• 4realz@lemmy.worldOP
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    11 months ago

    Exactly, but “technically” he is credited as a founder. He’s a really good business man.

    • echo64@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      He isn’t a “really good business man”, everything he’s made is built on a foundation of lies. Eventually, it’ll collapse or be saved by socialised systems for being too big to fail. Musk is a con man, not a businessman. He’s just made a living out of conning investors and the public alike.

      • TheEntity@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        I don’t know, it sounds like the definition of a business man. Not one I’d admire, but not unlike lots of other business men.

        • echo64@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          No, businessmen do business. Steve Jobs did business, he figured out markets, created markets based on what his business could provide. That’s actual business.

          A grifter, a con man, is not a business man, they wear the skin of one to fool people like yourself into buying into the con. Looks like it works.

          • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            Steve Jobs also conspired with his competitors to underpay their staff. Staff as in the people that helped him do business and make billions

          • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            created markets based on what his business could provide.

            As much as I loathe musk, this is exactly what Starlink is. It’s a company founded solely to buy the product SpaceX is making, because other people couldn’t buy enough.

            Of course, Starlink is floating almost entirely on venture capital, but that’s how Amazon got started too.

          • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            My evil, greedy and manipulative capitalist is better than your evil, greedy and manipulative capitalist!!!

            • echo64@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              My point is that one is a greedy, evil businessman. The other is a greedy, evil conman.

              • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                But only if you draw a very careful line around definitions, what musk does is very standard capitalist business and what jobs did is very much the behaviour of a classic conman. Apples whole business strategy is straight out the carnival con artist playbook, you’ll find all the same tricks at any market stall

      • 4realz@lemmy.worldOP
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        11 months ago

        I understand where you’re coming from, but business is brutal and things like this happen in that world. PayPal (formely X .com) was also started by Elon, I don’t think he “scammed/tricked” anyone on that. And he has made billions for his investors over the years. I mean Tesla is worth over $600 billion, due to the marketing genius that is Elon. [Mistake: Elon didn’t start PayPal, just X .com]

        • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Man, learn something about someone before you go worshipping them.

          X was bought by paypal, but was far from “integral.” It was just its largest competitor for Confinidy at the time because Musk was washing it in money he made from a previous venture.Paypal was the more popular money transfer software, and it’s the platform the new company formed around, even taking its name.

          Musk was a actually briefly the CEO of PayPal, but his decisions were so poor that he was forced out.. He still retained enough shares of paypal to hit it big time, which is when he poured all that money into a long shot bet called Tesla, which he used goverment funds and seed capitol from his rich friends to keep alive until it turned an actual profit a decade later. With SpaceX, he leaned into fanboys like you calling him Tony stark, and managed to hire Gwynne Shotwell, a goddamn aeronautics powerhouse, as CEO the same year it was founded. She has brought SpaceX to success, by all accounts in spite of him. Its rumored that SpaceX keeps people around just to sideline Musk. That how disruptive he is to actual work. SpaceX was also utterly dependent on goverment subsides for most its existence, just like Tesla.

          Dude grew up with emerald mine money, then just kept taking outlandish risks because he had an emerald mine to keep his ass housed and fed, and yeah, eventually hit it big, with a big heaping of help from our tax dollars and mega rich pals. Big surprise.

          Turns out that if you have a wealthy life secured, you too can gamble big and make even more money. Thats how capitalism is designed to work. Capital makes more capital.

          The fact that you’re suckered in by the worlds luckiest gambler playing a game that had no actual stakes for him is sad as fuck man. Be proud of someone who overcame actual adversity. Go find a hero that wants to help people, not to rule them.

        • IWantToFuckSpez@kbin.social
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          11 months ago

          He didn’t start PayPal. It was founded by Pieter Thiel, another billionaire christofascist, and four other guys and non of them are called Elon Musk. X.com was bought by PayPal.

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            It’s wild how little this dude knows about Elon musk while singing his praises to the heavens, but I guess those two things go hand in hand.

            • ZeroCool@feddit.ch
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              11 months ago

              Muskrats are always the least informed people in the room when it concerns Elon Musk. It’d be a lot funnier if it weren’t so damn easy to find the actual facts. There’s really no excusing it, they’re just willfully ignorant.

            • FMT99@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              “Oh yeah he didn’t actually do that… Still, what a genius amirite?”

    • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      I think the whole Twitter debacle has disproven that he’s a good businessman. Rather, it highlights how far one can get by having heritable wealth and being in the right place at the right time.

    • Plopp@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Being credited as something doesn’t mean you are that something. My ex credited me for having a big penis.

      Elon is not a founder of Tesla, no matter what any documents say. Calling him such when you know he isn’t makes you a liar, a fool or a co-conspirator.

      • Chaotic Entropy@feddit.uk
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        11 months ago

        He seems like the avatar of the concept that rich people are not allowed to fail in society, no matter how hard they try. Once you reach a certain size, there will always be an army of people around them to hold them up. You just sit at the top and everyone under you needs you to succeed otherwise they’re also fucked.

        Musk is too big to fail.

      • Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org
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        11 months ago

        I guess when you have enough money you get to try enough times that you accidentally make good choices sometimes. Or people just think he’s smart because he’s rich.