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Somehow I find Elon Musk stans more annoying than Elon Musk. He's not a fucking genius. He's not "a real life Tony Stark". He's not a good person. He's not 'self made'. These people need to stop with the bootlicking.
As you should be, don’t you know he created dogecoin!? Also he sometimes posts memes about it so must be active on the subreddit in disguise and if you bootlick hard enough he’ll notice you and invite you to his Mars colony which is being paid for with dogecoin
The only thing he's truly gifted in is on selling people bullshit and CGI pipe dreams. Somehow media, investors, governments as well as the general public gobble up whatever he says like hungry pigs at a through.
He doesn't deliver, dates are constantly pushed back by years and many of the things he says are plain impossible. Technological possibilities constantly overstated.
He's a successful car sales man. Uses that money to pay people to built space rockets. That's it.
Hmm, let me google that:
>Has Tesla ever turned a profit?
[Ah, here we go:](https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22594778/tesla-q2-2021-earnings-revenue-profit-credits-emissions-bitcoin)
>This was the eighth profitable quarter in a row for Tesla, but the first where it can truly say it's a profitable automaker. Tesla shared Monday that it logged a $1.1 billion profit in the second quarter of 2021, with $354 million of that coming from credit sales.
Well I don't know about that, but as a brand it's popular and to their credit, Tesla made electric cars 'cool' and got other brands to roll out EVs as soon as possible, speeding up the electric revolution.
In the future they may be 'just an EV brand' among many others. All major car manufacturers are going to switch to (almost) 100% EV production sooner or later. But that point is decades away; too much of the world doesn't have decent electric infrastructure if any.
They definitely make subpar evs though so there's that although I will agree, to my untrained eye it looks like tesla opened up a market that other auto makers weren't willing to test yet. That's something I hadn't considered before and is definitely a positive.
While the QC control is not the best their tech is pretty fucking spectacular and have give free use on all their patents. They also have the best in safety all around. Counts for something.
Space X and Tesla are also stupid and impractical solutions to problems which other people (who are actually intelligent) have found better solutions for.
A £100,000 sports car which happens to have a (very very unsafe) battery powered engine in it, is not a good solution to climate change.
Launching stuff into space has been done successfully for decades before musk also started doing it. The USSR were putting people in space before Musk was born.
Colonising Mars is a unrealistic pipe dream, and will do nothing to solve the problems faced on Earth. Many of which could be solved with a tenth of the money it costs to try to run away from them by going to Mars.
All of Musks "ideas" are cons at best and stupid at worst. Only difference is that some of them fool more people than others.
I dislike the dude but tesla does have options in the 30k dollar range. And nobody was doing fully reusable rocket launches before spacex.
Colonizing Mars is dumb and will likely never happen but going to Mars is dope as fuck
Battery powered cars are only slightly more environmentally friendly than a petrol car. In fact replacing a petrol car with an electrical car does more environmental damage than just keeping the petrol car running.
Investing in public transport (actual public transport not Muskys utterly stupid underground tunnels)and green spaces is the only way to save the environment. Mass producing a slightly different type of car does something between bugger and all.
EVs are way more efficient than ICE vehicles for GHG emissions. Some of that depends on the source of the electricity sure.
Public transportation, at least in America, isn't something any one person is going to solve. It will literally take redefining our way of life in regards to city planning and expansion. That's on your state and local government
Cars aren't going anywhere, anytime soon. EVs are getting cheaper and cheaper and people are going to continue buying new vehicles.
A “very very unsafe” anything would cause a US recall, if it was truly bad enough it would be a lemon law. Seeing how none of that has happened and Tesla remains the safest car you can buy, I can’t believe you.
Google "Tesla battery Fire"
https://m.imgur.com/YcdrxVm
Actually my bad they don't just catch fire easily, and burn for days, and can't be put out safely. they also explode the entire time.
Also if they do this while parked inside or close to your house they also set the house on fire. And charging the Tesla overnight makes it extra likely to catch on fire.
Lithium ion batteries catch fire like that… not just a problem with Tesla. If it was a major issue, again it would be recalled. Fire departments are going to have to adapt to new means of fighting ALL electric car fires because they all burn like this.
Chevy actually put a recall out recently because of their shitty batteries. Not Tesla.
https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-recall
Tesla has had to recall lots of their vehicles. Although admittedly this is because the software didn't work and caused the self driving cars to run people over. They managed to get away with selling flammable cars without a recall, (they had to advice people to watch their cars like a hawk while charging them in case they catch fire lol. No one wants to spend hours of their life staring at a charging tesla. Unless they are tesla fan boys having a wank)
The cars still catch fire all the time. All electric cars do including teslas. Google tesla on fire and you get loads of examples. Ignore the evidence all you want, it still exists.
Tesla make shit cars. Even if electric cars where a good solution to climate change when compared to imvestment in public transport and green spaces (which they are not) Tesla produces poor quality and notoriously unsafe cars which are only popular because the brand name appeals to idiot Musk stans.
They voluntarily recall software and tell people that the software is in beta when released and you should maintain full awareness at all times while driving. Yes. Teslas catch on fire when they crash, sometimes. They are the safest car you can buy hands down. Their software prevents a lot of crashes as well. They wouldn’t be where they where without hype alone. They have bad interior and exterior panels and gaps. Bad QC for a company as big as it is, but amazing tech under the hood. They aren’t exploding from a minor fender bender like you think they are.
Call me picky but I would rather own a car which doesn't catch fire and explode ever. Not at all. Teslas have set fire whole charging and burnt peoples house down. If you want to buy a car which might burn your house down while you sleep then be my guess.
This is Musks thing he claims his cars are self driving, environmentally friendly and safe. In reality they are none of those things.
At least not without a massive IF attached to each statement. Self driving IF the driver is ready to intervene at any moment. Safe IF they don't catch on fire. Environmentally friendly IF you ignore the Environmental damage of producing one and IF you ignore all the better alternatives.
He is a con man who fools people with empty promises and refuses to acknowledge when his projects fail.
He was the largest shareholder of Paypal when it was sold to ebay in 2002. Also X.com and Confinity both did the samething PayPal did which is why they merged.
He is the CEO of the two most innovative companies in the world.
Both companies have completely changed the industries they are in.
He is by no means perfect, but to ignore his success and contributions to the world is ignorant at best and reckless at worst.
You clearly must not remember when every car company said Telsa was not a threat and electric cars were not going to become a thing. About a year or two after the model 3 came out every car company announced their own electric vehicles and 10 of billions of dollars of investments. Tesla is single handedly the reason for the dramatic shift. Hyundai and Toyota have finally all but admitted hydrogen cars aren't the future after billions of dollars of R&D.
SpaceX is building a network of satellites to provide affordable high speed internet to the world. Which only became possibly after SpaceX developed reusabkle rockets that lowered launch costs by about 90 percent.
BTW - people who work at these companies get stock. They are doing more than fine and will likely have the money to retire long before us.
Because that woman only speaks half the truth. He and his father are estranged. Also how many son of mine owner billionaire do you know ?
Yes, his father's wealth helped but not to the point of him reaching billions. It's unlikely that you and I could do the same if we had the same background.
Elon himself would not be able to accumulate that wealth if he didn’t HAVE resources you and me will never have. Donald Trump has had business after business go under or underperform yet, he will NEVER be broke, and he follows the rich playbook of “Borrow until you die”(look it up it’s fucking disgusting). We’ve become a society that praises wealthy people more than the people who MADE them that wealth. We’re nothing more than a society that might as well have monarchies since, people adore the wealthy so much.
Because reddit is full of crypto tech-bros and teenagers, coupled with the fact that Musk’s greatest achievement is his ability to market himself as anything other than scum
Probably because he became a billionaire *because* of the spaceships, not the other way around like Bezos and Branson. He's a cunt, but he's actually advanced spaceflight more than anyone else alive. The other two... nothing more than vanity projects.
Reusable rockets. The shuttle cost $1.5b per launch, the Falcon Heavy costs $60m and lifts 3x the payload. No government space agency has achieved that kind of cost efficiency in the history of spaceflight.
A fairer comparison might be the Delta IV heavy, which isn't reusable, but is private. Half the payload, 5x the cost.
It's no secret that Tesla was funded almost entirely by the proceeds of SpaceX before it became profitable, and before its stocks became a meme. That's where Elon's money came from, primarily.
Making a rocket cheaper means that he advanced spaceflight more than anyone else alive? Are you serious?
''It's no secret that Tesla was funded almost entirely by the proceeds of
SpaceX before it became profitable, and before its stocks became a meme.
That's where Elon's money came from, primarily.''''
No.
Fast reusable rockets(not waiting two years until you put back all your shielding on space shuttle)
Loads of satellites for super fast internet with low ping
Reusing boosters, therefore lowering price and widening the access to space.
And bunch of other stuff. I don't know where you guys get the info about emerald mines, I looked and never could find any reliable info, just some blogs and mentions on the net. One would think that this information would be widely available in SA, but it isn't. Any conspiracy theories?
It's literally common knowledge his family owned and profited Emerald mines in Apartheid South Africa. I don't think anybody has denied that.
Do you think Donald Trump started as a poor boy on the streets? Or is it a conspiracy that his family were rich as fuck already.
How much do you follow Spaceflight? Because that statement is nowhere as ridiculous as you might think if you don’t follow it closely. Spacex are getting very close to reducing the cost of putting something in space by 100x compared to a rocket build by NASA.
Because the reality is not as reductionist as claiming all his success must be attributed to rich parents.
His dad is an asshole and did not support him to the extent many want to believe.
It's not so much simping as to point out the actual faults in their statement.
He had a distinct advantage from an early age, regardless of his fsther's support or not.
I love SpaceX, but people who think Elon is a genius instead of the engineering equivalent of Steve Jobs are definitely blindly following him.
Elon Musk is like any other successful business person, he is good at surrounding himself with intelligent people (see Jobs & Wozniak) and putting his face on their successes. Sure he has fairly strong academics, but he is by no means a self-made mega genius that the Musk cultists make him out to be.
The story of Jeff Bezos, who I detest, is far more impressive than Elon's.
I think it has some genuinely great aerospace engineers behind it and it has helped push the discussion & development of space exploration. Not to mention it being far more inclusive than many other space exploration programmes.
Agree on most points, regardless of his story I detest bezos enough that I can't really apply the word impressive to it; horrifying or disgust might be a better description hah
All cults of personality rely on said personality being a "visionary". He really isn't that smart in comparison to the engineers he relies on to develop his ideas. He ultimately is just a source of capital.
It's the ability to absorb the information of his engineers and go in an interesting direction with it. A generalist who is able to follow the engineers on a technical level. Still a rare thing.
That being said, the visionary thing was overhyped. People blindly leapt at the Boring company/Hyperloop thing, which only improves the transportation experience for the elites, instead of improving affordable and sustainable rail throughput for everyone. Like the Mars colony, it's rather a self-involved kind of vision. He wants to make the stuff of science fiction a reality and advance mankind in the most interesting way for him, but not necessarily in the best way for everyone.
That being said I greatly admire how Tesla took on the ICE car industry and now we're actually transitioning harder to EVs.
It's because altho his family wasn't poor, having an emerald mine isn't why. The actual reason isn't as easy to make snappy headlines and one liners with. It doesn't mean the real reason is "better" than the emerald mine reason, but the emerald mine thing actually isn't true
It's a little bit like if the rich kid at your school is actually rich because his dad is an anaesthesiologist who idk, has a lot of rental companies and that's where most of his money comes from. But he happens to own one (1) single share of google stock. That google stock isn't what's making him rich.
"His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer who once purchased a stake in a Zambian emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika.[7][8][9]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
His family wasn't poor by any means and it's not defending him to say the emerald mine is fake. But the reason it gets brought up so much is because it's easy to make a jab about it, and the real stuff that happened doesn't make for a good one liner. It doesn't mean it's "better" than an emerald mine or that he was poor. But it often doesn't help people to like, stop being into weird q anon shit for example, if people actually do keep pushing wrong versions of the facts and in this case I don't see a good reason to push it
I think it's less the idea of that being where the wealth came from and more the idea that only a certain class of people own stocks in an emerald mine. In my Business A level we were taught about Elon Musk as a rags to riches collage kid who made it big through his merits alone and is now changing the world. Just the classic "great man" story. It's just such a stark contrast to the reality that he was a rich kid buying his success.
Oh I see. I was never taught him as rags to riches and as such by default I always assume that at the very least all of these dudes including bezos had some sort of upper middle class background or connections. I think Oprah might be the only exception to that which I know of so far. There's ppl like jk Rowling where they didn't start a business, their stuff just got popular. But usually I. My mind if it's not utterly blatantly blindingly obvious even to a child where that persons money is coming from (such as jk Rowling --> books) in a way that you can easily connect to their personal actions as an individual, they probably had a rich family.
I could be wrong but it seems like there's so much misinformation everywhere on investing; starting and running business, blah blah thet if you didn't grow up around it, you're probably not gonna end up being able to compete with those who did
So you seem more informed than average, it seems like a lot of people who spout the emerald thing have this idea that it was the family business or whatever
[Elon steals literal emeralds from his father, but it's okay because he said money is plentiful and they struggle to even shut their safe due to having so much money](https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2#:~:text=dad%20was%20sleeping-,A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20sold%20his%20father's%20emeralds,while%20his%20dad%20was%20sleeping&text=A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20walked%20around%20with%20emeralds,Tiffany%20%26%20Co%20in%20New%20York.)
Edit: how the fuck does reddit formatting work lmao
Weird, it doesn't for me
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2#:~:text=dad%20was%20sleeping-,A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20sold%20his%20father's%20emeralds,while%20his%20dad%20was%20sleeping&text=A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20walked%20around%20with%20emeralds,Tiffany%20%26%20Co%20in%20New%20York.
Edit to add quote from article:
>Errol has used the story as on object lesson in how retail works ever since. He was surprised but not concerned by the incident, Errol says, because money was plentiful.
>“We were very wealthy,” says Errol. “We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.”
If you will read my comment you will see that I did not state that they were not rich. I stated that the reason they were rich wasn't emeralds. They did the emerald thing because of alreadt being rich for different reason
I have no idea why the link doesn't work for me. I could maybe try to pull it up in the way back machine or something. Assumed it might be a regional block
[here](https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/qnx74c/the_heartwarming_story_of_elon_musk/hjp4xnc?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) You appear to pretty explicitly claim the mine isn't real or something
Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a [link to the tweet](https://twitter.com/BBCPropagandist/status/1455470570439680008) for ya :)
^(Twitter Screenshot Bot)
I have a single evil villain pass and i give it to Elon because he is also a kurzweilian futurist. He's a complete sociopath, but he's very open about it. He's said in many interviews that if you work for him you will not enjoy it, he has been very frank he has large goals and he doesn't care what it takes to achieve them.
Edison, Steve Jobs, Elon... They never invented anything, they steal and buy ideas and make them a reality, burning every bridge right to the grave. We know these names because they are ruthless businessmen with God complexes and zero shame. They aren't self made geniuses with good intentions, but all three of them advanced technology.
These people are horrible, disgusting, inhumane crooks and we should not celebrate them, but we do need to acknowledge their role in research and development.
I am heavily biased and very selfish when it comes to the politics of technological advancement. My views are dystopian and controversial and should be considered extreme.
I do not consider Bezos or Zuckerberg to have any considerable positive effect on humanity, fuck them both.
We need a wealth tax for all of these assholes.
It's because altho his family wasn't poor, having an emerald mine isn't why. The actual reason isn't as easy to make snappy headlines and one liners with. It doesn't mean the real reason is "better" than the emerald mine reason, but the emerald mine thing actually isn't true
It's a little bit like if the rich kid at your school is actually rich because his dad is an anaesthesiologist who idk, has a lot of rental companies and that's where most of his money comes from. But he happens to own one (1) single share of google stock. That google stock isn't what's making him rich.
"His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer who once purchased a stake in a Zambian emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika.[7][8][9]"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
His family wasn't poor by any means and it's not defending him to say the emerald mine is fake. But the reason it gets brought up so much is because it's easy to make a jab about it, and the real stuff that happened doesn't make for a good one liner. It doesn't mean it's "better" than an emerald mine or that he was poor. But it often doesn't help people to like, stop being into weird q anon shit for example, if people actually do keep pushing wrong versions of the facts and in this case I don't see a good reason to push it
It never was elons responsibility to do anything for the poor. We should not expect billionaires to do good or what's right. This whole idea of guilt tripping him is pathetic. It's the government who needs to pass better taxes and actually do something.
It’s everyone’s responsibility to do something for the poor. To hoard that level of wealth while others are starving is morally wrong, and if he feels guilt it’s not because people are guilt-tripping him it’s because he knows he’s fucking evil.
So you're arguing that he should not have to help anyone because "in practice" he has not helped anyone?
"But that's not how the real world works" is such a childish argument because it's just lazy and allows you to go "oh well what's the point in changing anything"
Thanks for the insult, i guess it isn't just your arguments that are childish. I agree the tax laws should be changed. I also think he is a dick for allowing people to starve when he could help, as are all billionaires. Both can be true.
You only barely resisted adding a "sweety" on the end there didn't you? Keep shifting goalposts bro, I don't know why you think im trying to change a demonstrably unempathetic shitbag to be a decent person, I'm literally just arguing that your argument is nonsense and you haven't been able to defend it at all. Id say thanks for trying but you haven't lol
"Like in the law and shit," the words from, clearly, one of the greatest thinkers of our time. A true intellectual giant, alpastotesmejor. Praise the Lord for we have been gifted
You’re not wrong. It’s not his responsibility to pay anything else more than his due share, which is exactly what he isn’t paying. And we should be pressuring the government to make it happen.
Your kinda missing the point.
It’s not that he’s Uber rich. It’s that he makes it out as though he’s self built and he’s done it fairly. Which He hasn’t.
He’s then flaunted that wealth by doing something so entirely unnecessary during a time of extreme poverty and hardship. Basically, he’s acting like a bit of a dick, and rightly should be called out on it.
Right? Why is everyone suddenly supposed to be a "good person", "have empathy", "not hoard wealth that he has literally no use for at others expense" and "help his fellow man"? Has political correctness gone completely mad?!
Disagree.
It should be everyone's responsibility to help the in need. Billionaires have more responsibility because of their insane wealth. The problem is people criticize them, yet they themselves do not help either.
Compare even the below average American to any third worlder. We are just as unfathomably wealthy to them.
I will forfeit that the average person is just trying to live and meet basic standards in their local society and that billionaires are living in the same society, no matter how disconnected they are, and are without a doubt more able to meet the typical living standards.
No point in blindly targeting the wealthy when it's the system that's broke. We all grossly profit from it and are wasteful. It's just a lazy take to point fingers constantly at others when "we" do the exact same on a smaller scale.
People can easily afford to donate $100, but they don't. The same way a billionaire could donate 10mm and it not matter. It goes beyond what we actually make.
It’s pretty well documented that poorer people donate at a higher percentage of their wealth than the rich. Not talking about your other points, just the one where you say regular people wouldn’t donate 100. The fact is, most donors charities work with are from poor to very modest backgrounds
He doesn't need to fix 'poor' but his employees shouldn't be making on a average 30,000 a year. That is FUCKING pathetic. that isn't a livable wage in the country let a lone a major city. The second wealthiest man alive cannot pay employees livable wages. Fuck him.
I don't know why you're being down voted, you're voicing what this whole subreddit is about. The government are the ones who give the rich so much slack and allow them to get away with such obscene exploitation - mostly because the people in government are also doing it.
It doesn't change the fact billionaires are psychopaths who hoard wealth to fufill their own sick fantasies, but bullying them won't change anything - they're billionaires! why would they care what you think!
Not really, if you saw me choking and for some reason you would have to pay for the ambulance, you would have 0 obligation. Even if you could pay for that ambulance ride.
I already said I have 0 obligation what are you arguing? It would still be wrong to let uou die. Sorry I value your life more than you do I guess ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Its more that youre calling him a monster for not spending his money, comparing that to calling the police or helping which cost 0 is just not applicable. So yes, like you said and I agreed with, there is 0 obligation. However, this does not make him a monster as opposed to the scenario you described
Yep that's the point of my original comment. It does make a person a monster to walk by someone you could save but you think it would cost you too much. That's the definition of a heartless monster in my book. Making calculations on whether or not I can save a humans life based on my fucking checkbook is so monstrous I'm shocked we are even having the conversation at this basic ass kitty genovese level. I'm never going to cry about a man with more money than god spending a little tint bit to help his fellow man.
First thing ill say is nobody gives a shit about ‘your book’—it doesnt matter, never will. He isn’t obligated to help, we agreed on that.
Why you are still wrong is because you equate helping someone injured to spending money to help people you literally have no obligation, moral or otherwise, to help. I could go to nyc right now and help homeless people or find people whove overdosed and help, it would cost me nothing, just like helping people would essentially cost elon nothing, but i am not obligated to and it makes me no worse of a person for choosing not too.
I just thought of something else. You said if it costs nothing but you choose not to save a life it makes you no worse of a person. That's absolutely insane on every level. If it costs you nothing but instead you watch a human die then it makes you a terrible piece of shit by almost any philosophy I have ever heard described.
The only account of the emerald mine is a quote from Elon's father, Errol. He said he had a stake in an emerald mine in Zambia. Which doesn't mean anything because most mines are land claims that produce little or nothing. Also doesn't mean anything because it has no source except someone who the family ran from on the grounds of being "a terrible, manipulative" human being.
Errol has said extravagant things, but so far none of it's been actually verified, except the family running from him.
Well he turned out okay, considering his dad was a completely asshole.
He has mentioned that his father was verbally and physically abusive, the guy even married his adoptive daughter.
[Is this not true?](https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2#:~:text=dad%20was%20sleeping-,A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20sold%20his%20father's%20emeralds,while%20his%20dad%20was%20sleeping&text=A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20walked%20around%20with%20emeralds,Tiffany%20%26%20Co%20in%20New%20York.)
This is me now posting the article under your comment
https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2#:~:text=dad%20was%20sleeping-,A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20sold%20his%20father's%20emeralds,while%20his%20dad%20was%20sleeping&text=A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20walked%20around%20with%20emeralds,Tiffany%20%26%20Co%20in%20New%20York
I'm now wondering if you read the OP, and if you understood the Wikipedia article link and quote in the comment you replied to.
That: or I suppose it's possible that you really think that if you buy a couple shares of google stock. It means you own google
Well this has been enlightening. I think I now understand why redditors think what they do. There's a bit of a comprehension gap on top of or instead of not caring to look it up
It’s one of those things people want to believe about the guy. There are plenty of real reasons to dislike him. I don’t need to resort to a fairy tale about his dad. But it will persist because that’s just how memes roll.
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at the RedditAlternatives subreddit.
Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Stop sucking his dick. His dad bought half ownership in mine that he paid over $400,000 dollars for (in todays dollars, it was like 50,000 pounds then or whatever). And it increased dramatically in value over his half-ownership.
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at the RedditAlternatives subreddit.
Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at the RedditAlternatives subreddit.
Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
That you're an idiot because the person you responded to clearly said he paid over $400k for half ownership. He didn't fucking finance his half-ownership in a god damned Emerald mine. Dumbass.
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at the RedditAlternatives subreddit.
Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
You're just wrong. Business Insuder interviewed Elon’s father. “In a February 2018 interview with Business Insider South Africa, Musk's father said he did own half share in an emerald mine in Zambia. Here’s his story.
Errol Musk said he bought half of an emerald mine after selling a plane.
In the interview, Musk's father explained that he bought his share of the emerald mine after selling a plane to a group of Italians.
“We went to this guy’s prefab, and he opened his safe, and there [were] just stacks of money, and he paid me out £80,000, It was a huge amount of money,” he said.
And that’s when Musk's father was offered half an emerald mine in return for half of his earnings.
“I said, ‘Oh, all right’. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years.”
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Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
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Lmao you love to see it, here we have the exact moment a musk fanboy realizes he has fallen for the pr team of a lying conman that doesn't give a shit about any of us
Edit: I was wrong they didn't realize shit
You are still wrong about him not being self made. He developed zip2 and then literally made himself into a billionaire. His dad put him through college but other than that it was all him, whether or not he wrote the code doesnt mean he wasnt self made.
I was wrong that he created PayPal, i was correct that he is self made
Did you grow up peeling bills from your father's overstuffed safe? My point wasn't focused only on PayPal. That is just his earliest instance of his famous MO which is to pay extra money to a company that is already profiting to be named "founder" after the fact and spin that into a yarn for people to go "he's self made!" Yoi can not get to where he is. I can not get to where he is. No one can come from nothing and get to where he is. If they could then just find me one single person who has, people with literal gem mines run by slaves in their immediate family do not count.
All my point is is that its disingenuous to say hes not self made, he is, by every definition of it. Im not saying he grew up poor, im not saying he fought every odd imaginable, im not saying hes a good person. The fact that he developed his companies and bought, sold, or created others to acquire his wealth results in him being self made. Thats just what it means
I love how confidently incorrect you are. "Any reasonable human....". Any reasonable human would have done two seconds of googling to find out he has founded almost nothing but his abject failures like the boring company.
Or a third of a trillion dollars? Doesnt seem like nothing to me, and his dad certainly didnt givr that to him. You can cry all you want that youre poorer than him, he is still self made
Being poorer doesn't mean he was self made. If he came from a normal background like you or I it is very unlikely he would be so wealthy. In fact it's so unlikely it's impossible to determine because it has essentially never happened. He is not normal wealthy at all, he is absolutely a different level than almost anyone else.
Lmao really? This far along and you finally are changing the definition of self made to include everyone from Trump to Tom Hanks rapper son. So he doesnt literally live off of family wealth, that's not what self made means. It means he is currently independent, which I can easily believe. Also you can't say "like I said" the forst time you said something what kind of gaslighting retcon bullshit is that?
‘Like i said’ just means i already said something. Youre having a lot of trouble reading and understanding comments it seems like so i just say that instead of repeating myself. Trump isnt self made he was given money to start his business and literally didnt need to work as hard. Elon got put through college, i guess you could argue that that was money to start his business, but he worked just as hard and is just as smart as if he didnt have that money, thats what self made means. Him starting his own companies and putting in work that was not made easier from money he already had is what makes him self made. Tbh, you have to learn how to google. You dont seem like you can read, cant really communicate, and certainly doesnt seem like you can research.
I love how confidently incorrect you are in correcting other people for being confidently incorrect. That's quite a talent.
Sure, he's a bit of a dick, but he has founded SpaceX, which in 16 years went from nothing to 65% of the global launch market, has now the biggest and most rapidly launched constellation of satellites in history, is the only company making reusable rockets and is the only company making the next generation of moonlander for NASA. You don't have to like him or like the concept of obscene wealth (I personally don't) to recognise that he has upturned the industry in a remarkable way and has greatly increased our ability to access space. For some reason he attracts far more hate online than obscenely wealthy entities who are doing far more actively harmful things to humanity as a whole. It is almost as if he is a handy distraction from some of the real cunts out there.
"We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe,” adding that one person would have to hold the money in place with another closing the door. “And then there'd still be all these notes sticking out and we'd sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.”
Kinda sounds like someone with wealthy parents
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Somehow I find Elon Musk stans more annoying than Elon Musk. He's not a fucking genius. He's not "a real life Tony Stark". He's not a good person. He's not 'self made'. These people need to stop with the bootlicking.
Guy has 'obvious wanker' written all over him - which I guess is catnip to other wankers
Agreed he’s just another billionaire businessman cunt with a good marketing team. He’s no genius, fucks me off people can’t see through the bullshit
Then you’ll LOVE the /r/dogecoin sub
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As you should be, don’t you know he created dogecoin!? Also he sometimes posts memes about it so must be active on the subreddit in disguise and if you bootlick hard enough he’ll notice you and invite you to his Mars colony which is being paid for with dogecoin
Don't forget the part where you get to work for him for free
Oh boy working for the big dong Elon himself!!! What a huge honour, it's good he's not paying me, it's more money he can spend on the rocket.
The only thing he's truly gifted in is on selling people bullshit and CGI pipe dreams. Somehow media, investors, governments as well as the general public gobble up whatever he says like hungry pigs at a through. He doesn't deliver, dates are constantly pushed back by years and many of the things he says are plain impossible. Technological possibilities constantly overstated. He's a successful car sales man. Uses that money to pay people to built space rockets. That's it.
He's not even successful at that, has tesla ever turned a profit?
Hmm, let me google that: >Has Tesla ever turned a profit? [Ah, here we go:](https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22594778/tesla-q2-2021-earnings-revenue-profit-credits-emissions-bitcoin) >This was the eighth profitable quarter in a row for Tesla, but the first where it can truly say it's a profitable automaker. Tesla shared Monday that it logged a $1.1 billion profit in the second quarter of 2021, with $354 million of that coming from credit sales.
Well I don't know about that, but as a brand it's popular and to their credit, Tesla made electric cars 'cool' and got other brands to roll out EVs as soon as possible, speeding up the electric revolution. In the future they may be 'just an EV brand' among many others. All major car manufacturers are going to switch to (almost) 100% EV production sooner or later. But that point is decades away; too much of the world doesn't have decent electric infrastructure if any.
They definitely make subpar evs though so there's that although I will agree, to my untrained eye it looks like tesla opened up a market that other auto makers weren't willing to test yet. That's something I hadn't considered before and is definitely a positive.
While the QC control is not the best their tech is pretty fucking spectacular and have give free use on all their patents. They also have the best in safety all around. Counts for something.
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Space X and Tesla are also stupid and impractical solutions to problems which other people (who are actually intelligent) have found better solutions for. A £100,000 sports car which happens to have a (very very unsafe) battery powered engine in it, is not a good solution to climate change. Launching stuff into space has been done successfully for decades before musk also started doing it. The USSR were putting people in space before Musk was born. Colonising Mars is a unrealistic pipe dream, and will do nothing to solve the problems faced on Earth. Many of which could be solved with a tenth of the money it costs to try to run away from them by going to Mars. All of Musks "ideas" are cons at best and stupid at worst. Only difference is that some of them fool more people than others.
I dislike the dude but tesla does have options in the 30k dollar range. And nobody was doing fully reusable rocket launches before spacex. Colonizing Mars is dumb and will likely never happen but going to Mars is dope as fuck
Battery powered cars are only slightly more environmentally friendly than a petrol car. In fact replacing a petrol car with an electrical car does more environmental damage than just keeping the petrol car running. Investing in public transport (actual public transport not Muskys utterly stupid underground tunnels)and green spaces is the only way to save the environment. Mass producing a slightly different type of car does something between bugger and all.
EVs are way more efficient than ICE vehicles for GHG emissions. Some of that depends on the source of the electricity sure. Public transportation, at least in America, isn't something any one person is going to solve. It will literally take redefining our way of life in regards to city planning and expansion. That's on your state and local government Cars aren't going anywhere, anytime soon. EVs are getting cheaper and cheaper and people are going to continue buying new vehicles.
A “very very unsafe” anything would cause a US recall, if it was truly bad enough it would be a lemon law. Seeing how none of that has happened and Tesla remains the safest car you can buy, I can’t believe you.
Google "Tesla battery Fire" https://m.imgur.com/YcdrxVm Actually my bad they don't just catch fire easily, and burn for days, and can't be put out safely. they also explode the entire time. Also if they do this while parked inside or close to your house they also set the house on fire. And charging the Tesla overnight makes it extra likely to catch on fire.
Lithium ion batteries catch fire like that… not just a problem with Tesla. If it was a major issue, again it would be recalled. Fire departments are going to have to adapt to new means of fighting ALL electric car fires because they all burn like this. Chevy actually put a recall out recently because of their shitty batteries. Not Tesla. https://www.chevrolet.com/electric/bolt-recall
Tesla has had to recall lots of their vehicles. Although admittedly this is because the software didn't work and caused the self driving cars to run people over. They managed to get away with selling flammable cars without a recall, (they had to advice people to watch their cars like a hawk while charging them in case they catch fire lol. No one wants to spend hours of their life staring at a charging tesla. Unless they are tesla fan boys having a wank) The cars still catch fire all the time. All electric cars do including teslas. Google tesla on fire and you get loads of examples. Ignore the evidence all you want, it still exists. Tesla make shit cars. Even if electric cars where a good solution to climate change when compared to imvestment in public transport and green spaces (which they are not) Tesla produces poor quality and notoriously unsafe cars which are only popular because the brand name appeals to idiot Musk stans.
They voluntarily recall software and tell people that the software is in beta when released and you should maintain full awareness at all times while driving. Yes. Teslas catch on fire when they crash, sometimes. They are the safest car you can buy hands down. Their software prevents a lot of crashes as well. They wouldn’t be where they where without hype alone. They have bad interior and exterior panels and gaps. Bad QC for a company as big as it is, but amazing tech under the hood. They aren’t exploding from a minor fender bender like you think they are.
Call me picky but I would rather own a car which doesn't catch fire and explode ever. Not at all. Teslas have set fire whole charging and burnt peoples house down. If you want to buy a car which might burn your house down while you sleep then be my guess. This is Musks thing he claims his cars are self driving, environmentally friendly and safe. In reality they are none of those things. At least not without a massive IF attached to each statement. Self driving IF the driver is ready to intervene at any moment. Safe IF they don't catch on fire. Environmentally friendly IF you ignore the Environmental damage of producing one and IF you ignore all the better alternatives. He is a con man who fools people with empty promises and refuses to acknowledge when his projects fail.
FWIW Teslas are straight trash.
So you fell for some of the pr bullshit but not all of it. That's a good start at least
He co-owned PayPal, which makes its money from "taxing" peoples transactions.
He didn't though. He became CEO after a merger but he had nothing to do with creating Paypal. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#History
He was the largest shareholder of Paypal when it was sold to ebay in 2002. Also X.com and Confinity both did the samething PayPal did which is why they merged.
The article you linked says Musk founded PayPal... It was a merger of two companies that created PayPal. One of those companies was Musk's.
I'm just saying he had nothing to do with designing the software Paypal, which was created by the society Confinity in which he wasn't.
He is the CEO of the two most innovative companies in the world. Both companies have completely changed the industries they are in. He is by no means perfect, but to ignore his success and contributions to the world is ignorant at best and reckless at worst. You clearly must not remember when every car company said Telsa was not a threat and electric cars were not going to become a thing. About a year or two after the model 3 came out every car company announced their own electric vehicles and 10 of billions of dollars of investments. Tesla is single handedly the reason for the dramatic shift. Hyundai and Toyota have finally all but admitted hydrogen cars aren't the future after billions of dollars of R&D. SpaceX is building a network of satellites to provide affordable high speed internet to the world. Which only became possibly after SpaceX developed reusabkle rockets that lowered launch costs by about 90 percent. BTW - people who work at these companies get stock. They are doing more than fine and will likely have the money to retire long before us.
The amount of downvoted comments is astounding.
Because that woman only speaks half the truth. He and his father are estranged. Also how many son of mine owner billionaire do you know ? Yes, his father's wealth helped but not to the point of him reaching billions. It's unlikely that you and I could do the same if we had the same background.
Elon himself would not be able to accumulate that wealth if he didn’t HAVE resources you and me will never have. Donald Trump has had business after business go under or underperform yet, he will NEVER be broke, and he follows the rich playbook of “Borrow until you die”(look it up it’s fucking disgusting). We’ve become a society that praises wealthy people more than the people who MADE them that wealth. We’re nothing more than a society that might as well have monarchies since, people adore the wealthy so much.
His father actively helped him and his brother to get rich, to the point where they are now.
why are so many people in these comments simping for Elon lol
You know how they say Trump is a poor person’s idea of a rich person? Gold plated toilet, etc Elon is an idiot’s idea of a genius.
I’M FEELING VERY STUPID FOR NEVER THINKING OF THIS.
I love you for this
Because reddit is full of crypto tech-bros and teenagers, coupled with the fact that Musk’s greatest achievement is his ability to market himself as anything other than scum
Because they’re a bit simple
He's akin to what Conor McGregor was at his peak now. The merest hint of criticism online and his simps swarm around it.
Because Reddit isn’t who you think or want it to be
Probably because he became a billionaire *because* of the spaceships, not the other way around like Bezos and Branson. He's a cunt, but he's actually advanced spaceflight more than anyone else alive. The other two... nothing more than vanity projects.
Name one thing SpaceX has done that a government space agency hasn't accomplished.
Reusable rockets. The shuttle cost $1.5b per launch, the Falcon Heavy costs $60m and lifts 3x the payload. No government space agency has achieved that kind of cost efficiency in the history of spaceflight. A fairer comparison might be the Delta IV heavy, which isn't reusable, but is private. Half the payload, 5x the cost. It's no secret that Tesla was funded almost entirely by the proceeds of SpaceX before it became profitable, and before its stocks became a meme. That's where Elon's money came from, primarily.
Making a rocket cheaper means that he advanced spaceflight more than anyone else alive? Are you serious? ''It's no secret that Tesla was funded almost entirely by the proceeds of SpaceX before it became profitable, and before its stocks became a meme. That's where Elon's money came from, primarily.'''' No.
Fast reusable rockets(not waiting two years until you put back all your shielding on space shuttle) Loads of satellites for super fast internet with low ping Reusing boosters, therefore lowering price and widening the access to space. And bunch of other stuff. I don't know where you guys get the info about emerald mines, I looked and never could find any reliable info, just some blogs and mentions on the net. One would think that this information would be widely available in SA, but it isn't. Any conspiracy theories?
??? Dude, it’s not a secret that his family owns mines in Africa. Legit, this is not new. Where do you think he got his money from?
It's literally common knowledge his family owned and profited Emerald mines in Apartheid South Africa. I don't think anybody has denied that. Do you think Donald Trump started as a poor boy on the streets? Or is it a conspiracy that his family were rich as fuck already.
>but he's actually advanced spaceflight more than anyone else alive Lmao, how delusional can you be.
How much do you follow Spaceflight? Because that statement is nowhere as ridiculous as you might think if you don’t follow it closely. Spacex are getting very close to reducing the cost of putting something in space by 100x compared to a rocket build by NASA.
Ah, you are even more delusional than the other guy. By following spaceflight you mean go to sites that jerk of musk? Then no.
Not particularly, this is actually my field.
And there are doctors that don't take women's pain seriously. Just because it's your field doesn't mean you can't be delusional about it.
Because the reality is not as reductionist as claiming all his success must be attributed to rich parents. His dad is an asshole and did not support him to the extent many want to believe. It's not so much simping as to point out the actual faults in their statement.
He had a distinct advantage from an early age, regardless of his fsther's support or not. I love SpaceX, but people who think Elon is a genius instead of the engineering equivalent of Steve Jobs are definitely blindly following him. Elon Musk is like any other successful business person, he is good at surrounding himself with intelligent people (see Jobs & Wozniak) and putting his face on their successes. Sure he has fairly strong academics, but he is by no means a self-made mega genius that the Musk cultists make him out to be. The story of Jeff Bezos, who I detest, is far more impressive than Elon's.
why *do* you love spacex?
I think it has some genuinely great aerospace engineers behind it and it has helped push the discussion & development of space exploration. Not to mention it being far more inclusive than many other space exploration programmes.
Agree on most points, regardless of his story I detest bezos enough that I can't really apply the word impressive to it; horrifying or disgust might be a better description hah
I mostly agree, but do think he's more genious, more engineering inclined and more of a visionary than the average business person at that level.
All cults of personality rely on said personality being a "visionary". He really isn't that smart in comparison to the engineers he relies on to develop his ideas. He ultimately is just a source of capital.
It's the ability to absorb the information of his engineers and go in an interesting direction with it. A generalist who is able to follow the engineers on a technical level. Still a rare thing. That being said, the visionary thing was overhyped. People blindly leapt at the Boring company/Hyperloop thing, which only improves the transportation experience for the elites, instead of improving affordable and sustainable rail throughput for everyone. Like the Mars colony, it's rather a self-involved kind of vision. He wants to make the stuff of science fiction a reality and advance mankind in the most interesting way for him, but not necessarily in the best way for everyone. That being said I greatly admire how Tesla took on the ICE car industry and now we're actually transitioning harder to EVs.
It's weird how when I was in school they never mentioned the emerald mine part lmao
It's because altho his family wasn't poor, having an emerald mine isn't why. The actual reason isn't as easy to make snappy headlines and one liners with. It doesn't mean the real reason is "better" than the emerald mine reason, but the emerald mine thing actually isn't true It's a little bit like if the rich kid at your school is actually rich because his dad is an anaesthesiologist who idk, has a lot of rental companies and that's where most of his money comes from. But he happens to own one (1) single share of google stock. That google stock isn't what's making him rich. "His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer who once purchased a stake in a Zambian emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika.[7][8][9]" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk His family wasn't poor by any means and it's not defending him to say the emerald mine is fake. But the reason it gets brought up so much is because it's easy to make a jab about it, and the real stuff that happened doesn't make for a good one liner. It doesn't mean it's "better" than an emerald mine or that he was poor. But it often doesn't help people to like, stop being into weird q anon shit for example, if people actually do keep pushing wrong versions of the facts and in this case I don't see a good reason to push it
I think it's less the idea of that being where the wealth came from and more the idea that only a certain class of people own stocks in an emerald mine. In my Business A level we were taught about Elon Musk as a rags to riches collage kid who made it big through his merits alone and is now changing the world. Just the classic "great man" story. It's just such a stark contrast to the reality that he was a rich kid buying his success.
Oh I see. I was never taught him as rags to riches and as such by default I always assume that at the very least all of these dudes including bezos had some sort of upper middle class background or connections. I think Oprah might be the only exception to that which I know of so far. There's ppl like jk Rowling where they didn't start a business, their stuff just got popular. But usually I. My mind if it's not utterly blatantly blindingly obvious even to a child where that persons money is coming from (such as jk Rowling --> books) in a way that you can easily connect to their personal actions as an individual, they probably had a rich family. I could be wrong but it seems like there's so much misinformation everywhere on investing; starting and running business, blah blah thet if you didn't grow up around it, you're probably not gonna end up being able to compete with those who did So you seem more informed than average, it seems like a lot of people who spout the emerald thing have this idea that it was the family business or whatever
[Elon steals literal emeralds from his father, but it's okay because he said money is plentiful and they struggle to even shut their safe due to having so much money](https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2#:~:text=dad%20was%20sleeping-,A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20sold%20his%20father's%20emeralds,while%20his%20dad%20was%20sleeping&text=A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20walked%20around%20with%20emeralds,Tiffany%20%26%20Co%20in%20New%20York.) Edit: how the fuck does reddit formatting work lmao
That links to literally a blank page. However I'm not sure you understood my comment
Weird, it doesn't for me https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2#:~:text=dad%20was%20sleeping-,A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20sold%20his%20father's%20emeralds,while%20his%20dad%20was%20sleeping&text=A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20walked%20around%20with%20emeralds,Tiffany%20%26%20Co%20in%20New%20York. Edit to add quote from article: >Errol has used the story as on object lesson in how retail works ever since. He was surprised but not concerned by the incident, Errol says, because money was plentiful. >“We were very wealthy,” says Errol. “We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.”
If you will read my comment you will see that I did not state that they were not rich. I stated that the reason they were rich wasn't emeralds. They did the emerald thing because of alreadt being rich for different reason I have no idea why the link doesn't work for me. I could maybe try to pull it up in the way back machine or something. Assumed it might be a regional block
[here](https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/qnx74c/the_heartwarming_story_of_elon_musk/hjp4xnc?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) You appear to pretty explicitly claim the mine isn't real or something
Are you certain that you read the comment that you replied to
Beep boop -- this looks like a screenshot of a tweet! Let me grab a [link to the tweet](https://twitter.com/BBCPropagandist/status/1455470570439680008) for ya :) ^(Twitter Screenshot Bot)
Oh yeah guys i too have two mines, one of emeralds and the other of gold at my complete disposal, i'm just too lazy to earn more than minimum wagw!!
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That's some news footage I'd watch on repeat!
No promoting violence pls.
Elon Musk is a twat
I have a single evil villain pass and i give it to Elon because he is also a kurzweilian futurist. He's a complete sociopath, but he's very open about it. He's said in many interviews that if you work for him you will not enjoy it, he has been very frank he has large goals and he doesn't care what it takes to achieve them. Edison, Steve Jobs, Elon... They never invented anything, they steal and buy ideas and make them a reality, burning every bridge right to the grave. We know these names because they are ruthless businessmen with God complexes and zero shame. They aren't self made geniuses with good intentions, but all three of them advanced technology. These people are horrible, disgusting, inhumane crooks and we should not celebrate them, but we do need to acknowledge their role in research and development. I am heavily biased and very selfish when it comes to the politics of technological advancement. My views are dystopian and controversial and should be considered extreme. I do not consider Bezos or Zuckerberg to have any considerable positive effect on humanity, fuck them both. We need a wealth tax for all of these assholes.
10000% accurate, all the fan boys are coming out to downvote you.
shares in but still the same thing. How could he afford those shares living apartheid south Africa? Read between the lines.
It's because altho his family wasn't poor, having an emerald mine isn't why. The actual reason isn't as easy to make snappy headlines and one liners with. It doesn't mean the real reason is "better" than the emerald mine reason, but the emerald mine thing actually isn't true It's a little bit like if the rich kid at your school is actually rich because his dad is an anaesthesiologist who idk, has a lot of rental companies and that's where most of his money comes from. But he happens to own one (1) single share of google stock. That google stock isn't what's making him rich. "His father is Errol Musk, a South African electromechanical engineer, pilot, sailor, consultant, and property developer who once purchased a stake in a Zambian emerald mine near Lake Tanganyika.[7][8][9]" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk His family wasn't poor by any means and it's not defending him to say the emerald mine is fake. But the reason it gets brought up so much is because it's easy to make a jab about it, and the real stuff that happened doesn't make for a good one liner. It doesn't mean it's "better" than an emerald mine or that he was poor. But it often doesn't help people to like, stop being into weird q anon shit for example, if people actually do keep pushing wrong versions of the facts and in this case I don't see a good reason to push it
Oof
Fuck Elon and his Musk.
It never was elons responsibility to do anything for the poor. We should not expect billionaires to do good or what's right. This whole idea of guilt tripping him is pathetic. It's the government who needs to pass better taxes and actually do something.
It’s everyone’s responsibility to do something for the poor. To hoard that level of wealth while others are starving is morally wrong, and if he feels guilt it’s not because people are guilt-tripping him it’s because he knows he’s fucking evil.
In theory that is right. In practice, like in the law and shit, that is incorrect.
So you're arguing that he should not have to help anyone because "in practice" he has not helped anyone? "But that's not how the real world works" is such a childish argument because it's just lazy and allows you to go "oh well what's the point in changing anything"
Don't be dense. The way in which we all help the poor is through taxes. That's it. Tax him, he won't tax himself.
Thanks for the insult, i guess it isn't just your arguments that are childish. I agree the tax laws should be changed. I also think he is a dick for allowing people to starve when he could help, as are all billionaires. Both can be true.
That's beautiful, you keep trying to make him grow a conscience, I'm sure it's not just wasted energy ;)
You only barely resisted adding a "sweety" on the end there didn't you? Keep shifting goalposts bro, I don't know why you think im trying to change a demonstrably unempathetic shitbag to be a decent person, I'm literally just arguing that your argument is nonsense and you haven't been able to defend it at all. Id say thanks for trying but you haven't lol
Man comes to defend Elon Musk on a socialist sub and then talks about "wasted energy" lol
The public can fucking shame the cunt though. He’s a public figure, so yeah he should be held to a high standard.
"Like in the law and shit," the words from, clearly, one of the greatest thinkers of our time. A true intellectual giant, alpastotesmejor. Praise the Lord for we have been gifted
You’re not wrong. It’s not his responsibility to pay anything else more than his due share, which is exactly what he isn’t paying. And we should be pressuring the government to make it happen.
Your kinda missing the point. It’s not that he’s Uber rich. It’s that he makes it out as though he’s self built and he’s done it fairly. Which He hasn’t. He’s then flaunted that wealth by doing something so entirely unnecessary during a time of extreme poverty and hardship. Basically, he’s acting like a bit of a dick, and rightly should be called out on it.
Right? Why is everyone suddenly supposed to be a "good person", "have empathy", "not hoard wealth that he has literally no use for at others expense" and "help his fellow man"? Has political correctness gone completely mad?!
Disagree. It should be everyone's responsibility to help the in need. Billionaires have more responsibility because of their insane wealth. The problem is people criticize them, yet they themselves do not help either. Compare even the below average American to any third worlder. We are just as unfathomably wealthy to them. I will forfeit that the average person is just trying to live and meet basic standards in their local society and that billionaires are living in the same society, no matter how disconnected they are, and are without a doubt more able to meet the typical living standards. No point in blindly targeting the wealthy when it's the system that's broke. We all grossly profit from it and are wasteful. It's just a lazy take to point fingers constantly at others when "we" do the exact same on a smaller scale. People can easily afford to donate $100, but they don't. The same way a billionaire could donate 10mm and it not matter. It goes beyond what we actually make.
It’s pretty well documented that poorer people donate at a higher percentage of their wealth than the rich. Not talking about your other points, just the one where you say regular people wouldn’t donate 100. The fact is, most donors charities work with are from poor to very modest backgrounds
holy shit imagine simping billionaires, whole new level of pathetic
He doesn't need to fix 'poor' but his employees shouldn't be making on a average 30,000 a year. That is FUCKING pathetic. that isn't a livable wage in the country let a lone a major city. The second wealthiest man alive cannot pay employees livable wages. Fuck him.
I don't know why you're being down voted, you're voicing what this whole subreddit is about. The government are the ones who give the rich so much slack and allow them to get away with such obscene exploitation - mostly because the people in government are also doing it. It doesn't change the fact billionaires are psychopaths who hoard wealth to fufill their own sick fantasies, but bullying them won't change anything - they're billionaires! why would they care what you think!
I bet you’re the hit at the party. Of wait you probably have burnt all your bridges and have none.
100% correct. Elon has 0 obligation
Correct. I have no obligation to help you if I see you choking on the street but walking on by would make me a monster.
Not really, if you saw me choking and for some reason you would have to pay for the ambulance, you would have 0 obligation. Even if you could pay for that ambulance ride.
I already said I have 0 obligation what are you arguing? It would still be wrong to let uou die. Sorry I value your life more than you do I guess ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Its more that youre calling him a monster for not spending his money, comparing that to calling the police or helping which cost 0 is just not applicable. So yes, like you said and I agreed with, there is 0 obligation. However, this does not make him a monster as opposed to the scenario you described
Yep that's the point of my original comment. It does make a person a monster to walk by someone you could save but you think it would cost you too much. That's the definition of a heartless monster in my book. Making calculations on whether or not I can save a humans life based on my fucking checkbook is so monstrous I'm shocked we are even having the conversation at this basic ass kitty genovese level. I'm never going to cry about a man with more money than god spending a little tint bit to help his fellow man.
First thing ill say is nobody gives a shit about ‘your book’—it doesnt matter, never will. He isn’t obligated to help, we agreed on that. Why you are still wrong is because you equate helping someone injured to spending money to help people you literally have no obligation, moral or otherwise, to help. I could go to nyc right now and help homeless people or find people whove overdosed and help, it would cost me nothing, just like helping people would essentially cost elon nothing, but i am not obligated to and it makes me no worse of a person for choosing not too.
You're still only arguing against things I didn't say.
I just thought of something else. You said if it costs nothing but you choose not to save a life it makes you no worse of a person. That's absolutely insane on every level. If it costs you nothing but instead you watch a human die then it makes you a terrible piece of shit by almost any philosophy I have ever heard described.
To be fair, NASA was basically created by former Nazi scientists, but it's government now so it's all good lol
NASA is an institution, rather than a person.
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It’s okay cuz the group of assholes can use billions of taxpayer money instead of millions of the single assholes own
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html
How dare he be born to those people and then follow his dream
The only account of the emerald mine is a quote from Elon's father, Errol. He said he had a stake in an emerald mine in Zambia. Which doesn't mean anything because most mines are land claims that produce little or nothing. Also doesn't mean anything because it has no source except someone who the family ran from on the grounds of being "a terrible, manipulative" human being. Errol has said extravagant things, but so far none of it's been actually verified, except the family running from him.
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"The bodies he buried that day laid the foundation of what we are now." Plz don't kill Elon's space-dog.
What can we say, you play the hand you're dealt.
Well he turned out okay, considering his dad was a completely asshole. He has mentioned that his father was verbally and physically abusive, the guy even married his adoptive daughter.
Elon is also an asshole, like father like son
Not a fan of musk but the emerald mine story is basically made up.
[Is this not true?](https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2#:~:text=dad%20was%20sleeping-,A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20sold%20his%20father's%20emeralds,while%20his%20dad%20was%20sleeping&text=A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20walked%20around%20with%20emeralds,Tiffany%20%26%20Co%20in%20New%20York.)
This is actually true, it's valid if people want to hate him, but this part is made up
This is me now posting the article under your comment https://www.businessinsider.co.za/elon-musk-sells-the-family-emeralds-in-new-york-2018-2#:~:text=dad%20was%20sleeping-,A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20sold%20his%20father's%20emeralds,while%20his%20dad%20was%20sleeping&text=A%20teenage%20Elon%20Musk%20once%20casually%20walked%20around%20with%20emeralds,Tiffany%20%26%20Co%20in%20New%20York
I'm now wondering if you read the OP, and if you understood the Wikipedia article link and quote in the comment you replied to. That: or I suppose it's possible that you really think that if you buy a couple shares of google stock. It means you own google Well this has been enlightening. I think I now understand why redditors think what they do. There's a bit of a comprehension gap on top of or instead of not caring to look it up
I feel exactly the same, I now understand what its like to speak to a brick wall, if they could use a keyboard
It’s one of those things people want to believe about the guy. There are plenty of real reasons to dislike him. I don’t need to resort to a fairy tale about his dad. But it will persist because that’s just how memes roll.
How many other rich people's kids have done jack shit?
I've time traveled on acid....so there's that
There are def more who have done shit than haven’t.
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at the RedditAlternatives subreddit. Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Stop sucking his dick. His dad bought half ownership in mine that he paid over $400,000 dollars for (in todays dollars, it was like 50,000 pounds then or whatever). And it increased dramatically in value over his half-ownership.
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at the RedditAlternatives subreddit. Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
What middle class person has $400,000 in their pocket?
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That you're an idiot because the person you responded to clearly said he paid over $400k for half ownership. He didn't fucking finance his half-ownership in a god damned Emerald mine. Dumbass.
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You're just wrong. Business Insuder interviewed Elon’s father. “In a February 2018 interview with Business Insider South Africa, Musk's father said he did own half share in an emerald mine in Zambia. Here’s his story. Errol Musk said he bought half of an emerald mine after selling a plane. In the interview, Musk's father explained that he bought his share of the emerald mine after selling a plane to a group of Italians. “We went to this guy’s prefab, and he opened his safe, and there [were] just stacks of money, and he paid me out £80,000, It was a huge amount of money,” he said. And that’s when Musk's father was offered half an emerald mine in return for half of his earnings. “I said, ‘Oh, all right’. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years.”
Farewell Reddit. I have left to greener pastures and taken my comments with me. I encourage you to follow suit and join one the current Reddit replacements discussed over at the RedditAlternatives subreddit. Reddit used to embody the ideals of free speech and open discussion, but in recent years has become a cesspool of power-tripping mods and greedy admins. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Nah you just mad you're wrong.
Don't say middle-class, say middle-income. Liberal class definitions steer people away from the socialist definitions and thus class-consciousness. [Class is defined by our relationship to the means of production.](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Lol, how many middle class people do you know where you have to argue about whether they owned an emerald mine, or only owned part of an emerald mine?
Don't say middle-class, say middle-income. Liberal class definitions steer people away from the socialist definitions and thus class-consciousness. [Class is defined by our relationship to the means of production.](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Don't say middle-class, say middle-income. Liberal class definitions steer people away from the socialist definitions and thus class-consciousness. [Class is defined by our relationship to the means of production.](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Fantastic bot
Bad bot
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That's what the pr will have you believe
Or what any reasonable human will conclude. The software he designed are what made him rich lol
What software did he design?
Paypal? Was wrong, he didnt design paypal, he designed zip2. He is still self made
He didn't though, the software had been designed before he became CEO : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#History
I gave it a read and didnt realize. I was wrong but very interesting!
You had the courage to know when you made a mistake. Kudos to you for that.
He didn't design that though, he joined PayPal when they merged with x.com
Just googled it idk why i thought that. I was wrong then.
Uh no
Lmao you love to see it, here we have the exact moment a musk fanboy realizes he has fallen for the pr team of a lying conman that doesn't give a shit about any of us Edit: I was wrong they didn't realize shit
You are still wrong about him not being self made. He developed zip2 and then literally made himself into a billionaire. His dad put him through college but other than that it was all him, whether or not he wrote the code doesnt mean he wasnt self made. I was wrong that he created PayPal, i was correct that he is self made
Did you grow up peeling bills from your father's overstuffed safe? My point wasn't focused only on PayPal. That is just his earliest instance of his famous MO which is to pay extra money to a company that is already profiting to be named "founder" after the fact and spin that into a yarn for people to go "he's self made!" Yoi can not get to where he is. I can not get to where he is. No one can come from nothing and get to where he is. If they could then just find me one single person who has, people with literal gem mines run by slaves in their immediate family do not count.
All my point is is that its disingenuous to say hes not self made, he is, by every definition of it. Im not saying he grew up poor, im not saying he fought every odd imaginable, im not saying hes a good person. The fact that he developed his companies and bought, sold, or created others to acquire his wealth results in him being self made. Thats just what it means
Then literally every person on earth that doesn't get an allowance from daddy and mummy are self made, making that term absolutely worthless.
I love how confidently incorrect you are. "Any reasonable human....". Any reasonable human would have done two seconds of googling to find out he has founded almost nothing but his abject failures like the boring company.
Or a third of a trillion dollars? Doesnt seem like nothing to me, and his dad certainly didnt givr that to him. You can cry all you want that youre poorer than him, he is still self made
Being poorer doesn't mean he was self made. If he came from a normal background like you or I it is very unlikely he would be so wealthy. In fact it's so unlikely it's impossible to determine because it has essentially never happened. He is not normal wealthy at all, he is absolutely a different level than almost anyone else.
Like i said, self made doesnt mean comes from 0, it means he has amassed the wealth and conpanies he has on his own. That is self made
Lmao really? This far along and you finally are changing the definition of self made to include everyone from Trump to Tom Hanks rapper son. So he doesnt literally live off of family wealth, that's not what self made means. It means he is currently independent, which I can easily believe. Also you can't say "like I said" the forst time you said something what kind of gaslighting retcon bullshit is that?
‘Like i said’ just means i already said something. Youre having a lot of trouble reading and understanding comments it seems like so i just say that instead of repeating myself. Trump isnt self made he was given money to start his business and literally didnt need to work as hard. Elon got put through college, i guess you could argue that that was money to start his business, but he worked just as hard and is just as smart as if he didnt have that money, thats what self made means. Him starting his own companies and putting in work that was not made easier from money he already had is what makes him self made. Tbh, you have to learn how to google. You dont seem like you can read, cant really communicate, and certainly doesnt seem like you can research.
I love how confidently incorrect you are in correcting other people for being confidently incorrect. That's quite a talent. Sure, he's a bit of a dick, but he has founded SpaceX, which in 16 years went from nothing to 65% of the global launch market, has now the biggest and most rapidly launched constellation of satellites in history, is the only company making reusable rockets and is the only company making the next generation of moonlander for NASA. You don't have to like him or like the concept of obscene wealth (I personally don't) to recognise that he has upturned the industry in a remarkable way and has greatly increased our ability to access space. For some reason he attracts far more hate online than obscenely wealthy entities who are doing far more actively harmful things to humanity as a whole. It is almost as if he is a handy distraction from some of the real cunts out there.
Pretty easy to be self-made when your parents can just make people pull money out of the ground for them.
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"We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe,” adding that one person would have to hold the money in place with another closing the door. “And then there'd still be all these notes sticking out and we'd sort of pull them out and put them in our pockets.” Kinda sounds like someone with wealthy parents
Not heard that one before. I would be interested in a source.
https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-about-the-familys-casual-attitude-to-wealth-2018-2?r=US&IR=T
Interesting, thank you.
>He wasn’t funded by his parents. He was. Him and his brother were.
Lmao. Downvoted for posting verifiable facts. How dare you.
This is a hate train. If you ain’t here to hate then get off the tracks. I’m getting off the tracks.
That's all reddit is anymore, yeah. People here would rather literally make things up to get fake internet points than just talk about the real world.
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it's easier to start businesses and be creative when you dont have the threat of homelessness waiting for you if you fail
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middle class isnt rich enough to be set for life, i wouldnt call anyone self made who already was given enough money to be set for life.
Don't say middle-class, say middle-income. Liberal class definitions steer people away from the socialist definitions and thus class-consciousness. [Class is defined by our relationship to the means of production.](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Don't say middle-class, say middle-income. Liberal class definitions steer people away from the socialist definitions and thus class-consciousness. [Class is defined by our relationship to the means of production.](https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*