Summary
Bill Gates criticized Elon Musk for his support of far-right politicians, including the UK’s Tommy Robinson and Germany’s AfD party, calling it “insane shit” and accusing Musk of destabilizing political systems.
Gates questioned Musk’s focus on divisive politics while managing global businesses like Tesla and SpaceX.
Gates also expressed concern about wealthy individuals influencing foreign elections.
Musk has faced backlash for controversial actions, including a Nazi salute.
I always forget Gates is one of the elite. Then I remember how ruthless and savage he was in the 80s.
Then I remember.
Bill Gates became friends with Epstein AFTER he was convicted.
Source?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/business/jeffrey-epstein-bill-gates.html
And unlike many others, Mr. Gates started the relationship after Mr. Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.
Bill Gates made his acquaintance with Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 when Epstein had been jailed for years for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
https://jacobin.com/2021/08/bill-gates-jeffrey-epstein-mistake-cnn-interview
They were two of the richest men on Earth, meeting after Epstein had already been convicted for child sex trafficking, very intentionally scratching each other’s back and bolstering each other’s charitable endeavors. The relationship between them — and what compelled both to build one — should be seen not as a lapse in judgment but as an indictment of billionaire philanthropy itself.
There’s plenty more out there if you look.
Thanks
And how he fought tooth and nail against generic versions of the covid vaccines being allowed, likely leading to thousands if not millions of deaths and many more getting sick in poorer countries where most people can’t afford name brand drugs.
had he actually cared, he should have demanded and funded research into them to either prove his point or fix the problem.
Further proof that Capitalism is a religion.
not religion. a disease of society
80s, 90s, and a few years into early 2000s. Gates ruthlessness lasted decades, destroyed many businesses and lives, and is mostly whitewashed thanks to his philanthropic efforts and a few reddit amas and some secret santa participation
Not to mention the destruction he did to computing as a whole. The nightmare of proprietary bullshit is something that he did not architect but he pushed heavily and lobbied for constantly. He had the position to push for interoperability from an early stake in computing, to set the stage for computers to have a strong precedent to work together. Instead he and microsoft made every effort to work against open standards. They would adopt open standards and extend them with proprietary extensions to intentionally ruin them. A lot of what is infuriating about modern tech can be traced back to precedent that microsoft set at his direction
Reminder despite every donation he has made his net worth is higher now than it ever was and this has essentially always been the case. His philanthropy, while objectively good, is a measured pr effort that does not impact his overall obscene wealth and basically never has
He’s still pushing ‘intellectual property’ as part of his philanthropy. The creators of the Oxford vaccine wanted to open source it and give it away for free. Gates opposed that and he got his way (partly because of the influence of the Gates Foundation). The delays this caused probably killed millions of extra people in the Global South (not sure if anyone ever did the maths on this).
‘Global South’ sounds like some right-wing term. LMIC (low middle-income country) is better.
Apart from Australia and New Zealand, the Southern hemisphere houses pretty much just the poorest countries. Poverty also correlates strongly with average temperature, so it increases as you approach the Equator from either side (oil-rich Sultanates included, since the countries are rich but the people are still poor).
For what it’s worth, many people here in Brazil use the phrase “global south” as a better alternative to “third world”, an expression which no longer makes sense since the fall of the USSR, and I haven’t ever seen anyone on the Left here be offended or bothered by it.
The global south is a real thing, look it up.
As a matter of fact, the term replaces “third world” lol
It’s a common term, used by the leftiest of lefty think tanks.
Not shocking to hear, he’s a scumbag at heart. But now if you say that people will be like “uhhh how can you say that he’s donated so much money”
Then when you point out he’s donated literally 0% of his overall current net worth, his past (and current, apparently) behavior has arguably as much humanity if not more than he has offset, etc you’ll get whataboutism. “What have you done??”
I don’t want philanthropy to be contingent on the whims of billionaires. Gates has done a lot but it still has major issues, there is no real transparency, and it’s still authoritatively controlled because he has a great deal of influence over his foundation. The even bigger issue is that he is by far the exception. Other billionaires donate minimally only to maximize tax benefits and only to issues they have been personally impacted by.
The other day I was with people who were watching a football game. The eagles won and I asked why the owner gets to speak first at the trophy ceremony, let alone at all, given it was the teams effort. This led to a whole discussion but one thing that came up was how he donates so much money to autism research because he has a grandson with autism. This was meant to appeal to me because I have a background working in autism research and I work with people with autism a lot.
all I could think is “how fucked up is it that we have to hope that an obscenely rich person personally experiences the issue for them to decide to bequeath funding?” This inherently means that things with a much higher rate of prevalence, like autism (1 in 36, roughly) or dementia (prevalence varies widely by age range (2% to 13%) but ~10 million cases per year), will get tons of money. But what about far less common things? I’ve worked with people who have extremely rare conditions. Angelmans syndrome, prader willi, chromosomal deletions, (rates of 1-2 per 10,000) or extremely rare things like hellers syndrome (rates of 1-2 per 100,000).
This is why we fund things like NIMH, so that money can be fairly dispersed to ensure that all things are researched. Teams of people research what needs to be researched. This isn’t even just about equity; sometimes researching lesser known disorders leads to discoveries that are applicable in a broader context
But instead we let a few oligarchs hoard money. Most of them don’t bother to fund this stuff at all and they few that do only bother to do so when it’s something personally relevant to them. We have no say in the matter.
The biggest argument against philanthropy is that they get to deduct it from their taxes, so instead of us as a society collectively deciding what to do with that money (provided you had a working democracy, of course), the billionaire gets to decide that. And some of that philanthropy money actually goes to causes that further undermine democracy. Just because something is a charity doesn’t mean it does good. You can deduct donations to the federalist society or the heritage foundation, for example.
What bad did the heritage foundation do to you? /s
His philanthropy, while objectively good, is a measured pr effort that does not impact his overall obscene wealth and basically never has
Like with the some billionaires.
Untrue. Most don’t engage in actual philantropy at all, but donate only to causes that will directly benefit their bottom line, such as sectors that depend on their products, or for scholarships in fields where their companies hire heavily. That isn’t actually donating. It’s just tax-exempt investing. In this sense, Gates is a cut above other billionaires.
His actions merit a freshly sharpened blade on his guillotine. Musk can have the rusty one that we’ll need to drop thrice to get the job done.
His philanthropy, while objectively good,
I wouldn’t even go that far.
Say you have a crazy idea that education would be better if kids went to school blindfolded so they wouldn’t be distracted. You then use your vast fortune to arrange for that to be tried out on a bunch of kids for a few years. It’s a disaster. It sets those kids back for years. You realize it’s a disaster, so after a few years you abandon the project.
In that case was your philanthropy objectively good? Or was it probably bad?
Those are the kinds of experiments the Gates foundation has done. Because Gates is so insanely rich, he doesn’t have to bother with convincing people he has a good idea. He doesn’t need to run his ideas by education experts or psychologists, he can just run with them. So he does, and he fucks shit up, then he leaves.
Yeah, he was a real asshole 44 years ago. Glad people never change at all.
TIL that his blocking generic versions of the covid vaccines which led to the deaths of thousands if not millions in poorer countries where most people can’t afford name brand drugs happened 44 years ago 🙄
I can only repeat what I said before I anther comment. I’m not defending Gates. Of course there are things he should be criticised for. You bring up one example here.
What I am saying is, that you should not judge him on what he did four decades ago, but how he is acting today.
I would call 2020 close enough to today to call it the modern era. So he IS being judged for who he’s recently shown himself to be
Of course there are things he should be criticised for. You bring up one example here.
An example with a body count exceeding that of almost all other people on earth. That’s worthy of far more than just “criticism”.
If he had been poor and responsible for the same number of avoidable deaths, he would be rightly considered one of history’s greatest monsters.
What I am saying is, that you should not judge him on what he did four decades ago, but how he is acting today.
And today he’s acting like a goddamn monster who values property and profits over thousands if not millions of human lives. That’s what I’m judging him for today.
Buying up as much arable American land as possible?
Yea he’s still sketchy af
Sarcasm ?
Yes. I don’t want to judge people by who they were four decades ago, but who they have become. I believe that every human has the potential to grow and learn.
Mind you, I’m not saying Mr. Gates is an angel now, or shouldn’t be judged. But I’d rather base ma judgement on the person he is now that on the person he was long ago.
Didn’t he short Tesla?
I bet Elon can’t jump over a chair.
Maybe Elon’s mommy will allow him and Zuck to have a chair jumping contest in the octagon.
I’d put money on Zuck, he seems like he might be able to jump a chair.
Shitty Person, but possibly good chair jumper. Maybe Zuck will do a Philanthropy run later in life like Bill?
If Zuckerberg ever does philanthropy, it will be in a dystopian format where you need to hand over all your personal data to receive the benefits
Yes!
I mean, if he means any of what he said here then we could use some of that right about now.
I have to question the judgement of Bill Gates when he calls Musk “super-smart”. Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense. I think he was just lucky and unencumbered by ethics or self-doubt.
Bill Gates has also been riding an unearned “genius” appellation for decades. He didn’t make DOS. (His charitable work on vaccination is also questionable - iirc there were concerns over intellectual property rights)
The tide is turning against billionaires, and he’s just recognizing that Musk is making them all look bad.
Gates had two lawyers for parents, one of whom served on a board of directors with the CEO of IBM. IBM had been continually fighting an antitrust suit with the government for years, so they knew they had to tread carefully with the operating system for their first personal computers. It’s no surprise they hired Gates to do that work. Also, because of the antitrust case, they directed Gates to buy QDOS instead of buying it themselves. As for the contract that gave Gates a very sweet deal when it came to selling DOS to for non-IBM computers… I wonder if his two lawyer parents might have been involved in that contract.
If you want to nudge the ketohead narcissist, you have to pander to the ego.
To be fair there are plenty of ruthless greedy people with zero morals out there but Musk is far more successful than any of them so something has to differentiate him. He might not be intelligent enough to recognise what a crigerworthy loser he is but let’s not pretend he isn’t smart.
Mate, he is on a very self destructive spiral doing those nazi salutes at the inauguration. That’s not a smart move. He’s let his fantasies get the better of him. If he was really smart he would shut the fuck up about politics. He has everything, And consequently he values nothing.
A person doesn’t become not smart no matter how much he flirts with neo nazism. They might be an immoral piece of shit but pretending he isn’t also smart can be extremely dangerous, lest people think we can now just let him wreck his brand and become irrelevant.
Smart can mean many things. My dentist is smart, but he is not well rounded. Most people aren’t well rounded smart.
Musk is a good investor, and expert con artist. He is smart in those ways.
He’s about as smart as trump is a successful businessman.
Trump is worth billions now though…
Generational wealth is a bitch and doesn’t really prove anything.
Well the billions only came after his presidency because he now had a huge pool of loyalists he could grift out of their life savings with meme coin and begging for donations. Yes he had some generational wealth, most of which he blew on his bankrupted businesses but he’s also just a good grifter.
It’s a compliment sandwich. You have to include the two pieces of compliment bread even if it’s bullshit or else you’ll be accused of not offering constructive criticism.
Trump makes a variety of compliment sandwiches. It’s hard to tell after a while just what kind of sandwich it is.
You can’t become the richest man in the world and the most powerful billionaire in the world by accident, even if you start with a golden spoon. Most millionaire child will just spend the rest of their life being spoiled and unconcerned with the world, very very few spend their money helping others and building society, but him? He spend his time and money resurrecting nazi and making those dystopian scifi real. That’s some insane dedication right there. Smart or not, dude is dangerous.
not by accident, but certainly by luck, and then you can argue whether someone makes their own luck or not, musk hit the jackpot of being at the right moment at the right time and having the right skillset.
There are plenty of alternate universes out there where he became a nobody after paypal.
I think he is dedicated, dangerous and awful. I just don’t think he is smart. I’ve known people who achieved wealth, started successful businesses etc. They had domain expertise and ambition. But they also neglected and fucked up other critical aspects of their lives (like their relationships with partners and kids). I didn’t consider them to be smart. In my mind, smart implies a well roundedness, and the capacity for self reflection, and empathy. Musk just has the personality traits, and family wealth, to enable him to “succeed” in our current society.
Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense.
Why is this american obsession on weighting the value of men with the money they made? Musk is an idiot regardless of his money or how he made it.
I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not American, and I don’t place much value on enormous wealth accumulation. I’m just acknowledging that there is a difference between gaining enormous wealth with a hefty leg up from family wealth versus doing it from scratch, like growing up in poverty for example.
You can’t get that amount of money without exploitation. If you start from 0 it just means you have to actually work for it but end result is still the same.
I agree. If you started from 0 and got rich you became a class traitor.
you should define the word rich better in this context. Personally I have started to think word “rich” as negative thing, someone who has more than they need at expense of others, but I dont think that is very common way to think.
I think a lot of people don’t consider the exploitation angle. Often they see someone like Bill gates as having invented windows and see his wealth as earned by goods provided that they don’t think would otherwise exist. It’s what capital teaches is the justification for wealth
You’re right, the term is very subjective. The lower bound for me is owning multiple properties, owning a business and making money from the labour of others.
making money from the labour of others.
So…anyone with a 401k
Well, its okay to make some money from others labour, as long as its fair. But way it currently works, that some business owner gets majority of the value of someones work is not okay. That is just benefitting from being on stronger position than someone else and ultimately isnt much different from taking from someone by force. Its not like you can refuse to participate as people need to have money to live.
Quite a lot of americans equate money with success and ability. Elon musk must be the smartest guy because dumb people dont make money like that.
I think its reverse engineering though, americans see his worth, and work backwards claiming all his choices are genius and well thought out.
It’s absolutely reverse engineering. People want to believe that the world is a meritocracy, and that means believing that those who have succeeded at meritful.
People avoid internalizing that the world is a kleptocracy, because that would mean having to confront that if they want to get ahead, they’ll have to actively amd knowingly fuck other people over, and most of us are not psychopaths
People who have fully bought into the hard work+talent=success line cannot stand to have that belief shaken by realizing that someone dinner than them lucked/exploited their way to more success than they did.
Americans equal money with power, the more power you have, the more value, etc. That is basically it.
Money = Speech don’t ya know.
Mo’ money is a bigger voice in their system. Other countries call that “corrupt to the core”.
Its not just power, its ego and success. If McDonalds started paying 30$ an hour it would suddenly be a job that signaled success, despite nothing changing about the job duties.
Thats what’s happening here, elon is rich so he must be smart, and now people are jealous and emulate him. The OP is right though, money or not he’s an idiot.
because maybe those american values are fundementally poisoned?
This is exactly what he wants, for you to see him as a good guy billionaire. There’s no such thing. He is one of them not one of us, this is just PR and lip service
I don’t think that way, sorry
If this is a tactical move purely for selfish reasons, its not a good one considering the power Musk now wields. I think this is genuine from Gates. Saying it out loud maybe is a degree of performance, but I think he likely legitimately finds Musk’s fascist support a morally bad thing.
Assuming all billionaires are constantly playing some kind of 4D chess game is just as bad being overly charitable when a billionaire says or does something that could be seen as good. Remember, Elon Musk has put himself in the spotlight constantly despite it often times hurting him financially, his desire to be liked/beloved as a genius is also genuine its just fueling frequently terrible decisions.
That said, Gates is still an egotist and obviously pretty conventionally selfish (at what I’d describe as a pretty human level, if an average joe/jane came to have billions of dollars they’d probably treat the money in similar ways as Gates). Gates doesn’t deserve his wealth and Gates is no genius either, I just don’t think hes a fascist or a sociopath like Musk is.
I don’t think you’re wrong in general, and I could give you a list of criticisms of Gate’s actions even today. But if we’re going to have wealth disparity, and we probably always will, I’d rather it be pragmatic self-interest clothed in good will than rabid self-interest clothed in freedom.
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That’s just in the Lemmy summary. In the actual article, it says “nazi-style salute” SMH…
I like “-style”, because it has the implication that fits with the rest of his life thus far: The gesture was that of a cringy poser making a pathetic attempt to impress the very worst kinds of people, and he was so sloppy, that bought news corpos could actually attempt to say there’s room for doubt.
Lol.
LMAO.
Behold the loser weirdo man, who can ‘heil’ about as well as he games.
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Only abroad?
Nosferatu says Dracula has gone too far
Count Chocula is my buddy
I feel like it’s the other way around.
Dracula can at least fit into polite society.
We’re safe now, we have a good boy up there who will rotect us against all those bad guys 🤮
Meanwhile Microsoft is assisting the fascist state of Israel in genocide.
Isn’t he no longer in control of MS?
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So is every US taxpayer.
Unlike the US taxpayer, Microsoft has a choice. But as far as I know, Bill Gates isn’t involved with MS any more.
See? Bill Gates is one of us! /s
It’s not insane at all. It sucks but it’s completely logical. Musk is just protecting his capital as best he can within a global capitalist system.
It’s like corporate “greedflation” during Covid. Of course they jacked up prices and lied about wholesale costs, thereby wildly inflating profits, because profit motives are what drive our world.
It’s not insane at all. It sucks but it’s completely logical. Musk is just protecting his capital as best he can within a global capitalist system.
No, it’s absolutely insane, and short sighted. You know how much his capital will be in the event of WWIII? We won’t be spending money on overpriced EVs or sending rockets to outer space on scientific missions to study the universe. Assuming he doesn’t get himself assassinated first by people that actually care about democracy. The absolute BEST thing to protect his capital is a strong spending class in the US, which would require the economy to not collapse. You gut social services, there is exactly one logical outcome and it is social unrest followed by either class war or civil war.
Wasn’t he kissing Trump’s ass a week ago?
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Pistols at dawn. One less billionaire either way.
Could be two!
Actually we have a hydra situation here. There would be more billionaires if any of them died.
Bill Gates really doesn’t want to get eaten. Remember he is not one of us, he is one of them.
He can avoid the oven by being more vocal.
The deadweight loss of a monopoly means he destroyed even more than he stole. The best he can offer now is an example.
Right thing for the wrong reasons is still the right thing. We’ve got bigger fish to fry than him.
For now.
I bet you he’d be great with some malt vinegar.
philanthropist
If he was one, he wouldn’t be a billionaire
He is probably just envious he didn’t get to do it himself. Or that it doesn’t fit his made-up persona.
One oligarch calls out another for brownie points with the public
