African Musk: Not a Fragrance

[filghy2]

Twitter is no longer a publicly-listed company since Musk acquired it. Apparently he owns 79% of the shares, so there can't be a shareholder revolt. The advantage of being a private company is that you aren't subject to the accountability requirements that apply to a public company.

In WWII the US government was able to direct the private sector to support the war effort, so there should be no question that it can be done. Perhaps the legal constraint is that the US is not currently in a declared war, and for obvious reasons wants to avoid this.

There is definitely a huge problem with a single individual being the monopoly provider of an essential public service, which is the situation in Ukraine since the war knocked out their communications system. This would not apply to, say, a war in Mexico because the US military would have other communications options and wouldn't depend on Starlink. Taking control of Starlink would not mean the US government controlling the internet because in the US and most of the world it is just one of many internet service providers.

The normal solution to this problem would be to either nationalise the monopoly provider or regulate it. The US did order the breakup of the AT&T telecom monopoly in the 1980s, so there is a history of doing such things. Obviously, there is a question as to what the current Supreme Court would allow.

I doubt the Biden administration will have the appetite to try and take control of Starlink because it won't want a huge furore about 'socialism'. But what the anti-government zealots usually ignore is that the benefits of free enterprise depend on competition. A private monopolist is potentially just as autocratic as big government - in fact, probably worse because governments are usually more able to be constrained and held accountable.

[filghy2]

Another point to note is that companies would normally be very reluctant to refuse national security-related requests, for fear of being seen as unpatriotic. For instance, the IT companies went along with the security agencies' requests to monitor communications after 9/11, even though the legality was dubious. The attitude of many Republicans toward Ukraine has probably encouraged Musk to think he can get away with this.

[Stavros]

All good points above, but I was thinking of the shareholders in Starlink not X.

[filghy2]

Starlink is not a public company either. It's a division of SpaceX, in which Musk holds a controlling interest.
https://www.starlinkhardware.com/who-owns-starlink/

[Stavros]

Starlink is not a public company either. It's a division of SpaceX, in which Musk holds a controlling interest.
https://www.starlinkhardware.com/who-owns-starlink/

Evidently I was not aware of this. Ah well, I guess he will either survive or melt down. What to make of a man who wanted to name one his children X, and has named another Tau Techno Mechanicus, assuming it is a human child and not an Android. Any wonder why one of his children grew up, changed gender and name?

[filghy2]

Interesting article on the Musk biography that contained the above revelation.
https://www.vox.com/culture/23872485...ography-review

"Things that are in Musk’s nature according to Isaacson: the desire for total control; obsession; resistance to rules and regulations; insensitivity; a love of drama and chaos and urgency.

Things that are not in Musk’s nature according to Isaacson: deference; empathy; restraint; the ability to collaborate; the instinct to think about how the things he says impact the people around him; doting on his children; vacations."

One illustrative example is that Tesla factories have an injury rate that is 30% higher than the rest of the industry, apparently because Musk refuses to follow standard industry safety practices. The man is a sociopath.

[Fitzcarraldo]

He's a "disruptor."

[Stavros]

He's a "disruptor."

In a negative sense, perhaps. I am not sure he has been an innovator in business practice, more a 'destroyer' of regulations and that is not the same thing. A lot of the time his focus is on cutting costs, rather than improving the efficiency of the business.

The link offers a positive view of 'Disruptive Change' in business and industry, with some good examples, although it seems to me that it is a transfer of Kuhn's concept(s) of the Paradigm Shift from science to commerce.

Disruptive Change: Definition, Examples and How To Manage | Indeed.com

[filghy2]

Latest thought bubble by the genius - charge people a monthly fee to use Twitter. If this happens I suspect it might be the final nail in the coffin. The business model for social media has been to attract an audience with a free platform and then charge businesses to target ads at them.
https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/18/el...e-its-service/

[Fitzcarraldo]

What bullshit:

“It’s the only way I can think of to combat vast armies of bots,” explained Musk. “Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny — call it a tenth of a penny — but even if it has to pay…a few dollars or something, the effective cost of bots is very high,” he said. Plus, every time a bot creator wanted to make another bot, they would need another new payment method.

It's the easy way for him to stop losing money since he's scared off advertisers by being an asshole.