Adventures of the Longest Muskrat

[Thad]

Elon Musk gives Twitter staff deadline to commit to being ‘hardcore’

[Thad]

SpaceX faces labor charges after firing employees who criticized Elon Musk

Subheader: At Twitter, Musk’s layoffs trigger another lawsuit

[Mazian]

While it's up:


They've helpfully posted their sources in the event of a Twitterplosion, or just getting banned arbitrarily. I can certainly say that the claims Musk has made about his grad school admission just do not pass the smell test, for anyone that's actually been admitted to a grad program.

[Mongrel]

Oh I dunno, I'd definitely say he has a BS.

[Mongrel]

Seems academia has decided where it's off to.

[Thad]

It's...interesting comparing Musk's bizarre public meltdown to more traditional rich-guy assholery like Bezos announcing he's donating a bunch of money to charity right before announcing massive layoffs at Amazon.

Guys like Bezos and Gates, they know the rules. You donate some money to charity, the media fawn all over you and ignore all the shady shit you're doing. Even weirdo vampire Peter Thiel largely has the sense to keep his head down and not be too obviously, publicly weird, and the press largely ignores him (granted, that might have something to do with how he utterly destroyed the last press outlet that pissed him off).

Musk's not the first rich asshole to be erratic and weirdly, publicly needy -- he's not even the first to do it in the age of Twitter. But he's like the perfect anti-capitalist avatar -- in an era where we're already seeing a generational shift in society's attitudes toward the wealthy, Musk's an absolutely cartoonish demonstration that wealth doesn't mean you're smart or good at your job, most times it just means your dad was a rich asshole too. And sure, you could say all that of Trump, too, but Musk doesn't command the level of fear and anxiety Trump did as president.

[Silversong]

I'm curious about all the fanboys who appear to be putting in ten hour days, defending him on every post. Something about Musk's disintegration and failure must somehow feel like a personal attack to his fans. Why else would they be so rabidly on defense?

[Thad]

That's pretty much it, yeah. It's a cult of personality.

It's like religion. Or people who get really mad when you say Batman v Superman was not a very good movie.

[Mazian]

Musk is apparently cutting costs by copying a classic Trump strategy: stiffing his vendors. Sadly, not surprising. However, this part jumped out at me:

[Management has directed] Twitter employees to renegotiate the deals that the company has with firms such as Amazon and Oracle, which provide computing and tech services, the people said. The employees were told to suggest to those companies that Mr. Musk’s firms would not work with them in the future if they refused to renegotiate, the people said.

Trying to strongarm Larry Ellison's company, when Ellison was one of the major financial backers of the deal and who now technically owns part of New Twitter, and when that company's legal department has a strong reputation for being vicious, bloodthirsty, brutal, and above all successful... you know, I've had "it's a bold strategy, Cotton" running through my head a lot lately.

[Büge]

[Büge]

[Mazian]

That gun looks weird. Is it... it is.

[Büge]

Shot


Chaser

[nosimpleway]

"No no, they're saying... Booooo-ring Company!"

[KingRoyal]

Dave Chappelle went from turning down a billion dollar entertainment option to do some soul searching because of the way white people were reacting to his comedy to hosting a rich, white child of apartheid South Africa on stage who awkwardly fumbles "I'M RICK JAMES, BITCH" because he's trying not to cry

[Crick]

The one small positive of all this is that he can be bullied, and clearly, clearly is.

[Cait]

Musk's other other other company, Neuralink, is in hot water as well.

[Mongrel]

I mean, that thing is basically "What if Josef Mengele ran a two-bit grift out of a Newark strip mall clinic?" so I'm not sure how else that was going to end. Just annoyed it even took this long.

[Crick]

Looks like he's banned the account following his jet AND took the Ukraine country code off the 2Auth, locking out a bunch of Ukrainian twitter users.

So one embarrassing booing by the peasantry and he may be going all in.

[Mongrel]

I can hear this in Ricky's voice, no problem.