Serious question: Is there an alternative narrative here? People are acting like Musk changed course for no reason, but are there no real claims that the account perhaps had started to engage in other rule-breaking content?
Note that I'm asking for an actual steelmanned argument for why there's no possible defense of Musk here, not why people have high priors to just assume there's no defense.
> People are acting like Musk changed course for no reason
I'm not sure that's the case. I think many people, myself included, assumed Musk's course was always "just do what's best for me." So he's really just holding to that.
You should give people in your life the benefit of the doubt, but large corporations and billionaires usually found success by acting in their own interest so they will just keep on doing that.
> I think many people, myself included, assumed Musk's course was always "just do what's best for me." So he's really just holding to that.
As far as I can tell Musk is currently self-destructing for no apparent reason -- how is that best for him?
Some of the questionable stuff he's been doing for a while has obvious upsides for him. Lying about the capabilities of your products and market manipulation are both obviously nice if you can get away with it. So is demonstratively skirting laws and regulations. Similarly, building a reputation for going after people who did something that contravened your personal interests, even if doing so was their professional or legal duty, has its benefits. It encourages careful consideration of whether dereliction of duty would not be preferable over getting in your way. All these are demonstrations of strength.
But streisanding elonjet just looks weak and pathetic. As does trying to stiff your suppliers.
If you build up a reputation for being completely unprincipled and erratic, and try to wheedle out of both your word and your legal obligations even in cases when you probably can't get away with it and there is not even a particularly compelling reason to try to do so in the first place; well -- surely that can only hurt your brand and also mean that people who would otherwise have done business with you won't or will now only do so on much less favorable terms? Or am I missing something here?
> As far as I can tell Musk is currently self-destructing for no apparent reason -- how is that best for him?
No apparent reason? He bought one of the biggest influence platforms on the planet and roughly simultaneously began heavily pumping the narratives of the MAGA faction, making throwaway declarations of political neutrality.
There's a pretty apparent motivation—advance a particular faction’s political prospects and be visibly seen as a key agent of their success when they fully come to power, and be rewarded for that.
It may be a high risk gamble that could explode before it pays off (its first big chance would be the 2024 election, though it could yield some benefits sooner) but its not completely without apparent purpose.
> No apparent reason? He bought one of the biggest influence platforms on the planet and roughly simultaneously began heavily pumping the narratives of the MAGA faction, making throwaway declarations of political neutrality.
The "no apparent reason" was not about the what but the how.
Buying one of the biggest influence platforms on the planet makes complete sense, especially if a) it's currently used to advance political ideologies which you can plausibly regard as a real risk to your other business ventures and b) you are a world-class communicator on the platform and that is one of your strongest assets.
So does eliminating (the hostile and plainly incompetent) top management and the majority of the work force.
But in terms of overall execution quality things look a bit like Putin's Ukraine invasion; I'd wager that the majority of erstwhile enthusiastic supporters of the whole thing would probably politely decline front-line participation at this point.
> As far as I can tell Musk is currently self-destructing for no apparent reason -- how is that best for him?
Musk is currently in a bubble where everyone around him is giving him unlimited "attaboys" for his behavior. He probably doesn't have a great read on how poorly things are going for him.
That's the impression I'm getting as well. Whatever one thinks about Musk's failings and failures, I find it hard to believe that he can't come up with something better than a series of unforced own goals like the Elon Jet suspension (already backpedaled on) unless he's surrounded himself by people who only tell him what he wants to hear.
Why do you assume he is listening to (or even seeking) advice before acting? Sure, being surrounded by “yes men” could be a problem, but its very hard from the outside to distinguish that from just being impulsive and not seeking input on the first place.
The observable difference I'd expect to see is that an impulsive guy not surrounded by "yes men" will still periodically commit avoidable errors, but not engage in a sequence of related blunders because someone will bring it home to him that things are moving in a bad direction.
> large corporations and billionaires usually found success by acting in their own interest so they will just keep on doing that
I mean, if you have to irrationally hate someone, I guess billionaires are going to be the ones with the resources to handle it, but I'd really rather we as a society move away from this sort of cathartic scapegoating altogether. The more we normalize taking our anger out on some group or another, backed up by flimsy excuses like "x usually found success by acting in their own interest" the more likely it becomes that "x" will be "The Jews" or some other group.
> The more we normalize taking our anger out on some group or another, backed up by flimsy excuses like "x usually found success by acting in their own interest" the more likely it becomes that "x" will be "The Jews" or some other group.
That is some wild logic. People are angry for material reasons. It's often misdirected or invalid but there's a cause.
I think anger is valid and useful when it's directed at the root of the cause. And I'm sorry, but billionaires and politicians are the ones with more power than anyone else so if something is materially broken in our world they probably deserve an outsized portion of that anger.
It takes work to misdirect that anger to other groups, which some politicians and media groups often do. I'd argue that is the thing which should be examined quite carefully.
That suggests people hand out equal hate to all billionaires. JK Rawling seems like an obvious exception to that narrative.
From what I have seen billionaires tend to get more hate because they simply have more negative impact on peoples lives. Elon kicking out Tesla’s founders is hard to judge objectively because they might have done a worse job, but it’s easy to identify lots of dumb shit he did that harmed the company. Presumably he did plenty of positive things, but the negatives are just easier to identify.
There's a fair share of that as well[0]. But yes, Elon, the worlds richest man (as of earlier this year), draws more ire for his wealth. It's expected since he's about 160x richer than Rowling (she's no longer a billionaire), and uses his money to rig the economy in his favor. He's a more apt symbol of the billionaire class than Rowling.
I don’t know the specifics about her finances but:
“As of 2022, J.K. Rowling’s net worth is an estimated £820 million, or around $1.1 billion, per The Sunday Times. According to the site, this makes Rowling the 196th richest person in the U.K. overall.” https://stylecaster.com/jk-rowling-net-worth/
Nobody gives a shit about Bernard Arnault who is now the richest man so maybe people don't like Elon's actions more than they don't like his money.
If you look at the top 10 list of richest people Elon is the only one who draws this level of negative attention because he's the only one who is having a huge public meltdown and constantly being in the news for being a garbage human being
That seems unlikely, that’s about the rate people give silly answers to pollsters.
The study by YouGov in conjunction with The Economist has found that 30-44-year-olds are most likely to believe this widely debunked conspiracy, with 7% of people from this age group saying that it is "definitely true" and 20% of them saying it is "probably true.
This yougov poll[0] seems to suggest around 20% of democrats and independents vs. 40% of Republicans believe the gates conspiracy. You also just quoted something that backs up what I said?
Look, in no way am I saying polls are perfect but almost every metric imaginable says Elon is not the most unpopular billionaire by a long shot. There’s not a huge conspiracy against Musk specifically, people just don’t like power-hungry billionaires.
Nobody cares about Bernard Arnault because he doesn’t really pose an existential threat. High fashion will continue to do the same thing they’ve always done
> That suggests people hand out equal hate to all billionaires
I don't think it suggests that, or at least I certainly didn't mean to communicate as such. I was responding narrowly to the parent's remarks (explicitly rationalizing targeting billionaires as a group) and not trying to imply anything broader.
You seem to be arguing that only billionaires can rationally hate other billionaires, and anyone who is not on that level can't be rational, because they don't understand what's going on with billionaires. If they they did, they too would be billionaires. This might be narrowly correct in pure business terms, but the problem is that you subordinate everything else to the most unusual characteristic. It's like arguing that the controversial political opinions of a successful athlete aren't subject to debate, because critics haven't won any sportsball championships.
No, that's not what I'm saying, nor is that a reasonable interpretation of my comment. I'm saying that this formulation is irrational: "many billionaires do bad things, ergo it's justified to hate any billionaire".
>I mean, if you have to irrationally hate someone, I guess billionaires are going to be the ones with the resources to handle it,
I wonder, what could be a rational hate?
Personally I also wonder what is the supposed rationality behind any society granting some becoming billionaires. All the more when there is no social enforcement loop that ensure that the gap between richest and poorest remain in decent state. Otherwise the hate of the richest is an obvious outcome of the inequity structure.
Personally, I'm pretty much an "anti-hate" absolutist, but I recognize that a lot of people in this audience aren't, so I'm leaving room for "rational hate" which is maybe something like "this person did something bad, so I hate them" versus "this person belongs to a group, and some people in that group have done bad things, ergo I hate this person" which is the explicit reasoning in the comment that I originally replied to.
> Personally I also wonder what is the supposed rationality behind any society granting some becoming billionaires. All the more when there is no social enforcement loop that ensure that the gap between richest and poorest remain in decent state.
Yeah, I empathize with this.
> Otherwise the hate of the richest is an obvious outcome of the inequity structure.
It may be "an obvious outcome", but it doesn't mean it's rational. It's certainly not a moral outcome.
> Personally, I'm pretty much an "anti-hate" absolutist, but I recognize that a lot of people in this audience aren't, so I'm leaving room for "rational hate" which is maybe something like "this person did something bad, so I hate them" versus "this person belongs to a group, and some people in that group have done bad things, ergo I hate this person" which is the explicit reasoning in the comment that I originally replied to.
There are two different point here:
- describing the flow events leading to hate generation
- pretending that that hate can be defined has a rational thing
The former seems completely legitimate to me. The latter seems to me to result only from confusion. Hate is an emotion, which to my mind means that is not rationally grounded. Not everything need to be rationally grounded to be considered legitimate. Rationality itself is not rationally grounded obviously.
> It may be "an obvious outcome", but it doesn't mean it's rational. It's certainly not a moral outcome.
Sure, rationality doesn’t come with moral integrity hardly bounded. I think "rational" is a bit polysemous here, as it is might be heard as "ethically sound", and not purely "logically sound".
I thought he mentioned increasing the removal of illegal content and ensuring that public discourse wasn't influenced/manipulated, by state actors, overwhelmingly towards one side over another?
Yes you're interpreting his completely nonsubstantive "rule-by-implicature" as intended: Elon said he was gonna do Good Things and he's gonna stop Bad Things and I don't really need to think about what constitutes either of those things.
Steel manning really only works if you can assume the other person continues to argue in good faith. If the other person keeps moving the goalposts and demanding you construct a strong argument for their behavior they're just being abusive and I would suggest the best course of action is to leave.
Steelmanning requires the person you're talking to to be arguing in good faith, not the actual subjects of the narrative being steelmanned. The whole point of steelmanning is to grant those subjects good faith even if you personally think it's unwise, because the person you're talking to may disagree...
In the context of moving the goalposts, you are asking other commenters to justify another person's actions that are increasingly at odds with their words.
I personally think that the narrative you are interrogating is weak, even a straw man version of the people you think you're arguing with. It seems clear to me that Elon has long operated on personal grievance with respect to Twitter, and that "free speech" is just the veneer he puts on because it works.
>you are asking other commenters to justify another person's actions that are increasingly at odds with their words.
Yes, that's what steelmanning is. If you don't care to do it, you're free not to respond to a request for a steelmanned arugment. Explaining your principled refusal to steelman doesn't add much to the discussion.
Why does anyone care about alternative "narratives"? Are there any other facts that one might like to introduce? Not alternative facts, things that actually happened.
Because sometimes they are very relevant. The Kanye ban and the details around it are one example as Kanye clearly wanted people to believe it was for a different reason than it was.
I'm not saying this applies to the ElonJet case, but I can see why the question would be asked.
This same account said elsewhere in this thread "I can't think of any", about times Elon Musk has said he would do one thing, then went on to do another. This is someone who is for some reason really trying to defend Musk.
Yes, I have a lower prior than you that Musk just randomly changes his opinions all the time for no reason. And I've asked for meaningful evidence that would help me update this prior. Is this really an unfathomably bizarre epistemic strategy to you?
I am being honest here and not trying to score any points or "own" you: you might want to re-read your comments, because you don't come across as someone looking to update "priors", you come across as an Elon fanboi who has somehow decided to go to bat for him in the HN comments.
I’m still reading through this read, but your response seems like it ended up on the wrong comment or something? Because their ask does not in any way read as an Elon fanboy. I admit I may get egg in my face down thread but their top level ask is sane.
Yeah it's the right place, but I was talking about their (many) comments in this entire thread. A few have been been downvoted and might not be visible anymore. Basically this person is being a bit disingenuous, they've not entered the discussion - as they claim - with an open mind, looking to be challenged and the vibe from their comments in aggregate is decidedly pro-Musk. Nothing wrong with being pro-Musk on it's own, but they go a little above and beyond.
There I basically say that Elon has flipped on a few things, this user has pretended to not be aware of any instance of this (!) and asked for any examples, someone raises a couple and their responses to that is fairly typical of a fanboi. Tbh I should just close the tab and go walk my dog, but it's a pretty interesting discussion and it's -3C outside so I'm sorta procrastinating :)
Yep, you are right. I can find a principle that I agree with in their words - much of the criticism is lazy and makes assumptions about personal motive when there are much stronger and more damming arguments available and we should hold ourselves to a higher standard - but their response to the examples raised is to try and put more work on their conversational partner.
Frankly, as some one who engages in similar lines of questioning as the top level, I think you have to bring your own findings to the table. You aren’t arguing in good faith otherwise.
>Basically this person is being a bit disingenuous, they've not entered the discussion - as they claim - with an open mind, looking to be challenged and the vibe from their comments in aggregate is decidedly pro-Musk
Or, alternatively, I've waded into a decidedly anti-Musk crowd and my comments simply look pro-Musk in comparison.
>There I basically say that Elon has flipped on a few things, this user has pretended to not be aware of any instance of this
I said that I'm not aware of any examples of Musk reversing course without any plausible justification, and people in reply bombarded me with examples that in my view had plausible justifications, and when I raised this then I was treated as a "fanboi"... of course.
But hey, after some back and forth I think maybe there are some good examples and I can revise my priors! For example, if Musk specifically said that he would not examine Twitter's internals and then changed his mind, that would be a good example of what I'm looking for. Or if Musk said that he would've fire a bunch of people right before he did, that would be another good example. However, I'm not sure if the people who are claiming that Musk did these things are reliable and more sources would be appreciated.
Completely independent of the topic at hand, I want to point out to you that you ask for a lot more than you give throughout. You read as sincere which is why I think it’s important to note that that behavior can be used to very effectively intentionally derail a conversation by virtue of becoming a huge time sink.
I see that a lot of people gave rude or nonsense answers which is frustrating, but at the point where you are getting examples and coherent responses I think it’s important to take some responsibility and try to support their argument yourself. I typically find one of two outcomes 1) I find compelling information that causes me to change my mind 2) the best argument I can form is weak or nonsense, but at least others can see I’m invested in the conversation and that a detailed reply won’t go to waste.
>Completely independent of the topic at hand, I want to point out to you that you ask for a lot more than you give throughout
I don't disagree. I also do not feel that people are required to reply to me if it's not worth the trouble. I'd rather get no replies than bad replies. Unfortunately I didn't find it easy to google something like "Musk said he wouldn't fire people", so I have to try to infer what sort of actual evidence people are using to support this claim (I can see that Musk denied having the specific intent to cut 75% of staff), and yes that can come off as demanding. But the alternative here is that I try to figure out what is underlying whatever bad unsourced claims people are making and... well, my time is valuable too.
Well, the example came up of Musk intending to buy Twitter and then trying to back out. The plausible justification for flip-flopping is that an internal review unveiled information that would justify this. It's really not hard to imagine.
That lead to a refined claim that Musk said he would not even perform this sort of review and then changed his mind, but without a clear source attached I'm not sure if this is actually what Musk said.
>Why does anyone care about alternative "narratives"?
Because the narrative of "Musk changed his mind" that is overwhelmingly popular here implicitly relies on there being no good intervening justification for why Musk would've done this, but afaik this doesn't seem like an incredibly safe assumption.
I mean, I guess you could be asking why someone would care to correct themselves if they have a popular-but-incorrect view on something, and sadly that's not always a bad question.
Is it not his company? Is he under obligation to not change his mind?
I'm not saying he is right - he isn't. I just wish people could put their arrogance aside for ONE SECOND, and realize, they would do the same thing.
It's the immature hypocrisy I don't like. That when it was the FBI and DNI having weekly meetings with high level Twitter staff or taking requests from sitting politicians or active campaigns on what political enemies to censor - that was fine because "it's a public company and they could do what they want".
I want emotional and intellectual honesty. It's beyond rare though.
It seems like these are a bunch of scattershot points that don’t add up to a cohesive argument. On top of this, “answer for this other thing someone I’ve decided to associate with you said” is one of my least favorite debate techniques.
Because facts can be interpreted in different ways. Any action can be interpreted as self-interest, but perhaps the true motive is different. You gave money to a school to pay for lunches? You were just trying to get your name in a newspaper because of your ego. Or maybe, just maybe, you're a person trying to do the right thing and make the world a slightly better place.
All the worst people I've ever known have argued against any goodness or altruism existing.
All the worst cheaters say everyone cheats (which apparently is enough justification to supersede their own public marital vows.)
Arguing that people are universally terrible is a huge signal that the person making the argument is terrible. Don't go into professional partnerships with them, I've seen at least 3 people like that whose behavior has devolved into eventual jail time and they've wrecked their companies.
The world has a surprisingly high percentage of amoral assholes who have a vested interest in pretending everyone is as misanthropic and self-centered as they are, but it's still a small minority.
> You gave money to a school to pay for lunches? You were just trying to get your name in a newspaper because of your ego.
So what? What is wrong with that? We can't even understand our own motives, let alone attempt to decipher others'. Why not let the action speak for itself? If you're a selfish person prioritizing your own PR above others' needs, your actions will ultimately reflect it, and we can judge them on it. Otherwise, kudos for finding and pursuing something that aligns nicely with your own needs as well as the needs of others.
There is an alternative justification in the right to privacy. Such accounts are indeed reckless with no corresponding need to know. No one's free speech rights are being suppressed here.
This has been discussed many times - the flight data and aircraft registration details are publicly accessible via the FAA. Posting that data in an easily accessible form hardly violates anyone's privacy.
To be fair, there is a difference when its made extremely accessible. Even the courts have seen this as a key difference with surveillance.
My question here is whether there is actually a rule here and whether that rule will be followed, or was it just done capriciously because Musk didn't like it.
I have my guesses, of course, but I haven't checked if they are true.
Perhaps a public interest argument could be made here for making this information more accessible. The whereabouts of a CEO of multiple companies could be of interest for investment decisions. For an ordinary private citizen this would be different.
You're right. It is contingent on the rule being applied fairly. Any one person making these decisions is bound to exhibit a bias, but we do not know if it was his decision alone. He may very well have asked others if it would be fair. That said, the real test will be if he can establish a fair system that self-patrols the speech on twitter.
Sure it does. Being able to observe license plates on the street is different from observing all license plates and publishing a real time feed of their location.
Don't be silly. Musk just wants to ban their Twitter account if they start to post the information to his specific plane. As long as they post specifics about someone else's plane, their account will be considered in good standing.
Since it was an individual not linked to a website, it's an even easier decision for him.
flightradar24 tracks jets. Go ahead and see if you can figure out where Jeff Bezos or Larry Ellison is from flightrader24. You can't unless you know the jet number they happen to be using.
@ElonJet is effectively tracking Elon and broadcasting that, and only that, information to the whole world.
In theory you could track Elon yourself by correlating public info (figuring out which jets he owns and using flightrader24) but it's orders of magnitude more effort and I don't see how "you can figure it out" justify "publish it to the whole world".
Can I attach a GPS tracker to your car and publish the coordinates in real time to the internet?
Of course I can't. It would be illegal.
Not because of disingenuous "car has a right to privacy" logic but because any judge would conclude that by tracking a car you're tracking the owner of the car and the owner does have a right to privacy.
Similarly, if the name @ElonJet doesn't give out the purpose: the account is tracking Elon by way of tracking his jet.
Morally speaking, the justification for transparency of jet location was to track them in order to increase safety of flying.
It wasn't to enable tracking of rich people.
It's legal but it's a loophole.
And somehow Elon hate completely overshadows the fact that the guy running @ElonJet account is an asshole.
Not because of disingenuous "car has a right to privacy" logic but because any judge would conclude that by tracking a car you're tracking the owner of the car and the owner does have a right to privacy.
I think you'll find that it has far more to do with directly interfering with another person's property without permission. If you publish someone's coordinates by using publicly accessible traffic cameras or (cost considerations aside) flying your own news helicopter around, the arguments become a lot vaguer. It's not clear that there's a legal/constitutional right to privacy in the US, and indeed recent supreme court decisions about abortion seem to reject the notion; jurisprudence in the 1970s saw an implicit right to privacy in certain constitutional provisions, an idea which 'originalists' regard as BS.
> There is an alternative justification in the right to privacy. Such accounts are indeed reckless with no corresponding need to know. No one's free speech rights are being suppressed here.
But Musk had previously called out specifically this account as one that he would not ban (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1589414958508691456). So, whether or not he has a right to ban it, this represents a reneging on an explicit commitment.
He literally just unbanned an account that tried to run a coup on the federal government and yet an account that shows where his jet is is dangerous?
Which is it? Because it seems like "I don't like it" is the new justification for bans and "I agree with it" is the new justification for unblocking accounts.
The account that first posted a video of Elon being booed on stage at a recent comedy show, was swiftly suspended. It's very difficult to deny this quacks like a duck.
I believe the account he banned vs unbanned has a distinction. One account alligns with his long term strategy for $x whereas the other competes against his $x strategy.
It's difficult to say what said strategy is or may be but it'd be foolish to assume his decisions haven't been considered and vetted. But yes, intent is not well understood at all.
Here's my best guess: Musk lives in a bubble of yes men 24x7, except Sunday night he was on stage with Chapelle getting slapped in the face by over 10,000 people who clearly didn't like him. Probably a defining moment in his life that shook him to the core and genuinely scared him.
If you respond to the reporting of non-editorialized, objective fact with the question "Is there an alternative narrative?", I think it is time to check your own biases.
I'm not disputing the fact that the account was banned, but the implicit assumption that people are making that it was banned simply because Musk woke up today and decided that he was tired of it.
I get that much. I'm asking why would you think that there is a narrative to this ban, given the content of recent events regard Musk's stewardship of Twitter.
Is there some context to this account's history regarding the Twitter Terms of Service that would legitimately lead you to think this?
I dont think he changed his mind, its just clear what his goal in buying Twitter was from the get go - the "free speech absolutionism" is the PR speak for getting more conservative/right leaning people onto Twitter, and that goal is solely for
Elon went hard right after TSLA was excluded from ESG Index (which happened under Biden), and Elons net worth is tied into TSLA stock pretty hard. In controlling Twitter, he hopes to essentially sway the public towards a more conservative view in hopes of getting Republicans elected into office, which then will result in economic policies that should drive TSLA stock up.
At the rate he's destroying everything he should probably make a 'plan B' then because this one does not appear to be working on a time frame that will get him out of the hot water before the boiling point.
Oh, so you can provide another example of Elon directly saying he would do X and then turning around and doing not-X a month or so later with no sort of intervening events that would justify an about-face? I can't think of any.
I thought the court ordered Musk to buy Twitter? I wasn't paying terribly close attention, so maybe I misunderstood something? Also, what was the November statement where Musk said he wouldn't fire most of Twitter? I missed that one.
Musk announced his intent to actually consummate the deal with Twitter about two weeks before the trial was going to start (and right before he was going to be deposed for said trial).
> I thought the court ordered Musk to buy Twitter?
Because Elon Musk signed an ironclad contract promising to buy Twitter.
> Also, what was the November statement where Musk said he wouldn't fire most of Twitter? I missed that one.
Look up the Rahul Ligma stuff. He was implying that all the media got it wrong and he wasn't going to fire Twitter employees. To
Turns out the media was right. Musk was planning to fire them the whole time and Musk was just doing his usual distraction shenanigans.
> Because Elon Musk signed an ironclad contract promising to buy Twitter.
Right, but I hope you can see how "a court prevented him from changing his mind about the acquisition" is different than "he changed his mind again and decided to buy Twitter after all".
> Look up the Rahul Ligma stuff.
I did a bit of Googling, but I don't see what you're alluding to (there's a lot of coverage of Twitter drama involving Ligma, apparently). :/
If I go to a car dealer and sign on the dotted line to buy a car, I've committed to buying the car. It doesn't matter if tomorrow, before I've taken delivery, I decide I hate that car brand and want a different one. You don't get to "change your mind" AFTER you sign the contract!
I've been explicit twice that I'm not arguing about whether or not Musk tried to renege on his contract, but for the third time: I'm questioning the parent's claim about whether he reneged and then changed his mind __again__. That said, if you commit to buying a car, but the car that is delivered to you is not what you ordered, you absolutely are not compelled to take delivery--this is basically what Musk was asserting: that the Twitter that was advertised was not the Twitter that was being delivered. Apparently it was looking like the court wasn't buying that claim, which spurred Musk to move forward with the acquisition.
>He won't buy Twitter because it has a bot problem.
I'm not asking for examples of Musk being wrong about something and correcting himself. I think it's commonly assumed that Musk discovered that this argument would not hold up in court, so he pivoted accordingly.
>Elon will not fire most of Twitter (November). Look, stupid media was tricked by Rahul Ligma.
This is a better example. Could you link a statement to this effect directly?
>He literally signed a document in March to buy Twitter, and literally a month later had to be sued to be forced to finish the contract.
Yes, and the intervening event that justifies the narrative flip is that he got increased access to Twitter's internal systems and decided that the company had deeper issues than initially appreciated. Rejecting a purchase where there's a hidden defect is not flip-flopping, the fact that you can't see the obvious weakness of this example is telling.
btw, where's the statement that Elon said that he would not be firing most of Twitter? Again, that seems to be a much better example.... if you can provide it. But maybe you can't?
>Yes, and the intervening event that justifies the narrative flip is that he got increased access to Twitter's internal systems and decided that the company had deeper issues than initially appreciated.
This does not make Elon look any better. Elon himself chose to eschew due diligence when he signed the first intent to buy. The first intent to buy was incredibly unusual in the first place because he did not ask for any due-diligence.
If I tell you I will buy your car, no questions asked, and then show up and start complaining about the headlights, that is flip-flopping. It's why the whole thing went to court. Do you really think normal M&A doesn't include due-diligence?
Regardless, the "hidden" issues were a scapegoat. It is far more likely that he wanted to backout because the entire tech sector crashed and 44B was now an insane premium (SNAP, which was worth ~30B at the time is now 15B).
>Elon himself chose to eschew due diligence when he signed the first intent to buy.
Really? He specifically claimed that the offer was truly unconditional, no matter what sort of fraud or criminality might be occurring within Twitter? That seems very unlikely to me.
>He specifically claimed that the offer was truly unconditional, no matter what sort of fraud or criminality might be occurring within Twitter?
Yes. This was a huge deal, I don't know how you missed it. It's also why no one believed he could get out of it. That's why he had to tried sue to cancel the deal instead of just, cancelling the deal? It wasn't even clear that if he managed to prove TWTR had misled investors that could cancel the deal.
"All the houses in this picture? They've already got our solar roof tiles fitted!" (they didn't)
"Everything Hyperloop!"
My issue with Musk isn't that he changes his mind based on new evidence, or even oversells promises of the future. It's the fact he's willing to stand in front of a crowd, look people in the eye and _flat_out_lie_ about what state things are in today.
> Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints.
> No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes.
> 9:18 PM · Oct 28, 2022
> The people have spoken.
> Trump will be reinstated.
> Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
> 2:53 AM · Nov 20, 2022
He is definitely changing course here (he has publicly stated he wouldn’t squash this account) but my idea is, one of his peons is enforcing some policy about automated scripts controlling accounts. Has anyone read the TOS or seen what has changed?
The implication that free speech people are hypocrites is a little premature. The policies just changed. I'm sure there will be several opportunities before the day is over to gotcha someone in some genuine hypocrisy, but let's see how this one plays out.
If there was nobody would know about it because it literally just happened! This is one of the reasons I always flag these "breaking ragebait controversy" Twitter threads - even if someone's curious and genuinely wants to understand an issue in its full context, they can't. The only options right now are to wait for more information or get mad based on incomplete information.
That is silly. Anybody who really wants to know where that jet is won't be relying on an entertainment account on Twitter, they'll just use FlightRadar24 to get it real time.
There's a lot of crazy unstable people, they wont know about or be able to regularly plan monitoring FlightRadar24. They can however see "Musk lands in Chicago Midway" and run down there.
So, yes a targeted organized attack wouldn't be overly hard a random chaotic attack is easier with this twitter account.
By the time you found out a plane landed in Chicago, it's waaaaaay too late to intercept. People that stupid aren't a danger. It's exactly the people who know you can use public ADS-B trackers to see flight plans and predict landing times that you might actually worry about.
This is a great line of reasoning that can be used to justify banning anything. What if a soft-headed person reads it and does something horrible... Like, say, attempt to carry out a coup?
It'd be great if the same standard were applies to things like bomb threats at children's hospitals because some fruit loops have convinced themselves that Pepe Silvia is hiding there, or that drag shows are an existential threat which much be opposed with gunfire.
What about all of the death threats that politicians and election workers in Georgia received because of Trump pushing election lies on platforms like Twitter?
Georgia's Secretary of State and his family received death threats.
1) Your comment is a red herring; it's not related to what I said
2) I'm simply providing an explanation which Elon Musk has openly been saying, the account was threatening his safety (I made no claim about fairness or anything else)
3) Trump was not doing real-time tracking of specific private individuals and publishing them online
I'm not claiming any banning is justified btw, but I'm providing an insight.
The comment wasn't directed at you personally but the premise that "it might just be for security". If it's "just security" then it's clear that he only cares about his own security.
How about this for a better apples to apples comparison? The same guy behind ElonJet also has accounts that track the private jets of Bill Gates, Mark Cuban, Jeff Bezos, and Drake.
There are people out there that literally believe that Bill Gates is trying to depopulate the world through vaccines (going so far as claiming that he was apart of a conspiracy that resulted in COVID). Probably a lot crazies that would do something crazy to him.
I am rarely on twitter (just reading financial macro discussions, for which twitter seems to be a center of excellence), so probably have skewed priors. That said, skimming this information I see nothing particularly bad in banning the account that posted screenshots of internal confidential discussions.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the freedom of speech. It is related to breaking the promise (made when joining any company as an employee) not to divulge confidential information. This is a restriction on the freedom of speech that one knowingly agrees to when joining the company.
If I knowingly posted sensitive internal discussions from my employer I would be kicked out. Or worse: if I worked in a hospital and shared some sensitive pictures I might be hit with heavy fines or spend time behind bars. My 2c.
An outsider being given access to confidential customer information in Europe would immediately be flagged as a GDPR violation, and given the circumstances it would probably be a reportable one as well. Don't make light of this.
Of course there are other narratives. You're limited by your creativity. Generally the one that involves the least creativity prevails. There's a huge constituency ready to jump on Musk for whatever, and here they are, because it's easy. Until there's facts just stay agnostic...
Nuance and context like "Elon is bad, of course he's bad" and "of course this is hypocrisy and nothing more"...because that's what we've gotten so far. As usual, there are two sides to every story unless your name is Elon, Trump, or other $UNPOPULAR_FIGURE
Yeah, god forbid somebody asks for more nuance. What is this, Reddit? We're mature here, we do quality comments like "Elon Musk has the emotional stability of a teenager hitting puberty", "Do not fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing Elon Musk", and so on (actual comments on this thread).
Unfortunately we do not live in a world where in order to criticise someone we must analyze the morality of their entire life. This isn't "The Good Place"
I can say Elon is a shit person because that is my opinion. I am entitled to that opinion as much as you are entitled to simp for him
Note that I'm asking for an actual steelmanned argument for why there's no possible defense of Musk here, not why people have high priors to just assume there's no defense.