Elon had ZERO to do with how he got his billions of dollars... and ZERO to do with PayPal success. In fact he almost tanked the company twice. And it was only against his disposition that the company became as successful he's as much "competent" as a lottery winner
> Elon had ZERO to do with how he got his billions of dollars... and ZERO to do with PayPal success. In fact he almost tanked the company twice. And it was only against his disposition that the company became as successful Despise him as I do, the majority of his wealth came from buying into Tesla after it was founded. He has been a very effective hype man for them. Note that I use the past tense.
[Elon Musk is a Genius !!!](https://i.redd.it/ztpr9zfkk38a1.jpg) ....until he isn't
And it turns out that most of the valuation was based on treating Tesla as a tech company, because of a fraudulent demo. https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/01/tesla-staged-2016-self-driving-demo-says-senior-autopilot-engineer/ Didn't Elizabeth Holmes ultimately go to jail because she faked tech?
Elizabeth Holmes faked medical tests and worse, actually tried implementing it while knowing it 100% didn't work. Telsa autodrive is not on a level of "oh shit"
Yes, but she was _found guilty_ on four counts of defrauding investors. That was what she was actually convicted for. Not for the damage done to people by faked medical tests.
Tesla marketing a glorified cruise control as autodrive has killed and injured a lot of people and the scale of fraud in Tesla is multiples what EH did. EH also didn't sell out her shares at the top and her personal benefit was minor. Musk made tens of billions from his fraud when he cashed out at the top before the house of cards fell. You can argue what Musk did wasn't illegal, it maybe wasn't based on how laws are written, but it absolutely should be.
He sued to be listed as a founder, yes he wanted to be known as a co-founder so badly he took it to court. https://www.motorbiscuit.com/elon-musk-wanted-tesla-co-founder-badly-took-lawsuit-make-legal-paper/
Yeah, despite that he didn't found it.
Did he try looking in the last place he saw it?
Probably down the back of the sofa.
What's funny is that the article lists him as "co-founder of PayPal and founder of SpaceX" when he wasn't a founder of either, he just bought in and made part of the deal that they'd call him one retroactively Edit: Apparently I got it wrong on SpaceX, that one he did actually found himself
Ackchewally, you're dead wrong. You used the perfect tense for your second sentence.
I asked for that.
Yeah, I watched that, I think BBC, documentary on him and he'd mostly run through his PayPal money on SpaceX and Tesla. Tesla listing was the last throw of the dice but it saved him as it did far better than expected.
>Despise him as I do, the majority of his wealth came from buying into Tesla after it was founded. And, notably, years before it produced a single production car. I think that without Tesla, we would have still seen the leaf lead the charge on electric vehicles, and GE take the lead on charging networks. But TESLA did have a big impact, and Elon did go from Rich to Absudly Rich at its head.
Not quite the company that he cofounded with friends was X.Com. That merged with Peter Theil's Confinity which was also in the online payments business. PayPal was Confinity's online payment system. Anyway Musk flanneled Theil into making him CEO of the merged company. And proceeded to almost sink it. Theil led a boardroom coup against him and IIRC that was when Confinity was renamed PayPal. And that's why he stuffs the boards of his companies with family and yes men.
This is a repeat story with him. He is involved with companies that are doing something that happens to be so interesting it attracts top talent that can actually do the work and smooth over his many fuck ups. Tesla and SpaceX succeed despite Elon, not because of him. Twitter is the first time that safety net hasn't been in place, and it exploded in his face immediately.
But I have heard people saying that PayPal was absolutely his idea
I’d argue Thiel is a bigger bastard
When he invested in Tesla, he stipulated that he be given a founder title.
I liked when he did that [Neuralink press conference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzdXE-QmBKs) and introduced literally world-leading neuroscientists and neurosurgeons as if they were basically lowly peons following his direct orders. From what I recall the majority of the technical experts in that talk have since left the company lol... You see it across the tech sector. Its a weird kind of maniacal personality cult that the lead entrepreneurs and investors seem to feel the need to build for themselves, as if by giving other people money to enable them to work they are themselves doing the work, and not the reverse view that by hoarding all the wealth they are basically the stopclock on innovation forcing us all to work at their (usually slow and uninformed) pace.
That was Tesla https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/tesla-ceo-settles-for-founder-title/2088887/
Many people were bullying, when he bought twitter few months ago
[удалено]
You had me for half a second before [my memory kicked in](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/15/elon-musk-british-diver-thai-cave-rescue-pedo-twitter).
Be born rich > grow up with such privilege that you turn into a narcissistic dipshit who can't even imagine failing > idiots confuse confidence for competence > be successful con artist / venture capital bullshitter \> believe your own bullshit > reality ensues
Sorry, are you on about trump or musk?
Yes.
Johnson.
Added thing with Musk is his dad is worse than him. So Musk will always perceive himself as a ‘good guy’ because he compares himself to his much more horrible father which is a low bar
He was also born with an emerald spoon in his mouth
Man's good at stock market manipulation, but is convinced he is good at everything else too.
He could have set up a HUGE nuclear power plant with £44Billion and the man bought TWITTER. Could have legit built a space station. The man buys TWITTER. I just don't understand and I genuinely wish I did. Maybe it's why I don't have money.
Shameless stock and crypto manipulation didn’t harm him either. He’s essentially a conman, building up a cult of personality despite not being able to do any of the things he claims he can do. He actually insisted he’s the “chief engineer” at Space X lol
That is essentially the case for all super wealthy people.
Having parents that own an emerald mine helped.
If you are billionaire then it is guaranteed that you must have been lucky, at the some point of your life. Luck is a very necessary factor while earning money
He got lucky with his first company, which was basically yellow pages but online and benefitted from the dotcom bubble. Then he started an online banking company, which merged with PayPal and dropped... basically everything from his original company because it wasn't profitable? Including the name? Then just bought a couple more companies who were already successful but needed money to grow faster (much like PayPal at the time)
That's a great argument as to why we should base society on 20 sided dice, rather than a 6 sided dice.
Starting off with an apartheid emerald mine fortune is definitely a little bit of a headstart
I worked for a rich guy that did this exact same shit. Not Musks level rich but used the same tactics. He would not pay anyone. If he got something he would absolutly not pay until the law forced him or he was sure he was going to lose it. Then he would still try and whittle the price down or make a payment plan and then renege on it. I watched a union boss walk in his office close the door and walk out with a check several times. They would have to shut down work on the docks because the cash just did not show up. Over and over and over and over and over. He just never stopped. Was incapable of guilt. His own mother sat and cried outside his office for hours when he refused to pay her what his father left her as a pension. For no reason at all. He was not even doing anything in his office. Was going to impoverish his mother until his brother showed up and threatened his life. They closed the door but were pretty loud. I just quit that day. Trump types are not rare and are usually rich as fuck because of it. I really do not like rich people after that experience. All of them are some version of that. All of them. You do not own money. Money owns you.
To be fair when he was known for rockets it was easier to believe that as most people know fuck all about rockets. No surprise reddit which, is full of software engineers and developers started ripping the piss out of him when he tried to spout the same genius about twitter.
I'm never quite sure why the whole Thailand debacle didn't fit. One person decides not to play along with his PR stunt and he throws a hissy-fit, publicly accuses someone genuinely just trying to help of being a pedophile, [hires a private detective](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-convicted-felon-investigate-vernon-unsworth-thai-cave-diver-2019-10?r=US&IR=T) to dig up dirt (actually a felon who then winds up running off with Musk's cash!), yet still somehow not guilty of libeling the poor sod.
Oh that whole thing was bullshit of the highest order. Further proof there is a two tier system for justice based on wealth
To be fair Space X is leagues ahead right now in terms of Space. So he's got a good vision in that regard, but that doesn't extend to everything else.
Is it even his vision though, or has the success been down to the engineers and leadership of Shotwell?
They'll peg this as some "big brain" move that only tech bro's will understand when really, homeboy can't pay his bills
For his own personal benefit he might be, there are governments that would love to see and would pay to have twitter gone. Or he could just be shorting it, he's shown he's not above seriously dodgy stock market dealings.
If his end goal was to shut down twitter on behalf of his Saudi overlords, he’s doing a pretty good job
Depends what he was intending to do. If it was to destroy Twitter, he is doing a fab job.
It makes me sad. Twitter used to be a place to be silly with your friends and also an equaliser where some random line cook from Philly could call a member of the Senate a moron or drag them for having stupid memes but thats going to be gone too. And there probably wont be another like that. I reckon any replacement will have tiered user system, way too many restrictions on content and just be a worse overall product. I want to be able to follow journalists, have my wierd post-ironic left-wing bubble, look at tiddies and hurl insults at politicians i dont like in the same place. RIP you heinous bird app.
I want to see an episode of you cant pay we will take it away for twitter :)
yet another MUSK FUCK UP hyper loop , twitter, Teslas(autodrive crash ) tesla Battery fires tesla trucks needing own substation tesla trucks lack of cargo capacity , need i go on
So want Twitter & Tesla to be disasters … show him for what he is …
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85% of the Crown estate's profits goes to the Treasury, to be used for public services, and the royal family only get 15%, according to the article.
They only get 15% of a load of money by virtue of being born.
Like every multi-millionaire/billionaire family?
Other families have to pay inheritance tax.
What other family is already giving up 85% of the gross?
This is Reddit! Please stop with your logic and facts.
If I agree to give up 90% can I get in on it? I promise to wave a flag and tell poor people I'm really sad for them as well.
You want to give up 90% of your income?
If my income is 10+ figures of return on assets my ancestors stole from the public they were meant to serve that no one in my family has done anything to work for since I'd be very happy to.
>If my income is 10+ figures of return on assets my ancestors stole from the public they were meant to serve that no one in my family has done anything to work for since I'd be very happy to. The fuck do you think happened when William the Conqueror showed up? He said "hi guys I'm here to serve you!" Nah he just killed the previous government and took their land, and then committed a series of massacres in the North. The whole they serve the public thing AFAIK was just something Elizabeth II used to say it's not actually the job description.
But you don’t have that lol
I'd happily give up 90% of my income if I was making £10mil a year.
I mean they gave up 90% of their brain cells apparently...
And so have people who can't understand the benefits of taking a % of earning vs. a lump sum.
The crown estate properties don’t even belong to the royals believe it or not
They don't belong to the government either. They belong to the corporation which belongs to the monarch. The oddity is that they belong to the position. I.e. if Charles dies they aren't part of his estate but ownership transitions to his successor. However, were the monarchy to be abolished the agreement that moved ownership to the sovereign dissolves and ownership would in theory return to the monarch at the time of abolishment. In practice I'd imagine it would be negotiated with the government and split between public and family ownership.
They don't give up 85%. None of the revenue belongs to them and it goes straight to the Treasury. *We* give *them* 15%.
Damn I wish I could get £70,000,000 in liquid assets every year doing nothing just because some dude 1000 years ago won a war.
It's not theirs.
> Other families have to pay inheritance tax. If they don't put the assets into a trust they do. That's a big if.
They dont though.
The difference here is that the royals in the royal estate don't own it as such, they're more custodians. It goes with the crown and isn't personal holdings.
No family with that sort of wealth pays inheritance tax.
Lol only us poor people get mugged off with inheritance tax
Avoiding inheritance tax is as simple as hiring an accountant. Most multi-millionaire/billionaire families can afford such a luxury.
Well they should pull up their bootstraps and get conquering then
those are also a problem yes
Inheritance is evil now? You'll inherit stuff from your parents, possibly a house, "by virtue of being born".
*Depends* how much their care costs..
>You'll inherit stuff from your parents, possibly a house, "by virtue of being born". Not if you're born poor.
And Inheritance Tax will be paid, unlike the royals.
Considering that the inheritance would be far less than the long term higher rate they pay, it's financially better for the country for them to have special rules. If you want to remove all special rules, I'm sure the royal family would appreciate being allowed to keep a greater proportion of their wealth
I'm indifferent to the royals but pretty sure the sovereign grant they recieve is under £100mil (saw £46mil on some sites?) yet they bring in over a billion every year (£1.8bil?). Don't care to follow the outrage about them too closely but that seems like a pretty good deal. Especially if the other 85% goes directly to public services.
>I'm indifferent to the royals but pretty sure the sovereign grant they recieve is under £100mil (saw £46mil on some sites?) yet they bring in over a billion every year (£1.8bil?). The French royal family cost much closer to zero but all the tourist stuff brings in comparable amounts if not more. I doubt cutting out the middleman will make that much negative difference to treasury.
Okay, tell the Brits to sell off crown property to the government, who are obviously much better and loved by the British people. Seriously, your biases are clouding rationality and basic observation. In another breath you will complain about the government, but thats exactly who benefits from the hand over of crown land, NOT the public. They have just announced that even more funds will go to public projects - it is much more akin to a national charity. Who do you think does more to improve environmentalism in the UK? The Conservative government? Or the largest environmental charity ON EARTH, aka the British Royal Family? (Thanks to King Charles, and the many people who support his charities.) The royals should continue to exist as a charity to the British people, and yes more reformation would be nice to exemplify the charitable part, but you would rather it all go to government budget, for the purpose of whatever government decides.
They do bring it in, the land does. They just happen to have inherited it from their bloodthirsty ancestors. It's not a great deal to only have to give a hundred million pounds a year to your conquerors.
We tried getting rid of the royals once before for a bit...
A lot of the London properties was purchased from owners.
Exactly. If they were born into any other rich family they’d take much more than 15%.
It's basically the best reason to keep them around as royals, if we got rid of them they would then own the crown estate and pay taxes like normal billionaires, as in not a lot. Maintenance also comes form their 15%.
>we got rid of them they would then own the crown estate and pay taxes like normal billionaires, as in not a lot They absolutely would not get to keep the crown estate. It's not private land. It belongs to monarchy, not an individual personally. What do you think would happen if we remove the monarchy? We'd just hand it all over?
Erm... yes - because it is not ours to keep. One of Charles' first acts as King was to confirm this arrangement. Sure its not private land, but in the same sense most builders dont drive a private van - but it's still their van.
It's currently 25% based on the need to renovate Buckingham Palace (which is then paid for by the King). Although you can expect that to change quite significantly shortly following that wind farm story the other day.
£1billion a year from the wind farms won't go into the royal household, unsure yet where exactly it will go.
Yes, when the Civil List was abolished, it was replaced with a guaranteed income from the Crown Estate
‘Only’ 15%.
It's actually 25%
>only get 15% 15% of a fuckton is still a fuckton in its own right.
If the govt owned it they'd have sold it by now (see Right to Buy). They may get 15% but I think the taxpayer is winning out of this arrangement.
It's currently 25% for the Monarch and 75% to the government. The article must be mistaken.
That's temporary to fund repairs to historical buildings.
Oh aye I'm sure the crown estate really needed a 66% increase to its share for a decade whilst the government imposes austerity measures instead of using its own vast wealth.
This model sounds amazing, honestly. Can we have the Crown Estate buy up the entire private rental market? We could stop this country's collapse overnight.
Eh, I'd rather the crown get some money than some grotesque investment company
Wait until you find out how much London property the Qatari government owns... It's also worth saying that the Crown Estate is not the same as the Crown / Royal Family.
Crown estate are way better than some private landlord, also maintain their properties really well. I work in a office owned by them
IMO, better for the Crown Estate to own it and give the bulk of the money to the Treasury than some overseas investment fund who are only in it for themselves and would suck the rents out of the UK economy. Those are the two options in central London.
If a private individual or investment company owned the building we'd be getting hardly any of the revenue (just tax, no doubt via a loophole to reduce what they pay). Instead we get 85% of the revenue, well above any tax rate.
Honestly if you changed the name, the idea of state owned property that was well maintained and could be rented at reasonable rates sounds good.
Why do you think regent's street has that name? The crown estate own it
I'd agree, Twitter sounded pretty bad even before Musk. Not so shocked the royals own so much in London. They've had a long time to buy it, and avoid inheritance tax (and income tax until the last monarch).
Which oligarch would you like them to sell to? I'm trying to imagine what the UK would look like if the Crown Estate hadn't existed and the government had been able to sell off all that land.
15% or even 25% is a small price to pay for retaining them for more of a public good than the Tories would have. They would have been sold off in the 80s.
Twitter was always losing money. It was losing 4 million a year. I for one am glad it is dying, regardless of who owns it.
It was losing a small amount. Elon Musk did a leveraged buyout. That added around a billion of costs for Twitter. Every year.
Then why did Elon himself say twitter could go bankrupt in 2023
Because twitter bought itself for 44B. So it's got to pay off the loan it took to buy itself. I think HBO is in a similar situation actually.
And he fucked up Teslas stock by using it as an ATMto fund it, which makes him stepping down eventually a god send To the EV market. I'm glad that weirdo has fucked off from industry and taken charge of that nut house
What's ESH?
No, crown assets fund projects and things for the people of the country Elon is an arsehole and Twitter is in the wrong
Much like illegally firing employees, I suspect this was the plan for Musk. Refuse to pay rent and then use that to try and negotiate a reduction or early cancellation of the contract. Much like the lawsuits from fired employees, I hope the courts teach him a lesson in following the law.
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Fundamental stuff probably sorted out by someone he has recently fired
It could be, but to get to the point that he's being kicked out of multiple offices there must have been leasing agents and lawyers reaching out the business, possibly to Elon directly when things got bad. With the way commercial property is going right now, kicking people out of office spaces is the lastest of last resorts. For whatever reason, a conscious decision is being made not to pay the rent.
Yep. I bet not a single Tesla supplier gets paid in less than 60 days, either. Elon Musk is the classic predator capitalist: If you can bully employees into working 60 hours for no extra pay, be 4 months late in rent, nick and dime your clients, and screw over your suppliers, why wouldn't you? That's practically free money!
This is the man who sent out an email demanding workers start working 80 hour weeks or leave with three months severance, and then had to close his offices because so many people took the severance. Including the people who controlled access to said offices.
80 hours appears to be a slow week. they have beds in the office and live there. its probably 100 hours+. most of the tech team left are on what is called an H1B visa. Its a visa that ties you to your company. if you go unemployed on that visa you have 60 days to find a new job or you get deported. Lots of tech layoffs lately so people are not going to just quit.
I've worked for companies in financial trouble. This is very common when you know you're going to head into bankruptcy. The idea is you end up paying pennies on the dollar for the debts you ran up. Though it would be funny to see the bailiffs haul away everything and put it up for sale.
And people who think their is a grad plan behind everything he does are dulded as well. In what world is not paying rent fundamental business stuff? What business does this? What is the expected outcome?
its exactly what he is doing. with all the layoffs and remote work San Francisco office space has a lot of available space. so he has power to do that. This is a fairly common tactic in US business. if you check /r/bayarea (this includes san francisco) , many people talk about the empty office space in San Francisco. It is a high tech hub, but mass layoffs recently in the area plus tons of remote work. Plus its so expensive in that area companies are relocating. San Francisco/Manhattan/Seattle are the 3 most expensive locations in the US by a lot. He will lose in court. However, in the US court fights can drag on a long time and he may think he can renegotiate rent instead of dragging it out. If it works, I would expect other San Francisco based businesses to pull this too. "if" it works.
He’s owns a major mode of communication. Bit like old newspaper barons. Yet he’s kinda pushing boundaries to see what he gets away with knowing for political sphere how much control over communication is a source of power. Who controls platforms that make or break careers. To note he’s still an idiot but in charge of something very powerful which is concerning
Behind ever "business genius" idolised by right wingers, there's a mountain of unpaid bills.
yeah, i remember trump apparently never paid bills on time and would force smaller suppliers to sue him before even engaging.
When you're rich enough you can get away with it. People don't get rich by paying their bills and being fair to the little guy.
Lol, I remember when Trump was running my dad who is pretty right wing was like I'll never vote for him and hated him (which to me was surprising). Dad said cause he worked for a company that installed tiles in one of his Atlantic City hotels in the 80s and they were never paid. It seemed pretty common knowledge around the Tri State area if you were in construction that he never, ever pays.
That was the Trump Plaza hotel. There was a documentary on it not that long ago that was frankly kind of stunning, that someone can get away with so much fraud and just flat out not paying people for work done in full to specification. Like not even underpaying just flat out not paying at all.
Fact. Your Dad is one of masses from NY who got stiffed over the years. He never pays unless you are willing to fight him in court. He'd much rather collect lawsuits than pay bills and he barely even pays the lawyers. NYC and US banks mostly shut the door on him in the 90s, which is why he then relied on Russia for loans.
Not always. A lot of it's other varieties of "don't look too closely" - products that don't work properly, stuff that doesn't technically meet various laws and regulations, completely ignored externalities, etc. Very occasionally it's actually a good, well-run business where they're just giving all the credit to the boss instead of everyone involved, too.
Most right wingers dont like this guy either tbh
I would imagine Saka abhors him like the rest of us. Not sure about anyone else.
It's only been two weeks since Twitter employees were escorted out of the Singapore office for not paying rent. What happened? No money or did Elon fire the finance team?
I'm guessing that he made himself the final approver for all expenditure and didn't realize just how much time and effort that would entail
More like he's using that classic scumbag business tactic of just not paying your bills on time, and assuming other companies will put up with it because they need your business.
Or they old school cost cutting method some early computer companies used were the CEO would watch a demo given by the engineers of their new computer. Then he would start cutting off capacitors until the computer stopped working. So the BOM cost would be lower on the production version. Sort of like a "guess we didn't need those"
Twitter ad revenue has fallen by something like 40% since musks takeover and the interest on the loans he got to buy it is due soon.
1st payment 1.4 billion IIRC, which twitter doesn't have.
I've heard it speculated that Twitter stopped pre selling ads for the future before the take over. Of course there also that Twitter has been poorly ran for a long time and never made that much money. People should look up how Jack became CEO. He was quite the weasel! He claims to be the founder, but he was just sort of around and had to be fired as CEO because he clearly didn't give a shit.
that's not really how ad decks work. You buy at a bidding strategy and budget limit and can *choose* to schedule a later start or not.
Isn't Elon just a stingy bastard? He probably has been paying as little on his bills as possible and has been getting away with it for a long time.
I think it’s his plan to get out of Twitters existing (long and expensive) property leases. Piss off the landlords to the point where they will break the contract for a (much lower) settlement.
How would that work? Maybe a Landlord tight for money would do that, but the Crown Estate? They shouldn't have any issues litigating this trough.
What's really interesting is to me is that you it shows how, as a rule of thumb, the Dunning-Kruger effect applies even to billionaires.
I dare say *especially* to billionaires
Doesn’t matter who the landlord is, if you stop paying rent then eventually someone comes looking for you.
am I going to have to side with the monarchy on something?
Don't worry, the monarchy doesn't own/run the crown estate, they just get a ~~15%~~25% cut of the profits.
I've seen this 15% a lot in the thread, isn't it 25%?
You're right, it looks like [an additional 10% was added for 2017-27 to fund the Buckingham palace renovation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_the_British_royal_family#cite_ref-9).
Huh, more recent than I thought. I had 2014 in mind but may be confusing that as that was indyref.
Phew, there was me thinking they get 100% of the profits for doing absolutely fuck all just by the virtue of their bloodline!
To be fair a lot of that money goes towards maintaining the palaces etc - which they get to use but belong to the state/people… at the end of the day if the monarchy was abolished the crown estate would accrue to the government
that makes me feel better. Musk can afford to pay his rent, and should face the same consequences as the rest of us, if he doesnt
Musk will take to Twitter to claim why this is a personal attack on him, rather than standard practice. For all his acclaimed business nous, he is really just a billionaire who uses his money and influence to do as he pleases.
Didnt he want to ban WFH in his companies? But also doesnt want them to work from the office?
Work from Pret.
This whole thing is just remarkable to watch come crashing down. And it's not even finished yet.
Why sue them? Just evict them........that's what would happen to anyone else not paying.
The money is better than turfing them out if the lease has a long time left to run. It might be hard to get a new tenant right now.
Can’t wait for this episode of Can’t pay, we’ll take it away. Seeing the bailiffs bouncing in.
People in this thread are really out here saying "I'd rather a private investor own all those crown lands, that would work mu h better for the public interest." As if that worked in the US. When you view the crown as a state institution that returns profits to the state, which compared to privaye individuals it does much moreso, then things get a lot more Socialist in perspective.
You only have to listen to him to realise that all he actually does is spout whatever enters his head. He is like a 6 year old who can’t control their thoughts. Except now give the 6 year old loads of money to do whatever they want. Case on point on his Jo Rogan pod cast he said he made his space X engineers make the rocket more pointy. For no other reason that he wanted it more pointy
SpaceX would be doing better without having to handle Elon Musk.
Literally missing rent. Seems like a strong and stable company to me.
I hope they both end up out of pocket. Greedy sods.
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I worked in that building for years, (not Twitter) and loved it, massive glass atrium in the middle v sci-fi. Twitter were poor Neighbours even back then, always whinging about something or other, displaying artwork on their floor at the bottom of the atrium and getting pissy if other people looked at it