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What's the point of success if you can't even speak your mind. Second thought, are you even a successful person if you're not free to speak your mind and live i

What's the point of success if you can't even speak your mind. Second thought, are you even a successful person if you're not free to speak your mind and live in constant fear of saying the wrong thing.

cptskippy 7y ago
With success comes influence and it becomes easier to manipulate people and profit from it.
braythwayt 7y ago
There should be no level of “success” that lets you speak your mind without fear of consequence. When what’s on your mind are things like baseless accusations of pedophilia, for example, you ought to be afraid of “saying the wrong thing.” That’s healthy. As for Musk’s SEC violations, he chose to run a publicly traded company, nobody put a gun to his head. He was already wealthy, he decided that the upside of turbocharging the electric car revolution and the exploration of space were worth the constraints of dealing with regulatory bodies. His choice, his consequences. We aren’t talking about him being fined for saying that he thinks his country’s Dear Leader looks like a deflated pumpkin. Nobody should live in fear of saying that.
- kitsunesoba 7y ago
  Just to be clear, only Tesla is public. SpaceX is private and Musk has repeatedly expressed that he intends for it remain that way until regular trips to/from Mars are the norm.
  - braythwayt 7y ago
    Thank you!
- maehwasu 7y ago
  > He was already wealthy, he decided that the upside of turbocharging the electric car revolution and the exploration of space were worth the constraints of dealing with regulatory bodies. The regulatory bodies don't exactly come out looking awesome in the above sentence.
  - braythwayt 7y ago
    Regulatory bodies are the worst thing we’ve ever tried, except unregulated capitalism.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  There should be no level of “success” that lets you speak your mind without fear of consequence. Yes there should be. In other times, it was being an ordinary private citizen of the United States. When what’s on your mind are things like baseless accusations of pedophilia, for example, you ought to be afraid of “saying the wrong thing.” "Speaking your mind" isn't exactly the same thing as engaging in defamation.
  - krapp 7y ago
    > In other times, it was being an ordinary private citizen of the United States. There was never such a time. Never, in the history of the United States, was it ever common for "ordinary private citizens" to speak their mind without fear of consequence. American culture, while giving lip-service to freedom of speech, has always punished those who venture to criticize the status quo. >"Speaking your mind" isn't exactly the same thing as engaging in defamation. Of course it is. If Elon Musk, or anyone, should be able to speak their mind without fear of consequence, that implies the freedom to defame people without fear of legal consequence.
    - stcredzero 7y ago
      Never, in the history of the United States, was it ever common for "ordinary private citizens" to speak their mind without fear of consequence. False. Me in graduate school in the 90's in South Carolina. My professor friend in the 90's just after she got tenure. American culture, while giving lip-service to freedom of speech, has always punished those who venture to criticize the status quo. No. Certain subsets/factions of this society have done that. There are many Americans who gave far more than lip-service to freedom of speech. My father was one such person. Many, many people in this society have been like that. It's in the past several years, that the mainstream media as a faction has turned against this idea. In my youth, they were among the loudest proponents. When I was young, it was the hostile Moral Majority types who were against freedom of speech. It always seems to be moralist authoritarians who claim they're not moralist authoritarians.
      - krapp 7y ago
- massivecali 7y ago
  Nobody in Hollywood is afraid of consequences for baseless accusations of anyone supporting the president as being a Nazi.
IanCal 7y ago
> What's the point of success if you can't even speak your mind. Nobody is stopping him from speaking his mind, he can't talk about his company in certain ways without checking from a lawyer from his company because it affects the other shareholders. None of this seems to be about "speaking your mind". > Second thought, are you even a successful person Elon Musk is by almost any definition a successful person. He has tried to do large things and succeeded. He is also exceptionally wealthy, which is a simple answer to "what's the point of ...".
- dvorak365 7y ago
  What's the point of freedom if I'm not free to force any random person obey my every word?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jrockway 7y ago
Is it speaking your mind to tell your company's investors that you're taking your company private and financing is confirmed, when you're not taking your company private and no financing is confirmed? That's just plain lying. Nobody is saying that Elon Musk can't talk about whatever he wants. The lawsuit is only that publicly-traded corporations can't mislead investors. I think that's fair.
- pbreit 7y ago
  He said “considering”. And funding secured just meant he had discussed it favorably with financiers.
  - dgacmu 7y ago
    "secured" has a very specific meaning. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
    - pbreit 7y ago
      Not on twitter.
      - AndrewBissell 7y ago
        Billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock changed hands and a huge change in the price occurred because people weren't sure if Musk was serious or not about having funding. "It was just Twitter hahaha" is just willful denial of the fact that investors do indeed watch Musk's tweets for hints about Tesla's fortunes and often take what he writes very seriously.
        pbreit 7y ago
        I was not suggesting “twitter ha ha”. I meant “twitter where a 2 word phrase could mean something like: i think I can get the deal done based on conversations with my board and interested financiers”.
dvorak365 7y ago
Even more concerning is the belief that the ability to speak one's mind should be dependent on some arbitrary metric of "success".
- dmix 7y ago
  The OP never said that only successful people should be allowed to express themselves. It was the person above him who was making the inverse suggestion that at a certain success level you should be tempering yourself in public discourse. There's a very big difference between negative positions and positive "why shouldn't they be able to" defences...
  - dvorak365 7y ago
    That's fair, but still by virtue of being successful (in this particular context of success) you have a lot more money which offers you a lot more freedom to express yourself. Musk is practically free to do most anything he wants to do, but he chooses to stay in a position where he exposes himself to risk by not tempering himself.
    - dmix 7y ago
      The only reason this matters in legal terms is because he's chairman of a public company with legal obligations. Whether that applies in a general cultural sense is a different question. The risks Musk is willing to take and his private investors and coworkers tolerance for that is their own voluntary choices to make.
Iv 7y ago
As soon as "success" implies piggy backing on the work of employees and capital of investor, there appears this weird stuff so many wealthy people are not used to, that is called "responsibility". You are not the sole person in your company, don't act like you are if you need other peoples' hands and other people's money to make it run.
- driven20 7y ago
  He made rockets that can land again. I'm pretty sure he knows the word "responsibility". This is my assumption, but I believe at some point he realized life is too short to be all uptight all the time. That as long as you focus on stuff that's really important. You can still have fun and make jokes.

cptskippy 7y ago

With success comes influence and it becomes easier to manipulate people and profit from it.

braythwayt 7y ago

There should be no level of “success” that lets you speak your mind without fear of consequence. When what’s on your mind are things like baseless accusations of pedophilia, for example, you ought to be afraid of “saying the wrong thing.” That’s healthy. As for Musk’s SEC violations, he chose to run a publicly traded company, nobody put a gun to his head. He was already wealthy, he decided that the upside of turbocharging the electric car revolution and the exploration of space were worth the constraints of dealing with regulatory bodies. His choice, his consequences. We aren’t talking about him being fined for saying that he thinks his country’s Dear Leader looks like a deflated pumpkin. Nobody should live in fear of saying that.

kitsunesoba 7y ago
Just to be clear, only Tesla is public. SpaceX is private and Musk has repeatedly expressed that he intends for it remain that way until regular trips to/from Mars are the norm.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  Thank you!
maehwasu 7y ago
> He was already wealthy, he decided that the upside of turbocharging the electric car revolution and the exploration of space were worth the constraints of dealing with regulatory bodies. The regulatory bodies don't exactly come out looking awesome in the above sentence.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  Regulatory bodies are the worst thing we’ve ever tried, except unregulated capitalism.
stcredzero 7y ago
There should be no level of “success” that lets you speak your mind without fear of consequence. Yes there should be. In other times, it was being an ordinary private citizen of the United States. When what’s on your mind are things like baseless accusations of pedophilia, for example, you ought to be afraid of “saying the wrong thing.” "Speaking your mind" isn't exactly the same thing as engaging in defamation.
- krapp 7y ago
  > In other times, it was being an ordinary private citizen of the United States. There was never such a time. Never, in the history of the United States, was it ever common for "ordinary private citizens" to speak their mind without fear of consequence. American culture, while giving lip-service to freedom of speech, has always punished those who venture to criticize the status quo. >"Speaking your mind" isn't exactly the same thing as engaging in defamation. Of course it is. If Elon Musk, or anyone, should be able to speak their mind without fear of consequence, that implies the freedom to defame people without fear of legal consequence.
  - stcredzero 7y ago
    Never, in the history of the United States, was it ever common for "ordinary private citizens" to speak their mind without fear of consequence. False. Me in graduate school in the 90's in South Carolina. My professor friend in the 90's just after she got tenure. American culture, while giving lip-service to freedom of speech, has always punished those who venture to criticize the status quo. No. Certain subsets/factions of this society have done that. There are many Americans who gave far more than lip-service to freedom of speech. My father was one such person. Many, many people in this society have been like that. It's in the past several years, that the mainstream media as a faction has turned against this idea. In my youth, they were among the loudest proponents. When I was young, it was the hostile Moral Majority types who were against freedom of speech. It always seems to be moralist authoritarians who claim they're not moralist authoritarians.
    - krapp 7y ago
massivecali 7y ago
Nobody in Hollywood is afraid of consequences for baseless accusations of anyone supporting the president as being a Nazi.

IanCal 7y ago

> What's the point of success if you can't even speak your mind. Nobody is stopping him from speaking his mind, he can't talk about his company in certain ways without checking from a lawyer from his company because it affects the other shareholders. None of this seems to be about "speaking your mind". > Second thought, are you even a successful person Elon Musk is by almost any definition a successful person. He has tried to do large things and succeeded. He is also exceptionally wealthy, which is a simple answer to "what's the point of ...".

dvorak365 7y ago
What's the point of freedom if I'm not free to force any random person obey my every word?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jrockway 7y ago

Is it speaking your mind to tell your company's investors that you're taking your company private and financing is confirmed, when you're not taking your company private and no financing is confirmed? That's just plain lying. Nobody is saying that Elon Musk can't talk about whatever he wants. The lawsuit is only that publicly-traded corporations can't mislead investors. I think that's fair.

pbreit 7y ago
He said “considering”. And funding secured just meant he had discussed it favorably with financiers.
- dgacmu 7y ago
  "secured" has a very specific meaning. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous.
  - pbreit 7y ago
    Not on twitter.
    - AndrewBissell 7y ago
      Billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock changed hands and a huge change in the price occurred because people weren't sure if Musk was serious or not about having funding. "It was just Twitter hahaha" is just willful denial of the fact that investors do indeed watch Musk's tweets for hints about Tesla's fortunes and often take what he writes very seriously.
      - pbreit 7y ago
        I was not suggesting “twitter ha ha”. I meant “twitter where a 2 word phrase could mean something like: i think I can get the deal done based on conversations with my board and interested financiers”.

dvorak365 7y ago

Even more concerning is the belief that the ability to speak one's mind should be dependent on some arbitrary metric of "success".

dmix 7y ago
The OP never said that only successful people should be allowed to express themselves. It was the person above him who was making the inverse suggestion that at a certain success level you should be tempering yourself in public discourse. There's a very big difference between negative positions and positive "why shouldn't they be able to" defences...
- dvorak365 7y ago
  That's fair, but still by virtue of being successful (in this particular context of success) you have a lot more money which offers you a lot more freedom to express yourself. Musk is practically free to do most anything he wants to do, but he chooses to stay in a position where he exposes himself to risk by not tempering himself.
  - dmix 7y ago
    The only reason this matters in legal terms is because he's chairman of a public company with legal obligations. Whether that applies in a general cultural sense is a different question. The risks Musk is willing to take and his private investors and coworkers tolerance for that is their own voluntary choices to make.

Iv 7y ago

As soon as "success" implies piggy backing on the work of employees and capital of investor, there appears this weird stuff so many wealthy people are not used to, that is called "responsibility". You are not the sole person in your company, don't act like you are if you need other peoples' hands and other people's money to make it run.

driven20 7y ago
He made rockets that can land again. I'm pretty sure he knows the word "responsibility". This is my assumption, but I believe at some point he realized life is too short to be all uptight all the time. That as long as you focus on stuff that's really important. You can still have fun and make jokes.