“Massive shitcunt threatens to destroy the actual best part of the internet to the surprise of absolutely no one”
is what they meant to say
Incidentally, do you guys remember when this fuckhead was a darling of the left?
These are strange times.
He was a darling because he was a literally unknown person who introduced themselves with a controlled media profile who sold a way to approach the fossil fuel problem. The nice thing about the left is their views evolve rapidly to current events and Elon has been inescapable in media, so naturally he reveals his true neocon form.
The nice thing about the left is that they have some critical thinking abilities.
Made it more broad and concise for you.
Incidentally, do you guys remember when this fuckhead was a darling of the left?
And when was this? I cannot remember a time when a celebrity capitalist parasite was a "darling of the left."
I will admit there was a time when he was pushing electric cars while traditional auto manufacturers seemed to be dragging their feet. It felt like he was on the right side of a big issue and shaking things up. I think it's important to admit when we get it wrong. And boy did I get it wrong.
It felt like he was on the right side of a big issue
No. No, he never was. Any leftist will tell you that the only solution to the car problem is public transport... not silly attempts to make individual cars more "eco-friendly." That's not leftism - that's what we call "green capitalism." And leftists have understood that loooong before Phony Stark skipped South Africa to avoid being drafted into the SADF to uphold the white supremacist state he benefited so richly from.
100% agree with you now. I wasn't at that level of analysis at the time yet.
I wasn’t at that level of analysis at the time yet.
Me neither. They really did a number on us.
Do you think you could be a little more careful in your angry smearing of conscientious objectors please?
My brother dodged the draft. He’s a theologian who spent years in exile due to his refusal to serve the corrupt apartheid government.
Give a fuck about Edolf Twitler or don’t but leave the rest of us out of this. Cunt is your problem now anyway.
Just, mind the facts while you rant if you don’t mind. Please.
You're pushing a very niche view as if it's universal, I get why you're doing it but you're wrong to. There is no single solution to transport requirements and while the vast majority of leftists of course agree public transport is vital it's not a magic solution for everything and outside the car hate bubble is very rare for anyone, even a leftwing person, to be staunchly anticar.
When he was spending money on electric cars, solar, renewable energy storage and (relatively) low-cost space travel.
Yanno, before he got addicted to Twitter and became terminally online.
It honestly baffles me how many people have forgotten that Musk was heralded as basically being irl Batman because electric cars prior to Tesla were actual trash, there was little to no research being done on how to make space cheaper, and renewables only worked as long as the sun was shining and the wind was blowing (iirc the power wall was originally developed for renewable energy storage; Tesla also developed solar roof tiles so you could turn your roof into one big solar panel). He was using his money to actually help develop cleaner transportation, cleaner energy development and space travel instead of filling Olympic swimming pools with cash like most rich fucks.
Then he started posting on Twitter and everyone realized he was an idiot with too much money who got lucky with Tesla and SpaceX.
(Yes, I know he wasn't the founder of Tesla; however it was his money and idiocy-induced stubbornness that made the company successful)
Tesla "developed" those solar tiles as a fucking scam to sell investors on the Solarcity merger to bail his family out. It only ever came to fruition to keep him out of prison for outright fraud rather than just "fibbing". He bet the wellbeing of every employee and shareholder on that absolute dumpster fire of a company, literally scamming investors, just to save his ass, and it was nothing short of dumb fucking luck that kept it all burning to the ground, as he himself stated in a deposition.
Like everything else Musk does, those solar tiles are a way for wealthy people to greenwash their decadent lifestyle, while also allowing them to stay NIMBYs who don't want to ruin the look of their gaudy McMansions. Normal arrays cost fractions of what those tiles do, work better, and don't require replacing your entire roof for them.
Powerwalls were just a way to get rid of out of spec cells to people at 10x what their value is in an automotive pack. A home ESS is much gentler on them comparatively, so even out of spec cells work fine.
You want to talk about clean transportation? He came up with the literal pipe dream of the Hyperloop to keep cities from funding actual high-speed and light rail projects, so people would have to buy his shitboxes.
Literally everything he does is to keep his game as a greasy car salesman/government welfare queen going (see, SpaceX), and nothing more. Any positive benefits conferred from this are basically just a coincidence.
it was before he was an actual celebrity and was only known for creating Tesla/SpaceX. He was also "only" a millionaire and well before Tesla stock went nuts, and he also wasn't posting like crazy on Twitter so people only knew him via Tesla and SpaceX's achievements, both of them legendary underdogs looking to overthrow the well-established big industry corporations.
THIS oh gawwwd, couldn't agree more. Tired of reading news about this guy talking unintelligent crap. Dear people, for him even negative publicity is still publicity and for us it is a waste of our attention, 1 cent of which he doesn't deserve.
Media's fault for covering him and the cheeto every five seconds
You're not wrong but it's also the people's fault as well for engaging so much with this bullshit. I swear 90% of the internet exists simply to circle jerk about things people hate while the remaining 10% actually talks about things they like. I'll never understand why people choose to talk so much about the things they hate, just fucking downvote and move on to something you actually like.
All publicity is good for these pieces of shit, stop feeding into the rage cycle and they wouldn't be covered so much. Or they'd have to pay more for their coverage at the very least.
Twitter saboteur wanting to move onto sabotaging Wikipedia, the biggest reference source in the world that's only accessible via the internet, on his crusade against truth and facts? Of course it's tech news.
I mean the post has convinced me to donate to Wikipedia. It's newsworthy. I hate Musk as much as you, but I can't just stick my head in the dirt.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to unplug from it, but don't begrudge others for not wanting to.
He runs a social media platform of influence. It's tech.
"What do you mean, 'non-profit' and 'no profit' aren't identical?"
The difference is the goal of a non profit has nothing to do with making money for investors, it’s trying to actually achieve something, usually helping a group of people in some way.
I like how people are downvoting this and not commenting on why they think it's a bad statement. Old message board habits die hard I guess.
Deeply unwelcome. I hate that this is even a thought that he has had.
Buying and destroying Twitter started with a joke like this.
Unless Wikipedia is a public company with fiduciary responsibilities, can’t they just say, “fuck you. No.”?
EDIT: They’re a non commercial 501(c)(3). They can say “fuck you. No.”
Well I’m sure glad someone looked into that. Still, I’m anxious he might try to do Bad Things™ to it. Ya know, like he does whenever he gets some idea in his head about something, and then Bad Things™ happen to it.
There's that, and the fact that Jimmy Wales might have a reverse uno card, as he is quietly developing a free and non profit social media platform of his own called trust cafe.
I completely hate how something that is a rare Bastian of maintaining free and reliable factual information for the world is just a silly game for him. It sickens me. This is the kind of cartoon character rich villain that throws money a people and shouts at them to dance for him.
bastion
Beautiful game
WHY WON'T YOU DO WHAT YOU DREAM????
I can't! I have to keep my feet on the ground! Man I loved the fuck out of that movie as a kid
The entirety of the Musk sycophant Twitter sphere lost their mind about Wikipedia’s finances this week. Only because this dipshit tweeted a lie. Crazy how people can’t fathom that a non-profit that runs one of the most successful websites ever has high costs because they pay their engineers well. These people truly believe that everyone working at a non-profit should get starvation wages.
I work at a very large non profit and I am paid quite well. The work is extremely difficult and anxiety inducing but the payoff isn't really the money but the good I know I am helping to do.
But the good pay makes it so you have the mental energy to dedicate to the job and not need to worry as much about your finances and maybe have to leave, or do a worse job. I'm for genuine non profit work still being paid fair wages and more within reason. So much of the world relies on non profit programs for something!
As a fairly high up Fed that used to work for a well paid 501c3 same as you I know what you mean.
Ive responded elsewhere in this thread, and think we are otherwise aligned against this cunt, so maybe, just maybe this is a good time to give Wikipedia one of your hard earned dollars? One dollar.
Damn, finally got me to donate to Wikipedia. Years of successful ignorance down the drain - fucking thanks Elon. GUH
Well done
Done! Never did before, but I guess the headline had the right effect.
Well done
I gave them 10, just in case
Well done
Make it monthly
I did literally in response to this.
Same
High five!
Hmm, it says I can't donate from my region
Of course the community driven, anarchic nature of Wikipedia is a threat to the status quo of capitalists dominating society. Musk can't stand this, because it shows how ultra wealthy, incompetent dicktators like him are unnecessary.
Wikipedia is anything but anarchy. There's so much bureaucracy it would surprise even Kafka.
I also don't think Elon's psyche is built around an abstract notion of economic systems. He's simply a narcissist that desires shiny things, in a very basic and unrefined way. Rich people just want to add baubles to their menagerie.
Can we just put a bell on him at this point and let him run around in his own birthday party?
DON'T YOU THREATEN SOMETHING I ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT, FUCKER.
But seriously, I can't imagine the fine folks at Wikimedia seeing what happened to shitter and thinking there's any value in having him in charge.
You suck, Lonnie. Go away.
Yeah I can't wait to read all articles with facts replaced by Republican fantasy. Trump actually won the last election with 99% votes? Oh it must be true then.
So he did get Twitter just to ruin it and take it away from the left. This proves it, because he wants to do it again to Wikipedia whilst calling it "Wokipedia" like a broken, right wing soundboard. Neither platform allowed lies and, since it's the right and their only move is lies, in his view that makes them biased. Elon intentionally sabotaged twitter because it wouldn't let him and his rich cunt friends lie and now they want to do it to Wikipedia. He genuinely doesn't have a moral foundation, it's just lies and manipulation all the way down to his shriveled, rotten core.
On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright.
Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the 3,000-word anonymous article said, would amount to a “declaration of war against the Globalist American Empire.” The sender of the texts was offering Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, a playbook for the takeover and transformation of Twitter....
The text messages described a series of actions Musk should take after he gained full control of the social media platform: “Step 1: Blame the platform for its users; Step 2: Coordinated pressure campaign; Step 3: Exodus of the Bluechecks; Step 4: Deplatforming.”
So I guess he's doing it all for far right adulation.
What a fucking loser
Please make this a post of its own somewhere. I've long suspected that the intent was to ruin Twitter for political motives rather than do anything socially constructive with it. Finally, this is undeniable proof from a court of law.
I can understand his anger, but only because of who he is and what Wikipedia is.
Wikipedia attempts to have a neutral point of view (NPOV). It is extremely nuanced but it basically means being impartial, relying on the verifiable facts & sources and not giving undue weight or emphasis on fringe views. The site also has a lot of active maintainers who go in and strive for that NPOV, deleting vandalism or other acts meant to shift away from it. It's certainly not perfect but it clearly works in the main.
NPOV is a hard thing to take for someone like Musk. He says & repeats incredibly dumb things on a daily basis and is highly susceptible to misinfo. He also has a massive ego, narcissistic personality disorder and an incredibly thin skin. He doesn't like it when somebody says something he doesn't like to hear and he doesn't like it when he can't control the person saying it. I have no idea why Wikipedia is pushing his buttons but I imagine that their bio about Musk is not pretty and it riles him up no end.
Yeah. I assume Wikipedia has the words "massive fuck up", more than once, in the section covering Musk's aquisition of Twitter.
I could go read it, but I've read enough about that clown for a lifetime.
"Wokipedia" should not be confused with Wookieepedia the star wars focused wiki. Though it isnt as abjectly insane as Transformerspedia though there is some cross-over.
can a wiki editor plz change his main profile pic to that balding paypal one he loves so much? k thnx bai.
As fun as that would be, we actually have standards, unlike Elon.
A commitment to the truth is a standard
Agreed. The hairline, much like the cake, is a lie.
Ah. So this os the end goal - obtain very popular and influential things on the internet - in this case communication and knowledge/facts, and destroy them in such a way that only technofascists like himself can even find them remotely useful.
It’s the ultimate way to fuck up any democratic society and plunge the world further into chaos. What a dumpster fire.
Seize the means of information.
What's it feel like Musky to make a shitty world more shit because you're an emotionally unstable needy little bitch? Where's the fucking Mars colony you stupid whiney piss baby
Is he just a greedy idiot, or is this part of some multi-step plan to make sure the internet is filled with disinformation? At this point I think both things are true. Can't he just run off to Mars already
“I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to D**kipedia.”
This is what we’re working with. A small child.
Small children don't carry on like this. He's an embittered teenager.
He'll probably rename it "X-pedia".
Dot commmmm
Musk is always looking for his next high. He desperately wants that bong hit of attention that getting his name in the news brings to him. He's an attention whore, who can afford to burn through billions of dollars. I'm surprised he didn't buy Reddit years ago.
Reddit had no bluetick businesses, journalists, authors, government reps, entire countries used it for emergency news etc . . . he wanted to destroy those, while shit-posting at the same time.
“I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia.”
is such promise legally binding in US? it would be fun to take billion dollars from him and i am pretty sure we could all survive wiki being renamed for a day...
Just facists destroying faith in everything that’s not them. Normal modus operandi. These people need sheep who are so confused what to believe that they don’t trust anyone anymore and instead substitute trust for blind faith.
What about we all fund his trip to the Mars or whatever, but only one way.
Dude can afford to send himself to Mars, but I'd prefer we don't and send him into the sun instead. Mars don't need to be contaminated by filth like him.
It takes less fuel to eject him out of the solar system. No need to be wasteful.
Dropping someone into the sun and ejecting someone from the solar system both take a lot of energy compared to an orbital transfer to a planet with a similar orbital altitude.
Look, can we all just agree Musk needs to be sent somewhere to die in one of his rockets?
Just allow him to control his spaceship with a Logitech F710
He put his pudd in Grimes, multiple times. Just yuck. I'm not sure which one to be sorry for more.
Maybe Grimes has a problem when choosing boyfriends
Fun fact. Anyone going to Mars in the near future is going for a one way trip.
If they're lucky! Some might get lost in transit.
That's still a one-way trip!
I'd say it is a half way trip
Hell no. Wikipedia is the last untainted place of the internet
The WoWWiki and RuneScape Wiki communities ditched Wikia due to them plastering the fuck out of their wikis with tonnes of intrusive ads.
Heck, the WoW community had to ditch Wowpedia (WoWWiki's successor) to found a new wiki because Gamepedia was bought out by Fandom, the company that Wikia eventually became. Fandom ended up pulling the exact same shit soon after.
As for RuneScape, its wiki is hosted by Jagex themselves.
Musk buying Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation would end in financial disaster. Nothing would be stopping people from jumping ship to an alternative.
He can't just buy a foundation, it's a non-profit not a company.
If Musk bought Wikipedia I would demand my yearly donation refunded.
There is enough nazi information on Wikipedia already, the educational and informative kind of info that lets you see how bad nazis are.
Just wanted to note that Jagex does not host the 2 wikis, but they provide funding, domains and some other stuff but Weird Gloob is fully responsible for the wiki's and servers it's running on.
Elon, if you want to make money from the internet, move into a Skinner box panopticon where users can pay to give you electric shocks.
I would pay for that
He would make a fortune!
Is Wikipedia even buyable by cunt muffins like Elmo?
It is a non-profit organization.
Not really, but Jimmy Wales is a ayn rand libertarian knob, so there may be parts of the org that he would happily let Elon fuck with.
Hes the ceo of fandom/wikia as well, the plague destroying game wikis with deep enshittification, so yeah. Not confident hes going to turn down this offer.
God-tier title
I wonder if he didn't have his family's money, could he have been successful?
That’s the story of most ultra rich people. It’s hard to fail when you have that much money.
They do fail - upward. Everyone else gets to bounce off the ground & climb up again, they just move on to something better.
When you have 1M$, making another one is easy. That first one is hard though.
These wealthy entrepreneurs think they're brilliant risk takers, but overlook the fact that what would be a huge risk for most people is not much of a risk for them.
I think the connections were more important than the money. Reliable sources are hard to come by, but by all accounts he and his dad hate each other. Some accounts say he stole thousands of dollars from him, but it was likely less than a million that he was able to get. Moreso got lucky and had good connections so sell things.
I think it's a good thing they have an endowment to give the site more financial security, but... how big does it need to be before they stop the begging advertisements? They've already far outpaced the goal they set in 2016.
Please for the love of whatever you hold dear, do not touch that website
If my 5€ donation from last year has any power, I will veto this.
Oh look, another article giving him the attention he so craves.
Can we just not?
I mean arguably its moreso giving Wikipedia the attention it deserves and can materially capitalize up the ass. Sorry, this is one Elon Musk Show episode I can get behind. Its for the public good even if his intentions are inverse to that. Wikipedia is way fucking bigger than Elon Musk imao
As much as it sucks, this is newsworthy. Not taking him seriously is how Twitter got ruined. Well, super-ruined anyway. It was already kinda crap.
No, cause Wikimedia wouldn't let him buy it in a million years
Authoritarian DICKtator muskovite having a tantrum.
Out of context, your comment may sound somewhat childish but this all started with Elon's comment:
“I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia.”
Let the clown wring his hands over something he can't control.
we should make wikipedia into an everything app
Downvote Musk spam.
The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring him and his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle. Don’t be a useful idiot.
I agree. Why do these people go crazy over this pile of shit?
And there's really no excuse here. Musk actually buying Twitter was arguably a notable tech story. Him musing about Wikipedia is decidedly not.
So he says he'll give them a billion dollars if they change their name to dikipedia. As someone who has donated to Wikipedia in the past I'm 100% in favor of this move.
I agree. Then change it back after the check clears.
With Musk you shouldn't do anything until after you get your money. Musk must pay in advance.
Super rich and powerful people hate anything they can't have or control. They are used to getting everything they want if they pay enough money or pull enough strings.
The idea of a successful thing being completely beyond their reach torments them, they seethe with rage at anything their blood-stained, filthy dollars can't buy, it galls them and I am absolutely filled with glee at the thought.
Fuck no
I am waiting for the day when governments will have had enough of him (unless he bought those governments because that fucker is fucking rich) - and "Elon Musk" becomes "Felon Musk".
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In the middle of a wave of rampant misinformation, excessive hate speech, and endless harassment, X owner Elon Musk set his sights on Wikipedia.
Not to be outdone by his own tweet, Musk immediately followed it up with a challenge: “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia.”
Beyond its status as the largest and “most-read reference work in history,” Wikipedia has long been heralded as a product of both massive fundraising and an internet full of people obsessed with very specific things.
Earlier this month, Musk called the internet encyclopedia “wokipedia,” after co-founder Wales criticized rampant misinformation on X.
(An October report from NBC found that the Community Notes program has allowed known war misinformation to thrive on the platform unchecked for hours.)
For Rauwerda’s own purposes, right now that includes the description of zoo animals as celebrities in 19th-century American news and a serial defecator in Colorado nicknamed the Mad Pooper.
The original article contains 772 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Summary is missing some context here. The article is an interview with Annie Rauwerda.
Behind the X owner’s trolling is a years long obsession with the internet’s favorite encyclopedia, Depths of Wiki creator Annie Rauwerda tells Rolling Stone
Then later
But much of Musk’s consternation with the popular site appears to be less about its features and more about his inability to control what it says about him. Rauwerda, creator of Depths of Wikipedia, one of the most popular Wikipedia-focused accounts online, tells Rolling Stone that Musk’s focus seems to be coming from a man obsessed with encyclopedias — who’s still unable to bend the world’s most popular one towards his will.
Unchecked for... Hours?
Hours??
That's fucking amazing that they can get it down so fast! Honestly they should advise Facebook or something on how to not leave misinformation up for years. Hours is actually incredible.
Wikipedia should've agreed. Imagine for minimum a year, the whole world opening Wikipedia, gets reminded on the clown Elon Musk, again and again.
He wants to fit 425TB 428TB of content on his phone. Man is a fucking genius. I love how his own platform is calling out his bullshit 😂
You can actually get all of English Wikipedia for the low, low price of like <= 130GB
Wikipedia should counter-offer X changes its name to SeX for >= amount. Jimbo can even show Musk how to recruit and retain far more effective and cost-effective and robust moderation culture like the GOAT they are.
Nonprofit organizations that moderate a website should stay nonprofit, because at least they're not prone to making crappy business decisions that'll end up hurting them in the long term.
Is there anything that stops Elon Musk from buying Lemmy or Mastadon? Even if everyone were to migrate over to the Fediverse, what stops these websites from being bought as well?
You can't "buy" Lemmy or Mastodon any more than you can buy email or World Wide Web
Isn't Mastadon run by an organization started by Eugen Rochko? Could this organization not be bought? Or does it not make a difference who controls Rochko's organization? Sorry to ask such basic questions - I find the Fediverse pretty confusing.
He could buy a specific mastodon instance, or a specific lemmy instance if the person running the instance decided to sell their instance. It wouldn't effect any other instance directly.
By buying the mastodon org he might be able to influence development of the mastodon software, but the software is open source and someone would just make a musk-free fork and thungs would keep moving.
Also, an overly simplistic summary of the fediverse is that instead of one reddit run by the reddit corp, anyone can run their own reddit (lemmy) instance. Each instance can talk to each other instance and access data from each other instance. So instances that talk to each other effectively function like one big combined instance.
Mastodon is just one of the many frontends for ActivityPub, the protocol behind the whole thing. While Mastodon software indeed is written and maintained by an organization, it is nonprofit, and doesn't have any control over the actual Mastodon instances since those are basically run by enthusiasts
Someone get this asshole to get into a submarine
If only more billionaires tried to visit the Titanic.
Oh that's dark 🤣🤣
They all say they work well under pressure after all.
That joke dives deep.
And if they have trouble surfacing they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps
A Titan submarine, right? We want nothing but best for dear old Elon.
Only the most "Innovative" of submersibles will do.
I don’t think anyone has ever made a submarine out of toilet paper tubes, masking tape and blu-tack. This is the peak of innovation.
In the Black Sea.
Alternate headline:
“Massive shitcunt threatens to destroy the actual best part of the internet to the surprise of absolutely no one”
is what they meant to say
Incidentally, do you guys remember when this fuckhead was a darling of the left?
These are strange times.
He was a darling because he was a literally unknown person who introduced themselves with a controlled media profile who sold a way to approach the fossil fuel problem. The nice thing about the left is their views evolve rapidly to current events and Elon has been inescapable in media, so naturally he reveals his true neocon form.
The nice thing about the left is that they have some critical thinking abilities.
Made it more broad and concise for you.
And when was this? I cannot remember a time when a celebrity capitalist parasite was a "darling of the left."
I will admit there was a time when he was pushing electric cars while traditional auto manufacturers seemed to be dragging their feet. It felt like he was on the right side of a big issue and shaking things up. I think it's important to admit when we get it wrong. And boy did I get it wrong.
No. No, he never was. Any leftist will tell you that the only solution to the car problem is public transport... not silly attempts to make individual cars more "eco-friendly." That's not leftism - that's what we call "green capitalism." And leftists have understood that loooong before Phony Stark skipped South Africa to avoid being drafted into the SADF to uphold the white supremacist state he benefited so richly from.
100% agree with you now. I wasn't at that level of analysis at the time yet.
Me neither. They really did a number on us.
Do you think you could be a little more careful in your angry smearing of conscientious objectors please?
My brother dodged the draft. He’s a theologian who spent years in exile due to his refusal to serve the corrupt apartheid government.
Give a fuck about Edolf Twitler or don’t but leave the rest of us out of this. Cunt is your problem now anyway.
Just, mind the facts while you rant if you don’t mind. Please.
You're pushing a very niche view as if it's universal, I get why you're doing it but you're wrong to. There is no single solution to transport requirements and while the vast majority of leftists of course agree public transport is vital it's not a magic solution for everything and outside the car hate bubble is very rare for anyone, even a leftwing person, to be staunchly anticar.
You might not like it but it's reality.
When he was spending money on electric cars, solar, renewable energy storage and (relatively) low-cost space travel.
Yanno, before he got addicted to Twitter and became terminally online.
It honestly baffles me how many people have forgotten that Musk was heralded as basically being irl Batman because electric cars prior to Tesla were actual trash, there was little to no research being done on how to make space cheaper, and renewables only worked as long as the sun was shining and the wind was blowing (iirc the power wall was originally developed for renewable energy storage; Tesla also developed solar roof tiles so you could turn your roof into one big solar panel). He was using his money to actually help develop cleaner transportation, cleaner energy development and space travel instead of filling Olympic swimming pools with cash like most rich fucks.
Then he started posting on Twitter and everyone realized he was an idiot with too much money who got lucky with Tesla and SpaceX.
(Yes, I know he wasn't the founder of Tesla; however it was his money and idiocy-induced stubbornness that made the company successful)
Tesla "developed" those solar tiles as a fucking scam to sell investors on the Solarcity merger to bail his family out. It only ever came to fruition to keep him out of prison for outright fraud rather than just "fibbing". He bet the wellbeing of every employee and shareholder on that absolute dumpster fire of a company, literally scamming investors, just to save his ass, and it was nothing short of dumb fucking luck that kept it all burning to the ground, as he himself stated in a deposition.
Like everything else Musk does, those solar tiles are a way for wealthy people to greenwash their decadent lifestyle, while also allowing them to stay NIMBYs who don't want to ruin the look of their gaudy McMansions. Normal arrays cost fractions of what those tiles do, work better, and don't require replacing your entire roof for them.
Powerwalls were just a way to get rid of out of spec cells to people at 10x what their value is in an automotive pack. A home ESS is much gentler on them comparatively, so even out of spec cells work fine.
You want to talk about clean transportation? He came up with the literal pipe dream of the Hyperloop to keep cities from funding actual high-speed and light rail projects, so people would have to buy his shitboxes.
Literally everything he does is to keep his game as a greasy car salesman/government welfare queen going (see, SpaceX), and nothing more. Any positive benefits conferred from this are basically just a coincidence.
it was before he was an actual celebrity and was only known for creating Tesla/SpaceX. He was also "only" a millionaire and well before Tesla stock went nuts, and he also wasn't posting like crazy on Twitter so people only knew him via Tesla and SpaceX's achievements, both of them legendary underdogs looking to overthrow the well-established big industry corporations.
I think it's important to distinct what part of the left.
Most of the left on Lemmy? Probably not.
A lot of liberals who align themselves with the US democrats? There was a lot of support until the famous pedo incident.
i never trusted him
Stop posting Musk's fucking face. This isn't tech
I'm so tired of seeing mean gross old white men scowling all over my damn feed any time anyone shares an article.
Pretty sick of them wrecking the world, some of us will get stuck with clean/ survival because of them.
Would it be fine if they were mean gross old black men? Or mean gross young white men?
I couldn't say because it never really happens enough to make me sick of seeing them being such shitty people it regularly makes headlines.
I'm assuming you aren't familiar with Clarence Thomas?
THIS oh gawwwd, couldn't agree more. Tired of reading news about this guy talking unintelligent crap. Dear people, for him even negative publicity is still publicity and for us it is a waste of our attention, 1 cent of which he doesn't deserve.
Media's fault for covering him and the cheeto every five seconds
You're not wrong but it's also the people's fault as well for engaging so much with this bullshit. I swear 90% of the internet exists simply to circle jerk about things people hate while the remaining 10% actually talks about things they like. I'll never understand why people choose to talk so much about the things they hate, just fucking downvote and move on to something you actually like.
All publicity is good for these pieces of shit, stop feeding into the rage cycle and they wouldn't be covered so much. Or they'd have to pay more for their coverage at the very least.
Twitter saboteur wanting to move onto sabotaging Wikipedia, the biggest reference source in the world that's only accessible via the internet, on his crusade against truth and facts? Of course it's tech news.
I mean the post has convinced me to donate to Wikipedia. It's newsworthy. I hate Musk as much as you, but I can't just stick my head in the dirt.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to unplug from it, but don't begrudge others for not wanting to.
He runs a social media platform of influence. It's tech.
Don't like it? Hide the post and move on.
Someone should tell Elon that an unprofitable website and a non-profit website are not the same thing.
He isn't doing it for profit, he wants control
he wants to write articles about himself
"What do you mean, 'non-profit' and 'no profit' aren't identical?"
The difference is the goal of a non profit has nothing to do with making money for investors, it’s trying to actually achieve something, usually helping a group of people in some way.
I like how people are downvoting this and not commenting on why they think it's a bad statement. Old message board habits die hard I guess.
Oof
Deeply unwelcome. I hate that this is even a thought that he has had.
Buying and destroying Twitter started with a joke like this.
Unless Wikipedia is a public company with fiduciary responsibilities, can’t they just say, “fuck you. No.”?
EDIT: They’re a non commercial 501(c)(3). They can say “fuck you. No.”
Well I’m sure glad someone looked into that. Still, I’m anxious he might try to do Bad Things™ to it. Ya know, like he does whenever he gets some idea in his head about something, and then Bad Things™ happen to it.
There's that, and the fact that Jimmy Wales might have a reverse uno card, as he is quietly developing a free and non profit social media platform of his own called trust cafe.
Twitter was public. Wikimedia is a 501 non-profit.
He can't buy it.
No, I know. Still feels less than good
I completely hate how something that is a rare Bastian of maintaining free and reliable factual information for the world is just a silly game for him. It sickens me. This is the kind of cartoon character rich villain that throws money a people and shouts at them to dance for him.
bastion
Beautiful game
WHY WON'T YOU DO WHAT YOU DREAM????
I can't! I have to keep my feet on the ground! Man I loved the fuck out of that movie as a kid
Yeah and pollute it with fascist content.
I donated to Wikipedia, today. A few bucks to a very valuable site.
Wikipedia should run a fund raiser: "Give us a billion dollars or we'll change the name."
Donate today or else!
$1b = Wikipedia
< $1b = W
Nah, he'd call it X again, like literally every other company he's tried that with.
Xpedia
HHHHHHHUUUUUURRRRRRRRRFFFGRGHF
Amazing idea
But for only $8 a month you are the only one who’s allowed to edit your site.
Wikipedia is not the Achilles heel of free access to information. The Achilles heel are the sources: libraries, websites.
Consider donating to the internet archive instead or as well. If the sources are poisoned, Wikipedia just repeats bullshit. It's secondary literature.
I'm not sure you know what Achilles heel means
Source: Wikipedia
A few years ago, I set up a monthly donation. Of all things I can use for free on the internet, Wikipedia deserves it the most.
The entirety of the Musk sycophant Twitter sphere lost their mind about Wikipedia’s finances this week. Only because this dipshit tweeted a lie. Crazy how people can’t fathom that a non-profit that runs one of the most successful websites ever has high costs because they pay their engineers well. These people truly believe that everyone working at a non-profit should get starvation wages.
I work at a very large non profit and I am paid quite well. The work is extremely difficult and anxiety inducing but the payoff isn't really the money but the good I know I am helping to do.
But the good pay makes it so you have the mental energy to dedicate to the job and not need to worry as much about your finances and maybe have to leave, or do a worse job. I'm for genuine non profit work still being paid fair wages and more within reason. So much of the world relies on non profit programs for something!
As a fairly high up Fed that used to work for a well paid 501c3 same as you I know what you mean.
Tax billionaires out of existence.
One can only dream
Ive responded elsewhere in this thread, and think we are otherwise aligned against this cunt, so maybe, just maybe this is a good time to give Wikipedia one of your hard earned dollars? One dollar.
https://donate.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give
Damn, finally got me to donate to Wikipedia. Years of successful ignorance down the drain - fucking thanks Elon. GUH
Well done
Done! Never did before, but I guess the headline had the right effect.
Well done
I gave them 10, just in case
Well done
Make it monthly
I did literally in response to this.
Same
High five!
Hmm, it says I can't donate from my region
Of course the community driven, anarchic nature of Wikipedia is a threat to the status quo of capitalists dominating society. Musk can't stand this, because it shows how ultra wealthy, incompetent dicktators like him are unnecessary.
Wikipedia is anything but anarchy. There's so much bureaucracy it would surprise even Kafka.
I also don't think Elon's psyche is built around an abstract notion of economic systems. He's simply a narcissist that desires shiny things, in a very basic and unrefined way. Rich people just want to add baubles to their menagerie.
Can we just put a bell on him at this point and let him run around in his own birthday party?
DON'T YOU THREATEN SOMETHING I ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT, FUCKER.
But seriously, I can't imagine the fine folks at Wikimedia seeing what happened to shitter and thinking there's any value in having him in charge.
You suck, Lonnie. Go away.
Yeah I can't wait to read all articles with facts replaced by Republican fantasy. Trump actually won the last election with 99% votes? Oh it must be true then.
So he did get Twitter just to ruin it and take it away from the left. This proves it, because he wants to do it again to Wikipedia whilst calling it "Wokipedia" like a broken, right wing soundboard. Neither platform allowed lies and, since it's the right and their only move is lies, in his view that makes them biased. Elon intentionally sabotaged twitter because it wouldn't let him and his rich cunt friends lie and now they want to do it to Wikipedia. He genuinely doesn't have a moral foundation, it's just lies and manipulation all the way down to his shriveled, rotten core.
I found this interesting article when trying to understand why he's doing what he's doing with Twitter. What was Elon Musk’s strategy for Twitter? - NBC News
That pressure campaign is against the Anti Defamation League which Musk has been trying to do.
So I guess he's doing it all for far right adulation.
What a fucking loser
Please make this a post of its own somewhere. I've long suspected that the intent was to ruin Twitter for political motives rather than do anything socially constructive with it. Finally, this is undeniable proof from a court of law.
I can understand his anger, but only because of who he is and what Wikipedia is.
Wikipedia attempts to have a neutral point of view (NPOV). It is extremely nuanced but it basically means being impartial, relying on the verifiable facts & sources and not giving undue weight or emphasis on fringe views. The site also has a lot of active maintainers who go in and strive for that NPOV, deleting vandalism or other acts meant to shift away from it. It's certainly not perfect but it clearly works in the main.
NPOV is a hard thing to take for someone like Musk. He says & repeats incredibly dumb things on a daily basis and is highly susceptible to misinfo. He also has a massive ego, narcissistic personality disorder and an incredibly thin skin. He doesn't like it when somebody says something he doesn't like to hear and he doesn't like it when he can't control the person saying it. I have no idea why Wikipedia is pushing his buttons but I imagine that their bio about Musk is not pretty and it riles him up no end.
Yeah. I assume Wikipedia has the words "massive fuck up", more than once, in the section covering Musk's aquisition of Twitter.
I could go read it, but I've read enough about that clown for a lifetime.
"Wokipedia" should not be confused with Wookieepedia the star wars focused wiki. Though it isnt as abjectly insane as Transformerspedia though there is some cross-over.
can a wiki editor plz change his main profile pic to that balding paypal one he loves so much? k thnx bai.
As fun as that would be, we actually have standards, unlike Elon.
A commitment to the truth is a standard
Agreed. The hairline, much like the cake, is a lie.
Ah. So this os the end goal - obtain very popular and influential things on the internet - in this case communication and knowledge/facts, and destroy them in such a way that only technofascists like himself can even find them remotely useful.
It’s the ultimate way to fuck up any democratic society and plunge the world further into chaos. What a dumpster fire.
Seize the means of information.
What's it feel like Musky to make a shitty world more shit because you're an emotionally unstable needy little bitch? Where's the fucking Mars colony you stupid whiney piss baby
Is he just a greedy idiot, or is this part of some multi-step plan to make sure the internet is filled with disinformation? At this point I think both things are true. Can't he just run off to Mars already
This is what we’re working with. A small child.
Small children don't carry on like this. He's an embittered teenager.
He'll probably rename it "X-pedia".
Dot commmmm
Musk is always looking for his next high. He desperately wants that bong hit of attention that getting his name in the news brings to him. He's an attention whore, who can afford to burn through billions of dollars. I'm surprised he didn't buy Reddit years ago.
Reddit had no bluetick businesses, journalists, authors, government reps, entire countries used it for emergency news etc . . . he wanted to destroy those, while shit-posting at the same time.
At least it reminded me to renew my annual donation to Wikipedia. Fucking Muskunt.
Hell I think this has concern me to start doing an annual donation. Fuck Musk.
I've donated in the past and, thanks to the big baby, I think I'll make a donation again
is such promise legally binding in US? it would be fun to take billion dollars from him and i am pretty sure we could all survive wiki being renamed for a day...
Absolutely not.
Just facists destroying faith in everything that’s not them. Normal modus operandi. These people need sheep who are so confused what to believe that they don’t trust anyone anymore and instead substitute trust for blind faith.
What about we all fund his trip to the Mars or whatever, but only one way.
Dude can afford to send himself to Mars, but I'd prefer we don't and send him into the sun instead. Mars don't need to be contaminated by filth like him.
It takes less fuel to eject him out of the solar system. No need to be wasteful.
Dropping someone into the sun and ejecting someone from the solar system both take a lot of energy compared to an orbital transfer to a planet with a similar orbital altitude.
Look, can we all just agree Musk needs to be sent somewhere to die in one of his rockets?
Just allow him to control his spaceship with a Logitech F710
He put his pudd in Grimes, multiple times. Just yuck. I'm not sure which one to be sorry for more.
Maybe Grimes has a problem when choosing boyfriends
Fun fact. Anyone going to Mars in the near future is going for a one way trip.
If they're lucky! Some might get lost in transit.
That's still a one-way trip!
I'd say it is a half way trip
Hell no. Wikipedia is the last untainted place of the internet
He always talks a lot of shit and pussies out. He don't do anything unless by court order.
Hasn't he learned anything from Wikia/Fandom?
The WoWWiki and RuneScape Wiki communities ditched Wikia due to them plastering the fuck out of their wikis with tonnes of intrusive ads.
Heck, the WoW community had to ditch Wowpedia (WoWWiki's successor) to found a new wiki because Gamepedia was bought out by Fandom, the company that Wikia eventually became. Fandom ended up pulling the exact same shit soon after.
As for RuneScape, its wiki is hosted by Jagex themselves.
Musk buying Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation would end in financial disaster. Nothing would be stopping people from jumping ship to an alternative.
He can't just buy a foundation, it's a non-profit not a company.
If Musk bought Wikipedia I would demand my yearly donation refunded.
There is enough nazi information on Wikipedia already, the educational and informative kind of info that lets you see how bad nazis are.
Just wanted to note that Jagex does not host the 2 wikis, but they provide funding, domains and some other stuff but Weird Gloob is fully responsible for the wiki's and servers it's running on.
Elon, if you want to make money from the internet, move into a Skinner box panopticon where users can pay to give you electric shocks.
I would pay for that
He would make a fortune!
Is Wikipedia even buyable by cunt muffins like Elmo?
It is a non-profit organization.
Not really, but Jimmy Wales is a ayn rand libertarian knob, so there may be parts of the org that he would happily let Elon fuck with.
Hes the ceo of fandom/wikia as well, the plague destroying game wikis with deep enshittification, so yeah. Not confident hes going to turn down this offer.
God-tier title
I wonder if he didn't have his family's money, could he have been successful?
That’s the story of most ultra rich people. It’s hard to fail when you have that much money.
They do fail - upward. Everyone else gets to bounce off the ground & climb up again, they just move on to something better.
When you have 1M$, making another one is easy. That first one is hard though.
These wealthy entrepreneurs think they're brilliant risk takers, but overlook the fact that what would be a huge risk for most people is not much of a risk for them.
I think the connections were more important than the money. Reliable sources are hard to come by, but by all accounts he and his dad hate each other. Some accounts say he stole thousands of dollars from him, but it was likely less than a million that he was able to get. Moreso got lucky and had good connections so sell things.
You have a great point there.
nope!
Don't you dare fucking touch Wikipedia
Just a heads up, you can download all of wikipedias Text in a couple Gigabyte iirc. So we could easily "fork" and mirror it.
DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA TODAY
Wikipedia does not appear to be in any danger of running out of money: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/
I think it's a good thing they have an endowment to give the site more financial security, but... how big does it need to be before they stop the begging advertisements? They've already far outpaced the goal they set in 2016.
This does lend credence to the "He's intentionally tanking Twitter" theory.
🖕
Please for the love of whatever you hold dear, do not touch that website
If my 5€ donation from last year has any power, I will veto this.
Oh look, another article giving him the attention he so craves.
Can we just not?
I mean arguably its moreso giving Wikipedia the attention it deserves and can materially capitalize up the ass. Sorry, this is one Elon Musk Show episode I can get behind. Its for the public good even if his intentions are inverse to that. Wikipedia is way fucking bigger than Elon Musk imao
As much as it sucks, this is newsworthy. Not taking him seriously is how Twitter got ruined. Well, super-ruined anyway. It was already kinda crap.
No, cause Wikimedia wouldn't let him buy it in a million years
We're pointing and laughing, that's different.
Authoritarian DICKtator muskovite having a tantrum.
Out of context, your comment may sound somewhat childish but this all started with Elon's comment:
Let the clown wring his hands over something he can't control.
we should make wikipedia into an everything app
Downvote Musk spam.
The billionaire doesn’t need your help ensuring him and his businesses stay in the 24 hour news cycle. Don’t be a useful idiot.
I agree. Why do these people go crazy over this pile of shit?
And there's really no excuse here. Musk actually buying Twitter was arguably a notable tech story. Him musing about Wikipedia is decidedly not.
So he says he'll give them a billion dollars if they change their name to dikipedia. As someone who has donated to Wikipedia in the past I'm 100% in favor of this move.
I agree. Then change it back after the check clears.
With Musk you shouldn't do anything until after you get your money. Musk must pay in advance.
Stop giving this asshat free publicity for stupid shit, ffs.
Unrelated but your account is labeled as a bot account for me. Might want to check your settings.
Omg that's a setting? I never knew!
Thanks mate, didn't realize I had both Bot Account and Show Bot Accounts selected. Fixed. Big thanks!
This guy seriously has the mentality of a three year old.
I set up a monthly donation to Wikipedia last night as a result.
I downloaded Wikipedia last night as a result.
Super rich and powerful people hate anything they can't have or control. They are used to getting everything they want if they pay enough money or pull enough strings.
The idea of a successful thing being completely beyond their reach torments them, they seethe with rage at anything their blood-stained, filthy dollars can't buy, it galls them and I am absolutely filled with glee at the thought.
Fuck no
I am waiting for the day when governments will have had enough of him (unless he bought those governments because that fucker is fucking rich) - and "Elon Musk" becomes "Felon Musk".
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In the middle of a wave of rampant misinformation, excessive hate speech, and endless harassment, X owner Elon Musk set his sights on Wikipedia.
Not to be outdone by his own tweet, Musk immediately followed it up with a challenge: “I will give them a billion dollars if they change their name to Dickipedia.”
Beyond its status as the largest and “most-read reference work in history,” Wikipedia has long been heralded as a product of both massive fundraising and an internet full of people obsessed with very specific things.
Earlier this month, Musk called the internet encyclopedia “wokipedia,” after co-founder Wales criticized rampant misinformation on X.
(An October report from NBC found that the Community Notes program has allowed known war misinformation to thrive on the platform unchecked for hours.)
For Rauwerda’s own purposes, right now that includes the description of zoo animals as celebrities in 19th-century American news and a serial defecator in Colorado nicknamed the Mad Pooper.
The original article contains 772 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Summary is missing some context here. The article is an interview with Annie Rauwerda.
Then later
Unchecked for... Hours?
Hours??
That's fucking amazing that they can get it down so fast! Honestly they should advise Facebook or something on how to not leave misinformation up for years. Hours is actually incredible.
Wikipedia should've agreed. Imagine for minimum a year, the whole world opening Wikipedia, gets reminded on the clown Elon Musk, again and again.
He wants to fit
425TB428TB of content on his phone. Man is a fucking genius. I love how his own platform is calling out his bullshit 😂You can actually get all of English Wikipedia for the low, low price of like <= 130GB
Edit: the alligator was facing the wrong side
Im assuming this is just more effort by him working for Russian interests. Wikipedia being too credible for the war in Ukraine.
😜 😅 😂 Let him be mad!!!!
Take the money then we would just call it the site formerly known as wikipedia. Similar to how x is simply formerly known as twitter.
He's still in this stage
Wikipedia should counter-offer X changes its name to SeX for >= amount. Jimbo can even show Musk how to recruit and retain far more effective and cost-effective and robust moderation culture like the GOAT they are.
Nonprofit organizations that moderate a website should stay nonprofit, because at least they're not prone to making crappy business decisions that'll end up hurting them in the long term.
Is there anything that stops Elon Musk from buying Lemmy or Mastadon? Even if everyone were to migrate over to the Fediverse, what stops these websites from being bought as well?
You can't "buy" Lemmy or Mastodon any more than you can buy email or World Wide Web
Isn't Mastadon run by an organization started by Eugen Rochko? Could this organization not be bought? Or does it not make a difference who controls Rochko's organization? Sorry to ask such basic questions - I find the Fediverse pretty confusing.
He could buy a specific mastodon instance, or a specific lemmy instance if the person running the instance decided to sell their instance. It wouldn't effect any other instance directly.
By buying the mastodon org he might be able to influence development of the mastodon software, but the software is open source and someone would just make a musk-free fork and thungs would keep moving.
Also, an overly simplistic summary of the fediverse is that instead of one reddit run by the reddit corp, anyone can run their own reddit (lemmy) instance. Each instance can talk to each other instance and access data from each other instance. So instances that talk to each other effectively function like one big combined instance.
Mastodon is just one of the many frontends for ActivityPub, the protocol behind the whole thing. While Mastodon software indeed is written and maintained by an organization, it is nonprofit, and doesn't have any control over the actual Mastodon instances since those are basically run by enthusiasts
I don’t really know the legalitys, but there’s a few things in elons way:
I don’t know the answers to 2&3, but I’m pretty sure 1 holds true; Elon can’t buy something if the owner refuses to sell.
Lemmy cannot be made closed source due to the irrevocable perpetual license and the viral nature of GPL licenses, especially AGPL.
Why would he pay for something that's free...?
He's already ruined every technology subcommunity by being the only fucking thing people report on.
We need a real life Trading Places where Elin ends up under a bridge or in prison.
…into the ground.
he ain't
Might as well rename this community "musk"
Didn’t read the article. Just stopping by to say how much I love this title. Thanks!
Can we please rename Narcissism to Elonissim already?
Problem is he'd love that.