Elon Musk Is The REAL President Elect.

Wyllow3

Genuine concern on both.

Well I'm concerned about Musk's views - especially in relation to women, and particularly if they don't have, or have decided not to have, children.

'Offering' to impregnate Taylor Swift because she openly challenged him is straight from the misogynist's playbook.

It's little more than the response some 'opinionated' women get from men who think they need a good man to 'sort them out'.

Freya5

Yet the wily fox Bill Gates, enters Downing St. wonder what influence him and the WEF have over this Gov. Is it normal for non political , not attached to this country, billionaires,to attend Downing St, secret meetings. Unions coughing up for Labour.
Then the Conservatives, Ashcroft, who now resides in Belize, coughing up for the Tories.
The biggest interferance in this country came from the EU during Brexit. Who doesn't remember Barnier and that horrid bespectacled being, oh yes Guy Verhofstadt, calling all no voters awful names.
As Musk has several business ventures in this country,he's quite entitled to donate to any political party he wants too.
If they bring in a rushed law, they're going to have to ban other businesses donating. They won't do that though, will they.

The biggest interferance in this country came from the EU during Brexit. Who doesn't remember Barnier and that horrid bespectacled being, oh yes Guy Verhofstadt, calling all no voters awful names.

Public name-calling is hardly interference.

On the matter of calling people "awful names" Boris Johnson once accused Trump of "stupefying ignorance" and claimed he wasn't fit for the office of POTUS - would you class that as interference?

Unions coughing up for Labour. Well that's how the Labour movement started, it's hardly a secret. Their donations make up about 50% of Labour's income I believe. And they are entitled to do that in the same way that Musk via registered British business is entitled to donate to Reform.

If they bring in a rushed law... As far as has been said in the media, they're not intending to do that as it's not an immediate priority.

Anyway, this isn't just about the Labour government - I think Reform is hoping to obliterate / absorb / replace the Tories, too.

Genuine concern on both.

There has been a considerable increase in suspensions for child abuse images etc, under Musk, they have also widened the guidance for what isnt allowed. I think it now includes physical abuse which it didnt before if I remember rightly.
I dont remember many threads condemning the previous owner of Twitter for his failure to try and tackle this problem.
My view is that for many it is a concern about Musk views rather than a concern for children.

I'm also not clear why Bill Gates is supposed to "Be a bad thing" or specifically attached to Labour.

Gates and Sunak met in 2023 to work together:

Government report
www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-meeting-with-bill-gates-15-february-2023

I'd suggest, given Gates' NGO interests in the UK, he would be well in contact with any government of the day.
"

The intention is to limit what can be donated Freya not ban it and after the excesses of what was spent in the USA elections its well about time.

To be fair, there have been debates for a long time in the UK on the whole issue of donations.

I'd like to throw light on one matter however that I don't know if posters realise.

When you join a union legally you have to specifically opt in to political donations.
It doesn't come out of some general pool with unsuspecting members "having no say" as some seem to assume. the law is very strong and very specific about this and also about consulting members by ballot and a register of those who have opted in

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a8eb8dded915d1dddcd3ca4/trade-union-political-funds-guidance.pdf

In addition, many unions are not affiliated to the Labour Party ie political donations don't go to the L Party unless members vote and choose.

Galaxy

Twitter was hideous pre Musk, it censored speech and was just awful. It absolutely has its problems now, but I can cope with hearing different opinions. Blue sky has the usual death threats towards feminists so I dont see how that's much different to Twitter.

What about the freedom Elon Musk wants to give to pornography, child pornography, hate speech, anti-semitism etc etc.

Just because what was there before was not that good doesn't justify or explain why it should now be allowed to get even worse.

Yet the wily fox Bill Gates, enters Downing St. wonder what influence him and the WEF have over this Gov. Is it normal for non political , not attached to this country, billionaires,to attend Downing St, secret meetings. Unions coughing up for Labour.
Then the Conservatives, Ashcroft, who now resides in Belize, coughing up for the Tories.
The biggest interferance in this country came from the EU during Brexit. Who doesn't remember Barnier and that horrid bespectacled being, oh yes Guy Verhofstadt, calling all no voters awful names.
As Musk has several business ventures in this country,he's quite entitled to donate to any political party he wants too.
If they bring in a rushed law, they're going to have to ban other businesses donating. They won't do that though, will they.

Wyllow3

It's probably just as well that we'll see what he gets up to in the USA and who loses out before there's too much enthusiasm to "import".

Yes!

I don't question his talent in space technology, EV transportation, software development, mechanical engineering, etc, etc, and under Capitalism we reward such people which is OK as long as they pay their taxes in order to support the infrastructure and welfare of the people they employ, without which they would be stuck with their ideas and their raw materials, going nowhere.

What I do question is the sycophantic 'bro' tech culture... he may be something of a polymath, but he doesn't have all the answers.

... handsome is as handsome does - and wealthy is as wealthy does. If you see what I mean.

It's probably just as well that we'll see what he gets up to in the USA and who loses out before there's too much enthusiasm to "import".

The meddling of oligarchs and other monied interests in the fate of nations is not new.

Last October, Colin Kahl, then the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon, sat in a hotel in Paris and prepared to make a call to avert disaster in Ukraine. A staffer handed him an iPhone—in part to avoid inviting an onslaught of late-night textsand colorful emojis on Kahl’s own phone. Kahl had returned to his room, with its heavy drapery and distant view of the Eiffel Tower, after a day of meetings with officials from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. A senior defense official told me that Kahl was surprised by whom he was about to contact:

He was, like, ‘Why am I calling Elon Musk?’

How the U.S. government came to rely on the tech billionaire—and is now struggling to rein him in.

www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/28/elon-musks-shadow-rule

Perhaps we should question Musk's involvement in our political establishment - maybe even REFORM should question it, too - to ensure that the tail does not ultimately end up wagging the dog.

Utilities and national core industries should be state controlled. The water industry is in a poor state because of very poor regulation and government not permitting spending to keep bills down, because of that bills are going to increase at a much faster rate to catch up with public expectations.

Running a government is just like any business, you either exploit resources or borrow/create money to provide the infrastructure, then you tax those that use it. That tax is the surplus to distribute to provide services to the population. Since WW2 many UK assets have been sold off to foreigners taking revenue out of the UK, they dont do it for charity, they are going to many money out of us!. In addition the digital online economy is not paying its share of taxation, which is especially unfair because they are awash with money.

We are paying foreigners to run our core industries and most other businesses it’s hardly surprising we haven’t had enough tax revenue to meet public demand, so we have to borrow. We haven’t done that to grow the economy it’s been done to win votes and meet expectations, Labour has stated that day to day spending should equal revenue raised which I support. 2+2 do not equal 5, the only way they are going to achieve that is to increase taxation or cut services, or a combination.

For many years changes have been made for short term gain, now the cost of that is beginning to bite and we have no resources to turn the clock back, we have to work harder and expect less until we rebuild the economy.

Twitter was hideous pre Musk, it censored speech and was just awful. It absolutely has its problems now, but I can cope with hearing different opinions. Blue sky has the usual death threats towards feminists so I dont see how that's much different to Twitter.

I don't think the government is happy at all with foreign owned utilities as you seem to suggest, David. Not so easy however to suggest viable ways to change the current situation. Yes Allira the thought of foreign investors still creaming profits off failing water companies makes my blood boil.

Water companies anyone?
It carried on for years too, under subsequent governments.

Starmer seems determined to do the same in the UK and I support that.

Oh, jolly good. Everything will be foreign-owned, then.

David49

Allira

empire building civil servants.
Why would you say that? It's just a throwaway remark.

Much of the Civil Service has disappeared over a number of years, to the detriment of services offered. Some departments became agencies under the Tories and subsequently privatised or contracted out which does not necessarily mean more efficiency or lower running costs.

That’s exactly why many/most utilities are privatized because the in house departments were so top heavy with managers it became a paper chase. The same can be said of many large organizations layers of beaurocracy that’s not needed, which has become self serving.

Starmer seems determined to do the same in the UK and I support that.

I suspect that the stuff about 'top heavy management in the old nationalised industries and utilities is more like Thatcherite propaganda than the actual truth. 😆

And - are they better and more efficient now?
Which ones have improved? Water companies, railways?

Utilities were not part of the civil service.

Allira

^empire building civil servants.^
Why would you say that? It's just a throwaway remark.

Much of the Civil Service has disappeared over a number of years, to the detriment of services offered. Some departments became agencies under the Tories and subsequently privatised or contracted out which does not necessarily mean more efficiency or lower running costs.

That’s exactly why many/most utilities are privatized because the in house departments were so top heavy with managers it became a paper chase. The same can be said of many large organizations layers of beaurocracy that’s not needed, which has become self serving.

Starmer seems determined to do the same in the UK and I support that.

I don’t care what he did with Twitter and there is no evidence that it’s any worse monitoring social media than Snapchat or Tic Toc
The truth is they could all eliminate harmful material if they wanted to but they are making too much money.

Personally don’t use any SM at all, my opinions are not influenced by outside media which is more than can be said for most of GN posts.

empire building civil servants.
Why would you say that? It's just a throwaway remark.

Much of the Civil Service has disappeared over a number of years, to the detriment of services offered. Some departments became agencies under the Tories and subsequently privatised or contracted out which does not necessarily mean more efficiency or lower running costs.

MaizieD

You're just talking like a business man, David😆

I am, it’s up to the government how to spent the great amount of cash that I give to them each year and I definitely don’t want to see it wasted on those that don’t need it, or given to empire building civil servants.

The problem is that David49 is that your assessment of what Musk is is wrong.

Yes, he is good att harnessing technology but many of his other business decisions are open to question. His buy out of Twitter, now X has been a disaster, He sacked half the staff and drastically reduced monitoring. In fact he believes in complete free speech that would put no limits on pornography, terrorism, or any other harmful material on the internet.

He paid $44 billion for Twitter. X is now valued at $9.4 billion and users are migrating from X to Blue Sky in their millions.

If Musk's way of introducing efficiency to US government matches what he did to Twitter, the result for government in the USA will be disastrous.

MaizieD, David is not talking like a business man. theyare talking like a Musk groupie.

You're just talking like a business man, David😆

A governments purpose is to serve the people, in a democracy like the US elections are held every few years and voters can change the government, this year Trump was elected, they rejected Harris. How can anyone support inefficient government departments, using technology to make administration less wasteful seems a good idea to me and Musk seems a good choice to advise on that.

His SpaceX business has made the US space research much more active after many years of marking time and relying on Russian rockets. There is no evidence of any malicious intent from Musk, for him money is the driver, his businesses operate in concert with global direction. Harnessing solar power and electrification, reducing CO2 emissions. His wealth only represents the value others put on the value of his businesses at any point, I’m sure he has the trappings of wealth but at the end of the day an only eat meals a day and sleep in one bed.