• Hello_there@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Mush didn’t found Tesla. He bought it later and put in the contract that he was able to call himself a founder

    • 4realz@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      Exactly, but “technically” he is credited as a founder. He’s a really good business man.

      • echo64@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        He isn’t a “really good business man”, everything he’s made is built on a foundation of lies. Eventually, it’ll collapse or be saved by socialised systems for being too big to fail. Musk is a con man, not a businessman. He’s just made a living out of conning investors and the public alike.

        • TheEntity@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          I don’t know, it sounds like the definition of a business man. Not one I’d admire, but not unlike lots of other business men.

          • echo64@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            No, businessmen do business. Steve Jobs did business, he figured out markets, created markets based on what his business could provide. That’s actual business.

            A grifter, a con man, is not a business man, they wear the skin of one to fool people like yourself into buying into the con. Looks like it works.

            • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              Steve Jobs also conspired with his competitors to underpay their staff. Staff as in the people that helped him do business and make billions

            • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              created markets based on what his business could provide.

              As much as I loathe musk, this is exactly what Starlink is. It’s a company founded solely to buy the product SpaceX is making, because other people couldn’t buy enough.

              Of course, Starlink is floating almost entirely on venture capital, but that’s how Amazon got started too.

              • echo64@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Here’s the rub. Starlink is not and can not be profitable without venture capital and subsidies. It exists to funnel money away from taxpayers. It’s a con built on lies like the rest. At least some people get to benefit from this, unlike people sold overhyped cars and promises of Mars colonies, but that’s changing with price hikes and service degredations too.

                • cole@lemdro.id
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                  11 months ago

                  can I get a source on the math for this? I haven’t heard that before

                  • echo64@lemmy.world
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                    11 months ago

                    What math do you want? The cost of launching infinite space ships forever is more than what subscribers pay. The satellites fall down in about a year and new ones need to be launched. The subscribers would have to pay for every single rocket launch. Right now American tax payers do.

            • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              My evil, greedy and manipulative capitalist is better than your evil, greedy and manipulative capitalist!!!

              • echo64@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                My point is that one is a greedy, evil businessman. The other is a greedy, evil conman.

                • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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                  11 months ago

                  But only if you draw a very careful line around definitions, what musk does is very standard capitalist business and what jobs did is very much the behaviour of a classic conman. Apples whole business strategy is straight out the carnival con artist playbook, you’ll find all the same tricks at any market stall

          • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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            11 months ago

            I think that the criticism is that our system does not raise the smartest or the best to the top.

        • 4realz@lemmy.worldOP
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          11 months ago

          I understand where you’re coming from, but business is brutal and things like this happen in that world. PayPal (formely X .com) was also started by Elon, I don’t think he “scammed/tricked” anyone on that. And he has made billions for his investors over the years. I mean Tesla is worth over $600 billion, due to the marketing genius that is Elon. [Mistake: Elon didn’t start PayPal, just X .com]

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            Man, learn something about someone before you go worshipping them.

            X was bought by paypal, but was far from “integral.” It was just its largest competitor for Confinidy at the time because Musk was washing it in money he made from a previous venture.Paypal was the more popular money transfer software, and it’s the platform the new company formed around, even taking its name.

            Musk was a actually briefly the CEO of PayPal, but his decisions were so poor that he was forced out.. He still retained enough shares of paypal to hit it big time, which is when he poured all that money into a long shot bet called Tesla, which he used goverment funds and seed capitol from his rich friends to keep alive until it turned an actual profit a decade later. With SpaceX, he leaned into fanboys like you calling him Tony stark, and managed to hire Gwynne Shotwell, a goddamn aeronautics powerhouse, as CEO the same year it was founded. She has brought SpaceX to success, by all accounts in spite of him. Its rumored that SpaceX keeps people around just to sideline Musk. That how disruptive he is to actual work. SpaceX was also utterly dependent on goverment subsides for most its existence, just like Tesla.

            Dude grew up with emerald mine money, then just kept taking outlandish risks because he had an emerald mine to keep his ass housed and fed, and yeah, eventually hit it big, with a big heaping of help from our tax dollars and mega rich pals. Big surprise.

            Turns out that if you have a wealthy life secured, you too can gamble big and make even more money. Thats how capitalism is designed to work. Capital makes more capital.

            The fact that you’re suckered in by the worlds luckiest gambler playing a game that had no actual stakes for him is sad as fuck man. Be proud of someone who overcame actual adversity. Go find a hero that wants to help people, not to rule them.

            • 4realz@lemmy.worldOP
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              11 months ago

              Interesting, thanks for sharing. I’ll have to do some more research on Elon then.

                  • Mongostein@lemmy.ca
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                    11 months ago

                    Honestly it sounds to me like there’s an effort to keep his father’s involvement in emeralds a secret.

                • sushibowl@feddit.nl
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                  11 months ago

                  here it is. The whole thing seems rather murky and somewhat shady too. The most specific statement on it is this:

                  Arnold’s story included answers from Errol about the mine, who said he had “very limited involvement” in it. Arnold paraphrased his answers, publishing that he said “it was a handshake deal with a Panamanian man that resulted in something like 110 emeralds up front and then a semi-regular trickle of rough stones over a few years following,” and that “there was never formal ownership.”

                  The wealth earned from the investment in the mine was quantified to be about $400,000 USD, taking into account inflation when Arnold’s piece was written in 2021, according to Errol. “Errol also quoted a lower number to me over the phone,” Arnold wrote. “He also claims he was getting emeralds from other sources, with only 60-70% coming from this venture.”

                  So maybe not a whole emerald mine, but like an unofficial small stake in an emerald mine? Still, 400k ain’t bad at all for a handshake deal.

          • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
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            11 months ago

            He didn’t start PayPal. It was founded by Pieter Thiel, another billionaire christofascist, and four other guys and non of them are called Elon Musk. X.com was bought by PayPal.

            • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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              11 months ago

              It’s wild how little this dude knows about Elon musk while singing his praises to the heavens, but I guess those two things go hand in hand.

              • ZeroCool@feddit.ch
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                11 months ago

                Muskrats are always the least informed people in the room when it concerns Elon Musk. It’d be a lot funnier if it weren’t so damn easy to find the actual facts. There’s really no excusing it, they’re just willfully ignorant.

              • FMT99@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                “Oh yeah he didn’t actually do that… Still, what a genius amirite?”

      • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        I think the whole Twitter debacle has disproven that he’s a good businessman. Rather, it highlights how far one can get by having heritable wealth and being in the right place at the right time.

      • Plopp@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Being credited as something doesn’t mean you are that something. My ex credited me for having a big penis.

        Elon is not a founder of Tesla, no matter what any documents say. Calling him such when you know he isn’t makes you a liar, a fool or a co-conspirator.

        • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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          11 months ago

          He seems like the avatar of the concept that rich people are not allowed to fail in society, no matter how hard they try. Once you reach a certain size, there will always be an army of people around them to hold them up. You just sit at the top and everyone under you needs you to succeed otherwise they’re also fucked.

          Musk is too big to fail.

        • Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org
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          11 months ago

          I guess when you have enough money you get to try enough times that you accidentally make good choices sometimes. Or people just think he’s smart because he’s rich.