An estimated $4 to $20 billion in value, what is he thinking?

  • donuts@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    This fucking dude could have spent <$1M hiring a small team to spin up a heavily customized X-branded Mastodon server, but instead he spent $44 BILLION dollars buying and ruining Twitter.

    How fucking crazy is that? That’s fucking crazy… right?

    • bermuda@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      this is the guy who decided to build a tunnel under LA to skip traffic and then instead built one in las vegas that gets traffic jams

        • bermuda@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          yes but he built it in las vegas. It has a few stops and relies on teslas, each with a driver, and it functions as a very basic “public transit” system. Almost none of what he initially promised are present in the final design. Originally it was going to be his “hyperloop” thing. Then it was “autonomous vehicles.” Now it’s “teslas driven by people”

          • shagie@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            It’s largely been vaporware and reduced scope after promises made in an attempt to kill/distract local governments from investing in public transportation.

            https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass-transit/

            “I think public transport is painful. It sucks. Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn’t leave where you want it to leave, doesn’t start where you want it to start, doesn’t end where you want it to end? And it doesn’t go all the time.”

            “It’s a pain in the ass,” he continued. “That’s why everyone doesn’t like it. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer, OK, great. And so that’s why people like individualized transport, that goes where you want, when you want.”

            And an NYT article on it: Opinion - Elon Musk Has Some Bad Ideas for Mass Transit. We Have Solutions.

            • Apathy Tree@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              Haha you are right, he did try to reinvent the subway!

              And any of the problems he mentioned could basically be fixed by spending -more- on public transit, rather than less… with the exception of it leaving from wherever you want and there being other people (though the more they run, the fewer people need to take each).

              • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech
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                1 year ago

                That’s what bugs me about all of his “inventions”, is that they aren’t really new ideas, or even if they are they’re wildly expensive for the benefits. Cities like Vegas look at him and thought “Oh wow finally we’ll solve traffic with these new ideas!” when really they just need to invest in actual proven infrastructure like subways and commuter rail.

                It’s well known that Elon pitched the hyperloop in California because he wanted to kill California’s high speed rail, because he’d rather have people buy Teslas then have an inexpensive fast way to travel between cities. He delayed the project for years over his wild claims, and people are still hesitant to it thanks to his selfishness.

                • figment@lemmy.sdf.org
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                  1 year ago

                  It was a capacity number set by LVCVA (the customer), but yeah. Not much else they can do yet since it’s a small system and events that take over the entire convention center are intermittent.

          • QHC@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Is it better than a light rail system, or would that not help sell enough products from a company owned by Musk?

            • figment@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              It’s definitely less than that. The advantages will be when you’re able to get in a vehicle and input your destination and it can go straight there without a single other stop. In theory at least. I’m not saying it’s genius but it’s an interesting concept and I’m curious to see if it works when scaled.

              • moomoomoo309@programming.dev
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                1 year ago

                Given the short distance it goes and the fact that it has human drivers currently…I’m doubtful it’s going to scale at all. In its current iteration, a small train would have been better in just about every way. I wouldn’t praise it for what it will be, praise it for what it is, because Elon Musk loves to promise the moon and stars and not deliver on those promises.

          • bermuda@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Just trying to hold people accountable for their bullshit. Go fuck yourselves.

            If I recall correctly, you tried to “hold me accountable” by claiming I was slandering him and coming up with lies, when in fact none of what I said was even a lie. In fact, you even said yourself that it gets backed up “sometimes,” which is what I mean by traffic jams.

            It sounds to me like you need to learn what the word slander, actually means. Also, I reported this because it’s rude as hell.