Are 'we' complicit in sponsoring Elon Musk?

Tesla as a company is massively overvalued. It's price to earnings ratio is absolutely ludicrous and it will face increased competition as competitors catch up.

Also the cybertruck being one of the worst vehicles ever made can't have helped.

 

I left Twitter a few months ago. The app decided I needed to see the latest updates from characters I'd blocked/muted - like Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate.

 

If we stopped buying or using anything owned by a knob, we'd have a big lack of choice. Delve in to the owner of most companies and you'll find something you don't like.

 

I have recently been provided with a Tesla through work and can only mentally justify it by saying that a) I didn’t buy it and b) it’s free to charge for 12 months so I’m saving £100 a week in diesel.

 

I would find it quite easy to boycott Electric Jesus's products and by moving to Bluesky I have. I have not mourned missing out on the resale value of a Tesla dropping faster than a Peregrine falcon and I don't really know what a Powerwall is but I assume it is some sort of fancy extension lead.

Nestlé on the other hand. We know they are a despicable corporation. But they make it very difficult to avoid their products. They're everywhere.

 

I've never given him a penny (or a cent, or a rand).

 

Yeah I’ve retreated from Twitter just nip on to call someone a lovely person every so often.

 

You are quite right.

I've not logged into Twitter for a while, but I am trying to force myself to leave it and will eventually do it.

 

It's become incredibly difficult to avoid every shyster or company that has people lacking one jot of moral fibre, but as we progress through these next 4 years, I genuinely feel that democracy is at risk in the western world and by the end of my lifetime as climate change rages, could feel incredibly dystopian.

I stopped using twitter the day Musk bought it, and its incredibly worrying how he seems to have gone down the rabbit hole even further... Ironically radicalised by his own platform. Though if you search for some of the expressed views of his dad, Elon could be compared as more moderate!

Metas about face on moderation and promoting political content is deeply worrying given Clegg has been forced to leave and be replaced by a Maga sympathiser. It means the mainstream social media sites will be fuelling right wing propaganda more than ever, and I'd encourage anyone with any decency not only to move away from them, but delete them entirely.

As for corporates, it's tough to find morality in bigger businesses. There are trade offs and sadly, some battles will be shelved for future days. Where possible I try and use small companies but even then, you don't always know the character behind the facade.

 

Yep. I try to support independent businesses where possible but even some of those are owned by venture capital firms or part of a group. I thought 200° coffee shop in barnsley was an indie but it's now owned by Cafe Nero! However I'm still of the opinion that gravitation of wealth to the already-wealthy is one of the biggest social ills of the last decade and I will continue to support smaller, more local business where possible.

Social media is very difficult because we all want to be where the people we wish to follow hang out. Bluesky is my best hope for a startup but it's a Twitter clone and at my age, Facebook is where my real-world friends reside. I don't put much on there but would find it difficult to ditch altogether. Although if it starts feeding me far right/MAGA BS, that might become much easier. The anti-trans stuff I never asked for is already worming its way into my feed.

 

I disagree. The type of people who buy Tesla's are often the opposite of right-wing ideologues. Think many Tesla owners are quite embarrassed at the moment and thinking hard about a car change.

 

Don't forget Starlink and its impact on astrophotography. Musk has managed to deface the sky itself.

 

Excessive wealth is a problem. It makes someone completely untouchable and gives them incredible influence and power. Once someone has tens of billions you're at their mercy and basically have to trust them not to use it for nefarious purposes as consequences don't apply to them and they'll just lobby/bribe their way out of any trouble.

Elon Musk is pretty much the inevitable outcome of barely restricted capitalism. In an ideal world billionaires wouldn't exist.

 

The positive is that these things tend to correct themselves. We've given the billionaires the opportunity to share their wealth through taxation and donation, but they keep pushing the rules so they get more. Eventually, they'll find that it doesn't matter how much wealth they've got if an angry mob wants to take their share.

 

We all should be very worried now that Musk and Trump have brought about Far-Right madness to America they are openly backing the Far-Right Reform Ltd Party in Britain, the A.F.D. a Far-Right Party in Germany and the big rise of the National Front in France. In their goal for world dominance, these maniacs are after taking over Greenland and the Panama Canal and state will take them by force if necessary, and if the war in the Middle East is not over by the time Trump is in office then they will obliterate Palestine, the deranged Trump as just stated he is going to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, so beware these people are as crazy as Hitler we could be witnessing the building up of World War 3.

 

Very I'd say.

https://www.theguardian.com/technol...-received-almost-200m-in-uk-grants-since-2016