Interesting, the Republican subreddit is generally in favor of Musk, but I think it’s just because they hate Twitter. Specifically regarding a Twitter manager who isn’t happy about it.
“Hope Elon takes out the trash”
“Nobody cared when the Obamas were on the board of Netflix” (top reply: “They weren’t on the board of Netflix”)
Paraphrased: “This is what happens when men don’t teach their sons to be masculine”,
Verbatim: “These are lesser males”, “beta males”, “soy boys”, “groomer”
Some of the replies are more vulgar than I’d want to put here, references to female genitals, discussing cuckoldry, etc.
(Mostly) Free markets has been the greatest economic system at lifting people out of poverty than anything else in history, despite constant contentions.
There are separate issues when you have public sector labor unions, but I have no inherent issue with employees in some firm wanting to tie their labor together.
He got stock options as part of his pay so it does form part of the CEO compensation.
Yes demand and supply has led to the current situation. But demand and supply is often based upon human perception. The current perception is that CEOs need to be paid this much and so they are. Tesla shareholders would be out of line with the market if they didn’t so they are not overpaying in that sense. However, perceptions were very different in the post WWII environment and so the differential between normal workers and CEOs was much less.
My view is that society often overvalues the skills of those at the top and undervalues those at the bottom hence leading to those demand and supply pressures. This seems to have got worse over the course of my lifetime.
Anyway, I’m not vilifying Musk as such but I don’t see him as any different from the other billionaire CEOs despite what his fan club says. I’m just pointing actions that I think he would take if he were the person he is often portrayed to be. I don’t see Musk as being on a campaign to make the world better, I see him as someone who thinks that he can make money from some things that would help such as electric cars. His concern about the environment looks like marketing, not a sincere belief.
I think he will direct his fortune towards charitable causes eventually anyway.
And I think he has “created some wealth” like the libertarians like to say, by specializing in some overlooked products. I think in this way he deserves more credit than some CEOs who were just in the right place at the right time.
He’s also mostly intelligent and somewhat decent. Which is roughly what I ask for in a leader.
Yeah so “society”, or more specifically the shareholders, have a financial interest to not overvalue this. I think it’s greater returns for education and rare skills in a more global environment.
He’s a billionaire because he is a large owner of companies that have done fantastically well. That is related but separate from him being a CEO. We’re all beneficiaries of America being a place that incentivizes people to start companies that may become fantastically successful. I say let them have their success but have very strict estate taxes. Vilifying his entrepreneurship for having been successful is anti-American, imo. Certainly anti what has helped the US to reach the economic place it has over the last century.
Ok. You say, “Free markets has been the greatest economic system at lifting people out of poverty than anything else in history, despite constant contentions.” Which is true. The factor that allows the lift is the balance of power. Controlled free markets balance power, they allowed wider access to ownership and choice for the individuals. The balance of power is the key. That is why in small groups where the individual can represent themselves communism works but in large groups with representatives it breaks down.
America has entrenched ownership and wealth shifting power to the top such that the free market does not work for individual unless you have the wealth to enter it, like a poker game with a million dollar buy in.
Not to make this all the way into politics, but I think Musk is a good example of a compromise candidate, who would have trouble winning because the US has party primaries.
He’s not democrat enough or republican enough to win either party, but he could win the general.
What million dollar buy in? If you want to start a company who are you paying a million dollars to?
The limit to free markets is things like safety regulations and breaking up of monopolies, not subsidizing labor unions. “Entrenched” wealth in a person who was successful is not a problem, they were successful and they own that success. The problem arises when that wealth is able to be passed down the generations, hence my advocacy for strict estate taxes.
I don’t know if Musk could win for President. Although I like his more centrist attitude that seems to respect people from both sides that aren’t on extreme ends. The US Presidency has become more and more a president of one party, particular the extreme members of said party. Agreed he could never win the primaries. Makes you wonder if he tried to pull a Ross Perot, could he change the course of an election because so many people vote for him, but at the same time not enough for him to win because people are afraid they’d be throwing their vote away, even if they do like him the most … pretty much how I feel every 4 years when trying to decide whether or not to vote for the libertarian over the absolute clowns on that the Rs and Ds throw out there.
Most of my poor liberal friends probably won’t. Most of my rich liberal friends probably will. Not sure how the republicans will lean, but given Trump, I’m guessing Musk will appeal to them as well.
Musk’s petulant behaviour towards the cave diver because the diver felt that Musk’s offer of help wasn’t actually useful was neither intelligent nor decent.