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> The vast majority of my peers prefer him to any other billionaire and why wouldn't they? Do you prefer the Zuckerbergs and Bezos' that do almost nothing but

> The vast majority of my peers prefer him to any other billionaire and why wouldn't they? Do you prefer the Zuckerbergs and Bezos' that do almost nothing but chase profit? All billionaires suck, but Musk sucks the least so get on the fanboi bandwagon? Please. None of these tech billionaires deserve to be treated as anything but the robber barons they are. Musk? He's at best an unhinged narcissist. And that's being kind. The fact that he's bought into his own fan fiction and thinks of himself as a noble futurist doesn't matter much to his overworked employees, the people Musk has defamed on Twitter, or the shareholders he's defrauded through blatant market manipulation.

toolz 4y ago
so if you painted a picture today that had sentimental value to you, so you would never sell it, but someone offered you 1 billion dollars for it (therefore making your net worth instantly 1 billion) would you suck just because you wouldn't sell your picture and give away the money? Because that's not too far off from the vast majority of billionaires who simply can't/won't liquidate their potential net worth because it would have negative consequences.
- BaseballPhysics 4y ago
  > Because that's not too far off from the vast majority of billionaires who simply can't/won't liquidate their potential net worth because it would have negative consequences. That's... not how the rich access their wealth. Musk himself has taken out massive margin loans collateralized by his Tesla stock. This allows him to live a very lavish lifestyle without actually having to liquidate his positions or pay any kind of income or capital gains taxes. In fact, this is how most extremely rich individuals operate: their wealth is locked up in equity and then they take out tax advantaged loans to fund their lifestyles. So yeah, if I had a painting worth a few billion dollars, and a bank offered me a 500M loan collateralized by that painting, yeah, sure, of course I'd take that deal. Though ironically, Musk has also recently sold billions of dollars worth of shares, first back in the fall, and again in advance of his purchase of Twitter. So I'm actually not sure how your hypothetical applies to Musk.
  - toolz 4y ago
    firstly musk doesn't live a lavish life (not that this really matters towards my original point that being a billionaire doesn't mean you suck) for the past couple of years he's been living in a ~50k house in south texas. Back to my point, if you had the hypothetical painting you could take out a collateralized loan but you still couldn't give away your money to reduce your net worth or else you'd default on your loan - so the point still stands, you'd be a billionaire and I would argue there's nothing wrong with you being a billionaire....as to whether musk can liquidate and reduce his networth - why? Did anything meaningful change in the world when he liquidated 10 billion? To that point he did it so that he could become the individual who paid the most taxes in history and that changed basically nothing with the federal balance...in fact if you used 100% of every billionaires net worth in the US and put that towards taxes you wouldn't be able to even run the federal government for a full year on that budget - much closer to 6 months. To clarify once more - I'm saying being a billionaire doesn't mean you suck. You absolutely don't have to do anything evil to become a billionaire. The system which allows for the creation of billionaires is broken, I'm sure we agree, but it isn't musks fault that wallstreet has been allowed to create complex abstract financial devices that seemingly have done nothing but created more wealth inequality. Musk certainly benefited from these financial instruments, but you can't default to suggesting he did anything evil just because he benefited from it. In the same way that someone can value your painting at 1 billion without your input, many people have valued his company at many billions of dollars without his input. He did nothing but create a valuable company, which is the opposite of evil.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - BaseballPhysics 4y ago
      > firstly musk doesn't live a lavish life The alleged sexual assaults on his private jets, among many other things, would suggest otherwise. But maybe we have a different definition of "lavish". Speaking for myself, I don't have personal masseuses on my private jets. > He did nothing but create a valuable company, which is the opposite of evil. And exploit a non-unionized labor force. And engage in illegal market manipulation and stock trading on multiple occasions, including in just the last month. And defame people on twitter because they didn't like his insane ideas. And lie about his stock sales last year (which were part of a prearranged filing way before he hosted his little PR gimmick disguised as a twitter poll). And there's the whole masseuse thing... But you're right, he's otherwise totally cool. Definitely not a narcissistic megalomaniac that's utterly obsessed with his personal image.
kmlx 4y ago
> None of these tech billionaires deserve to be treated as anything but the robber barons they are. yeah, this is false. > or the shareholders he's defrauded through blatant market manipulation. this is also false. i mean, if you're going to do a flame bait comment, at least do it well.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  > yeah, this is false. It can't be false, it's a value judgement.

toolz 4y ago

so if you painted a picture today that had sentimental value to you, so you would never sell it, but someone offered you 1 billion dollars for it (therefore making your net worth instantly 1 billion) would you suck just because you wouldn't sell your picture and give away the money? Because that's not too far off from the vast majority of billionaires who simply can't/won't liquidate their potential net worth because it would have negative consequences.

BaseballPhysics 4y ago
> Because that's not too far off from the vast majority of billionaires who simply can't/won't liquidate their potential net worth because it would have negative consequences. That's... not how the rich access their wealth. Musk himself has taken out massive margin loans collateralized by his Tesla stock. This allows him to live a very lavish lifestyle without actually having to liquidate his positions or pay any kind of income or capital gains taxes. In fact, this is how most extremely rich individuals operate: their wealth is locked up in equity and then they take out tax advantaged loans to fund their lifestyles. So yeah, if I had a painting worth a few billion dollars, and a bank offered me a 500M loan collateralized by that painting, yeah, sure, of course I'd take that deal. Though ironically, Musk has also recently sold billions of dollars worth of shares, first back in the fall, and again in advance of his purchase of Twitter. So I'm actually not sure how your hypothetical applies to Musk.
- toolz 4y ago
  firstly musk doesn't live a lavish life (not that this really matters towards my original point that being a billionaire doesn't mean you suck) for the past couple of years he's been living in a ~50k house in south texas. Back to my point, if you had the hypothetical painting you could take out a collateralized loan but you still couldn't give away your money to reduce your net worth or else you'd default on your loan - so the point still stands, you'd be a billionaire and I would argue there's nothing wrong with you being a billionaire....as to whether musk can liquidate and reduce his networth - why? Did anything meaningful change in the world when he liquidated 10 billion? To that point he did it so that he could become the individual who paid the most taxes in history and that changed basically nothing with the federal balance...in fact if you used 100% of every billionaires net worth in the US and put that towards taxes you wouldn't be able to even run the federal government for a full year on that budget - much closer to 6 months. To clarify once more - I'm saying being a billionaire doesn't mean you suck. You absolutely don't have to do anything evil to become a billionaire. The system which allows for the creation of billionaires is broken, I'm sure we agree, but it isn't musks fault that wallstreet has been allowed to create complex abstract financial devices that seemingly have done nothing but created more wealth inequality. Musk certainly benefited from these financial instruments, but you can't default to suggesting he did anything evil just because he benefited from it. In the same way that someone can value your painting at 1 billion without your input, many people have valued his company at many billions of dollars without his input. He did nothing but create a valuable company, which is the opposite of evil.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - BaseballPhysics 4y ago
    > firstly musk doesn't live a lavish life The alleged sexual assaults on his private jets, among many other things, would suggest otherwise. But maybe we have a different definition of "lavish". Speaking for myself, I don't have personal masseuses on my private jets. > He did nothing but create a valuable company, which is the opposite of evil. And exploit a non-unionized labor force. And engage in illegal market manipulation and stock trading on multiple occasions, including in just the last month. And defame people on twitter because they didn't like his insane ideas. And lie about his stock sales last year (which were part of a prearranged filing way before he hosted his little PR gimmick disguised as a twitter poll). And there's the whole masseuse thing... But you're right, he's otherwise totally cool. Definitely not a narcissistic megalomaniac that's utterly obsessed with his personal image.

kmlx 4y ago

> None of these tech billionaires deserve to be treated as anything but the robber barons they are. yeah, this is false. > or the shareholders he's defrauded through blatant market manipulation. this is also false. i mean, if you're going to do a flame bait comment, at least do it well.

guerrilla 4y ago
> yeah, this is false. It can't be false, it's a value judgement.