The nation’s modern campaign finance system, established by a 1976 Supreme Court opinion after the Watergate scandal, is based on the premise that large contributions from wealthy interests can create corruption or the appearance of corruption. The Supreme Court remade that system in 2010, when it concluded that “independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Since then, the role of the wealthiest few in politics has exploded, aided by the repeated judicial and regulatory expansions of what “independent” means.
As it stands, Musk remains legally “independent” from Donald Trump’s campaign — even though he appears at his rallies; speaks regularly with the candidate; funds a field operation that shares data with Trump’s campaign; advertises through direct mail, text message and radio to elect Trump; has secured an advisory role in a future Trump administration; and has publicly announced that he plans to use that position to improve his own business fortunes.
Yea the whole system has a fig leaf of deniability holding it up where these ‘independent’ groups use keywords to signal their alignment. Technically Musk is giving a million dollars to voters in Pennsylvania from an organization that’s supposed to be educating users about the first and second amendment, but absolutely no one really thinks the organization’s goal in life is to have an well educated civic population in regards to the bill of rights.
I disagree. I think he knows enough to know that people sending X-rays of their wrist would never be enough to accurately diagnosis someone. The easy enough analogy would be he would never tell people just send pictures of the road they’re on and he’ll get to self driving cars. It’s not that he does or doesn’t know enough, it’s just not his purpose to get to an AI system that diagnoses, it’s the selling of Grok as this rapidly evolving AI that’s the point.
Yeah sort of like how AT&T wasn’t allowed to have any influence over Directv before the Justice Dept. had approved the merger. Meanwhile I sat in tons of lawyer-approved meetings where they basically told us exactly what to do. But somehow it was all coded with the right verbiage.
I would say the guy is weird but I feel like this is him trying to hit on women in the most awkward just-joking-but-not-really-but-kind-of way possible, so really just a creep
It’s the Nelly approach “I’m just kiddin’… unless you gonna do it.”
Most of his kids were conceived via IVF and it’s not clear what kind of romantic relationship (if any) he was in with the mothers at the time, so yeah, I think there are times when he just shoots his shot (pun intended)
From the Times article,
"In 2021, without Ms. Boucher’s [ aka Grimes] knowledge, Mr. Musk donated sperm to Ms. Zilis [aka an employee at one of his companies], who became pregnant with twins through I.V.F., according to three people familiar with the couple. That same year, the billionaire and Ms. Boucher were expecting a second child also conceived via I.V.F. but carried by a surrogate.
The two women, who had been friends and ran in similar social circles, had unknowingly been at the same Austin hospital around the same time, according to an authorized biography of Mr. Musk by Walter Isaacson. Ms. Zilis had twins in late 2021, weeks before Ms. Boucher’s child, a girl, was born. Ms. Boucher found out that Mr. Musk had fathered Ms. Zilis’s children a month after they were born, according to two people close to the situation."
I don’t know that Elon was anymore serious than any of the people around here posting things that 7 people are going to read, but anyway, I’m not sure if I’ve ever known anyone to be an accellerationist. I know they exist somewhere, but the thing about centrists thinking they are around every corner has a lot to do with how they read the people they don’t like or trust (is an insider - has sufficiently pledged allegiance). Like, some known Dumbocrat, like say Riverman, can say we are all fucked and should start over from the stone age all day long and no one thinks anything about it, but if AngryQueer says it, it’s different.
You’d think Elon would be more serious since millions of people are reading, but then he’s an idiot, so shrug. But really I don’t think he wants the economy to collapse and Tesla stock to tank.
Context is that Elon sincerely wants DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) to massively cut government spending by like half or whatever and he acknowledges the point that it’s almost tautological that doing so would lead to a massive recession.
Worth it from his perspective because all that spending is useless or worse so in long run US will be better off.
