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

[Brisketexan 104610]

32 minutes ago, NoName said:

regarding "turning Starlink off" lol

 

whole article on the house he wasn't going to build, including architect's name, and what would truly be a bad use of Boring Co

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-wanted-build-house-space-tunnels-tesla-boring-company-2023-9

funny Isaacson has all this info but Elon isn't building a house of any kind!

CCDH still releasing more info: https://counterhate.com/research/twitter-x-continues-to-host-posts-reported-for-extreme-hate-speech/
 

Remember, you live in a world where a psychopathic billionaire calls things that feature actual screencaps of posts and ads on Twitter appearing next to hate speech "psy ops."

Literal screenshots and quotes are "psy ops," per the psychopathic/sociopathic narcissist billionaire who literally owns and controls a major site for information.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

Elon stans think that they are "The Resistance," because they're too fucking stupid to realize they are "The Party."

[BrickHorn 18191]

12 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

What is hilarious to me is how all the sophisticated, impervious to info ops independent thinkers are falling for this transparent PR spin.

Ana is uniformly, comprehensively 100% skeptical of every single thing he reads in the media… except rightwing propaganda and absurd conspiracy fan fiction, which he accepts without hesitation or even momentary examination. 

The only thing that separates him from the typical “Do your own research!” rube is generally proper grammar and the occasional SAT word. 

['stache 21773]

5 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Ana is uniformly, comprehensively 100% skeptical of every single thing he reads in the media… except rightwing propaganda and absurd conspiracy fan fiction, which he accepts without hesitation or even momentary examination. 

The only thing that separates him from the typical “Do your own research!” rube is generally proper grammar and the occasional SAT word. 

Half the electorate is infected with professional contrarians.

[Captainant 27455]

Not sure how surly missed this, but elmo dated amber heard for a while? And he tweeted out pics of her doing a cosplay for elmo?

what a weird fuckin timeline we're on lol

[Francisco 2.0 32334]

[animaltobacco11 107]

I won't read the book because I have better things to do with my time, but from what I've read about the book and the literary criticism, if you can call it that, from the non-fiction/biography community of BookTok, TwitLit/Twitterature or whatever the community is called on X now, and The New Yorker, it's a shame that Isaacson is catching strays.

Why do people feel the need to shoot the messenger?

[Brisketexan 104610]

18 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

"BOTH SIDES!"  DRINK!

[Grade of D as in David 13253]

1 hour ago, animaltobacco11 said:

I won't read the book because I have better things to do with my time, but from what I've read about the book and the literary criticism, if you can call it that, from the non-fiction/biography community of BookTok, TwitLit/Twitterature or whatever the community is called on X now, and The New Yorker, it's a shame that Isaacson is catching strays.

Why do people feel the need to shoot the messenger?

Because the messenger helps the subject walk back items from the book because they make the subject look bad.

[animaltobacco11 107]

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

Because the messenger helps the subject walk back items from the book because they make the subject look bad.

I'm talking more about his work as a biographer and the end result that was put out. His job was to present biographical facts, as veracious as possible and to the best of his ability, and not interject his own personality, opinion or bias too much, but present in a more value neutral and clear way. People were mad at him for that and either they don't understand the biography genre or it's further creep of the "if you don't X then you are obviously a Y" society we've become. We all know Musk sucks and it was up to us to draw that conclusion, we don't need and shouldn't want that judgment forced upon us.

[Anastasis 23395]

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

Because the messenger helps the subject walk back items from the book because they make the subject look bad.

Or because the messenger just simply had the facts wrong. Whether he was mislead by Musk or he misunderstood, as he frames it, can be debated until you call the whole crew up to congress to testify under oath. And maybe even after that.  If you feel that Isaacson's credibility is shot, and I would agree with that take, you can look to other accounts... 

FWIW, here is an economist piece from Jan 2023, with sourcing to Ukrainian officials. The overall article is interesting and worth a read, and mentions the drones that were dead in the water without explicitly linking that even to Musk's decision to reject the Ukrainian request, but the relevant portion is excerpted below.  

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/01/05/how-elon-musks-satellites-have-saved-ukraine-and-changed-warfare 

This means that Mr Musk currently has a dominant position in both the launch market and satellite-internet operations. This concentration of power provides three causes of concern. Mr Musk is an unaccountable single individual; Mr Musk’s other business interests may play a role in his decisions; and Mr Musk is Mr Musk.

In September Ukrainian officials told The Economist that Mr Musk had rejected a Ukrainian request to allow Starlink to be used in Crimea, a part of Ukraine which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, and where Ukraine has conducted numerous raids on ports and air bases. 

[NoName 16296]

1 hour ago, animaltobacco11 said:

I won't read the book because I have better things to do with my time, but from what I've read about the book and the literary criticism, if you can call it that, from the non-fiction/biography community of BookTok, TwitLit/Twitterature or whatever the community is called on X now, and The New Yorker, it's a shame that Isaacson is catching strays.

Why do people feel the need to shoot the messenger?

no one put a gun to his head and made him do it, he chooses his projects and...

also if you are walking back a huge thing that went through the entire editing/fact checking process it makes you wonder how many other things you "got wrong" (even if it wasn't wrong in the first place)

it's a bad look.

[gsoda3 3236]

elon made an appearance (virtually) this weekend at the all-in summit where he claimed starlink was never made available to any russian held territory- including the crimean peninsula- and so any claims of him turning it off were impossible since starlink was never turned on over the crimea.  if i've done it right the video should cue right when he starts talking about this (5:31 mark).

 

[Francisco 2.0 32334]

https://www.theverge.com/23871530/elon-musk-biography-twitter-acquisition

 

Nine wild details from the new Elon Musk biography
 

Quote

Over the weekend, a highly anticipated book arrived in the mail. Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson’s first biography of a tech titan since his comprehensive take on Steve Jobs, followed from two years of Isaacson shadowing Musk in his travels around the world. Given Musk’s general antipathy toward the press, the book promised to offer the sort of fly-on-the-wall accounts of Musk’s recent life like no other.

Over more than 600 pages, Isaacson details the improbable arc of Musk’s life, from his early childhood under a cruel father and relentless schoolyard bullying through his purchase of Twitter and recent decision to launch yet another company.

 

Quote

Given Platformer’s close coverage of the Twitter saga over the past year, it was this aspect of the book that interested me the most. In some ways, Isaacson’s perspective on the story skews much closer to Musk’s than mine does — particularly in its depiction of Twitter 1.0 as more of an adult day-care center than a tech company. “Twitter prided itself on being a friendly place where coddling was considered a virtue,” Isaacson writes.

At the same time, anyone who comes to this book looking for evidence that Musk screwed things up there will not leave disappointed. On the whole, Isaacson depicts Musk as an era-defining genius shaped by childhood trauma and a manic, visionary zeal to invent.

 

Quote

At the same time, the biography does not suggest that Musk is pleasant, tolerable, or even safe to work for. After hundreds of pages of anecdotes, Isaacson notes accurately that Musk “preferred a scrappy, hard-driven environment where rabid warriors felt psychological danger rather than comfort.”

 

Spoiler

In any event, given the general interest in its subject, I imagine it will be one of the year’s bestselling books. Below are top details that stood out to me. If you read it, let me know what I missed. (I’m leaving out the story that Musk sabotaged a Ukraine attack on Russia by disabling Starlink service, which Musk denied and Isaacson has since said he got wrong.)

Twitter considered selling itself to Musk at a discount after he signed the original deal. Musk spent much of last year trying to get out of his deal for Twitter. Behind the scenes, he worked to get a discount. He wanted to save at least 10 percent on the purchase price; Twitter considered proposals that would have given him something closer to a 4 percent savings, Isaacson reports.

Unfortunately for Musk, restructuring the deal would have given banks the chance to renegotiate the terms of their loans. Interest rates rose significantly during between the deal being signed and its closing date, which would have wiped out any discounts.

The other big obstacle: in exchange for a lower price, Twitter’s C-suite wanted Musk to promise not to sue them in the future.

Musk’s response?

“We are never going to give them a legal release,” he said. “We will hunt every single one of them til the day they die.”

Jack Dorsey almost bailed on investing in Twitter 2.0. The Twitter co-founder, who famously called Musk “the singular solution I trust” to “extend the light of consciousness” as the company’s owner, very nearly reneged on his promise to roll his 2.4 percent stake in Twitter 1.0 into the new company. Isaacson reports that he had been “unnerved by the controversy and drama” surrounding the acquisition after Musk walked that sink into Twitter headquarters, and Musk had to call him several times and reassure him “that he truly loved Twitter and wouldn’t harm it.”

In the end, they struck a deal: if Dorsey ever wanted to cash out, Musk would pay him the original purchase price of $54.20 for the shares. As Dan Primack noted at Axios, Dorsey’s decision saved Musk about $1 billion.

Musk sought to ban activists for organizing an advertiser boycott after he bought the company. From the start, Musk has faced pressure from activists who urged him not to reduce the company’s investments in content moderation. This pressure ratcheted up significantly after Musk posted a lurid, baseless conspiracy theory about the attack last year on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

That tweet, which he posted three days after buying the company, led some activist groups to call for an advertising boycott. Advertisers began leaving in droves. Musk was outraged, accusing them in one tweet of “trying to destroy free speech in America.”

Musk believed the activist groups were trying to “blackmail” him into taking action, Isaacson reports. He shared that view with Yoel Roth, then his head of trust and safety, and ordered Roth to ban the activists.

Roth protested that the activists hadn’t violated any of the site’s published rules.

“I’m changing Twitter policy right now,” Musk said, according to Isaacson. “Blackmail is prohibited as of right now. Ban. Ban them.”

Roth ignored the directive, and Musk forgot about it.

The issue would of course be renewed this month, when Musk focused his rage on one of those activist groups in particular.

Musk knew the Twitter Blue rollout was going to be a disaster. Last year, Platformer was the first to report that Twitter’s trust and safety team had presented Musk with a seven-page list of recommendations designed to blunt the impact of the massive wave of impersonations that it correctly predicted would follow the introduction of paid verification badges. At the time, I assumed that Musk simply didn’t believe it would be as bad as the trust and safety team suggested, and blundered ahead anyway.

As Isaacson tells it, the story was even stranger. After reading the recommendations, he writes, Musk agreed to delay the launch — but only by two days. He then insisted that the company move forward, even while warning his lieutenants that disaster was likely to follow.

“There will be a massive attack,” he told a group of product leaders on November 7th. “There’s going to be a swarm of bad actors who will test the defenses. They will try to impersonate me and others and then go to the press, which will want to destroy us. It will be World War Three over the blue check marks. So we have to do everything possible to not have this be a total exploding egg-on-face situation.”

In the end, the company did almost nothing to address the trust and safety team’s concerns, and it was indeed a total exploding egg-on-face situation.

Musk privately acknowledged Twitter would need to be “careful” about China. After Musk took over Twitter, some observers wrote that his international business ties deserved more scrutiny. (See Matt Yglesias on this point.) Among the top concerns was that Musk would have difficulty resisting calls to remove posts critical of the Chinese Communist Party due to the fact that China is a major market and manufacturing site for Tesla.

When Musk brought in independent journalist Bari Weiss to write an installment of the Twitter Files last year, she pressed him on the issue. Musk had brought her in to tell the story that Twitter 1.0 executives had improperly restricted speech on the platform — but wouldn’t he soon find himself in a similar position in China?

Isaacson writes:

“Musk got annoyed. That was not what the conversation was supposed to be about. Weiss persisted. Musk said that Twitter would indeed have to be careful about the words it used regarding China, because Tesla’s business could be threatened. China’s repression of the Uyghurs, he said, had two sides. Weiss was disturbed. … They moved on to other topics.”

Sergey Brin tried to avoid their famous selfie together. Last summer, the Wall Street Journal published a memorable story alleging that Musk’s friendship with Google co-founder Sergey Brin had been ruptured after the former had a brief affair with Brin’s wife.

“Right after the story broke, they were at a party together, and Musk maneuvered himself into a position where he could take a selfie with Brin, which Brin tried to avoid,” Isaacson reports.

I would have read 500 more words about this party, and Brin’s feelings on the matter, but sadly the tale ends here. When I went to go look at the selfie today, I noticed that it had been deleted. (It is memorialized in the Daily Mail.)

Musk refused to work with Bill Gates on philanthropic issues because Gates took a short position on Tesla. On one hand, this hardly seems like a surprise — Musk’s antipathy toward short sellers is legendary. On the other, it’s painful to consider the good that might have been done had they been able to reach an accord. Projects that Gates pitched Musk on would have supported “refugees, American schools, and AIDS cure, eradicating some mosquito types through gene drives, and genetically modified seeds that will resist the effects of climate change.”

Gates seems to have laughed off the whole conflict — “he was super mean to me, but he’s super mean to so many people, so you can’t take it personally.” Grimes said “I imagine it’s a little bit of a dick-measuring contest.”

At the time of their meeting, incidentally, Gates had lost $1.5 billion shorting Tesla.

Hollywood super agent Ari Emanuel told Musk he would run Twitter for $100 million. Emanuel, who is CEO of the entertainment firm Endeavor, saw an opportunity last year when Musk signaled that he would go through with his $44 billion acquisition of the company.

“In a three-paragraph message sent on the encrypted text service Signal,” Isaacson writes, Emanuel made a proposal: he and Endeavor would run Twitter. “For a fee of $100 million, he said, he would take charge of cutting costs, creating a better culture, and managing relations with advertisers and marketers.”

The idea was quickly dismissed. Jared Birchall, a top Musk lieutenant, said it was “the most insulting, demeaning, insane message.” Musk had always intended to run Twitter himself.

Musk’s favorite mobile game is called The Battle of Polytopia. A turn-based strategy game not dissimilar from Civilization, Musk has at one point or another forced most of those closest to him to play against him. He once stopped speaking to Grimes for a day because she surprised him with a fireball attack. “It’s a huge fucking deal” he reportedly told her.

At one point Musk tells his brother, Kimbal, that playing Polytopia will teach him how to be a better CEO. Eventually they write down a shared list of life lessons they have learned from the game, including “Empathy is not an asset,” “optimize every turn,” and “double down.”

 

[Brisketexan 104610]

5 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Eventually they write down a shared list of life lessons they have learned from the game, including “Empathy is not an asset,” “optimize every turn,” and “double down.”

Awesome life lessons.  Except for one thing: life, on this planet with other human beings, is not a fucking computer game.

I mean, if "global domination" is your goal, there's a super-easy way to get there, using those exact values: exterminate all other humans.  There, easy-peasy, I just won the game!

"Empathy is not an asset" is the exact kind of value that gets us genocide, death camps, and all other manner of horrors.  I mean, I've got a vision of how America should be, and how our government and social systems should operate.  And I know the political groups that stand in opposition to that vision.  Using Elmo's rules, I can - indeed, I SHOULD - exterminate all members of those groups.

Fucking amoral narcissist sociopaths are bad fucking people.  Elmo is a bad, bad fucking person.

[Blotto 23434]

23 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

elon made an appearance (virtually) this weekend at the all-in summit where he claimed starlink was never made available to any russian held territory- including the crimean peninsula- and so any claims of him turning it off were impossible since starlink was never turned on over the crimea.  if i've done it right the video should cue right when he starts talking about this (5:31 mark).

 

Yeah, I saw earlier. If you read the following: https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/5966/download?inline , it states:

Quote

Section 1. (a) The following are prohibited: (i) new investment in the Crimea region of Ukraine by a United States person, wherever located; (ii) the importation into the United States, directly or indirectly, of any goods, services, or technology from the Crimea region of Ukraine; (iii) the exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States, or by a United States person, wherever located, of any goods, services, or technology to the Crimea region of Ukraine; and (iv) any approval, financing, facilitation, or guarantee by a United States person, wherever located, of a transaction by a foreign person where the transaction by that foreign person would be prohibited by this section if performed by a United States person or within the United States. (b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section apply except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the effective date of this order.

So that lends credence to Elon's claim that Starlink was never operational in Crimea. As SpaceX is a US corporation that relies heavily on the US government to survive, it seems logical that they wouldn't jeopardize that business by violating US sanctions. If the US government specifically requested Starlink be operational in Crimea to assist in Ukraine's war efforts and Elon originally agreed but then turned it off, someone in the government should be able to verify it was authorized. 

Did Ukraine never think to verify that Starlink would be operational the entire way to Crimea before they launched their drones? That seems like kind of a fuckup. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Blotto

[wildcat09 29243]

22 minutes ago, Blotto said:

Yeah, I saw earlier. If you read the following: https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/5966/download?inline , it states:

So that lends credence to Elon's claim that Starlink was never operational in Crimea. As SpaceX is a US corporation that relies heavily on the US government to survive, it seems logical that they wouldn't jeopardize that business by violating US sanctions. If the US government specifically requested Starlink be operational in Crimea to assist in Ukraine's war efforts and Elon originally agreed but then turned it off, someone in the government should be able to verify it was authorized. 

Did Ukraine never think to verify that Starlink would be operational the entire way to Crimea before they launched their drones? That seems like kind of a fuckup. 

Are you fucking serious with this shit?  You seriously think that Elon thought, or that anyone would think, that Ukraine using Starlink to operate drones in Crimea would've violated US sanctions? 

['stache 21773]

Free spee

3 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

Free speech absolutist! (unless speaking freely about Chinese human rights violations might interfere with the CEO's other business, in which case "Lets be careful what we say.")

[Blotto 23434]

Just now, wildcat09 said:

Are you fucking serious with this shit?  You seriously think that Elon thought, or that anyone would think, that Ukraine using Starlink to operate drones in Crimea would've violated US sanctions? 

I'm merely stating that since 2014 (or much earlier than starlink's existence), it appears that it would have been a violation of sanctions for Starlink to be operational in Crimea. Thus its reasonable to assume it was never operational there, unless specifically requested by the US government. 

[wildcat09 29243]

2 minutes ago, Blotto said:

I'm merely stating that since 2014 (or much earlier than starlink's existence), it appears that it would have been a violation of sanctions for Starlink to be operational in Crimea. Thus its reasonable to assume it was never operational there, unless specifically requested by the US government. 

This is stupid. 

[Blotto 23434]

Just now, wildcat09 said:

This is stupid. 

why

[wildcat09 29243]

Because selling Starlink units and service to the Ukrainian government is in no way exporting, selling, or supplying them to "the Crimea region" and there is a 0.00% chance anybody in the government would've ever interpreted it as such, particularly given the government's support and funding for them to do so.

He geofenced Starlink because Putin told him to and he didn't want to anger Putin, because he gets aluminum from Russian companies. 

[Blotto 23434]

2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Because selling Starlink units and service to the Ukrainian government is in no way exporting, selling, or supplying them to "the Crimea region" and there is a 0.00% chance anybody in the government would've ever interpreted it as such, particularly given the government's support and funding for them to do so.

He geofenced Starlink because Putin told him to and he didn't want to anger Putin, because he gets aluminum from Russian companies. 

Look man, you're not gonna find any praise from me on this thread for Elon. I'm just stating that it seems entirely consistent with US sanctions that prior to the war, Starlink communications (certainly qualifies as a technology or service) would not be enabled in Crimea. And unless specifically requested by the US government, entirely possible  Starlink was never enabled in Crimea during the war. 

[SydneyCarton 47876]

1 hour ago, gsoda3 said:

elon made an appearance (virtually) this weekend at the all-in summit where he claimed starlink was never made available to any russian held territory- including the crimean peninsula- and so any claims of him turning it off were impossible since starlink was never turned on over the crimea.  if i've done it right the video should cue right when he starts talking about this (5:31 mark).

 

I'm sorry, doesn't this statement also imply that Starlink was never actually functional in areas like the Donbas, which was Rusian occupied for years as well, had their own puppet government, and yet Ukraine just spent the last year and a half actively fighting on, using Starlink with zero issues whatsoever? This guy just flat out lied in the most obvious way. Is there something I'm missing there?

['stache 21773]

No, he's lying. He's been pro Russia the entire time, barely hid that but tried to "both sides" it, but now is implicated in having actively helped Russia, so is now trying to wiggle out of helping the enemy.

[animaltobacco11 107]

48 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

Followed by:

I hate to break it to you, but I think it’s pretty clear you don’t have better things to do with your time.

I like reading about literary fiction and the communities therein, but don't care about Elon Musk and won't read a 600 page book about him. You should actually read a work of fiction sometime, it will help you in surprising ways.

[SydneyCarton 47876]

1 minute ago, animaltobacco11 said:

I like reading about literary fiction and the communities therein, but don't care about Elon Musk and won't read a 600 page book about him. You should actually read a work of fiction sometime, it will help you in surprising ways.

You mean other than your delusional, bad faith posts that are nowhere tethered in reality?

[Hefeweizen 5307]

He is Chrispy.  That’s kind of his thing.

[animaltobacco11 107]

1 minute ago, SydneyCarton said:

You mean other than your delusional, bad faith posts that are nowhere tethered in reality?

Yes, that's clearly what I meant, you illiterate weirdo.

[Blotto 23434]

9 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I'm sorry, doesn't this statement also imply that Starlink was never actually functional in areas like the Donbas, which was Rusian occupied for years as well, had their own puppet government, and yet Ukraine just spent the last year and a half actively fighting on, using Starlink with zero issues whatsoever? This guy just flat out lied in the most obvious way. Is there something I'm missing there?

The only real difference I can see is the timing of the sanctions. Crimea sanctions were enabled in 2014, so before Starlink was even a thing. Donbas sanctions were instituted basically at the exact time of the Russian invasion by Biden (Feb 22). So presumably the Donbas regions would have been fair game for starlink to be operational prior to 2/22. Now obviously Musk didnt geofence Donbas after the war started. the only real uncertainty is if it was ever functional in  Crimea.

[SydneyCarton 47876]

2 minutes ago, Blotto said:

The only real difference I can see is the timing of the sanctions. Crimea sanctions were enabled in 2014, so before Starlink was even a thing. Donbas sanctions were instituted basically at the exact time of the Russian invasion by Biden (Feb 22). So presumably the Donbas regions would have been fair game for starlink to be operational prior to 2/22. Now obviously Musk didnt geofence Donbas after the war started. the only real uncertainty is if it was ever functional in  Crimea.

And the fact that he fucking just lied to a room full of people and it is recorded on the internet. 

 

[Pig Bellmont 8691]

2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Or because the messenger just simply had the facts wrong. Whether he was mislead by Musk or he misunderstood, as he frames it, can be debated until you call the whole crew up to congress to testify under oath. And maybe even after that.  If you feel that Isaacson's credibility is shot, and I would agree with that take, you can look to other accounts... 

FWIW, here is an economist piece from Jan 2023, with sourcing to Ukrainian officials. The overall article is interesting and worth a read, and mentions the drones that were dead in the water without explicitly linking that even to Musk's decision to reject the Ukrainian request, but the relevant portion is excerpted below.  

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/01/05/how-elon-musks-satellites-have-saved-ukraine-and-changed-warfare 

This means that Mr Musk currently has a dominant position in both the launch market and satellite-internet operations. This concentration of power provides three causes of concern. Mr Musk is an unaccountable single individual; Mr Musk’s other business interests may play a role in his decisions; and Mr Musk is Mr Musk.

In September Ukrainian officials told The Economist that Mr Musk had rejected a Ukrainian request to allow Starlink to be used in Crimea, a part of Ukraine which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014, and where Ukraine has conducted numerous raids on ports and air bases. 

So do you think Starlink going offline for an hour last night during the Ukrainian attack on Russian ships was a coincidence? 

[Blotto 23434]

2 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

And the fact that he fucking just lied to a room full of people and it is recorded on the internet. 

 

At the time of the 2022 sanction, licenses were given to companies to shield companies from the EO issued by Biden. 

Quote

Shortly following the issuance of the Executive Order, OFAC issued a series of general licenses (numbered 17 through 22), which effectively authorize certain transactions and business dealings otherwise prohibited by the Executive Order to the extent that they are “ordinarily incident and necessary to” the wind-down of prohibited transactions or other listed activities, including the export and re-export of agricultural and medical products, the receipt and transmission of telecommunications, the official business of certain listed entities and organizations, including the United Nations (the “UN”) and the exchange of personal communications over the Internet.

My guess is SpaceX was the recipient of one of these licenses.

[0xdeadbeef 1626]

25 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I'm sorry, doesn't this statement also imply that Starlink was never actually functional in areas like the Donbas, which was Rusian occupied for years as well, had their own puppet government, and yet Ukraine just spent the last year and a half actively fighting on, using Starlink with zero issues whatsoever? This guy just flat out lied in the most obvious way. Is there something I'm missing there?

I'm pretty sure in this very thread there were discussions a year ago about Starlink not being enabled for all of Ukraine.   My memory is old and is not as reliable as it once was, but I seem to recall Ukraine calling Elon out publicly to try and get Starlink enabled in new areas.  I don't have the time or energy to dig through 273 pages, and the site's search feature isn't granular enough. 

Someone posted a Starlink connection log showing an outage during the drydock yesterday.   If Starlink was ACTIVE and the turned OFF for the drone attack a year ago, can we get the same type log showing before and after?   That would be a lot better than this "He turned it off" vs "It was never on"  he-said / she-said crap. 

Either it was enabled before the drone attack or it wasn't .  Some smart person should be able to conclusively show that.

    

 

 

[UpperWestside 6136]

Criminal, war criminal, narcissistic head case, clownfraud, irredeemable human excrement. You can pick a ton of labels for this coward and all would fit. I have detailed my biggest issue with him, but to the rest of the world he needs to be remembered as a cowardly criminal that backed down in the face of authoritarianism because it is what he respects and aspires to be. He’ll never be the hero that he is in his mind (Absolutely has delusions of grandeur), but if you can control the narrative you can be whatever you want people to see you as. 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

I like reading about literary fiction and the communities therein, but don't care about Elon Musk and won't read a 600 page book about him. You should actually read a work of fiction sometime, it will help you in surprising ways.

I read the Bible already. It didn’t help.

[Blotto 23434]

1 minute ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

I'm pretty sure in this very thread there were discussions a year ago about Starlink not being enabled for all of Ukraine.   My memory is old and is not as reliable as it once was, but I seem to recall Ukraine calling Elon out publicly to try and get Starlink enabled in new areas.  I don't have the time or energy to dig through 273 pages, and the site's search feature isn't granular enough. 

Someone posted a Starlink connection log showing an outage during the drydock yesterday.   If Starlink was ACTIVE and the turned OFF for the drone attack a year ago, can we get the same type log showing before and after?   That would be a lot better than this "He turned it off" vs "It was never on"  he-said / she-said crap. 

Either it was enabled before the drone attack or it wasn't .  Some smart person should be able to conclusively show that.  

That would be welcome data, everything else is just speculation. Elon is a shitbag no doubt, but he can be a shit-bag and still be telling the truth about starlink not being operational in Crimea. Because enabling communications within Crimea using Starlink would have been a violation of US sanctions, its quite likely that SpaceX would have had to receive instructions or at least a blessing from the US government to proceed, so there should be others that can verify or call bullshit on Elon's claim. 

[956 Worldwide 34443]

2 hours ago, Blotto said:

Yeah, I saw earlier. If you read the following: https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/5966/download?inline , it states:

So that lends credence to Elon's claim that Starlink was never operational in Crimea. As SpaceX is a US corporation that relies heavily on the US government to survive, it seems logical that they wouldn't jeopardize that business by violating US sanctions. If the US government specifically requested Starlink be operational in Crimea to assist in Ukraine's war efforts and Elon originally agreed but then turned it off, someone in the government should be able to verify it was authorized. 

Did Ukraine never think to verify that Starlink would be operational the entire way to Crimea before they launched their drones? That seems like kind of a fuckup. 

You’re making the argument that by allowing maritime suicide drones to use starlink to guide them as they exploded the Black Sea fleet, Musk would have been “importing services or technology to the Crimea region?”

I can tell you with a deep base of knowledge on sanctions that this is not how it works. Not gonna get into flinging bombs but this is an argument best just left behind, it’s baseless. Musk couldn’t sell Teslas in Simferopol or offered Starlink services commercially to Crimean customers. 

[956 Worldwide 34443]

1 hour ago, Blotto said:

The only real difference I can see is the timing of the sanctions. Crimea sanctions were enabled in 2014, so before Starlink was even a thing. Donbas sanctions were instituted basically at the exact time of the Russian invasion by Biden (Feb 22). So presumably the Donbas regions would have been fair game for starlink to be operational prior to 2/22. Now obviously Musk didnt geofence Donbas after the war started. the only real uncertainty is if it was ever functional in  Crimea.

Just to expand on this logic, the IRGC has been sanctioned up the ass for years and you can’t transfer military technology to them or affiliated people. We did not violate our own sanctions when we transferred an AGM-114 Hellfire missile directly to Quds Force Commander Soleimani straight through the windshield of his SUV. 

1 hour ago, Blotto said:

The only real difference I can see is the timing of the sanctions. Crimea sanctions were enabled in 2014, so before Starlink was even a thing. Donbas sanctions were instituted basically at the exact time of the Russian invasion by Biden (Feb 22). So presumably the Donbas regions would have been fair game for starlink to be operational prior to 2/22. Now obviously Musk didnt geofence Donbas after the war started. the only real uncertainty is if it was ever functional in  Crimea.

Just to expand on this logic, the IRGC has been sanctioned up the ass for years and you can’t transfer military technology to them or affiliated people. We did not violate our own sanctions when we transferred an AGM-114 Hellfire missile directly to Quds Force Commander Soleimani directly through the windshield of his SUV. 

[TwiceHorn 31273]

2 hours ago, Blotto said:

Look man, you're not gonna find any praise from me on this thread for Elon. I'm just stating that it seems entirely consistent with US sanctions that prior to the war, Starlink communications (certainly qualifies as a technology or service) would not be enabled in Crimea. And unless specifically requested by the US government, entirely possible  Starlink was never enabled in Crimea during the war. 

Here's I think the thing.  Starlink can be available anywhere, subject to the company turning off the satellites or the service in that region, or everywhere, for that matter.  But the service is not usable except by people who have purchased, presumably lawfully, Starlink receivers/transceivers.

So, among other possibilities, by making Starlink available in Crimea does not violate the sanctions, so long as Starlink equipment is not sold into Crimea to make use of it.  Ukraine would have been using legitimate, purchased-outside-of-Crimea equipment.

[Blotto 23434]

Dude you said its not worth arguing about, and then continue to call me out? At least get my comments correct. I simply stated that due to US sanctions in place since 2014, Starlink should not have been operating in Crimea before the war. Elon's claims (yes he could be lying) that service in Crimea was never enabled is consistent with those sanctions. He obviously refused to enable communications for Ukraine when they wanted to attack the russian fleet. But that is a different scenario than the service being in use by the Ukranians in Crimean operations, Putin calling Elon requesting he turn it off, and Elon bending the knee.

And this entire threadjack wasnt driven by some desire of mine to make Elon look like a saint. It was to add context to the discussion earlier about what is most likely the reason for the inaccuracies in the bio by issacson and where does the truth lie. I did a fair amount of business with SpaceX in a previous life, and I know they take gov regs seriously. Because they depend on that teat for sustenance. Its believable to me that service wasn't enabled in Crimea because it would have been prohibited for 5 years before they even got their first satellites into orbit. That was my only point. 

[Blotto 23434]

26 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Here's I think the thing.  Starlink can be available anywhere, subject to the company turning off the satellites or the service in that region, or everywhere, for that matter.  But the service is not usable except by people who have purchased, presumably lawfully, Starlink receivers/transceivers.

So, among other possibilities, by making Starlink available in Crimea does not violate the sanctions, so long as Starlink equipment is not sold into Crimea to make use of it.  Ukraine would have been using legitimate, purchased-outside-of-Crimea equipment.

Yes, but if I want to make sure that organizations in Crimea aren't buying my equipment legally through 3rd party fronts, bootlegging it into Crimea, and then using my infrastructure for nefarious purposes, maybe I simply just disable satellite service to Crimea. That seems like a safer approach than tracking every purchase and the equipment after the fact, no? 

Edit - here's a discussion of that

https://www.arnoldporter.com/en/perspectives/advisories/2021/05/us-regulators-escalate-sanctions-enforcement

Quote

For companies that provide global services, these cases generally point to a few key themes:

Sanctions and export controls compliance procedures need to be implemented into all stages of a company’s product lifecycle, from sales to customer support.

Despite the cost and burden, the US government has repeatedly emphasized the need for a robust screening program, even where there are many users dispersed globally and the company does not have substantial information on its users.

Where possible, companies should use geofencing and other technical controls to prevent services from being provided to sanctioned or embargoed countries or jurisdictions without authorization.

Companies must take primary responsibility for trade compliance, including where they use third party agents and distributors. Third parties have been a significant cause of sanctions exposure in recent cases and this has not absolved first parties of liability.

 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Blotto

[Anastasis 23395]

7 hours ago, BrickHorn said:

Ana is uniformly, comprehensively 100% skeptical of every single thing he reads in the media…

Would be nice if some of you would learn from your lessons, and maybe muster something greater than 0%, Mr. #BothSidesHaveBeenToPrague. 

 

Media skepticism is 100% warranted. After Iraq the NYT had to publish an apology to the American people. The media is a tool of manipulation, esp when it comes to matters of politics and particularly foreign policy activities. But we as a nation generally have a short attention span and insist on making the same sorts of errors over and over again. Some people just seem to get a kick of out face planting themselves repeatedly and acting like it never happened.  

Edited September 13, 2023 by Anastasis

[Anastasis 23395]

2 hours ago, Pig Bellmont said:

So do you think Starlink going offline for an hour last night during the Ukrainian attack on Russian ships was a coincidence? 

I am not sure.  I would start from a null position, and assess the evidence to see if we can reject that null.  What are the potential explanations for a global down time event? It appears that the downtime was not limited to Ukraine theatre, but broadly impacted North America and Oceania and perhaps others. Seems like something that would be very traceable in terms of cause and in particular human interventions. Start with assessing factors insides SpaceX and those outside. I've seen explanations that range from "Elon is a treasonous traitor" to "solar flare event". I would tend to the less emotive explanations, but seems like this one can be readily sussed out by subject matter experts with the right info. Or an appropriate regulatory body.  

 

So what do you think?

[Brisketexan 104610]

21 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Media skepticism is 100% warranted.

"Media skepticism" = "therefore, I only consume information that agrees with me, and I accept it without question."  I'm confident that you're sitting there nodding your head, thinking "yeah, Brisket gets it, finally he's on team Anastasis," without realizing that you are among the modern group of "the ONLY things I believe are things contrary to what I see in the mainstream media."

We've caught the media being wrong many times.  So, we run to the arms of naked propaganda outfits.  It's fucking insanity.  The answer to "the NYT has gotten shit wrong" is not "therefore, Tucker Carlson is the arbiter of truth."

Elmo claiming to be all about "free speech," when he openly aligns with authoritarian regimes (China, the KSA) that actually fucking imprison or EXECUTE people for their speech is one thing...the fact that the "media skeptic" crowd then falls at his feet, praising him as the Lord of Free Speech, is fucking insanity.

[Anastasis 23395]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

"Media skepticism" = "therefore, I only consume information that agrees with me, and I accept it without question."   I'm confident that you're sitting there nodding your head, thinking "yeah, Brisket gets it, finally he's on team Anastasis," without realizing that you are among the modern group of "the ONLY things I believe are things contrary to what I see in the mainstream media."

Your confidence is misplaced and you are reverting to a strawman. 

 

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

We've caught the media being wrong many times.  So, we run to the arms of naked propaganda outfits.  It's fucking insanity.  The answer to "the NYT has gotten shit wrong" is not "therefore, Tucker Carlson is the arbiter of truth."

Who here is arguing this strawman?

 

[Brisketexan 104610]

Who here is arguing this strawman?
 

Elon. Elon argues that point. That exact point.

[Anastasis 23395]

1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

Elon. Elon argues that point. That exact point.

Elon doesn’t post here, and you were not quoting him, but I bet you can hit him up on Twitter. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Anastasis

[UpperWestside 6136]

29 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

"Media skepticism" = "therefore, I only consume information that agrees with me, and I accept it without question."  I'm confident that you're sitting there nodding your head, thinking "yeah, Brisket gets it, finally he's on team Anastasis," without realizing that you are among the modern group of "the ONLY things I believe are things contrary to what I see in the mainstream media."

We've caught the media being wrong many times.  So, we run to the arms of naked propaganda outfits.  It's fucking insanity.  The answer to "the NYT has gotten shit wrong" is not "therefore, Tucker Carlson is the arbiter of truth."

Elmo claiming to be all about "free speech," when he openly aligns with authoritarian regimes (China, the KSA) that actually fucking imprison or EXECUTE people for their speech is one thing...the fact that the "media skeptic" crowd then falls at his feet, praising him as the Lord of Free Speech, is fucking insanity.

I just kinda try to be polite to people I come across in life that have praise for Musk. He is one of the most intentionally destructive human beings alive. He will not change. He is incapable of even attempting to do better. He is who he is and anyone supporting him in any way is someone you just cease to converse with. There are better ways to spend our extremely short time on this planet  than being a mouthpiece for him. 

[Nicole44 22027]

I am loathe to wade into this discussion. Pretty much since my uncle unexpectedly passed away this May, I’ve put most politics on a shelf. Not eager to read about it, watch it or discuss it. Im a happier person. I read the news and watch sports. I can control what I want to learn about. 
 

That said trust but verify has always been my MO. By that I hit up the local news, AP and Reuters and a few other reputable sites. I compare those on the same story until I feel like I have a grasp on a particular story. 
 

 I do that with my own mother for fuck’s sake. She can’t be trusted to tell what happened yesterday without bedazzling or exaggerating or bending something to her point of view. Trust but verify means I check a few different sources when I hear about something. We all know there are camps here on both sides of the aisle that run directly to MSNBC or FOX to get their fix. To hear exactly what they want and to hear it with the spin they absolutely want in their story.  Much like people come out of a convention from their party of choice spouting all the platitudes like they are simps from Scientology. 
 

I ask questions not to be disingenuous but because I do think there are motivations larger than news organizations particularly the 24 hour ones that care less about the basics. The who, what, why, when and how are almost less important than putting that SPIN on it.
 

you see it all the time when reporters write a piece or do fact checking. A lot of the news is written from opinion as well and the belief system of the person reporting it has some influence. It’s foolish to believe otherwise.  
 

I say all this to say I have never liked Elon. I think he’s an asshole. I didn’t like him many years ago and I don’t like him now. 
 

The truth has become a topic now for debate on almost every issue and it’s annoying. Trust but verify. I do that with my mom. Almost always “the God’s honest truth” she just told me about some event that happened yesterday has been spun in some way. Only a lemming would believe whatever they are told. No matter who it is telling the tale. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Nicole44

[Brisketexan 104610]

Elon doesn’t post here, and you were not quoting him, but I bet you can hit him up on Twitter. 

When you take the positions that Elon takes, you need to own them. Elon hates the NYT as much as you do. He preaches the gospel of media skepticism. When you sing in harmony with someone, you’re gonna get called on it.