KalKal
Superstar
How is a Pyramid Scheme supposed to work, if the pyramid is just a circle?
General Elon Musk Fukkery Thread
- Thread starter Armchair Militant
- Start date
How is a Pyramid Scheme supposed to work, if the pyramid is just a circle?
Apollo Kid
Veteran
Spidey Man
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Martin 🧀 (@mart_e@mamot.fr)
Attached: 1 image t.co is adding a five-second delay to some domains https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37130060 "That can't be true !" ``` $ time wget 'https://t.co/4fs609qwWt' ... Executed in 7.57 secs ``` 🙄 #twitter
Tell HN: t.co is adding a five-second delay to some domains | Hacker News
This could also go in the let's laugh a lil bit thread. 
By Alex Heath, a deputy editor and author of the Command Line newsletter. He’s covered the tech industry for over a decade at The Information and other outlets.
Aug 14, 2023
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24840751/STK200_Musk_vs_Zuck_02.jpg)
Now that the proposed cage match between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk isn’t going to happen, Musk is saying he will show up unannounced at Zuckerberg’s home to fight.
“For the Tesla FSD test drive in Palo Alto tonight, I will ask the car to drive to @finkd’s house,” Musk posted today on X, or the service formerly called Twitter. “If we get lucky and Zuck my
actually answers the door, the fight is on!”
Musk, who once compared a user broadcasting his jet’s location to sharing “assassination coordinates,” says he’ll livestream the “adventure” on X.
Zuckerberg, it turns out, is having none of it.
“Mark is traveling right now and isn’t in Palo Alto,” a spokesperson for Zuckerberg at Meta, Iska Saric, tells The Verge. “Also, Mark takes this sport seriously and isn’t going to fight someone who randomly shows up at his house.”
Zuckerberg recently threw in the towel after weeks of Musk not confirming a date for their cage match, then suggesting he may need surgery and that the fight will take place in Rome without the UFC’s involvement. The Italian government quickly denied that it would take place in Rome, and Zuckerberg, who has been training regularly and competing in jiujitsu tournaments, has been adamant that the fight be professionally organized.
“I don’t want to keep hyping something that will never happen, so you should either decide you’re going to do this and do it soon, or we should move on,” Zuckerberg recently told Musk in a text message that Musk, naturally, posted online. Musk then proposed a fight today in Zuckerberg’s backyard, taunting him with “perhaps you are a modern day Bruce Lee and will somehow win.”
Musk, of course, had to know that constantly changing the terms of the fight he first proposed would pressure Zuckerberg to back out. This was never about actually fighting. It’s about chest-beating and playing to his base. Leave it to Musk to take an already absurd storyline and make it even more ridiculous.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24840751/STK200_Musk_vs_Zuck_02.jpg)
www.theverge.com
The Elon Musk versus Mark Zuckerberg beef has reached a new level of absurdity
After Zuckerberg said it was ‘time to move on’ from their proposed cage match, Musk says he’s going to show up at Zuckerberg’s house to fight.
By Alex Heath, a deputy editor and author of the Command Line newsletter. He’s covered the tech industry for over a decade at The Information and other outlets.
Aug 14, 2023
Now that the proposed cage match between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk isn’t going to happen, Musk is saying he will show up unannounced at Zuckerberg’s home to fight.
“For the Tesla FSD test drive in Palo Alto tonight, I will ask the car to drive to @finkd’s house,” Musk posted today on X, or the service formerly called Twitter. “If we get lucky and Zuck my
actually answers the door, the fight is on!”Musk, who once compared a user broadcasting his jet’s location to sharing “assassination coordinates,” says he’ll livestream the “adventure” on X.
Zuckerberg, it turns out, is having none of it.
“Mark is traveling right now and isn’t in Palo Alto,” a spokesperson for Zuckerberg at Meta, Iska Saric, tells The Verge. “Also, Mark takes this sport seriously and isn’t going to fight someone who randomly shows up at his house.”
Zuckerberg recently threw in the towel after weeks of Musk not confirming a date for their cage match, then suggesting he may need surgery and that the fight will take place in Rome without the UFC’s involvement. The Italian government quickly denied that it would take place in Rome, and Zuckerberg, who has been training regularly and competing in jiujitsu tournaments, has been adamant that the fight be professionally organized.
“I don’t want to keep hyping something that will never happen, so you should either decide you’re going to do this and do it soon, or we should move on,” Zuckerberg recently told Musk in a text message that Musk, naturally, posted online. Musk then proposed a fight today in Zuckerberg’s backyard, taunting him with “perhaps you are a modern day Bruce Lee and will somehow win.”
Musk, of course, had to know that constantly changing the terms of the fight he first proposed would pressure Zuckerberg to back out. This was never about actually fighting. It’s about chest-beating and playing to his base. Leave it to Musk to take an already absurd storyline and make it even more ridiculous.
The Elon Musk versus Mark Zuckerberg beef has reached a new level of absurdity
Musk is now saying he is going to show up at Zuckerberg’s house to fight.
www.theverge.com
twitter broke nitter again. 
GnauzBookOfRhymes
Superstar
Zuck wants to beat someone up publicly so badly lmao
fukked up all the embedstwitter broke nitter again.
Elon Musk’s X is throttling traffic to websites he dislikes
The site formerly known as Twitter has added a five-second delay when a user clicks on a shortened link to the New York Times, Facebook and other sites Musk commonly attacks, a Washington Post analysis found
By Jeremy B. Merrill and Drew Harwell
Updated August 15, 2023 at 2:22 p.m. EDT|Published August 15, 2023 at 1:27 p.m. EDT
Characters that used to spell Twitter were removed from the company's San Francisco headquarters after Elon Musk renamed the company X. (Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP)
The company formerly known as Twitter has begun slowing the speed with which users can access links to the New York Times, Facebook and other news organizations and online competitors, a move that appears targeted at companies that have drawn the ire of owner Elon Musk.
Users who clicked a link on Musk’s website, now called X, for one of the targeted websites were made to wait about five seconds before seeing the page, according to tests conducted Tuesday by The Washington Post.
The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times. All of them have previously been singled out by Musk for ridicule or attack.
The delay affects the t.co domain, a link-shortening service that X uses to process every link posted to the website. Traffic is routed through the middleman service, allowing X to track — and in this case throttle — activity to the target website, potentially taking away traffic and ad revenue from businesses Musk personally dislikes.
The Post’s analysis found that links to most other sites were unaffected — including those to The Washington Post, Fox News and social media services such as Mastodon and YouTube — with the shortened links being routed to their final destination in a second or less. A user first flagged the delays early Tuesday on the technology discussion forum Hacker News.
Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” did not respond to requests for comment. X also did not respond. Some of the targeted businesses said they were reviewing the matter when contacted Tuesday by The Post.
Substack’s cofounders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi said in a statement to The Post that they urged X to reverse the decision instituting a delay on Substack links.
“Substack was created in direct response to this kind of behavior by social media companies,” they said. “Writers cannot build sustainable businesses if their connection to their audience depends on unreliable platforms that have proven they are willing to make changes that are hostile to the people who use them.”
Online companies pour millions of dollars into ensuring their websites open as quickly as possible, knowing that even tiny delays can lead their traffic to plunge as users grow inpatient with the delay and go elsewhere.
Musk has berated the Times as “propaganda” and the “Twitter equivalent of diarrhea.” In April, he removed the “verified” badge from the news outlet’s now 55-million-follower account, making it harder for viewers to distinguish it from fake accounts. He also criticized the paper this month related to its coverage of South African politics.
The delays also affect X’s biggest rivals in social media. Links to Facebook, Instagram and the new microblogging service Threads have all been throttled; all three are owned by Meta, whose founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg has been locked in an ongoing online feud with Musk over not-yet-existent plans for a mixed-martial-arts fight.
X also throttles traffic to Bluesky, the platform started with help from former Twitter chief Jack Dorsey, who has used it to criticize Musk’s leadership. The same throttling also applies to Substack, the email newsletter platform that runs its own short-text service, Substack Notes.
Musk has shown little reluctance to use X’s technical tools to pursue personal grudges. In December, after Musk’s takeover, Twitter banned an account known as ElonJet that tracked the flights of Musk’s private jet, banned journalists who reported on the episode and suspended the official account of a large rival, Mastodon, for referring to the account in a tweet.
The site also began using technical hurdles to make it more difficult for Twitter users to access Mastodon, including marking the website as “unsafe” and blocking users from adding Mastodon links to their profiles. ElonJet now posts on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky.
Scoop: X shuts down $100M promoted accounts ad business
- Sara Fischer, author of Axios Media Trends
Photo: Monika Skolimowska/picture alliance via Getty Images
X, the company formerly known as Twitter, will no longer allow advertisers to promote their accounts within the platform's timeline to attract new followers, according to an email to advertising clients obtained by Axios.
Why it matters: Promoted accounts — or "Follower Objective" ads — generate more than $100 million annually in global revenue for X, a source familiar with the company's business told Axios.
- Promoted accounts are one of the oldest ad formats offered on the platform. The ads appear as text-based posts within the X timeline and include a "Follow" button for the account promoting them.
- But follower ads, while easy to sell, are static. They don't leverage any of the multi-media tools, like video, that X is trying to lean into.
- The representative wrote that the change "comes as part of a larger effort to optimize the X experience by prioritizing content formats."
- They further noted that given client's strategies are reliant on the followers objective ad unit, X — in the weeks ahead — "will work to identify alternative routes to meet these goals."
- As of Monday, the Followers Objective was still listed as an advertising opportunity on X's business website.
- It said it's made recommendations to clients to try other types of ad units, including engagement campaigns, which put an advertiser's name and account at the forefront of an ad, and reach campaigns that allow advertisers to pay for additional ad impressions.
Between the lines: The source familiar with X's business told Axios the change was driven by X's product group, not the revenue side of the company.
- The company's client team was given little time to communicate the change to clients ahead of time, the source said.
- Follower objective ads represent a small portion of X's overall ad revenue, but the company is cutting them at a time when reports suggest it's lost a significant amount of ad revenue.
- X is still not profitable, and has reportedly failed to pay vendors and bills as its revenue challenges persist.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
Tesla’s Driving Ranges Are ‘Fraudulent,’ Lawsuit Alleges
The automaker allegedly uses a team of employees to convince complaining customers that their cars are working fine.
www.thedailybeast.com
Elon Musk styles his leadership on French dictator Napoleon and sees himself as a ‘general on the battlefield,’ his biographer says
Fortune· Patrick Pleul—Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Chloe Taylor
Tue, Aug 15, 2023, 10:57 AM EDT
Elon Musk is a history fanatic attempting to channel French tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte in his leadership style
Walter Isaacson—whose biography of Musk is due to be released next month—said the world’s richest man seeks inspiration from French emperor and military dictator Napoleon Bonaparte on how to lead.
Napoleon was brought to power in France following a coup in the late 18th century, and established a dictatorship soon afterward.
“[Musk] likes military history,” Isaacson told Axios in an interview published on Monday. “And he believes there are lessons that apply to corporate life. For example, he believes that wherever Napoleon was, that's where his armies would do best. So [Musk] liked to show up late at night on the assembly lines at Tesla and SpaceX.”
Isaacson, now a history professor at Tulane University, is a former editor of Time magazine and ex-chairman of CNN. He has written biographies of late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albert Einstein.
To conduct research for his upcoming book, Isaacson shadowed Musk for two years, attending meetings and factory visits with him, and spent hours interviewing the Tesla CEO and his friends, family, and coworkers.
Musk told Isaacson during this time that he enjoyed reading and listening to World War I history, and that he listened to a history podcast at night.
In his book, Isaacson recounts an incident where Musk spent an hour at SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch site in Texas where a Starship booster was being built.
"If they see their general on the battlefield, they will be more motivated," Musk, who is the space exploration firm’s chief executive, reportedly told Isaacson.
Musk added that he had “learned that by reading about Napoleon,” Issacson told Axios.
Fortune reached out to representatives for Musk for comment on Isaacson’s claims.
Musk has previously made headlines for his divisive tactics, building a reputation for taking questionable approaches to people management.
Following his $44 billion Twitter acquisition in October, the company reportedly suffered a wave of resignations after he demanded employees sign an oath to work “long hours at high intensity.”
Last month a former Twitter executive went viral on the platform—now known as X—with a series of revelations about how the company was run under Musk. She described a “culture of fear” where employees were “walking on eggshells around Elon” and were afraid to tell him the truth.
Employees at Musk's other companies Tesla and SpaceX have also gone public in the past with grievances about the way they were treated at work.
‘Unlikely’ Musk v Zuckerberg battle will go ahead
More recently, Musk—the richest man on earth, worth $222 billion—has been making headlines with his proposed physical face-off against fellow tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.The two tech billionaires had previously agreed to face each other in a cage fight to raise money for charity, but after Musk said he needed an MRI before confirming a date, Zuckerberg said it was “time to move on.”
In a post on Musk’s X platform on Sunday, Isaacson wrote Musk had texted him at 4:44 a.m. CT sharing screenshots of messages allegedly sent between himself and Meta boss Zuckerberg.
According to the text exchange shared on Sunday, Musk asked Zuckerberg to “fight in your Octagon” the following day. It was unclear if there was any response from Zuckerberg.
A Meta spokesperson did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment on the messages.
When asked by Axios about whether he thought the cage fight would go ahead, Isaacson said he “doesn't make predictions when it comes to Musk, but it seems unlikely.”
“I obviously think that this whole cage match idea is completely ridiculous,” he told the publication.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
KFBF
Superstar
It will only be legit if it's another billionaire because it's too easy to accuse anyone else of taking a dive for money.
Elon Musk styles his leadership on French dictator Napoleon and sees himself as a ‘general on the battlefield,’ his biographer says
Fortune· Patrick Pleul—Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Chloe Taylor
Tue, Aug 15, 2023, 10:57 AM EDT
Elon Musk is a history fanatic attempting to channel French tyrant Napoleon Bonaparte in his leadership style,the tech mogul’s biographer has revealed.
Walter Isaacson—whose biography of Musk is due to be released next month—said the world’s richest man seeks inspiration from French emperor and military dictator Napoleon Bonaparte on how to lead.
Napoleon was brought to power in France following a coup in the late 18th century, and established a dictatorship soon afterward.
“[Musk] likes military history,” Isaacson told Axios in an interview published on Monday. “And he believes there are lessons that apply to corporate life. For example, he believes that wherever Napoleon was, that's where his armies would do best. So [Musk] liked to show up late at night on the assembly lines at Tesla and SpaceX.”
Isaacson, now a history professor at Tulane University, is a former editor of Time magazine and ex-chairman of CNN. He has written biographies of late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Albert Einstein.
To conduct research for his upcoming book, Isaacson shadowed Musk for two years, attending meetings and factory visits with him, and spent hours interviewing the Tesla CEO and his friends, family, and coworkers.
Musk told Isaacson during this time that he enjoyed reading and listening to World War I history, and that he listened to a history podcast at night.
In his book, Isaacson recounts an incident where Musk spent an hour at SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch site in Texas where a Starship booster was being built.
"If they see their general on the battlefield, they will be more motivated," Musk, who is the space exploration firm’s chief executive, reportedly told Isaacson.
Musk added that he had “learned that by reading about Napoleon,” Issacson told Axios.
Fortune reached out to representatives for Musk for comment on Isaacson’s claims.
Musk has previously made headlines for his divisive tactics, building a reputation for taking questionable approaches to people management.
Following his $44 billion Twitter acquisition in October, the company reportedly suffered a wave of resignations after he demanded employees sign an oath to work “long hours at high intensity.”
Last month a former Twitter executive went viral on the platform—now known as X—with a series of revelations about how the company was run under Musk. She described a “culture of fear” where employees were “walking on eggshells around Elon” and were afraid to tell him the truth.
Employees at Musk's other companies Tesla and SpaceX have also gone public in the past with grievances about the way they were treated at work.
‘Unlikely’ Musk v Zuckerberg battle will go ahead
More recently, Musk—the richest man on earth, worth $222 billion—has been making headlines with his proposed physical face-off against fellow tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg.
The two tech billionaires had previously agreed to face each other in a cage fight to raise money for charity, but after Musk said he needed an MRI before confirming a date, Zuckerberg said it was “time to move on.”
In a post on Musk’s X platform on Sunday, Isaacson wrote Musk had texted him at 4:44 a.m. CT sharing screenshots of messages allegedly sent between himself and Meta boss Zuckerberg.
According to the text exchange shared on Sunday, Musk asked Zuckerberg to “fight in your Octagon” the following day. It was unclear if there was any response from Zuckerberg.
A Meta spokesperson did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment on the messages.
When asked by Axios about whether he thought the cage fight would go ahead, Isaacson said he “doesn't make predictions when it comes to Musk, but it seems unlikely.”
“I obviously think that this whole cage match idea is completely ridiculous,” he told the publication.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Napoleon died in exile after making a series of disastrous decisions.
