X -Where Twitter goes to die.

[Suranis]

From the thread above. This actually hurt me to read.

[RTH10260]

Elon Musk says he'll resign as head of Twitter
Musk polled Twitter users and said he would abide by the resuts.

ByMelissa Gaffney
December 21, 2022, 2:52 AM

The new Twitter owner suspended the accounts of multiple journalists from news outlets, including The New Y...Read More
After polling Twitter users, Elon Musk on Tuesday night said he will resign as head of the social media platform.

"I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams," he tweeted.



https://abcnews.go.com/Business/elon-mu ... d=95630793

[pipistrelle]

As soon as he finds a willing pawn/puppet.

[Volkonski]

If Musk/Twitter will hire me under a contract that will pay me $10 million a year with a $200 million golden parachute if they ever fire me, I might take the job. Real money, not crypto.

[sugar magnolia]

If Musk/Twitter will hire me under a contract that will pay me $10 million a year with a $200 million golden parachute if they ever fire me, I might take the job. Real money, not crypto.

I'd do it for half that.

[tek]

"I am pleased to announce that Mr. Melon Usk will be taking over as CEO"

[Danraft]

IMO, it won’t matter all that much.
He will still be an entitled, emotionally needy, Dunning-Krueger poster boy, narcissistic, red-pilled, billionaire punk.

His last “poll” was whether the US should pass the spending bill. WTF? We have a means of government and it isn’t mob rule. Secondly, the poll is multi-national, and lastly he never said a word when it was Republican bills.

Even if he isn’t CEO, he will still be a punk. I’d love to see him banned off the platform for doxxing someone.

[pipistrelle]

His last “poll” was whether the US should pass the spending bill. WTF? We have a means of government and it isn’t mob rule. Secondly, the poll is multi-national, and lastly he never said a word when it was Republican bills.

Just wants to show it’s unpopular through one of these highly scientific polls.

[Danraft]

How unpopular it is with him. It has bipartisan support. Nothing is perfect.

But this oligarch is sticking his head in our economic policy, foreign policy (believed Ukraine was wrong to fight Russia), etc.

Every lane is not his.

[AndyinPA]

Even is he leaves as CEO, he will still be there.

[Foggy]

I will just run the software & servers teams," he tweeted.

I was born at night, but it wasn't last night.

Having said that, I think the servers are at risk.

[Suranis]

Only if the servers have a hole big enough for his manhood.

[Kriselda Gray]

Only if the servers have a hole big enough for his manhood.

Nah, he doesn't need a server for that. A microprocessor would fit him just fine.

[Foggy]

What was clear from the start of this thing and is even more clear today, is that Musk never had any intention of increasing the revenue and profits of the company. He bought it in haste, didn't want to complete the sale, and immediately began trashing the company.

Which might seem a little weird to some people. If I heard that someone paid $44 billion for a company, I'd think maybe they would try to make it more profitable or sumpin'. I never heard of paying billions so you could wreck a company you don't like before. That's a new one.

But this may be some sorta new business model for the 21st century.

[Phoenix520]

Some of the natsec people I follow are asking if Elmo is also trying to blow a hole in the EV industry for his Saudi friends by deliberately tanking Tesla as well.

[raison de arizona]

Some of the natsec people I follow are asking if Elmo is also trying to blow a hole in the EV industry for his Saudi friends by deliberately tanking Tesla as well.

Tesla is public, if anyone can prove that wouldn't it be Big Trouble for Elmo?

[Phoenix520]

Yeah, well, given how hard it’s been to prove what we all saw OSG do In plain sight, I think they’re safe.

[Gregg]

What was clear from the start of this thing and is even more clear today, is that Musk never had any intention of increasing the revenue and profits of the company. He bought it in haste, didn't want to complete the sale, and immediately began trashing the company.

Which might seem a little weird to some people. If I heard that someone paid $44 billion for a company, I'd think maybe they would try to make it more profitable or sumpin'. I never heard of paying billions so you could wreck a company you don't like before. That's a new one.

But this may be some sorta new business model for the 21st century.

This is one of the problems with accumulated wealth.

When we have a society where someone can use that much money to piss it away while destroying something so influentual, and at the other end still be richer than Davey Crocket, well, that's a problem.

"Losing" $44 billion dollars is effectively nothing of consequence to someone who will still have ~$150 billion left.

I said somewhere else that if we could tax all but $1 billion dollars from every billionaire on the planet, they'd all still be billionaires. ANd I'm not okay with that, truth be told.

[Slarti the White]

This is one of the problems with accumulated wealth.

When we have a society where someone can use that much money to piss it away while destroying something so influentual, and at the other end still be richer than Davey Crocket, well, that's a problem.

"Losing" $44 billion dollars is effectively nothing of consequence to someone who will still have ~$150 billion left.

I said somewhere else that if we could tax all but $1 billion dollars from every billionaire on the planet, they'd all still be billionaires. ANd I'm not okay with that, truth be told.

I agree that accumulated wealth (and billionaires) are a problem. It seems to me there are several different possibilities on what Musk is doing. Maybe he was so insulated in his bubble that he started believing his own press and though he was a genius and anything he touched would naturally turn to gold -- an American oligarch's version of Putin's invasion of the Ukraine and now, just like Vlad, he's stuck because he is too much of a narcissist to admit he fucked up and lose face. Maybe he's a petulant child who bought Twitter on a whim (certainly his inclusion of "420" in the purchase price suggests, shall we say, less than the utmost seriousness and due diligence regarding the valuation) as a way to "own the libs" and win his spurs with the MAGA crowd. Or maybe the Saudis set up this 1-2 punch of corrupting Twitter as an open marketplace of ideas and organizing tool for emerging democratic movements and seriously damaging the value of Tesla. Maybe none of these is right, but what is certain is that this isn't an altruistic genius' plan to foster free speech and democratic values for the good of mankind.

When you have billionaires, you enable this kind of mess. Because they, by virtue of their fortunes, have no accountability to anyone. Whether it is Musk or the Koch brothers (back when the obscenely rich weren't always billionaires) or the Russian oligarchs (although they are accountable -- to Putin) there are no checks when one of them decides to "go rogue" and follow whatever deranged super-villain plan pops into their brainbone. It seems like for every Bill Gates (who isn't lily-white himself) or Warren Buffet there are a dozen Elmos or Thiels or Kochs or what have you -- all of whom have been damaging our social fabric with their unchecked greed long before they start trying to wield the power of the vast wealth that corrupted them. I think its long past time to start rethinking how our economy works so that we can get the benefit of capitalism and the pursuit of reasonable wealth without enabling these monsters created by blind allegiance to some kind of Randian ideological ideal and the demagogues who grift off of it from making Godzillia rising from Tokyo harbor and getting a little rampagey look like Bambi going out for a stroll in the forest.

Or maybe that's just me.

[humblescribe]

No, Slarti, 'tain't you.

For a good perspective on accumulated wealth, read Anderson Cooper's book on his ancestors. By the time his mom was born, most of the wealth had been pissed away or been lost to creditors or otherwise abandoned because it became essentially worthless.

Whether past is prologue for today's obscenely wealthy families remains to be determined. Certainly assets held in trust that benefit future generations will endure for some time.

And maybe (not holding my breath) Congress will eventually realize that the inheritance tax is a good thing and jack up the rates while lowering the exclusionary amount (which is set to go back to 2017 levels in 2026.)

[AndyinPA]

You sort of have to decide whether you want the economy to work for everyone or you want everyone to work for the economy.

[Slarti the White]

No, Slarti, 'tain't you.

For a good perspective on accumulated wealth, read Anderson Cooper's book on his ancestors. By the time his mom was born, most of the wealth had been pissed away or been lost to creditors or otherwise abandoned because it became essentially worthless.

Whether past is prologue for today's obscenely wealthy families remains to be determined. Certainly assets held in trust that benefit future generations will endure for some time.

And maybe (not holding my breath) Congress will eventually realize that the inheritance tax is a good thing and jack up the rates while lowering the exclusionary amount (which is set to go back to 2017 levels in 2026.)

The exclusionary amount seems fine (around $5 million when my dad died in 2017), certainly that isn't so high it's creating billionaires and we do want it to be high enough to create generational wealth in the low multi-million dollar range. And I would say that closing loopholes is probably more important than jacking up rates.

[humblescribe]

The Trumpian Tax Act increased the exclusion to $11 million +, adjusted for inflation. It also created the "Decedent's Spouse Unused Exemption" concept whereby the exclusion that goes unused by the first to die is tacked onto the estate of the second to die. The old rules with the $5 million had the use it or lose it rule. I agree that $5 million as adjusted for inflation is a certainly reasonable exemption amount. But the tax rate is now 45%, and it used to be 55%. I'd scrap the DSUE concept. I'd implement the 55% bracket for net assets > $30 million. There are provisions for family-owned businesses to pay the estate tax in installments if the family business continues with the heirs.

Closing loopholes? Dream on, my friend!

[realist]

No, Slarti, 'tain't you.

For a good perspective on accumulated wealth, read Anderson Cooper's book on his ancestors. By the time his mom was born, most of the wealth had been pissed away or been lost to creditors or otherwise abandoned because it became essentially worthless.

Whether past is prologue for today's obscenely wealthy families remains to be determined. Certainly assets held in trust that benefit future generations will endure for some time.

And maybe (not holding my breath) Congress will eventually realize that the inheritance tax is a good thing and jack up the rates while lowering the exclusionary amount (which is set to go back to 2017 levels in 2026.)

The exclusionary amount seems fine (around $5 million when my dad died in 2017), certainly that isn't so high it's creating billionaires and we do want it to be high enough to create generational wealth in the low multi-million dollar range. And I would say that closing loopholes is probably more important than jacking up rates.

More than double that now.

The federal estate tax exemption for 2022 is $12.06 million, increasing to $12.92 million in 2023.

The estate tax exemption is adjusted annually to reflect changes in inflation every year.

The current exemption was doubled under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and is set to expire in 2026.

In 2020, less than 0.1% of estates had to file an estate tax return due to exceeding the exemption amount.

Federal estate tax is closely related to the Federal gift tax, and it does not exclude or exempt from the generation-skipping transfer tax either

https://www.investopedia.com/estate-tax ... on-5114715

[Slarti the White]

Thanks Realist! The exemption still seems reasonable to me at $13 million, although more than doubling in five years is probably too (not also) fast.