The Tom Sawyer Principle (Politics)

[Grant]

If you were a con-man who was good at manipulating financial markets what sort of industries would you invest in?

You'd want to invest in fashionable businesses which attract massive government subsidies.

I give you......Elon Musk

[Grant]

Harsh, you say. This is the man who is the modern Edison, an innovator of genius. But what has he actually innovated? Let's examine the evidence of his genius:

PayPal - this is apparently how he made his money. But PayPal already existed when he "discovered " it. He put family money into the business and eventually cashed out. Well done Elon, but no innovation there.

Tesla - again already existed. Put money into the company and then benefited from the fashion for all things green

SpaceX - built dozens of rockets which often blew up, but apparently some of the parts are reusable. Their reusable nature is demonstrated by the spectacular landings of the first stage of the rockets. But despite the publicity campaigns championing his genius he has done nothing which NASA hadn't done forty years before.

AI - put billions into Grok, his unsuccessful challenger to ChatGPT

When the money started to dry out, he launched SpaceX as an IPO and sold 5% of the company for 80 billion, nominally valuing the company at one and a half trillion. But it relies totally on government funding and turnover is a mere 20 billion.

Notice that all of Musk's initiatives are always those which generate the maximum publicity like missions to Mars, underground tunnels solving transport problems, great AI models. All of these initiatives are failing but can be promoted by Musk's own social media platform.

[Grant]

Musk is at best a financier of genius who is great at boosting his businesses, which have been chosen more for their promotional opportunities than a desire for true innovation.

At worst, he is the greatest con-man in history, making Bernie Madoff look like an amateur.

[Mick Harper]

This is completely ludicrous. Not liking the man is hardly a reason to mischaracterise him.

[Mick Harper]

The only man ever to allow a nuclear weapon to be used in earnest is President Harry Truman. He did not know much about The Bomb because he wasn't told about it when he was V-P. In fact Roosevelt only spoke to his vice-president twice about anything at all.

When Truman told Stalin about it at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945 he was surprised at the Marshall's lack of interest. Possibly because Stalin knew more about The Bomb than both Roosevelt and Truman combined thanks to his agents having helped to construct it.

[Grant]

No, I like Musk.I share most of his political views and admire him for how much money he's made.

I just think that when Space X and Tesla go bust and crash the US economy, there will be books explaining that he was just a con man. In fact, it will become received opinion.