Of course, that doesn't make him wrong, it just makes him an interested party.
But this is a fine rant, getting extra credit for being delivered on an earnings call. He calls the government lock down fascist, explicitly using the term. Maybe he just reads Borepatch. Full marks. Maybe he's read Borepatch for a long time*, in which case the question becomes "what took you so long, dude?"
Of course, sophisticated observers have know this for the better part of a decade, but it's gratifying to see a Captain Of Industry saying this out loud.
But yeah - fascist. And a note to all government employees who think they might "follow orders" to ask for a "government permit" for free citizens out and about doing their business: you get extra crazy fascist style points** asking for the permit in the original German: "Papierien, bitte."
Extra crazy style points.
* Perhaps the finest comment ever left here was by The Czar Of Muscovy on that post. Bravo. And that post got a comment by Spandrell. (Respectful) Fanboi Squee!
** Remember, the Wehrmacht got Hugo Boss to design their uniforms. Extra crazy style points, amirite?
5 comments:
It reinforces, not contradicts, your point that Hugo Boss didn't design Wehrmacht uniforms (though he did produce them) but rather that he designed uniforms for the SS and Hitler Youth.
I've changed my opinions on Musk over the last couple of years, since I started thinking that with Cape Canaveral just up the road and some connections I have, I should move my blog to being more space-industry oriented. Which means I follow SpaceX more than I did before.
Is Musk a bit of a carney barker? You bet you ass. Does he run a car company that can only exist with Federal subsidies? Ditto. That last one goes for GM and all the others bailed out by Obama. Add in the electric cars that Toyota, Nissan and the Big Three build, too.
In SpaceX, though, it's his vision that mankind needs to be an interplanetary species that pushes him. Yeah, they took advantage of some largess from NASA, but now they're pushing the world. They're a contractor to NASA, just like Boeing and United Launch Alliance. NASA says they outperform Boeing at almost half the cost. Their Falcon 9 is the most flown rocket in the world and is pushing launch costs aggressively lower with reusable boosters and fairings. Starship, the one they're working on aggressively out in Texas, will turn the launch business upside down.
So credit where due. He's a driven guy and SpaceX is routinely doing things nobody else does.
Elon Musk is a rent-seeking missile* but he's right in this (and right about SpaceX, but that's another story).
*He's no worse in that regard than Warren Buffett.
HAR HAR HAR! HAR HAR HAR!!!
“Rent seeking missile”? 😆👍
BP, I think it’s the academics, intellectuals and the random shitgoblins in the comments that are the key feature of your blog. The vocabulary alone is worth the trip!
😊
I'm ok with robber barons if it gets us space travel.
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