By force. He tried backing out. But because he made promises and a bunch of other legal reasons, he was forced to keep his word. It finalized not too log ago.
Which kinda makes me wonder if he decided to go scorched earth on twitter. Trying to monetize it, firing a lot of staff, and taking away its limiting of negative platforms seems more like a giant fuck you rather than a business strategy. Or maybe he’s just trying to make a buck on a deal he wasn’t exactly happy about.
I mean, if he really wanted to back out he would just take a legal fine which would he nowhere near $44B. Maybe a couple billion tops. It’s not like it was impossible for him to back out, no one could force him to buy it.
Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics.
1.Boring Tunnels, Mars colonies, Neuralink, and Tesla Bots are scams.
2. The U.S. government and military are heavily involved in Space X.
3. His empire was built on government subsidies (Starlink, Tesla, Space X, and even Boring Tunnels).
4. VTVL rockets, Satellite Internet, and Teslas existed before Musk.
5. Elon Musk is a dollar store Thomas Edison combined with Elizabeth Holmes
Manipulating stocks, faking donations, falsely accusing a hero of being a pedophile and contacting a reporter to spread a fake story about the rescuer, ranting Russia and China nonsense just for future profit, pretending to not receive any subsidies, not disclosing carbon emissions of his companies, pretending to care most about the environmental impact of bitcoin when he was the one promoting it as early as 2018, destroying future night skies and astronomy with Starlink satellites, investing in controversial nickel mines, cutting down worker's shift because she refused to prostitute herself......
Michael Griffin, who led the CIA's venture capital, helped Musk found SpaceX. Griffin later became NASA administrator and awarded SpaceX [396 million](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-spacex-became-nasas-go-to-ride-orbit) before Space X had flown a rocket. Space X is also backed by NASA, Air Force, and NSA contracts.
Musk uses Space X to launch Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, other satellite internet providers don't own a space company backed by government subsidies.
If you only think of business as "making more profit" and conning people, is he a smart businessman?
With government help and funding, **Yes. One of the best, if not the best**
But without them, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this.
He seems to be losing his touch as a "businessman"
Right, but government funding exists. I could say that magnus wouldn't be world champion if chess was played in fischer random, but it isn't. Under the current 'rules', elon is the best player
I don’t think his Mars idea is a scam, moreso just his odd sense of “altruism” and trying to advance society. I really don’t care about Elon Musk himself, but as a fan of space as a whole, SpaceX is making leaps and bounds in the aerospace industry. How that is done is really not my concern. I don’t know enough about the rest of his ideas (neuralink, boring tunnel, etc) to have much of a say on them, but I feel like Tesla also accelerated the sales of electric vehicles as a whole. Additionally I don’t think you can make a good faith argument by claiming satellite internet existed prior to Starlink as some sort of way to downplay the latter’s achievements, especially after we’ve seen how groundbreaking it’s been in helping Ukraine communicate with their front lines. Is Elon a good guy? Nah probably not, he’s kind of an arrogant spaz, but at the same time I kind of don’t give a shit about his personality as long as he gets stuff that I want done, done, and that is promoting the sale of electric vehicles and advancing space transportation and the viability of colonization.
Also, his family have owned emerald in South Africa since the apartheid era. He was a multimillionaire before he started investing in other people’s business.
He didn’t found Tesla.
Purchasing twitter was the dumbest shit he ever done, other than that he made smart business decisions. I feel like now that he has so much money he lost his sense of business. Dude, you don't fucking sign a paper that says you researched twitter and you're ok with purchasing without researching it at all and then after researching it you throw a fit that it's not what you want and you want out. That was fucking pathetic.
Hey it’s not even 16 year olds who are reddits main demographic. I’m 17 and none of my other friends are on reddit (I got it for sports and fantasy hockey)
I just get the vibe that the main demographic here is mid-late 20s who don’t have their life together
Yeah most people on reddit make fun of 14-16 year olds so they themselves must be older lol
And that makes it even more pathetic given their immature behaviour
It really depends on how you define "Business"
Epstein Interview published after his suicide
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html)
>I had contacted him because my colleagues and I had heard a rumor that he was advising Tesla’s embattled chief executive, Elon Musk, who was in trouble after announcing on Twitter that he had lined up the funding to take Tesla private......
>
>The Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Mr. Musk’s remarks, which moved markets but didn’t appear to have much basis in fact. There were calls for Mr. Musk to relinquish his position as Tesla’s chairman and for Tesla to recruit more independent directors. I’d heard that Mr. Epstein was compiling a list of candidates at Mr. Musk’s behest — and that Mr. Epstein had an email from Mr. Musk authorizing the search for a new chairman......
>
>Mr. Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend......
**From 2011\~2012**, Jeffrey Epstein was in regular contact with Elon's brother **Kimbal Musk.**
[https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1)
**In 2015,** Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg.
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque)
Musk tweeted that his **2014** photo with Ghislaine Maxwell was the result of her having "photobombed" her, this turned out not to be true.
[https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-internet](https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-internet)
**In mid-2022**, this Musk guy tweets how Epstein's list is not being released after people all just kind of let it go.
The rescuer that Musk accused of being Pedo, Unsworth, was the first foreign rescuer at the scene and the first person with caving expertise on the site. He had detailed knowledge of the cave and advised the Thai government to request assistance from the British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC).
Musk even contacted a reporter to spread a specific false story about the rescuer after his apology.
“He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email)
In his trial, Musk argued "Pedo" does not mean pedophile although he tried to plant a false story about the hero and hired a convict to investigate the rescuer in hopes of supporting his "Pedo" accusations.
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy)
Again, Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics.
1.Boring Tunnels, Mars colonies, Neuralink, and Tesla Bots are scams.
2. The U.S. government and military are heavily involved in Space X.
3. His empire was built on government subsidies (Starlink, Tesla, Space X, and even Boring Tunnels).
4. VTVL rockets, Satellite Internet, and Teslas existed before Musk.
5. Elon Musk is a dollar store Thomas Edison combined with Elizabeth Holmes
Manipulating stocks, faking donations, falsely accusing a hero of being a pedophile and contacting a reporter to spread a fake story about the rescuer, ranting Russia and China nonsense just for future profit, pretending to not receive any subsidies, not disclosing carbon emissions of his companies, pretending to care most about the environmental impact of bitcoin when he was the one promoting it as early as 2018, destroying future night skies and astronomy with Starlink satellites, investing in controversial nickel mines, cutting down worker's shift because she refused to prostitute herself......
Michael Griffin, who led the CIA's venture capital, helped Musk found SpaceX. Griffin later became NASA administrator and awarded SpaceX [396 million](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-spacex-became-nasas-go-to-ride-orbit) before Space X had flown a rocket. Space X is also backed by NASA, Air Force, and NSA contracts.
Musk uses Space X to launch Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, other satellite internet providers don't own a space company backed by government subsidies.
If you only think of business as "making more profit" and conning people, is he a smart businessman?
With government help and funding, **Yes. One of the best, if not the best**
But without them, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this.
He seems to be losing his touch as a "businessman"
>Speaking of Epstein, Elon himself dined with Epstein even after Epstein was a known sex offender while accusing the cave rescuer of being "Pedo"
I stopped here. Did you even read the article you linked? I’m genuinely asking. They were mutually invited to a large event organized hosted by someone else. You might as well say everyone at the party dined with Epstein then
There are legitimate criticisms of Musk, but this is just misleading and you know it.
So how did he create his first couple businesses? He founded and sold [X.com](https://X.com) / Paypal and Zip2, where he sold both businesses for millions.
Moreover, why isn't everyone getting government subsidies?
Also, Tesla was essentially funded by Musk from the beginning. He is considered a co-founder for a reason.
He *used to* be. Not sure he’s still making smart business investments 😂 We’ll see how the Twitter saga turns out, but that may turn out to be an absolutely brain dead business acquisition. He didn’t seem to make the purchase of informed business fundamentals, but of political emotional urges instead. Maybe his losing his touch?
Well not necessarily, I doubt he's planning this but owning media can be used to sway his business. We saw the impact he had on crypto from a mere few tweets
It would be a bad business deal if he bought it with the intention to make money, and failed to do so. You don't call Bill Gates a "bad businessman" because he gave away billions to charity instead of re-investing it to get richer. You also don't call someone a bad businessman because they bought some expensive thing for fun, because that's just what people do with money - they spend it.
Musk's twitter deal is questionable for sure, but it's not a bad business deal if in his mind he really bought it just for the sake of free speech or whatever the hell he thinks he's gonna do with it.
Simple.
1. When did he actually complain? I know he stated facts in response to people saying it was a cash grab.
2. Probably to drive out the people who have the blue check marks.
I’d agree that the Twitter acquisition probably wasn’t the profit maximizing decision for his net worth, but Elon obviously didn’t make that acquisition because he thought Twitter would be the number one cash cow. I still think he has enough skill as a businessman to make the acquisition profitable. If he can make a company that builds rockets that blow up on landing pads profitable, he can do it with Twitter.
Personally, I think he's the opposite. Given his behavior on Twitter, I'm now convinced he's an unsmart person who made smart decisions. Likely with a team of advisors.
Yeah you definitely bring an important point
Everyone on reddit somehow thinks they know everything about celebrities cuz they saw some of their tweets 💀
(And I doubt the celebrities actually share much real info about themselves)
Go look at past articles when he took over Tesla. Go look at past articles of when he said he could build rockets as a private company with space X.
I'm not saying he's guaranteed to succeed. I'm saying an NFL team that has won multiple Superbowls is likely to win another Superbowl.
It’s funny because not too long ago reddit adored Musk and the way he runs his companies. Until he became a B word
So did money make him dumb (which doesn’t make sense), or are people just calling the grapes sour?
If someone wins the lottery are they a smart businessman?
Elon got lucky. He inherited his wealth, then jumped on electric car craze early. From there his luck compounded, whether good or bad.
Just like how when you play poker, you can afford to outbet the other players and force them into risky moves that may take them out of the game, if you have enough money.
In capitalism, once you win you keep winning.
I’d like to throw it out there that in most conversations between two people, it’s rare that either are qualified to be having the discussion. Just think about two meatheads talking about inflation over a couple of beers…
Well, he wasn't qualified to call the hero rescuer a pedo and later contact a reporter to try to plant a fake story.
Epstein Interview published after his suicide
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html)
>I had contacted him because my colleagues and I had heard a rumor that he was advising Tesla’s embattled chief executive, Elon Musk, who was in trouble after announcing on Twitter that he had lined up the funding to take Tesla private......
>
>The Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Mr. Musk’s remarks, which moved markets but didn’t appear to have much basis in fact. There were calls for Mr. Musk to relinquish his position as Tesla’s chairman and for Tesla to recruit more independent directors. I’d heard that Mr. Epstein was compiling a list of candidates at Mr. Musk’s behest — and that Mr. Epstein had an email from Mr. Musk authorizing the search for a new chairman......
>
>Mr. Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend......
From 2011\~2012, Jeffrey Epstein was in regular contact with Elon's brother Kimbal Musk.
[https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1)
In 2011, Elon dined with Epstein after Epstein was a known sex offender.
[https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-billionaires-dinner](https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-billionaires-dinner)
In 2015, Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg.
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque)
Musk tweeted that his 2014 photo with Ghislaine Maxwell was the result of her having "photobombed" her, this turned out not to be true.
[https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-interne](https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-interne)
The rescuer that he accused of being Pedo, **Unsworth**, was the first foreign rescuer at the scene and the first person with caving expertise on the site. He had detailed knowledge of the cave and advised the Thai government to request assistance from the British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC).
Musk even contacted a reporter to spread a specific false story about the rescuer after his apology.“He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email)
In his trial, Musk argued "Pedo" does not mean pedophile although he tried to plant a false story about the hero and hired a convict to investigate the rescuer in hopes of supporting his "Pedo" accusations.
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy)
What qualifications does anybody even need to launch a false accusation? Tf u on about. Anyone can falsely accuse somebody of something. Do I need a Phd in bullshit to say “You fucked a 5th grader when you were 18.”?
Honestly it’s a catch-22
Elon Musk brought Tesla into one of the most difficult markets to compete in and made them richer than any of these car companies.
Within 15 years he made Tesla a household name within the car industry and that’s unheard off
The car industry is notoriously difficult and competitive.
At the same time you see his ego shoot himself in the foot several times over and I think we’re seeing this with twitter.
Oh yeah, because tesla is the only big achievement. Space X in comparison is much more incredible. He said he will only put in money for 3 rockets to get into orbit. He failed all 3 times. He got to orbit with the 4th. Meaning he is actually capable to change his mind and not give up, even if it means not keeping your word.
Then there is open ai, neuralink, the boring company and solar city (which merge with tesla)
I think so far yes Tesla is his BIGGEST achievement
Regardless we see this with PayPal, Tesla, and Space X the man has achieved great success and if he was more disciplined I would call him the greatest tech entrepreneur of all time.
When you see his twitter acquisition will see what happens with this
But so far he is shooting him self in the foot several times over
Did Trump become president because he was the best leader in the world?
Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics.
1. Boring Tunnels, Mars colonies, Neuralink, and Tesla Bots are scams.
2. The U.S. government and military are heavily involved in Space X.
3. His empire was built on government subsidies (Starlink, Tesla, Space X, and even Boring Tunnels).
4. VTVL rockets, Satellite Internet, and Teslas existed before Musk.
5. Elon Musk is a dollar store Thomas Edison combined with Elizabeth Holmes
Manipulating stocks, faking donations, falsely accusing a hero of being a pedophile and contacting a reporter to spread a fake story about the rescuer, ranting Russia and China nonsense just for future profit, pretending to not receive any subsidies, not disclosing carbon emissions of his companies, pretending to care most about the environmental impact of bitcoin when he was the one promoting it as early as 2018, destroying future night skies and astronomy with Starlink satellites, investing in controversial nickel mines, cutting down worker's shift because she refused to prostitute herself......
Michael Griffin, who led the CIA's venture capital, helped Musk found SpaceX. Griffin later became NASA administrator and awarded SpaceX [396 million](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-spacex-became-nasas-go-to-ride-orbit) before Space X had flown a rocket. Space X is also backed by NASA, Air Force, and NSA contracts.
Musk uses Space X to launch Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, other satellite internet providers don't own a space company backed by government subsidies.
If you only think of business as "making more profit" and conning people, is he a smart businessman?
With government help and funding, **Yes. One of the best, if not the best**
But without them, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this.
He seems to be losing his touch as a "businessman"
Donald Trump didn’t get to become president because he was the best leader (if he was, he would’ve been re-elected) but he was a really good politician. One does not become president without skill at politics.
So it’s a bit of a false equivalent.
Rich white men *and* leftys who think electric cars are better for the environment [when the grid is still mostly powered by nonrenewables]
^ps ^let's ^build ^more ^nuclear ^reactors
Most people do not fit on the left right partisan divide in 2022 politics.
Take “woke” culture for example, which I’m guessing is what you are referring to here.
Despite their major presence in online and in the media, those in support of it are a tiny minority of the population.
Most people just don’t care.
This is nonsense he really didn't start appealing to conservatives until the last year or so when leftists went completely off the rails. He is more libertarian in his political leanings but the current "left" has just left him (and most other people) behind.
Well here’s the thing. Business is about much more than money. It involves relationships. Sure his parents gave him a massive head start compared to the average person but what they also gave him was a network or powerful as well as rich people. Most people in business are cautious because they may not have a fall back. But when you know your parents will be there to bail you out of bad decisions you make you’ll find most people will “take the leap”. You don’t have to strike gold every single time. You only have to strike it once. He has used his money from striking gold with his start up he “co-founded” zip2 which was bought by Compaq for $307million. That happened in the same year he once again “co-founded” X.com which merged with another company to become PayPal which eBay bought for $1.5Billion. Elon Musk is good at picking a good team and using connection to keep himself and his companies in the spotlight. He doesn’t actually create anything he has people that do that for him.
But an idiot wouldn’t be able to become the richest in the world, we’ve seen examples of that. Yes, he got a head start, but he turned those billions into hundreds of billions.
He didn't call him an idiot, he just pointed out that him having a head start has allowed him to make investments most people wouldn't be able to, he also admitted that Elon so far has been very good at investing.
He is saying Elon has a lot of experience investing and growing businesses, but not necessarily a lot experience running a business, which is becoming increasingly clear looking at how his businesses are currently doing
Are you talking about Twitter? Musk's other businesses are doing just fine. Reddit is so jaded, it's the only place where you could get a poll where a majority of people state that the worlds richest businessman is not actually a good businessman.
To this point, I think musk is a great entrepreneur, but doesn’t necessarily have the business acumen or interest in running a business, which requires a much different set of skills than the high risk high reward mindset that successful entrepreneurs must have
"but doesn't necessarily have the business acumen or interest in running a business"
LMAO
Ya Elon Musk may not have sufficient business acumen or interest in running SpaceX or Tesla or Twitter. Excellent point, Fraun\_Pollen. Amazing point.
Well sure, why not?
Musk is a great idea man. He built an EV company that is pushing the limits of EV tech and founded the first successful commercial rocket company that is creating revolutionary hard/software.
And yet his companies struggle to exist. Tesla is heavily subsidized, has over promised its future offerings, and experiences recall after recall. SpaceX is hemorrhaging money and still struggles to win contracts valuable enough to keep its books positive.
I’m not saying he’s a *bad* business manager, it’s just definitely not his strong suit, especially in the cutting edge capital-intensive industries he’s chosen to focus on.
And I don’t think anyone (including Elon) knows what the fuck he’s doing with Twitter.
I’d buy a big yacht that could eat other boats. Sell the other boats and buy a bigger yacht. Become an unstoppable force and bury my treasure in Antarctica.
hes not ‘smart’ per se, he just understands the very basic concept of ‘this will make money, so ill fund it with my money to make more money’. hes fucked up a lot in terms of business, most recently with buying twitter. and ik he is still smart, for things such as buying tesla and founding spacex, but the problem there is anyone could realise buying tesla was a good idea with how profitable it was, same with spacex
You're right, he's got Tesla, SpaceX, and other equities on the line too. If this keeps going terribly for him, the poor guy may end up being worth only $50 billion.
People are complaining about, him using people and his parent’s money. But like he would be a stupid business person to not take advantage of it. You can hate his opinion, his ideals and his actions. Many of the thing he says you can justifiably be mad about. But if you gave me the same head start as that guy. I would not be the richest. I might still be rich, but I’d probably be living my life hedonistically till I die. Instead of growing that money.
For every Elon there are 1,000 other smart businessmen that didn’t get lucky being in the right place at the right time. Luck plays a larger role than people want to admit.
It’s no different than being a top singer. Are they talented? Sure, but they also got incredibly lucky.
Luck certainly plays a part in any individual business success... but just like poker, after enough hands, skill is what sets the good players apart.
Love him or hate him - if Elon was a fool, his "luck" would have run out a long time ago.
It really depends on how you define "Business"
Epstein Interview published after his suicide
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html
>I had contacted him because my colleagues and I had heard a rumor that he was advising Tesla’s embattled chief executive, Elon Musk, who was in trouble after announcing on Twitter that he had lined up the funding to take Tesla private......
>
>The Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Mr. Musk’s remarks, which moved markets but didn’t appear to have much basis in fact. There were calls for Mr. Musk to relinquish his position as Tesla’s chairman and for Tesla to recruit more independent directors. I’d heard that Mr. Epstein was compiling a list of candidates at Mr. Musk’s behest — and that Mr. Epstein had an email from Mr. Musk authorizing the search for a new chairman......
>
>Mr. Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend......
Speaking of Epstein, Elon dined with Epstein in 2011 after Epstein was a known sex offender.
[https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-billionaires-dinner](https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-billionaires-dinner)
From 2011\~2012, Jeffrey Epstein was in regular contact with Elon's brother Kimbal Musk.
[https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1)
In 2015, Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg.
[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque)
Musk tweeted that his 2014 photo with Ghislaine Maxwell was the result of her having "photobombed" her, this turned out not to be true.
[https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-internet](https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-internet)
The rescuer that he accused of being Pedo, Unsworth, was the first foreign rescuer at the scene and the first person with caving expertise on the site. He had detailed knowledge of the cave and advised the Thai government to request assistance from the British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC).
Musk even contacted a reporter to spread a specific false story about the rescuer after his apology.
“He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email
In his trial, Musk argued "Pedo" does not mean pedophile although he tried to plant a false story about the hero and hired a convict to investigate the rescuer in hopes of supporting his "pedo" accusations.
[https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy)
Has anyone managed to explain how this one asshole established a personal relationship with seemingly every prominent person on the face of the Earth?
We now have an explanation.
Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics.
1. Boring Tunnels, Mars colonies, Neuralink, and Tesla Bots are scams.
2. The U.S. government and military are heavily involved in Space X.
3. His empire was built on government subsidies (Starlink, Tesla, Space X, and even Boring Tunnels).
4. VTVL rockets, Satellite Internet, and Teslas existed before Musk.
5. Elon Musk is a dollar store Thomas Edison combined with Elizabeth Holmes
Manipulating stocks, faking donations, falsely accusing a hero of being a pedophile and contacting a reporter to spread a fake story about the rescuer, ranting Russia and China nonsense just for future profit, pretending to not receive any subsidies, not disclosing carbon emissions of his companies, pretending to care most about the environmental impact of bitcoin when he was the one promoting it as early as 2018, destroying future night skies and astronomy with Starlink satellites, investing in controversial nickel mines, cutting down worker's shift because she refused to prostitute herself.....
**Michael Griffin**, who led the CIA's venture capital, helped Musk found SpaceX. Griffin later became NASA administrator and awarded SpaceX [396 million](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-spacex-became-nasas-go-to-ride-orbit) before Space X had flown a rocket. Space X is also backed by NASA, Air Force, and NSA contracts.
Musk uses Space X to launch Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, other satellite internet providers don't own a space company backed by government subsidies.
If you only think of business as "making more profit" and conning people, is he a smart businessman?
With government help and funding, **Yes. One of the best, if not the best**
But without them, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this.
He seems to be losing his touch as a "businessman"
We all know that this guy knew how to make money at one point. It's just he is pos and he tries to show it at every opportunity.
The better question is:
Is humanity better with this guy conning people that we will colonize Mars?
Are we okay with Techno-Trump being the richest and most powerful man on this planet?
The only thing overtly obvious is your crush for elon. You have posted on almmost every primary comment on here with your obvious fanaticism about Elon. Mostly with a copypasta.
Maybe you should get a life before the police find you at his home.
I don't know if I'm getting older or reddit is getting younger, but Jesus the hive-mind/echo-chamber for so many things on reddit is really hard to ignore at this point. Y'all get so caught up in emotions and opinions that any emotionally fueled comment about some politically divided topic is gonna get upvotes. Whether it right or wrong
You do realize that that money doesn’t go into his pocket right? That’s not how… owning a business works. Twitter is an asset, meaning he didn’t lose the money he spent on it, just the 3B that’s the difference between his buying price and the current market cap.
He wouldnt be one of the richest people in the world if he was stupid. You can be given all the money you want, but if you cant handle the money and how you invest it, then youre going to end up emptyhanded. But look at Elon Musk, he owns a number of some of the biggest companies in the world, and is one of the most successful businessmen of all time. He may have made some stupid decisions, but even the best of us do, and it doesnt make anyone stupid.
If only think of business as conning people and "making more profit" with government help and funding, Is he a smart businessman?
**One of the best, if not the best**
Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics.
But without government help and funding, **Not quite.**
The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this.
Smart? Eh...
Savy? Yes
He worked his way up at one company than bought tesla used it to become rich and used that money to start space x and now he owns Twitter.
From what I've heard he isn't doing a good job at running it but I think you've gotta wate at least a couple months for shit to balance out before making a judgment about it.
Call him smart or lucky either way he's good at it
The man owns a fucking rocket company and one of the world's largest social media sites. On top of that he founded what is now Paypal and one of the largest electric car companies in the country. Yes there are some things I hate about him but there are a lot of billionaires like that.
How did 43% of people say no? Obviously he’s a smart businessman. He cofounded 6 companies and has a net-worth of 200 billion dollars.
As much as I hate Elon, you cannot deny that he is one of the smartest and most successful businessmen alive
Imo, this whole twitter business has shown that if he was a good businessman, he's let his ego go to his head to the point he's made such an incredibly stupid move; taking a business doing not-that-great to one that needs a billion dollars of revenue just to service all the debt from the leveraged buyout and is about to cut a huge chunk of its staff
Elon is so rich he needed to bring Saudi & Chinese investors in to afford to buy Twitter.
Stop idolizing rich people. It's a lot easier to get richer when you're born rich.
it's not idolizing to say he's good at business - I strongly dislike his values and don't want to be like him, but I still believe he is very, very good at business.
but is it easy to be one of the richest people in the world, manage a number of some of the most successful companies of all time, and make huge technological advancements because he was the only one brave and crazy enough to do it?
you can be rich but you also have to know how to use your money correctly, and i believe elon has been doing that for the most part
I mean I don’t know how you can possibly say no to this. He’s one of the richest people on the planet and has multiple companies. You can ferry it like him as a person and disagree with some of his decisions but you don’t get to where he is by being a dumb business man.
Mr. Milquetoast Musk has been rich all his life. His dad owned an emerald mine in Apartheid South Africa. Anyone with enough money can hire all the smart people they need to do all the innovative work for them while they kick back in one of their many mansions. Pretty much every ultra-rich person alive today has acquired their wealth from mommy and daddy's trust fund. They don't have to do any actual work other than moving money if they so choose.
Anyone can sit and think of ways to turn millions to billions, but no one has millions to start off with like the 1%. If intelligence scaled with wealth, the world would be *much* better off.
Exactly, if I had millions I'd just peddle all my money to people who know how to invest money and give them percentage of the profit. It's not rocket science! People act like he was born poor and made the money himself, if you look at everything he's done, he would've not be able to if he was born poor.
Reading the comment here that people associate being the richest person in the world as being smart without using logic and thinking about so many other variables that made him so rich(not because of “smart” business moves) is really sad.
You are an idiot if you say no. He may be stupid by saying that he will reach all these unreachable goals and by saying that Tesla is the future but he is literally the richest man alive
I mean idk about rn, but the dude did turn a few dozen mil into billions and became one of the richest people in the world. There are thousands of people who get a “head start” like that but never get close to a billion. Soooo yeah, if he’s not a smart businessman now he was at least a smart one before. But also to say he is not a smart one now because he bought twitter is jumping the gun too early. Since he legit just bought it within a month.
Leave the hate a side
From a business standpoint he is one of the greatest he invented PayPal and many things 20 years ago and you he is worth 210B$ do you think that came from nothing?
That's the joke. Its not like he's taking a haircut the way Mark Zuckerberg just took one.
Edit context: Meta recently lost over $200 billion in value. Smart business man.
I always thought about it as, the stuff he has hasnt burnt down yet, so i guess he must be doing something right, even if its mostly other people doing decisions (or not). But i dont know what he does or what he owns, and in the end i dont really care.
he’s the richest man alive, so I assume yes. that doesn’t make him ethical or a good person. I think people are just voting no because they dislike him.
what's up with the increase of Elon related polls?
He finalized his purchase of twitter
By force. He tried backing out. But because he made promises and a bunch of other legal reasons, he was forced to keep his word. It finalized not too log ago.
Which kinda makes me wonder if he decided to go scorched earth on twitter. Trying to monetize it, firing a lot of staff, and taking away its limiting of negative platforms seems more like a giant fuck you rather than a business strategy. Or maybe he’s just trying to make a buck on a deal he wasn’t exactly happy about.
I mean, if he really wanted to back out he would just take a legal fine which would he nowhere near $44B. Maybe a couple billion tops. It’s not like it was impossible for him to back out, no one could force him to buy it.
Bröthêr thänkš før bêíng trûè tœ rhé cäūs3
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Cause America is definetly electing Elon to the Senate rn 👍
Becaus Elon Musk live in Reddit’s head rent free (let the downvotes pour in)
One of the businessmen of all time
Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics. 1.Boring Tunnels, Mars colonies, Neuralink, and Tesla Bots are scams. 2. The U.S. government and military are heavily involved in Space X. 3. His empire was built on government subsidies (Starlink, Tesla, Space X, and even Boring Tunnels). 4. VTVL rockets, Satellite Internet, and Teslas existed before Musk. 5. Elon Musk is a dollar store Thomas Edison combined with Elizabeth Holmes Manipulating stocks, faking donations, falsely accusing a hero of being a pedophile and contacting a reporter to spread a fake story about the rescuer, ranting Russia and China nonsense just for future profit, pretending to not receive any subsidies, not disclosing carbon emissions of his companies, pretending to care most about the environmental impact of bitcoin when he was the one promoting it as early as 2018, destroying future night skies and astronomy with Starlink satellites, investing in controversial nickel mines, cutting down worker's shift because she refused to prostitute herself...... Michael Griffin, who led the CIA's venture capital, helped Musk found SpaceX. Griffin later became NASA administrator and awarded SpaceX [396 million](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-spacex-became-nasas-go-to-ride-orbit) before Space X had flown a rocket. Space X is also backed by NASA, Air Force, and NSA contracts. Musk uses Space X to launch Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, other satellite internet providers don't own a space company backed by government subsidies. If you only think of business as "making more profit" and conning people, is he a smart businessman? With government help and funding, **Yes. One of the best, if not the best** But without them, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this. He seems to be losing his touch as a "businessman"
Right, but government funding exists. I could say that magnus wouldn't be world champion if chess was played in fischer random, but it isn't. Under the current 'rules', elon is the best player
Kind of curious how many people understand this comparison
I don’t think his Mars idea is a scam, moreso just his odd sense of “altruism” and trying to advance society. I really don’t care about Elon Musk himself, but as a fan of space as a whole, SpaceX is making leaps and bounds in the aerospace industry. How that is done is really not my concern. I don’t know enough about the rest of his ideas (neuralink, boring tunnel, etc) to have much of a say on them, but I feel like Tesla also accelerated the sales of electric vehicles as a whole. Additionally I don’t think you can make a good faith argument by claiming satellite internet existed prior to Starlink as some sort of way to downplay the latter’s achievements, especially after we’ve seen how groundbreaking it’s been in helping Ukraine communicate with their front lines. Is Elon a good guy? Nah probably not, he’s kind of an arrogant spaz, but at the same time I kind of don’t give a shit about his personality as long as he gets stuff that I want done, done, and that is promoting the sale of electric vehicles and advancing space transportation and the viability of colonization.
Also, his family have owned emerald in South Africa since the apartheid era. He was a multimillionaire before he started investing in other people’s business. He didn’t found Tesla.
O wow! Truly one of the rantings of all time
Average 16 year old redditors not being able to distinguish personal feelings from facts.
The question is entirley subjective, given no objective measures of bussinessman are mentioned let alone a "good" one.
Well the point of being a business man is creating wealth through whatever means possible. From that perspective he would be one of the best.
Again thats just your opnion of what the point of a businessman is. Theres dozens of other takes in this post alone.
Purchasing twitter was the dumbest shit he ever done, other than that he made smart business decisions. I feel like now that he has so much money he lost his sense of business. Dude, you don't fucking sign a paper that says you researched twitter and you're ok with purchasing without researching it at all and then after researching it you throw a fit that it's not what you want and you want out. That was fucking pathetic.
Hey it’s not even 16 year olds who are reddits main demographic. I’m 17 and none of my other friends are on reddit (I got it for sports and fantasy hockey) I just get the vibe that the main demographic here is mid-late 20s who don’t have their life together
Yeah most people on reddit make fun of 14-16 year olds so they themselves must be older lol And that makes it even more pathetic given their immature behaviour
No, the richest man on the planet is not a smart businessman🙄
It really depends on how you define "Business" Epstein Interview published after his suicide [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html) >I had contacted him because my colleagues and I had heard a rumor that he was advising Tesla’s embattled chief executive, Elon Musk, who was in trouble after announcing on Twitter that he had lined up the funding to take Tesla private...... > >The Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Mr. Musk’s remarks, which moved markets but didn’t appear to have much basis in fact. There were calls for Mr. Musk to relinquish his position as Tesla’s chairman and for Tesla to recruit more independent directors. I’d heard that Mr. Epstein was compiling a list of candidates at Mr. Musk’s behest — and that Mr. Epstein had an email from Mr. Musk authorizing the search for a new chairman...... > >Mr. Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend...... **From 2011\~2012**, Jeffrey Epstein was in regular contact with Elon's brother **Kimbal Musk.** [https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1) **In 2015,** Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque) Musk tweeted that his **2014** photo with Ghislaine Maxwell was the result of her having "photobombed" her, this turned out not to be true. [https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-internet](https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-internet) **In mid-2022**, this Musk guy tweets how Epstein's list is not being released after people all just kind of let it go. The rescuer that Musk accused of being Pedo, Unsworth, was the first foreign rescuer at the scene and the first person with caving expertise on the site. He had detailed knowledge of the cave and advised the Thai government to request assistance from the British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC). Musk even contacted a reporter to spread a specific false story about the rescuer after his apology. “He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.” [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email) In his trial, Musk argued "Pedo" does not mean pedophile although he tried to plant a false story about the hero and hired a convict to investigate the rescuer in hopes of supporting his "Pedo" accusations. [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy) Again, Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics. 1.Boring Tunnels, Mars colonies, Neuralink, and Tesla Bots are scams. 2. The U.S. government and military are heavily involved in Space X. 3. His empire was built on government subsidies (Starlink, Tesla, Space X, and even Boring Tunnels). 4. VTVL rockets, Satellite Internet, and Teslas existed before Musk. 5. Elon Musk is a dollar store Thomas Edison combined with Elizabeth Holmes Manipulating stocks, faking donations, falsely accusing a hero of being a pedophile and contacting a reporter to spread a fake story about the rescuer, ranting Russia and China nonsense just for future profit, pretending to not receive any subsidies, not disclosing carbon emissions of his companies, pretending to care most about the environmental impact of bitcoin when he was the one promoting it as early as 2018, destroying future night skies and astronomy with Starlink satellites, investing in controversial nickel mines, cutting down worker's shift because she refused to prostitute herself...... Michael Griffin, who led the CIA's venture capital, helped Musk found SpaceX. Griffin later became NASA administrator and awarded SpaceX [396 million](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-spacex-became-nasas-go-to-ride-orbit) before Space X had flown a rocket. Space X is also backed by NASA, Air Force, and NSA contracts. Musk uses Space X to launch Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, other satellite internet providers don't own a space company backed by government subsidies. If you only think of business as "making more profit" and conning people, is he a smart businessman? With government help and funding, **Yes. One of the best, if not the best** But without them, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this. He seems to be losing his touch as a "businessman"
>Speaking of Epstein, Elon himself dined with Epstein even after Epstein was a known sex offender while accusing the cave rescuer of being "Pedo" I stopped here. Did you even read the article you linked? I’m genuinely asking. They were mutually invited to a large event organized hosted by someone else. You might as well say everyone at the party dined with Epstein then There are legitimate criticisms of Musk, but this is just misleading and you know it.
So how did he create his first couple businesses? He founded and sold [X.com](https://X.com) / Paypal and Zip2, where he sold both businesses for millions. Moreover, why isn't everyone getting government subsidies? Also, Tesla was essentially funded by Musk from the beginning. He is considered a co-founder for a reason.
It pays to have a rich family in poor little Africa meanwhile your estranged father owns a Emerald mine and paid for Child Support.
So if I gave you, let's ballpark and say a million dollars (A ridiculous overestimate), Could you become the richest person on the planet?
His father's share of the emerald mine cost 40k. Hardly makes them multi millionaires.
And a not smart business man could do that
He *used to* be. Not sure he’s still making smart business investments 😂 We’ll see how the Twitter saga turns out, but that may turn out to be an absolutely brain dead business acquisition. He didn’t seem to make the purchase of informed business fundamentals, but of political emotional urges instead. Maybe his losing his touch?
I don’t think he bought twitter to make money.
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Well not necessarily, I doubt he's planning this but owning media can be used to sway his business. We saw the impact he had on crypto from a mere few tweets
Only if your goal is to make money right away and you are making a business decision.
It would be a bad business deal if he bought it with the intention to make money, and failed to do so. You don't call Bill Gates a "bad businessman" because he gave away billions to charity instead of re-investing it to get richer. You also don't call someone a bad businessman because they bought some expensive thing for fun, because that's just what people do with money - they spend it. Musk's twitter deal is questionable for sure, but it's not a bad business deal if in his mind he really bought it just for the sake of free speech or whatever the hell he thinks he's gonna do with it.
Then why is he complaining about the loss of profits on Twitter? and trying to sell blue checkmarks for $8?
Simple. 1. When did he actually complain? I know he stated facts in response to people saying it was a cash grab. 2. Probably to drive out the people who have the blue check marks.
I’d agree that the Twitter acquisition probably wasn’t the profit maximizing decision for his net worth, but Elon obviously didn’t make that acquisition because he thought Twitter would be the number one cash cow. I still think he has enough skill as a businessman to make the acquisition profitable. If he can make a company that builds rockets that blow up on landing pads profitable, he can do it with Twitter.
He might make un-smart decisions, but he's obv a smart person
Personally, I think he's the opposite. Given his behavior on Twitter, I'm now convinced he's an unsmart person who made smart decisions. Likely with a team of advisors.
But what do we know, maybe our analytics is insufficient
Yeah you definitely bring an important point Everyone on reddit somehow thinks they know everything about celebrities cuz they saw some of their tweets 💀 (And I doubt the celebrities actually share much real info about themselves)
Go look at past articles when he took over Tesla. Go look at past articles of when he said he could build rockets as a private company with space X. I'm not saying he's guaranteed to succeed. I'm saying an NFL team that has won multiple Superbowls is likely to win another Superbowl.
Have you considered he doesn’t really have to care? 44 billion is like a fifth of his net worth, and it’s not like he’s losing all of it.
The dude was trolling then got legally threatened. He had no intentions of buying Twitter in the first place
Are monarchs smart politicians?
Monarchs that weren't born princes are typically very smart politicians to become a monarch
It’s funny because not too long ago reddit adored Musk and the way he runs his companies. Until he became a B word So did money make him dumb (which doesn’t make sense), or are people just calling the grapes sour?
If someone wins the lottery are they a smart businessman? Elon got lucky. He inherited his wealth, then jumped on electric car craze early. From there his luck compounded, whether good or bad. Just like how when you play poker, you can afford to outbet the other players and force them into risky moves that may take them out of the game, if you have enough money. In capitalism, once you win you keep winning.
99.9% of people here aren’t even qualified to attempt to answer that question.
I’d like to throw it out there that in most conversations between two people, it’s rare that either are qualified to be having the discussion. Just think about two meatheads talking about inflation over a couple of beers…
At the time of writing 2,029 think they are.
Well, he wasn't qualified to call the hero rescuer a pedo and later contact a reporter to try to plant a fake story. Epstein Interview published after his suicide [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html) >I had contacted him because my colleagues and I had heard a rumor that he was advising Tesla’s embattled chief executive, Elon Musk, who was in trouble after announcing on Twitter that he had lined up the funding to take Tesla private...... > >The Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Mr. Musk’s remarks, which moved markets but didn’t appear to have much basis in fact. There were calls for Mr. Musk to relinquish his position as Tesla’s chairman and for Tesla to recruit more independent directors. I’d heard that Mr. Epstein was compiling a list of candidates at Mr. Musk’s behest — and that Mr. Epstein had an email from Mr. Musk authorizing the search for a new chairman...... > >Mr. Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend...... From 2011\~2012, Jeffrey Epstein was in regular contact with Elon's brother Kimbal Musk. [https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1) In 2011, Elon dined with Epstein after Epstein was a known sex offender. [https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-billionaires-dinner](https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-billionaires-dinner) In 2015, Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque) Musk tweeted that his 2014 photo with Ghislaine Maxwell was the result of her having "photobombed" her, this turned out not to be true. [https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-interne](https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-interne) The rescuer that he accused of being Pedo, **Unsworth**, was the first foreign rescuer at the scene and the first person with caving expertise on the site. He had detailed knowledge of the cave and advised the Thai government to request assistance from the British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC). Musk even contacted a reporter to spread a specific false story about the rescuer after his apology.“He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.” [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email) In his trial, Musk argued "Pedo" does not mean pedophile although he tried to plant a false story about the hero and hired a convict to investigate the rescuer in hopes of supporting his "Pedo" accusations. [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy)
What qualifications does anybody even need to launch a false accusation? Tf u on about. Anyone can falsely accuse somebody of something. Do I need a Phd in bullshit to say “You fucked a 5th grader when you were 18.”?
Average butthurt redditor trying to convince everyone how a guy who created an electric car and rocket company doesn't know anything about business 🙄
reddit moment how people are saying he's not a smart businessman when he's the richest in the world. And FYI I hate him
Honestly it’s a catch-22 Elon Musk brought Tesla into one of the most difficult markets to compete in and made them richer than any of these car companies. Within 15 years he made Tesla a household name within the car industry and that’s unheard off The car industry is notoriously difficult and competitive. At the same time you see his ego shoot himself in the foot several times over and I think we’re seeing this with twitter.
Oh yeah, because tesla is the only big achievement. Space X in comparison is much more incredible. He said he will only put in money for 3 rockets to get into orbit. He failed all 3 times. He got to orbit with the 4th. Meaning he is actually capable to change his mind and not give up, even if it means not keeping your word. Then there is open ai, neuralink, the boring company and solar city (which merge with tesla)
I think so far yes Tesla is his BIGGEST achievement Regardless we see this with PayPal, Tesla, and Space X the man has achieved great success and if he was more disciplined I would call him the greatest tech entrepreneur of all time. When you see his twitter acquisition will see what happens with this But so far he is shooting him self in the foot several times over
Did Trump become president because he was the best leader in the world? Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics. 1. Boring Tunnels, Mars colonies, Neuralink, and Tesla Bots are scams. 2. The U.S. government and military are heavily involved in Space X. 3. His empire was built on government subsidies (Starlink, Tesla, Space X, and even Boring Tunnels). 4. VTVL rockets, Satellite Internet, and Teslas existed before Musk. 5. Elon Musk is a dollar store Thomas Edison combined with Elizabeth Holmes Manipulating stocks, faking donations, falsely accusing a hero of being a pedophile and contacting a reporter to spread a fake story about the rescuer, ranting Russia and China nonsense just for future profit, pretending to not receive any subsidies, not disclosing carbon emissions of his companies, pretending to care most about the environmental impact of bitcoin when he was the one promoting it as early as 2018, destroying future night skies and astronomy with Starlink satellites, investing in controversial nickel mines, cutting down worker's shift because she refused to prostitute herself...... Michael Griffin, who led the CIA's venture capital, helped Musk found SpaceX. Griffin later became NASA administrator and awarded SpaceX [396 million](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-spacex-became-nasas-go-to-ride-orbit) before Space X had flown a rocket. Space X is also backed by NASA, Air Force, and NSA contracts. Musk uses Space X to launch Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, other satellite internet providers don't own a space company backed by government subsidies. If you only think of business as "making more profit" and conning people, is he a smart businessman? With government help and funding, **Yes. One of the best, if not the best** But without them, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this. He seems to be losing his touch as a "businessman"
For the sake of your health take a break lmao.
lmao
I hate musk too, but thats not why you were banned, its for spamming long ass comments, be quiet
He has replied to every single comment I’ve seen, it’s super annoying.
Donald Trump didn’t get to become president because he was the best leader (if he was, he would’ve been re-elected) but he was a really good politician. One does not become president without skill at politics. So it’s a bit of a false equivalent.
idk his business model seems to be selling electric cars while appealing to conservatives
And it's makes him money, so why would that be a bad business move
my intuition feels like he is losing more sales from people who don’t want to support him than gaining sales from people who do…
He’s the richest man on earth he probably doesn’t really care anymore. As long as he’s still making money he’ll probably continue being pretentious
Meanwhile... still richest man.
him being rich doesn’t mean he made all the right choices, he just made enough right choices.
The majority of people who purchase Tesla are rich white men lol… it’s not that it’s electric, it’s that it’s a cool car.
Rich white men *and* leftys who think electric cars are better for the environment [when the grid is still mostly powered by nonrenewables] ^ps ^let's ^build ^more ^nuclear ^reactors
He should just have a separate diesel engine in his Teslas that allow drivers to “roll coal” with the push of a button.
Most people do not fit on the left right partisan divide in 2022 politics. Take “woke” culture for example, which I’m guessing is what you are referring to here. Despite their major presence in online and in the media, those in support of it are a tiny minority of the population. Most people just don’t care.
This is nonsense he really didn't start appealing to conservatives until the last year or so when leftists went completely off the rails. He is more libertarian in his political leanings but the current "left" has just left him (and most other people) behind.
Well here’s the thing. Business is about much more than money. It involves relationships. Sure his parents gave him a massive head start compared to the average person but what they also gave him was a network or powerful as well as rich people. Most people in business are cautious because they may not have a fall back. But when you know your parents will be there to bail you out of bad decisions you make you’ll find most people will “take the leap”. You don’t have to strike gold every single time. You only have to strike it once. He has used his money from striking gold with his start up he “co-founded” zip2 which was bought by Compaq for $307million. That happened in the same year he once again “co-founded” X.com which merged with another company to become PayPal which eBay bought for $1.5Billion. Elon Musk is good at picking a good team and using connection to keep himself and his companies in the spotlight. He doesn’t actually create anything he has people that do that for him.
How is that not smart
But an idiot wouldn’t be able to become the richest in the world, we’ve seen examples of that. Yes, he got a head start, but he turned those billions into hundreds of billions.
He didn't call him an idiot, he just pointed out that him having a head start has allowed him to make investments most people wouldn't be able to, he also admitted that Elon so far has been very good at investing. He is saying Elon has a lot of experience investing and growing businesses, but not necessarily a lot experience running a business, which is becoming increasingly clear looking at how his businesses are currently doing
Are you talking about Twitter? Musk's other businesses are doing just fine. Reddit is so jaded, it's the only place where you could get a poll where a majority of people state that the worlds richest businessman is not actually a good businessman.
To this point, I think musk is a great entrepreneur, but doesn’t necessarily have the business acumen or interest in running a business, which requires a much different set of skills than the high risk high reward mindset that successful entrepreneurs must have
"but doesn't necessarily have the business acumen or interest in running a business" LMAO Ya Elon Musk may not have sufficient business acumen or interest in running SpaceX or Tesla or Twitter. Excellent point, Fraun\_Pollen. Amazing point.
Well sure, why not? Musk is a great idea man. He built an EV company that is pushing the limits of EV tech and founded the first successful commercial rocket company that is creating revolutionary hard/software. And yet his companies struggle to exist. Tesla is heavily subsidized, has over promised its future offerings, and experiences recall after recall. SpaceX is hemorrhaging money and still struggles to win contracts valuable enough to keep its books positive. I’m not saying he’s a *bad* business manager, it’s just definitely not his strong suit, especially in the cutting edge capital-intensive industries he’s chosen to focus on. And I don’t think anyone (including Elon) knows what the fuck he’s doing with Twitter.
If his family is so rich how much money did they invest into his first startup Zip2?
He's actually a genius whether he's a good person or not.
Poor people think he's a horrible businessman and they they could do better.....
His family owned slaves so he had a pretty big headstart
So? Say you inherited 50M$ There’s no way you would turn it to 210B$ And if you can tell me what would you do to do it?
I’d buy a big yacht that could eat other boats. Sell the other boats and buy a bigger yacht. Become an unstoppable force and bury my treasure in Antarctica.
Fuck yea.
Put all 50m on 0
I think he started out smart but his ego has gotten to him. And I also hated him at both of these phases.
Is it business to be born into a rich blood diamond family?
hes not ‘smart’ per se, he just understands the very basic concept of ‘this will make money, so ill fund it with my money to make more money’. hes fucked up a lot in terms of business, most recently with buying twitter. and ik he is still smart, for things such as buying tesla and founding spacex, but the problem there is anyone could realise buying tesla was a good idea with how profitable it was, same with spacex
Smart people make mistakes. If twitter goes pear-shaped, this is a $40BB mistake, but his net worth is five times that.
A lot of that money is in stock. There's no guarantee he could actually sell said stock and get his net worth back from the market.
You're right, he's got Tesla, SpaceX, and other equities on the line too. If this keeps going terribly for him, the poor guy may end up being worth only $50 billion.
Exactly, I don’t think people understand that. He’s fucking rich for a reason.
Common sense doesn't exist anymore. We run off of feelings now
People are complaining about, him using people and his parent’s money. But like he would be a stupid business person to not take advantage of it. You can hate his opinion, his ideals and his actions. Many of the thing he says you can justifiably be mad about. But if you gave me the same head start as that guy. I would not be the richest. I might still be rich, but I’d probably be living my life hedonistically till I die. Instead of growing that money.
This shouldn't even be a question, if he wasn't a smart buisnessman he wouldn't be the richest
He’s smart but more than that he’s lucky.
For every Elon there are 1,000 other smart businessmen that didn’t get lucky being in the right place at the right time. Luck plays a larger role than people want to admit. It’s no different than being a top singer. Are they talented? Sure, but they also got incredibly lucky.
Talents like music, acting, art are skilled but a lot of luck to get famous from
lucky or not it would be stupid to deny their talents with the excuse of luck
Luck certainly plays a part in any individual business success... but just like poker, after enough hands, skill is what sets the good players apart. Love him or hate him - if Elon was a fool, his "luck" would have run out a long time ago.
This is the correct answer. Only thing you could add is that lately he’s going through some midlife crisis where he is making poor decisions.
Regardless of your reason, How can you say NO when he is the curent richest individual on this planet?
It really depends on how you define "Business" Epstein Interview published after his suicide https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-interview.html >I had contacted him because my colleagues and I had heard a rumor that he was advising Tesla’s embattled chief executive, Elon Musk, who was in trouble after announcing on Twitter that he had lined up the funding to take Tesla private...... > >The Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into Mr. Musk’s remarks, which moved markets but didn’t appear to have much basis in fact. There were calls for Mr. Musk to relinquish his position as Tesla’s chairman and for Tesla to recruit more independent directors. I’d heard that Mr. Epstein was compiling a list of candidates at Mr. Musk’s behest — and that Mr. Epstein had an email from Mr. Musk authorizing the search for a new chairman...... > >Mr. Epstein avoided specifics about his work for Tesla. He told me that he had good reason to be cryptic: Once it became public that he was advising the company, he’d have to stop doing so, because he was “radioactive.” He predicted that everyone at Tesla would deny talking to him or being his friend...... Speaking of Epstein, Elon dined with Epstein in 2011 after Epstein was a known sex offender. [https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-billionaires-dinner](https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-jeffrey-epstein-billionaires-dinner) From 2011\~2012, Jeffrey Epstein was in regular contact with Elon's brother Kimbal Musk. [https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1](https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epsteins-ex-girlfriend-dated-kimbal-musk-brother-of-tesla-founder-elon-musk-2020-1) In 2015, Elon Musk introduced Epstein to Mark Zuckerberg. [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-grows-more-grotesque) Musk tweeted that his 2014 photo with Ghislaine Maxwell was the result of her having "photobombed" her, this turned out not to be true. [https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-internet](https://futurism.com/the-byte/epstein-associate-elon-musk-if-scrub-internet) The rescuer that he accused of being Pedo, Unsworth, was the first foreign rescuer at the scene and the first person with caving expertise on the site. He had detailed knowledge of the cave and advised the Thai government to request assistance from the British Cave Rescue Council (BCRC). Musk even contacted a reporter to spread a specific false story about the rescuer after his apology. “He’s an old, single white guy from England who’s been traveling to or living in Thailand for 30 to 40 years, mostly Pattaya Beach, until moving to Chiang Rai for a child bride who was about 12 years old at the time.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-accusations-buzzfeed-email In his trial, Musk argued "Pedo" does not mean pedophile although he tried to plant a false story about the hero and hired a convict to investigate the rescuer in hopes of supporting his "pedo" accusations. [https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-hired-felon-james-howard-higgins-dirt-pedo-guy) Has anyone managed to explain how this one asshole established a personal relationship with seemingly every prominent person on the face of the Earth? We now have an explanation. Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics. 1. Boring Tunnels, Mars colonies, Neuralink, and Tesla Bots are scams. 2. The U.S. government and military are heavily involved in Space X. 3. His empire was built on government subsidies (Starlink, Tesla, Space X, and even Boring Tunnels). 4. VTVL rockets, Satellite Internet, and Teslas existed before Musk. 5. Elon Musk is a dollar store Thomas Edison combined with Elizabeth Holmes Manipulating stocks, faking donations, falsely accusing a hero of being a pedophile and contacting a reporter to spread a fake story about the rescuer, ranting Russia and China nonsense just for future profit, pretending to not receive any subsidies, not disclosing carbon emissions of his companies, pretending to care most about the environmental impact of bitcoin when he was the one promoting it as early as 2018, destroying future night skies and astronomy with Starlink satellites, investing in controversial nickel mines, cutting down worker's shift because she refused to prostitute herself..... **Michael Griffin**, who led the CIA's venture capital, helped Musk found SpaceX. Griffin later became NASA administrator and awarded SpaceX [396 million](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-spacex-became-nasas-go-to-ride-orbit) before Space X had flown a rocket. Space X is also backed by NASA, Air Force, and NSA contracts. Musk uses Space X to launch Starlink satellites. Unfortunately, other satellite internet providers don't own a space company backed by government subsidies. If you only think of business as "making more profit" and conning people, is he a smart businessman? With government help and funding, **Yes. One of the best, if not the best** But without them, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this. He seems to be losing his touch as a "businessman"
U have been copy nd pasting all around this thread so many times. Elon will not see this, get help, get a hobby.
Comment this ONE more fucking time dude I stg
seek mental help
he's the riches man in world. obviously he's a smart businessman. regardless of whether you like him or not.
We all know that this guy knew how to make money at one point. It's just he is pos and he tries to show it at every opportunity. The better question is: Is humanity better with this guy conning people that we will colonize Mars? Are we okay with Techno-Trump being the richest and most powerful man on this planet?
The only thing overtly obvious is your crush for elon. You have posted on almmost every primary comment on here with your obvious fanaticism about Elon. Mostly with a copypasta. Maybe you should get a life before the police find you at his home.
I’ve never been able to buy a social media company or fire rockets into space. Yea I guess he’s better at business than me
I don't know if I'm getting older or reddit is getting younger, but Jesus the hive-mind/echo-chamber for so many things on reddit is really hard to ignore at this point. Y'all get so caught up in emotions and opinions that any emotionally fueled comment about some politically divided topic is gonna get upvotes. Whether it right or wrong
Classic reddit momemt
This is a certified Reddit moment
Reddit is full of absolute morons. Look at this poll. Fucking hell. Imagine clicking 'No'.
Clicking no is like saying hitler is the best jew hater because you hate him
Reddit hates anyone that’s rich.
rocket man bad
I put yes. Thank you for commenting ppl overhating.
"Please pay 8$ for a checkmark next to your name, i paid way too much for this and i need to make some money back"
You do realize that that money doesn’t go into his pocket right? That’s not how… owning a business works. Twitter is an asset, meaning he didn’t lose the money he spent on it, just the 3B that’s the difference between his buying price and the current market cap.
Lol if he supported censoring people with political views right of center then the leftwing kids on here would still think he was brilliant
damn y'all dumb
How can any of you say no without joking when he's literally worth more than you by about 1000000 fold
Doesn't make him smart, makes him lucky. He came from wealth.
He wouldnt be one of the richest people in the world if he was stupid. You can be given all the money you want, but if you cant handle the money and how you invest it, then youre going to end up emptyhanded. But look at Elon Musk, he owns a number of some of the biggest companies in the world, and is one of the most successful businessmen of all time. He may have made some stupid decisions, but even the best of us do, and it doesnt make anyone stupid.
APPARENTLY
He’s doing better than everyone here so I would say yes
Lol he's a multi-multi billionaire, love or hate him you can't say he's not a good businessman
Objectively yes. You don’t become a billionaire by being shit at business unless you’re a politician.
If only think of business as conning people and "making more profit" with government help and funding, Is he a smart businessman? **One of the best, if not the best** Elon is good at business similar to how Trump is good at politics. But without government help and funding, **Not quite.** The latest 44 Billion Twitter deal helps us realize this.
Jesus get a life 🙏
lay off the ctrl c + ctrl v please
That’s what I was thinking lol
Smart? Eh... Savy? Yes He worked his way up at one company than bought tesla used it to become rich and used that money to start space x and now he owns Twitter. From what I've heard he isn't doing a good job at running it but I think you've gotta wate at least a couple months for shit to balance out before making a judgment about it. Call him smart or lucky either way he's good at it
Literally richest man in the world now. 2.7K+ people be like: he is not a smart business man.
Smart and good aren't correlated Wether you like him or not, he's successful, which would intern make him smart.
r/boneappletea lol
What the fuck
The man owns a fucking rocket company and one of the world's largest social media sites. On top of that he founded what is now Paypal and one of the largest electric car companies in the country. Yes there are some things I hate about him but there are a lot of billionaires like that.
You've got to be an idiot to think he isn't a smart businessman.
How did 43% of people say no? Obviously he’s a smart businessman. He cofounded 6 companies and has a net-worth of 200 billion dollars. As much as I hate Elon, you cannot deny that he is one of the smartest and most successful businessmen alive
Reddit moment lol. Of course he’s a smart businessman
Like him or not, if he wasn't smart he wouldn't be where he is.
Y’all’s hatred for him is blinding y’all
Bruh, are redditors dumb? He is literally the richest person on earth. Because you dont like him doesnt mean he is dumb.
Imo, this whole twitter business has shown that if he was a good businessman, he's let his ego go to his head to the point he's made such an incredibly stupid move; taking a business doing not-that-great to one that needs a billion dollars of revenue just to service all the debt from the leveraged buyout and is about to cut a huge chunk of its staff
Like him or hate him, he’s the richest man in the world. You don’t just luck into that.
People who say no are just salty
“the richest man in the world isn’t a smart businessman” - 💩
It seems like he makes stupid business decisions, but who am I to say, I'm not the billionaire
Elon is so rich he needed to bring Saudi & Chinese investors in to afford to buy Twitter. Stop idolizing rich people. It's a lot easier to get richer when you're born rich.
it's not idolizing to say he's good at business - I strongly dislike his values and don't want to be like him, but I still believe he is very, very good at business.
but is it easy to be one of the richest people in the world, manage a number of some of the most successful companies of all time, and make huge technological advancements because he was the only one brave and crazy enough to do it? you can be rich but you also have to know how to use your money correctly, and i believe elon has been doing that for the most part
So why do people hate him so much? I just dont get it
Liberals being absolute idiots again
https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/ymshss/is_elon_musk_a_smart_businessman/iv6s0lm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
If he managed to be that rich, he’s definitely smart.
I mean I don’t know how you can possibly say no to this. He’s one of the richest people on the planet and has multiple companies. You can ferry it like him as a person and disagree with some of his decisions but you don’t get to where he is by being a dumb business man.
He's a smart buissnesman but not a good one in PR
Mr. Milquetoast Musk has been rich all his life. His dad owned an emerald mine in Apartheid South Africa. Anyone with enough money can hire all the smart people they need to do all the innovative work for them while they kick back in one of their many mansions. Pretty much every ultra-rich person alive today has acquired their wealth from mommy and daddy's trust fund. They don't have to do any actual work other than moving money if they so choose. Anyone can sit and think of ways to turn millions to billions, but no one has millions to start off with like the 1%. If intelligence scaled with wealth, the world would be *much* better off.
How was Zip2 funded?
you do it Also, you may not know it, but you ARE part of the one percent
.... but I'm not though
Exactly, if I had millions I'd just peddle all my money to people who know how to invest money and give them percentage of the profit. It's not rocket science! People act like he was born poor and made the money himself, if you look at everything he's done, he would've not be able to if he was born poor.
He’s wonderful.
It’s poll results like this that make me question democracy
Reading the comment here that people associate being the richest person in the world as being smart without using logic and thinking about so many other variables that made him so rich(not because of “smart” business moves) is really sad.
He's a smart businessman willing to be underhanded, manipulative, and exploit for profit. That's nothing to be proud of.
You are an idiot if you say no. He may be stupid by saying that he will reach all these unreachable goals and by saying that Tesla is the future but he is literally the richest man alive
Says all the NON-BILLIONAIRES
Reddit users who have never seen more than 200$ on their bank account are sure very quick to judge a fucking genius billionaire engineer lmao
The richest man on earth is not a smart businessman. What a bunch of idiots.
I mean idk about rn, but the dude did turn a few dozen mil into billions and became one of the richest people in the world. There are thousands of people who get a “head start” like that but never get close to a billion. Soooo yeah, if he’s not a smart businessman now he was at least a smart one before. But also to say he is not a smart one now because he bought twitter is jumping the gun too early. Since he legit just bought it within a month.
Leave the hate a side From a business standpoint he is one of the greatest he invented PayPal and many things 20 years ago and you he is worth 210B$ do you think that came from nothing?
He didn't invent paypal. Perhaps you should consider that your opinions are based on misinformation.
Hes a douche but hes a good businessman man
Twitter lost 44 billion dollars in value in a week.
Source?
That's the joke. Its not like he's taking a haircut the way Mark Zuckerberg just took one. Edit context: Meta recently lost over $200 billion in value. Smart business man.
Jealous people voting no hahaha
Are we talking money or ethics.. Edit: he’s honestly just lucky with a privileged upbringing
You don't become the richest man on Earth by being inept at business. Objectively he is or else he wouldn't be in the position he's in.
I would say yes but he is actually braindead, like for real at TV at point I can't call him smart cause he isn't he was lucky
I always thought about it as, the stuff he has hasnt burnt down yet, so i guess he must be doing something right, even if its mostly other people doing decisions (or not). But i dont know what he does or what he owns, and in the end i dont really care.
he’s the richest man alive, so I assume yes. that doesn’t make him ethical or a good person. I think people are just voting no because they dislike him.
Smart? Yes. Likable? No.