It's instructive to contrast what other billionaires did with media properties they owned:
- Jeff Bezos personally bought Washington Post but he left it alone and let the editors run it. What Jeff did do was invest some money into the IT department to modernize the workflow tools (metrics dashboards, etc) for journalists. He stayed out of the decisions of what stories get run on the front page.
- Rupert Murdoch owns Wall Street Journal but when Elizabeth Holmes asked him to squash negative stories about Theranos, he refused and stayed out of it. He let his editors run the stories even though it embarrassed him because he was a big investor.
Both those guys are more detached from those media outlets and don't meddle in it day to day.
What tech people like Paul Graham and others were hoping was for Elon to apply his scientific first principles type of thinking that he demonstrated previously at SpaceX+Tesla to Twitter. E.g. Tesla A.I. competency to clean up the bots and make the platform better.
Instead, Elon let the Twitter monster abuse his ego and his reputation as a savior is ruined.
Best thing Elon should have done was to focus only on the technical aspects of Twitter and let some more level-headed less-emotional people manage the editorial aspects.
Hopefully, Elon notices that we don't have endless HN and reddit front page articles about Rupert Murdoch's jet.
Bezos is one thing, but I'm not sure if Murdoch is a great example: he perhaps refused to spike specific articles, but his entire media empire is built around promulgating his (increasingly revanchist) politics. His success is attributable not to "staying out of it," but to having a receptive audience that he (to waxing and waning degrees) has successfully influenced for the last 30 years.
Besides, I don't think Twitter is what did Elon's reputation as a "savior" in. The current affair is more reaffirming than opinion shifting, for everyone I've talked to.
>, but his entire media empire is built around promulgating his (increasingly revanchist) politics.
Yes, I understand that and we know that WSJ leans more conservative than New York Times. Murdoch's empire reflects his worldview.
I mean "stay out of it" as in micro-managing day-to-day newspaper stories or writing constant op-eds to respond to his critics. That's the type of distracting minutiae that Elon has sucked himself into with hyper-reactive Twitter bans and incoherent replies with juvenile statements.
Murdoch is the worst possible example, being in it up to his eyeballs. It's especially the case in Australia, where his empire started and still dominates. This article is one of many, its headline and opening line being:
"Special report: Rupert Murdoch, a hands-on newspaperman"
"To illustrate the extent to which Rupert Murdoch used to micro-manage his newspapers,..."
>"To illustrate the extent to which Rupert Murdoch used to micro-manage his newspapers,..."
The 2011 article you linked emphasizes his activity with tabloid newspapers. I'm unfamiliar with those. From what I've read, he doesn't meddle with his "prestige" newspaper like WSJ. Maybe that's why the WSJ didn't censor itself on negative Theranos stories even though he invested $125 million in it and Elizabeth Holmes asked him to kill the articles.
I can't speak to the WSJ, and perhaps it's a good example of the owner not meddling, but using Rupert Murdoch as an example of someone who doesn't meddle in their media empire invites a lot of questions.
Rupert Murdoch's influence is a very hot topic in Australia, with 2 former prime ministers from opposite sides teaming up to try to push a royal commission into his media monopoly, and in particular his influence on elections. Some of the commission is directed at the actions of his properties, but a lot of it is directed at his specific meddling as an individual. There have been many claims of directives and squashed stories coming straight from the top, whether that's from him or Lachlan Murdoch.
As someone who reads Washington Post, NYTimes and WSJ daily, I too find their (WSJ's) reports trust worthy and accept the facts presented without too much fact-cheking. However, the editorial board and the opinion section are where Murdoch's influences reflect. The facts presented there are mostly murky and sometimes half-truths. I even found some "facts" that were out-right wrong and intentionally so.
They conspired to hide a leak that they thought would tip the election. Not that the leak was only dick pics, but if dick pics were enough to tip the election wouldn't that still be a valid expression of voter will?
> I assume you’re very mad at Russia too?
But, but, whatabout the other guys!
No, because I don't have a reason to trust Putin or the Russians, and neither do US citizens. But they do have a reason, and a right, to trust their elected officials.
The “twitter files” links has the Biden campaign reporting dick pics. We can actually view the links mentioned via the Internet Archive. Oops.
And no they don’t have a right for something illegal (revenge porn, unconcent) and the company certainly has their own right to censor how they want and choose who they listen to.
The Russian thing was about the actual facts about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election and if you were crowing about that influence too.
I didn't say that I did. The scope of "corrupt dealings" is much wider than the scope of illegal dealings.
It contains possibly legal things that the voters might find to be a turn-off, such as the ne'er-do-well son selling access to his dad in his official position.
You can't post like this here, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. I've banned the account.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Source that the FBI/Dems/etc only sent dick-pic links to be censored, or proof that the laptop leak contained more than dick pics?
Earlier in this thread you made a claim that the leak was only dick pics, have you read a source which claimed that, or is it only that you haven't seen a source talk about anything else?
I don't know the entire contents but it is certainly more than just dick pics. I've heard someone discuss using the dates in those to corroborate other stories which means they aren't just salacious either.
Umm..in latest release of Twitter files, you had members of the Biden administration reaching out to explicitly ban and de-platform accounts including accounts that simply showcased the CDC's actual data. There was severe and direct pressure from the white house to ban accounts of US citizens.
I cannot think of a more fundamental violation of the US first amendment.
And you're limiting this to only things disclosed during the Elon Twitter-files?
Because Jack Dorsey said to congress that they blocked the NYPost story because of reports by the dems and the FBI. The NYPost's story didn't have porn thus they reported at least some non-porn links.
We've known the broad strokes of this for quite a while and it's just the emails and chat logs of the conspirators that we're seeing for the first time now.
Normally you'd be right about how you can't prove something doesn't exist, but if you go up thread you'll see that xcrunner claimed that the laptop contained only dick-pics. It's fair for Alvah to ask for proof.
Had xcrunner simply asked for proof the burden would be on Alvah to provide it, but because xcrunner made a claim he took the burden of proof on himself.
Probably true, but the tabloid newspapers are what he uses to influence the public. Since this is a family website I won't express my feelings abut Rupert Murdoch.
He didn't discriminate with his Australian broadsheets. Maybe US editors have more spine than Australian editors?
The Murdoch dynasty (Keith, Rupert, Lachlan, ...) are master newspapermen. Why burn goodwill killing a story about money that is already lost when that goodwill could be spent on influencing even bigger things?
I think Murdoch is an excellent example to compare against Musk, right now. Not because he’s an exemplar of the non-interventionist, but because he’s all business. He will buy businesses, that are profitable, that present ideas against his current, perceived, goals. This is hedging his bets, somewhat.
Musk, on the other hand, buys business, regardless of profitability, that suit his personal goals. Then make managing decisions based on whim.
The difference isn’t that Murdoch lets others do the talking and Musk does his own, for better or worse. It’s that Murdoch makes business decisions and Musk makes emotional decisions.
To be clear - I’m not trying to suggest one is better than the other. Just that they are a very interesting comparison.
Outside of the absurdly conservative WSJ opinion pages, I wouldn't even say that. The Wall Street Journal is the paper of Wall Street, it has a slight inherent pro-business bias but besides that it reports the news fairly and accurately.
The rest of Murdoch's business empire is nothing like it, compare WSJ.com to FoxNews.com at any given point and you'll see a drastic difference.
> Outside of the absurdly conservative WSJ opinion pages, I wouldn’t even say that. The Wall Street Journal is the paper of Wall Street, it has a slight inherent pro-business bias but besides that it reports the news fairly and accurately.
The WSJ had a right-wing political bias (beyond just a vague pro-business bias) under Dow Jones (in the news, not just the–even then–absurdly right-wing opinion pages), and it got stronger under Murdoch (I haven’t read it as much in recent years, but I did regularly around and for a while after the takeover.) It’s not strident in tone (outside of the opinion pages) the way that Fox News is, but its notable both in story selection and focus.
News reporting is one thing, opinion reporting is its own beast, and I think a lot of people are not considering the difference much if at all. Murdoch and Bezos and others like that can craft a narrative through opinion reporting decisions without touching the news. The discussion seems to mix the two when the opinion pieces craft thought far more than news story selection.
I would put WSJ to more of a centre than either left or right of political ideology assuming we can ignore their conservative leaning Opinions writers.
The editorial pages of WSJ are definitely conservative. The news side tends to lean center left. As a conservative and subscriber to Wall Street journal for the past 6 years, the news side regularly butts heads with editorial side.
How are you defining “center left”? The only way I could see that working is if you’re defining that as acknowledging climate change is real or something similar.
Maybe OP's statement should be revised from "staying out of it" to "giving the appearance of staying out of it."
You are undoubtedly right that Murdoch's political influence is everywhere in Fox News and his other, very profitable, properties.
But have you ever heard a single juicy sound bite by Murdoch about Hillary Clinton, or Obama, or "wokeness?"
I just checked: turns out he's made a handful of comments, all of which basically qualify as obscure. He stays out of the way, despite running what is maybe the most politically impactful business of our times.
Compare to Musk, who, just a week or two ago, tweeted "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci."
Actually, there is evidence this is overplayed. In the U.K. there are multiple newspapers owned by Murdoch.
During the Brexit referendum campaign, one came out pro-Remain (The Times), and one pro-Leave (The Sun). Which one did Rupert want to win?
In truth his media has perfected the echo chamber: they echo back to the audience what they already believe.
It’s for this reason a middle class paper and working class paper can be so divided and why his US operational flagship (Fox News) can be vehemently politically opposed to his UK operational flagship (The Times).
He’s not schizophrenic - he knows to play his hand very, very lightly and the rest of it is all based on audience research these days.
I've never been and still am not a big Washington Post reader, but I have seen a lot of very pro-billionaire headlines from the Washington Post. I can't help but wonder if Bezos might be directly or indirectly a factor in that.
Murdoch is of course well known for using his media empire to promote his own political interests. His British tabloids were ridiculously strongly pro-Brexit because Murdoch was a respected guest at Downingstreet, but didn't have any meaningful influence in Brussels.
Good question! I had to look this up, but apparently The Times had legally protected editorial independence as part of the deal that allowed Murdoch to buy it. Unfortunately, that independence ended last January:
Elon is not a savior because no one is purely a savior. He is a genius at hardware who badly needs to shut the fuck up and have people rein him in sometimes. Twitter has always been his weakness, and he needs to have emotional maturity and hire a new CEO, then stay off of it entirely for two weeks
I am a big Musk critic, but I think his rise demonstrates a genius for hype and PR. The amount of free media and cheap capital that Tesla got was extraordinary, and I think that was down to Musk.
But I think Musk is also a good example of the reason that I would probably not work for a company whose head is a sales guy. Salespeople are great at hype, but they often do it by living in a fantasy land, and someone insufficiently connected to reality is in charge, things can get wacky. I knew of one place where the CEO was absolutely great at closing deals, but he would do it by promising more new features than the company could build. The well-meaning tech people did their best, but rushing to meet the CEO's promises meant a worse and worse code base, with bug counts skyrocketing and feature velocity slowing.
At Tesla and SpaceX, he apparently had competent people in charge to buffer his impulses and direct him toward what he's good at. But here we see that fantasy dynamic play out as he absolutely flails around trying to run a business that he doesn't really understand after firing most of the people who did and terrifying the remainder. If anything, I think the Twitter saga demonstrates that on his own, he's actually bad at a bunch of core business skills.
> I am a big Musk critic, but I think his rise demonstrates a genius for hype and PR. The amount of free media and cheap capital that Tesla got was extraordinary, and I think that was down to Musk.
A big falsifying hypothesis from this would be to predict that there are NOT any high-up PR staff of notable quality that have been around him for a long time.
If the PR people around him evince no particular talent for it and have been in constant flux for the duration of Musk's career such that he is the only constant, then yea, there'd probably be something to this.
Otherwise, if there is at least one person that was in his inner circle for a critical period of time that can also be said to have strong PR talent, then it's questionable ... sometimes success is having, on top of other things, the right team.
But choosing the right team is part of being a successful business man. I still think it's fair to credit him for SpaceX despite Gwynne Shotwell and his engineers running the company; he founded it, he brought the vision and he hired the right people.
Elon had a lot of luck, no doubt, but his track record is simply impressive and for that, I think it's fair to say that he has extraordinary talent.
> But choosing the right team is part of being a successful business man.
Sure, but it becomes hard to distinguish luck from talent. How would you know that an up and coming but talented PR person didn’t pick him? Or that was random?
It’s the major flaw with idolisation. Ends and means aren’t that tightly coupled. Against the utility of idolising someone, is the noise worth it? Ever?
Twitter is drama entertainment. As far as I can see Elon and the platform are perfect for eachother. Messy as it is. Twitter hasn't gotten as much attention since so seems like he is doing something's right.
There's only so much fuel for that fire and it seems like it's running out now that he's no longer going to be making wild changes or potentially stepping down.
That it coincided with a period of advertiser regression doesn't help.
I think we need to stop pretending that the only possible answer for seemingly misguided decisions is secret brilliance.
It's hyperbole. Tesla and SpaceX were insane accomplishments in moribund industries (the first successful auto startup in 80 years, and pretty much singlehanfedly revitalizing space travel which was basically dead, people with way more resources tried and failed at both of them). That being said, the Twitter acquisition is the work of a petulant child
The ball was already rolling on Tesla before Elon came along though. He was the majority of their first funding round but their company structure and development of a concept car was already underway. He just saw the opportunity that others were already working on and funded it, then stepped in, pushed the original founders out, and claimed it was his idea in the first place until he and the company settled a lawsuit in 2009.
SpaceX was truly his and he found great people to lead the company judging by their results. Contrary to your statement though, space travel wasn't dead at all. During the early SpaceX era when they launched zero rockets there were still a number of successful missions from organizations around the globe as well as routine commercial satellite launches. The key thing SpaceX did was cheapen launch costs to the point where existing launch companies had to start competing. This is down to the engineering achievements at SpaceX.
Musk is a face for businesses but if I were an investor in those other two ventures I'd definitely be concerned that this focus on Twitter is distracting him from his actual important work at those other companies, and I'd probably be pissed about what he's done to the share price of Telsa.
Musk had some pretty influential backing before he even founded SpaceX. From Wikipedia:
"In 2002, Griffin was President and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests. During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The unsuccessful trip is credited as directly leading to the formation of SpaceX.[11] Griffin was an early advocate for Musk calling him a potential “Henry Ford for the rocket industry".[12]"
> The ball was already rolling on Tesla before Elon came along though.
You clearly have different sources from me (which are primarily Wikipedia).
My understanding was that Tesla did not have:
- Ownership of the Tesla brand
- Any real funding. During the Series A founding in 2004, Elon contributed $6.5M / $7.5 total.
- An actual car. During the development of the Roadster, Elon was both Chairman and Architect/CTO.
- Employees, beyond Eberhard and Tarpenning.
Before Elon, Tesla seems to have been only one of many early stage electric car startups with poor prospects for their future.
As for the developments around 2008, it becomes speculation who is telling the more true story between Musk and Eberhard. But as for what both have achieved elsewhere, it seems to me that Musk is also more effective as CEO.
Maybe you have sources that can contradict the above.
You cite several bullet points that are directly contradicted by Wikipedia itself, when saying Wikipedia is your source:
- Ownership of the Tesla brand
vs Wikipedia[1]:
Tesla was founded (as Tesla Motors) on July 1, 2003, by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in San Carlos, California.
Where's your source that they didn't own the brand?
- Employees, beyond Eberhard and Tarpenning.
vs Wikipedia[1]:
Ian Wright was the third employee, joining a few months later.[2] The three went looking for venture capital (VC) funding in January 2004[2] and connected with Elon Musk, who contributed US$6.5 million of the initial (Series A) US$7.5 million[10] round of investment in February 2004 and became chairman of the board of directors.[2] Musk then appointed Eberhard as the CEO.
I'd like to say, this is just a strange thing to suggest is negative in the tech space; there's loads of companies that start off as a small group of people (or even solo) and grow once they have investment
- Any real funding. During the Series A founding in 2004, Elon contributed $6.5M / $7.5 total.
- An actual car. During the development of the Roadster, Elon was both Chairman and Architect/CTO.
I don't understand this argument. It basically says "before they sought funding they didn't have any funding", which is incredibly obvious and not a point? Was there something more you wanted to say here? Yeah, he was the money guy who invested in an existing company, which kind of reinforces the point that it was an existing company with something worth investing in *because he did and then he took the reins on direction*.
Similarly, "before they had funding, they didn't have any vehicles to show for it." A car is not software, to actually build a functioning vehicle takes quite a bit of time. It took Tesla two full years after his investment to demonstrate a prototype Roadster. Musk had left the CEO position when the first Roadsters started shipping.
From reading the original founders' thoughts about where they initially wanted to go, it seems that the company was going to be focused on automotive technology, with their cars being largely showcases for their technology, essentially the way Unreal engine used to be sold and the way the Doom games have been showcases for id's engines. They were not really setting out to be a mass-market automaker, is the gist I get from their various interviews. It's very possible that this was because they believed they couldn't disrupt the automotive market, feeling it was too entrenched, and Musk had the money to put that goal within reach.
He definitely reset Tesla's aim and the company demonstrated there was money to be made making EVs. He had a big part in it but a lot of the engineering work was courtesy of Lotus' engineering teams[2]. His main contribution appears to have been forcing the team to pursue carbon fiber and pushing them to make custom headlamps that met DOT standards, in spite of costs associated with both. Despite how Wikipedia words it, if you look at the source - [2] below - it makes the following mention about the headlights, for example:
Again, Elon pushed us to spend the considerable money necessary to develop custom (and DOT-compliant) headlights to make the front look great.
I think when people read in the Wikipedia article:
Eberhard acknowledged that Musk was the person who insisted from the beginning on a carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer body and that Musk led design of components ranging from the power electronics module to the headlamps and other styling
The takeaway is that Elon actually designed the components himself. The wording is vague enough to obscure the types of design involved and to play into the "genius" narrative. From all the sources, it appears that he was a guiding influence on style and basic statements about features and materials, rather than actually sitting down and designing individual components.
As to this point:
As for the developments around 2008, it becomes speculation who is telling the more true story between Musk and Eberhard. But as for what both have achieved elsewhere, it seems to me that Musk is also more effective as CEO.
Billionaires make effective CEOs is the argument here? I mean, probably, yes, unless they inherited their billions. I think before Twitter he had proven himself capable, he did great work with SpaceX and Tesla in his role as CEO. It's important to keep in mind the context here: This is a thread in which FormerBandmate wrote "He is a genius at hardware".
> I don't understand this argument. It basically says "before they sought funding they didn't have any funding"
It was in reference to this:
>> The ball was already rolling on Tesla before Elon came along though.
In what way do you think "the ball was rolling" before Elon came along?
> They were not really setting out to be a mass-market automaker, is the gist I get from their various interviews. It's very possible that this was because they believed they couldn't disrupt the automotive market, feeling it was too entrenched, and Musk had the money to put that goal within reach.
In other words, Tesla as we know it today, is due to Elon.
> From all the sources, it appears that he was a guiding influence on style and basic statements about features and materials, rather than actually sitting down and designing individual components.
Well, I suppose he was clearly in charge of it, Kind of like Steve Jobs for the iPhone. Unlike Steve, though, Elon has a technical (physics) education and a background as a developer, so he had the ability to drill into more details than Steve.
> Billionaires make effective CEOs is the argument here?
Effective CEO's tend to become Billionaires, especially if they're owners/founders. Musk has done so twice, at the same time, in Tesla and SpaceX, while also playing a key role in the creation of several other companies.
And this empire was built from essentially nothing (a few thousand dollars from his father at some point). It's not like Musk was born a billionaire.
This is false. You should check the records as to what Tesla was before Musk and JB Straubel came on board, it wasn’t much. I highly doubt the company would have survived past the Roadster.
Do Kia (reborn in 1986), Tata, and Saleen not count as successful? Tesla has had an impressive rise, but it's not like nothing happened between 1923 and 2003 in the automotive industry.
I think most people do not consider enough the importance of timing.
EV cars have existed for more than a century and been tried out by many companies. They all failed to mark a significant dent in the market because batteries technologies weren't as advanced as now, and because regulations weren't as strict as they are now.
Tesla was founded right when at a crossing point when California and European Union emissions regulations started to be more and more stringent and efficient batteries affordable enough. Being an EV-only company it was granted a very generous loan from the US government. This is a kick start no small automotive company ever got.
Not saying Musk hasn't any part in how the development, manufacturing and sale process was done. He certainly is one of the first to make people accept and even pay to be beta testers of an unfinished product/vehicle.
"No one is purely a savior" is a truism. Elon Musk is not a savior for simpler reasons, like all the lying, cheating, and general mishegas he's responsible for.
> What tech people like Paul Graham and others were hoping was for Elon to apply his scientific first principles type of thinking that he demonstrated previously at SpaceX+Tesla to Twitter.
I wish one could take a step back and just see how ridiculous of a statement this is. There is nothing about Musk’s history and management style that is even remotely close to what could be called “scientific first principles type of thinking”. Musk’s management style is a bull in a china closet, he manages via personal vendettas, and he follows the marketing and hype first, delivery second product development cycle. See full self-driving, Cybertruck, Tesla robot, Tesla tunnel, and whatever else he’s promised over the years but never delivered on.
Edit: striking out comment about the Cybertruck’s airflow until I can find the article I read to back it up.
> There is nothing about Musk’s history and management style that is even remotely close to what could be called “scientific first principles type of thinking”.
Agreed. But the interesting question for me is: what are people seeing that they would mistake for that?
> what are people seeing that they would mistake for that?
Fascist dictators are often "the weak person's idea how a strong person would look like". That means they are not strong in the sense that they have discipline, can carry a lot for other people, can defend their values etc. They are strong because they act strong.
Similar to that Musk is the mediocre person's idea of what a really smart person would look like. He managed to convince quite some people — even very intelligent ones — that he is an actual genius.
They wanted it to be true, so they ignored all the red flags. Replacing a train in a tunnel with a tunnel full of Teslas? Surely might look like the future, unless you have just a slight understanding of engineering, physics and safety rules. A scientific first principle would quickly let you optimise this: a fixed route? Rails are more efficient than rubber wheels, so put the Teslas on rails. Moving the batteries around is inefficient and a fire hazard, so let's move them out of the cars and replace them with the elctrical grid. The cars are bad at taking many passengers, replace them by fewer, bigger cars. So: trains.
If you apply the "scientific" method you would not end up with the stuff Elon does like.
You know what Elon Musk is? It is flying cars. Everybody who didn't think them through at least for a minute thinks they are the future. Why? Because they look like they are the future. I loved these illustrations as a kid and I bet Elon did too. The problem is just that they make no sense in the real world.
Elon Musk has an exceptional sensitivity in identifying products and solutions that look like the future. He has a very bad sense of going for actual good, efficient, workable solutions that make sense. Of anything really good comes up, it almost always seems to be despite him, not because he was involved.
The touch screens in the Teslas are another example. Looks like the future, while being less usable than what we had in the 90s. All the good ("boring") EV stuff in Tesla comes from actual good engineers who, you guessed it, apply the scientific method.
If anything the guy has shown some remarkable ability to change his mind once he realized his bad decisions have been bad. But how much of that was pressure from actually responsible, intelligent people is hard to tell.
I have no idea other than cult of personality. People really seem to take people like Musk and Trump at face value, as if their comments, philosophies, beliefs, positions, etc. are thoughtful things they stand behind and something more than what they really are: mouthpieces to shape what they want at a particular moment or to just blatantly confuse people. It’s a tactic out of Russia’s political playbook. I highly recommend Adam Curtis’ Hypernormalization.
Trump, Musk, Thatcher. All they have to do is tell them what they want to hear and throngs of unwashed masses, filled with their insecurities and fear, will worship at their feet.
"All you have to do is support me and I'll make everything allright" - any of the above
I am often reminded of the brilliant line from “The second Coming” by WB Yeats.[1]
“The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity”
Normal people are often full of doubt, their comments are often guarded by caveats etc. Dictators, populists, narcissists, confidence tricksters speak in absolutes. Their messages are very appealing because they seem so clear and straightforward. They can seem brilliant because of this certainty and sometimes can achieve a lot because they aren’t held back by the kinds of reservations and scruples that most people suffer from.
Seemed like you were comparing Elon Musk and Paul Graham's ways of thinking.
I was going in your direction by saying that Paul Graham and Elon Musk have very different personas; to the point that Graham got banned because he wasn't happy with Elon's choices.
No, I was commenting on Elon supposedly having a scientific principles first thinking. I guess people assume Paul Graham does, too? I haven’t seen that either, and have been underwhelmed with basically anything I see coming from the VC corners.
No, I did not. I read it recently when searching for turbulence, not even searching for the Cybertruck. I’ll try and find the article again. The article you posted doesn’t say anything though and refers to a Reddit post that isn’t even linked, that I could find.
I appreciate that. I don't think looking at the truck is sufficient to conclude that it is an inefficient airflow design. Especially because many parts of the design appear to be there to improve airflow compared to a normal truck – like the tonneau cover. Also, all of Tesla's other cars have quite good coefficients of drag.
Trump did an interview recently where he openly admitted that the airodynamics of the Cybertruck was not very good, even if it's better than most trucks. (Trucks are generally not designed with aerodynamics as the highest priority.)
My understanding is that the design is a mix of aesthetics and to keep production costs down.
My pet theory is that the cybertuck is just an excuse to start prototyping a future martian ground transport, in which case atmospheric drag may be less of a concern.
My pet theory is that Elon Musk's talk about colonizing Mars is a recruiting ploy, allowing him to hire top tier rocket scientists relatively cheap because they believe in the mission.
What do you figure is the real motivation for SpaceX if not Mars? I think it’s a much worse business than Tesla if you don’t care about the SpaceX mission. Seems to be barely viable financially, while Tesla has healthy margins. Musk has used his Tesla wealth to support SpaceX, which makes him seem more like a believer to me.
SpaceX probably has a more or less guaranteed future as part of the military-industrial complex, and I think it's very likely that's Musk's actual vision - inroads into becoming the next Lockheed-Martin.
Remember that one of the very first Tesla investors, Mike Griffin, since way before a rocket engine had even fired, later became Trump's Undersecretary of R&D, and had previously been a high-ranking scientist of the Star Wars satellite missile defense program (and head of NASA).
Commercial launch provider. And particularly cornering the market for DoD launches, probably because he thinks that leverage will make him politically untouchable.
> Seems to be barely viable financially
They're betting big on reusable rockets, and so far it seems to be paying off. If they succeed in getting a fully reusable rocket flying several times a week, as they claim they can, the no other launch provider will be able to compete.
I can scarcely believe you are holding up Murdoch as a paragon of impartiality. His newspapers are notoriously biased and scurrilous, and actively try to influence political outcomes. He doesn’t have to intervene much because he makes sure to hire people who will enact his will.
But he doesn't publicly (where the correct people can hear him, not his propaganda rags these people don't ever lay their marxist eyes upon) say mean things about the current insanity, therefore he must be good!
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
We can reasonably take the comment along the lines of "even Murdoch didn't step in in this potentially harmful scenario." It doesn't necessarily hold him up as a paragon of impartiality overall.
> Best thing Elon should have done was to focus only on the technical aspects of Twitter
The problem with this is that Twitter didn't have any technical problems that it needed Musk to solve. "Bots" were not a major problem for day-to-day usage. What it needed was a product vision to reach sustainable profitability. Not a huge amount of additional debt, massive internal disruption, and a catastrophic reputational collapse.
> Hopefully, Elon notices that we don't have endless HN and reddit front page articles about Rupert Murdoch's jet.
Are you kidding? He loves the attention, and we are only talking about Twitter because Elon bought it rather than some boring guy.
I still don't see the impending death of Twitter. Where is the evidence that it is going down the tubes? PG will be back, because everything bad about Twitter is even worse on Mastodon -- instead of one narcissistic Napoleon running things like Twitter, Mastodon has hundreds of them, and they are even less accountable than Elon.
If you want to kill Twitter, stopping giving it free publicity would be a good start. But you can't help yourselves, so it survives and thrives on your outrage.
You aren't wrong in some senses, but I think you're wrong in the most important sense: Twitter's servers run on electricity, and electricity is paid for with ads and MAUs, not outrage on HN (and other tech forums).
Servers are not that expensive, especially not when people are going to Twitter because they are outraged and seeing all the ads, and others are paying $8 per month.
Whether or not that works out is not something I can predict, but having more user engagement than ever before is not a bad thing for a platform that makes literally every penny from exploiting user engagement in some way.
Expensive enough to try and shirk the bills, it seems[1].
I would say that 95% of my professional circle was on Twitter 3 months ago. Today, it feels like less than 50%. Of that same circle, I only know one who paid $8 for Twitter Blue, and he canceled this month.
Outrage-driven engagement is definitely happening. But it needs to happen on Twitter, and in a way that doesn't threaten Twitter's ad sales, for it to be of any value to Twitter.
> Mr. Davis, the president of the Boring Company, has also directed Twitter employees to renegotiate the deals that the company has with firms such as Amazon and Oracle, which provide computing and tech services, the people said. The employees were told to suggest to those companies that Mr. Musk’s firms would not work with them in the future if they refused to renegotiate, the people said.
Twitter has their own datacenters, so this is likely to be peripheral. But we do know they've fired the majority of the staff actually operating those datacenters.
*Speculation on my part* I think that's why Elon did the poll about stepping down. He probably went to Qatar for the World Cup final not just as a spectator but also looking to sell more shares. His poll was a result of the Saudis not being interested. He'll back away and let Twitter go into bankruptcy under someone else.
Murdoch has been near single handedly the force that moved western news media and set us on the path we see today.
Many would happily dance on his grave, and raise a toast to his departure from this realm.
To say that he has a hands off approach to his editorial board, because of his handling of Theranos, is an unkindness to the harm he has caused to the fabric of decent society.
If any lesson is to be learned from Murdoch’s, it would be on silencing detractors, and holding the levers of political power.
The first world had the resources to fight issues of speech/civil liberties and courts which were not utterly corrupt.
The impact of Murdoch’s success in the hardest environment available, has been the long ringing death knell of many ideas we hold as intrinsic to civilized society.
The fact that Rupert Murdoch’s model worked, has not been lost on hundreds of tyrants around the world.
You're right that this raises questions about the nature of "first principles thinking". For Elon at Twitter, this seems to mean just applying hunches from Y2k era tech memories rather than understanding things like if you cut off huge IP ranges to fight 'bots' you'll affect legit users, etc
At the time, yishan drew a ton of criticism, but now what has happened at Twitter dwarfs that story.
Recall that yishan was also from the Paypal mafia and had early experience at facebook. Yet was unable to make things work. Important for any of the current would-be Twitter investors to ponder.
Like elon or not it makes absolutely no sense to compare social media with effectively newspapers, they're completely different things.
The only comparison I guess you could realistically have is zuckerberg, but even then it wouldn't work very well.
But we don't have endless front page articles about those other people because those are other people.
Musk knows in his heart of hearts that he is the most interesting and newsworthy person on the planet, so it makes sense the front page articles are about him.
He’s interesting because he does things we don’t expect, for good and bad.
The problem is right now he’s driving so much bad publicity. He’s engaged in one of the worst LBOs in modern history. He’s had a shambolic takeover (even in the realm of fire sales where firing everyone is the plan), he’s set his credibility on fire with his customers, he’s shown himself as terminally thin skinned, and he’s made a mockery of his supposed principles.
If he went back to pushing the state of normal on electric cars and space flight that would be covered, but he doesn’t seem capable of it currently.
Yeah. I find him interesting because he's a loser. Someone who failed upward and lacks the intelligence he believes he has to have any self awareness or human decency.
If someone on HN pooped on Elon's desk, I'd find that compelling to look into. It wouldn't be interesting in a positive way though. That's what the parent comment was implying.
"Best thing Elon should have done was to focus only on the technical aspects of Twitter and let some more level-headed less-emotional people manage the editorial aspects."
Almost everything in your comment is highly likely to be wrong, simply because of one fundamental difference between WaPo/WSJ and Twitter: Twitter contributors are not employees.
Stating unilaterally that Bezos & Murdoch exert no influence over the content of their publications can't be grounded in any fact because any potential influence they might exert would never be public knowledge. It's falsifiable (as many commenters have done with Murdoch) but it's not provable. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence Bezos does too: it will probably remain circumstantial since he is in a position to keep it that way.
Twitter content being crowdsourced means that Musk as owner has far less direct influence. All he can really do is censor, which is exactly what we've seen play out.
But that's solely because media has always been a drug (clickbaits, cognitive tricks, etc.) serving as a power tool. The ones you mentioned, including HN belong one way or another to a "Democratic" party. And all these billionaires, well, they chose their side (as all billionaires do when it comes to power and politics) and we have what we have (i.e. "democratic" media not discussing "republican-leaning" billionaires' jets).
I think, in his own way Elon, is trying to apply his engineering first principles. AFAIK, his #1 rule is "The best part is no part", which I think explains a fair number of his (non-ego driven) choices.
> Jeff Bezos personally bought Washington Post but he left it alone and let the editors run it. What Jeff did do was invest some money into the IT department to modernize the workflow tools (metrics dashboards, etc) for journalists. He stayed out of the decisions of what stories get run on the front page.
> Any time I speak or write about Omidyar, the proverbial elephant in the room is my own extensive involvement with him: specifically, the fact that the journalistic outlet I co-founded in 2013, and at which I worked for eight years, was funded almost entirely by him. For purposes of basic journalistic disclosure, but also to explain how my interaction with him informs my perspective on these issues, I will describe that experience and what I learned from it.
> When I left the Guardian in 2013 at the height of the Snowden/NSA reporting to co-found a new media outlet along with two other journalists, it was Omidyar who funded the project, which ultimately became The Intercept, along with its parent corporation, First Look Media. Our unconditional demand when deciding to accept funding from Omidyar was that he vow never to have any role whatsoever or attempt to interfere in any way in the editorial content of our reporting, no matter how much he disagreed with it or how distasteful he found it. He not only agreed to this condition but emphasized that he, too, believed the integrity of the new journalism project depended upon our enjoying full editorial freedom and independence from his influence.
> In the eight years I spent at The Intercept, Omidyar completely kept his word. There was never a single occasion, at least to my knowledge, when he attempted to interfere in or override our journalistic independence.
> For the first couple of years, adhering to that promise was easy: [...] our journalism and Omidyar's worldview were fully aligned
> The arrival of Donald Trump on the political scene in 2015 changed all of that, and did so quite dramatically.
> the Trump-centric worldview that I spent most of my time attacking and mocking on every platform I had — in speeches, interviews, podcasts, social media and in countless articles at The Intercept — was the exact political worldview to which Omidyar had completely devoted himself and was passionately and vocally advocating.
> The radical divergence between my worldview and Omidyar's did not end there.
> This extreme divergence between my public profile and Omidyar's core views expanded for years. Often Omidyar would promote and herald a view on Twitter in the morning, and I would then publish an article on The Intercept attacking that same view in the afternoon, and then go on television that night to attack it some more.
> It was an irresistible story to journalists: at the time, I was the most prominent and the highest-paid journalist associated with The Intercept, which relied almost entirely on Omidyar's annual multi-million dollar largesse, and yet my primary political and journalistic focus at The Intercept was tantamount to a war on Omidyar's most cherished political beliefs and core objectives.
> On at least two occasions, journalists with major outlets contacted each of us to let us know they wanted to write about this glaring split. Yet neither ended up doing so for a simple reason: Omidyar made it emphatically clear that I had the absolute right to express whatever views I wanted, and that my doing so would never create a problem with him, let alone cause him to rethink his funding of The Intercept.
> Omidyar told me privately on both occasions that he knew when he decided to fund The Intercept that the day would come, likely soon, when not just me but other journalists there would be publishing articles with which he vehemently disagreed or even undermined his other interests. When he decided to fund The Intercept, he told me, he was supporting independent journalism, not promoting a particular ideology or political agenda. And indeed, no matter how much my attacks escalated on his core beliefs and the other groups he was heavily funding — and escalate they did! — I never received any remote signal that my outspoken journalism and commentary were imperiling his ongoing funding of The Intercept.
> I recount all of that for two reasons. First, I want to make clear that my analysis of Omidyar's role in this scam Facebook "whistleblower” campaign and the dangers it presents is in no way motivated by personal animus toward him.
> But the second point is the more important one. When it comes to billionaire funders of political and journalistic projects, Omidyar — despite the long list of political views and activities of his that I regard as misguided or even toxic — is, for the reasons I just outlined, as good as it gets. And yet despite all that, it is simply unavoidable — inevitable — that the ideology, views and political agenda of a billionaire funder will end up contaminating and dominating any project for which they are the exclusive or primary funder. Omidyar is not some apolitical or neutral guardian of good internet governance; he is a highly politicized and ideological actor with very strong views on society's most debated questions.
> To understand the dangers of a small group of billionaires funding campaigns like this [...] put yourself in the place of senior editors of The Intercept. Despite Omidayr's genuine affirmation of editorial independence, they live in complete captivity to, and fear of, Omidyar's whims and preferences.
> As is true of so many billionaire-funded NGOs and “non-profits,” editors and senior writers at The Intercept receive gigantic, well-above-the-market salaries. Because the site depends almost entirely on Omidyar's infinite wealth, it does not sell any subscriptions or ads and it therefore does not have any pressure to produce at all in order to generate revenue. It is a dream job for most of them: enormous salaries, endless expense accounts, a complete lack of job requirements, and no need even to attract an audience. For years, outside of three or four journalists, articles published by The Intercept produce almost no traffic.
> It does not get better than that, and that is why almost nobody ever quits The Intercept. Why would they? They just stay for years and years, collecting a huge salary, with no need to do anything but avoid angering one man. They work in an industry where jobs disappear with astonishing frequency, where layoffs are the norm, where the very existence of most organizations is precarious, and where the slightest dissent from liberal orthodoxies can render someone permanently unemployable. Those who work in outlets funded by billionaires have essentially won a type of lottery, at least temporarily, and very few people are willing to risk losing a winning lottery ticket, especially if they know they have no alternatives
> That means that the entire news organization has a constituency of one: Pierre Omidyar. If you were an Intercept editor who knows you could never get anywhere near that high salary working anywhere else — and that is true for virtually the entire senior editorial staff at The Intercept other than its Washington Bureau Chief Ryan Grim — you will of course be desperate to keep the sinecure going. That is not really corrupt as much as it is just basic self-preservation. If remaining in Omidyar's good graces is the only way to pay your large mortgage and maintain your lifestyle — which is true for most of them — then that will be all you ever think or care about.
> Consider the power that bestows on Omidyar in the lives of those dependent on him.
> They wake up knowing every day that one man has the power, on a whim, to destroy their livelihood. That desperate dynamic produces a climate where catering one's worldview and work product to Omidyar's ideological preferences becomes the overarching imperative. The only thing that matters to them in their work is keeping their sole benefactor happy and avoiding his wrath.
> I want to avoid the caricature here. This need to please Omidyar is often more subliminal than conscious. There are numerous journalists who work at The Intercept who do great work and rarely think about Omidyar in any conscious or direct way.
> But the inescapable reality is that the senior editorial management absolutely knows that their only real job is to foster a climate that will keep Omidyar happy, which means only hiring or publishing voices that will not offend him, ensuring that The Intercept's political and journalistic posture is aligned with his ideological worldview and, most of all, prohibiting anyone or any journalism from remaining at The Intercept if it strays too far from Omidyar's political project.
-----
When the owner is ideologically committed above all else to not interfering with what his organization publishes, when he makes repeated public statements to that effect and demonstrates his sincerity over and over and over again, the result is that the organization adheres slavishly to every quirk of the owner's beliefs, and devotes all its effort to bringing itself into line and expelling anyone who might think differently.
Jeff Bezos is part of every decision about what gets run on the front page of the Washington Post, whether he'd like that to be true or not.
Thank you for posting that, it is a very interesting viewpoint. I do think there is a bit of an inconsistency in Greenwald's reasoning though, he can't really speak for his colleagues, but he can speak for himself. So maybe he's not so much talking about his colleagues at the end as he is talking about himself? Or does he see himself as more principled than they are?
He's writing about how he ended up being forced out of his own media outlet (his words; he was co-founder).
If he sees himself as more principled than they are, I would argue that the sequence of events he describes is sufficient justification for that view. It might not be, in a deep sense, true -- you could easily interpret him as being less afraid of losing a well-paid sinecure than the rest of the editorial board, as opposed to being more strongly attached to his own principles -- but it is true on the surface and it's an accusation he can fairly lodge. They caved; he didn't.
> the intended core innovation of The Intercept, above all else, was to create a new media outlets where all talented, responsible journalists would enjoy the same right of editorial freedom I had always insisted upon for myself.
> The current iteration of The Intercept is completely unrecognizable when compared to that original vision. Rather than offering a venue for airing dissent, marginalized voices and unheard perspectives, it is rapidly becoming just another media outlet with mandated ideological and partisan loyalties
> the brute censorship this week of my article — about the Hunter Biden materials and Joe Biden’s conduct regarding Ukraine and China, as well my critique of the media’s rank-closing attempt, in a deeply unholy union with Silicon Valley and the “intelligence community,” to suppress its revelations — eroded the last justification I could cling to for staying. It meant that not only does this media outlet not provide the editorial freedom to other journalists, as I had so hopefully envisioned seven years ago, but now no longer even provides it to me. In the days heading into a presidential election, I am somehow silenced from expressing any views that random editors in New York find disagreeable, and now somehow have to conform my writing and reporting to cater to their partisan desires and eagerness to elect specific candidates.
> To say that such censorship is a red line for me, a situation I would never accept no matter the cost, is an understatement. It is astonishing to me, but also a reflection of our current discourse and illiberal media environment, that I have been silenced about Joe Biden by my own media outlet.
I have been following that around the time that it happened and one thing that struck me is that Greenwald had been losing the plot, his subsequent writings have - so far - confirmed that for me so I'm not quite sure I buy all of his reasonings but I wasn't aware of the exact interplay between him and the financiers.
Do you happen to know what Greenwald thinks about public broadcasters like Britain's BBC? His description of "unconscious allegiance" to the source of income is one of the most succinct summaries of the peculiar mindsets that those systems too seem to foster.
If you go back to Musk deal, it was immediately after Babylon bee was banned for an anti trans remark about man of the year.
I'm speculating a bit, and I'm not supporting his actions, I'm trying to explain then. I think he already had disagreement with his son that came out as trans later, and I think the major reason he changed his political position is because of his child. The child also cut all ties with him.
He said "The woke mind virus must be destroyed, nothing else matters".
It's not Elon the entrepreneur, or Elon the management genius, or even Elon the troll on social media.
What's really driving him is Elon the father that views leftism and woke as a mind virus that had possessed his child.
When you reach that position as a father, there's no loyalty to old political parties, there's no choosing words carefully or looking at Twitter as a regular business.
This is a person who could not care much about ideology until ideology reached his house and destroyed it - and only at that point he actually started fighting the fight.
He treats Twitter and leftists as the enemies because in his mind they are enemies, enemies that managed to destroy his child. It might seem inconceivable that someone might change his position so radically, and surprise everyone, but that's because they don't understand the real motivation.
Anyway, I'm not supporting his actions, this is meant to empathize with him so I'll understand what's going on and where all this is coming from, and therefore, where is it going.
> This is a person who could not care much about ideology until ideology reached his house and destroyed it
I think this is made all the more powerful by being imaginary: if there really was some organized group he'd at least have some way of knowing who’s in it or what they do. Since it’s basically a conspiracy theory driven by not wanting to consider what he could have done differently, there’s nothing falsifiable, he can find signs of it almost anywhere, and anyone who tries to talk him out of it is suddenly a traitor. Since his son was trans, there’s an entire preexisting opposition group all ready to provide reassurance any time his faith wavers, too.
He should sit down with some conservative Christian parents and ask them if the culture wars un-gay’d their children.
Anyway I’m not inclined to believe this given that he’s cozied up to people who are openly hostile to trans people (calling them groomers etc) rather than “Trans people deserve our love and support but actually are just confused we can fix them!”
According to my search Musk has 10 kids. According to him he works something like 18 hours a day. He seems to maybe spend a lot of his time browsing and using Twitter.
>I'm speculating a bit, and I'm not supporting his actions, I'm trying to explain then. I think he already had disagreement with his son that came out as trans later, and I think the major reason he changed his political position is because of his child. The child also cut all ties with him.
Maybe, but I find it more likely that his child cut ties with him because he was always fucking awful.
That's probably the child's perspective, and not one that Musk shares. He will prefer to reject the idea that he was always fucking awful, and instead prefers the idea that his child was taken from him by a "woke mind virus".
> What's really driving him is Elon the father that views leftism and woke as a mind virus that had possessed his child.
I don't think this is his motivation, because if it was, this isn't how he'd go about doing it. I mean, maybe it is - but if so, he's doing a lousy job affecting any kind of change in his child. I suppose that's on brand for him.
Personally I think he doesn't give a fuck about anything because $$ and just does whatever comes to mind (cf. his twitter poll about stepping down).
That's maybe not how you would react. But it's a classical response - when under attack, identify enemies, and attack back.
It takes a certain kind of social intellect to understand which actions will actually psychologically affect someone for the better.
Does he consciously tie his actions directly to this? Or is it indirectly, by getting very negative emotions and associations to leftism, which are then turned into this culture war?
Well yeah, duh. Of course people can do what they want. Criticizing Musk's (or anybodies) actions is not tantamount to trying to say he shouldn't be allowed to do them (except for the stuff he actually shouldn't be allowed to do, and hopefully gets prosecuted for - mostly violating employment law).
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here? People should vote with their wallets/service usage but never ever discuss why? Public figures should be able to do whatever they want with no criticism?
I just find it ironic how the sides have swapped. Previously when Twitter was censoring right-wing opinions, leftists went “it's a private company, they can do whatever they want and you're not allowed to criticize them”. Now that Musk has taken over, it seems to be the opposite.
What leftist did that? Leftists don’t believe in private for profit corporations. It’d be weird for them to care about capital ownership all of a sudden.
When was Twitter censoring “right wing opinion”. Do you mean bigotry?
Franklin Veaux (a famous writer on Quora), for example.
> Leftists don’t believe in private for profit corporations. It’d be weird for them to care about capital ownership all of a sudden.
That's what I find the most perplexing about it.
> When was Twitter censoring “right wing opinion”.
Specifically, it was applying different rules to different groups. For example, hateful posts about white people were allowed, whereas hateful posts about black people were not.
Example of a hateful post of a white person? I highly doubt this is true. Do you believe calling a white person cracker is hate? Funnily enough, leftist and actually famous (in streaming + political circles) Hasan Piker, a white guy, got de-platformed temporarily because right wingers hate watched him and reported him for using cracker. Cracker comes from the whips cracking...because white people in America OWNED other human beings and still benefit from the systemic racism that is integrated into society.
> Franklin Veaux
I don't think Franklin Veaux is that big of a leftist. If at all. I spent a few min looking him up. I found a post talking about left and right politics. It is filled with inaccuracies and appears to be written by some one who consumes the most basic of news and politics. Here: https://blog.franklinveaux.com/2022/06/7985/
He equates liberals and the left. He doesn't seem to understand what liberal means. This is politics 101. He says "Liberals don’t accept this. Liberals are biased toward egalitarianism; the same rules apply to everybody." This isn't true. By definition liberals believe in capitalism. Capitalism by definition is not "the same rules apply to everybody". The blog post seems more like anti-leftist propaganda. Making liberals seem like they are on the left is so wrong.
Unless you have some evidence that not only shows he's a leftist (a socialist), but can answer why he made such a bad blog post and still keeps it up, he's probably a full blown liberal.
Franklin is left-wing in the modern sense, which is more about social politics than distribution of money. I didn't mean to imply that he was a socialist. Sorry for the confusion.
Franklin would probably be offended like you with your example. Classic lib take.
(A) You incorrectly insulted leftists. (B) You used Franklin, a huge liberal (like yourself), to make your point. Franklin knows jack shit about politics. (C) You incorrectly stated leftist in the modern sense means liberal. I’m American. I know there’s a world outside the right-wing brain rotted USA. (D) You incorrectly stated modern leftism is more about social politics.
The control of the means of production and thus surplus value going to capitalists vs workers is Capitalism 101.
The analogue of the GOP are the Torys in the UK and the Liberal Party in AU. They are huge liberals. Reagan and the Tory leader of the 80s, Thatcher, ushered in neoliberalism.
You should educate yourself before incorrectly insulting leftist ideology. You sound like a Ben Shapiro or Bill Maher NPC trying to “own the libs”. I shouldn’t have to teach you basic politics.
Well yeah, leaving is exactly what people are doing. Nobody I know is arguing he can't do whatever he wants with Twitter. But they are voting with their feet.
I'm not arguing anything. But even if I were, I don't know what "leverage" has to do with it.
Last time I checked this is a discussion forum where many people gather together to express thoughts and opinions about various topics that they may not have "leverage" to argue about.
He is not on speaking terms with his trans daughter and writes stuff about his pronouns and other silly stuff. He obviously isn’t liberal in the way he and the article are using liberal.
The original version of that has the right moving to the extreme right while the left stays in place. I guess both sides feel that the gap has grown, but both sides blame the other side.
Before we descend into both-sideism, though, it's worth to get a bit more perspective: the left-wing version of the comic looks at the growing divide over a period of decades; just after WW2, social democracy was strong in the US. Support for unions was strong, workers' rights, social security, all sorts of social democratic programs were broadly supported. Only with Reagan, did the Republicans suddenly start moving to the right: lower taxes, end social programs, deregulation, privatisation. And in the 1990s, the Democrats followed them on that part; both the regulation of the banks that enabled the 2008 crash and the crime bill that gave the US the largest prison population in the world, happened on Clinton's watch.
So the left-wing version of the comic is absolutely correct, and people have started to push back, which may have inspired the right-wing version of the comic.
Except I've got the feeling that the right-wing version is about something completely different: the pronouns issue. And frankly, that's barely a left-right issue. It's got nothing to do with economic inequality. It's entirely possible to support economic equality yet oppose accepting transgender people as their target gender (see JK Rowling, for example), or to oppose economic equality yet support accepting transgender people (classic/economic/neo-liberalism, many corporations).
Politics is simply not the one-dimensional field that these comics suggest it is.
Wapo and wsj are becoming more and more irrelevant. Remember the Afghan collapse that happened over one week? Just read their coverage for months prior to that one week.
These are outdated legacy systems that don't have the impact they once did. So there is not much point to comparing how they operate with Twitter.
One thing interesting that's happening with Elon's polls is ppl will notice who runs polls about their own decisions. And that's a good thing.
- Jeff Bezos personally bought Washington Post but he left it alone and let the editors run it. What Jeff did do was invest some money into the IT department to modernize the workflow tools (metrics dashboards, etc) for journalists. He stayed out of the decisions of what stories get run on the front page.
- Rupert Murdoch owns Wall Street Journal but when Elizabeth Holmes asked him to squash negative stories about Theranos, he refused and stayed out of it. He let his editors run the stories even though it embarrassed him because he was a big investor.
Both those guys are more detached from those media outlets and don't meddle in it day to day.
What tech people like Paul Graham and others were hoping was for Elon to apply his scientific first principles type of thinking that he demonstrated previously at SpaceX+Tesla to Twitter. E.g. Tesla A.I. competency to clean up the bots and make the platform better.
Instead, Elon let the Twitter monster abuse his ego and his reputation as a savior is ruined.
Best thing Elon should have done was to focus only on the technical aspects of Twitter and let some more level-headed less-emotional people manage the editorial aspects.
Hopefully, Elon notices that we don't have endless HN and reddit front page articles about Rupert Murdoch's jet.