"Tesla-lovers managed to feel pretty good about themselves. Since then, however, Musk has gone full MAGA. Among the highlights: he has endorsed the antisemitic 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory, wondered why no one tries to assassinate the Democratic nominee for president, and pledged to give Trump’s campaign $45 million a month....This past weekend, Musk showed up at a Trump rally and reiterated his belief that the country and its Constitution could not continue to exist if Trump weren’t reelected. Among my friends who drive Teslas, Musk’s name comes up a lot in conversation, like an embarrassing skin condition you wish you could ignore. Some manage ably to compartmentalize. A neighbor I see at the dog park rails against Trump voters but raves about his self-driving Model S.... Other Tesla drivers feel stigmatized and vacillate about selling their cars. One friend affixed a magnet to her Tesla that says: 'I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy.'"
Oh, the struggles of Matt Bai's Tesla-driving friends! I wonder what other "moral anguish" problems roil their privileged lives.
But I had to laugh at the notion that Musk "waste[d] a chunk of his fortune on buying Twitter." Musk spent $44 billion. His net worth is $264 billion. What else could he have bought that could have provided him with anything like the satisfaction and power he gets from X? Waste?!
Posts
109 comments:
Wait, how is the Great Replacement Theory Anti-Semitic? Had not heard that one.
"the antisemitic 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory" Huh? BS from the get-go. Are progs even trying? Do they need to?
The crazy Libs sound exactly like the Confederates talking about that damn Lincoln trial lawyer. Maybe the can get Trump shot in the head like Abe, it’s not for want of trying…protecting Democracy you know.
More BS scare-tactics from the lying liar left.
Free speech in only for whiny loyalist cult-dems.
Has there been an outbreak of St. Vitus Dance in the newsroom again? Ergot in their corn tortilla wraps?
Goetz von Gerlichingen
Somehow they manage to carry on. Pronouns are still in the work email signature, the "Hate has no home here" sign is still in the front yard.
I would say Twitter was overvalued, but CLEARLY the left can't quit it. Musk is going to keep it running even at a light loss, and he's already told the ADL to pound sand.
Yes, the next four years will be very interesting.
He bought Twitter because he reveres free speech! It wasn’t about who was getting censored, it’s that anyone at all was getting censored outside the parameters of the law…. Jeesh, Bai, get with the program. Elon is a free speech warrior - even you can have a voice.
"...endorsed the antisemitic 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory."
Did Bai add "Anti-Semitic" to "Great Replacement conspiracy theory" to rescue the label "conspiracy theory," because at this point it's hard to deny "Great Replacement" is a full-on, all-of-government Strategy (DHS, FEMA, etc.) that is under implementation and taking place right before our very eyes?
"One friend affixed a magnet to her Tesla that says: 'I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy.'"
In every way that pragmatically matters, these people are mentally children.
"he has endorsed the antisemitic 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory, "
If there's a rational explanation for why the Biden administration let in an estimated 10M unvetted immigrants in less than 4 years, I'd really like to hear what it is. Basically, some variant of the Great Replacement Theory probably explains the phenomenon as well as anything.
i also suspect that many Democratic officials are on the take with the Mexican cartels, which need to be seen not as criminal gangs, but now as multinational corporations. Remember, no one, but no one, crosses through Mexico without paying the cartels. The cartels are pulling down billions by people and drug smuggling. You think American government officials are letting all that money flow by without getting a piece of the action? Really? It's not like the old days with hunter Biden's bank transfers leaving a trail of corruption. Crypto-currency makes corruption essentially untraceable.
True. It’s all about the social media as if they wer in middle school. They would never step out of line and lose their friend group, or livelihood…. Virtue signal up and down.
Sounds like his entire world is populated with d bags
I think he's going back to Charlottesville, maybe, that "The Jews will not replace us" chant IIRC then conflating that with the old 'emerging Democrat majority'. Seems like a stretch.
One of those "right-wing dissemblers" was the POTUS. He wasn't just some annoying guy. If Musk hadn't bought twitter, one of the candidates for president would still be blocked from a major social media platform and his supporters would be threatened with censorship for discussing his candidacy.
The "antisemitic" reference puzzled me, too.
Apparently, in some European versions of great replacement theory, the bad guys manipulating things behind the scenes are, of course, Jewish. Thus, believing in that theory is said to be antisemitic.
However, in the reality now playing out all across America, the bad guys are the Democrats or the Deep State. They are trying to build an underclass beholden to the welfare state that sustains them, so that when they vote, illegally or otherwise, they'll vote for the welfare-supporting political party, the Democrats.
This has nothing to do with the Jews. In fact, by importing large numbers of Islamic immigrants, amongst others, it is creating a reality that is dangerous to Jews as much or maybe more than it is to ordinary non-Jewish Americans. There may well be some Jews who belong to the elite cohort who support open borders and unrestricted immigration, but they're not controlling things, and it is not a Jewish project.
Musk is delivering on one of the Left's holy grails; EVs. He's their darling. But then he buys Twitter (at significant cost to himself, it turns out, because of the subsequent Left's hissy fit) because he believes free speech to be an imperative in a free society, and the Left scorns him.
It's really a bad look, guys.
John Kerry remarking to the WEF that the First Amendment is a barrier to progress doesn’t seem to bother Bai and his liberal friends.
What is antisemitic about the Great Replacement Theory? If anything, it is a warning that Democrats can replace a voting block by importing the votes, which explains why they have lots of Palestinian support.
I went back and listened to the reporting on Charlottesville. I heard "YOU will not replace us." Has anyone bothered to actually ask the people that marched with tiki torches?
I agree about what they were saying and it made sense. Young white men are being replaced.
Let me guess Bai's color is green, a not so novel green, the color of envy.
"It’s all about the social media as if they wer in middle school."
What's worse than not being able to sit at the cool kids' table and having them smirk at you as you slink past?
There is also a theory, postulated by "Groypers", that says the Jews are engineering the replacement of citizens to prevent another Holocaust from happening again, as it was an invention of Western Europe. This doesn't make any sense to me, as many of the immigrants are more anti-Semitic than the original citizens.
I see I’m not the only one puzzled by Bai’s notion of what is anti-Semitic. Maybe that is why he and his friends struggle over whether to be seen in public with a Tesla. They are just too stupid (to understand theories) and shallow (worried about what others think rather than your own thoughts) to be rational. A combination TDS, Musk hatred, and desperation. Maybe they should just enjoy the car.
Back in 2016, when I still lived in LA, the only car I saw with a Trump sticker was a Tesla.
The Palestinian leadership and other left-wing lunatics past, present, and progressive have a theory that replacing Jews will herald the establishment of the Pro-Choice ethical religion. In Stork They Trust
Althouse said: "But I had to laugh at the notion that Musk "waste[d] a chunk of his fortune on buying Twitter." Musk spent $44 billion. His net worth is $264 billion. What else could he have bought that could have provided him with anything like the satisfaction and power he gets from X? Waste?!"
Yeah, LOL.
I especially love the premise from the Lefties that Musk's purchase was a financial decision, and that he's failing Failing! And buried in there is always the implication that they, personally, could have managed Twitter better.
Oh, the struggles of Matt Bai's Tesla-driving friends!
No, no, the struggle is all Matt Bai's! How can he convince himself that Elon Musk is an inferior being when all of his friends who drive Teslas love them?! You're getting to cognitive dissonance territory with that!
My brother in law just gave me a lecture on how Musk is a white supremacist and how he wouldn’t own a Tesla if Musk gave it to him. I laughed and changed the subject.
My brother in law just gave me a lecture on how Musk is a white supremacist and how he wouldn’t own a Tesla if Musk gave it to him. I laughed and changed the subject.
"wondered why no one tries to assassinate the Democratic nominee for president,"
If I remember the context correctly, he was pointing out that the right isn't trying to assassinate their opponents like the Left is.
...he has endorsed the antisemitic 'Great Replacement' conspiracy theory...
Cause nothing says antisemitism like letting a bunch of South and Central American Catholics violate our borders.
"and pledged to give Trump’s campaign $45 million a month.."
I thought that turned out not to be true?
His point was Kamala is just a front for whoever is running the country. Killing her would have the same political impact as killing a random person.
Feeling moral anguish? A Tesla owner? Give me a break. There are lots of Tesla Cybertrucks in my neighborhood and on the freeways here in L.A. I've seen several dozen in the standard stainless steel. There's one in my neighborhood painted all black; I've seen another painted orange. When Musk first announced these, they were going to cost $39,000. The sticker price range today for these trucks. $125,000 to $150,000. Anybody who has the money to throw away on one of these "penis extenders" is hardly capable of feeling moral anguish. They may feel like they got scammed at the great increase in price, but they won't be feeling moral anguish.
Elon Musk's investment in Twitter is "only" about $26.5 billion, not the $44 billion purchase price. It consists of cash and debt with his personal guarantee. One interesting question is why the other investors and lenders are sticking with him, when some may have performance covenants that permit them to recover their investment. Could it be that they're angling for a piece of SpaceX, currently valued around $210 billion?
Concerning the ideology of those who make popular products, we who are not progressives have long reconciled ourselves to separate our consumer and political preferences. If you're not willing to compartmentalize, you would have turned your back on most of the best music, movies, and tech of the last 50 years. Rush Limbaugh extolled Apple products every week, though the politics of its board was anathema to him. So, deal with it, Tesla progressives, welcome to our world.
Matt--I was already a fan of the guy. You don't need to convince me.
Maybe you could ask those FBI guys with the tiki torches what they meant.
Any thought of Musk's "power" has to be subjected to questions of what kind of power. The classical distinction is officium, auctoritas, imperium and potestas. Once you're required to say which, your thoughts become clearer, even to you. There is no "power" any more than there's phlogiston.
Twitter's success is absolutely vital to the success of our democracy. It is how how we stay informed about current events, research policy issues and engage in discussions with others. I know there is misinformation on it. Plenty of it. I looked up Hurricane Milton's trajectory last night on Twitter and discovered a whole bunch of crazy people talking nonsense about cloud seeding and weather manipulation. But so what? Our country sucks and someone has to tell the truth about it. And that someone is almost always on Twitter.
Haven't people read just how bad it is in Mexico? The Guardian, not a natural fan of Trump, one would think, has published this horror story. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/08/mexico-murder-beheading-city-mayor-alejandro-arcos-catalan-chilpancingo
So why did the Biden Harris administration prove so welcoming to the cartels? Payoffs?
No wonder Trump's cry of building a wall and expelling illegals is so popular.
On a local sports talk radio show they were talking about Musk being at the Steelers game, waving a yellow towel, and wondering why. The host, a funny guy, said "Breaking News! Musk just bought the entire NFL. And used Venmo to do it."
Thanks, Joe. I should have been clearer that I saw reports with "Jew" at the time, and was merely speculating on how Bai came up with it.
Subarus run on gasoline but are somehow virtuous nonetheless.
If there is a one state solution, the Israelis will be replaced.
The Great Replacement Theory isn't anti-Semitic. The comment about why nobody is trying to assassinate Harris is lacking content. Musk has denied that he is contributing $45M/month. Three errors right off the bat.
And then there's this gem: "I have friends who were reluctant to buy a German car when they were shopping a few years ago because of the troubled history of German automakers profiting from the Third Reich. They ended up buying a Tesla. Now the husband finds himself questioned by work colleagues for supporting fascism at home." How does this garbage get past the editors?
X is tracking nicely to diversify into many different revenue streams that depend on user service fees and not on ad revenue that is susceptible to New Soviet Democratical manipulation and threats.
I think you meant to write islamic supremacist arab support.
Musk is donating to America PAC and funding GOTV volunteers for the GOP in swing states at $30/hr with additional $47 for every republican voter registered.
Musk is also kicking in millions to make up the funding gap between republicans and democrats in key district races where the republican was getting little to no help from the GOPe leadership. Joe Kent in Washington state is a good example of that.
"Could it be that they're angling for a piece of SpaceX, currently valued around $210 billion?"
They probably want a piece of xAI as well.
What does it say about a bro whose internal valuation of his car is tied to the CEO's political views being out of sync with his? I mean.... the weird thing is that conservative values are generally more 'hands off' than progressive ones. Conservatives generally want to be left alone, and they want to leave others alone, too. So the recurring trope these days, with the fluorescent hair dye set, is somebody gets outraged because somebody else isn't being outrageous enough.
On the other hand, Harley riders get a CEO that starts to push DEI, so what do they do? They start burning their bikes. Which one is stranger?
But, wasn't Musk forced to buy Twitter by implication of the court?
I doubt a credentialed hack like Bai is familiar enough European history to figure that connection out. I suspect that since Biden and now Harris have been pandering to hundreds of people who spent the last year screaming 'from the river to the sea' while they barricade Jewish students in libraries and chase them around campus, he felt the need the need to remind people that the real antisemites were a couple dozen guys who marched one night about eight years ago.
Doosh with a teeny tiny rounding error of Musk’s net worth judging his economic decisions…
And he fired how much of Twitter's staff and it still functions?
I’m old enough to remember when the left was claiming Twitter would implode without them, yet it’s still here for them to whine about…
"I know there is misinformation on it. Plenty of it."
There'd be less if the government ran X. Then, the only disinformation would be the government's.
Which is exactly what the leftards want.
what about 'Palestinians' wanting to replace jews in that area of ME ?
are they supporting MUSK / TWITTER
Disinformation, misinformation...
Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
Imagine being so comfortable and well-off that you can buy a Tesla and agonize over the moral implications of doing so. It is time to retire "six degrees of Kevin Bacon" and adopt "six degrees of Donald Trump".
Its nonsense. If you were trying to "prevent a holocaust" you'd hardly be importing heaps of islamic "refugees".
I'm not entirely sure the control doesn't run the other way - the CIA controls the cartels. Its not without precedent that they take over a country and then fund their operations through drugs and guns.
The really hilarious part is that it was losing money hand over fist before Musk, but that represented a viable operation to them. Only through Musk's aquisition did we find how much much money the left was willing to lose to maintain a monopoly on the public town square.
I've heard plenty of speculation the real reason the cartels haven't been stopped is that they are actually run by the CIA.
Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover Is Now the Worst Buyout for Banks Since the Financial Crisis ~ WSJ
Advertising on ExTwitter remains in free-fall and is likely down between 75 and 85% from when Elon took over. And now the Wall Street Journal has a piece recognizing that the banks that financed about $13 billion of the $44 billion Musk needed are admitting that it may be one of the worst buyout deals of all time.
Some of this was known before. Just as Musk was about to officially gain control of Twitter, it was reported that the banks were regretting their decision as they realized they couldn’t sell the debt. There was talk of them offering it to other investors for pennies on the dollar. Instead, they all just kept marking down the value of the debt.
To make matters worse for all involved, it has been reported that the banks agreed to a sell-down letter, preventing any bank from taking a deal that isn’t offered to the rest of them. But to make matters even worse for Elon specifically, he apparently promised the bankers they wouldn’t lose money on this deal. It’s unclear how binding that promise is, and Musk is somewhat infamous for breaking promises. But it certainly could impact his ability to borrow in the future.
The WSJ article highlights that the banks have had to hang on to the (greatly devalued) loans for a record length of time.
/"According to data from PitchBook LCD, the Twitter loans have been hung longer than every similar unsold deal since the 2008-09 financial crisis for which the research firm has complete records. There were many more hung deals back then, but banks in that period typically were still able to sell or write off most of their hung debt within roughly a year after they issued the loans. One hung deal—a $20 billion all-debt acquisition in 2007—was bigger than Twitter but wound up in bankruptcy about 12 months after banks wrote the check."/
Maybe the banks will think about due diligence next time? I mean, it was no secret that the basic ideas Musk laid out for how he was going to run Twitter were absolute nonsense from Day One.
But, while the headline and the beginning of the piece compare the performance of this deal to the financial crisis, they admit deeper in the article that it may just be one of the worst of all time:
Steven Kaplan, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago who has tracked such deals since the 1980s, said Twitter isn’t only the biggest hung deal by dollar amount since the 2008 financial crisis but one of the biggest of all time. /“The loans have weighed on the banks for much longer than other hung deals we’ve seen,” he said./
The article admits that many of the banks did the deal because they were star-struck with Elon:
/"The banks that agreed to underwrite a deal that even Musk said was overvalued did so largely because the allure of banking the world’s richest person was too attractive to pass up, according to people involved in the deal."/
The article notes that the banks that did the Twitter deal, such as Bank of America and Morgan Stanley, are now considered less trustworthy for such deals than the banks that stayed out, like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. And in some cases, the bankers who did the deal are seeing their (still massive) bonuses cut because of the deal:
/"Barclays’s top investment bankers on the mergers and acquisitions team were told at a New York dinner early last year that compensation for everyone in the room would be cut by at least 40% from the prior year. The bank had several hung deals hurting its performance but X was by far the largest, according to people familiar with the situation. Once bankers were paid their bonuses for the year, about 50 of Barclays’s more than 200 managing directors left the firm, according to the people."/
Maybe next time, skip the star-admiration and focus on the actual economics?
in 'The Fountainhead' Roark calls 'man who goes for power' is 'Second Hander'
with Ellsworth Toohey and Gail Wynand as examples. does that even fit in this roman spectrum
Renember when in the good old bad days of Obozo you folks all hated Musk for being a federal government subsidized whore making $Billions off hard working taxpayers by playing the global warmerung card from the bottom of the deck? Now that he's a ketamine addled Trumper and absentee father, he is worshipped like a Demi G_d circling Donald Gaius Bwana.
There's something insane about holding the actions of companies from WW2 80 years ago against the modern company. Do they really think there's a secret cabal of centenarian Nazi's controlling Volkswagon ? Perhaps from Argentina ?
And perhaps in a few more years it will look like Musk got a great deal. The guy has a record of doing things that everyone thinks are crazy and making them pay off.
And likely many of them are antisemitic. Antisemitism is endemic in many parts of the world.
I'm not sure I understand. Has Musk missed any loan payments? Am I supposed to be sad that the banks can't sell their loans off to someone else, i.e. a worse sucker, as in The Big Short, and that their performance bonuses are suffering? This is my sad face, then.
The biggest snark is that canard that BOA and Morgan Stanley are now considered to be 'less trustworthy'. Think about what that means, and why.
There's nothing a left-wing dissembler hates more than a right-wing dissembler.
I am so old, I remember when progressives bought Volkswagen Beetles. I think think the implied poverty appealed to them. No exuberant American cars for them.
"The antisemitic Great Replacement theory".
Hmm. Two things on that.
1) I'm Jewish.
2) I've been witnessing the replacement of US citizens in the form of millions of illegal immigrants for a few years now. I know that in some, perhaps many states, there are illegal immigrants actively being registered to vote.
So...Matt Bai. Any questions? I know that my vote has been diluted. How 'bout yours?
There is no doubt in my mind, that a government who invites in the world, leaves it's borders open, even as it's people are screaming for them to stop it, even as the drugs and murders and assaults keep growing, is a government that does not care much for it's citizens and is seemingly in the act of replacing them as we're writing and reading here.
"Has Musk missed any loan payments?"
Good question.
“boatbuilder said...
On a local sports talk radio show they were talking about Musk being at the Steelers game, waving a yellow towel, and wondering why. The host, a funny guy, said "Breaking News! Musk just bought the entire NFL. And used Venmo to do it."”
“a yellow towel”
It has a name. You are unfamiliar with The Terrible Towel?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrible_Towel
Renember when in the good old bad days of Obozo you folks all hated Musk for being a federal government subsidized whore making $Billions off hard working taxpayers by playing the global warmerung card from the bottom of the deck?
I don't remember all of us hating Musk. I know I didn't. What I didn't - and still don't like - is the government forcing us to buy EVs by banning ICEs by 2030/35.
See the difference?
How about the rest of y'all?
Why do you care how Musk spends his own money? Or how we spend ours?
Mind your own damn business, as someone would say.
"Tesla-lovers managed to feel pretty good about themselves."
That is what it is all about- libs making themselves feel good. Sometimes all it takes is driving a Tesla. Sometimes it takes opening the borders to millions of illegals, criminals, rapists, and murderers. Sometimes it takes screaming because Donald Trump is still alive. Sometimes it takes sex with a child or killing a baby or a terrorist attack that only kills Jews for Party members to feel good about themselves. But whatever it takes, That's what's important.
As soon as Musk produces a search engine with the capabilities of the old Google circa 2007, I'm gone and I will never use fucking commie new-Google again.
"I don't remember all of us hating Musk. I know I didn't."
Me neither.
..and would take a bath if I sold it."
The 'laughing at' is good, but don't change the subject, ridicule them, make them own their opinions, reason them out before you, and justify them. They won't because they can't.
It's remarkable how many baristas and bicycle messengers and teacher's-union shop stewards are experts on corporate finance.
Ask any of them, and they'll tell you about how Musk is a fool who just got lucky six or eight times in a row, and how Trump is a "Failed Businessman" whose 6 bankruptcies should far outweigh his 500 successful enterprises that spin off enough cash to support the operation of a private 757 airliner, and how "people come before profits, maaaaan."
Buying carbon credits? Like buying papal indulgences. No real limit to the number of sins or sinners you can magically pay off. Driving an e-car when it is hard to find a charging station, and exasperating to wait for a recharge? Sackcloth and ashes--a conspicuous show of virtue. Musk may be spoiling it for some.
There's something insane about holding the actions of companies from WW2 80 years ago against the modern company.
The campus radicals are trying to extort Georgetown University for owning slaves 200 years ago, and Brown University for being founded by a slave trader 300 years ago, and condemn Christians in general for the actions of Crusaders 800 years ago.
But somehow the Democrat Party never gets held to the same standards.... nor do the North African pirates who enslaved more Europeans than the number of Africans who were enslaved by Europeans.
Musk has been pretty apolitical prior. Perhaps as a profligate seed spreader and biz owner pushed to TX he's come to identify a greater threat than Global Warming/Change/Stasis. If only he would opt in to Howie's mask on/mask off boot camp.
Aren't you the guy who has humble bragged about lux car purchasing decisions?
LMFAO! This is sour-grapes spew that only lib losers would even think about. Musk Derangement Syndrome is real, folks.
Musk is helping other humans, see NC and StarLink. What are you doing?
Well....... Two or three of the usual meatheads had something bad to say about Elon, and therefore all of you did.
Watches duly noted. Someone has to track time.
He's already helping people. What point are you trying to make?
Musk's operation of X as a bastion of free speech has done and will do more to "help other humans" than if he spent the entirety of his wealth on "charity."
264 Billion is roughly 1/7 of the annual spending of the US government.
Bai thinks that Elon is pinching pennies like him and his journalist schmuck friends.
Hopefully in the future Sprezzassorri school, light will be shed on wasteful spending of guvmint, not just discretionary spending decisions of those with more watches.
I remember being angry at the government for giving away the money. Can't blame Musk for taking it.
What kind of value do you place on free speech?
Howard has to create the strawman lies so that he can "win the interwebs" for the day.
Its a pretty sad predicament.
Rich is just a fascist piece of crap who is angry his political opponents are able to avoid the Regime attempts at censorship.
Howard can't handle the fact that Trump supporters were right and he was wrong.
We are just smarter than you are Howard. Cry harder.
Elon did help us.
Now we are free to speak on X and you fascist fucks don't have a monopoly on social media.
Really Sprezz you are just a fascist who now has to listen to opposing opinions and you are crying. Go cry on Facebook. Zuck will keep the "misinformation" out so you can have a safe space.
For me that made me sensitive to the suffering of other people.
Gosh, you are so wonderful, tears come to my eyes just thinking of it. So what have you done, besides complaining that other people don't spend their money on the stuff that you want them to. Note that Musk has actually founded a school. What schools have you founded?
In the words of George Best "I spent all my money on women and booze, and wasted the rest".
In this Elon reminds me of Charles Foster Kane running his newspaper in Citizen Kane.
"“You’re right. I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I’ll have to close this place in 60 years.”"
And yet it doesn't bother the loudly sensitive to purchase items from police-state China, or power their electronics with rare-earth metal harvested by child slaves, or live comfortably a million other ways through the products of labor from other woman-oppressing, gay-murdering, totalitarian states.
Post a Comment