Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

The odds are excellent that you will leave this forum hating someone.
jhu72
Posts: 14148
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 12:52 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by jhu72 »

Elon Musk made Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2023 list — but was called an 'online troll' fiddling on a 'toxic violin' while Twitter 'burns.
Image STAND AGAINST FASCISM
User avatar
cradleandshoot
Posts: 14543
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2018 4:42 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by cradleandshoot »

I'm confused here. When Musks rocket exploded yesterday it was defined as a " rapid, unscheduled disassembly" That must be another term for a " major malfunction" The cherry on top is some genius defining the event as a " successful failure" :D
I use to be a people person until people ruined that for me.
ardilla secreta
Posts: 2169
Joined: Wed Aug 29, 2018 11:32 am
Location: Niagara Frontier

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by ardilla secreta »

This morning I burnt my English muffin to a nice degree of smoldering cinder. I considered it highly successful.
JoeMauer89
Posts: 2005
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2020 10:39 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by JoeMauer89 »

ardilla secreta wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2023 8:02 am This morning I burnt my English muffin to a nice degree of smoldering cinder. I considered it highly successful.
Now that got me to spit out my orange juice! Play the George Costanza card, "Ok, I'm out!!" Always end on a high note. :lol: :lol:

Joe
SCLaxAttack
Posts: 1702
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2018 10:24 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by SCLaxAttack »

ardilla secreta wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2023 8:02 am This morning I burnt my English muffin to a nice degree of smoldering cinder. I considered it highly successful.
But was it only a test muffin?
jhu72
Posts: 14148
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 12:52 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by jhu72 »

Musk questioning the profile of the Allen TX terrorist. His case is pretty weak. Strongly suspect he just has his own reasons for not liking what is pretty clear truth -- too much evidence from too many sources.
Image STAND AGAINST FASCISM
jhu72
Posts: 14148
Joined: Wed Sep 19, 2018 12:52 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by jhu72 »

Musk is just one more grifter. Why is he ducking process servers??
Image STAND AGAINST FASCISM
Farfromgeneva
Posts: 23267
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by Farfromgeneva »

This is like being a Four and hanging out with 1.5s to make yourself look better it seems. Come on everyone join me in the mud!

Elon Musk Urges More Companies to Shrink Like Twitter
Billionaire says paring a workforce can lead to improved productivity
By Chip CutterFollow
May 24, 2023 10:00 am ET

Elon Musk discusses the significant cuts at Twitter and its efforts to reach profitability, during a virtual appearance at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London.
Elon Musk said more companies should consider running lean like Twitter.

The billionaire Tesla chief executive, speaking virtually at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London on Tuesday, said plenty of staffers aren’t adding value to U.S. companies and that employers might do better with fewer people. Twitter has shrunk from about 8,000 employees to roughly 1,500 since Musk acquired the social-media company last year.

“There’s a potential for significant cuts, I think, out of companies without affecting their productivity,” Musk said, adding that staffing cuts could increase productivity by speeding up operations. “At any given company, there are people who help move things forward and people who sort of try to slam the brakes on.”

Layoffs at Twitter cut far deeper than most. Musk’s efforts at the company have drawn attention across the corporate sphere from bosses in other industries, many of whom have quietly wondered whether Musk’s slimmed-down staffing model could be replicated elsewhere.

In recent months, high-profile companies including Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Amazon.com, Goldman Sachs, Alphabet’s Google and others have cut thousands of positions, and a number of executives have begun to more broadly reconsider the value of some white-collar work.

Musk said Tuesday that Twitter wasn’t profitable, but that it had stabilized its operations and could potentially be cash-flow positive next month.

“When the acquisition closed, I would say it was analogous to being teleported to a plane that was plunging to the ground with its engines on fire [and] the controls don’t work,” he said. “We had to do some pretty heavy-handed cost-cutting.”

Elon Musk: 'The Most Valuable Thing I Have Is Time'

During The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London, the executive chairman of Twitter discusses managing his schedule and having an assistant who works part time.
Musk said Twitter might do some additional hiring, but he described the current staffing levels as reasonable. Though Twitter has had some technical outages since the acquisition, Musk said they weren’t “massive ones.” The social-media company is also launching products and features more quickly now, he said.

“Twitter was in a situation where you’d have a meeting of 10 people and one person was an accelerator and nine were the set of brakes. So you didn’t go very far,” he said. “Now, we’re gung-ho about releasing functionality even at a little bit of risk to site stability so long as it’s not too serious.”

As jobs change and artificial intelligence expands, Musk said people will also need to adapt. Asked to name the most important skills for the future, Musk said young people should understand software, technology and AI to thrive in a more technical world that could undergo vast changes in the coming decades.

“Over a 20- to 30-year time frame, I think things will be transformed beyond belief,” Musk said. “You probably won’t recognize society in 30 years.”
Now I love those cowboys, I love their gold
Love my uncle, God rest his soul
Taught me good, Lord, taught me all I know
Taught me so well, that I grabbed that gold
I left his dead ass there by the side of the road, yeah
PizzaSnake
Posts: 5043
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:36 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by PizzaSnake »

Farfromgeneva wrote: Wed May 24, 2023 3:59 pm This is like being a Four and hanging out with 1.5s to make yourself look better it seems. Come on everyone join me in the mud!

Elon Musk Urges More Companies to Shrink Like Twitter
Billionaire says paring a workforce can lead to improved productivity
By Chip CutterFollow
May 24, 2023 10:00 am ET

Elon Musk discusses the significant cuts at Twitter and its efforts to reach profitability, during a virtual appearance at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London.
Elon Musk said more companies should consider running lean like Twitter.

The billionaire Tesla chief executive, speaking virtually at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London on Tuesday, said plenty of staffers aren’t adding value to U.S. companies and that employers might do better with fewer people. Twitter has shrunk from about 8,000 employees to roughly 1,500 since Musk acquired the social-media company last year.

“There’s a potential for significant cuts, I think, out of companies without affecting their productivity,” Musk said, adding that staffing cuts could increase productivity by speeding up operations. “At any given company, there are people who help move things forward and people who sort of try to slam the brakes on.”

Layoffs at Twitter cut far deeper than most. Musk’s efforts at the company have drawn attention across the corporate sphere from bosses in other industries, many of whom have quietly wondered whether Musk’s slimmed-down staffing model could be replicated elsewhere.

In recent months, high-profile companies including Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Amazon.com, Goldman Sachs, Alphabet’s Google and others have cut thousands of positions, and a number of executives have begun to more broadly reconsider the value of some white-collar work.

Musk said Tuesday that Twitter wasn’t profitable, but that it had stabilized its operations and could potentially be cash-flow positive next month.

“When the acquisition closed, I would say it was analogous to being teleported to a plane that was plunging to the ground with its engines on fire [and] the controls don’t work,” he said. “We had to do some pretty heavy-handed cost-cutting.”

Elon Musk: 'The Most Valuable Thing I Have Is Time'

During The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London, the executive chairman of Twitter discusses managing his schedule and having an assistant who works part time.
Musk said Twitter might do some additional hiring, but he described the current staffing levels as reasonable. Though Twitter has had some technical outages since the acquisition, Musk said they weren’t “massive ones.” The social-media company is also launching products and features more quickly now, he said.

“Twitter was in a situation where you’d have a meeting of 10 people and one person was an accelerator and nine were the set of brakes. So you didn’t go very far,” he said. “Now, we’re gung-ho about releasing functionality even at a little bit of risk to site stability so long as it’s not too serious.”

As jobs change and artificial intelligence expands, Musk said people will also need to adapt. Asked to name the most important skills for the future, Musk said young people should understand software, technology and AI to thrive in a more technical world that could undergo vast changes in the coming decades.

“Over a 20- to 30-year time frame, I think things will be transformed beyond belief,” Musk said. “You probably won’t recognize society in 30 years.”
30 years? Neither will that fool, even if he’s alive…😃
"There is nothing more difficult and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. One makes enemies of those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support from those who would prosper under the new."
Farfromgeneva
Posts: 23267
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by Farfromgeneva »

The will of the people = codified law, what idiocy and dishonesty-I’m sure right wing low information reader main stream media will jump all over that quote.
Now I love those cowboys, I love their gold
Love my uncle, God rest his soul
Taught me good, Lord, taught me all I know
Taught me so well, that I grabbed that gold
I left his dead ass there by the side of the road, yeah
Farfromgeneva
Posts: 23267
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by Farfromgeneva »

Get that gubmint money!

*cradle please have a roll of to and pack of wet wipes ready and nearby before reading this story below

New York State Built Elon Musk a $1 Billion Factory. ‘It Was a Bad Deal.’

New Tesla facility in Buffalo was supposed to house a huge solar-panel operation, but the project hasn’t turned out as planned.

By Julie BykowiczFollow
and Ted MannFollow
July 6, 2023 10:04 am ET
BUFFALO, N.Y.—New York spent nearly $1 billion over the past decade on Elon Musk’s ambitious plan for what was supposed to be the largest solar-panel factory in the Western Hemisphere, one of the largest-ever public cash outlays of its kind.

“You almost have to pinch yourself, right?” New York’s then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a construction ceremony for the factory in 2015. “That this is too good to be true.”

Eight years later, that looks like a pretty good assessment.

New York state paid to build a quarter-mile-long facility with 1.2 million square feet of industrial space, which it now owns and leases to Tesla TSLA -2.10% for $1 a year. It bought $240 million worth of solar-panel manufacturing equipment. Musk had said that by 2020 the Buffalo plant each week would churn out enough solar-panel shingles to cover 1,000 roofs.

The Tesla solar-energy unit behind the plan, however, is averaging just 21 installations a week, according to energy analysts at Wood Mackenzie who reviewed utility data. The building houses some factory workers, but also hundreds of lower-paid desk-bound data analysts working on other Tesla business.

The suppliers that Cuomo predicted would flock to a modern manufacturing hub never showed up. The only new nearby business is a Tim Horton’s coffee shop. Most of the solar-panel manufacturing equipment bought by the state has been sold at a discount or scrapped.

A state comptroller’s audit found just 54 cents of economic benefit for every subsidy dollar spent on the factory, which rose on the site of an old steel mill. External auditors have written down nearly all of New York’s investment.

“It was a bad deal,” said state Sen. Sean Ryan, a Democrat who represents Buffalo. “A cautionary tale is you can’t give governors too much power to get on the phone with egotistical billionaires.”

Advertisement

Advertisement

Scroll to continue with content

The former governor’s spokesman defended the project, saying the factory site has more jobs on it now than when it was an empty lot where a steel mill once stood.

Jason Conwall, a spokesman for the state agency overseeing the project, said: “Tesla has made substantial contributions to the local economy, aligning with the region’s overall economic revitalization.”


The state expected solar suppliers to flock to the development. So far, the only other new business nearby is a Tim Hortons. Photo: Malik Rainey for The Wall Street Journal
The state has agreed to amend the terms of its subsidy 12 times over the years, including by reducing the number of jobs to be created in manufacturing and shifting deadlines to accommodate the company.

Although there aren’t as many manufacturing jobs as the company and politicians had forecast, Tesla reported in February it has created 1,700 positions there, enough to meet its obligations to the state and avoid a $41 million annual penalty.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Scroll to continue with content

Musk and Tesla didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Cuomo declined to be interviewed.

America’s governors are swept up in an arms race of awarding packages of taxpayer money to attract industrial megaprojects. Contributing are President Biden’s federal subsidies to build up U.S. manufacturing, particularly for electric-vehicle battery and semiconductor plants, some of which require states to kick in additional incentives.

Last year, states gave each of eight company facilities more than $1 billion in tax breaks and other aid, according to Good Jobs First, a subsidy tracker funded partly by labor unions. Until then, there had never been a year with more than three such deals.

In Wisconsin, a factory by Taiwan’s Foxconn that was to employ 13,000 workers in exchange for some $3 billion in state subsidies sits mostly empty. Suburban Virginia offered tax breaks to win a competition for Amazon.com’s “second headquarters,” but much of that project is on hold.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Scroll to continue with content

Musk’s electric-vehicle maker Tesla and space-transportation company SpaceX have received more than $4 billion worth of tax breaks and other government subsidies since 2006, according to a Wall Street Journal review of state and federal records. Nevada has provided financial incentives, including a $330 million tax abatement this year, to help Tesla build and expand a vehicle factory complex outside Reno.

In Buffalo, the state spent cash to build the factory, instead of offering tax abatements that stretch out over years. Cuomo, a Democrat, billed it as the centerpiece of what he called the “Buffalo Billion.”

“In building and equipping the Tesla solar-panel plant, the state became a direct investor in that project under the worst possible terms,” said E.J. McMahon, founding senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank. “In terms of sheer direct cost to taxpayers, this may rank as the single biggest economic development boondoggle in American history.”


Solar roof tiles manufactured by Tesla. Photo: TESLA/Associated Press
Rather than the high-tech factory workers the state intended, more than 700 of those working at the site are data analysts who review “real-time driving data that trains the AI” for Tesla’s autonomous-vehicle software, the company reported to the state in February. Others assemble components for vehicle-charging stations and backup switches for battery systems. “Tesla continues to manufacture Solar Roof,” Tesla reported about the solar-panel shingles product, but it provided no specifics.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Scroll to continue with content

Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing the subsidies, doesn’t keep track of what is being produced at the Tesla factory, or any others the state has supported, said a spokeswoman, Pamm Lent.

Tesla’s deal with the state requires it to stay in the factory, for $1 a year, through 2029.

Buffalo, once an engine of manufacturing, has stagnated for generations as industrial companies headed south. Previous efforts at renewal largely fell flat. In 2012, Cuomo said he wanted to spend $1 billion in state taxpayer money to turn Buffalo around, and regional leaders tapped the think tank Brookings Institution to outline an investment strategy.

Central to the plan, laid out in a 2013 policy paper, was to avoid directing too much state aid to a few large companies. New York’s publicly stated goal was to incubate a handful of small startups in promising economic niches.

Cuomo’s adviser on the Buffalo project, State University of New York nanoscience professor Alain Kaloyeros, recruited solar-panel startup Silevo and LED lighting company Soraa to anchor the planned high-tech hub. The state said it would spend $100 million to build Silevo’s plant, in exchange for the company creating 1,300 jobs.

As it was finalizing that deal, Kaloyeros learned that SolarCity, then the country’s leading solar-panel installer, was considering acquiring Silevo. Musk was SolarCity’s chairman and largest investor. His cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive ran the company.


Elon Musk unveiled the solar roof at an event in Los Angeles in 2016. Photo: Nichola Groom/Reuters
Working the phones, Kaloyeros tried to ensure that SolarCity would commit to keeping Silevo in Buffalo when they announced the acquisition, according to people familiar with the conversations.

Without alerting Cuomo, Musk and his cousins wrote in a blog post that the Buffalo factory would manufacture enough panels annually to produce one gigawatt of electricity. That is the equivalent of more than three million solar panels, according to the Department of Energy. “We are in discussions with the state of New York to build the initial manufacturing plant,” Musk and his cousins wrote, vowing to start operating “one of the single largest solar panel production plants in the world” within two years.

Cuomo was irate at being upstaged by Musk, according to the people familiar with the talks and email correspondence reviewed by The Journal. Kaloyeros told the governor’s staff in an email that Musk had “jumped the gun” in stating a goal of producing one gigawatt of power. Kaloyeros assured the administration that Cuomo would soon have his own news to break.

“The actual deal being considered is much bigger..5 GW to 10 GW..with 5,000 jobs..and that is being saved for the governor,” he wrote. Rather than scold Musk for frontrunning Cuomo, Kaloyeros wrote, “I prefer to shame Musk instead into joining the governor in announcing the much bigger deal asap.”

In September 2014, New York agreed to spend $750 million on the solar project, more than seven times its initial commitment.

Because the SolarCity project was to be so big, New York bumped its other original Buffalo tenant, Soraa, promising to find it another home. Soraa has since left New York.

At the August 2015 construction ceremony, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said the new facility, called Riverbend, would soon churn out 10,000 solar panels a day and create 3,000 jobs.

That October, SolarCity persuaded the state to remove the term “high-tech” from the jobs agreement, and reduced, from 900 to 500, the number of jobs that would be required to be in “manufacturing operations” at the Buffalo plant.

By the summer of 2016, SolarCity was about $3 billion in debt and nearly out of cash. Tesla acquired it. Some Tesla shareholders sued, alleging Musk was using the carmaker to bail out another of his interests. A Delaware judge ruled in Musk’s favor last year, citing an increase in Tesla’s share price as evidence the SolarCity acquisition hadn’t harmed investors.


Musk departs a Delaware court in 2016 after testifying in a lawsuit brought by Tesla shareholder that alleged Musk used Tesla to bail out SolarCity. Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg News
Musk’s vision for the Buffalo facility was that it would make a new kind of solar product. “It’s not a thing on the roof, it is the roof,” he said in an August 2016 SolarCity earnings call. “I’m pretty excited about what we’re doing in Buffalo.”

Many of Musk’s employees, as well as bankers advising Tesla on the SolarCity transaction, were blindsided by his focus on solar roof tiles, a product that was only in the early design stage. Responding to the exasperation, one executive wrote, “It’s Elon’s world. We all just live in it,” according to an email later disclosed in the shareholders’ lawsuit.

In April 2017, Cuomo secured another $500 million for the project, about half of which went into the Tesla facility, bringing New York’s total investment in the factory to $959 million.

For a few years, the Buffalo site hummed with manufacturing, but it was carried out by Panasonic, Tesla’s supplier of solar cells. The Japanese company employed about 400 people in Buffalo before deciding in early 2020 to pull out.

Musk acknowledged in a June 2019 deposition for the shareholders’ lawsuit that he hadn’t been focused on solar energy for much of the previous two years because of the pressure to mass produce Tesla’s long-delayed affordable electric vehicle, the Model 3. He said he had redeployed every solar worker he could to Model 3 duties, which weren’t being carried out in Buffalo. “Just a little bit longer and then we can focus on solar, and you’ll see a dramatic turnaround,” he said.

At present, what was supposed to be a solar-panel factory is mostly populated by Tesla data analysts.

“In all honesty, they needed the jobs” to avoid paying the state penalty associated with the deal, said Will Hance, a 24-year-old data analyst who has worked at the Tesla Buffalo site since October. “As a whole, we are the biggest department there.”


Will Hance works as a data analyst for Tesla in Buffalo. Photo: Malik Rainey for The Wall Street Journal
Hance is part of an effort to unionize the factory, led by Tesla Workers United, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union. Labor leaders have been wary of Musk’s involvement from the outset, given his companies’ opposition to unions.

To prepare for Tesla’s arrival and a wave of solar-manufacturing jobs, Buffalo built a $44 million training center on the city’s economically disadvantaged East Side. The training center, which has graduated about 500 people in its four years of operation, has sent about 20 people to work at Tesla, most of them as equipment-maintenance technicians, its executive director said.

Thirteen students have graduated from a separate solar-manufacturing training program started by Buffalo’s public schools. A spokesman wouldn’t say how many of them have been hired by Tesla.

Tesla has said little about its solar production in disclosures to investors. Musk has made no public appearances in Buffalo.

Democratic State Sen. Liz Krueger, chair of the senate finance committee, said the state should invest in infrastructure and worker training instead of “spending billions of taxpayer dollars pretending we’re very good at being angel investors.”


State Sen. Sean Ryan, a Democrat who represents Buffalo, has called New York’s agreement with Tesla ‘a bad deal.’ Photo: Malik Rainey for The Wall Street Journal
State Sen. Ryan last visited the site just before the Covid pandemic. He and another public official who was on the tour later said that the activity they witnessed didn’t look like full-scale manufacturing work.

“We still want to wake up tomorrow and hear that Tesla is really going to invest in this factory, and we’re gonna have the jobs and the ripple economy that we were promised,” Ryan said in a recent interview. “So, everyone’s reluctant to dance on Tesla’s grave because we still want it to happen.”

Tesla’s troubles with solar in Buffalo were overshadowed by a federal corruption probe into the construction of the factory. Kaloyeros and others, including one of Cuomo’s closest aides, were convicted of rigging the bid process to award the construction contract to a politically connected local contractor. The convictions were subsequently vacated by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Jimmy Vielkind, Rebecca Elliott and Jim Oberman contributed to this article.

Write to Julie Bykowicz at [email protected] and Ted Mann at [email protected]
Now I love those cowboys, I love their gold
Love my uncle, God rest his soul
Taught me good, Lord, taught me all I know
Taught me so well, that I grabbed that gold
I left his dead ass there by the side of the road, yeah
a fan
Posts: 18511
Joined: Mon Aug 06, 2018 9:05 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by a fan »

Farfromgeneva wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 7:13 pm Get that gubmint money!

*cradle please have a roll of to and pack of wet wipes ready and nearby before reading this story below

New York State Built Elon Musk a $1 Billion Factory. ‘It Was a Bad Deal.’

New Tesla facility in Buffalo was supposed to house a huge solar-panel operation, but the project hasn’t turned out as planned.

By Julie BykowiczFollow
and Ted MannFollow
July 6, 2023 10:04 am ET
BUFFALO, N.Y.—New York spent nearly $1 billion over the past decade on Elon Musk’s ambitious plan for what was supposed to be the largest solar-panel factory in the Western Hemisphere, one of the largest-ever public cash outlays of its kind.

“You almost have to pinch yourself, right?” New York’s then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a construction ceremony for the factory in 2015. “That this is too good to be true.”

Eight years later, that looks like a pretty good assessment.

New York state paid to build a quarter-mile-long facility with 1.2 million square feet of industrial space, which it now owns and leases to Tesla TSLA -2.10% for $1 a year. It bought $240 million worth of solar-panel manufacturing equipment. Musk had said that by 2020 the Buffalo plant each week would churn out enough solar-panel shingles to cover 1,000 roofs.

The Tesla solar-energy unit behind the plan, however, is averaging just 21 installations a week, according to energy analysts at Wood Mackenzie who reviewed utility data. The building houses some factory workers, but also hundreds of lower-paid desk-bound data analysts working on other Tesla business.

The suppliers that Cuomo predicted would flock to a modern manufacturing hub never showed up. The only new nearby business is a Tim Horton’s coffee shop. Most of the solar-panel manufacturing equipment bought by the state has been sold at a discount or scrapped.

A state comptroller’s audit found just 54 cents of economic benefit for every subsidy dollar spent on the factory, which rose on the site of an old steel mill. External auditors have written down nearly all of New York’s investment.

“It was a bad deal,” said state Sen. Sean Ryan, a Democrat who represents Buffalo. “A cautionary tale is you can’t give governors too much power to get on the phone with egotistical billionaires.”
:lol: That's not the lesson. The lesson is: you don't give one freaking company special deals that you don't offer to EVERY business in your State, you F'ing morons!

Gee, I wonder how these businessmen turn into billionaires. It must be "hard work", right?
Farfromgeneva
Posts: 23267
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by Farfromgeneva »

a fan wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 7:37 pm
Farfromgeneva wrote: Thu Jul 06, 2023 7:13 pm Get that gubmint money!

*cradle please have a roll of to and pack of wet wipes ready and nearby before reading this story below

New York State Built Elon Musk a $1 Billion Factory. ‘It Was a Bad Deal.’

New Tesla facility in Buffalo was supposed to house a huge solar-panel operation, but the project hasn’t turned out as planned.

By Julie BykowiczFollow
and Ted MannFollow
July 6, 2023 10:04 am ET
BUFFALO, N.Y.—New York spent nearly $1 billion over the past decade on Elon Musk’s ambitious plan for what was supposed to be the largest solar-panel factory in the Western Hemisphere, one of the largest-ever public cash outlays of its kind.

“You almost have to pinch yourself, right?” New York’s then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a construction ceremony for the factory in 2015. “That this is too good to be true.”

Eight years later, that looks like a pretty good assessment.

New York state paid to build a quarter-mile-long facility with 1.2 million square feet of industrial space, which it now owns and leases to Tesla TSLA -2.10% for $1 a year. It bought $240 million worth of solar-panel manufacturing equipment. Musk had said that by 2020 the Buffalo plant each week would churn out enough solar-panel shingles to cover 1,000 roofs.

The Tesla solar-energy unit behind the plan, however, is averaging just 21 installations a week, according to energy analysts at Wood Mackenzie who reviewed utility data. The building houses some factory workers, but also hundreds of lower-paid desk-bound data analysts working on other Tesla business.

The suppliers that Cuomo predicted would flock to a modern manufacturing hub never showed up. The only new nearby business is a Tim Horton’s coffee shop. Most of the solar-panel manufacturing equipment bought by the state has been sold at a discount or scrapped.

A state comptroller’s audit found just 54 cents of economic benefit for every subsidy dollar spent on the factory, which rose on the site of an old steel mill. External auditors have written down nearly all of New York’s investment.

“It was a bad deal,” said state Sen. Sean Ryan, a Democrat who represents Buffalo. “A cautionary tale is you can’t give governors too much power to get on the phone with egotistical billionaires.”
:lol: That's not the lesson. The lesson is: you don't give one freaking company special deals that you don't offer to EVERY business in your State, you F'ing morons!

Gee, I wonder how these businessmen turn into billionaires. It must be "hard work", right?
Musk’s electric-vehicle maker Tesla and space-transportation company SpaceX have received more than $4 billion worth of tax breaks and other government subsidies since 2006, according to a Wall Street Journal review of state and federal records. Nevada has provided financial incentives, including a $330 million tax abatement this year, to help Tesla build and expand a vehicle factory complex outside Reno.


New money buying its overpriced useless gold chain = Nevada
Now I love those cowboys, I love their gold
Love my uncle, God rest his soul
Taught me good, Lord, taught me all I know
Taught me so well, that I grabbed that gold
I left his dead ass there by the side of the road, yeah
User avatar
NattyBohChamps04
Posts: 2475
Joined: Tue May 04, 2021 11:40 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by NattyBohChamps04 »

A real, actual tweet in 2023 from a guy running multiple businesses at once and complaining about people working multiple jobs. A guy getting tons of government cheddar in subsidies and tax incentives and complaining about handouts. A guy hailed as a genius hero from a handful of groups as a free speech absolutist who is censoring words and accounts.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1678098028849143809

Image

I wasn't sure I'd ever be on Zuckerburg's side about anything, but here we are. :lol:
Farfromgeneva
Posts: 23267
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:53 am

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by Farfromgeneva »

NattyBohChamps04 wrote: Sun Jul 09, 2023 10:28 pm A real, actual tweet in 2023 from a guy running multiple businesses at once and complaining about people working multiple jobs. A guy getting tons of government cheddar in subsidies and tax incentives and complaining about handouts. A guy hailed as a genius hero from a handful of groups as a free speech absolutist who is censoring words and accounts.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1678098028849143809

Image

I wasn't sure I'd ever be on Zuckerburg's side about anything, but here we are. :lol:
Elon is as well. Why he thinks he’s different is beyond me.
Now I love those cowboys, I love their gold
Love my uncle, God rest his soul
Taught me good, Lord, taught me all I know
Taught me so well, that I grabbed that gold
I left his dead ass there by the side of the road, yeah
User avatar
Kismet
Posts: 4571
Joined: Sat Nov 02, 2019 6:42 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by Kismet »

TWITTER COMES TO AN END!
Elon Musk announced that tomorrow, after 17 years, Twitter will be rebranded as X. EACH "Tweet" will now be called an "X" - Too bad that it turns out X is already trademarked. By Microsoft. Expect a cease & desist order shortly

Nuts. He's already lost $20 billion of the $44 billion it cost him to acquire the business. Whatever ad volume is left will shortly be leaving too.

The folks who financed the deal must be in panic mode.
Last edited by Kismet on Tue Jul 25, 2023 8:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
youthathletics
Posts: 15205
Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2018 7:36 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by youthathletics »

Kismet wrote: Sun Jul 23, 2023 2:18 pm TWITTER COMES TO AN END!
Elon Musk announced that tomorrow, after 17 years, Twitter will be rebranded as X. EACH "Tweet" will now be called an "X"

Nuts. He's already lost $20 billion of the $44 billion it cost him to acquire the business. Whatever ad volume is left will shortly be leaving too.

The folks who financed the deal must be in panic mode.
He is in cahoots with the Feds....he will be just fine.
A fraudulent intent, however carefully concealed at the outset, will generally, in the end, betray itself.
~Livy
PizzaSnake
Posts: 5043
Joined: Tue Mar 05, 2019 8:36 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by PizzaSnake »

Kismet wrote: Sun Jul 23, 2023 2:18 pm TWITTER COMES TO AN END!
Elon Musk announced that tomorrow, after 17 years, Twitter will be rebranded as X. EACH "Tweet" will now be called an "X"

Nuts. He's already lost $20 billion of the $44 billion it cost him to acquire the business. Whatever ad volume is left will shortly be leaving too.

The folks who financed the deal must be in panic mode.
“X” marks the jerk!!
"There is nothing more difficult and more dangerous to carry through than initiating changes. One makes enemies of those who prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support from those who would prosper under the new."
User avatar
MDlaxfan76
Posts: 26402
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:40 pm

Re: Elon Musk (yet another authoritarian)

Post by MDlaxfan76 »

youthathletics wrote: Sun Jul 23, 2023 7:29 pm
Kismet wrote: Sun Jul 23, 2023 2:18 pm TWITTER COMES TO AN END!
Elon Musk announced that tomorrow, after 17 years, Twitter will be rebranded as X. EACH "Tweet" will now be called an "X"

Nuts. He's already lost $20 billion of the $44 billion it cost him to acquire the business. Whatever ad volume is left will shortly be leaving too.

The folks who financed the deal must be in panic mode.
He is in cahoots with the Feds....he will be just fine.
Deep State!
Post Reply

Return to “POLITICS”