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Celia M Paddock's avatar

I find it odd that no one even slightly Left-leaning seems concerned about Bill Gates having too much power, about George Soros having too much power. But they're terrified of Elon Musk. And this interview doesn't seem to point to any particular reason WHY the rest of us should be terrified of him.

Because, honestly, I don't see him him trying to do things that will HARM Americans. In fact, ripping Twitter away from the sole control of the Left has arguably benefitted Americans. We would be far, far more at the mercy of the MSM without the ability for people to be "citizen journalists" on Twitter without fear of government-sponsored suppression.

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Peter Schaeffer's avatar

Soros gets lots of grief and deserves it to. I agree that Gates doesn't get a lot of grief. You have to be deeply involved with these issues to know what Gates is up to. For example, how many people know that "A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction" (a woke screed) came from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Jane in Michigan's avatar

Celia, I read the book and I agree with you. They find him frightening because he is no oneK

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Mo Leish's avatar

I’m “left-leaning” and I don’t even question if Bill Gates has too much power. I know he does! I wish people wouldn’t try to assume someone else’s totality of opinions based on generalities of standard politics. Hopefully the rise of RFK indicates that “left and right” are a worn out way of categorizing and assigning people’s belief systems.

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MC's avatar

Hi Celia, my concern with Musk is that he spreads himself too thin and focuses on vanity projects such as X, instead of prioritizing the engineering-based parts of his portfolio that he has a better feel for. Although I empathize with his philosophy of "free speech absolutism", his UX and media initiatives at X have been revenue negative, he undermines his new CEO, and a man has only so many hours in the day. I stack rank getting to Mars and sustainable energy much, much higher in importance than fixing Twitter. If Twitter goes away, it will be replaced by another service. Meanwhile Tesla is floundering [the Cybertruck looks like a disaster, the rest of the line up has not been updated in years] and SpaceX seems to have lost momentum.

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Celia M Paddock's avatar

Is it illegal--or even evil--to spread oneself too thin?

If Musk harms his own bottom line, that is his own business. He does not have a moral obligation to succeed.

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MC's avatar

Of course not, although he has a fiduciary obligation to his shareholders. What is Elon if he loses his success?

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Celia M Paddock's avatar

But the point of this article was that he is somehow "dangerous" because he is wealthy and the Left doesn't control him.

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MC's avatar

I think it's dangerous to have any one person monopolizing too many resources. There's a reason we started our country as anti-monarchists. Sometimes you get a good one, sometimes you get an in-bred nutcase.

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Celia M Paddock's avatar

But as I pointed out to begin with, the Left isn't afraid of all the wealthy Leftists monopolizing things.

And Musk is not a king.

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Frank Ladwig's avatar

It's obvious to the most casual observer that if Elon is even a tiny bit evil we all would know it.

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Bruce Miller's avatar

In one short, pithy and brilliant post you encapsulated why the Left hates Musk and why the senile imbecile who rules us both fears and detests him.

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Alan Domzalski's avatar

Totally agree, except that ripping Twitter away from the left didn't "arguably" benefit Americans, I would say it unequivocally benefitted Americans. I am surprised at any notion of "regret" for this purchase. Certainly it was more consequential than the Boring Company, for instance.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

I'll read the book if for no other reason than to figure out how it is "demonic" and cruel to withdraw and remain silent when angry.

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Nov 8, 2023
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Lynne Morris's avatar

Elon Musk is the title. I take the opposite approach. I rarely notice the headline. Or pics.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

My thoughts on others who might have too much power as well. Plus what exactly is too.much power as long as lawfully and ethically acquired? And I view his purchase of Twitter as ripping off a very old, filthy band-aid. For which I am grateful. The wound is exposed for any who dare look.

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K Dove's avatar

OMG, I came here to make that exact point. Fine, write about Musk, but why frame the headline in negative language? I love Elon, I live on the Space Coast, he is a genius, but odd, loves this country, and bought Twitter to show the world what we all KNEW to be true, but couldn’t prove. We never read about the liberals owning all of education, media ( TV and newspapers) and the almost entirety of Government, state and federal. So the “right” has ONE person, and that’s who Bari wants to frame as too powerful. What is she thinking?? Soros and Gates would be better topics. Why is Bill Gates the largest private farm land owner in the US? Maybe he doesn’t want someone raising cows, because they fart and create global warming. And have you heard, the liberals want us to eat bugs for our needed protein. And, BTW, the Libs just swept the midterm elections in important states and elections. But hey, let’s spend our time putting Musk in a negative light. Bravo.

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Nov 8, 2023
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K Dove's avatar

Good point about business people. I’m a Republican, and faith and moral issues isn’t what brought me into politics, it was the financial issues. Do I believe he is a Republican Party animal. No, but he did, at great personal expense, and a hit to his reputation, buy twitter to prove to the world what we, as Republicans, always knew but couldn’t prove about censorship by government in collusion with Twitter, FB, etc. now he has the government on his back, they are after him, like they are after Trump. Many of the things they are going after Trump for, happened before he was President. Everyone knows what the government is doing and why. They are after him in NY for inflating his asset values to get a loan. Did he do that? Sure, I’ll say yes, but the loan was paid back a long time ago. Are banks stupid? Did they just take his word for it? When you want a house loan do they ask you and take your word for it? If the risk was too high, they’d turn him down for a loan, same as us. They are doing the same to Elon now. Who thinks the alphabet agencies in DC will allow Trump to win a general election? Look at all we know they have done, imagine what we don’t know. It’s truly unfortunate, but I now believe we are in banana republic territory. I don’t see how that gets fixed.

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DeBau4's avatar

Exactly the thought I had.

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Scott D's avatar

I think most of what Musk is doing is admirable, but was disturbed when I read how he is determining when the Ukrainians can use StarLink to communicate in their war with Russia and when they can't. Geopolitical decisions, especially involving war, shouldn't be the province of just one wealthy person.

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Celia M Paddock's avatar

Musk doesn't owe his service to anyone who isn't paying for it, and I haven't seen any indication that anyone is paying him to supply StarLink to Ukraine.

If Ukraine or one of their allies wants to make sure Ukraine has such a service, they can either purchase that service from a provider of their choice or develop the technology themselves. Relying on the goodwill of "one wealthy person" is not a very smart geopolitical decision for those governments to make.

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Lauren L's avatar

Starlink is his product. He's not a defense contractor. He said he didn't want his technology to be used for military campaigns that will result in the death of thousands. Unless he chooses to sell his product and give up total control of Starlink, he has every right to dictate how it's used.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

Why not? Starlink was his private property which he gifted access thereto to Ukraine. It was reported that he pulled the plug on a specific portion of access by Ukraine because he was informed that if used as Ukraine intended it might trigger a nuclear reaction. Sounds like a good reason to not provide the access to me. I also suspect that Ukraine would not have enjoyed the success it has but for the Starlink access.

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Earl M's avatar

Truth! The one thing all government and leftist hate and they will do anything to suppress it!

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Hyacinthus's avatar

You've beaten me to it. My thoughts appeared before my eyes. An excellent reply.

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Marcus Aurelius's avatar

The left thinks of Musk like they think of Trump - he must be destroyed totally in order to be defeated. The thing is, they're more afraid of Musk than they are of Trump. They know Musk can hurt them in ways Trump couldn't imagine. They desperately want to use DoJ or the SEC to take Musk down but I get the feeling he knows way more secrets than he lets on, and he has the platform to hit back.

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Han's avatar

Musk has done a lot of good for the world.

Soros destroys economies and uses the proceeds to destroy cultures.

Gates hasn't done anything for like forty years except rant and badger about global warming while bragging about his fleet of jets and his fleet of yachts. he's just like obama and it doesn't get much lower than that.

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Michael Kelly's avatar

Soros is a hedge fund manager. Soros' funds make bank by disrupting markets-civilizations. His non-profits work to disrupt civilization, his funds make bank ... step 3 profit.

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Lynne Morris's avatar

We have no idea what Gates has done. I read awhile back that he damaged residents of a village in India with a vaccine he was pushing and his organization was run out of the village by people brandishing pitchforks.

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Selective Hearing's avatar

Apparently Bill Gates is buying up huge amounts of Farm Land in Idaho and other states... Why would he do that.. Monsanto? His push is very much for a plant based society.. .and genetically modified foods... All of which hurts the eco-system. We need the nutrients created by stomping animals (i.e. cows/buffalo) and by replenishing the soil Has anyone played a game of RISK lately? Which reminds me.. Can someone do an article at TFP on why China is allowed to buy American agricultural companies and land in Oklahoma... When you play the game of risk the best way to win is to own the land inbetween the countries you wish to conquer... not to mention their food supply? Am I being paranoid here?

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Lynne Morris's avatar

I do not think you are paranoid at all. I know about Gates. My instinct, because the man has never met a lab he did not like, is he will be a proponent of lab grown meat. He will not need that land to produce lab grown meat but he will be able to prevent its use for alternatives or to produce bio-engineered crops and foodstuffs. Check your labels now. I too have issues with the push to plant based. The Costner character in Yellowstone gave the best refutation thereof I have ever heard. But what about all the fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides? Does anybody believe the world can be fed on organic, non-bio-engineered vegetables? That nasty seaweed washing up on the Gulf Coast and in the Caribbean is because the Sargasso Sea, which has been there forever, is growing exponentially because of fertilizer use in Brazil.

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Scott D's avatar

Your statement about Gates isn't really fair. He's spent billions of dollars on healthcare in the developing world. He's not as flashy as Musk but he's doing more than just bragging about a fleet of yachts.

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Bruce Miller's avatar

He sure seemed to enjoy Epstein's company. So much so that Melinda sent him packing.

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Han's avatar

Polio breakouts for the first time in decades where he sent polio vaccines, questionable ethics buying mrna stock less than a month before covid broke out, epstein island regular.

If you take out the early windows work I’m not at all sure he’s a net positive tbh

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Celia M Paddock's avatar

"Healthcare" like dangerous vaccines?

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