Censorship: Twitter Takeover Totally Panics Political Regime of LeftLibDemSocMediaTechPol

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Tue May 16 22:05:27 PDT 2023


Musk's David Faber Interview: "I'll Say What I Want And If The
Consequence Is Losing Money, So Be It"

Tesla CEO and Twitter owner Elon Musk sat down for an hour-long
candid, sprawling interview with CNBC's David Faber on Tuesday
following Tesla’s 2023 annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas.
Among many other things, Musk reflected on:

Accusations from the left over his tweets which have been criticized
as lending credence to conspiracies about George Soros and a recent
mass shooting event in Allen, Texas, insisting “I’ll say what I want,
and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it."

    Elon Musk on Tuesday said that if his inflammatory tweets scare
away advertisers from Twitter, he will accept that. “I’ll say what I
want, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it."
https://t.co/0Pi3Yl8Jo2 pic.twitter.com/rpZ3Ff8Dw0
    — CNBC (@CNBC) May 16, 2023

Clearly this displeased Musk's critics, who can't comprehend how
someone who is hopes to receive major ad dollars (and thus be beholden
to the largest US corporations via advertising channel) can speak his
mind. In fact, according to Bethany McLean, "Elon Musk sounds like a
spoiled child when he talks about free speech," adding that  "If you
run a business that depends on advertisers you might have to think
about it a little bit differently and Musk seems utterly unwilling to
make that distinction." Translation: if you run a business that
depends on advertisers, you can't say anything your advertisers
disagree with. Which of course is another way of being subject to the
censorship of the establishment, and why traditional media is always
silent when certain interests - be it of generous advertisers like
Pfizer, or the Deep State, or the Bidens, or the Clintons, etc - are
in question.

    "Elon Musk sounds like a spoiled child when he talks about free
speech," says @bethanymac12. "If you run a business that depends on
advertisers you might have to think about it a little bit differently
and Musk seems utterly unwilling to make that distinction."
pic.twitter.com/TfHyCYYblC
    — Last Call (@LastCallCNBC) May 17, 2023

Musk defended what Faber said was the spreading of "conspiracy
theories" by countering that pointing out that so many of these
"conspiracy theories have turned out to be true", and pointed to the
Hunter Biden laptop suppression story, which was an example of
"election interference."

    Elon Musk talks about the Hunter Biden Laptop story “that’s
election interference” pic.twitter.com/99UVBxf1oy
    — ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) May 16, 2023

Naturally, the question of Musk calling George Soros Magnito came up.
An incongruous Faber asks where that tweet came from, to which Musk
replies "that is my opinion." Faber then pressed: "why share it" if it
could lead to less revenue/sales, and do your tweets "hurt the
company"; Musk responds with a quote from the Princess Bride: "offer
me money; offer me power. I don't care." The sad fact is that all of
Musk's peers in the media world, who aren't independently wealthy and
who do care about money (and power) will gladly be PR agents for their
advertising sponsors, pretending to be independent media outlets.

    Elon Musk on Tuesday said that if his inflammatory tweets scare
away advertisers from Twitter, he will accept that. “I’ll say what I
want, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it."
https://t.co/0Pi3Yl8Jo2 pic.twitter.com/tQUOc4GChO
    — CNBC (@CNBC) May 17, 2023

How he has managed a takeover of Twitter so far and what lies ahead.
Among other things, he said Twitter’s Community Notes feature has cost
Twitter $40 million in business when two big clients reduced spending
after their ads received community notes accusing them of false
advertising. He also claimed that when the acquisition closed, Twitter
had negative $3 billion in annual cash flow and $1 billion in the
bank. “The analogy I was using was like being teleported into a plane
that’s in a nosedive headed to the ground with the engines on fire and
the controls don’t work….”

    Elon Musk on his acquisition of Twitter: "The analogy I was using
was it was like being teleported into a plane that's in a nosedive,
headed to the ground with the engines on fire and the controls don't
work. That's what it felt like." https://t.co/HDj69iAFmA
pic.twitter.com/xsp33uwWnj
    — CNBC (@CNBC) May 16, 2023

Musk said he voted for Biden but hinted he wasn’t happy with his
choice, saying “I wish we could have just a normal human being as
president.”

    Elon Musk is asked if he regrets voting for Joe Biden “Man.. I
wish we could just have a normal human being as President”
pic.twitter.com/JzWaLYn4Wr
    — ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) May 16, 2023

Asked if he believes the 2020 election was stolen, Musk said no, but
countered that there certainly has been election fraud.

    🚨BREAKING: Elon Musk Does NOT Believe 2020 Election Was Stolen

    In an interview with David Faber, Elon Musk, made a significant
statement by expressing his belief that the 2020 election was not
stolen.

    This statement goes against the claims made by some who allege
fraud in the… pic.twitter.com/SwN4uen115
    — Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) May 16, 2023

Musk even slammed the obvious CIA front Bellingcat. Discussing the
recent Texas shooting, Musk said the shooter was "incorrectly
described to be a white supremacist. The company that found this is
Belingcat. Do you know what Belingcat is? A company that does Psyops."

    Elon Musk on Tuesday said that if his inflammatory tweets scare
away advertisers from Twitter, he will accept that. “I’ll say what I
want, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it."
https://t.co/0Pi3Yl8Jo2 pic.twitter.com/tQUOc4GChO
    — CNBC (@CNBC) May 17, 2023

Going back to twitter, and the historic layoffs there, Musk said that
"Desperate times call for desperate measures," referring to the more
than 6,000 job cuts. Remarkably, despite widespread calls that the end
of Twitter is nigh as there is no way the company can survive with 80%
of its workers fired, so far Twitter is leaner and faster than before,
a testament to the epic employee bloat in Silicon Valley over the past
decade.

    "Desperate times call for desperate measures," Elon Musk said
Tuesday on the layoffs that shed more than 6,000 jobs at Twitter. Musk
added that he thinks Twitter now needs to hire more people and
possibly "rehire some of the people that were let go."
https://t.co/1lqWEJF3CZ pic.twitter.com/LUp2oOcPzI
    — CNBC (@CNBC) May 17, 2023

His involvement in the early days of ChatGPT-developer OpenAI, saying
that it exists only because he wanted a non-commercial alternative to
Google’s growing dominance in AI. He expressed disappointment that the
company has abandoned its non-profit roots. And he said he is no
longer friends with Google co-founder Larry Page. “The final straw was
Larry calling me a ‘species-ist’ for being pro-human consciousness
instead of machine consciousness.”.

    Elon Musk claimed on Tuesday that he is "the reason OpenAI
exists," citing his past investment in the entity, and that Microsoft
exerts control over the AI company, an assertion strongly denied by
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. https://t.co/yEU1gYLa2S
pic.twitter.com/3RxJJKpPQb
    — CNBC (@CNBC) May 17, 2023

His personal views and habits when it comes to work and productivity.
He said he takes only two or three days off per year, works seven days
a week and gets six hours of sleep a night. He also said he believes
it’s morally wrong for people in the “laptop class” to advocate for
working from home when service workers, such as people who work in
factories, still have to show up in person.

    "I would just say, you know, to sort of follow their heart in
terms of what they find interesting to do or fulfilling to do," Elon
Musk said on Tuesday when asked what career advice he has for his
children. "And try to be as useful as possible to the rest of
society." pic.twitter.com/i0c1SG6wCh
    — CNBC Make It (@CNBCMakeIt) May 16, 2023

Tesla’s ability to weather rocky economic cycles. Musk said that the
next 12 months will be difficult for Tesla from a macroeconomic
perspective because of increased interest rates pinching consumer
budgets. But he also said Tesla could take advantage of Tesla’s
“real-time information on demand” for its cars to adjust pricing
effectively.

Faber asked what would happen to the global economy if China makes a
move to control Taiwan. “The Chinese economy and the rest of the
global economy are like conjoined twins. It would be like trying to
separate conjoined twins. That’s the severity of the situation. And
it’s actually worse for a lot of other companies than it is for Tesla.
I mean, I’m not sure where you’re going to get an iPhone, for
example.”

Last but not least, there was a discussion of the Fed, which Musk
believes is going to be too slow to lower interest rates when the
economy slows, and that will hurt consumer demand. “You can think of
raising the Fed rate as somewhat of a brake pedal on the economy,
frankly,” Musk said. “It makes a lot of things more expensive. So if
the car payment or your home mortgage is absorbing more of your
monthly budget then you have less money to buy other things.”

    "You can think of raising the Fed rate as somewhat of a break
pedal on the economy, frankly," Elon Musk said Tuesday. "It makes a
lot of things more expensive." https://t.co/yqYYRr6a8U
pic.twitter.com/X4cjtOhQGF
    — CNBC (@CNBC) May 17, 2023


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