ElonMusk

Originally PayPalMafia

Now owner of

• Twitter (ElonMuskBuysTwitter)
• TeslaMotors (electric cars)
• SpaceX (private space flight)
  • StarLink is SpaceX's satellite internet company
• ElonMuskAsSpaceColonist (for all Mars colonization stuff)
• NeuraLink
• Battery companies
• and "boring company" to build tunnels for some kind of vacuum tube metro system.

• ElonMuskOnBuildingComplexity

If Elon Musk didn't exist, Libertarians would be forced to invent him.

But it seems a lot of his wealth is related to government subsidies : http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html#page=1

CoryDoctorow critiques : https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-business-playbook-boss-visionary-jerk-spacex-tesla-twitter-2022-12

The Ugly

Increasingly controversial as he seems to be following the LibertarianToFascistPipeline after buying Twitter, attacking it for LiberalBias and promising to reinstate more RightWing participation in the name of FreedomOfSpeech. (Compare FoxNews's claim to be FairAndBalanced)

https://theintercept.com/2022/12/20/elon-musk-henry-ford-extremism/

ThomasZimmerOnMuskAndTwitter

See also VCQAnon

Transcluded from StarlinkInUkraineWar

ElonMusk initially put StarLink at the service of the Ukrainians after RussianInvasionOfUkraine2022.

But seems increasingly ambivalent.

See https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule

This is fascinating not just because of the specifics of Musk and Ukraine, but also because of the complex relationships between governments and hyper-empowered individuals like Musk.

So compare NationStateUnderAttack, HyperLeaders and NetoCracy

But Musk’s influence is more brazen and expansive. There is little precedent for a civilian’s becoming the arbiter of a war between nations in such a granular way, or for the degree of dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk in a variety of fields, from the future of energy and transportation to the exploration of space. SpaceX is currently the sole means by which NASA transports crew from U.S. soil into space, a situation that will persist for at least another year. The government’s plan to move the auto industry toward electric cars requires increasing access to charging stations along America’s highways. But this rests on the actions of another Musk enterprise, Tesla. The automaker has seeded so much of the country with its proprietary charging stations that the Biden Administration relaxed an early push for a universal charging standard disliked by Musk. His stations are eligible for billions of dollars in subsidies, so long as Tesla makes them compatible with the other charging standard.

JohnNaughton calls him a gothic Jekyll and Hyde character : https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/18/elon-musk-is-jekyll-and-hyde-character-and-as-head-of-twitter-hyde-is-winning which reminds me of GothicHighTech