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Elon Musk - the world's "greatest" spiv?

Tester

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Just imagine actually believing this (to be clear not that he's saying it, but what he's saying) :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Without doing the calculations you actually do need something like rocket propulsion though don't you? At least unless the road "surface" is something specialist so that mere friction isn't enough. You're not going to get 3g acceleration from any sort of even vaguely legal road tyres
Rack and pinion?

:D :D :D :D :D
 
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Cloud Strife

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Without doing the calculations you actually do need something like rocket propulsion though don't you? At least unless the road "surface" is something specialist so that mere friction isn't enough. You're not going to get 3g acceleration from any sort of even vaguely legal road tyres

Some very bad physics tells me that you'd pull 2.7g with this sort of acceleration. There are some road-legal tyres that could handle it, like the Goodyear Eagle F1 SuperCar 3, but I have no idea if it's even possible to build a road-legal car with that acceleration. For me, it's just another example of Musk overpromising and then failing to deliver. It's worked up until Cybertruck, but I'm not convinced that anyone is going to believe him in the long run.

I don't think buying a second hand Tesla in the UK is a stupid decision, particularly since prices are likely to be rather depressed.

I don't think it's a stupid decision at all. 35k is an absolute steal, especially when you consider that Teslas are holding up well after 250,000 miles on the clock. The Model S has some issues when it gets to that kind of age, but the Model 3 in particular has been performing ridiculously well. If anything, it shows how people don't really know what they're selling. Regardless of what you think about Musk as a person, there's no doubting the fact that the typical Tesla (Cybertruck aside) is an incredibly cheap car to keep on the road.

edit: I've had a look, and it's true, the second hand market has completely collapsed in the UK for Teslas. It's ridiculous how good the offers are, and if it wasn't for the fact that driving a RHD on a daily basis on the right is a pain, I'd probably snap one up myself.
 
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Ken X

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Whilst gainfully employed I had occasion to regularly visit several high end car manufacturers sites including Tesla. I am not particularly interested in cars but two things struck me about Tesla cars.

One was "Ludicrous Mode" which lived up to its name :).

The other was that the technicians had resorted to building a homemade rain machine behind their workshop which usually contained a new Tesla being liberally sprinkled whilst the hapless tech desperately tried to find out where it was leaking this time.

I guess if the price is right for you it's worth a punt.
 

Peter Mugridge

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There's all sorts of interesting claims about the car, including that it will include small rocket thrusters to achieve this kind of performance.
At least that's one way of dealing with the "limpets" who drive 5mm behind your rear bumper, I suppose... :lol:
 

brad465

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Elon Musk managed to post something that amounts to naked bribery (not for the first time), suggesting in Wisconsin he'd hand out two cheques of $1m each to voters who had voted in the state's Supreme Court election. He's now being sued by the state's Attorney General:


MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general asked a court on Friday to block billionaire Elon Musk from handing out $1 million checks to voters this weekend, just days before the state’s hotly contested Supreme Court race was to be decided.

Attorney General Josh Kaul filed the lawsuit in county circuit court to stop Musk from making the payments, which he said he would make Sunday in Wisconsin. Musk initially said in a post on his social media platform, X, that he planned to “personally hand over” $2 million to a pair of voters who have already cast their ballots in the race.

Musk later posted a clarification, saying the money will go to people who will be “spokesmen” for an online petition against “activist” judges. After first saying the event would only be open to people who had voted in the Supreme Court race, he said attendance would be limited to those who have signed the petition.

Also on Friday, Musk’s political action committee identified the recipient of its first $1 million giveaway — a Green Bay man who had donated to the Wisconsin GOP and the conservative candidate in the court race, and who has a history of posting support for President Donald Trump and his agenda.

Related Stories
 

jon0844

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Elon Musk managed to post something that amounts to naked bribery (not for the first time), suggesting in Wisconsin he'd hand out two cheques of $1m each to voters who had voted in the state's Supreme Court election. He's now being sued by the state's Attorney General:


And yet he gets so upset about the Tesla protests and keeps telling everyone (mostly on Fox) that people like George Soros (not mentioned by name, but we all know who he is talking about) are funding these protests - and that Elon, and the Government, are going to hunt these people down.

He's such a free speech absolutist.
 

Cowley

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And yet he gets so upset about the Tesla protests and keeps telling everyone (mostly on Fox) that people like George Soros (not mentioned by name, but we all know who he is talking about) are funding these protests - and that Elon, and the Government, are going to hunt these people down.
Ah, no decent conspiracy theorist worth their salt misses an opportunity to crowbar George Soros into a conversation at any opportunity. They’re absolutely obsessed with him.
 

Noddy

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And yet he gets so upset about the Tesla protests and keeps telling everyone (mostly on Fox) that people like George Soros (not mentioned by name, but we all know who he is talking about) are funding these protests - and that Elon, and the Government, are going to hunt these people down.

He's such a free speech absolutist.

Ah, no decent conspiracy theorist worth their salt misses an opportunity to crowbar George Soros into a conversation at any opportunity. They’re absolutely obsessed with him.

What self-respecting fascist doesn’t like a good conspiracy theory involving a Jew?
 

jon0844

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Elon pauses every time he is likely to say George Soros or just 'globalist elite' or some other dog whistle.

But I can't see it being long until he says it, or agrees with someone on X that says it for him.

It's clear he wants everyone to think the protests against Tesla are organised by the woke left, despite the fact the left were the people buying his cars. I'm sure they'd love for Elon to be fired from Tesla so they could buy them again (and that Tesla might go back to being a car company first and foremost and build new models).
 

brad465

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Ah, no decent conspiracy theorist worth their salt misses an opportunity to crowbar George Soros into a conversation at any opportunity. They’re absolutely obsessed with him.
George Soros is 94, so by all probability won't be around much longer. What these folk do after will be interesting (they'll probably find someone else, but not before some "old habits die hard" blunders).
 

Cowley

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George Soros is 94, so by all probability won't be around much longer. What these folk do after will be interesting (they'll probably find someone else, but not before some "old habits die hard" blunders).

They also like to mutter about the World Economic Forum, so that’s a useful target (I can’t say I know much about it though so I can’t really comment).
 

Yew

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He's such a free speech absolutist.
I hear that the latest controversy is that he is giving out money to buy elections, and claiming it as "free speech". I've heard the phrase "money talks" but didn't think it was literal.
 

jon0844

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Elon pauses every time he is likely to say George Soros or just 'globalist elite' or some other dog whistle.

But I can't see it being long until he says it, or agrees with someone on X that says it for him.

It's clear he wants everyone to think the protests against Tesla are organised by the woke left, despite the fact the left were the people buying his cars. I'm sure they'd love for Elon to be fired from Tesla so they could buy them again (and that Tesla might go back to being a car company first and foremost and build new models).

Quoting myself here, but he finally had the courage to say George Soros last night.
 

Egg Centric

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Quoting myself here, but he finally had the courage to say George Soros last night.

He's said it before.

It's also one of the more curious things he does tbh - if the Soros stuff were true I would find it absolutely bizarre for the richest man in the world who continually and boastingly interferes in democracy to complain about someone else doing it. Makes zero sense.
 

sor

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I hear that the latest controversy is that he is giving out money to buy elections, and claiming it as "free speech". I've heard the phrase "money talks" but didn't think it was literal.
he's been trying to play it both ways. he'll claim it's some kind of lottery until he finds out that local law prohibits unlicenced lotteries. then he claims the "winner" is predetermined and they agree to become a paid spokesperson before receiving the money. with the addition of the "very rich person" multiplier he seems to avoid actual legal trouble.

of course in this most recent "lottery" it seems at least one of the winners is a notable local republican. who would have thought...


Taking the stage in Green Bay wearing a yellow foam cheesehead hat, Musk gave out $1 million checks on Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group. One of the recipients, Nicholas Jacobs, is listed as the chairman of the Wisconsin Federation of College Republicans.
 

Egg Centric

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Reports Musk is standing down from DOGE soon. For example https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/02/trump-musk-leaving-political-liability-00265784

President Donald Trump has told his inner circle, including members of his Cabinet, that Elon Musk will be stepping back in the coming weeks from his current role as governing partner, ubiquitous cheerleader and Washington hatchet man.
The president remains pleased with Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency initiative but both men have decided in recent days that it will soon be time for Musk to return to his businesses and take on a supporting role, according to three Trump insiders who were granted anonymity to describe the evolving relationship.
Musk’s looming retreat comes as some Trump administration insiders and many outside allies have become frustrated with his unpredictability and increasingly view the billionaire as a political liability, a dynamic that was thrown into stark relief Tuesday when a conservative judge Musk vocally supported lost his bid for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat by 10 points.


It also represents a stark shift in the Trump-Musk relationship from a month ago, when White House officials and allies were predicting Musk was “here to stay” and that Trump would find a way to blow past the 130-day time limit.
One senior administration official said Musk is likely to retain an informal role as an adviser and continue to be an occasional face around the White House grounds. Another cautioned that anyone who thinks Musk is going to disappear entirely from Trump’s orbit is “fooling themselves.”
The transition, the insiders said, is likely to correspond to the end of Musk’s time as a “special government employee,” a special status that temporarily exempts him from some ethics and conflict-of-interest rules. That 130-day period is expected to expire in late May or early June.
Musk’s defenders inside the administration believe that the time is right for a transition, given their view that there’s only so much more he can cut from government agencies without shaving too close to the bone.
But many others say, he’s an unpredictable, unmanageable force who has had issues communicating his plans with Cabinet secretaries and through the White House chain of command led by chief of staff Susie Wiles, frequently sending them into a frenzy with unexpected and off-message comments on X, his social-media platform — including sharing unvetted and uncoordinated plans to gut federal agencies.
The political threat Musk poses was highlighted Tuesday after Democrats seized on Musk’s roughly $20 million investment in the Wisconsin race, with some openly calling it a referendum on the polarizing mogul.
Trump, however, had already started easing the glide path starting more than a week before the election — including at a March 24 Cabinet meeting where he told attendees that Musk would be transitioning out of the administration, according to one of the insiders, who did not attend the meeting but was briefed on the comments. A senior administration official confirmed Trump discussed Musk’s transition at the meeting.


Immediately after making the announcement, Trump invited reporters and cameras in for the tail end of the meeting, where he lavished praise on Musk, who attended the meeting wearing a red MAGA hat. Cabinet secretaries — many of whom had clashed with Musk just weeks before over Musk’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach to cutting their departments — in turn jumped in to hail his bureaucracy-slashing campaign.
“Elon, I want to thank you — I know you’ve been through a lot,” Trump said, mentioning death threats and the spate vandalism directed at the cars built by Tesla before calling him “a patriot” and “a friend of mine.”
Both men subsequently hinted publicly at a transition. When Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Musk on Thursday whether he’d be ready to leave when his special government employee status expires, he essentially declared mission accomplished: “I think we will have accomplished most of the work required to reduce the deficit by $1 trillion within that time frame.”
On Monday night, Trump told reporters that “at some point Elon’s going to want to go back to his company,” adding: “He wants to. I’d keep him as long as I could keep him.”
“As the President said, this White House would love to keep Elon around for as long as possible,” White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said Tuesday as election results from Wisconsin rolled in. “Elon has been instrumental in executing the President’s agenda, and will continue this good work until the President says otherwise.”
But many close to Trump are increasingly relieved that Musk is expected to soon move on from his central role at Trump’s side and that the litany of DOGE surprises — which have ranged from a weekend email blast demanding federal workers list their work output to accidental cuts to Ebola prevention programs — might finally be coming to a close.
That’s to say nothing of their concerns about Musk as a political liability who has served as a rallying point for fractured Democrats.
 

Cloud Strife

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Wouldn't surprise me. He has money, but he doesn't have the political skill needed to survive in Washington, and I strongly suspect that companies such as Blackrock have been telling Musk that he either goes back to focus on his businesses or that he's out of Tesla. He's also shown that he doesn't really know how to win elections, as seen by his massive failure in Wisconsin.

Not to mention that Musk is a massive liability: Trump can get away with being Trump, but every mistake of Musk's will hurt him.
 

sor

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the key there is the "special government employee" status. He can't be on the books for more than those 130 days and it's not like Trump would nominate him to a senate-confirmed position where he will face actual questioning. So no doubt he'll still be stinking up the place, but in a "voluntary" capacity instead.

Though with Tesla's poor sales numbers I can imagine the shareholders will want an answer as to whether he plans to come back (not necessarily a good thing if he did - Musk's companies operate in spite of him, after all)
 

43096

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Though with Tesla's poor sales numbers I can imagine the shareholders will want an answer as to whether he plans to come back (not necessarily a good thing if he did - Musk's companies operate in spite of him, after all)
True - but Musk right now is toxic for Tesla. If he untangles himself now from DOGE does that go away, or is he forever tainted? That's the call for Tesla's shareholders.
 

jon0844

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You might also think that, assuming Elon has any friends, someone has whispered in his ear that when everything goes wrong for Trump, Elon was always going to be the fall guy.

The tariffs, the outrage even amongst some hardened right wingers at innocent people ending up deported to El Salvador, the increasing prices and inflation, plus the impact of the job cuts that Elon made etc etc.

Trump will almost certainly move on to blaming Elon for as much as he can when he can't blame Biden or Obama any longer.

Likewise the Heritage Foundation will likely put all the blame onto Trump when the time comes, so JD Vance can take over.

They will all begin to eat each other when it all comes crashing down.
 

Egg Centric

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They will all begin to eat each other when it all comes crashing down.

Sure, although Elon actually has genuine obscene wealth so he'll be fine whatever. Trump (if he survives) maybe not so much. For liberal (in the old fashioned sense) centrists like me it's nice to see the right eat itself, not just the left.

(Still loving me "new" Tesla tho. I have driven faster vehicles but nothing so ridiculously effortless, it's as easy as riding a sports bike to overtake everyone. But it's huge and practical. So I can't truely hate him especially when I consider his neurodiversity difficulties which make him process things differently, unlike Trump who I detest with the heat of 1000 suns)
 

takno

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You might also think that, assuming Elon has any friends, someone has whispered in his ear that when everything goes wrong for Trump, Elon was always going to be the fall guy.

The tariffs, the outrage even amongst some hardened right wingers at innocent people ending up deported to El Salvador, the increasing prices and inflation, plus the impact of the job cuts that Elon made etc etc.

Trump will almost certainly move on to blaming Elon for as much as he can when he can't blame Biden or Obama any longer.

Likewise the Heritage Foundation will likely put all the blame onto Trump when the time comes, so JD Vance can take over.

They will all begin to eat each other when it all comes crashing down.

You might also think that, assuming Elon has any friends, someone has whispered in his ear that when everything goes wrong for Trump, Elon was always going to be the fall guy.

The tariffs, the outrage even amongst some hardened right wingers at innocent people ending up deported to El Salvador, the increasing prices and inflation, plus the impact of the job cuts that Elon made etc etc.

Trump will almost certainly move on to blaming Elon for as much as he can when he can't blame Biden or Obama any longer.

Likewise the Heritage Foundation will likely put all the blame onto Trump when the time comes, so JD Vance can take over.

They will all begin to eat each other when it all comes crashing down.
I'm not convinced they have developed a plan for him to leave. It's more that Tesla put out some catastrophic quarterly results and the shares price was set for a good solid tank, so musk went for his tried and tested distraction technique. Announcing that he'll be back there soon to sort it all out turned the loss into a gain.

It may even be enough to deflect a couple of big lawsuits about how he's not doing the job he gets paid so well for.
 

brad465

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Now Musk wants to clamp down on parody accounts on X, which is full of irony and hypocrisy (more free speech hypocrisy and the irony that he and his whole platform are a parody in their own right):


X is bringing in stricter rules around parody accounts.
From 10 April, accounts which impersonate another user or person must use key words such as "fake" or "parody" at the start of their account names.
The platform will also require parody account holders to use different images to the X accounts belonging to those they seek to represent.
Some users have complained about confusion caused by parody accounts on the platform, such as those impersonating its owner Elon Musk.
"These changes are designed to help users better understand the unaffiliated nature of PCF accounts and reduce the risk of confusion or impersonation," the company said in a post on Saturday, external.
It encouraged affected accounts to update their profiles by the enforcement date.
The changes will also apply for fan and commentary accounts, it said.
"Hopefully this includes all the thousands of fake variations of Elon Musk accounts," wrote one user in response to X's post about its policy update.
"About time, I get a fake Elon account contacting me almost once a week," wrote another.
There are a number of parody accounts for the platform's owner, identifying themselves as impersonations in various ways.
Posts viewed by the BBC from Elon Musk parody accounts ranged from memes and jokes, to promoting cryptocurrency and car giveaways.
A recent post by one Elon Musk parody account, which has more than one million followers, told users to "like and comment" for the chance to win a Tesla.
The post has received 428,000 likes and more than 200,000 replies.
X rolled out labels for parody accounts in January - building on its rules requiring, external users engaging in impersonation for the purpose of entertainment to identify themselves as such.
These, and the platform's blue tick verification system, have been cited as tools to prevent misleading impersonation while allowing speech and discussion.
But the effectiveness of such measures have been disputed.
The EU said in July 2024 that the blue ticks breached its online content rules, with its "verified" blue tick accounts having the potential to "deceive" users.
Musk called the EU's rules "misinformation", in response.
Following his takeover in November 2022, the Tesla chief executive said accounts engaging in unlabelled impersonation would be banned.
Many parody accounts on X identify their parody nature in brackets at the end of user names, but this is not a fool-proof measure.
If a parody account's name is particularly long, and only a shortened version appears in feeds or replies, users can unwittingly duped - especially if the account's image matches that of the real person.
 

takno

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Now Musk wants to clamp down on parody accounts on X, which is full of irony and hypocrisy (more free speech hypocrisy and the irony that he and his whole platform are a parody in their own right):

I can't imagine how bad a parody Elon would have to be before it was more annoying than the real thing
 

SuspectUsual

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I can't imagine how bad a parody Elon would have to be before it was more annoying than the real thing

I suppose it depends what type of parody

The "pretend to be someone famous to try and make illegal money" sort should be banned

The "take the p*ss out of famous people" sort should be encouraged

I don't doubt Musk will claim his action is because of the first type, when in fact its the second
 

gg1

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I can't imagine how bad a parody Elon would have to be before it was more annoying than the real thing
Given the outlandish nonsense he spouts on a regular basis, the main struggle would be differentiating between the parody accounts and the genuine one.
 

sor

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The "pretend to be someone famous to try and make illegal money" sort should be banned
Lest we forget that old twitter created the blue tick system for this specific reason (IIRC they were actually sued by someone who was impersonated and this was part of the settlement), and the "visionary" tech bro killed that as one of his first moves after taking over.
 

Grimsby town

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I suppose it depends what type of parody

The "pretend to be someone famous to try and make illegal money" sort should be banned
While I personally agree with that type of account being band, I'm not sure how that fits with Musk being a supposed free speech absolutionist. I'd like to see him try to explain how this is different to to people making posts about killing immigrants.
 

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