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

[HamsterHookah 112]

Also, I know this isn't the Rivian thread, but read this article this AM and didn't know of some of these issues:

Quote

Electric vehicle maker Rivian has seen several of its top executive leave the company, amid a testing time for the start-up. The company missed its 2022 manufacturing target of 25,000 vehicles by 700 cars, thanks in part to supply chain snarls that are plaguing the industry. Its stock has also plunged 79% over the past few months. The departures include the vice president of parts purchasing, the vice president of body and interior engineering, and a senior director in the strategy team. Rivian said it is now looking to take on new staff to increase production as it aims to grow its business.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/top-rivian-executives-depart-the-electric-vehicle-startup-11673380522?

Edited January 11, 2023 by HamsterHookah

[C-Man 27248]

14 hours ago, hornian said:

My wife test drove one. It’s very nice. It also starts at $110k. 

Yikes -- I thought it was in the low/mid $70K's.

[Chopper 17243]

Who was the director of photography for this work of art, I wonder?

 

[texasdago 7577]

When AI generates some Elon Musk art...

 

[choripan 790]

2 hours ago, HamsterHookah said:

Why are we still talking about the door ding? Homer handled it text book perfect even down to the “someone who would do this, while technically in their rights, is not someone I want to ever know or break bread with so here is $200 to never see you again in life”.

I don't quite agree. No doubt, if he has the Rivian, his time is more than the $200 that he will get out of you, so if he's a spiteful MFer, spite him right back.

Presuming there was no damage to your vehicle, and there is a police report on file, before I pay it I would either (i) ensure that, because you only want to use the most trustworthy provider, you will only pay for provided it goes to a reputable body shop that reports to CarFax and AutoCheck or (ii) report it to your insurance, so he has to take it to an insurance-approved body shop (which probably reports), but just rescind the claim and pay out of pocket when the deductible issue comes up because it will likely be less than your deductible, so your premium doesn't go up depending on how insurance works in your state.

The goal here is to diminish the value of his vehicle in the future by having an "accident" on record with CarFax/Autocheck, no matter how minor it is in reality. 

[HamsterHookah 112]

18 minutes ago, choripan said:

I don't quite agree. No doubt, if he has the Rivian, his time is more than the $200 that he will get out of you, so if he's a spiteful MFer, spite him right back.

Presuming there was no damage to your vehicle, and there is a police report on file, before I pay it I would either (i) ensure that, because you only want to use the most trustworthy provider, you will only pay for provided it goes to a reputable body shop that reports to CarFax and AutoCheck or (ii) report it to your insurance, so he has to take it to an insurance-approved body shop (which probably reports), but just rescind the claim and pay out of pocket when the deductible issue comes up because it will likely be less than your deductible, so your premium doesn't go up depending on how insurance works in your state.

The goal here is to diminish the value of his vehicle in the future by having an "accident" on record with CarFax/Autocheck, no matter how minor it is in reality. 

I don't think this guy cares and your efforts in spite are akin to you drinking the poison yet hoping he dies, because in the OP's story, the Rivian owner already tried to file it against insurance but Homer had just changed policies and the insurance information Rivian owner had was outdated.

Edited January 11, 2023 by HamsterHookah

[956 Worldwide 34746]

It really wasn’t that long ago that the U.S. supported all kinds of smaller automakers. AMC, Packard, Studebaker, Hudson, International consumer autos and others you’ve never heard of. And a lot of them made DAMN good cars. 
 

We are seeing a new wave of this with EVs.  I predict most of these companies will fade away, some will get purchased by legacy makers for the brand and tech, and maybe one or two will survive.  The market segment companies like Lucid or Rivian are playing in isn’t easy. You aren’t Pagani making crazy luxury goods and you don’t have the advantages of a GM or Stellantis in mass production. 
 

Whoever said Tesla is becoming the Honda of EVs—  if that happens then it’s a wild success story. 

[HenryJames 66151]

6 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

AMC, Packard, Studebaker, Hudson, International consumer autos and others you’ve never heard of. And a lot of them made DAMN good cars. 

[Gene Parmesan 4011]

I'm surprised that so many surlyites don't give a shit about someone damaging their car.  I'll quit telling my kids to be careful with their doors from now on.

[G650 14273]

9 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I'm surprised that so many surlyites don't give a shit about someone damaging their car.  I'll quit telling my kids to be careful with their doors from now on.

I mean my son dings the shit outta mine with my wifes car door on the reg, so yeah whoever else gets hit is definitely lower down my priority list.

[Francisco 2.0 32408]

26 minutes ago, Gene Parmesan said:

I'm surprised that so many surlyites don't give a shit about someone damaging their car.  I'll quit telling my kids to be careful with their doors from now on.

I don't think that is the case; I think it's more along the lines of if you have a vehicle you care about, you take care in where you park the thing.  Dude obviously cared enough to pursue $200 bucks worth of repair, but didn't care enough to park on the outer limits where the chances of this happening were remote.

I just assume if I have to park in a crowded space up front, I'm getting nicked.  If I do have a choice in the matter, however, I'm parking my ass in the spaces that have no oil stains.

 

 

 

[Gene Parmesan 4011]

9 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

I don't think that is the case; I think it's more along the lines of if you have a vehicle you care about, you take care in where you park the thing.  Dude obviously cared enough to pursue $200 bucks worth of repair, but didn't care enough to park on the outer limits where the chances of this happening were remote.

I just assume if I have to park in a crowded space up front, I'm getting nicked.  If I do have a choice in the matter, however, I'm parking my ass in the spaces that have no oil stains.

 

 

 

Damage is damage.  I get that most have learned to live with it because there is typically no evidence and therefore nothing they could do, but this guy does have evidence.  Would you guys pass it off so easily if you were there to witness someone sailing a grocery cart into your car?

[Samson's Wig 3194]

On 1/10/2023 at 11:43 AM, Homercles said:

Naturally he’s a RE agent, friends with my wife’s maid of honor who is also a pretty vain RE agent. 

I'm always amazed by arrogant real estate agents.  There are very few careers that require less intelligence, skill, and training than being a real estate agent.  It's what one does when all other options have ceased to exist.  The bar could not be any lower.  It's nothing to be ashamed of (well maybe a little), but to act arrogant for having literally the easiest job on the planet is something else.

[Chopper 17243]

When AI generates an episode of Elon Musk's Derp Thoughts.

Just kidding, it's not AI, it's an example of what may happen in the male species when Low I combines with Low T.

Edited January 11, 2023 by Chopper

[atomheartbevo 89775]

4 hours ago, Chopper said:

Who was the director of photography for this work of art, I wonder?

 

I've seen this movie, it stars Jan-Michael Vincent and George Peppard.

 

[Neonmoon 38130]

Tesla is making Tulips

[atomheartbevo 89775]

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/tesla-plans-to-spend-700m-to-expand-austin-gigafactory/

Quote

Tesla plans to pour $717 million into constructing 1.4 million additional square feet of space at its Austin gigafactory. The plans call for four new buildings to be built and finished out at 1 Tesla Road, starting at the end of this month. That’s all according to plans filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation Jan. 9 and obtained by KXAN’s media partners at the Austin Business Journal.

Bryce Bencivengo with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce said less than a year after the gigafactory has opened, the car maker has already diversified the local economy.  “We obviously are still a tech city and the most jobs that we added in Austin were in tech, but just behind that, our second largest growing sector in our economy was in automotive manufacturing,” he said. 

Quote

 

Dirt could turn on four new buildings could begin this month but there are still lingering issues from the original gigafactory’s construction. 

In November, dozens of people who built the gigafactory said Tesla’s contractors and subcontractors didn’t follow safety protocols and still owed workers money. 

 

[Brisketexan 105213]

11 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/tesla-plans-to-spend-700m-to-expand-austin-gigafactory/

Don't shit on the new Armadillo World Headquarters, to be acquired at a bankruptcy fire sale.  Can you imagine a 2 million s.f. dance floor?  YEEHAW!

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

3 hours ago, Gene Parmesan said:

Damage is damage.  I get that most have learned to live with it because there is typically no evidence and therefore nothing they could do, but this guy does have evidence.  Would you guys pass it off so easily if you were there to witness someone sailing a grocery cart into your car?

One is a kid accidentally dinging a door, the other is someone being a lazy bones.

[Francisco 2.0 32408]

 

 

[Chooky 13317]

2 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

 

[Neonmoon 38130]

3 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

 

So the Twitter employees will be working…remotely?

[Francisco 2.0 32408]

Yeah, an auction on user names.  I'm sure this will generate billions.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/technology/twitter-user-names-elon-musk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

Quote

Twitter has considered selling user names to generate new revenue as its owner, Elon Musk, tries to resuscitate the company’s business, two people with knowledge of the plan said.

Twitter employees have held conversations about selling some user names for the service since at least December, the people said. Engineers have discussed running online auctions where people can bid for the user names, which are the words, numbers or string of characters that follow the @ sign by which accounts are identified on the platform. Mr. Musk’s user name, for example, is @elonmusk.

 

Quote

It’s unclear if the project will move forward and if the plan affects all user names or only a subset, the people said. But Mr. Musk said last month that he wanted to start eliminating inactive accounts on Twitter and free up 1.5 billion user names. Only certain user names — such as those of well-known people, brands and popular names — may have value.

The social media company has been in turmoil since Mr. Musk bought it for $44 billion in October. Given the deal’s high price tag, the billionaire is under pressure to make the purchase a success.

 

Spoiler

Mr. Musk has since slashed expenses at Twitter, ordering layoffs, cutting other costs and stopping vendor payments. At the same time, he has tried finding new avenues to make money as Twitter experiences a sharp downturn in ad revenue. He has come up with a revamped subscription plan so users pay for verification badges, and the company has filed paperwork with the Treasury Department to process payments.

Mr. Musk has said he has visions of creating “an everything app,” similar to China’s WeChat, which more than a billion people use to find news, connect to friends, make payments and order food.

Unique user names — also known as handles — can be lucrative. They are often claimed by early adopters of social media platforms and some people and brands are willing to pay thousands of dollars for them. Black markets have sprung up where people can buy “original gangster,” or O.G., user names that are desired because they feature a short word or a number and may have been abandoned by their owners.

Twitter and Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

Twitter’s rules forbid the buying and selling of handles. The trade has previously attracted hackers. In 2020, a 17-year-old in Florida was arrested after hacking Twitter to obtain user names to sell, compromising the accounts of Mr. Musk and celebrities.

Telegram, a popular messaging platform, said it would let people auction their handles in October.

Four days after acquiring the company in October, Mr. Musk tweeted that he would “definitely” look to purge accounts that have been inactive for a year, some of which have coveted user names. In December, he said Twitter would free up the names of accounts that were “obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years.”

His plan ignited concerns among some who feared the company would delete the accounts of people who had died and whose Twitter pages were used to memorialize them. As of July — the last time the company reported financial figures — Twitter had nearly 238 million daily active users who saw ads.

Twitter also continues to lay off employees. Mr. Musk has reduced the company’s work force by about 75 percent from the 7,500 employees it had at the time he took over. Last week, new layoffs affected dozens of workers, including engineers on advertising and staffers working on trust and safety, three people with knowledge of the cuts said. The Information earlier reported the layoffs.

This week, Mr. Musk, who also leads the electric automaker Tesla, emailed Twitter employees saying he was available for meetings after finishing “most of my Tesla work.” He reminded them that he must approve all product design and engineering changes “no matter how small,” according to a copy of the note, which was seen by The New York Times.

“We are going to agonize until we achieve as close to the perfect product as possible,” Mr. Musk wrote.

 

 

[Clintonaldo 2576]

5 hours ago, choripan said:

I don't quite agree. No doubt, if he has the Rivian, his time is more than the $200 that he will get out of you, so if he's a spiteful MFer, spite him right back.

Presuming there was no damage to your vehicle, and there is a police report on file, before I pay it I would either (i) ensure that, because you only want to use the most trustworthy provider, you will only pay for provided it goes to a reputable body shop that reports to CarFax and AutoCheck or (ii) report it to your insurance, so he has to take it to an insurance-approved body shop (which probably reports), but just rescind the claim and pay out of pocket when the deductible issue comes up because it will likely be less than your deductible, so your premium doesn't go up depending on how insurance works in your state.

The goal here is to diminish the value of his vehicle in the future by having an "accident" on record with CarFax/Autocheck, no matter how minor it is in reality. 

Yeah that’s great and all but then you owe him diminished value. I don’t understand why this guy is being shat on. A majority of the board would do the same thing. He wasn’t a dick about it but just wants his shit fixed. 

[Celery Man 20991]

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

3 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Yeah, an auction on user names.  I'm sure this will generate billions.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/technology/twitter-user-names-elon-musk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

 

 

  Hide contents

Mr. Musk has since slashed expenses at Twitter, ordering layoffs, cutting other costs and stopping vendor payments. At the same time, he has tried finding new avenues to make money as Twitter experiences a sharp downturn in ad revenue. He has come up with a revamped subscription plan so users pay for verification badges, and the company has filed paperwork with the Treasury Department to process payments.

Mr. Musk has said he has visions of creating “an everything app,” similar to China’s WeChat, which more than a billion people use to find news, connect to friends, make payments and order food.

Unique user names — also known as handles — can be lucrative. They are often claimed by early adopters of social media platforms and some people and brands are willing to pay thousands of dollars for them. Black markets have sprung up where people can buy “original gangster,” or O.G., user names that are desired because they feature a short word or a number and may have been abandoned by their owners.

Twitter and Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

Twitter’s rules forbid the buying and selling of handles. The trade has previously attracted hackers. In 2020, a 17-year-old in Florida was arrested after hacking Twitter to obtain user names to sell, compromising the accounts of Mr. Musk and celebrities.

Telegram, a popular messaging platform, said it would let people auction their handles in October.

Four days after acquiring the company in October, Mr. Musk tweeted that he would “definitely” look to purge accounts that have been inactive for a year, some of which have coveted user names. In December, he said Twitter would free up the names of accounts that were “obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years.”

His plan ignited concerns among some who feared the company would delete the accounts of people who had died and whose Twitter pages were used to memorialize them. As of July — the last time the company reported financial figures — Twitter had nearly 238 million daily active users who saw ads.

Twitter also continues to lay off employees. Mr. Musk has reduced the company’s work force by about 75 percent from the 7,500 employees it had at the time he took over. Last week, new layoffs affected dozens of workers, including engineers on advertising and staffers working on trust and safety, three people with knowledge of the cuts said. The Information earlier reported the layoffs.

This week, Mr. Musk, who also leads the electric automaker Tesla, emailed Twitter employees saying he was available for meetings after finishing “most of my Tesla work.” He reminded them that he must approve all product design and engineering changes “no matter how small,” according to a copy of the note, which was seen by The New York Times.

“We are going to agonize until we achieve as close to the perfect product as possible,” Mr. Musk wrote.

 

 

This will make him literally tens of dollars.

[texasdago 7577]

3 minutes ago, Grade of D as in David said:

This will make him literally tens of dollars.

[NoName 16369]

10 hours ago, Grade of D as in David said:

This will make him literally tens of dollars.

yeah, you are wrong on that front. it isn't going to make billions but it is free money to them and will make SOME money.

 

Edited January 12, 2023 by NoName

[Bookman 4639]

12 minutes ago, NoName said:

yeah, you are wrong on that front. it isn't going to make billions but it is free money to them and will make SOME money.

 

Username checks out.

[Chopper 17243]

11 hours ago, Grade of D as in David said:

This will make him literally tens of dollars.

Tens of hundreds, sir. Maybe even low 6 digits. Meanwhile the remaining programming and protocol staff will spend at least 4,000 work hours to make it happen. They'll undoubtedly bork a bunch of shit up and then spend another 2,000 work hours to try to fix it.

[NoName 16369]

46 minutes ago, Bookman said:

Username checks out.

[atomheartbevo 89775]

6 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Tens of hundreds, sir. Maybe even low 6 digits. Meanwhile the remaining programming and protocol staff will spend at least 4,000 work hours to make it happen. They'll undoubtedly bork a bunch of shit up and then spend another 2,000 work hours to try to fix it.

I fully expect them to try and sell names that are actually in use.

[HornOnTheBayou 8945]

5 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

I fully expect them to try and sell names that are actually in use.

That was kinda my question. What unused usernames are out there that anyone would want? Haven't they all been taken by now?

[G650 14273]

18 hours ago, Gene Parmesan said:

Would you guys pass it off so easily if you were there to witness someone sailing a grocery cart into your car

Probably

[atomheartbevo 89775]

12 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

That was kinda my question. What unused usernames are out there that anyone would want? Haven't they all been taken by now?

The claim is that there are hundreds of millions of names that were registered and never used for various reasons - the person doing it was doing for a class, or some kind of business requirement or just whatever and never actually used it, or registered it for the intention of selling it at some point.  I can totally believe that - I took some tech writing classes around 10 years ago or so, and as part of the class, we had to register twitter accounts and spend a few weeks talking about social media, and then never used those handles again (they were not prime handles, they were throwaways).  And we all know people who get what they think is a decent idea, start to set everything up, and then get bored and move on or whatever.  I've had that happen with people I've worked with on websites, etc., and we get twitter handles setup, and then....it doesn't pan out.

In theory, there are some decent names in the bunch.

In reality, Elon will probably make up some arbitrary bullshit that determines what names are eligible (probably have to post multiple times a month to be considered active), and because he has little in the way of staffing who can sort through the names and pull out the prime names, or setup an auction system, he's going to fuck it up.

[HornOnTheBayou 8945]

That makes sense. I mean, it's still not a huge money-making plan, but it does make some sense.

And you're right, he'll screw up which accounts are really dormant or not. For example, I've been on Twitter for several years now and check it a couple of times a day through a third-party app, but I've only posted maybe three things in those years. For me, it's just a news feed where I can get updates and find articles to read. A poorly programmed algorithm would think my account is dormant when I'm on there every day.

[SydneyCarton 48147]

15 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Yeah, an auction on user names.  I'm sure this will generate billions.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/technology/twitter-user-names-elon-musk.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

 

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Mr. Musk has since slashed expenses at Twitter, ordering layoffs, cutting other costs and stopping vendor payments. At the same time, he has tried finding new avenues to make money as Twitter experiences a sharp downturn in ad revenue. He has come up with a revamped subscription plan so users pay for verification badges, and the company has filed paperwork with the Treasury Department to process payments.

Mr. Musk has said he has visions of creating “an everything app,” similar to China’s WeChat, which more than a billion people use to find news, connect to friends, make payments and order food.

Unique user names — also known as handles — can be lucrative. They are often claimed by early adopters of social media platforms and some people and brands are willing to pay thousands of dollars for them. Black markets have sprung up where people can buy “original gangster,” or O.G., user names that are desired because they feature a short word or a number and may have been abandoned by their owners.

Twitter and Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.

Twitter’s rules forbid the buying and selling of handles. The trade has previously attracted hackers. In 2020, a 17-year-old in Florida was arrested after hacking Twitter to obtain user names to sell, compromising the accounts of Mr. Musk and celebrities.

Telegram, a popular messaging platform, said it would let people auction their handles in October.

Four days after acquiring the company in October, Mr. Musk tweeted that he would “definitely” look to purge accounts that have been inactive for a year, some of which have coveted user names. In December, he said Twitter would free up the names of accounts that were “obvious account deletions with no tweets & no log in for years.”

His plan ignited concerns among some who feared the company would delete the accounts of people who had died and whose Twitter pages were used to memorialize them. As of July — the last time the company reported financial figures — Twitter had nearly 238 million daily active users who saw ads.

Twitter also continues to lay off employees. Mr. Musk has reduced the company’s work force by about 75 percent from the 7,500 employees it had at the time he took over. Last week, new layoffs affected dozens of workers, including engineers on advertising and staffers working on trust and safety, three people with knowledge of the cuts said. The Information earlier reported the layoffs.

This week, Mr. Musk, who also leads the electric automaker Tesla, emailed Twitter employees saying he was available for meetings after finishing “most of my Tesla work.” He reminded them that he must approve all product design and engineering changes “no matter how small,” according to a copy of the note, which was seen by The New York Times.

“We are going to agonize until we achieve as close to the perfect product as possible,” Mr. Musk wrote.

 

 

Welp. I guess I'm going to have to build a war chest to fend of the advances of one Goeff Ketchum.

[Brisketexan 105213]

17 minutes ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

That makes sense. I mean, it's still not a huge money-making plan, but it does make some sense.

And you're right, he'll screw up which accounts are really dormant or not. For example, I've been on Twitter for several years now and check it a couple of times a day through a third-party app, but I've only posted maybe three things in those years. For me, it's just a news feed where I can get updates and find articles to read. A poorly programmed algorithm would think my account is dormant when I'm on there every day.

Look....is "asslicker69er" available or not?  Asking for @Pescado_Rojo

[Helobious 9464]

Some random guy named Chip Clark got the @chipotle handle in the early days of Twitter and has never let it go. Real Chipotle has been stuck with @chipotletweets this whole time.

[Pescado_Rojo 19427]

15 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Look....is "asslicker69er" available or not?  Asking for @Pescado_Rojo

[NoName 16369]

10 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Some random guy named Chip Clark got the @chipotle handle in the early days of Twitter and has never let it go. Real Chipotle has been stuck with @chipotletweets this whole time.

the account name is: christine clements

1 tweet from 2010, 0 likes, 1 following (but when you click on it it says 0? who twi has it though), 17 followers.

no clue when they last logged in whotwi has it as 6/7/2010

prime example of one that should be released.

they need to just have basic standards around logging in but there are a ton of these that are old. even if they just deleted those that are 10+ years old and haven't logged in in the last 10 years it opens up a decent amount

like it was said earlier though, i fully expect them to screw it up in some dumb way.

[wildcat09 29366]

Auctioning off the names of actual people and businesses would almost certainly open them up to basically unlimited legal liability so I fully support it.

[Celery Man 20991]

 

[UnivTex34 1763]

17 minutes ago, NoName said:

the account name is: christine clements

1 tweet from 2010, 0 likes, 1 following (but when you click on it it says 0? who twi has it though), 17 followers.

no clue when they last logged in whotwi has it as 6/7/2010

prime example of one that should be released.

they need to just have basic standards around logging in but there are a ton of these that are old. even if they just deleted those that are 10+ years old and haven't logged in in the last 10 years it opens up a decent amount

like it was said earlier though, i fully expect them to screw it up in some dumb way.

You mean like misspelling Chipotle?

[texasdago 7577]

20 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

 

You just stole my @clownpenisdotfart joke 

[27-25 2047]

21 minutes ago, UnivTex34 said:

You mean like misspelling Chipotle?

That's how my wife pronounces the name.

[Sawbonz 27583]

2 hours ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

That was kinda my question. What unused usernames are out there that anyone would want? Haven't they all been taken by now?

[NoName 16369]

51 minutes ago, UnivTex34 said:

You mean like misspelling Chipotle?

 

29 minutes ago, 27-25 said:

That's how my wife pronounces the name.

i am a moron.

all that said if you want to see something funny with the REAL account:

look at this yellow check mark Mr. Clark has. he is an official business on twitter.

 

[SydneyCarton 48147]

1 hour ago, Helobious said:

Some random guy named Chip Clark got the @chipotle handle in the early days of Twitter and has never let it go. Real Chipotle has been stuck with @chipotletweets this whole time.

https://nissan.com/

[HornOnTheBayou 8945]

59 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

 

I'll start the bidding at a nickel.