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Tag: tesla
Elon Musk

Elon Musk's Ongoing Twitter Tantrum Targets National Public Radio

We don't know why tantruming billionaire child Elon Musk is engaged in a one-sided war against NPR, but he doesn't show signs of stopping.

Last week Musk's Twitter slapped a "state-affiliated media" label on NPR's Twitter account, despite NPR not being a candidate for such a label according to Twitter's own definition of the term, and despite Twitter's own Help Center specifically singling out NPR as an example of a corporation that wouldn't meet the definition. NPR is not "state-affiliated."

Somebody inside the now-skeletal company got embarrassed when news pieces about their move pointed that out, after which Twitter deleted the use of NPR as its Help Center example rather than admitting they weren't following their own rules. NPR itself expressed outrage that Elon was falsely lumping it in with the foreign state-sponsored propaganda outlets that the Twitter label is meant to warn users about and announced that they'd no longer be posting on Elon's site until the label was removed.

Faced with perhaps more public mockery than he expected, now Musk has flinched again. He's still lying his ass off, though. Now Musk's engineers have changed NPR's designation to read "Government Funded Media," which is ... still not accurately correct. And now Musk is claiming that he'll be applying it to more media outlets than just NPR, though apparently he hasn't worked it out enough to figure out how not to be wrong about it.

The catch here remains the same: NPR is not "state-affiliated." It's also not "government funded." NPR is a nonprofit corporation that gets somewhere around 1% of its funding from government grants and relies on donations, grants, and station dues for the rest. As Republican politicians have groused repeatedly over the years, the federal government has no ability to dictate NPR's news coverage.

What Musk here is attempting to do is to find a designation he can tar insufficiently friendly media outlets with as a way of discrediting them when they (repeatedly) report on his pandemic misinformation, his business flubs, or his fawning over internet white nationalists. Since Musk is a habitual liar in the best of times we can expect he's going to go through a few more iterations of these labels before he settles on one that the lawyers think they can defend. Perhaps he'll settle for a "Was Once Mean To Elon" label for his fanboys and then call this done?

The other catch here, though, is that Elon Internet Whiner Musk is the poster child of "government funded." Neither Tesla nor SpaceX would even exist right now if it were not for Musk sucking up government funds by the billions; his companies had guzzled nearly $5 billion in government money as of 2015, and both companies were saved from bankruptcy directly because of government credits or government contracts.

If there's anyone else in the world whose wealth is more tied to getting government cash than Elon's is, that person isn't coming to mind.

For Musk, though, this isn't about accuracy. It's never about accuracy. Elon Musk is mad at NPR for NPR's coverage of his own antics, and Musk purchased Twitter specifically so he would have the tools to get back at journalists and media outlets who he's felt disrespected by. He's a big whining baby and he's going to keep having this tantrum until he tires himself out and his handlers put him down for a nap.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Elon Musk

Musk Says Media 'Is Racist Against Whites,' Defends Anti-Black 'Dilbert' Cartoonist

When Dilbert comic strip creator Scott Adams went on a racist rant last week about Black people being a “hate group” and urging white people to “get the fuck away” from them, it wasn’t a huge surprise. Just like it wasn’t a huge surprise that Twitter CEO Elon Musk would defend Adams and pivot away from the artist’s outrageous comments to a conversation about the alleged “racist” media.

By Saturday, Adams’ strip was pulled from multiple newspapers nationwide.

Sunday, Musk tweeted that the media “was against non-white people,” but now they’re “racist against whites & Asians.”

Musk added:

“Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America… Maybe they can try not being racist.”

Since Musk’s $44 billion takeover of Twitter, there’s been a surge of hateful rhetoric.

“Systemic racism requires not only widespread bigotry to be held within a group but also a structural component that allows discrimination and oppression to be imposed on a minority because of an advantage of access and power. A white billionaire from South Africa who recently lost a high-profile racial discrimination case may not be in the best position to offer counsel,” Brian Levin, a civil rights attorney and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, said about Musk’s comments, according to CNBC.

The Tesla owner is currently embroiled in a workplace discrimination suit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) following complaints after the California Civil Rights Department, formerly known as the Department of Fair Employment and Housing, sued Tesla with claims of widespread racist discrimination at Tesla factories and facilities across the state.

According to the lawsuit, thousands of Black workers at Tesla’s Fremont factory were segregated into the most physically demanding positions and forced into the lowest-level contract roles.

The segregated areas where they worked were called the “porch monkey station,” “the slave ship,” and “the plantation,” and that’s not the worst of it. When Black workers complained, they were retaliated against, ignored, and denied bonuses, promotions, and other opportunities, the lawsuit reads.

In addition to defending racists, Musk was busy this weekend laying off at least 50 employees, The Daily Beast reports. Not even sparing one of its most loyal employees, the head of Twitter payments, Esther Crawford, who, according to The Daily Beast, slept in her office to show her dedication.

Adams’ segregationist outburst, the one that caused his strip to be kicked to the curb, came out of his YouTube channel. A poll from the Rasmussen Reports, a conservative firm, found that nearly half of Black people surveyed disagreed with the statement, “It’s okay to be white.”

“Based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people. Just get the fuck away,” Adams said. “Wherever you have to go, just get away. Because there’s no fixing this. This can’t be fixed. So I don’t think it makes any sense as a white citizen of America to try to help Black citizens anymore. It doesn’t make sense. There’s no longer a rational impulse. So I’m going to back off on being helpful to Black America because it doesn’t seem like it pays off.”

This isn’t Adams’ first time at the racist rodeo.

In 2016, Hunter wrote extensively about the cartoonist’s support for then-candidate Donald Trump.

“If Trump gets elected, and he does anything that looks even slightly Hitler-ish in office, I will join the resistance movement and help kill him. That’s an easy promise to make, and I hope my fellow citizens would use their Second Amendment rights to rise up and help me kill any Hitler-type person who rose to the top job in this country, no matter who it is,” Adams said, according to Hunter.

On Saturday, Daily Kos’ Mark Sumner wrote that in past podcasts, Adams has said that the January 6 insurrectionists weren’t actually supporters of Trump, but the mob on the U.S. Capitol was a conspiracy—”a conspiracy he blamed on the racist and anti-Semitic ‘replacement theory.’”

In 2022, Variety reported that Adams introduced a Black character to his strip for the first time. “Dave the Black Engineer” was used to denigrate diversity and inclusion in the workplace and transgender identity. “I identify as white,” the character said in one strip.

According to Variety, Adams also claimed, in 2020, that after UPN canceled the Dilbert animated series, it was for “being white” and because “UPN decided it would focus on an African American audience,” alleging it was his “third job lost for being white.”

As Sumner wrote, Adams’ strip was once featured in over 2,000 newspapers but has since been dumped by hundreds of distributors in a list too long to mention.

Goodbye and good riddance.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

New Tesla Model S Plaid

Tesla Fired Dozens In Buffalo Plant On Day After Union Campaign Launch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_MuskLike freakin’ clockwork. It took one day between a group of Buffalo Tesla workers informing the company of their intent to unionize and Tesla firing more than 30 workers in that plant, including a member of the union organizing committee.

Workers United, the union the workers are affiliating with, filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that Tesla “terminated these individuals in retaliation for union activity and to discourage union activity,” and seeking an injunction blocking the firings. According to More Perfect Union, “Tesla managers announced surprise performance reviews, then fired 8x as many workers as usual.”

This is not the first time Tesla has engaged in apparent retaliatory firing for union activity, and Tesla isn’t the only Elon Musk company to have fired workers for speaking up.

In 2021, the National Labor Relations Board found that Tesla had illegally fired a union activist and that a tweet from Musk had illegally threatened workers with the loss of stock options if they unionized. Tesla is appealing that ruling, which came from two Republicans and one Democrat.

In 2022, unfair labor practice charges were filed claiming that SpaceX had fired eight workers in retaliation for a letter about the company’s sexual harassment policies generally and specifically about Musk’s tweets dismissing a report that SpaceX had settled a sexual harassment complaint against him. Those cases are pending. And, of course, at Twitter, Musk has repeatedly fired people who didn’t kiss the ring enthusiastically enough.

In the narrow window of time between the Buffalo Tesla workers—who work on the Autopilot system—going public with their union drive and the company firing a significant number of workers in the plant, Tesla issued a warning to workers to “protect the confidentiality, integrity and security of all Tesla Business Information.” It’s not clear what that was about, but it doesn’t sound coincidental either.

“I feel blindsided,” one of the fired workers, Arian Berek, said in a statement. “I got COVID and was out of the office, then I had to take a bereavement leave. I returned to work, was told I was exceeding expectations and then Wednesday came along.”

Another member of the organizing committee who was not fired (yet) said the effort to intimidate workers away from union activism was backfiring, Bloomberg reports.

“It’s pretty clear the message they’re sending. They’re trying to scare us,” Sara Costantino said. “And it’s really I think backfiring on them.”
“It has really opened people’s eyes to the fact that this is why we need a union.”

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is organized labor?

A. Organized labor refers to groups of workers who come together to advocate for their rights and improve their working conditions.

Q. What is anti-union activity?

A. Anti-union activity refers to actions taken by employers to discourage workers from forming or joining a union.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

In Feud With Apple, Elon Musk Will Only Harm Himself

In Feud With Apple, Elon Musk Will Only Harm Himself

What do I care about more? Do I care about my iPhone, my iPad, my MacBook and the two Mac desktops — or do I care more about the feed on my Twitter app? Oh, and I forgot to mention my Apple Watch.

Guess the answer.

I used to greatly admire Twitter owner Elon Musk for his championing of electric vehicles. That Tesla (and the rocket company SpaceX) made him the world's richest man was fine with me. No problem here with billionaires who build great things and pay their taxes.

But Musk can't possibly think that he can win his fight against Apple, the world's most valuable company. Even if that were a possibility, he's not going about it the right way. Of course, that's assuming his motive is to indeed win and not just Gorilla-glue his name to the daily headlines.

Let's accept everyone's arguments at face value. In the name of free speech, Musk is opening Twitter to unmoderated bigots, vaccine deniers and other assorted creeps. That's his right. Twitter is his toy to play with or break.

Apple, on the other hand, wants to keep the worst nastiness out of its users' faces. It has thus banned from its App Store sites that do not meet its standards for moderating content. That is Apple's right.

And it's the right of Apple and other big corporations to not advertise on the burning dumpster Twitter is becoming. Apple also has the right to demand a 30% cut from software developers wanting to put their wares on Apple devices — just as Twitter can charge users $8 a month for blue checkmarks.

At the end of the day, what is Musk's weapon, really? A social media app?

"This is a battle for the future of civilization," Musk tweeted grandiosely. "If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead."

To which former Rep. Adam Kinzinger tweeted, "It's twitter man. Not WW3."

Musk overpaid $44 billion to buy Twitter. Apple, on the other hand, is worth $2.3 trillion. (The oil giant Saudi Aramco has a market value of $1.9 trillion.)

Investors, meanwhile, have limited patience with CEOs who get distracted from their core business and come off as jerks. Who is taking care of Tesla? And aren't Musk's provocations turning off would-be buyers of his electric cars?

This has been a tough year for many stocks, but for Tesla's, it's been miserable. As of late November, Tesla shares have lost nearly 50 percent of their value. The 2022 return on Apple shares (which includes dividends) was down only 18.31 percent.

Dan Ives, a tech analyst, has called Musk's Twitter fight with Apple "the gift that keeps on giving for the Tesla 'bears,'" investors who bet on the stock price going down.

Apple world tends to be a gentle place. Its inhabitants undoubtedly like the company's moves to protect user privacy. Apple also wins applause for banning misinformation about COVID-19 — something Twitter has just said it would now allow.

By the way, it's simply not true that only liberal social media gets the Apple green light. Anyone who has used Apple products to follow political opinion knows that conservative views are easy to find.

It would appear that all the money in the world couldn't buy Musk a sense of humor. And that's what he's going to need if the day comes that Apple drops Twitter from the App Store and the one billion iPhone owners start forgetting that Twitter ever existed.

Apple sells real stuff, things that need to be recharged. Twitter does not. It's just an app that the delete button can make disappear. Musk really should have stuck with cars.

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.