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

[Captain Ron 12,793]

4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Are we witnessing the origin story of a Bond villain? Or have we progressed to that sentence being in the past tense?

Bond villain? More like Dr. Evil. Dude isn't smart enough to be a Bond villain.

[956 Worldwide 34,422]

7 hours ago, Foosters said:

Agreed. But despite everyone's OUTRAGE at what he's doing, many here can't even be bothered to go somewhere else to get their news and memes. 

Evergreeen:

[Francisco 2.0 32,318]

The Post has an excerpt from Isaacson's book:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/07/elon-musk-starlink-ukraine-russia-invasion/

 

Quote

An hour before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, it used a massive malware attack to disable the routers of the American satellite company Viasat that provided communications to the country. The command system of the Ukrainian military was crippled, making it almost impossible to mount a defense. Top Ukrainian officials frantically appealed to SpaceX founder Elon Musk for help, and the deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, used Twitter to urge him to send Ukraine terminals so it could use the satellite system that the company had built. “We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations,” he wrote.

 

 

Quote

Musk agreed. Two days later, 500 Starlink terminals arrived in Ukraine. “We have the U.S. military looking to help us with transport, State has offered humanitarian flights and some compensation,” Gwynne Shotwell, Musk’s president at SpaceX, emailed him. “Folks are rallying for sure!”

“Cool,” Musk responded. “Sounds good.” He got on a Zoom call with President Volodymyr Zelensky, discussed the logistics of a larger rollout and promised to visit Ukraine when the war was over.

 

 

Quote

Ever since he was a scrawny and socially awkward kid getting beaten up on his school playground in South Africa, Elon Musk has liked to imagine himself as a hero rushing to the rescue, engaged in epic quests. He was deeply into comics, and the single-minded passion of the superheroes impressed him. “They’re always trying to save the world, with their underpants on the outside or these skintight iron suits, which is really pretty strange when you think about it,” he says. “But they aretrying to save the world.” The war in Ukraine, when no other company or even country could manage to keep communications satellites working, gave him a center-stage opportunity to show his humanitarian instincts while playing superhero. It also showed the complexities of critical military infrastructure being controlled by an often well-intentioned but mercurial private citizen.

 

 

Spoiler

Lauren Dreyer, SpaceX’s director of Starlink operations, began sending Musk updates twice a day. “Starlink kits are already allowing Ukraine Armed Forces to continue operating theater command centers,” she wrote on March 1. “These kits can be life or death, as the opponent is now focusing heavily on comms infrastructure. They are asking for more.”

The next day, SpaceX sent 2,000 more terminals via Poland. But Dreyer said the electricity was off in some areas, so many of them wouldn’t work. “Let’s offer to ship some field solar+battery kits,” Musk replied. “They can have some Tesla Powerwalls or Megapacks too.” The batteries and solar panels were soon on their way.

Every day that week, Musk held regular meetings with the Starlink engineers. Unlike every other satellite service, they were able to find ways to defeat Russian jamming. By March 6, the company was providing voice connections for a Ukrainian special operations brigade. Starlink kits were also used to connect the Ukrainian military to the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command and to get Ukrainian television broadcasts back up. Within days, 6,000 more terminals and dishes were shipped, and by July there were 15,000 Starlink terminals operating in Ukraine.

Starlink was soon garnering lavish press coverage. “The conflict in Ukraine has provided Musk and SpaceX’s fledgling satellite network with a trial-by-fire that has whetted the appetite of many Western militaries,” Politico wrote after profiling Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines using the service. “Commanders have been impressed by the company’s ability, within days, to deliver thousands of backpack-sized satellite stations to the war-torn country and to keep them online despite increasingly sophisticated attacks from Russian hackers.” The Wall Street Journal also did a feature. “Without Starlink, we would have been losing the war,” one Ukrainian platoon commander told the paper.

Starlink contributed about half of the cost of the dishes and services it provided. “How many have we donated so far?” Musk wrote to Dreyer on March 12. She replied, “2000 free Starlinks and monthly service. Also, 300 heavily discounted.” The company soon donated 1,600 additional terminals, and Musk estimated its total contribution to be around $80 million.

Other funding came from government agencies, including those in the United States, Britain, Poland and the Czech Republic. There were also contributions from private individuals. The historian Niall Ferguson sent out an email to friends seeking to raise $5 million for the purchase and transport of 5,000 more Starlink kits. “If you would like to contribute, please let me know as soon as you can,” he wrote. “I cannot overstate the importance of the role Starlink has played in keeping the communications of the Ukrainian government from being taken out by the Russians.” Three hours later, he got a reply from Marc Benioff, the billionaire co-founder of Salesforce. “I’m in for $1M,” he wrote. “Elon rocks.”

By September, however, both Musk and military leaders in Ukraine and the United States were realizing the complexity of their relationship. One Friday evening that month, just after spending a week with Musk, I was back home in New Orleans watching a football game at my old high school. (The occasion was that it was one of the final games for the school’s superstar quarterback, Arch Manning.) My phone started vibrating with messages from Musk.

“This could be a giant disaster,” he texted. I went behind the bleachers to ask him what the problem was. He was in full Muskian crisis-hero-drama mode, this time understandably. A dangerous issue had arisen, and he believed there was “a non-trivial possibility,” as he put it, that it could lead to a nuclear war — with Starlink partly responsible. The Ukrainian military was attempting a sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet based at Sevastopol in Crimea by sending six small drone submarines packed with explosives, and it was using Starlink to guide them to the target.

Although he had readily supported Ukraine, he believed it was reckless for Ukraine to launch an attack on Crimea, which Russia had annexed in 2014. He had just spoken to the Russian ambassador to the United States. (In later conversations with a few other people, he seemed to imply that he had spoken directly to President Vladimir Putin, but to me he said his communications had gone through the ambassador.) The ambassador had explicitly told him that a Ukrainian attack on Crimea would lead to a nuclear response. Musk explained to me in great detail, as I stood behind the bleachers, the Russian laws and doctrines that decreed such a response.

Throughout the evening and into the night, he personally took charge of the situation. Allowing the use of Starlink for the attack, he concluded, could be a disaster for the world. So he secretly told his engineers to turn off coverage within 100 kilometers of the Crimean coast. As a result, when the Ukrainian drone subs got near the Russian fleet in Sevastopol, they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly.

When the Ukrainian military noticed that Starlink was disabled in and around Crimea, Musk got frantic calls and texts asking him to turn the coverage back on. Fedorov, the deputy prime minister who had originally enlisted his help, secretly shared with him the details of how the drone subs were crucial to their fight for freedom. “We made the sea drones ourselves, they can destroy any cruiser or submarine,” he texted using an encrypted app. “I did not share this information with anyone. I just want you — the person who is changing the world through technology — to know this.”

Musk replied that the design of the drones was impressive, but he refused to turn the coverage for Crimea back on, arguing that Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat.” He discussed the situation with President Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, explaining to them that he did not wish Starlink to be used for offensive purposes. He also called the Russian ambassador to assure him that Starlink was being used for defensive purposes only. “If the Ukrainian attacks had succeeded in sinking the Russian fleet, it would have been like a mini Pearl Harbor and led to a major escalation,” Musk says. “We did not want to be a part of that.”

He took it upon himself to help find an end to the war in Ukraine, proposing a peace plan that included new referendums in Donbas and other Russian-controlled regions, accepting that Crimea was a part of Russia and assuring that Ukraine remained a “neutral” nation rather than becoming part of NATO. It provoked an uproar. “F--- off is my very diplomatic reply to you,” said Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany. Zelensky was a bit more cautious. He posted a poll on Twitter asking users which Musk they liked better: “One who supports Ukraine” or “One who supports Russia.”

Musk backed down a bit. “SpaceX’s out of pocket cost to enable and support Starlink in Ukraine is ~$80M so far,” he wrote in response to Zelensky’s question. “Our support for Russia is $0. Obviously, we are pro Ukraine.” But then he added, “Trying to retake Crimea will cause massive death, probably fail and risk nuclear war. This would be terrible for Ukraine and Earth.”

In early October, Musk extended his restrictions on the use of Starlink for offensive operations by disabling some of its coverage in the Russian-controlled regions of southern and eastern Ukraine. This resulted in another flurry of calls and highlighted the outsize role that Starlink was playing. Neither Ukraine nor the United States had been able to find any other communication systems that could match Starlink or fend off attacks from Russian hackers. Feeling unappreciated, he suggested that SpaceX was no longer willing to bear some of the financial burden.

Shotwell, president of SpaceX, also felt strongly that the company should stop subsidizing the Ukrainian military operation. Providing humanitarian help was fine, but private companies should not be financing a foreign country’s war. That should be left to the government, which is why the United States has a foreign military sales program that puts a layer of protection between private companies and foreign governments. Other companies, including big and profitable defense contractors, were charging billions to supply weapons to Ukraine, so it seemed unfair that Starlink, which was not yet profitable, should do it for free.

“We initially gave the Ukrainians free service for humanitarian and defense purposes, such as keeping up their hospitals and banking systems,” she says. “But then they started putting them on f---ing drones trying to blow up Russian ships. I’m happy to donate services for ambulances and hospitals and mothers. That’s what companies and people should do. But it’s wrong to pay for military drone strikes.”

Shotwell began negotiating a contract with the Pentagon. SpaceX would continue to provide another six months of free service to the terminals that were being used for humanitarian purposes, but it would no longer provide free service to ones used by the military; the Pentagon should pay for that. An agreement was struck that the Pentagon would pay SpaceX $145 million to cover the service.

But then the story leaked, igniting a backlash against Musk in the press. He decided to withdraw his request for funding. SpaceX would provide free service indefinitely for the terminals that were already in Ukraine. “The hell with it,” he tweeted. “Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

Shotwell thought that was ridiculous. “The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally. Then Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story.”

Fedorov tried to smooth things over by sending Musk encrypted text messages lavishing him with thanks. “Not everyone understands your contribution to Ukraine. I am confident that without Starlinks, we would be unable to function successfully. Thanks again.”

Fedorov said he understood Musk’s position of not allowing Starlink service to be used for attacks in Crimea. But he pushed Musk to allow Ukraine to use the service to fight in the Russian-controlled regions in the south and east. That led to an amazingly candid secret encrypted exchange:

Fedorov: The exclusion of these territories is absolutely unfair. I come from Vasylivka village in Zaporizhzhia region, my parents and friends live there. Now this village is occupied by Russian troops, and there is complete lawlessness and outrage—the residents are impatiently waiting for liberation. . . . At the end of September, we noticed that Starlink does not work in the liberated villages, which makes it impossible to restore the critical infrastructure of these territories. For us it is a matter of life and death.

Musk: Once Russia is fully mobilized, they will destroy all infrastructure throughout Ukraine and push far past the current territories. NATO will have to intervene to prevent all of Ukraine falling to Russia. At that point, risk of WW3 becomes very high.

Fedorov: Mobilization in Russia can lead to the overthrow of Putin. This is not a war of Russian people and they don’t want to go to Ukraine.

Musk: Russia will stop at nothing, nothing, to hold Crimea. This poses catastrophic risk to the world. . . . Seek peace while you have the upper hand. . . . Let’s discuss this. [Musk included his new private cell phone number.] I will support any pragmatic path to peace that serves the greater good for all of humanity.

Fedorov: I understand. We look through the eyes of Ukrainians, and you from the position of a person who wants to save humanity. And not just wants, but does more than anybody else for this.

After his exchange with Fedorov, Musk felt frustrated. “How am I in this war?” he asked me during a late-night phone conversation. “Starlink was not meant to be involved in wars. It was so people can watch Netflix and chill and get online for school and do good peaceful things, not drone strikes.”

In the end, with Shotwell’s help, SpaceX made arrangements with various government agencies to pay for increased Starlink service in Ukraine, with the military and CIA working out the terms of service. More than 100,000 new satellite dishes were sent to Ukraine at the beginning of 2023. In addition, Starlink launched a companion service called Starshield, which was specifically designed for military use. SpaceX licensed Starshield satellites and services to the U.S. military and other agencies, allowing the government to determine how they could and should be used in Ukraine and elsewhere.

 

 

[trza-hawk 269]

 

[atomheartbevo 89,407]

56 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

By September, however, both Musk and military leaders in Ukraine and the United States were realizing the complexity of their relationship. One Friday evening that month, just after spending a week with Musk, I was back home in New Orleans watching a football game at my old high school. (The occasion was that it was one of the final games for the school’s superstar quarterback, Arch Manning.) 

57 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Although he had readily supported Ukraine, he believed it was reckless for Ukraine to launch an attack on Crimea, which Russia had annexed in 2014. He had just spoken to the Russian ambassador to the United States. (In later conversations with a few other people, he seemed to imply that he had spoken directly to President Vladimir Putin, but to me he said his communications had gone through the ambassador.) The ambassador had explicitly told him that a Ukrainian attack on Crimea would lead to a nuclear response. Musk explained to me in great detail, as I stood behind the bleachers, the Russian laws and doctrines that decreed such a response.

Musk is so easily pushed around by simple words.  He's like all the other Qanon believers I've known, that fall for the stupidest shit - people who are like "don't trust the government", but then the Russians tell him something could lead to a nuclear war and he fucking falls for it, hook, line, and sinker, without thinking that a nuclear war in Ukraine would turbo-fuck Russia.

59 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Shotwell thought that was ridiculous. “The Pentagon had a $145 million check ready to hand to me, literally. Then Elon succumbed to the bullshit on Twitter and to the haters at the Pentagon who leaked the story.”

I'm still surprised she's not been fired by him.

And this sums up Musk to a T - believing in twitter bullshit.

[pops 6,973]

Piece of shit, Confirmed. 

[Neonmoon 38,127]

Motion to change the thread title 

7 hours ago, pops said:

Piece of shit, Confirmed. 

@immamac

[Captain Ron 12,793]

And that should be Official, not unofficial. 

[wildcat09 29,224]

 

Elon's affirmatively helping Putin kill Ukrainian children. I feel like there's something in the vast federal criminal code we prosecute him for.

[Francisco 2.0 32,318]

As recently as a year ago, Musk was adamant about a new Tesla vehicle without a steering wheel, pedals or even mirrors:

 

https://www.axios.com/2023/09/08/tesla-musk-global-electric-car-robotaxis

 

Quote

Elon Musk was so obsessed with robotaxis that he repeatedly vetoed his own plan to build a $25,000 electric car in favor of them — until skeptical Tesla executives persuaded him to hedge his bet, Musk biographer Walter Isaacson tells Axios.

The notoriously stubborn Tesla CEO finally relented when aides revealed a plan to build both a robotaxi and an inexpensive small car side by side in a cutting-edge factory, according to an exclusive Axios excerpt from Isaacson's forthcoming book, "Elon Musk," out Tuesday.
Why it matters: A $25,000 electric car would be a game-changer in the auto industry's fight against climate change — especially in the U.S., where consumers are facing high inflation and a lack of affordable options.

 

Quote

Catch up quick: Tesla's Master Plan, first published in 2006, always called for using money made on early models, like the $100,000-plus Roadster and the Model S, to bring down the cost of future vehicles.

The Model 3, promised at $35,000, was supposed to be Tesla's affordable family car. But it debuted in 2017 at $52,000, and today still starts above $40,000 before incentives and tax credits.
Meanwhile, Musk's fascination with self-driving robotaxis kept growing.

He predicted Tesla owners would earn more than $30,000 a year by dispatching their cars to run errands or give driverless rides to others.
Over time, he believed robotaxis would eliminate the need for people to even own cars, he told Isaacson.

 

Quote

In November 2021, Musk gathered his top five lieutenants for dinner in Austin to start brainstorming a basic, high-volume robotaxi.

"There is no amount that we could possibly build that will be enough," Musk said, per Isaacson. "Someday we want to be at 20 million a year."
For nearly a year, they debated whether to play it safe and build the car with a steering wheel and pedals, or make it truly autonomous.

The gamble: Regulators might not approve an autonomous car without traditional controls.

 

Spoiler

Most of Musk's engineers pushed for the safer, conventional option. They had a more realistic outlook on how long it would take for Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology to be ready, Isaacson writes.

"If we go down a path of having no steering wheel, and FSD is not ready, we won't be able to put them on the road," Tesla's longtime chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, told Musk at a fateful meeting on Aug. 18, 2022.
The designer suggested making a car with a steering wheel and pedals that could be easily removed later.
Musk was adamant, Isaacson writes: "No mirrors, no pedals, no steering wheel. This is me taking responsibility for this decision."

When his deputies still resisted, Musk got into one of his very cold moods.
"Let me be clear," Musk said slowly. "This vehicle must be designed as a clean robotaxi. We're going to take that risk. It's my fault if it f--ks up. But we are not going to design some sort of amphibian frog that's a halfway car. We are all in on autonomy."
The big picture: Musk believed a Tesla robotaxi would be truly revolutionary.

"This is the product that makes Tesla a ten-trillion company," he told Isaacson. "People will be talking about this moment in a hundred years."
But his deputies remained skeptical about the readiness of FSD, and finally found a way to persuade him to cover his bet "in a non-challenging way," Isaacson writes.
Details: At a secretive meeting late one evening in September 2022, von Holzhausen and a few others presented data showing that a small, inexpensive global car was needed to meet Tesla's ambitious 50% annual growth targets.

They convinced Musk that Tesla could build both the $25,000 car and the robotaxi on a "next-generation" engineering platform, using the same assembly lines.
Musk had long believed that Tesla's production system — "the machine that builds the machine" — was even more important to its success than its vehicles.
So he saw the opportunity to design a new high-speed, ultra-automated manufacturing process for both cars.
Though initially unenthusiastic about the $25,000 car, Musk's attitude changed after a design review session in February 2023, when von Holzhausen put models of the robotaxi and the $25,000 car next to each other in the studio.

Both had a futuristic design like the Tesla Cybertruck — an angular, stainless steel pickup truck that had yet to debut.
Musk loved the designs. "When one of these comes around a corner," he said, "people will think they are seeing something from the future."

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Francisco 2.0

[Captainant 27,442]

8 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

 

Elon's affirmatively helping Putin kill Ukrainian children. I feel like there's something in the vast federal criminal code we prosecute him for.

I can't imagine that starlink doesn't receive regulation as a result of this. Or some form of new contract that doesn't allow this sort of corporate meddling in a nations fight against authoritarianism. 

Just absolutely insane and another salient example of how we have let corporate power grow wayyyyyy out of check

[wildcat09 29,224]

14 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I can't imagine that starlink doesn't receive regulation as a result of this. Or some form of new contract that doesn't allow this sort of corporate meddling in a nations fight against authoritarianism. 

Just absolutely insane and another salient example of how we have let corporate power grow wayyyyyy out of check

It's almost a certainty that SpaceX violated the existing contract. The problem is Elon doesn't give a shit about contracts and flagrantly violates them all the time.

The only way to change his behavior would be severe financial penalties or criminal prosecution.

[Post Oak 20,183]

4 hours ago, Neonmoon said:

Motion to change the thread title 

@immamac

He's currently busy trafficking a caravan of degenerates across state lines.

[Post Oak 20,183]

53 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

 

Elon's affirmatively helping Putin kill Ukrainian children. I feel like there's something in the vast federal criminal code we prosecute him for.

Motion to change board name to "A cocktail of ignorance and big ego"

['stache 21,759]

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

[DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12,301]

can we send this cunt back to South Africa?

[C-Man 27,041]

20 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

A bond Villain? For not paying his vendors? You're basically just watching Donald Trump. 

Donald Trump is an oafish Batman villain.

[Pods 7,526]

They've got the same body shape, but I'm taking the Penguin in the cage match. 

[Brian Fantana 6,667]

2 hours ago, C-Man said:

Donald Trump is an oafish Batman villain.

He's fat White Goldman

[Chopper 17,153]

On 9/7/2023 at 12:40 PM, Foosters said:

I couldn't help but go to the anti-Semitic/pedophilic/racist website because the alternatives aren't convenient is a take.

TBH, its not so much using the site that bothers me. Its posters who bitch non-stop about the grave threat of the messages being amplified on twitter, but still use the product. 

Edit: I understand that the media's reliance on Twitter to push their stories is mostly to blame, and its left users without much of an alternative. If the larger media groups decided to stop using Twitter as their primary form of disseminating their product, the site would be rendered obsolete overnight. But, that would hurt the bottom line. So instead, you have *very serious* think pieces written in serious publications about the dangers of the rise of antisemitism, posted on twitter right next to a post by GastheJ3ws1488. Feels like I'm taking crazy pills.

A lot of the media are dipping are also utilizing threads, bluesky, post, etc but I guess most can't afford/don't have the backbone/don't want to lose followers so they stay on twitter, too.

Walt Mossberg reported closing his twitter account this week. But he doesn't really need twitter either. (this is from Post)

[Fastbreak 3,957]

What a time to be alive when two of the worst humans to have ever walked the earth are in positions of power and influence at the same time…

[SizzleChest 8,275]

New thread title fucks.

[Goredho 17,345]

14 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

 

Elon's affirmatively helping Putin kill Ukrainian children. I feel like there's something in the vast federal criminal code we prosecute him for.

So much for net neutrality.

[956 Worldwide 34,422]

When the war is over I am looking forward to some Mosaad-style Ukrainian intelligence squads to put a black bag on this asshole’s head and fly him straight to Mariupol. Try him in the ruins of the theatre and when he asks for consular services we can tweet that we actually never activated them in that area.

[pops 6,973]

Every fucking federal contract,  subsidy, tax incentive and any other benefit this fucking grifter receives from the United States should be immediately canceled. All IP seized under the auspices of national security. 

Let that fuck go sell electric ladas in Siberia with his butt brother. 

He can eat all the dicks. Die in a fire and get fisted with thors hammer. 

[Anastasis 23,393]

I wonder how the book pre orders are going. 

[Chopper 17,153]

I was against extra-judicial CIA killings on US soil before I was for 'em.

[Chopper 17,153]

On 9/7/2023 at 6:13 PM, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

 

 

 

Just for the record, Ego Mosk acted at the behest of a Russian official when he shut down starlink to interfere in a Ukranian attack on Crimea. It may have been Vlad, it may have been the Russian Ambassador to the US. But Ego's "official" biographer/fluffer confirmed it.

[Chopper 17,153]

From George Conway on Post...he does a lot of twitter screenshots. This one's too good.

[Pods 7,526]

When those drones washed ashore harmlessly, it also gave Russia intact drones to dismantle and learn how to stop them. Elon shut the drones off in early Sept 2022. The drones washed up on the shore in late September 2022. It would have taken the Russians a long time to reconstruct enough of the drones to prepare defenses, but Elon just handed them some intact ones. 

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/09/ukraines-new-weapon-to-strike-russian-navy-in-sevastopol/

 

 

Ukraine had launched 6 drones going for a surprise kill shot on the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Elon personally shut it off and told the Russian ambassador he did so. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/09/07/elon-musk-starlink-ukraine-russia-invasion/

Quote

He also called the Russian ambassador to assure him that Starlink was being used for defensive purposes only. “If the Ukrainian attacks had succeeded in sinking the Russian fleet, it would have been like a mini Pearl Harbor and led to a major escalation,” Musk says. “We did not want to be a part of that.”

How many civilians have Russian missile cruisers and missile subs killed since September 2022?

Elon is personally responsible for every one of those deaths. 

[956 Worldwide 34,422]

Walter Issacson, Musk biographer and geopolitical expert, says Musk was right and that letting the attack happen “could have caused a major war.”

Maybe like, I don’t know, the largest war in Europe since 1945? Imagine if that happened? 
 

Wait……

 

[Chopper 17,153]

Just an fyi, when I'm not shitposting on Surly I'm the CEO of General Dynamics. Rest assured, for the overall well-being of the world, I've given President Xi many assurances that we will not allow our combat systems to be used to escalate the war of words between China and their province, Taiwan. Our weapons are for China's benefit only, they must not and will not be used to further any claim of independence by the province of Taiwan. I may not have told the USDOD about my decision but I have absolutely allayed my position on this to President Xi.

[956 Worldwide 34,422]

2 hours ago, Chopper said:

Just for the record, Ego Mosk acted at the behest of a Russian official when he shut down starlink to interfere in a Ukranian attack on Crimea. It may have been Vlad, it may have been the Russian Ambassador to the US. But Ego's "official" biographer/fluffer confirmed it.

Absolutely fucking wild that we have a whole gotdamn command basically dedicated to nuclear deterrence and all Russia needs is to huff, puff, and bluff to our most incel billionaire. 

[chainsaw 9,837]

4 hours ago, Chopper said:

I was against extra-judicial CIA killings on US soil before I was for 'em.

I'm not in favor of opening that door, regardless how tempting it might be to do in these particular circumstances.

I do think Elon has probably committed several felonies under Ukrainian law and, by purposefully doing business with Ukraine, consented to its exercise of jurisdiction over him.

I think this Treaty would allow Ukraine to ask us to arrest him and transport him to Ukraine

https://www.congress.gov/106/cdoc/tdoc16/CDOC-106tdoc16.pdf

[Anastasis 23,393]

So Isaacson’s account on the media platform owned by billionaire #1 contradicts his account on the media platform owned by billionaire #2. But based on these contradictory accounts from the same person that is promoting their new book, we got people here talking about snuffing out one of the two billionaires because he is not totally in the tank for nuclear war. What a fucking world. 

[Pig Bellmont 8,691]

Of course Ana comes here to defend someone helping the Russians. How does Ukraine attacking Russian ships mean nuclear war? What bomb went off when the Muskova sank? Fuck right off with your trolling garbage 

[Anastasis 23,393]

You’re a dumbass. Isaacson is all over the place. And you are completely deluded if you think that that the us govt was not in the loop and implicitly in agreement with starlinks geo fence. 

Edited September 9, 2023 by Anastasis

[chainsaw 9,837]

5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

You’re a dumbass. Isaacson is all over the place. And you are completely deluded if you think that that the us govt was not in the loop and implicitly in agreement with starlinks geo fence. 

Am I to understand you believe Musk was acting on secret orders from DOD to sabotage Ukraine in a way that allowed Russia to recover and reverse engineer drone tech?

[Anastasis 23,393]

3 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Am I to understand you believe Musk was acting on secret orders from DOD to sabotage Ukraine in a way that allowed Russia to recover and reverse engineer drone tech?

Do your parents make you wear a helmet when you go outside?

[chainsaw 9,837]

39 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Do your parents make you wear a helmet when you go outside?

Enlighten us then

[ztejas 43,262]

The boner some of y'all have for Ukraine is so fucking weird. 

[Chopper 17,153]

@Anastasis

I'll type really slllloooooowwwwwwlllllllllyyyy in hope it helps you grasp what happened. This is in chronological order. Hopefully you know what that means but please ask if you don't.

A. Mosk's Official Fluffer-in-Chief Isaacson writes an article for the Post. Those were all his words. The report wouldn't have come out had Isaacson not written it to blow smoke up Ego's skirt. Follow-up articles were written to capture the opinions of Ukranians. As at least one article states, the Ukrainians were surprised the information had come out. But Isaacson was priming the pump for his book and seeking to make his boss look like some beacon of virtue.

B. Outrage ensues, and rightly so, that defense contractor Mosk was not only actively working in support of Russia and against the interests of the USA, but also that his actions led directly to the death of Ukranian civilians.

C. Mosk's Fluffer-in-Chief tries to walk back as much of his original words that he can.

D. Again, back to Part A. These are Isaacson's words. He is Mosk's official fluffer. Where it was published has nothing to do with anything, you fucking moron.

 

D. Are there any medications or therapies you haven't tried that might help you increase the flow of blood to your brain (acupuncture? stem cell therapy?), or are you pretty much beyond hope?

Edited September 9, 2023 by Chopper

[Anastasis 23,393]

18 minutes ago, Chopper said:

@Anastasis

I'll type really slllloooooowwwwwwlllllllllyyyy in hope it helps you grasp what happened. This is in chronological order. Hopefully you know what that means but please ask if you don't.

A. Mosk's Official Fluffer-in-Chief Isaacson writes an article for the Post. Those were all his words. The report wouldn't have come out had Isaacson not written it to blow smoke up Ego's skirt. Follow-up articles were written to capture the opinions of Ukranians. As at least one article states, the Ukrainians were surprised the information had come out. But Isaacson was priming the pump for his book and seeking to make his boss look like some beacon of virtue.

B. Outrage ensues, and rightly so, that defense contractor Mosk was not only actively working in support of Russia and against the interests of the USA, but also that his actions led directly to the death of Ukranian civilians.

C. Mosk's Fluffer-in-Chief tries to walk back as much of his original words that he can.

D. Again, back to Part A. These are Isaacson's words. He is Mosk's official fluffer. Where it was published has nothing to do with anything, you fucking moron.

 

D. Are there any medications or therapies you haven't tried that might help you increase the flow of blood to your brain (acupuncture? stem cell therapy?), or are you pretty much beyond hope?

 

8 hours ago, Anastasis said:

I wonder how the book pre orders are going. 

  

1 hour ago, Anastasis said:

So Isaacson’s account on the media platform owned by billionaire #1 contradicts his account on the media platform owned by billionaire #2. But based on these contradictory accounts from the same person that is promoting their new book, we got people here talking about snuffing out one of the two billionaires because he is not totally in the tank for nuclear war. What a fucking world. 

 

 I don't think that I need any explaining, and certainly not from you. It's amazing how so many posters here shut down their brains over and over again and don't learn to think even a little bit critically about their information feeds. Afghan bounties! Nordstream! Cell phones in Prague! The laptop is a disinformation operation! Lots of easy marks. Just try not to start a nuclear war in the process of being played.  

Edited September 9, 2023 by Anastasis

[Chopper 17,153]

2 hours ago, chainsaw said:

I'm not in favor of opening that door, regardless how tempting it might be to do in these particular circumstances.

I do think Elon has probably committed several felonies under Ukrainian law and, by purposefully doing business with Ukraine, consented to its exercise of jurisdiction over him.

I think this Treaty would allow Ukraine to ask us to arrest him and transport him to Ukraine

https://www.congress.gov/106/cdoc/tdoc16/CDOC-106tdoc16.pdf

I'm open minded. (And also barely serious.) How about we limit it to actions on C-suite execs of defense contractors, TFTF bankers, big Pharma, Insurance, large O&G, Silicon Valley VCs, and large private equity?

I'll also note, the US wouldn't even extradite the wife of a US "diplomat" who was living in the UK when she was drunk driving a killed a 19 year old kid on a motorcycle. She and her husband (he worked on a military base in intelligence) left the country immediately following the accident and she refused to return and the US refused to extradite her. She did not have diplomatic protection and even if she had, it would not have applied to killing a civilian while drunk driving.

[Chopper 17,153]

5 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I don't think that I need any explaining, and certainly not from you. It's amazing how so many posters here shut down their brains over and over again and don't learn to think even a little bit critically about their information feeds. Afghan bounties! Nordstream! Cell phones in Prague! The laptop is a disinformation operation! Lots of easy marks. Just try not to start a nuclear war in the process of being played.  

Counterpoint: You need so much explaining that you need someone to explain that unironically quoting yourself is outing yourself as a total loon.

[atomheartbevo 89,407]

59 minutes ago, ztejas said:

The boner some of y'all have for Ukraine is so fucking weird. 

It's more about if Russia isn't stopped, then they'll keep doing this shit in other countries and we could get sucked in if they aren't stopped in Ukraine.

I mean, yeah, it's right to support Ukraine - this is a pretty black-and-white war in terms of who is at fault, who is the bad guy, etc., and it's a great way to get rid of a ton of stuff we have sitting in storage and were never going to use again.

But yeah, either they are stopped in Ukraine, or they start shit elsewhere and we get involved.

[G650 14,086]

It's pretty incredible how stupid this motherfucker is.

[Chopper 17,153]

2 hours ago, ztejas said:

The boner some of y'all have for Ukraine is so fucking weird. 

What @atomheartbevosaid. But also where did your grandfather move to the US from to escape the (original) Nazis?

Edited September 10, 2023 by Chopper

[Neonmoon 38,127]

People defending a private citizen communicating with a Russian “ambassador” and then interfering in a sovereign war of another county is definitely a take 

[Chad Fuck 17,556]

The boner some of y'all have for Ukraine is so fucking weird. 

It’s a freedom boner.

It’s mainly about Ukraine.

But it’s also about America and the leadership position we and our allies hold. We have committed to help a bullied country fight against the bully. The bully needs to be curb stomped and the world needs to see our resolve in that regard.