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Man has bigger ambitions. Teslas were just a stepping stone to whatever he's unleashing on the world now from the White House. Or he's completely deranged and
by SecretDreams 2y ago
Man has bigger ambitions. Teslas were just a stepping stone to whatever he's unleashing on the world now from the White House.
Or he's completely deranged and the drugs have irreversibly damaged his mind. Both scenarios, or some intersection therein, are plausible.
- noitpmeder 2y agoHe has 3 years left to convince the administration to allow non-US-born lizard people to run for president. Or, more likely, to institute some kind of perpetual monarchy passed down through his 14 kids.
- pclmulqdq 2y agoI'm not sure he understands that he will always be the Crassus to someone else's Caesar. Things don't go well for the money man.
- ajb 2y agoYeah, he reminds me of Berezovsky.
- af78 2y agoGarry Kasparov recently made the same connection in this piece: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/putinization-america/681837/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/pu... > Berezovsky, who elevated Putin to power from behind the scenes, was soon exiled and replaced with more compliant oligarchs. He also met a grisly end—found hanged at his Berkshire mansion at 67—a precedent that might give pause to anyone thinking of risking his business empire to play that gray-cardinal role for the likes of Trump and J. D. Vance.
- nouveaux 2y agoThe mistake here is equating Putin to Trump. One is a mastermind and the other is a puppet.
- benterix 2y ago> One is a mastermind and the other is a puppet. No, one is a cruel fox and another one is a stupid monkey. Their skills lie mainly in adaptability to the situations they found themselves in and using them, but neither is a mastermind.
- af78 2y agoI did not understand it that way. Putin is probably smarter than Trump (though he does not deserve to be regarded as a mastermind IMHO). The parallel I find interesting is that both are authoritarians who were helped to power by billionaires who thought it would serve their interests. We know the fate Russian “oligarchs” later met.
- disqard 2y agoRandom Unexpected Defenestrations
- tpm 2y ago> We know the fate Russian “oligarchs” later met. Russians close to power have historically often met that fate - at least since 1917, I suspect either prison or forced internal or external exile was more common before that. Americans not so much I think, so this probably won't transfer.
- drcongo 2y agoI'd have him more the Incitatus to Trump's Caligula.
- p3rls 2y agoHistory shows us that things actually go pretty well for the money man you just gotta remember to bring extra water rations when you march into Asia. I always liked to imagine him rallying his troops by telling them that Parthia meant virgin in greek or something like that Παρθία/παρθένος Lots of examples from American history too though where things turn out better like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Girard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Girard
- orwin 2y agoIt took Hugenberg 6 month to loose his government position, 8 to loose his mediatic empire, and a bit more to loose his industrial base.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoHere's how to remember which one to use: lose -> lost loose -> loosened
- orwin 2y agoThanks, i'll try to remember.
- ndsipa_pomu 2y agoIt's a very common mistake, so don't worry about it
- SecretDreams 2y agoGet me off this timeline
- timeon 2y ago> 3 years left to convince the administration to allow It is rare for Oligarchs to be in electable position. They do not need for that.
- root_axis 2y agoNah. If they manage to circumvent or amend the constitution, they'd just give Trump more terms in office rather than open up the office to Elon.
- noitpmeder 2y agoTrump won't be around forever, if only due to age/health. Need the next perpetual emperor to be young when he first steps into office.
- SSLy 2y agoI wonder how many of the 14 want to have anything to do with him.
- CivBase 2y ago> Teslas were just a stepping stone to whatever he's unleashing on the world now from the White House. Seems unlikely to me that his long term goal was to lead the Republican Inquisition in a great crusade against the libs. It's probably the drugs. That or he just got bored with the nerd CEO shtick and now his new passion is epic pwning teh libs.
- anal_reactor 2y agoI have a different idea. He just doesn't give a fuck. Imagine you're one of the richest people on the planet. What are you going to do? Keep chasing more and more money, like a drug addict chasing more and more high? Nah, that's not sustainable, surely not when you're already virtually at the top, and you can have everything you want. Run a charity? Why? Starving children in Africa weren't your problem when you were poor, why should they be now? Dick around and do dumb shit, that's what you're going to do. Because you can. You have enough money to buy popular social media and turn it into shit because it's fun and why not. And your best buddy who's on board with doing dumb shit happens to be the president of America. Dream come true.
- SecretDreams 2y agoThanks anal_reactor, solid theory!
- formerphotoj 2y agoIrony! lol
- sebazzz 2y agoIt might even be a challenge to see if there are any personal consequences.
- someNameIG 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised if he has full bought into the idea the universe is just a simulation and he is one of the few PC characters (vs all of us NPCs). SO to him life is just a video game and and he's just playing around like someone would do in GTA V.
- anal_reactor 2y agoI would 100% do that if I had enough money to shield me from any consequences of such attitude.
- amy214 2y ago
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Man has bigger ambitions. Teslas were just a stepping stone His Tesla stock is personally levered. I don't know at what point he gets margin called, but a sharp drawdown in Tesla's stock price could force him to sell stock in his crown jewel, SpaceX. (Or just extract money from it somehow. Either way, diminish it.)
- Gud 2y agoI would guess the irritated phone calls have already become angry phone calls, from his creditors.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoI see this repeatedly stated, but have never seen it substantiated in detail. How much stock collateralized debt does he have? Is any of it tied to SpaceX? He took on 13 billion of debt for Twitter, but it seems like dreaming to think this would be enough even if Tesla went bankrupt.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> How much stock collateralized debt does he have? As of 2023 Musk had 238,441,261 "shares pledged as collateral to secure certain personal indebtedness [1]. I have not seen any great reporting around what prices he borrowed at (and thus when his margin calls may come). > Is any of it tied to SpaceX? Not directly. My point is if Tesla goes bankrupt he has to sell something to make good on those loans. (After, presumably, a year of court fights.) If Tesla is under there will be litigation around an xAI disposal. So that basically leaves Twitter and SpaceX, and one of those is more marketable than the other. [1] https://ir.tesla.com/_flysystem/s3/sec/000119312523094075/d451342ddef14a-gen.pdf https://ir.tesla.com/_flysystem/s3/sec/000119312523094075/d4...
- s1artibartfast 2y agoI realize you qualified your statement with words like could and diminish. My point is simply that people shouldn't get too excited about the possibility without real details about his debt or level of diversification. I wish English had better language to distinguish possibility arising from limited observer information about the world versus possibility arising from uncertain future. I'm not saying you did it, but people tend to conflate the two.