You remember the 1950’s sci fi movies where everyday people and creatures became giants? You had the Amazing Colossal Man, the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Them, Tarantula, all waking up one day with a bad radiation hangover, growing to outlandish sizes, and then tearing out of the subways or across the desert to wreak havoc.
This is an age of billionaire oligarchs and while most of them are pretty much in the shadows, Elon Musk emphatically is not. He’s right out there in the open and I fear may soon take his outsized bank account and power and trash institutions, as the aforementioned radiation monsters of the cinema used to do to buildings and people.
Musk takes over ownership of Twitter on the 28th of this month. Musk also has a lot of ideas about the war in Ukraine and that has sparked the latest controversy. Let’s start with the ending first and work our way backwards.
He’s taking his ball and going home because Ukraine rightly scoffed at his ridiculous proposals he floated on twitter. Keep buying your Teslas. pic.twitter.com/GK1J699HdV
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) October 14, 2022
Andrij Melnyk is the outgoing ambassador to Germany from Ukraine. Here’s the backstory. Reuters:
WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Elon Musk said on Friday his rocket company SpaceX cannot indefinitely fund its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, which has helped the country’s civilians and military stay online during the war with Russia.
Musk’s comment on Twitter came after a media report that SpaceX had asked the Pentagon to pay for the donations of Starlink. The billionaire has been in online fights with Ukrainian officials over a peace plan he put forward which Ukraine says is too generous to Russia. […]
The Starlink communications platform has been very “exceptionally effective on the battlefield” allowing Ukrainians to support multiple device connections in the combat environment, a senior U.S. military official said.
“SpaceX is not asking to recoup past expenses, but also cannot fund the existing system indefinitely *and* send several thousand more terminals that have data usage up to 100X greater than typical households. This is unreasonable,” Musk said. […]
Musk activated Starlink, satellite broadband service, in Ukraine in late February after internet services were disrupted because of Russia’s invasion. SpaceX has since given it thousands of terminals.
Starlink has been a key communications tool for Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russian forces.
On Friday, an advisor to the Ukrainian president said Kyiv will find a solution to keep the Starlink internet service working in Ukraine. And Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s vice prime minister, backed him up on Telegram.
What prompted the ambassador’s strong reaction is that Musk said Ukraine should give Crimea to Russia, which is has no intention whatsoever of doing. Musk then suggested the U.N. hold referendums to determine the fate of Russian-controlled territory and Ukraine said no way to that either.
Ukraine says it will never agree to cede land taken by force, and lawful referendums cannot be held in occupied territory where many people have been killed or driven out.
Adam Kinzinger said, “if there was ever proof that @elonmusk is playing games this is it. I’m not sure someone like this can be trusted to any longer do business with our government.”
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the same Elon Musk who will be controlling one of the biggest social media networks on the planet in thirteen days.
And we thought William Randolph Hearst was overly powerful back in the day. Sigh. I’m staying with my 50’s sci fi metaphor — and hiding under the bed on October 28. Let me know how things work out and if Twitter is still there.
I will never buy a car from Putin-toady Musk. Never!
Thankfully there are better e-cars than the crap musk’s company manufactures.
I would very much like to be able to have a Hybrid vehicle or an EV. However, I would not ever consider a tesla. I realized years ago just how evil Musk is, and cannot support him in any way!
Fuck that rich entitled punk. By the way we’re still living under a cannabis prohibition based on lies Hearst popularized with propaganda in the 30s. Reefer Madness. He said it would turn us into a nation of “hooligans & whores”. Turns out it was money and power, his two favorite drugs, that accomplished that change. Truth matters! VOTE!!!
There’s another aspect to all this. Russia’s space program. When the Shuttle was taken out of service we had to rely on Russia for trips to the International Space Station. Musk was the driving force behind us being able to cut Russia out of giving us rides back and forth. Can you imagine the leverage Russia would have if they still controlled that task? While we will have another (U.S.) player in the mix it’s been Musk’s Space X that’s been ensuring we could send our own astronauts into space and bring them back home. Musk and his company have of course been handsomely paid by U.S. taxpayers. And let’s face it, he’s taken on the task of pushing boundaries and risking his own company’s money to do it.
However, my point is that this is a consequence of putting so much power, including national security and diplomatic power in the hands of not just a businessman but one with such control over his company. Yes, we can absorb the cost of maintaining the Starlink connections and I figure NATO allies will help with it, but this guy is basically changing the rules, going from “I’m donating all this” to “I’m done unless you give ME a BIG say in the diplomatic process.
And that’s not the worst part. Russia really counted on that eighty to a hundred million they got from us for each astronaut they ferried back and forth to space for us. And their own space program was already stagnated and even falling behind and not just to us. I for one don’t have any trouble believing that will all the hundreds of billions of wealth Putin and his oligarch pals have stashed away Musk can’t grab say the price of twitter for helping them out.
I’ve long had mixed feelings about Musk. I appreciate how he’s pushed technology boundaries and forced others to start doing so. But when it comes to his Starlink system I’ve been troubled since I first heard about it. Space is already a junkyard and Starlink adds to that by leaps and bounds making it ever more dangerous to navigate. And now he’s using it to further his political beliefs/agenda. Add in that he’s got major leverage over us on getting astronauts into space and he needs to get slapped down and hard. I don’t know how it can be done, but for goddamned sure our government needs to be ensuring any future contracts with him keep him bottled up. Or that other’s get a bigger share of the action.
The Twitter deal isn’t set in stone yet – it’s still, AFAIK, in court.
I don’t know if this musk ass hole is a citizen of the U.S. but can’t such a thing be rescinded? What he’s doing is interfering with U.S. foreign policy. He is not an advisor in any sense really to our government but he especially is not one of our foreign policy advisors nor is he a military advisor: this is a good thing since judging by what has come out of his pie-hole thus far, he is incapable of advising in these matters. Anyhow, if his is a citizen-threaten to remove it. If he isn’t, get him the fuck out of our country. Let him advise South Africa…although I’d say they probably have less use for him than we do.
South African, Canadian, and American. I think he’s all three.
Do you know who else is afraid when Musk take over Twitter? REPUBLICANS.
Musk will give Trump his big filthy microphone back to him and with it will be this massive wave of revenge of Trump toward McConnell, McCarthy, and the rest of the GOP lot.
Even those Republicans who remain in Congress will be trying to do their jobs (HA HA HA LOL, GOP Congressmen trying to do their jobs HA HA), while Trump screams at them each day on Twitter.
I think HG Wells “The Food of the Gods” might join your wonderful list (seen em’all!) I’ve met my share of trustafarians and one apartheid baby,not musk. He’s one though. (Expletive)
A quick fact check: contrary to popular myth, Musk NEVER gave Ukraine Starlink. He sold it to the US government, who, in turn, gave it to the Ukrainians. However, SpaceX HAS been maintaining the operating costs on keeping those satellites running and THAT funding is what Musk is wanting to pull. Worst comes to worst, the Feds will pick up that running tab and Musk still looks like an idiot.
Oh and he’s not owning Twitter anytime soon, not with the way his stocks (which he was using as part of the financing) are tanking and with two would-be financial partners bailing on him. I’m wondering if he’s in worse financial shape than he’s letting on.
MY MY, the crap is floating pretty deep these days, so many proven wrong ads for desperate Republicans struggling for a breath of oxygen, since Trump has given them a chance to show their true colors, even being found out and shown by the Jan.06 Committee to be the cowards and Trump puppets in Congressional fits of massive stupidity …
Going on from here is going to involve a spider web of, “HE SAID-SHE SAID”, nonsense from the Trump camp, which somehow has managed to float Trump’s messages out on the web and still. we see hits from the FOX assholes …
It could actually provide some mind-bending entertainment if there was not SO MUCH to lose … All the GOP, “Good ole Boys”, are just that … OLD, scared they may actually have to get off the pot of riches they rewarded themselves with … A very generous wage, huge list of perks, including fully funded best health care available, all at OUR expense …
WE MUST vote every one of those putrid Republican takers out of their free ride positions, a note here that Iowa, HAS to push against millions of dollars handed to Chuck Grassley to continue his fine cooperation with big Pharma, gas and oil companies and other wealthy individuals, who benefit from the GOP fiasco …