It occurs to me that Elon Musk is somewhat the anti-Soros
Now that Musk has become the largest shareholder in Twitter, it seems he has plans to change some things:
Elon Musk filed a new disclosure on his Twitter Inc. stake with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, admitting that he invested in the company with the goal of effecting change and that his stock purchases began months ago.
Musk disclosed Monday morning that he had purchased 9.2% of Twitter’s TWTR, -0.88% outstanding stock, but he did so on a 13G form suggesting the investment was passive, meaning he would not seek change at the company. Tuesday afternoon, he filed a form 13D, more often used by activist investors, that detailed an agreement the Tesla Inc. TSLA, -3.93% chief executive has reached with the social-media company that was disclosed by Twitter earlier in the day.
More here:
Now, it is becoming more clear why Musk did not officially declare passive status, as if his intense passion about how Twitter should be run, his recent outcry about free speech, and his frustration that right-wing zealots have been banned didn’t make that clear enough.
“They know he can buy the whole company,” Ives said. “It’s rare that someone has $300 billion in cash or net worth. That’s why they did that. If they didn’t embrace it, he would just go and buy another 10 % and get more and more control.”
Musk has already shown how he can agitate for change at the company. He recently asked his 80 million-plus followers whether they wanted an edit feature on Twitter. In late March, he had asked whether or not Twitter adheres to free speech, leading right-wing users to clamor for Musk to reinstate the banned Donald Trump to the platform. Users responded with a resounding no to the free-speech question, and a yes to an edit feature.
“Right-wing zealots” – how is that defined, exactly? That’s sarcasm on my part, because of course it’s not defined exactly.
And sacré blue, an edit feature!
We’ll see what happens with Trump and Twitter.
But back to my original contention about Musk being the anti-Soros – as in matter and anti-matter. Soros is supposedly worth 8 billion dollars and is heavily involved in political change, in recent years most particularly changing (that is, destroying, IMHO) our criminal justice system with so-called “Soros DAs,” whom he sponsors and promotes with large donations of money. Musk makes Soros look like a piker, with Musk’s net worth estimated to be somewhere near 300 billion (mostly in stocks, though).
Soros was born in Hungary in 1930 and became a US citizen in 1961. Musk was born in South Africa in 1971 and became a US citizen in 2002, making an interesting parallel in the age at which they both became citizens. They are on different sides of the political spectrum, but Musk does not identify as being on the right:
Politically, Musk has described himself as “half Democrat, half Republican” and “I’m somewhere in the middle, socially liberal and fiscally conservative.” In 2018, he stated that he was “not a conservative. I’m registered independent [and] politically moderate.”
My sense of things is that he leans more to the libertarian side of things, although not the fanatical libertarian side. As such, it makes sense that his Twitter dealings have as a goal the expansion of freedom of expression there.
Musk has described the United States as “[inarguably] the greatest country that has ever existed on Earth,” describing it as “the greatest force for good of any country that’s ever been.” Musk believes democracy would not exist any longer if not for the United States, saying that it prevented this disappearance on three occasions through its participation in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. Musk also stated that he thinks “it would be a mistake to say the United States is perfect, it certainly is not. There have been many foolish things the United States has done and bad things the United States has done.”
In September 2021, in response to Texas Governor Greg Abbott saying that Musk supported Texas’ “social policies”, Musk tweeted “In general, I believe government should rarely impose its will upon the people, and, when doing so, should aspire to maximize their cumulative happiness” and “That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics
His opinions re Trump have been somewhat mixed. He’s also on record as being against short-selling, whereas Soros is one of the leading and most successful practitioners of short-selling (see this). There’s tons more about Musk’s politics at this link.
Whatever is going on, the left isn’t happy about Musk and Twitter.
Whenever the Left feels it may lose total control (AKA have to “share power”, compromise, feel a bit of empathy for “the other”, grow up) they throw a tantrum.
They do this because, frankly, how can they be expected to share power with Deplorable Troglodytes, White Supremacists (especially Black White Supremacists), with RACISTS, neo-nazis, patriarchal proponents of (so-called) fair play and (so-called) respect for (so-called) law. With White people? Etc.
I guess that from their POV they have a point.
File under: To understand is to ROTFL.
so reassuring 😉
Soros made his fortune attacking the British Pound in a malicious short attack. Most short sellers are useful. I see no benefit from him. He seems to enjoy destruction. I cannot understand his desire to create chaos in cities. Maybe he is just evil, although I rarely attribute that to anyone.
Soros Is Evil, there can be no doubt about that. His actions consistently show that.
I appreciate neo having an edit feature.
Well, Musk certainly seems to piss off all the right people. There’s a good quote out there somewhere about judging people by their enemies. By that measure Musk is A-OK with me.
Pyromaniacs get enormous satisfaction (even sexual release) from burning buildings to the ground. We have all heard/read about teenagers breaking into new housing projects and completely trashing them: breaking windows, punching holes in the walls, destroying the kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures,,spray painting graffiti, urinating and defecating all over the floors, etc. Kids generally outgrown those behaviors. Some, especially those with billions of dollars and a deep passion for that kind of thing, just take it to another level and become much more sophisticated at it. I wonder that G. Soros might fall into this category.
Wouldn’t it be comical, in a Shakespearean way, if the Great Reset, which has been shaped and articulated as a Globalist transformation of the world, turned out to be a populist-driven groundswell that returned the Overton Window to sensible terrain, banished hysterical behavior from the public square, and restored liberalism to its grounded origins – as well as pulling conservatism back to its role of actually…..conserving things again. Come on, Law of Unintended Consequences.
Elon Musk has claimed that he is one the Asperger’s spectrum which explains his often inexplicable actions and behaviors.
I don’t know if he is a righty or a lefty but some of the things he has done are marvelous. Some are just weird. He does hate when his business are hit by regulations or taxes. But that’s standard business stuff.
I love Space X and I love Starlink, his satellite internet service, he has donated quite a few units to Ukraine, which has been used to great ends by the military.
My house has one of his solar units on the roof which saves me tons of money on utility bills, plus I have a plug in hybrid and about 75% of my travels are cost free, due to solar energy.
And of course he created the market for electric vehicles which opens the door to new thinking on the world’s transportation needs.
Anyway this world can use more Elon Musks, eccentrics who dream and create new things.
I’d never claim Elon Musk is perfect, but he does have an unusual capacity for facing facts and presenting himself honestly.
but he does have an unusual capacity for facing facts and presenting himself honestly.
Isn’t it sad that this is unusual? Shouldn’t these be basic traits of a mature human being of any substance at all?
I don’t see how Soros could have emerged unscathed from Nazi Europe. Didn’t he help some Nazi official take inventory of the contents of dwellings whose Jewish owners had just been shipped to the camps? What does that do to you?
I just checked the “official” history (Wikipedia, Brittanica) of Soros’ younger years under the Nazis. It’s…murky. It almost looks as if people went to some trouble to make things look less bad than originally claimed. But what do I know?
Soros made his fortune attacking the British Pound in a malicious short attack.
Mike K:
I had a Marin NLP instructor who went off on a tangent about Soros in class. He said that Soros’ attack on the pound was essentially a declaration: “Stop me before I kill again!”
I don’t know what prompted my instructor to say that. He was a hip, New Age-y guy too.
I wouldn’t consider myself an unalloyed Musk fan. It still bothers me that he built his fame and fortune on taxpayer money/credits with the EV scam. And he is self-aggrandizing to say the least.
Nevertheless he seems to have good instincts on a lot of issues. And it’s nice to have one of these uber-rich tech moguls at least partially on our side. As the saying goes, don’t let the best be the enemy of the good …
We had our annual investment review at the end of March, and bought 5 shares of Tesla. First time we actually picked a stock, most of our pension is in the usual mutual funds.
I don’t even care if we lose money – “voting” for Musk was worth it.
However, because he is sane, even if not conservative, I don’t expect to lose a penny.
What FOAF said.
I’m not sure that Musk—for all his heroics (for which he deserves esteem and applause)—is entirely sane**.
He sure went off the rails following that soccer team, cave rescue in Thailand several years back….
(Moreover, every time I read about a Tesla “incident”, which is not as infrequent as it ought to be, I ask myself who would actually want to buy one of those things…)
**OTOH, quite possibly, not being entirely sane is a huge advantage….
Owen wrote, on Soros Wikipedia page:
“It almost looks as if people went to some trouble to make things look less bad than originally claimed. But what do I know?”
I totally agree.
Sadly, wiki is largely a free-for-all, kinda “open source” data sink.
@ Owen > “It almost looks as if people went to some trouble to make things look less bad than originally claimed.”
I had occasion to look up the Waukesha parade massacre yesterday for another comment.
It’s amazing, although not surprising, what the Wikipedia editors have decided that their readers don’t need to know.