Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

[Chopper 17244]

 

[Chopper 17244]

nm

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Chopper

[Firemans4Horn 18119]

7 hours ago, Goredho said:

That's what gets me.  I've seen lots of desired and managed attrition, private equity acquisitions, etc....  I have never seen new leadership operate like this.  They don't fire a large slice of the company in humiliating fashion on day 1.  They don't make big product changes immediately.  They want managed attrition, but are subtle in how they go about it to protect the company's reputation.  They don't put every potential worker needed to make the business operate and grow on notice that the workplace is toxic.  They don't do that because they have a goal of making money.  Of getting a nice return on their original investment.

Everything Elon is doing right now is counter to that.  It makes no sense.  He's either lost his goddamn mind, or he's got goals other than increasing Twitter's valuation.

 

['stache 21838]

I get wanting to charge $8 for the check (dumb but I guess make money where you can), but why do away with the vetting? I thought the whole point was to verify the person or company is legitimate. Makes it easier to know if an account is a parody or spoof. I doubt Kelloggs cares if some non-checked account is being stupid, people would easily see it's not really them. I'm sure plenty of companies and celebs would pay $8 a month to maintain the check for that reason. What was the logic behind just doing away with that part of the process? (yes i know he's not operating with much logic but I seriously don't understand).

Edited November 17, 2022 by 'stache

[Brisketexan 105275]

1 minute ago, 'stache said:

What was the logic behind just doing away with that part of the process? (yes i know he's not operating with much logic but I seriously don't understand).

I think you understand it just fine.

['stache 21838]

17 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I think you understand it just fine.

Yes, I know, easy answer. But just adding $8 to the process seems easy as hell. It seems harder to do away with the vetting side of things. There was discussion earlier if he's just an asshole or if he's intentionally trying to kill twitter. This decision in and of itself seems to support the latter.

Edited November 17, 2022 by 'stache

[Genco 3041]

30 minutes ago, 'stache said:

What was the logic behind just doing away with that part of the process?

Because the target market of people who want to be perceived as verified is much larger than the actual population of verified checkmarks pre-Elon. So in order to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in subscription revenue, Elon destroyed the value the legacy checkmarks provided to the platform and cost Twitter hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue.

Bizarro capitalism.

[MeerkatBong 115]

Elon is doing what he wants, as is his purview and predilections, which is the luxury of buying the dang thing. Sure, he's torching it, and alongside it his own money, and we think it's stupid, but hey, he bought it. 

[Nivek 16979]

What a terrible fucking job. What idiot is going to take that?
Elon wants someone to come in and fix his incomprehensibly stupid fuck-ups and make money for him, while also making sure Elon isn't the butt of even one joke.
He'll still micromanage them to Hell and back.
If they fail, they'll take the blame.
If they succeed, Elon will take the credit.  

I would do it. It’s an easy fix and you will look like a rockstar and get a better offer elsewhere without his dumbass.

[Captainant 27727]

3 minutes ago, Nivek said:

I would do it. It’s an easy fix and you will look like a rockstar and get a better offer elsewhere without his dumbass.

Tell me you've never refactored a legacy tech stack without telling me you've never refactored a legacy tech stack

[hornbri 1401]

I am convinced he is just either playing Brewster’s Millions by himself OR he has some weird plan where he is going to bankrupt twitter to take the capital gains loss to offset billions of dollars in Tesla sales. This might have been the only way for this to get that much money out of Tesla. 

[Nivek 16979]

Tell me you've never refactored a legacy tech stack without telling me you've never refactored a legacy tech stack

Fair. But I can hire nerds to send it to the internet.

['stache 21838]

With all the coding engineer snark all I can think of is

[NoName 16369]

Thread text:

 

Spoiler

Let’s talk about the legal problems Elon just created for himself with this cruel new staff email.

You’re fired if you don’t commit to long hours at high intensity within 24 hours?

Let’s start with disabled workers.

Under federal and state laws, those with physical or mental disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations by their employers. For many, this would include working reasonable hours.

@elonmusk are you planning a mass layoff of your remaining disabled workers?

Next, childcare still overwhelmingly disproportionately impacts female workers, for whom working long hours on a regular basis is often just a hard no.

So we have a gender discrimination issue too.
 

Third, Elon says those who opt out will get three month’s severance.

He promised that by tweet to the thousands of Twitter employees he fired weeks ago. Yet it has still not materialized.

My clients, fired Twitter workers, and I intend to enforce that promise.
 

Fourth, workers over 40 get 21-45 days to consider releasing claims, which would be part of that “severance” he’s talking about.

Not 24 hours.
 

Finally, let’s just talk about how cruel it is to force everyone to opt in to these ridiculous terms within 24 hours or be fired.

Workers depend on their jobs. Their livelihood is not a game to be toyed with by a billionaire bully.
 

Update: Twitter HR is now telling everyone who does not sign the ridiculous new pledge they have resigned. Employment law does not work that way. You cannot deprive people of unemployment benefits and wrongful termination cases by saying that they resigned. Nice try though!

 

[Pig Bellmont 8724]

32 minutes ago, NoName said:

Thread text:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Let’s talk about the legal problems Elon just created for himself with this cruel new staff email.

You’re fired if you don’t commit to long hours at high intensity within 24 hours?

Let’s start with disabled workers.

Under federal and state laws, those with physical or mental disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations by their employers. For many, this would include working reasonable hours.

@elonmusk are you planning a mass layoff of your remaining disabled workers?

Next, childcare still overwhelmingly disproportionately impacts female workers, for whom working long hours on a regular basis is often just a hard no.

So we have a gender discrimination issue too.
 

Third, Elon says those who opt out will get three month’s severance.

He promised that by tweet to the thousands of Twitter employees he fired weeks ago. Yet it has still not materialized.

My clients, fired Twitter workers, and I intend to enforce that promise.
 

Fourth, workers over 40 get 21-45 days to consider releasing claims, which would be part of that “severance” he’s talking about.

Not 24 hours.
 

Finally, let’s just talk about how cruel it is to force everyone to opt in to these ridiculous terms within 24 hours or be fired.

Workers depend on their jobs. Their livelihood is not a game to be toyed with by a billionaire bully.
 

Update: Twitter HR is now telling everyone who does not sign the ridiculous new pledge they have resigned. Employment law does not work that way. You cannot deprive people of unemployment benefits and wrongful termination cases by saying that they resigned. Nice try though!

 

This was the point. Have some colorable argument that these people resigned and don’t pay them anything. Then fight like hell against those that sue in the hopes most people just give up. 

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301]

What an absolute clusterfuck.

Fuck Elmo with the strength of 1000 suns.

['stache 21838]

I'd take three months severance in a heartbeat. If I had those skills I'm sure I could find a job quickly and would take the paid vacation. I'd probably take this path even if my new boss wasn't a complete psychopath. 

[Pig Bellmont 8724]

1 minute ago, 'stache said:

I'd take three months severance in a heartbeat. If I had those skills I'm sure I could find a job quickly and would take the paid vacation. I'd probably take this path even if my new boss wasn't a complete psychopath. 

Except a lot of tech industry is downsizing. Market is shitty for them

[Ghost of LL 15539]

4 minutes ago, Pig Bellmont said:

Except a lot of tech industry is downsizing. Market is shitty for them

But a lot of those people are in jobs that aren't specific to the tech sector.  A lawyer or someone in HR or in sales can go do that in some other sector.  

And for that matter, everyone needs coders and engineers.  As someone who just tried to make a reservation at marriott.com, I can tell you that they're in serious need.

[Brisketexan 105275]

1 hour ago, NoName said:

Thread text:

 

  Hide contents

Let’s talk about the legal problems Elon just created for himself with this cruel new staff email.

You’re fired if you don’t commit to long hours at high intensity within 24 hours?

Let’s start with disabled workers.

Under federal and state laws, those with physical or mental disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations by their employers. For many, this would include working reasonable hours.

@elonmusk are you planning a mass layoff of your remaining disabled workers?

Next, childcare still overwhelmingly disproportionately impacts female workers, for whom working long hours on a regular basis is often just a hard no.

So we have a gender discrimination issue too.
 

Third, Elon says those who opt out will get three month’s severance.

He promised that by tweet to the thousands of Twitter employees he fired weeks ago. Yet it has still not materialized.

My clients, fired Twitter workers, and I intend to enforce that promise.
 

Fourth, workers over 40 get 21-45 days to consider releasing claims, which would be part of that “severance” he’s talking about.

Not 24 hours.
 

Finally, let’s just talk about how cruel it is to force everyone to opt in to these ridiculous terms within 24 hours or be fired.

Workers depend on their jobs. Their livelihood is not a game to be toyed with by a billionaire bully.
 

Update: Twitter HR is now telling everyone who does not sign the ridiculous new pledge they have resigned. Employment law does not work that way. You cannot deprive people of unemployment benefits and wrongful termination cases by saying that they resigned. Nice try though!

 

These almost certainly meritorious claims, coupled with the functional insolvency of Twitter (a point rather strongly bolstered by Elon's openly stated threat of bankruptcy a few days ago) actually set up a scenario where an unusual mechanism of relief might oughta be in play: file suit, and then seek an injunction requiring Twitter to set aside money (maybe even put it in the registry of the court?  It's a weird thing, been a LONG time since I've looked at it) to pay the money judgment, because there is a likelihood that the enterprise, which DOES have the cash to pay the claims today, will NOT have the cash to pay them by the time litigation concludes.

Again, been a million years since I looked at how that works, but it's a thing.  A very rare and narrow thing....which Elmo may be setting himself up for rather well.

[RDCanecutter 26466]

52 minutes ago, 'stache said:

I'd take three months severance in a heartbeat. If I had those skills I'm sure I could find a job quickly and would take the paid vacation. I'd probably take this path even if my new boss wasn't a complete psychopath. 

My first thought was that 3 months Bay Area Tech Pay probably = 3 years relaxing on any beach that doesn't have flights full of gringos landing nearby.

[MeerkatBong 115]

1 hour ago, 'stache said:

I'd take three months severance in a heartbeat. If I had those skills I'm sure I could find a job quickly and would take the paid vacation. I'd probably take this path even if my new boss wasn't a complete psychopath. 

Agreed; in fact and I said in the other thread, 3 months severance to "quit" is downright gracious. Not seeing the problem here.

edit to add: I'm hearing the RIFs in other big tech is 60 days severance from my friends at AWS and SFDC.

Edited November 17, 2022 by MeerkatBong

[NoName 16369]

12 minutes ago, MeerkatBong said:

Agreed; in fact and I said in the other thread, 3 months severance to "quit" is downright gracious. Not seeing the problem here.

edit to add: I'm hearing the RIFs in other big tech is 60 days severance from my friends at AWS and SFDC.

the problem is they were given 24 hours to make a decision from an email sent at midnight - what a dick move, which is the point. that's an issue. also you can't say "if you don't reply you have resigned" - that's not how it works!

also it isn't legal in many places outside the US including the EU. the 90 days is whatever, depending on where they are they have to pay out 60 days no matter what (NY and CA are two places where it is required IIRC)

 

[NoName 16369]

 

 

[Brisketexan 105275]

Just now, NoName said:

 

 

"Somehow, other countries do just fine without class-action law."

He's not wrong.  Do you think that he's interested in what they do instead?  I'm thinking that their path of "more regulation" is not what he has in mind.

[NoName 16369]

18 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

"Somehow, other countries do just fine without class-action law."

He's not wrong.  Do you think that he's interested in what they do instead?  I'm thinking that their path of "more regulation" is not what he has in mind.

saw multiple people in the replies saying that...

[Rudiger 1168]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

"Somehow, other countries do just fine without class-action law."

He's not wrong.  Do you think that he's interested in what they do instead?  I'm thinking that their path of "more regulation" is not what he has in mind.

Except he is wrong. The UK, for example, has formally had collective actions since 1999, and informally before then. Of course, the UK has been a shitshow for a while too…

[Nivek 16979]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

"Somehow, other countries do just fine without class-action law."

He's not wrong.  Do you think that he's interested in what they do instead?  I'm thinking that their path of "more regulation" is not what he has in mind.

he really is a fucking idiot.  I know more about the law from a business law book than this idiot and his HR people do.  Of course, his lawyers are happy to keep billing the moron.   Who could have known there was case law that decided this decades ago?  

Edited November 17, 2022 by Nivek

[F250 28814]

3 hours ago, MeerkatBong said:

Agreed; in fact and I said in the other thread, 3 months severance to "quit" is downright gracious. Not seeing the problem here.

edit to add: I'm hearing the RIFs in other big tech is 60 days severance from my friends at AWS and SFDC.

Facebook is handing out 4 months as a base plus additional severance for time worked plus 6 months of health insurance coverage.

One tech company I worked for in the oughts was doing 3 months as a base plus time worked. I knew people walking out with over 6 months of severance.

As previously mentioned, the big issue is how Twitter notified the employees and the other issue is Twitter is already being sued for not honoring the agreed upon severance package and some fuckery with people that had RSU/Bonuses to be paid out.

[Pig Bellmont 8724]

1 hour ago, Nivek said:

he really is a fucking idiot.  I know more about the law from a business law book than this idiot and his HR people do.  Of course, his lawyers are happy to keep billing the moron.   Who could have known there was case law that decided this decades ago?  

He’d be a fucking nightmare client and would almost certainly refuse to pay the bill if the slightest thing didn’t go his way

[Pig Bellmont 8724]

Fuck around and find out…

[Brisketexan 105275]

Just now, Pig Bellmont said:

Fuck around and find out…

Leverage: you have it.  Until you don't.

A smart person knows where that tipping point is.  It's not looking like Elon meets that standard.

[Surly Bevo 25139]

 

[GringoSalado 1651]

7 hours ago, MeerkatBong said:

Elon is doing what he wants, as is his purview and predilections, which is the luxury of buying the dang thing. Sure, he's torching it, and alongside it his own money, and we think it's stupid, but hey, he bought it. 

I don't see why folks are upset. Hopefully he buys Facebook next and burns that to the ground also.

[EdTomBell 31]

3 minutes ago, GringoSalado said:

I don't see why folks are upset. Hopefully he buys Facebook next and burns that to the ground also.

Good point. I’m willing to buy one $8 blue check for each social media platform he destroys. 

[Celery Man 20996]

 

[The Dog 44124]

 

[Francisco 2.0 32416]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-made-an-unusual-request-in-fallout-with-a-top-lieutenant-11668140888

 

Quote

Last year, Elon Musk parted ways with one of his top deputies at Tesla Inc.,  a French auto-industry executive named Jerome Guillen.

Mr. Guillen worked at Tesla for roughly a decade, rising to oversee the company’s car division. He was rewarded with equity grants that swelled with Tesla’s valuation. By the end of 2020, Mr. Guillen’s unvested equity in the car maker was valued at around $600 million, according to an Equilar Inc. analysis.

 

Quote

As their long relationship broke down, Mr. Musk made an unusual request: He asked Mr. Guillen to forfeit some of his unvested equity in the car maker, people familiar with the matter said. Soon after, Mr. Guillen left Tesla.

Exactly what went wrong between the two leaders couldn’t be learned. But some of the people familiar with the matter said one issue of broader concern for Mr. Musk has been that some employees were making more from Tesla than he thought their contributions merited.

 

Spoiler

Attorneys say that asking executives to give up stock compensation is highly unusual.

Neither Mr. Guillen nor Mr. Musk responded to requests for comment.

The dust-up reflects a point of tension in Tesla’s stratospheric rise: Who should reap the rewards of its stock price? Mr. Musk has paid his top executives predominantly with stock awards, securities filings show.

Employee stock options have been at the heart of several controversies at Tesla over the years, including a dispute with one of the company’s co-founders, a court battle over the schedule by which employee equity vested, and a shareholder lawsuit over Mr. Musk’s pay package that is headed for trial next week.

How Mr. Musk manages and compensates senior officials is now being scrutinized at Twitter Inc., which he recently bought for $44 billion. Upon taking over, Mr. Musk fired top Twitter executives and said he wasn’t required to pay them multimillion-dollar severance packages because he concluded they were fired “for cause,” people familiar with the departures have said.

As of early November, Tesla was valued at around $600 billion. Mr. Musk, who doesn’t take a salary from the car maker, owns around 14% of the company. He has become the world’s wealthiest person thanks largely to Tesla’s stock price and a pay package that affords him a larger cut of the company if it hits certain milestones.

Mr. Musk’s latest pay deal, approved in 2018, is worth around $51 billion at recent prices. It sparked a shareholder lawsuit in Delaware’s business-law court, the Court of Chancery, alleging that certain current and former Tesla board members breached their fiduciary duties in approving it. That case is scheduled for trial Monday.

Lawyers representing current and former Tesla board members have said in court filings that Mr. Musk’s pay package has been a success and was implemented in a valid manner.

Stock options also played a role in a dispute more than a decade ago between Mr. Musk and Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard, who was pushed out of the company as it struggled to produce its first model.

Mr. Eberhard sued Mr. Musk and Tesla in 2009 over issues including how the company revoked 250,000 stock options he claimed he was owed. Tesla had said Mr. Eberhard had violated a nondisparagement agreement, forfeiting those options. The two sides eventually settled the case. Mr. Eberhard declined to comment on the settlement.

Years later, more than 40 former employees sued Tesla, claiming the company wrongfully refused to allow them to vest in stock options. Tesla denied the former employees’ claims, and the two sides spent years in litigation, which opened a window into how some people who left the company were allowed to vest early while others claimed they were let go just before they vested. Tesla moved early board member Simon Rothman into an advisory position to allow him to vest his options after being removed from the board, court records show. Mr. Rothman didn’t respond to requests for comment.

This spring, a California appeals court overturned a lower-court ruling against Tesla in that case.

Mr. Guillen joined Tesla in 2010 from then-car and trucking giant Daimler AG. Among his most important contributions was helping Tesla work through production problems in 2018, when the company was struggling to make enough of its Model 3 cars. In September 2018, he was promoted to president overseeing the automotive division.

“Jerome was pulling some pretty incredible rabbits out of the hat. That was amazing,” Mr. Musk said in August 2018.

In 2020, after the spread of Covid-19 forced Tesla to shut down what was then its lone U.S. car plant, in Fremont, Calif., Mr. Musk grew frustrated with people, including Mr. Guillen, over the speed at which Tesla was prepared to restart production, according to people familiar with Tesla’s operations.

Come year-end, Mr. Guillen was vesting more than $12 million worth of equity monthly, according to an Equilar analysis using the year-end closing stock price. His unvested equity was valued at around $600 million.

By spring of the following year, Mr. Musk had grown dissatisfied with Mr. Guillen’s performance, some of the people familiar with the matter said. Mr. Guillen was offered what many viewed as a demotion—a role overseeing Tesla’s efforts to produce an electric semitrailer truck—and Mr. Musk asked Mr. Guillen to forfeit millions of dollars’ worth of unvested equity.

Mr. Guillen assumed his new role in March 2021 but declined to give up his rights to the unvested equity. Within three months of changing jobs, he was gone. In Mr. Guillen’s telling, he was fired, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Musk’s recent focus on pay has been rooted at least in part in his perception of fairness, people familiar with the issue said. Mr. Musk stood to receive additional stock options under his 2018 package only if Tesla met certain goals.

The recent grants of other top executives whose compensation is publicly disclosed generally haven’t been tied to specific performance benchmarks, securities filings show.

Unlike with paychecks already deposited in the bank, employees typically lose unvested stock rights when they leave a company.

Requests for employees to consider giving up unvested equity even without leaving are rare, but a company could be within its rights to make them, attorneys said. More often, companies fire employees they think aren’t performing. Demanding unvested equity be returned under threat of dismissal could run afoul of contract laws, the attorneys said.

“What would raise my concern here on behalf of either party would be whether the company is violating promises it made to the employee with respect to his compensation,” said Scott Raber, a partner at Rimon PC who works on employment law and doesn’t represent Tesla.

After Mr. Guillen left in June 2021, Tesla said, in a securities filing: “We thank him for his many contributions and wish him well in his future career.” 

In the weeks that followed, securities filings show, Mr. Guillen sold hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Tesla stock.

 

Edited November 18, 2022 by Francisco 2.0

[The Dog 44124]

[Neonmoon 38130]

This probably is bullshit but would be hilarious if true

 

[chainsaw 9873]

12 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

This probably is bullshit but would be hilarious if true

 

Maybe he wasn't an immigration fraud but an immigration visionary

[Chewbacca 7782]

On 11/16/2022 at 9:17 AM, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

Are you of the opinion that bots are being taken down?

Well, they were until he fired all the bot-taker-downers.  And now Twitter has 500k 'new' users!  It's a win/win!

[Chewbacca 7782]

On 11/16/2022 at 12:04 PM, Bama Chick said:

 

 

He barely lasted one Truss.

 

Holy shit, does he finally realize he sucks at this?  That would be the smartest thing he could do.  Which is why he'll announce SBF as his new CEO shortly.  SBF plans on beefing up Twitter's internal controls.  Just like he did at FTX.

[Chewbacca 7782]

On 11/16/2022 at 12:42 PM, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Elon bought Twitter for same reason you or I might buy a $100K fancy sportscar to drive slowly down the road with the windows down.

Uh, that's not why I buy fast cars...

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

41 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

 

So since elmo is against remote workers, everyone who stayed gets the week off right?

[Francisco 2.0 32416]

Let me guess; Twitter collapses in the coming hours/days, and Musk blames it on disgruntled former employees who sabotaged the place.

 

 

[Constant 6754]

It makes me feel crazy but I’m pretty sure he spent 44 billion dollars to destroy an app. 

[Celery Man 20996]

You can do that at Chilis for $5.

[Francisco 2.0 32416]

You know who is applauding this?  Fucking Zuckerberg.  

He's probably furiously rubbing one out at the prospect of countless people migrating over to Instagram, or reactivating long dormant accounts.

 

 

[Francisco 2.0 32416]

Oh thank God.

 

https://linktr.ee/drilreal