Does anyone has a logical explanation of why Elon is supporting Trump? Why is he going to this length, alienate many of his supporters by supporting an political party. What’s is the end goal, since nothing makes sense right now.

  • MechanicalJester@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    Not money. He doesn’t GAF about that compared to his lust for power and also, very importantly, not going to prison for crimes already committed.

  • Juice@midwest.social
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    6 days ago

    Much of Elon’s fortune is from government programs and contracts. Trump already said he would do whatever his donors told him to if they got him elected. So Elon wants to get in to the executive and start messing around, probably gut most regulatory departments, except the ones that make other car companies buy EV credits from him, or ones that he can use to squeeze his competitors a bit, or give his companies advantages.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Ego. Ok also union busting but largely ego. Around the same time one of his children who happens to be trans from his first wife (who also publicly denounced him) publicly disowned him and his long term on again off again partner left him for a short lived fling with Chelsea Manning, a trans woman famous for going to prison for leaking human rights abuses by the military in the Iraq war. And around that time democrats started getting anti billionaire talking points going very mainstream. And so he began courting the right. He was already addicted to twitter and he found himself deep in the alt right pipeline.

  • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    Drugs.

    His massive rightward swing seemed to correspond with when his drug use was reported in the media.

    I think his drug use makes him feel like he can’t be wrong and reinforced his conspiracy laden mindset… And that pushes him into fact-free conservative-Central.

  • unmagical@lemmy.ml
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    6 days ago

    The world’s richest man is supporting the guy that’s gonna appoint him to some “efficiency” position that will let him squash any investigations into his businesses and will cut the amount of taxes he owes.

  • Bustedknuckles@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Maybe this is overly generous, but I kind of feel like Elon genuinely believes he’s a special genius who can “save” the world and usher in a nominally benevolent techno-oligarchy with him at the helm. So he supports trump because a) trump will let him do whatever he wants without regulation or enforcement, and b) Harris won’t, and she might take a look at his accounting and government contracts.

    Also maybe because Ketamine

    • zout@fedia.io
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      6 days ago

      This saviour complex is a big part of it. That said, all these big “self made” billionares suffer from it. That’s why they all refuse to pay taxes but will instead make a charity foundation so they can choose which public interest is best served by “their” money. Like another poster said, Elon’s public interest is apartheid, which aligns with Trump.

      • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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        5 days ago

        I think you’re being way too charitable. Billionaires have zero interest in actually making the world a better place. The charitable foundations stuff is a way for them to avoid taxes, exert control over public policy, and to gain positive PR.

  • Doom@ttrpg.network
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    6 days ago

    Money.

    Democrats are pressured by their base (see overwhelming majority of Americans) who wanna see the rich be taxed more and pay a fair share as well as delve into the very clear financial corruption in our government.

    Musk, Trump, Bezos, and the other rich fucks like Peter Thiel or Miriam Adelson actively lose if this sort of policy is passed. Trump is literally the rich person candidate

    It’s money always is.

    • I made a little table showing the highest marginal tax rate from 1913 to 2022 coded in blue for Democrat presidents and red for Republican:

      source1

      source2

      • The first Democrat run saw a stunning rise of 66% in the highest marginal tax rate due to the insane expense of WWI.

      • The first Republican run saw a drop of 48% as the nation moved away from the war economy and into the post-war economy.

      • The second Democrat run saw a sharp rise of 38% at the beginning and a further rise of 28% by the end of their run because of the Great Depression and WWII in that order.

      • The second Republican run kept the ultra-high (91%!) highest marginal tax rate during the post-war boom with no change.

      • The third Democrat run saw the rate fall by 21% over its span.

      • The third Republican run kept the rate as-is over its span.

      • The fourth Democrat run (single-term) kept the rate as-is over its span.

      • The fourth Republican run dropped the rate by 39%

      • The fifth Democrat run saw an increase of almost 9% over its span.

      • The fifth Republican run saw a drop of almost 5% over its span.

      • The sixth Democrat run saw an increase of almost 5% over its span.

      • The sixth Republican run saw a drop of almost 3% over its span.

      • The final Democrat run (and the last data I have) saw no change.

      If we factor out the war years (up to the end of the second Democrat run) we don’t see a huge pattern of differences in tax rates, given that those are the highest marginal tax rates and people in that bracket tend to have many ways to evade taxes. (Apartheid Manchild recently complain/bragged that he paid an amount of taxes that turned out to be 3-4% of his income where the vast majority of people pay well over 11% of their incomes, for example.)

      So I doubt it’s money. It’s something else.

      Other interesting notes that pop out at me:

      • the Great Depression happened in 1929 under Republicans (~3.5 years)
      • the recession of 1937 was under Democrats (~1 year)
      • the recession of 1949 was under Democrats (~1 year)
      • the recession of 1953 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
      • the recession of 1958 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
      • the recession of 1960 was under Democrats (~¾ years)
      • the recession of 1969 was under Republicans (~1 year)
      • the recession of 1973 was under Republicans (~1¼ years)
      • the recession of 1980 was under Republicans (~½ years)
      • the recession of 1981 was under Republicans (~1¼ years)
      • the recession of 1990 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
      • the recession of 2001 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
      • the Great Recession happened in 2007 under Republicans (extending into Democrats) (~1.5 years)

      Here I see a distinct pattern that should alarm anybody running a business since lost sales account far more for lost wealth than alterations in the highest marginal tax rate.

      • Doom@ttrpg.network
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        5 days ago

        I don’t think tax rates or recessions really carry the picture. It is useful information but there are things that cost or have value outside of straight money that lend to making money or grant you influence on markets so you can make more money.

        Gutting social safety nets, healthcare, etc makes people desperate and gives a more pliable workforce that cannot advocate for themselves they’re busy surviving. Bezos and all those neolib imperialists lean on this shit.

        Buying a newspaper and shilling it or outright dumpstering it into oblivion doesn’t seem like a smart financial benefit but when the news and social media platforms are under your thumb nothing bad is said about you.

        Control makes money making easier. They’re motivated by gaining more power or not losing what power they have and power directly translates to wealth.

        • Control doesn’t make money making easier when that control destroys the economy. It turns out productivity drops when people are treated like shit. You can see that happening at Twitter and Facebook both, for example.

          But you’re right that this is about control. It’s just that it isn’t necessarily about the money except insofar as having a lot of money gives you a lot of control. Shitlords like the Apartheid Manchild or Harvard’s Robot wouldn’t care if they lost money … as long as everybody else lost more.

    • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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      5 days ago

      It’s not money, that’s way too charitable.

      It’s because he’s a white supremacist. He wants fascism.

      Pretty straight forward.

      • Doom@ttrpg.network
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        5 days ago

        Nah I think that’s immature thought. Even Hitler’s motivation was largely money don’t fall into that trap.

        Fascism is control, control in money making.

        He is absolutely transphobic but he’s tried to sell himself as a queer advocate because he wants their support. Support directly translates into social currency that can be used to make real currency

        See;

        • Stupid tunnel, “don’t believe the smart people, believe me!”
        • Buying of Twitter “memeking definitely not intentionally sinking a social sphere of controversial conversation”
        • drake@lemmy.sdf.org
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          5 days ago

          I completely disagree with you - ultimately, it’s about power and control - hence, fascism. Hitler’s motivations very clearly went beyond personal wealth. You don’t exterminate people for profit, you do it for ideological reasons. If you want profit, you enslave people in for-profit prisons.

          • Doom@ttrpg.network
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            5 days ago

            No honestly the opposite.

            Hitler did not just target Jewish people and kill. He was absolutely a racist but he was a eugenics racist his views were nonsensical but followed a logic that made sense to him based on his flawed understanding of history and political changes behind his times. Hitler had pride in his race, he expected others to be the same. His ire of the Jews was because he believed they were the cause of the financial ruin his people experienced. He respected the Japanese.

            And he did put them in for profit prisons. He squeezed so much profit from them he didn’t pay for any sort of care for these people and in fact used them as fodder to make medicine and weapons and all sorts of things. Porche, Bayer, BMW, various banking companies, Volkswagen.

            It is really hard to express the financial landscape of how but initially they said Jews may leave but take nothing with you the state owns it now. Those who didn’t leave had their property and labor and eventually lives claimed by the Nazi party that exploded in wealth because they genuinely seized assets from so many in such a short while. Even the shoes taken were sold. Like the literal hair they shaved off people was used for raw material

            Everything was financial. Hitler was not just some demon to kill, that’s what is actually the scariest part all of it was simply business to these people that’s how cold and heartless and completely evil they were.

  • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    He basically lost his marbles after his daughter disowned him and Biden didn’t invite him to some electric car event a few months after he was elected. I think his drug use also plays a big part. It’s just the typical trajectory of someone who obtained a lot of power and then just shuts out all criticism and just thinks he’s the smartest and knows everything best. History is full of examples and it never ends well.

  • Because Vivian Jenna Wilson transitioned.

    It really is that simple.

    Before that event Apartheid Manchild was a dick, but mostly of the poorly-socialized technonerd variety. Still a dick, but not perceived by most as being a threatening dick.

    After that event, where he coined (to my knowledge) the phrase “the woke mind virus”, he jumped deep into the MAGA swill.

    Before that event he was kinda/sorta hailed as a “real world Tony Stark” but never really particularly accepted. People liked his products (well, let’s be honest: product) and otherwise didn’t give much of a shit about him.

    After he went Full Metal MAGAt he became the object of worship and adoration of fellow MAGAts on Twitter (before he bought it, even), getting the uncritical acceptance he’d always craved and never really got.

    And it turns out he wants to feel like he “belongs” more than he wants to sell shit.

    • donio@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Don’t forget spite. The guy was always an asshole but when people finally started calling him out he got triggered and became a raging asshole. Now he thinks that he found his people but doesn’t realize that they hate him too, they just find him useful for the moment.

  • YeetPics@mander.xyz
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    6 days ago

    Best way to enable your grifts while also evading jail time for being a con artist and pedophile.

    Shitbirds of a feather, randy.

  • passivelnk@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I suspect Elon is in deep shit. Everything he has been doing with Tesla and Twitter has been blatant stock manipulation. The latest stunt is self driving taxis. I suspect he knows that the SEC have a big case on him that they will pursue if Harris wins.

  • atempuser23@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Elon’s supporters are much like Trumps and won’t leave him. Many are financially tied to Elon. Elon can do what ever he wants and his supporters will follow. Trumps values and goals align very closely with Elon’s. Elon would be much more like Trump if he had charisma.