Sadly when it's a way for the elite to try and garner more followers (i.e. convert them into yes-men techbros who will keep sucking off Elmo despite multiple of his projects not only bombing but setting back public infrastructure for more than a decade (thank you HyperLoop)) which in turn will lead them to try and do continuously more outrageous cons.
Which one has the most 'followers', and what exactly is a follower?
How did Elon set back public infrastructure exactly, his company manufactures huge battery storage plants and operates a massive series of superchargers that are very reliable and generally cheaper than the competition
What sort of cons are coming up exactly, if it's billionaires paying money to other billionaires what's the problem exactly
See my previous comment on what constitutes a follower.
Elon's HyperLoop project was fundamentally detrimental to public infrastructure as it directly competed with the california high speed rail project between 2013 and 2019. Initially coined as a possible alternative it was brought up multiple times in discussions as a serious option, until Musk in 2019 said that it was "never serious" and that he specifically promoted it due to his distaste for the high speed rail project - essentially a multi-million way to sabotage a high speed rail project that would actively compete with his car company investments which was largely based in California at the time. Clear conflict of interest in my eyes, but let's continue.
Elon, through SpaceX, has also gotten basically sole sponsorship of domestic US cargo and manned rocket production, which has been historically sourced from many international factors. While there are security interests that such a localised production benefits, it has, effectively, more than doubled the cost of delivering cargo into orbit by the kilo while also securing large government subsidies that are being funded by tax dollars. This doesn't mention at all how other public institutions are being defunded (see NASA's budget) in favor of his private sector shenanigans. Effectively this means that not only is he providing a more expensive solution to an existing problem, he is also using subsidies to socialise his losses while privatising his gains. This all while we had the space shuttle before already doing practically everything that his upright landing thrusters are achieving. It also perfectly aligns with his exploration of political alignments that are most beneficial to him, which will later lead to his DOGE involvement which has shown to be ineffective at best and treasonous at worst but let's stay on topic of his private sector.
While I do agree that, despite all his flaws, the man pioneered electric vehicles with his investment and management of the engineering geniouses at R&D in Tesla, that also has been showing more problems lately. Might be due to him having more companies to manage now, might be populist appeal, but the tesla CyberTruck has been shown to be a complete flop with many people demonstrating the flaws of it all over youtube and other media. Just to name a few: it is completely useless in the areas it tries to sell itself in (often needing other trucks to unstick itself out of situations trucks are meant for), the safety issues the impact compatibility of what is essentially a slab of steel plates at highway speeds, the fact that they use shitty glue to hold said plates in place (notably, a plate on the gas pedals that, with enough slipping, will eventually get stuck with no way to get unstuck mid-drive)...
All of this from the man that claims to be the most knowledgeable production expert alive at the moment, and let's not forget the pr fumble of giving his heart out to the crowd...
His rebranding attempt of Twitter is... well, we see how that's devolving into him just buying it to control online discourse without actually being able to recoup his acquisition. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was revealed it's being used for stock manipulation.
The flamethrower was a pr stunt I'll give him that, and while the neurolink seems promising, all of his actions so far leave me hesitant to be optimistic about it.
That about sums up all that I've kept up with, I'm sure there's more, like lithium mines and exploiting workers, his influence on the covid 19 sentiment... overall just... cartoonishly greedy stuff, nothing outright evil if you're willing to be sceptic about the salute not being an outright nazi salute or his estranged daughter claiming he's a white supremacist (14-words level) who loves to make kids but not actually support them. Oh, and there's a whole baby-fur thing and a thing about his twitter likes being generally perv/creepy, but that's honestly my least problematic fact about him.
Edit: oh, I also forgot completely about the controversies within his car business, from "full self driving" causing multiple crashes, the tesla semi that will surely eventually come out, and all the AI controversies around Grok and XAI
❌ It did not compete or derail the project, nor did Musk say that it was never serious. Perhaps you can cite your quote of "never serious"?
❌ It was always just an idea, Musk said he didn't have time to work on it, just said this is what should be possible and the price on the rail system was crazy expensive. Massive rail projects often don't work and come in at even higher costs, just look at HS2.
❌ It most likely derailed itself with its insane price tag.
❌ SpaceX doesn't have sole control, it operates around 80%.
❌ SpaceX didn't increase the cost of delivering cargo, that's bonkers, it wouldn't compete if that were true. In fact the cost is up to 20 times cheaper, per kg.
❌ NASA's budget has remained roughly the same, it hasn't been defunded. A large share of that goes on its own projects.
❌ The bulk of the money is fixed-price contracts for delivered services (crew, cargo, launches, lander work), not open-ended subsidies to cover losses. He / spaceX bears more cost + risk than traditional contractors and has built tons of commercial revenue (especially Starlink).
I'm not gonna continue there cos obviously the rest is just as wrong
Right, I'm not your fact-checker, you're just as free to research the facts with chatgpt, which you clearly used to write that response as I refuse to belive someone with self respect uses x emojis for each bulletpoint. You also seemingly refuse to look stuff up yet somehow know that spacex is cheaper per kg than historical alternatives? Please.
You don't have to honestly, it's clear that none of what you wrote is in good faith and you aren't expecting a good faith answer.
Feel free to come back when you're ready to have an actual conversation. No need to shill otherwise.
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u/RewardWanted 4h ago
Sadly when it's a way for the elite to try and garner more followers (i.e. convert them into yes-men techbros who will keep sucking off Elmo despite multiple of his projects not only bombing but setting back public infrastructure for more than a decade (thank you HyperLoop)) which in turn will lead them to try and do continuously more outrageous cons.