Musk, Elon

bak 11 22

see ESG ~

libtard? provocateur twitter troll? but likes to pose common sense solutions? but also iconoclast?

an 1 23

Twitter CEO Elon Musk forced staffers to suspend the account of a "left-wing activist," as revealed in a "leaked internal Twitter message," Insider reports.

:{:{A screenshot of the message, Bloomberg reports, included the Twitter account for Chad Lodor along with an email that read: "Suspension: direct request from Elon Musk."}:

According to Lodor’s Mastadon profile, they identify as a "community activist, cybersecurity expert, and citizen journalist.” Their Twitter account was one of the politically left-leaning accounts that Musk suspended in November.

The activist told Insider they assume their profile was suspended as a result of "an organized mass-reporting campaign," by which a conservative group shared a Substack blog post that included "instructions on how to falsely report breaches of Twitter's rules by particular accounts" — which included Loder’s profile “at the top of the list.”

Although the billionaire CEO has referred to himself as "somewhere in the middle" when it comes to politics, social media extremism expert J.M. Berger told Insider he believes Musk is "intentionally empowering right-wing extremists."

This comes after Musk reinstated the Twitter account of right-wing extremist Nick Fuentes this week, which only lasted for a day.

Contrary to Musk's claim that he falls "in the middle" of the political spectrum, Insider reported in November that he urged his followers "to vote Republican the day before November's midterm elections."

https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/elon-musk-2658689002/ ppl bail, union buster

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/elon-musk-amplified-conspiracy-theories-about-ftxs-collapse-he-faces-scrutiny-over-his

mma 11 22

no lnx twt

Elon Musk amplified conspiracy theories about FTX’s collapse as he faces scrutiny over his tenure as Twitter’s CEO

This is the latest instance in Musk’s long history of amplifying far-right content on the platform

WRITTEN BY JACK WINSTANLEY & GIDEON TAAFFE

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALEX KAPLAN & CHLOE SIMON

PUBLISHED 11/14/22

Elon Musk, Twitter’s new leader, has amplified a fringe conspiracy theory about the fall of the cryptocurrency company FTX, baselessly claiming that FTX laundered money intended for Ukraine to Democratic midterm campaigns.

Since taking over Twitter, Musk has cozied up to right-wing conspiracy theorists, including by tweeting out a false story about the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. In his previous posting history, Musk has attacked the LGBTQ movement, spread COVID-19 misinformation, and amplified right-wing content and personalities. Lately, Musk has catered to his new group of right-wing cheerleaders, allowing previously exiled QAnon accounts and white supremacists to return to Twitter and even become verified users with Musk’s paid verification program.

Since last week’s midterm elections, Musk has been actively promoting the latest far-right conspiracy theory. As the cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed, users on Twitter and 4chan began theorizing that the demise of the platform, along with the controversy surrounding its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was related to his donations to the Democratic Party. The predominant theory, which has spread across social media since at least November 11, when an unsourced tweet claimed that Bankman-Fried was using FTX to launder money intended as military aid for Ukraine back into Democratic midterm campaigns. There does not seem to be any evidence for this claim.

Within far-right and fringe online spaces, some have taken the conspiracy theory a step further, pushing antisemitic claims and targeting Bankman-Fried with antisemitic harrassment.

image of 4chan posts

A Truth Social Post using racist slurs against FTX CEO Sam

Musk referenced and promoted this theory in a number of tweets, in the tumultuous start to his tenure as CEO of Twitter.

After Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton claimed in a tweet that Democrats were “harassing and threatening” Musk while choosing to ignore FTX’s supposed scams, Musk responded and asserted that “SBF was a major Dem donor, so no investigation.” Later, Musk posted an image potentially originating from 4chan that showed supposed connections between Bankman-Fried and Securities and Exchange Commission head Gary Gensler.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/elon-musk-twitter-2658615812/

ye djt retaliate insecure

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/right-wing-extremists-and-conspiracy-theorists-are-spreading-hate-twitter-their-newly

no lnx twt many

Right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists are spreading hate on Twitter with their newly purchased blue check marks

During a flawed rollout of Twitter Blue, CEO Elon Musk claimed that the program would decrease hate speech. The opposite appears to be true.

WRITTEN BY CAMDEN CARTER

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MIA GINGERICH, ALEX KAPLAN & PAYTON ARMSTRONG

PUBLISHED 11/10/22

In recent days, numerous Twitter accounts that were suspended for violating the platform’s rules or have a documented history of spreading conspiracy theories and hate speech have purchased a check mark through the new Twitter Blue feature.

On November 9, Twitter launched its updated Twitter Blue feature. The program allows users to pay $7.99 a month for a blue check mark -- which previously served to signal that the account’s identity had been verified -- and “early access to select new features,” such as “half the ads” and priority ranking for “quality content.”

In a Twitter Space held the same day, Musk tried to address some concerns, including about the new Twitter Blue feature and advertisers' concern around hate speech on the platform. During it, he baselessly claimed that ads will not appear next to hate speech and that “the propensity of someone to engage in hate speech if they have paid $8 and are risking the suspension of their account is going to be far, far less.” He provided no evidence for either claim.

Musk’s Twitter Blue has drawn criticism and concern, as users quickly abused the service to impersonate religious figures, government officials, politicians, athletes, brands, and others. (Twitter’s current policies still claim that “blue checkmarks may be taken away at any time for any reason at all by Twitter, including as the result of certain types of violations of the Twitter Rules, including but not limited to our rules around spam, ban evasion, and impersonation.”)

Media Matters has already identified several users that now have a blue check mark through a paid subscription to Twitter Blue, even though they have been previously banned or suspended from Twitter for violating its rules or are known to spread extreme content, hate speech, and misinformation. Some of these accounts have even already spread hate or misinformation since purchasing Twitter Blue.

Libs of TikTok

Anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok has become notorious for spreading anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on Twitter, while targeting schools, Pride events, and individuals. The account has been suspended from Twitter multiple times for hateful conduct.

A screenshot showing Libs of TikTok verified

Gays Against Groomers

Anti-trans group Gays Against Groomers has also worked to push the baseless claim that trans people are “groomers” and spread anti-trans sentiment on both Twitter and Instagram. Gays Against Groomers has been suspended from Twitter at least four times in the past.

A screenshot showing Gays Against Groomers verification

Billboard Chris

Chris Elston, who goes by Billboard Chris on various social media platforms, is a Canadian anti-trans activist known for harassing trans health care providers. His Twitter account has been suspended at least once in the past and since his return, he has continued to document his stunts and post harmful rhetoric about trans people.

A screenshot of Billboard Chris' verification

Catturd

Right-wing troll account Catturd – which Musk has interacted with on Twitter – has used the platform to spread misinformation and conduct harassment campaigns.

A screenshot of Catturd2's verification

Bryson Gray

MAGA Rapper Bryson Gray has expressed support for white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ America First movement, using his Twitter platform to do so. Gray is also set to do a livestream with white nationalist Baked Alaska on Fuentes’ streaming platform on the evening of November 10. In a video on the Telegram channel of QAnon promoter Jeffrey Pedersen, who goes by the handle “intheMatrixxx,” Gray invoked the QAnon slogan: “Where we go one, we go all.”

A screenshot showing Bryson Gray's verification

Red Eagle Politics

Jack Francis, who goes by Red Eagle Politics, is a member of the American Populist Union, a group similar to Fuentes’ America First. Francis has expressed support for the America First movement on his Twitter account.

A screenshot showing Red Eagle Politics verification

Blake Kresses

Blake Kresses -- a member of the Republican Hype House, a former Turning Point USA ambassador, and a content host for right-wing nonprofit Today is America -- now hosts a far-right YouTube show along with Today is America members Kaden Lopez and Gabriel Victal (who also has subscribed to Twitter Blue). Their show has featured Kai Schwemmer -- a known associate of white nationalist Nick Fuentes. During the show, Kresses referred to Schwemmer (who is also featured in Kresses’ Twitter banner photo, along with Jack Francis aka Red Eagle Politics) as a “favorite good friend” and promoted his streaming content on Fuentes’ website. Kresses has repeatedly posted blatant anti-LGBTQ rhetoric to his Twitter account and has been suspended at least once for doing so.

A screenshot of Blake Kresses verification

White supremacists Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer

In 2017, Twitter changed its account verification policy after facing criticism for verifying Jason Kessler, a white supremacist behind the deadly Unite the Right rally Charlottesville, Virginia. Twitter revoked Kessler’s verification, along with other white nationalists like Richard Spencer. Both Kessler and Spencer have subscribed to Twitter Blue, and Kessler is even advocating for Musk to reinstate fellow white supremacist David Duke.

A screenshot of Richard Spencer's verification

A screenshot showing Jason Kessler's verification

QAnon-supporting accounts

Twitter accounts belonging to Nicholas Veniamin, host of a QAnon podcast, and Woke Societies, a QAnon show banned from YouTube, have also been able to acquire a blue check mark through a paid subscription.

A screenshot showing Nicholas Veniamin's verification

A screenshot showing Woke Societies verification

THE LATEST

Tucker Carlson offers gushing, fawning praise of Elon Musk’s vision for Twitter

11/10/22 9:07 PM EST

Tucker Carlson: “Is this fraud? We’re not sure. And on some level it doesn’t matter.”

11/10/22 8:40 PM EST

Fox News host casts doubt on the integrity of election results in Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania

11/10/22 8:09 PM EST

Sean Hannity claims votes have “magically appeared” in Arizona

11/10/22 6:28 PM EST

Right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists are spreading hate on Twitter with their newly purchased blue check marks

11/10/22

…

Twitter CEO Elon Musk is catering to far-right accounts promoting bigotry, extremism, and misinformation

11/07/22 6:34 PM EST

The GOP’s corrupt bargain with Elon Musk

11/07/22 12:53 PM EST

QAnon influencers are trying to use Twitter’s new subscription service to regain a foothold on the platform

11/06/22 4:15 PM EST

parents diamond mine?

retweet paul pelosi assholery conspiracy

Sunday, Twitter suspended the account of comedian Kathy Griffin hours after she changed her name (though not her user handle) to parody the company’s new CEO, billionaire Elon Musk.

The company hasn’t officially clarified why Griffin was suspended from the site or whether the action will be permanent — but Musk appeared to allude to the comedian’s suspension in a tweet later that day.

“Going forward, any Twitter handles engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody’ will be permanently suspended,” Musk wrote in his tweet.

in subsequent tweets, Musk claimed that such restrictions were necessary with the rollout of Twitter Blue, his plan to allow any user to purchase a blue “verified” checkmark for $8.

There “will be no warning” in the future to accounts that engage in parody like Griffin’s, Musk said, adding that, “Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark.”

Twitter has always disallowed impersonating other users on the site to mock them or to make it seem like they’re saying something they’re not. But actions against Griffin and others seem to be personal — and hypocritical — for Musk, as the billionaire has repeatedly promised the site would be aligned with his “free speech absolutist” mentality under his direction. It appears that Musk is primarily enforcing the anti-impersonation policy against accounts that are critical of him, according to NBC News reporter Ben Collins.

After buying Twitter, Musk declared that “comedy is now legal on Twitter.” But it seems as though parodies of Musk are off-limits, reporters have noted.

Parody is a form of comedy in which a person engages in the fictional portrayal of a person or entity. It is often used for social criticism, and has been acknowledged by the Supreme Court as a protected form of free speech since the late 1980s.

Referencing a free speech case that is currently before the High Court, The Onion, a satirical news publication, noted that satire is an effective form of social criticism — and that, by requiring publications to announce that they are parodies, the art form loses its punch.

“For parody to work, it has to plausibly mimic the original,” The Onionstated in its brief to the Court.

an ah 11 22

toddler = disrupter?

Since acquiring Twitter in late October, billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk has fired the company’s entire board of directors as well as some of its top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and Policy Chief Vijaya Gadde. In fact, Agrawal and Segal were escorted out of Twitter’s Bay Area headquarters when Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was finalized.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump are hoping that Musk will restore his Twitter account @realdonaldtrump, which was shut down after the January 6, 2021 insurrection. But Trump’s top social media priority appears to be his own company Truth Social.

In an article published by Axios on November 3, journalist Scott Rosenberg compares Musk’s “chaotic” management style at Twitter to Trump’s “chaotic” presidency and describes some of the similarities.

“Elon Musk's chaotic new Twitter arrives with a distinct echo of Donald Trump's old White House,” Rosenberg explains. “The big picture: The world already knew that Musk's shoot-from-the-hip Twitter posting style recalled the former president's. Now, it appears that Musk's management approach owes a debt to the former president as well.”

The reporter continues, “Musk's first days as Twitter CEO have such a familiar feel because the world's richest man is leading his new company from the same playbook Trump used as he tried to change the U.S. government's direction after his 2017 inauguration: rely on an inner circle chosen for loyalty more than expertise, seize and hold the public's attention by rolling out new proposals and ideas on Twitter first before they've been widely vetted internally, keep the existing organization in a state of uncertainty and fear…. For Trump-detesters, watching Musk's leadership approach in action can feel like a reopened wound or a recurring nightmare.”

Rosenberg notes, however, that “Trump achieved only a fraction of the goals he set because it's nearly impossible to turn around a gigantic organization by posting tweets.”

“Twitter, the company, is much smaller than the federal bureaucracy,” Rosenberg observes. “But Musk is likely to get no further than Trump did if his leadership-by-tweet isn't accompanied by tenacious and coherent internal planning. That could be difficult for someone who changes his mind in public a lot and is also the CEO of four other companies.”

Trump did plenty of firing during his four years in the White House, from former National Security Adviser John Bolton to former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And at Twitter, more firings are expected in the months ahead.

“Trump made a practice of ignoring his own advisers and cutting out experts,” Rosenberg notes. “It remains to be seen who will have Musk's ear and how he will make decisions at Twitter. Trump also used the White House as an asset to leverage advantages for his other assets — most famously, hotels and golf courses. Musk is also known for blurring the boundaries between the companies he owns.”

salon 11 22

"He really is the living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect," a friend responded in a group text over the weekend. We had been sharing stories about the bouts of dumbassery on display, as Elon Musk starts his ill-advised reign of Twitter.And hoo boy, there was plenty to share. Did you see the one about Musk telling software engineers to print out 30 days of code, only to tell them to shred it when he likely realized this exposed how he doesn't know what he's doing? Or how he plans totake a bazooka to the content moderation team, even though doing so will likely send advertisers packing? Or how he thought carrying a sink around was a hilarious joke? Or how he tweeted an asinine conspiracy theory about the Paul Pelosi attack, only to delete it hours later?

None of this should be surprising. From day one, this entire saga has been a story of a man with far more money than brains. After all, this all started when Musk stupidly offered to buy Twitter at a price way over its valuation, for no other reason than a fit of trollish pique. It was only after he realized what a foolish idea it was to set $44 billion on fire that he started coming up with disingenuous excuses to escape the deal, only to discover that it was too late, legally, to back out.

Yet, somehow, much of this still feels surprising. The idea that Musk is "smart" has persisted through years of very public evidence to the contrary. Even now, many of his critics offer pre-emptive caveats that they don't think he's stupid, before explaining why the latest of his endless string of idiotic choices is a bad one. This notion of Musk's intelligence clings to the discourse around him for one simple reason: He is very, very rich.

The myth of the American meritocracy is a stubborn one. Americans can't help but believe that someone as rich as Musk must have something going on for him beyond dumb luck. To imagine otherwise is too unsettling. So many people block out what should be an obvious truth: You probably would have never heard of Elon Musk if he wasn't a white man from a wealthy family that literally owned an emerald mine in South Africa.

To be fair, it's entirely possible that, at one point, Musk wasn't a total birdbrain. His resume suggests there was a time when he was relatively competent at computer science, though there's no reason to think that such skills mean fluency in any other higher-functioning tasks. But regardless of what some IQ test from back in the day might have said about Musk, it's clear that in the past couple of decades, his brain has turned to total mush.

The irony is that the very wealth and privilege that tricks people into thinking he must be a genius likely contributed to the current state of affairs. Being surrounded by nothing but flattery makes it hard to distinguish between thoughts you have that are smart and useful and thoughts you have (such as right-wing conspiracy theories) that are idiotic. Either way, the people in your life — and for Musk, his legions of fanboys on Twitter — are swooning over what a super genius you are. The lack of meaningful feedback would damage most people's capacity for critical thinking. Musk's narcissism renders the diagnosis of his rational capacity terminal.

One can only hope the daily updates on Musk's antics will put some dent into the American myth of meritocracy. But then again, having to endure four years of a Donald Trump presidency didn't seem to make much difference, even as he shared moments of Trumpian wisdom like telling people to inject bleach into their lungs to cure COVID-19 and trying to "correct" a weather map drawn by actual meteorologists because he felt it would better serve his ego for a hurricane to make landfall in Alabama. Trump was elected in no small part because he had convinced large numbers of Americans that he was a successful businessman and therefore smart. In reality, he was a historically terrible businessman whose wealth exists because other rich white guys spent decades bailing him out of his self-inflicted financial woes.

The insidious nature of the meritocratic myth is on full display this week, as the Supreme Court heard arguments in a lawsuit over affirmative action at Harvard University. Unfortunately, polling shows that 63% of Americans oppose universities considering race in their admissions process, naively believing that ending affirmative action means some objective measure of "merit" will be used instead. In reality, the opposite is true: Far from being meritocratic institutions, Ivy League schools are largely devoted to elevating rich white kids at the expense of people who have more talent. As Mark Joseph Stern at Slate explains, "Harvard has a preference for four specific groups of applicants known as ALDC: athletes, legacies, those on the dean's list (frequently because of family donations), and the children of faculty." He continues:

In theory, ALDC preferences are colorblind. In practice, they operate as a massive affirmative action program for white applicants. Over a recent six-year period, 2,200 out of 4,993 admitted white students were ALDC—a figure significantly higher than the overall number of admitted students who are Black (1,392) and Hispanic (1,283). White ALDC students are not overrepresented because they happen to be more qualified; to the contrary, about three-fourths of them would have been rejected without the ALDC boost.

The existing race-based affirmative action program is mostly an attempt to make up for the diversity that is lost giving such a massive advantage to white applicants. And yet, somehow, you hear no complaints from most conservatives about the ALDC preferences. That's because they don't actually want a meritocracy. They want a system where white people can get twice as far while being half as talented. Or where the richest man in the world keeps getting called a genius, even as we can all see — if we're willing to look — that he's just another privilege-addled idiot who lost his capacity for critical thinking many billions of dollars ago.

twit sale fell thru? back on? lawsuit?

natl sec review?!

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/musk-twitter/

poster boy retaliation ESG

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/ron-desantis-scolds-ukraine-over-elon-musk-don-t-bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you/

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/ukraine-elon-musk/ wants dod to pay for sats

smacked down?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/elon-musk-ukraine/

Ukraine ambassador Andrij Melynk recently fired back at billionaire Elon Musk's latest remarks about the ongoing contention between Russia and Ukraine. His fiery response has left Twitter users reeling.

On Monday, October 3, Musk took to Twitter to offer his take on the unrest between the two countries. He also included a poll to see if anyone agreed with his take.

"Ukraine-Russia Peace: - Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people. - Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake). - Water supply to Crimea assured. - Ukraine remains neutral," Musk tweeted.

He added, "This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end – just a question of how many die before then."

While many Twitter users appeared to agree with Musk, Melynk had a colorful response as he offered a blistering suggestion for the Tesla owner.

"The only outcome ist [sic] that now no Ukrainian will EVER buy your f…ing tesla crap. So good luck to you. [Elon Musk]," Melynk tweeted. He also added, "F--k off is my very diplomatic reply to you [Elon Musk]."

It didn't take very long for Twitter users to catch his response and many have shared their reaction to it. While some assumed Musk's suggestions were a means of helping to resolve the situation, others agreed with Melynk.

"I am sorry, but WHAT? What help he’s offering? To give up? To stop fighting for our lives and our people, that don’t want to live under [Russian flag]?" one Twitter user asked. "To give this evil, what he wants, our lands? Shame. And about what war are you saying???? The war, which we haven’t started."

Another user wrote, "Best thing Elon Musk could do is offer Putin a free one-way #SpaceX ticket to #Mars. That's the off ramp everyone's looking for. Season 1 of 'The Expanse' will explain the rest."

no lnx twt

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-weaponized-vice-president-kamala-harris-climate-equity-comments-push

Right-wing media weaponized Vice President Kamala Harris' climate equity comments to push a white grievance narrative

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY EVLONDO COOPER

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALLISON FISHER, ALICIA SADOWSKI & KATHERINE ABUGHAZALEH

PUBLISHED 10/03/22

Update (10/4/22): This piece has been updated with additional segments from Fox News’ evening and prime-time programming.

On September 30, as public officials assessed the catastrophic devastation Hurricane Ian caused to large swaths of southwest Florida, Vice President Kamala Harris was asked to discuss global socioeconomic disparities in climate change impact during theDemocratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum. As part of her response, Harris remarked: “It is our lowest income communities and our communities of color that are most impacted by these extreme conditions and impacted by issues that are not of their own making.”

Since then, right-wing politicians and media figures have been lying about the context of her remarks to falsely imply that the Biden administration planned to deny disaster relief to white victims of Hurricane Ian.

This white grievance narrative is inherently divisive and denies the reality that low-income communities and communities of color are on the frontlines of the climate crisis and have far fewer resources to adapt, evacuate, and rebuild before and after devastating disasters. These inequities are often compounded by discriminatory practices in receiving federal aid.

This narrative also denies the reality that a large number of poor, white Americans stand to benefit from an equity-focused approach to disaster relief. As NewsOne succinctly stated:

In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, communities across Florida were slammed by the fierce storm. And without the express commitment to equity in the recovery process, flooded communities like an Orange County low-income housing complex that flooded or a North Fort Meyers trailer park might not actually get the support they need.

Everyone who suffered losses due to Hurricane Ian must be provided with the resources they need to rebuild and recover. Although Harris’ remarks were not specifically about the federal response to Hurricane Ian, her response cuts to the core of what equity is designed to achieve: Equity is not about exclusion; it's about ensuring that the most vulnerable populations are fully included in disaster relief and future climate adaptation and mitigation planning.

But the right doesn’t do nuance. And weaponizing the vice president’s anodyne comments about climate equity allows right-wing media to downplay or deny the role global warming is playing in extreme weather events, while running interference on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, the primary driver of the climate crisis. It also allows the network and its media allies to further rile up their viewership with culture war narratives ahead of the upcoming midterm election.

And both of those moves fit into Fox News' larger playbook. For much of 2022, the network has led the right-wing mediasphere in pushing a series of unrelenting narratives that sought to undermine the Biden administration’s climate actions, while absolving the fossil fuel industry from any wrongdoing.

Below is a non-exhaustive catalog of Fox News personalities and guests and other right-wing media figures advancing this false and cynical narrative:

Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt: “It's pretty disgusting.” Appearing on The Ingraham Angle, Fox News contributor Charlie Hurt attacked Harris’ equity comments, asserting, “I think it's completely transparent and people see right through it. And when you have Democrats trying to politicize a natural disaster like this, whether it's by trying to justify their crazy power scam that they want global warming to provide them, or in their effort to try to trash their political opponents, using a tragedy like this, it's pretty disgusting.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 10/3/22]

Fox host Tucker Carlson:“She has a new plan to distribute relief, of course, on the basis of race. … So this is immoral.” Fox host Tucker Carlson claimed that Harris planned to “distribute relief, of course, on the basis of race,” before continuing, “So this is immoral. Not one thing ever in American life should be distributed on the basis of race. Ever. However, as long as we’re becoming a two-tiered society with a privileged class and an underclass, how about rewarding good behavior? Why not give priority to Americans who pay their taxes? Follow the law? Raise decent children who don’t join gangs or sell drugs or spray paint things or shoot people?” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 10/3/22]

Fox host Bret Baier:“President Biden and his team are trying to clean up – at least rhetorically – from a self-inflicted wound by Vice President Kamala Harris.” Fox host Bret Baier accused the White House of trying to spin the vice president’s “self-inflicted wound” before adding, “She made a comment that most interpreted as her saying that federal aid to hurricane victims should be distributed through the prism of race and equity to make up for injustices in years past.” [Fox News, Special Report, 10/3/22]

Fox host Jesse Watters:“Kamala Harris picking the wrong time to go woke after Hurricane Ian wreaked havoc on Florida. … Is the vice president saying white Floridians should get their hurricane relief last?” During October 3, 2022, episode of The Five, co-host Jesse Watters accused the vice president of “using this tragedy to push her radical ideology'' and later claimed that “the White House is trying to clean up her mess.” The discourse further devolved into a panel discussion that featured co-host Greg Gutfeld waxing philosophical about equity. [Fox News, The Five, 10/3/22]

Fox host Kayleigh McEnany: “At a time when America came together — perhaps one of the most unifying times in our country is after a natural disaster, when the whole country comes together — she chooses to invoke such hateful, divisive, race-based rhetoric.” During the intro to Outnumbered, host McEnany attacked Harris for her comments on equity and falsely claimed she “invok[ed] such hateful, divisive, race-based rhetoric.” Later, during a panel discussion, co-host Harris Faulkner added, “Because what she’s doing is she is following Biden's footsteps in terms of dividing us along a racial line for votes.” [Fox News, Outnumbered, 10/3/22]

Fox host Harris Faulkner: “Vice president Kamala Harris willing to do the unthinkable, divide Hurricane Ian victims by race. Was she trying to say she would prefer to help the ones she chooses first?” Before running down the damage Hurricane Ian did to Florida, Faulkner falsely claimed that Harris “was willing to do the unthinkable, divide Hurricane Ian victims by race.” This led to a longer segment that collected right-wing reaction to Harris’ statement about equity, which correspondent Peter Doocy described as “race-based relief.” [Fox News, The Faulkner Focus, 10/3/22]

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC): “It is incredibly racist. Can you imagine someone saying the exact opposite, that only whites and men should get hurricane resources first? I mean, that’s crazy town.” Appearing on Sunday Night in America, Republican South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace responded to a loaded question about Harris’ equity comments by calling her statement, “incredibly racist” and added, “The fact that the vice president of the United States is making those kinds of comments shows a lack of leadership. … We shouldn’t see it through the lens of color like the vice president does.” [Fox News, Sunday Night in America, 10/2/22]

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL): “Now is not the time to be talking about who gets what based upon where you started. It's about helping people, making sure they get the resources they need to them as quickly as possible, helping them recover as quickly as possible. That's what matters. That other stuff can wait for another day.” In response to a question about Harris’ equity comments from Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo, Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds claimed that now was the wrong time to discuss who has access to disaster recovery. “That other stuff can wait for another day. Obviously, we're going to have elections about that stuff in about a month or so,” he said. [Fox News, Sunday Morning Futures, 10/2/22]

Fox host Will Cain: “Unfortunately, for many of those in power, relief isn’t going to be something equally distributed, because of course now our focus is not on equality but is on equity. In other words: racism.” During the October 1 episode of Fox & Friends Saturday, host Will Cain claimed that “equity” is another word for “racism.” Later he expounded upon his understanding of equity: “What she went on to say is we want to distribute funds essentially according to — I don’t know exactly how she defined equity, underprivileged communities. In essence, what she would say — what she is saying — is Brown and Black. What she is saying is hurricane relief needs to be distributed according to the color of your skin.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Saturday, 10/1/22]

Daily Caller: “Kamala Harris Says Disaster Relief Should Be ‘Based On Equity.’”

The Daily Wire: “Kamala Harris Blasted For Pushing ‘Racist’ Policy In Response To Hurricane Damage.”

FoxNews.com: “VP Kamala Harris says hurricane recovery should take 'equity' into account.”

The New York Post:“VP Harris slammed for saying Hurricane Ian aid will be ‘based on equity.’”

Newsmax.com: “VP Harris: Hurricane Ian Aid 'Based on Equity' and Race.”

One America News’ Caitlin Sinclair:

Conservative media figure Sadanand Dhume:

Right-wing commentator Ian Miles Cheong:

Right-wing personality Ryan Fournier:

Entrepreneur Elon Musk: reply to rf:Should be according to greatest need, not race or anything else sounds kinda marxist, but he leaves out from according to ability

8 22

https://www.mediamatters.org/elon-musk/right-wing-influencers-leading-social-media-crusade-against-esg

Right-wing media figures are fueling outrage against ESG, an acronym for corporate standards and practices related to environment, social, and governance issues that Republican lawmakers and the fossil fuel industry are seeking to turn into a new bogeyman. Conveniently vague, ESG is being misleadingly cast as a tool for “elites” to force a tyrannical agenda on unsuspecting Americans, specifically investors, as part of the far-right “Great Reset” conspiracy theory.

The anti-ESG movement is gaining momentum fast. In May, former Vice President Mike Pence, seemingly gearing up for a potential 2024 presidential run, attacked ESG in a speech in Houston and in aWall Street Journal op-ed.Biotech founder and conservative influencer Vivek Ramaswamy launched an explicitly anti-ESG asset management firm called Strive that same month. More recently, right-wing media spearheaded an effort to blame upheaval in the Netherlands, Sri Lanka, and other countries on green policies supposedly forced into place because of ESG compliance, warning that if the “global elites” had their way, the United States would be next.

This right-wing campaign is now targeting corporations which are implementing ESG practices and the financial institutions which are encouraging them through investment. According to Reuters, 17 conservative-led states have pushed at least 44 bills or new laws punishing companies for taking a stance on ESG issues in 2022, compared to about a dozen of these types of actions in 2021. Notably, an August 5 New York Times investigation revealed that a dark money group with deep ties to the fossil fuel industry is working with state treasurers across the country to hinder climate action in the form of anti-ESG legislation, among other tactics.

ESG is attracting more and more attention from right-wing media influencers like Elon Musk, Glenn Beck, and James Lindsay. They are part of a growing number of conservative media figures seizing the opportunity to turn ESG into the next battleground in the culture wars, in part by fitting it into the broader “Great Reset” conspiracy theory on social media. As it relates to climate change denial, the Great Reset posits that global elites are using the climate crisis as a pretext to impose economic control on the masses.

What is ESG?

On May 18, Musk took to Twitter, writing, “ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.” Tesla had just been kicked off of the S&P 500’s ESG index, potentially spelling trouble for the company’s stock value, and Musk was mad. It wasn’t the first time he had touched on the topic, but the media frenzy that followed had everyone asking one question: What is ESG?

From May 17-19, Google search interest in “ESG” skyrocketed by 233%, reaching peak popularity for a relatively esoteric acronym.

ESG stands for “environmental, social, and governance” criteria that companies can meet by developing initiatives and disclosures to appear responsive to environmental concerns, workers' rights, and other pressing social issues. Independent rating agencies evaluate how well they are managing risks and growth opportunities in these different areas and how that could have material impacts on their performance. For example, a company that provides detailed reporting on its greenhouse gas emissions from direct operations and across its supply chain and has a robust plan to achieve net-zero emissions may be more likely to receive a high ‘E’ score.

Investors who want to prioritize financial returns but are seeking some level of corporate accountability are increasingly relying on ESG scores to make decisions. ESG investments are on track to exceed $50 trillion by 2025. The big three asset management firms – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, which have sometimes used their shareholder power to support ESG resolutions – are the main villains in the right’s anti-ESG narrative. For example, at Exxon’s annual meeting in 2021, the three firms used their voting power to help activist investors install three directors on the company's board, with the goal of building out a more aggressive strategy to transition away from fossil fuels.

But that doesn’t mean corporate ESG will save the planet. To the contrary, climate advocates have called ESG a greenwashing scam. Despite being in the S&P 500’s ESG Index, Exxon has increased its investment in oil and gas drilling and does not have a climate planthat meets the goals of the Paris agreement. But the fossil fuel industry and the lawmakers who receive lavish contributions from it aren’t concerned with legitimate criticisms of ESG.

Why ESG matters to fossil fuel proponents

It is clear that despite short-term demand rising, fossil fuels are not viable long-term investments. However, fossil fuel industry allies are clawing to keep their power and profits, discouraging any corporate commitment to climate by vilifying and even prohibiting adherence to ESG standards while advancing pro-oil and gas legislation at the state and federal levels that prohibits investment and business decisions from considering the economic and environmental consequences of fossil fuels. What’s more, Republican legislators are vowing to continue this trend if they take control of the House in the November midterm election.

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to hamstring the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency in June, ESG opponents are now calling for the court to place similar limits on the Securities and Exchange Commission and its ability to ask public companies for disclosures about their climate impacts.

Right-wing culture warriors, conspiracy theorists, and Fox News hosts are attacking ESG

The burgeoning conservative campaign against ESG isn’t just playing out in state legislatures or financial institutions. ESG panic may be approaching critical mass, with high-profile climate skeptics like Tucker Carlson, Marc Morano, Alex Epstein, and Michael Shellenberger realizing that the acronym is ripe for manipulation and fearmongering.[vid]

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Some key media figures in the right-wing campaign against ESG, such as radio host andconspiracy theorist Glenn Beck and anti-critical theory activist James Lindsay,jumped at the chance to amplify several attacks from Musk in an effort to move ESG into the mainstream discourse.

These anti-ESG evangelists aren’t just concerned with protecting oil and gas interests. Their grievances are often focused on the social and governance aspects as well, applying the same flawed arguments to specific examples to deride and toxify ESG as a whole.

Musk: “ESG is the devil incarnate”

Musk’s vendetta against ESG is personal, and it has been building at the same time his faltering deal to buy Twitter with the goal of stopping the “woke mind virus” has transformed him into a reactionary martyr.

Musk first took to Twitter with his ESG grievances on March 8, claiming, “ESG rules have been twisted to insanity,” replying to a tweet from venture capitalist and Facebook board member Marc Andreessen.

The Daily Wire’s coverage of the comment has garnered more Facebook interactions than any other U.S.-based right-wing article mentioning “ESG” since 2020. It was also shared by Daily Wire influencers Matt Walsh and Michael Knowles.

Dark money-funded PragerU, which has denied the established science of climate change in its videos, edited the thumbnail of an older anti-ESG video to feature Musk and his tweet.

On April 3, Musk tweeted, “I am increasingly convinced that corporate ESG is the Devil Incarnate,” cueing up another right-wing media pile-on.

Several conspiracy theorists and far-right characters chimed in, with some invoking the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory. Right-wing news coverage did the same.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who has received well over half a million dollars from the fossil fuel industry and has a large social media following, used Musk’s statements to blame high gas prices on ESG instead of price gouging and dedicated an entire episode of his podcast, Hold These Truths, to the supposed evils of ESG.

On May 18, Musk wrote his infamous “social justice warriors” tweet, which has over 360,000 interactions.

Fox News and Fox Business both ran a variety of segments on Musk’s tweet, calling ESG a scam, defending Musk as a victim of censorship, and interviewing lawmakers pushing anti-ESG legislation.

On May 26, Fox host Laura Ingraham dedicated an entire segment of The Ingraham Angle to fearmongering about ESG, citing Musk at the outset.

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On Twitter, industry shills, dedicated climate change deniers, and other conservative media personalities jumped to back Musk’s statement, sometimes promoting their own content on the topic for engagement.

Glenn Beck: “Elon Musk Joins Glenn in Anti-ESG Crusade”

Beck is not new to ESG. The right-wing TV and radio host was an early adopter of the “Great Reset” conspiracy theory in 2020 following the World Economic Forum’s annual Davos summit, along with Steve Bannon, Alex Jones, and a slew of other conservative influencers. He has also been weaving ESG into this theory, which has been aptly described as a “hodgepodge of one-world-government fears.”

[twt]

In December 2021, Beck insisted that Citigroup’s implementation of ESG scores for its clients was part of “the Davos plan” to prevent individuals from getting loans.

In January, Beck claimed that the Davos elites are “designing everything – everything – in your life,” including the climate crisis, for the purpose of implementing the Great Reset, in part through ESG.

Beck worked with the fossil fuel-funded Heartland Institute, to help spread his message. Heartland has been testifying before lawmakers in several states to back anti-ESG legislation, providing them with misleading information about how financial institutions are implementing ESG strategies. Beck even wrote a book with Heartland Editorial Director Justin Haskins. In one Beck claimed that “there are now 20 states that are starting to put anti-ESG legislation in because of his book.”

In February, Beck did indeed talk to at least one state legislature in Idaho, calling ESG “CRT on steroids.” (In March, the Idaho legislature passed a bill aimed at discouraging state investment boards from making ESG considerations.)

In an April 4 video titled “Elon Musk Joins Glenn in Anti-ESG Crusade,” Beck praised Tesla as a company and noted that Musk’s provocative tweets have sparked more conversations around ESG and lent credibility to criticism, especially given his perceived commitment to addressing the climate crisis.

A true Musk fanboy, Beck has gone so far as to blame ESG and the Great Reset for roadblocks to his deal to buy Twitter.

James Lindsay: “We’re going to do to ESG what we did to CRT”

Lindsay, a critical theory opponent, has emerged as a loud ESG critic, particularly on Twitter. Lindsay is an influential figure in the “critical race theory” panic. He was also instrumental in popularizing the baseless “groomer” slur which has been used to target LGBTQ people and falsely suggest they are child predators. (Lindsay was recently permanently suspended from Twitter, where he had over 300,000 followers, for calling a trans Harvard instructor a “child sexualization specialist.”)

Now, similarly to Beck, Lindsay is using his influence to spotlight ESG as a key feature of the Great Reset conspiracy theory, becoming increasingly obsessed with the topic and anyone who he feels could give it momentum – especially Musk. More broadly, Lindsay is focused on gathering a smorgasbord of right-wing grievances under the umbrella of ESG, with the intent of building a nearly all-encompassing cause for conservative activists to rally behind. Unlike some of the lawmakers who are primarily targeting climate-conscious businesses, Lindsay’s interest is more aligned with attacking the “social” aspect of ESG, which includes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts (DEI).

He has taken aim at any efforts to combat discrimination at companies such as Starbucks, falsely labeling DEI initiatives as critical race theory or “Woke Marxism,” and writing, “DEI won’t go away until after ESG is defeated. It’s a slightly separate fight, but it doesn’t even start until ESG is in ashes.”

He has also targeted Disney and linked it to ESG in order to feed into the homophobic and transphobic right-wing false accusation that LGBTQ people are predators.

He first started writing about ESG in March 2021 on Twitter, around the same time that Beck started posting about the topic. Lately, though, he’s been writing extreme statements about ESG almost every day across social media. Many of these appeared in his tweets, which had thousands of likes and retweets, but are no longer available due to his suspension.

In May, Lindsay wrote that “we’re going to do to ESG what we did to CRT,” in response to an article from The New Republic examining ESG’s role in the broader culture wars. The article highlighted Musk’s tweets and noted that anti-critical race theory and anti-ESG groups have common funders.

Lindsay repeatedly attempted to engage with Musk about ESG on Twitter, encouraging and agreeing with his objections to ESG and praising Tesla and SpaceX. On Facebook, he invoked Musk when posting about the issue, and generally jumped to his defense in the face of any criticism

In May, he addressed the “ESG Cartel” in a short of his New Discourses podcast and appeared on I’m Right with Jesse Kelly, where he talked about having conversations with lawmakers in “maybe a dozen states” regarding ESG and DEI and linked it to the influence of the World Economic Forum.

In June, he was a guest on The Charlie Kirk Show, to discuss how ESG is part of a “Marxist theology.”

ESG is seemingly poised to continue gaining traction

If we learned anything from the rise of critical race theory to a national issue and right-wing media obsession, it’s that underestimating the right-wing media’s ability to create a moral panic out of opaque terminology has serious consequences. Musk’s tweets were all that right-wing media figures and conspiracy theorists needed to expand attacks on ESG. Now, conservative TV news outlets have picked up on the narrative. With midterms approaching, so is the opportunity to mobilize voters and shareholders against this new iteration of ever-evolving “woke” ideology.

There are legitimate concerns about ESG. But even if it isn't an effective path toward decarbonization, permitting a maliciously misleading interpretation conceived by the fossil fuel industry and its allies to dominate the media cycle certainly won’t get us there, and may even further demonize various types of climate action.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/climate/republicans-blackrock-climate.html

wAPO no lnx

How an Organized Republican Effort Punishes Companies for Climate Action

Legislators and their allies are running an aggressive campaign that uses public money and the law to pressure businesses they say are pushing “woke” causes.

Protesters at the Glasgow climate summit last year. A number of banks, investors and companies pledged at the talks to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

By David Gelles and Hiroko Tabuchi

May 27, 2022

:{In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk.

In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation.}:

And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major ratings agency for considering environmental risks and other factors, in addition to the balance sheet, when assessing states’ creditworthiness.

Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.

“We’re an energy state, and energy accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue for us,” said Riley Moore, the West Virginia state treasurer. “All of our jobs come from coal and gas. I mean, this is who we are. This is part of our way of life here in the state. And they’re telling us that these industries are bad.”

“We have an existential threat here,” Mr. Moore said. “We have to fight back.”

In doing so, Mr. Moore and others have pushed climate change from the scientific realm into the political battles already raging over topics like voting rights, abortion and L.G.B.T.Q. issues. In recent months, conservatives have moved beyond tough words and used legislative and financial leverage to pressure the private sector to drop climate action and any other causes they label as “woke.”

“There is a coordinated effort to chill corporate engagement on these issues,” said Daniella Ballou-Aares, chief executive of the Leadership Now Project, a nonprofit organization that wants corporations to address threats to democracy. “And it is an effective campaign. Companies are starting to go into hiding.”

:{The pushback has been spearheaded by a group of Republican state officials that has reached out to financial organizations, facilitated media appearances and threatened to punish companies that, among other things, divest from fossil fuels.

They have worked alongside a nonprofit organization that has run television ads, dispatched roaming billboard trucks and rented out a Times Square billboard criticizing BlackRock for championing what they call woke causes, including environmentalism.}:

These efforts come after years during which many in the financial sector boasted that they were prioritizing environmental, social and governance issues, also known as ESG, rather than pure profits.

That activism has often put companies at odds with the Republican Party, traditionally the ally of big business. In 2015, Salesforce and other big employers threatened to leave Indiana after the state passed, and then quickly rolled back, a law that would have allowed businesses to refuse service to gay customers. Nike faced a fierce backlash for its 2018 ad featuring Colin Kaepernick, the former N.F.L. quarterback who knelt during the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality.

As the signs of a warming planet have grown more apparent over the past five years — in the form of more destructive storms and fires, record heat and drought — and as pressure has grown from consumers and liberal groups to take action, corporations have warmed to the notion of using capital and markets to create a cleaner economy. Faith-based groups, universities and foundations have divested from oil, gas and coal. New York State’s pension fund plans to start shedding its fossil fuels holdings, and Maine became the first state last year to require both its Treasury and its public employee pension fund to divest from fossil fuels.}:

When President Trump declared in 2017 that he would pull the United States from the Paris climate accord, more than 2,000 businesses and investors — including Apple, Amazon and Mars — signed a pledge to continue to work toward climate goals.

The Biden Administration’s Environmental Agenda

President Biden is pushing stronger regulations, but faces a narrow path to achieving his goals in the fight against global warming.

Resource Protection: The Environmental Protection Agency has moved to restore authority to states and tribes to stop energy projects that could pollute local waters.

Defining ‘Habitat’: The Biden administration is doing away with a Trump-era definition of the term that was at odds with the conservation purposes of the Endangered Species Act.

Electric Vehicles: The transportation secretary outlined proposed regulations that would require charging stations built with federal dollars to be located no more than 50 miles apart.

Solar Tariffs: The Biden administration announced it wouldn’t impose new tariffs on the solar industry for two years, in an effort to encourage broader adoption of solar energy.

Then, in 2019, a group of senior business leaders promised to redefine “the purpose of a corporation” and prioritize the environment, workers and communities.

And a record number of banks, investors and companies at the United Nations climate talks in Glasgow last year committed to reaching net zero (the point where their activities no longer add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere) by 2050. Several said they saw opportunity in investing in new kinds of technology needed to power an economy that is not based on oil, gas or coal.

Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, has been among the most outspoken executives, using his annual letter to corporate leaders to implore them to look beyond the bottom line and make a positive contribution to society.

Larry Fink, the head of BlackRock, in a TV appearance in March. “Every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net-zero world,” he has said.

In his most recent letter, issued in January, Mr. Fink made the case for what he calls “stakeholder capitalism,” saying there is a sound business rationale for taking up the fight against climate change and imploring other companies to act.

“Every company and every industry will be transformed by the transition to a net-zero world,” Mr. Fink wrote. “The question is, will you lead, or will you be led?”

Other executives also say they are unbowed by the brewing conservative backlash.

“It’s not going to stop me,” said Marc Benioff, the co-founder and co-chief executive of Salesforce and one of the most outspoken business leaders on social and political issues. “It’s pretty hard to restrict or control how a C.E.O. creates the culture of his company.”

Mr. Benioff dismissed many of the actions of conservatives as theatrics. “Politicians have to do what politicians do, which is try to get elected,” Mr. Benioff said. “It’s a lot of posturing for the base.”

[The Texas legislature last year, which passed a bill that would block state agencies from doing business with financial firms that divest from fossil fuels.

Republican lawmakers, however, are becoming more organized in their efforts to slow corporate progress on climate issues.

Mr. Moore, the West Virginia state treasurer, coordinated a letter in November from 16 state treasurers and comptrollers to banks across the country, threatening “collective action in response to the ongoing and growing economic boycott of traditional energy production industries by U.S. financial institutions.”

“It is our sincere hope that no financial institution will be rendered ineligible to provide banking services to our states,” the letter said.

And in January, Mr. Moore pulled about $20 million out of a fund managed by BlackRock because the firm has encouraged other companies to reduce emissions. BlackRock still manages several billion for West Virginia’s state retirement system. “We’re divesting from BlackRock because they’re divesting from us,” Mr. Moore said in an interview.

In private, elected officials in conservative states have been even more blunt.

“These big banks are virtue signaling because they are woke,” Gary Howell, a West Virginia state representative who sponsored a bill that would blacklist companies that have divested from fossil fuels, wrote in a Feb. 8 email to Mr. Moore. The message was obtained by Documented, a corporate watchdog group, under a Freedom of Information Act request. “They either shut up or get on the list, that is my goal,” he wrote.

Mr. Howell did not respond to a request for comment.

Idaho’s top elected officials, including the governor and the entire congressional delegation, sent a letter last week to the chief executive of S&P Global, the ratings agency, objecting to the company’s use of ESGmetrics in its rankings of states. “It is impossible for the State of Idaho not to conclude that S&P has adopted a politicized ratings system,” the Republicans wrote. Officials in other states, including Utah, have sent similar letters.

Curtis Loftis, the South Carolina state treasurer, emailed senior executives at JPMorgan on Sept. 1 and warned banks “to stay out of political culture wars and particularly abstain from the petty, ‘woke’ cancel culture.”

Mr. Fink of BlackRock has emerged as a main target of conservatives. Last June, BlackRock joined with Vanguard and State Street to help an activist hedge fund, Engine No. 1, win three seats on the board of Exxon with the goal of pushing the energy giant to reduce its carbon footprint.

Months later, a nonprofit group called Consumers’ Research received an influx of funding from undisclosed donors and began running ads attacking Mr. Fink.

Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, in February that Mr. Fink and BlackRock had “helped vote on three radical environmentalists to the board of directors of Exxon whose stated goal is to get that company not focused on serving American consumers affordable gas but on Larry Fink’s personal politics.”

BlackRock seemed to backtrack this month when it said it was likely to support fewer shareholder proposals calling for climate action.

People familiar with BlackRock said the pressure was not changing the firm’s investment strategy. But the company has scrambled to limit the fallout in states like Texas, stressing that it is following the wishes of its clients and investing broadly.

“We are perhaps the world’s largest investor in fossil fuel companies, and, as a long-term investor in these companies, we want to see these companies succeed and prosper,” BlackRock’s head of external affairs, Dalia Blass, wrote in a letter to Texas regulators in January.

BlackRock, on behalf of its clients, had $259 billion in assets invested in fossil fuel companies around the world, with $91 billion invested in Texas fossil fuel companies alone, Ms. Blass stressed, listing BlackRock’s sizable holdings in Texas energy companies, including Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Kinder Morgan.

BlackRock also this month said it would support fewer shareholder proposals calling for climate action because “we do not consider them to be consistent with our clients’ long-term financial interests.”

In a statement, BlackRock said it was “committed to engaging with all stakeholders to ensure they understand our investment decisions are driven by just one thing: our fiduciary duty to our clients.”

Casey Harrell, a senior strategist at The Sunrise Project, a climate advocacy group, said “BlackRock is trying to have it all ways, acting like it is trying to please everyone.”

The efforts appear to be having an impact beyond BlackRock, as well. At the annual meetings of big banks and oil companies — including BP, ConocoPhillips, and Citi — shareholders voted down climate proposals that would have slowed investments in fossil fuel projects.

As the stock markets sink and concerns about inflation grow, the pushback against environmental, social and governance concerns is spreading.

Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, waded into the debate. “ESG is a scam,” he said on Twitter on this month. “It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.” Shortly after that he shared a meme that declared an ESG score “determines how compliant your business is with the leftist agenda.”

And last week, the global head of responsible investments for HSBC Asset Management, Stuart Kirk, made a provocative presentation titled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk” at a Financial Times event in London.

Describing climate risk as a problem in the far-off future, Mr. Kirk said, “Climate change is not a financial risk that we need to worry about,” adding, “Who cares if Miami is six meters underwater in 100 years?”

That view is at odds with the findings of the world’s leading climate scientists. A major United Nations report warned last month that the world could reach a threshold by the end of this decade beyond which the dangers of global warming — including worsening floods, droughts and wildfires — will grow considerably. In 2021, there were 20 weather or climate-related disasters in the United States that each cost more than $1 billion in losses, according to the federal government.

On social media, Mr. Kirk was celebrated by some and derided by others. Top executives at the bank said his words did not reflect HSBC’s position.The Financial Times reported that Mr. Kirk had been suspended, pending an internal investigation, something HSBC would not confirm. In a LinkedIn post, Noel Quinn, HSBC’s group chief executive, repeated the bank’s commitment to combating climate change.

“Our ambition is to be the leading bank supporting the global economy in the transition to net zero,” he said.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/26/elon-you-have-no-idea-what-the-hell-youre-talking-about

https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/elon-musk-2657243311/

metaverse VR?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/aoc-elon-musk/

no lnx many twts

Elon Musk's attack on AOC draws far right Twitter trolls – and charges of 'staggering' misogyny

AOC catches a Republican launching a 'cynical' smear against her — and has the receipts to prove it

Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at South By Southwest 2019 in Austin, Texas, nrkbeta

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement April 30, 2022

Whether you believe him or not (don't), Elon Musk claims he is buying Twitter to protect "free speech" but he's already turning the top social media platform into a home for the far-right – exactly as liberals warned.

On Thursday the billionaire was accused of sounding "just like Trump" when he posted a demonstrably false meme alleging conservatives haven't changed since 2008, while the "center" and liberals have moved to the left – with liberals running to the extreme far left. Again, demonstrably false.

Apparently not thrilled by the massive negative response from the left, on Friday Musk tweeted, "The far left hates everyone, themselves included!"

About 20 minutes later, again apparently gauging reaction, he added: "But I’m no fan of the far right either. Let’s have less hate and more love," acting as if he already owned the place – which he does not.

Friday night, Musk responded to a tweet from a powerful sitting member of Congress, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). While she did not tag him, it was clearly about him.

"Tired of having to collectively stress about what explosion of hate crimes is happening bc some billionaire with an ego problem unilaterally controls a massive communication platform and skews it because Tucker Carlson or Peter Thiel took him to dinner and made him feel special," she wrote.

News reported Friday suggested Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey asked Musk to buy the social media site – and "libertarians" like Thiel urged him on.

The Wall Street Journal reported hours earlier thatDorsey "was whispering in Mr. Musk’s ear that Twitter should be a private company, people familiar with the matter say." The Journal also reported billionaire Peter Thiel, a strong Trump backer, had been urging Musk to get involved. Thiel is also a strong backer of Trump-aligned MAGA candidates.

So it's no wonder that Musk responded to AOC in a most vile manner, sexualizing her remarks, which was a dog whistle – if not a clarion call – to the misogynistic far right, who came barking with glee.

This was Musk's ugly response:...

Emma Vigeland, the co-host and producer of The Majority Report with Sam Seder weighed in: "Congratulations on reaching yet another right-wing milestone, Elon: projecting your own creepy sexual fixations onto Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It’s a rite of passage!"

RELATED: Experts Sound Alarm Against Elon Musk Buying Twitter – and Warn All Your DMs Might Not Be Safe

Geraldine DeRuiter, "the voice behind the award-winning Everywhereist blog," observed: "This is how the owner of this platform is choosing to engage with elected female officials. The misogyny is staggering."

Here's how the far-right responded to Musk's tweet: scott adams...

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/elon-musk-2657236693/

d badash ncrm

many twt graf

Elon Musk in a court agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission is required to get his tweets pre-authorized after being forced to pay $40 million in a fraud case ($20 from him, $20 million from Tesla). It is not clear he is doing so.

Musk, the richest man not just in the world, but in the history of the world, this week bought Twitter, the social media platform that likely has the strongest ability to shape public opinion. (Kind of like his tweets, the deal is subject to Federal Trade Commission approval.)

On Thursday Musk posted a demonstrably false tweet that suggests conservatives have not changed positions since 2008. It basically also says that liberals have moved much more to the extreme left. And it provides precisely zero evidence to back up the claim.

Many on Twitter blasted Musk, providing ample proof of just how wrong he is.

One of those leading the charge against Musk’s erroneous and divisive claim is Parker Malloy, a former Media Matters editor-at-large who just penned a piece at Substack that begins, “Maybe if Twitter had actually enforced its policies, it wouldn’t have become the type of hellhole a guy like Elon Musk would want to buy.”

Malloy points to aPew Research Center study that states outright: “Republicans have moved further to the right than Democrats have to the left.”

Why is Musk’s erroneous tweet divisive? Because it’s false, yet feeding the already non-reality-based right wing — which is the exact concern many have about what the social media platform that shapes public opinion and legislation will become under Musk’s ownership.

Alexander Howard, the Director of the Digital Democracy Project, also pushed back on Musk’s claim. Pointing to a piece in The Economist, Howard tweets: “The GOP has shifted to the far-right since the 1990s, embracing illiberalism & anti-democratic views. The Democratic Party has not shifted far-left.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/2/10/headlines/california_sues_tesla_for_discrimination_against_black_employees

[https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/scientists-have-strong-reservations-about-elon-musks-brain-implant-technology-a-slew-of-ethical-concerns/](https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/scientists-have-strong-reservations-about-elon-musks-brain-implant-technology-a-slew-of-ethical-concerns/)

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/elon-musk/ twit stunt?

libtard? the other has orcs

Musk loves Texas’ right-wing 'social policies' — at least according to Greg Abbott

Brett Bachman Salon

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/jeff-bezos/

salon doj looking for leaker?! no salary/income, just mortgage/borrow against assets

A _{bombshell report}_ published by ProPublica on Tuesday detailed leaked IRS filings suggesting that some of the wealthiest individuals in the U.S. pay next to nothing in federal taxes, despite _{reaping hundreds of millions or more}_ in annual income. But now the report itself has become enmeshed in controversy over journalistic ethics and privacy concerns, especially the question of when it's newsworthy to reveal personal financial information of private citizens.

ProPublica's report, which relies on IRS records whose source remains unknown, provides a startling glimpse into the true extent of tax avoidance schemes among the richest one-tenth of the one percent.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, for example, paid zero federal income taxes for both 2007 and 2011. Tesla founder Elon Musk paid nothing for 2018. Investor and liberal philanthropist George Soros also paid zilch over the course of three years.

Other billionaires detailed in the report include former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who _{paid}_ $70.7 million in federal income taxes in 2017, despite claiming $1.9 billion in personal income. (That represents roughly a 3.7% tax rate, when it arguably _{should have been}_ around 52%.)

Billionaire investor and businessman Carl Icahn deducted large interest payments on his companies' debts, allowing him to avoid federal income tax payments in 2016 and 2017. That scheme involved taking out large bank loans to invest in the stock market, because the interest paid on those loans is tax-deductible, offsetting investment gains and other income.

Other billionaires lowered their taxable income by claiming they had incurred net losses. In 2011, for example, Bezos alleged he had lost money, although that his wealth of roughly $18 billion held steady from the previous year. He paid no federal income taxes thanks to his "investment losses," which in fact earned him a $4,000 family tax credit.

ProPublica also reports that corporate taxes do not make up for the tax losses resulting from these billionaire tax-avoidance schemes, largely because the corporate tax rate has plummeted in recent years, in the wake of tax cuts enacted by the Republican Congress in 2017 and signed by then-President Trump. Additionally, many companies — such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple — can circumvent a large proportion corporate taxes by claiming that their profits were made abroad.

From Your Site Articles

lon Musk spread COVID-19 conspiracy theories. Fox News now celebrates him reopening California factory.

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD

PUBLISHED 05/12/20 3:48 PM EDT

Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk has frequently pushed misinformation and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus pandemic, and he’s opposed states continuing their restrictions on economic activity in order to combat the coronavirus. Now Musk is reopening his electric car plant in Fremont, California, in defiance of continued lockdown orders by Alameda County health officials — and Fox News has his back.

Among the various claims and conspiracy theories that Musk has promoted are the falsehood that children are “essentially immune” to the coronavirus, the idea that COVID-19 cases are being over-diagnosed — perhaps so hospitals can get more money — promotion of the unproven chloroquine drugs as a treatment for COVID-19, and a prediction in March that there will be “probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April.”

Musk also promoted COVID-19 misinformation during a recent interview with podcast host Joe Rogan.

And on a recent Tesla earnings call, Musk denounced the lockdowns as “fascist.” He elaborated: “I would call it, ‘forcibly imprisoning people in their homes’ against all their Constitutional rights, in my opinion, and breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to America or built this country.”

On the May 12 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Ainsley Earhardt talked up the fact that the plant employs 10,000 people. Co-host Brian Kilmeade in turn cast accusations against continued economic lockdowns: “The way they're doing it now, as the president tweeted out, and I'll paraphrase, it looks political. It looks like, let's take our time to maybe keep the economy down for a Republican president."

[pix]

later that morning, President Donald Trump tweeted in support of Musk:

Musk filed a lawsuit over the weekend against the continued local health restrictions and also said he will move his company’s headquarters to Texas or Nevada.

On May 11’s edition of Fox News’ Outnumbered, the panel variously praised both Musk’s lawsuit and his threat to leave the state.

Fox Nation host Emily Compagno called the local health order “just another decision in a long line of many that is not business friendly, and it is causing businesses there to flee.” She also appeared to call for federal intervention against state and local orders: “That's also why federal elected officials should make decisions to extend that cure and measurement period for these guys. These states that are not opening up, they will have a tremendous ripple effect.”

Fox Business host Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery added: “Elon Musk is really appealing to what should scare the life out of California politicians, particularly the governor -- which is you have Nevada and Texas, basically like a third-base coach, just waving California businesses onto their home plate. … And at some point a lot of these billionaires and big businesses are going to leave California. The trend is already there, but the pandemic is going to worsen that."

[pix? vid?]

fox News also published an online opinion piece Tuesday by Chuck DeVore, a former member of the California state Assembly, commending Musk’s decision and talking down California’s high-tax status: “Musk appears to be channeling his inner Davy Crockett, who after losing his campaign to get reelected to Congress in 1834 said ‘…you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.’”

Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren also tweeted a video message Tuesday in support of Musk and against California:“Attempting to rig elections through mass voter fraud opportunities, continue to power-grab, take federal dollars to cover the tracks of their mismanagement, get Californians reliant on government — and pass it all off as public health. No, it’s public bullshit.”

She added: “And Elon Musk, I’d say go for it. Move your innovation, your jobs, your patriotic spirit to a state that still believes in freedom and still recognizes that rights come from God, not government.”

Lost in all this commentary on Fox News, however, appears to be any mention of whether health and safety issues at the plant are being addressed for the plant’s reopening.

The Los Angeles Times reported on that front:

The county said it has been working with Tesla to develop a safety plan allowing the Fremont plant to reopen. Alameda county spokesperson Neetu Balram said in a statement the county has collaborated “in good faith” with the company to create a plan that ensures safety for employees through screening procedures and by establishing processes for collecting feedback from front-line staff.

Balram said the county expected Tesla to submit a site-specific safety plan on Monday following state guidance on manufacturing businesses. But Balram said late Monday afternoon the county had not yet received a plan from Tesla.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/matrix-co-creator-calls-out-elon-musk-and-ivanka-trump-for-urging-people-to-swallow-the-red-pill/

no lnx twt

'Matrix’ co-creator calls out Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump for urging people to swallow the ‘red pill

Written by Alex Henderson May 18, 2020

Although the term “the red pill” has come to be identified with far-right anti-feminist websites such as Return of Kings, that’s not where it originated: the expression made its debut in sisters Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s first of three “Matrix” films. Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently used the expression in a tweet that White House Senior Adviser Ivanka Trump forwarded — and Lilly Wachowski is calling them out for it.

In the first “Matrix” film, taking “the red pill” means accepting a dystopian world as it really is. But when the alt-right adopted the term, they give it a far-right, socially conservative anti-feminist connotation — one in which someone who “takes the red pill” has had an alt-right awakening and rejects liberal or progressive ideology.

On Sunday, May 17, Musk tweeted, “Take the red pill.” And Ivanka Trump, upon seeing Musk’s tweet, responded, “taken!” Lilly Wachowski, in response to their tweets, posted, “Fuck both of you.” In a separate tweet, Musk (who has 34 million followers on Twitter), described “the red pill” as “one of my fav Matrix memes.”

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

Take the red pill

460K

10:44 AM - May 17, 2020

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Ivanka Trump

@IvankaTrump

Taken! https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1262076474565242880 …

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

Take the red pill

Lilly Wachowski

@lilly_wachowski

Fuck both of you

192K

12:36 PM - May 17, 2020

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43.9K people are talking about this

One area of the far-right anti-feminist movement, incels, have come up with their own twisted expression: “the black pill,” which refers to avoiding women altogether and sets itself apart from the “red pill” ideology that Return of Kings promoted before it went on hiatus in 2018. While Return of Kings founder Roosh Valizadeh promoted “PUA” or “pick-up artist” ideology and encouraged domination of women, incels (which is short for “involuntarily celibate”) embrace a different form of misogyny and see “taking the black pill” as avoiding women altogether.

Lilly Wachowski, who has been outspoken on transgender rights, followed up her anti-Musk, anti-Trump tweet with a request for donations to the Brave Space Alliance (an organization that supports transgender rights).

The “Matrix” co-creator wasn’t the only Twitter user who had a negative reaction to Musk’s tweet. Democratic activist Jon Cooper, @joncoopertweets, posted, “Take the red pill and shove it, Elon.”

Lilly Wachowski

@lilly_wachowski

Replying to @IvankaTrump

Fuck both of you

Lilly Wachowski

@lilly_wachowski

Support @BSAllianceChi if you can. https://www.bravespacealliance.org/donate

Donate — Brave Space Alliance

bravespacealliance.org

9,610

1:06 PM - May 17, 2020

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1,306 people are talking about this

Elon Musk

@elonmusk

Take the red pill

Jon Cooper ????

@joncoopertweets

Take the red pill and shove it, Elon.

5,183

4:16 PM - May 17, 2020

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669 people are talking about this

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/elon-musks-interview-joe-rogans-show-was-full-covid-19-misinformation

MADELINE PELTZ

PUBLISHED 05/11/20 2:46 PM EDT

Joe Rogan hosted Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience in which both host and guest repeatedly spread misinformation related to the global coronavirus crisis and minimized the deaths resulting from it. Musk has previously dabbled in coronavirus conspiracy theories on Twitter, called social distancing efforts states have enacted to curb the spread of the virus “fascist,” and is currently threatening to pull Tesla headquarters out of California if the state does not ease the restrictions.

Toward the end of an almost 2-hour long interview, Musk and Rogan discussed the global pandemic. Musk claimed the COVID-19 mortality rate is “much lower” than what is being reported -- a conspiracy theory already popular among right-wing media. Musk also claimed, “It’s almost like people really wanted a panic.”

In reality, data shows the number of COVID-related deaths in the U.S. is likely an undercount. The global death count is also likely an undercount “due to limited testing and problems in the attribution of the cause of death,” according to Our World in Data, a collaborative data project between the University of Oxford and the non-profit organization Global Change Data Lab.[vid]

...ROGAN (HOST): Well it seems to be very deadly to very specific kinds of people and people with specific problems.

ELON MUSK: Yeah, I mean if you’re -- you can look at the mortality statistics by age and whether they have comorbidities,like do they have like [UNINTELLIGIBLE] existing conditions and by age. If you’re below 60 and have no serious health issues the probability of death is extremely low; it’s not zero but it’s extremely low.

ROGAN: They didn’t think that this was the case though when they first started to lock down the country. Do you think that it’s a situation where once they’ve proceeded in a certain way, it’s very difficult to correct course?

MUSK: It’s almost like people really wanted a panic, [UNINTELLIGIBLE]. Quite crazy.

ROGAN: But in some places a panic is deserved, right?

MUSK: Yes

ROGAN: Like if you’re in the ICU in Manhattan and people are dying left and right and everyone is on intubators and it seems like when you see all these people on ventilators and so many of them are dying and you see these nurses are dying and doctors are getting sick -- in some places that fear is justified.

ROGAN: It seems like the state of public perception is shifting.

MUSK: It is

ROGAN: Like, people are taking some deep breaths and relaxing and because of the statistics of essentially across the board it’s being recognized that it’s not as fatal as we thought it was. Still dangerous, still worse than the flu, but not as bad as we thought -- or what we feared it could be

MUSK: Objectively the mortality is much lower, like at least a factor of 10, maybe a factor of 50 lower than initially thought.

Musk accused doctors and hospital administrators of overcounting COVID-19 deaths for financial gain, saying doctors in many hospitals are currently faced with the decision to either put a patient “on a ventilator for five minutes” and receive a larger reimbursement or be forced to “fire some doctors.”

Emergency grant funds are being distributed to hospitals “according to their historical share of revenue from the Medicare program for seniors -- not according to their coronavirus burden.” And while Medicare does reimburse hospitals a larger amount for COVID-19 cases and deaths, there is no evidence that hospitals are engaged in fraudulent reporting.

Musk also claimed that any patient who dies in a hospital with “COVID like symptoms” is considered to have died of COVID-19. But, he said, the list of COVID-19 symptoms is “a mile long. So … if you’re ill at all, it’s like it could be COVID.” In reality, what is counted as a death caused by COVID-19 varies significantly by state.

It’s possible, though unclear because of his vague language, that Musk is referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation “to add Covid-19 as a ‘presumed’ cause of death even if the diagnosis is not confirmed by a test” -- a strategy developed due to a lack of widespread testing. The New York Times reports, “Public health officials across the country say that even with the additional ‘presumed’ classifications on death certificates, the actual toll is probably much higher.”

...[vid]

ROGAN (HOST): That’s what’s so weird about this.

ELON MUSK: It’s absurd.

ROGAN: It’s so popular, and I use that word in a weird way, but it’s so popular that we’ve forgotten people die of pneumonia everyday. People die of the -- the flu didn’t take a break, “Oh COVID’s got this, I’m going to sit this one out. I’m going to be on the bench. I’m going to wait until COVID is done before I jump back into the game of killing people.” No, the flu is still here killing people.

MUSK: Every year in the world several hundred thousand people die directly of the flu.

ROGAN: Yeah.

MUSK: Not tangentially.

ROGAN: Right. 61,000 in this country last year.

MUSK: And we’re only 5% of the world.

ROGAN: And then there’s cigarettes.

…

ROGAN: Yeah, it's weird. Acceptable deaths are weird, and that's the real -- the slippery slope about this people shaming people for wanting to go back to work. You know, “other people are going to die.” Well, if you arrive -- do you drive or we should stop driving because people die from driving. So you know, definitely should fill up all the swimming pools because like 50 people die every day in this country from swimming. So let's not swim anymore.

MUSK: Yeah what is the really dangerous --

ROGAN: We need to chop down all the coconut trees.

MUSK: Stop water.

ROGAN: Coconuts kill 150 people every year. Cut down the coconut trees. We need those people.

MUSK: Yes.

ROGAN: Yes it's at a certain point in time, it's like -- yeah we're vulnerable and we're also -- we have a finite existence, no matter what.

MUSK: We do. Nobody lives forever.

Musk also minimized the impact of the lives lost to COVID-19, saying that the “right metric to use” is to see “how many life years were lost.” He said, “If somebody dies when they’re 20 and could have lived until 80, they lost 60 years. But if somebody dies when they’re 80 and they might have lived to 81, they’ve lost one year.”[vid]

elon Musk's interview on Joe Rogan's show was full of COVID-19 misinformation; Musk is now a Fox News folk hero.

launching hundreds of sats

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/elon-musks-starlink-is-having-a-pernicious-effect-on-astronomy/

see implant cyborg

no lnx

‘Scariest thing you’ll read all day’: New report sounds alarm over brain-reading tech and ‘neurocapitalism’

Written by Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams August 30, 2019

A Vox report that swiftly sparked alarm across the internet Friday outlined how, “in the era of neurocapitalism, your brain needs new rights,” following recent revelations that Facebook and Elon Musk’s Neuralink are developing technologies to read people’s minds.

As Vox‘s Sigal Samuel reported:

Mark Zuckerberg’s company is funding research on brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) that can pick up thoughts directly from your neurons and translate them into words. The researchers say they’ve already built an algorithm that can decode words from brain activity in real time.

And Musk’s company has created flexible “threads” that can be implanted into a brain and could one day allow you to control your smartphone or computer with just your thoughts. Musk wants to start testing in humans by the end of next year.

Considering those and other companies’ advances and ambitions, Samuel warned that “your brain, the final privacy frontier, may not be private much longer” and laid out how existing laws are not equipped to handle how these emerging technologies could “interfere with rights that are so basic that we may not even think of them as rights, like our ability to determine where our selves end and machines begin.”

My god.

“The technologies have the potential to interfere with rights that are so basic that we may not even think of them as rights, like our ability to determine where our selves end and machines begin. Our current laws are not equipped to address this.”https://t.co/H8EeBijuco

— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) August 30, 2019

Samuel interviewed neuroethicist Marcello Ienca, a researcher at ETH Zurich who published a paper in 2017 detailing four human rights for the neurotechnology age that he believes need to be protected by law. Ienca told Samuel, “I’m very concerned about the commercialization of brain data in the consumer market.”

“And I’m not talking about a farfetched future. We already have consumer neurotech, with people trading their brain data for services from private companies,” he said, pointing to video games that use brain activity and wearable devices that monitor human activities such as sleep. “I’m tempted to call it neurocapitalism.”

The Vox report broke down the four rights that, according to Ienca, policymakers need to urgently safeguard with new legislation:

The right to cognitive liberty: You should have the right to freely decide you want to use a given neurotechnology or to refuse it.

The right to mental privacy: You should have the right to seclude your brain data or to publicly share it.

The right to mental integrity: You should have the right not to be harmed physically or psychologically by neurotechnology.

The right to psychological continuity: You should have the right to be protected from alterations to your sense of self that you did not authorize.

“Brain data is the ultimate refuge of privacy. When that goes, everything goes,” Ienca said. “And once brain data is collected on a large scale, it’s going to be very hard to reverse the process.”

Samuel’s report generated concerned commentary on Twitter, with readers calling the piece “the scariest thing you’ll read all day” and declaring, “I do not want to live in this future.”

In case you were sleeping too well lately https://t.co/KIPtFSXUpv

— Joe Stewart-Sicking (@revjoess) August 30, 2019

Tech reporter Benjamin Powers tweeted, “So how long until this is co-opted for national security purposes?”

Ienca, in his interview with Samuel, noted that the Defense Department’s advanced research agency is assessing how neurotechnologies could be used on soldiers. As he explained, “there is already military-funded research to see if we can monitor decreases in attention levels and concentration, with hybrid BCIs that can ‘read’ deficits in attention levels and ‘write’ to the brain to increase alertness through neuromodulation. There are DARPA-funded projects that attempt to do so.”

“The researchers say they’ve already built an algorithm that can decode words from brain activity in real time.” So how long until this is co-opted for national security purposes? https://t.co/Uoo5XQ09Fh

— Benjamin Powers (@benjaminopowers) August 30, 2019

Such technologies raise concerns about abuse not only by governments but also by corporations.

Journalist Noah Kulwin compared brain-reading tech to self-driving cars, suggesting that the former “can’t possibly work as presently marketed,” and given that governments aren’t prepared with human rights protections, companies will be empowered to “do a bunch of unregulated experimentation.”

This sounds like self-driving cars. The technology can’t possibly work as presently marketed, and the government not being prepared=it’s just going to let companies do a bunch of unregulated experimentation https://t.co/QmCWG4Ydh1

— noah kulwin (@nkulw) August 30, 2019

1019

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/elon-musks-starship-may-be-more-moral-catastrophe-than-bold-step-in-space-exploration/

microbes

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/scariest-thing-youll-read-all-day-new-report-sounds-alarm-over-brain-reading-tech-and-neurocapitalism/

wired

:{SECURITY:(style="box-sizing:border-box;border:0px;font-variant:inherit;font-stretch:inherit"):}:

Hackers Made an App That Kills to Prove a Point

AUTHOR: LILY HAY NEWMANLILY HAY NEWMAN

SCIENCE

Here’s How Elon Musk Plans to Put a Computer in Your Brain

AUTHOR: ADAM ROGERSADAM ROGERS

BACKCHANNEL

Was Bitcoin Created by This International Drug Dealer? Maybe!

AUTHOR: EVAN RATLIFFEVAN RATLIFF

https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/one-mans-quest-to-get-elon-musk-to-change-his-mind

re trump

darwin

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/business/energy-environment/tesla-stock-strategy.html

Tesla’s sleek stores embodied its green vision for upending the transportation and energy business: a one-stop shop for electric cars, solar panels and battery storage. Less than three months ago, the company announced 11 new store locations across the country.

Now Tesla is in retreat, shuttering most of its stores in a bid to cut costs. The move signaled the broader vulnerabilities of an upstart that for a time was the most highly valued American car company.

A spate of price cuts in the United States points to a slowdown in sales, and the company says it is currently making cars for Europe and China only. But plans to bring the company’s mass-market car, the Model 3, to overseas buyers have been hamstrung by logistical challenges.

A long-promised $35,000 version of the Model 3 is finally being offered, but the price will test the company’s profitability. Tesla now expects a loss in the first quarter, rattling investors’ faith in the company and its enigmatic founder, Elon Musk. In recent days, its shares have tumbled more than 13 percent.

“I think this company is in scary territory,” said Erik Gordon, a management expert at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. The “flip-flop” on retail strategy, he added, “makes it seem like Musk is winging it and the board is letting him wing it.”

Asked for comment on the company’s strategy and outlook, a Tesla spokesman referred to its financial filings and recent statements by Mr. Musk expressing confidence in its course.

Mr. Musk has promised a revolution in pretty much every business he has entered. His Space X rockets are meant to take passengers to other planets someday, while his Boring Company aims to solve traffic problems with underground tunnels.

At Tesla, Mr. Musk wanted to transform car manufacturing with a highly automated production process. But the company has struggled to master the basics.

Production lines sputtered when Mr. Musk pushed to churn out a few thousand cars a week — something established automakers do in a day. Tesla sent customers $70,000 cars with dings, scratches and malfunctioning screens. Some owners needing repairs were told to wait weeks or months for an appointment.

Recently, the financial stress on the company has become more evident. It laid off 7 percent of its work force in January, the second job cut in the last eight months. And the company had to use up a quarter of its available cash last week to make a $920 million payment to bondholders, giving it less of a cushion to expand or absorb losses.

Next week, Mr. Musk intends to unveil Tesla’s newest offering, the Model Y, a small sport utility vehicle that uses some of the same parts as the Model 3. But those ambitions will further strain Tesla’s capital and could pose a risk to sales of other models.

And the abrupt change to online-only sales is a rare strategic reversal.

In the final three months of 2018, Tesla opened 27 sales and service locations to keep up with rising demand for the Model 3. Over all, it had more than 100 stores and showrooms nationwide and others overseas. In a Feb. 19 regulatory filing, Tesla said company-owned stores strengthened its brand and helped reach potential customers in major markets.

Just nine days later, Mr. Musk said Tesla was going to close all but “a small number” of its stores, which take orders, and galleries, which increase exposure. He also said that the company would no longer offer test drives, and that all sales had to be completed by computer or smartphone.

At a darkened Tesla outlet in the Dallas Galleria, one of the locations that opened in December, a security guard sat inside the store this week as passers-by snapped photos of the three cars visible though the glass. A sign proclaimed, “All Tesla Sales Now Online.”

...

https://www.vox.com/business-and-finance/2018/9/29/17918616/elon-musk-resigns-tesla-chairman-ceo-tsla

Elon Musk is finally facing some consequences for his August take-Tesla-private dance. The South African–born billionaire will step down as chairman of the electric car company and pay a $20 million fine as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC had sued Musk on Thursday after he reportedly turned down an initial deal at the last minute.

As part of the new agreement announced on Saturday settling the SEC’s suit, Musk will resign as Tesla chairman within 45 days, and he won’t be able to be reelected to the post for three years. Musk and Tesla will each pay a separate $20 million penalty, which will be distributed to harmed investors, and Tesla will appoint two new independent directors to its board. A judgewill have to approve the settlement.

Tesla will also hire a lawyer to keep an eye on Musk’s communications as part of the settlement because, the SEC alleges, the company failed “to implement disclosure controls or procedures” related to the CEO’s Twitter activity. In other words, Musk is getting a Twitter babysitter.

This — at least for now — brings to a close a dramatic chapter for Tesla that was ignited when Musk tweeted on August 7 that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 per share and had already secured funding. It wasn’t clear how much groundwork had actually been laid for such a maneuver, and it’s illegal for companies and executives to give shareholders misleading information about potentially meaningful corporate events. The tweets were the basis of the SEC’s lawsuit against Musk for securities fraud.

...

bet w. Ford

https://bigthink.com/videos/michio-kaku-how-elon-musk-is-fulfilling-thomas-edisons-energy-dreams-100-years-later

neuralink co

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/01/elon-musk-neurotechnology-human-enhancement-brain-computer-interfaces

Elon Musk's tweets are causing quite a stir this week. The frequent tweeter surprisingly endorsed President Donald Trump's nomination for Secretary of State and provided some hints about his mysterious tunnel project.

First, the sustainable energy advocate raised a lot of eyebrows on Tuesday after tweeting his support of former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as the nation's top diplomat.

"This may sound surprising coming from me," Musk tweeted on Jan. 24, "but … Rex Tillerson has the potential to be an excellent Sec of State."

Many environmentalists were confused by the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's praise for the former oil exec, who spent his entire career working for a company that creates emissions and funded climate denial.

"You are a hero to so many climate activists Elon," Climatologist Michael Mann tweeted to Musk. "Please don't lend your imprimatur to an ExxonMobil-driven foreign policy."

Musk responded, "I'm just saying that we should see what happens first. The actions may be surprising."

In a series of direct messages with Gizmodo, Musk elaborated on his Tillerson endorsement:

Tillerson obviously did a competent job running Exxon, one of the largest companies in the world. In that role, he was obligated to advance the cause of Exxon and did. In the Sec of State role, he is obligated to advance the cause of the US and I suspect he probably will. Also, he has publicly acknowledged for years that a carbon tax could make sense. There is no better person to push for that to become a reality than Tillerson. This is what matters far more than pipelines or opening oil reserves. The unpriced externality must be priced.

Musk has long been in favor of a carbon tax as a means of "pricing the damage done by carbon pollution." He told Gizmodo, "We should have higher taxes on the things that science says are probably bad for us than those that are probably good for us."

In a similar vein, Tillerson said back in 2009 that a carbon tax is "the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions—from investments made by companies to fuel their requirements to the product choices made by consumers." (Some, however, suspect that the oil man's pro-carbon-tax stance amounts to a "PR ploy.")

Basically, Musk is saying that Tillerson, who has also acknowledged the risks of climate change, should be given the benefit of the doubt. Even if the president thinks climate change is a "hoax" and is eagerly pursuing dirty energy projects such as the Keystone XL and the Dakota Access Pipeline, at least Tillerson has Trump's ear.

As Musk told Gizmodo:

The more voices of reason that the President hears, the better. Simply attacking him will achieve nothing. Are you aware of a single case where Trump bowed to protests or media attacks? Better that there are open channels of communication.

With Tillerson's confirmation all but assured, let's hope that Musk is right.

As for the much-hyped tunnel project, Musk tweeted on Wednesday, "Exciting progress on the tunnel front. Plan to start digging in a month or so."

The tech entrepreneur plans to dig a tunnel under Los Angeles to ease through the city's notorious traffic.

Musk's first announced his tunnel ambitions in December while sitting through L.A. congestion.

"It shall be called 'The Boring Company,'" he tweeted. "Borings, it's what we do."

"Without tunnels, we will all be in traffic hell forever," Musk told The Verge via Twitter. "I really do think tunnels are the key to solving urban gridlock. Being stuck in traffic is soul-destroying. Self-driving cars will actually make it worse by making vehicle travel more affordable."

Even though Elon Musk once said that Donald Trump "doesn't seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States," the Tesla/SpaceX CEO is joining the president-elect's Strategic and Policy Forum, an advisory board for the president on business issues.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi were also named as strategic advisors on Wednesday.

"My Administration is going to work together with the private sector to improve the business climate and make it attractive for firms to create new jobs across the United States from Silicon Valley to the heartland," Trump said in a statement announcing the latest appointees.

Other high-profile CEOs on the 19-member Strategic and Policy Forum include Mary Barra of General Motors, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co, Bob Iger of The Walt Disney Company, among others. The forum will be chaired by Stephen A. Schwarzman, who heads the investment firm Blackstone.

Members of the group will "be called upon to meet with the president frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the president implements his economic agenda," a media release explained.

Musk's willingness to take part in Trump's forthcoming administration—one that's filled with climate change deniers and fossil fuel barons, at that—is admittedly a head-scratcher. Similar questions were raised when Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore met with Trump and his daughter Ivanka. The Tesla boss is very outspoken on climate change issues and has built a renewable energy enterprise.

Musk is also a big proponent of a carbon tax to drive investments in clean tech. We have to "remove the effective subsidy of not pricing the damage done by carbon pollution," he said last year. Also, in an appearance in DiCaprio's climate change documentary Before The Flood, Musk said, "If governments can set the rules in favor of sustainable energy, then we can get there really quickly ... Only way to do that is through a carbon tax."

Trump, in contrast, famously believes that global warming is a hoax created by and for the Chinese. The hotelier has waged wars on windmills, calling them bird killers and a blight on the view of his luxury golf courses. As for solar, Trump said the booming sector is "so expensive" and "not working so good."

The president-elect also campaigned on slashing taxes across the board, axing President Obama's emissions regulations and exiting the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement.

However, a report from Recode suggests that Musk might use his clout to push for green initiatives. As Recode reporter April Glaser writes:

"Still, it's probably in Musk's favor to work with the incoming administration, especially as it starts to shape new policies that are dear to Musk's heart, like regulations to bring self-driving cars to U.S. roadways and whether to abide by the 2015 Paris climate agreement or pull out, a threat Trump made on the campaign trail.

"That doesn't sit well with Musk, who will likely urge the Trump administration to remain a signatory on the international climate accord. Reps for Musk did not immediately respond to request for comment."

Additionally, as Glaser notes, "Musk might be able to persuade the president-elect not to renege on the Paris agreement, which already lacks strong mechanisms for enforcement."

Glaser points out that secretary of state nominee/Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson—whose company announced its support of the Paris climate agreement and acknowledges the risks of climate change—also endorsed the idea of a national carbon tax.

But as the New York Times argues, Tillerson might only support the Paris agreement and a carbon tax if it does not harm his company's bottom line.

"Will Mr. Tillerson try to persuade Mr. Trump to support the international climate accord reached in Paris? He might, but he would probably stress the importance of natural gas and methods to bury carbon emissions—policies that would not hurt fossil fuel industries," the newspaper of record writes.

After all, Exxon sells a product that fuels climate change and the company has spent years and millions of dollars funding climate change denial.

Yesterday, a number of Silicon Valley executives gathered at Trump's "tech summit" at Trump Tower in New York. The group included Musk, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Timothy D. Cook of Apple, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Alphabet, Google's parent company, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and more.

http://www.ecowatch.com/musk-trump-climate-change-2148721964.html

"I'm here to help you folks do well, and you're doing well right now and I'm very honored by 'the bounce'—they're all talking about 'the bounce' and I know everybody in this room has to like me a little bit, but we're going to try and have that bounce continue," Trump said at the summit. "Perhaps even more importantly we want you to keep going with the incredible innovation. There's nobody like you in the world. There's nobody like the people in this room."

http://www.globalpossibilities.org/elon-musk-hits-back-at-coal-baron-who-called-him-a-fraud-over-green-subsidies/

...

“[Musk]’s gotten $2bn from the taxpayer, has not made a penny yet in cashflow,” Murray continued. “Here again: it’s subsidies.”

In response, Musk tweeted that the real fraud going on was “denial of climate science”.

“As for ‘subsidies’, Tesla gets pennies on dollar vs coal. How about we both go to zero?” he said.

Tesla does not, in fact, receive direct government subsidies but does receive money for selling “carbon credits” to other companies whose vehicle fleets don’t meet emissions standards in states such as California.

Buyers of Tesla vehicles also currently receive a $7,500 tax credit from the government, but that is an incentive subsidy to the purchaser, rather than to the company itself.

The last handout from the government that Tesla received was $465m as part of the auto industry bailout in the early days of the Obama administration, which the company paid back in full nine years early, in 2013.

...

The coal industry, by contrast, receives billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies, as well as preferential treatment from the Internal Revenue Service, according to an investigation by ThinkProgress.

Companies such as the Murray Energy Corporation can also take advantage of loopholes allowing them to cheaply obtain leases on public lands – more than 40% of US coal comes from publicly owned land, according to the Energy Information Administration.

A 2011 study by Management Information Services found that fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal – had received 70% of total energy subsidies between 1950 and 2010. Coal power’s total subsidy totaled $104bn, the study found.

A representative for Murray was contacted for comment.

Murray’s political activity has long been controversial. In 2012, he hosted a rally for Mitt Romney at a mine he owned in Beallsville, Ohio, which miners told a local radio station they were forced to attend without pay.

Workers were also coerced into donating to Republican campaign Pacs, according to an FEC complaint filed in 2012.

Even before he became the Republican presidential nominee, Trump made coal-fueled power – including so-called “clean coal” – a central part of his pitch to voters. In Sunday’s presidential debate in St Louis, Missouri, he made the grandiloquent pronouncement that “coal will last for a thousand years in this country”.

In return, the coal industry has been good to Trump. Murray himself told the Virginia Coal and Energy Alliance annual conference in May that Trump “has got his head on right” and was “the horse to ride” in the election, according to SNL Financial. He also personally hosted a fundraiser for Trump in West Virginia in June.

On Monday, Robert Murray, President and CEO of coal giant Murray Energy Corporation, called Tesla Motors a “fraud” on CNBC, going on to bash the company for failing to yet turn a profit despite subsidies.

“Tesla is a fraud. [It] has gotten $2 billion from the taxpayer and has not made a penny yet in cash flow. Here again, it’s subsidies,” Murray claimed. Read more.

http://www.ecowatch.com/tesla-elon-musk-lawsuit-2005544290.html

Business Sep. 15, 2016 09:39AM EST

Tesla Sues Oil Exec for Impersonating Elon Musk in 'Deplorable and Unlawful' Email

Lorraine Chow Lorraine Chow

Could Elon Musk be right about the sneaky tactics deployed by Big Oil and Gas? Tesla Motors is suing a senior executive of an oil pipeline services company for impersonating the Tesla CEO in an email.

The electric car company believes that the oil exec's email was an industry tactic to undermine Tesla's push for sustainable transportation.

Flickr

Bloomberg and Forbes report that Todd Katz, the chief financial officer of Seattle-based Quest Integrity Group, allegedly pretended to be Musk in an email.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court, claims that Katz used the email address "elontesla@yahoo.com" to send a message to Tesla Chief Financial Officer Jason Wheeler on Aug. 3—just after Tesla reported its second-quarter financial results.

The alleged email states:

why you so cautious w Q3/4 gm guidance on call? also what are your thoughts on disclosing M3 res#? Pros/cons from ir pov? what is your best guess as to where we actually come in on q3/4 deliverables. honest guess? no bs. thx 4 hard work prepping 4 today

Katz's bio on the company's website states that he previously worked for several top Wall Street investment banks, including Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch.

The complaint claims that Katz was "impersonating Musk in an attempt to unlawfully obtain material, non-public information—including Tesla's financial trade secrets—from Tesla's CFO through fraud, artifice and deception." Fortunately, Wheeler did not disclose any information.

"On information and belief, Katz, Quest Integrity, and/or their oil company clients intended to use that non-public and trade secret information to further their own agendas and to harm Tesla," the lawsuit reads.

Quest Integrity Group's roster of big-name clients include the likes of BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil and more.

According to Bloomberg, Tesla believes that the email was an oil industry tactic to undermine the electric carmaker's push for sustainable transportation.

"In recent years, oil companies have spent billions of dollars on legislative efforts and campaigns aimed at blocking progress toward electric cars and other sustainable energy solutions in the United States and abroad," Tesla said....

ref

no link

Elon Musk: We Must Revolt Against the Unrelenting Propaganda of the Fossil Fuel Industry

Lorraine Chow

During an interview at the World Energy Innovation Forum (WEIF) at Tesla's Fremont, California factory Wednesday, Elon Musk criticized fossil fuel subsidies as well as the alleged “propaganda” tactics deployed by Big Oil and Gas to tarnish his companies, including Tesla, SolarCity and SpaceX.

"The fundamental issue with fossil fuels is ... every use of fossil fuels comes with a subsidy," Musk said in his talk with forum organizer and DBL Partners venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis.

According to the Tesla CEO, cheap oil and gasoline prices not only prevent drivers from switching their gas-guzzlers to electric cars, it also deters the fight against climate change.

Musk explained that the well-funded fossil fuel industry isn't even paying for their contribution to environmental destruction.

“It would be like if you could just dump garbage in the street and not pay for garbage pickup,” he said.

Citing data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Musk lamented he's “competing against something that has a $6 trillion per year subsidy,” and that the low gas prices that subsidies create are “weakening the economic-forcing function to sustainable transport and clean energy in general.”

Musk suggested that a carbon tax would help curb Dirty Energy's emissions but passage of such a policy would be "hugely politically difficult" and that politicians usually pick the easier path of providing subsidies for electric cars, "even though gas cars are getting a bigger subsidy."

Although the electric vehicle maker said he was "encouraged by the Paris talks," he still thinks that the transition to clean energy and sustainable transportation isn't happening quickly enough.

Musk gave an example of how the fossil fuel industry has been feeding negative stories to the press about his many companies.

As Electrek explained:

The CEO implied that the LA Times article from last year that misleadingly asserted that Musk’s companies received $4.9 billion in subsidies originated from the fossil fuel industry.

Musk suggested that the report was planted to counter the IMF study that found that the fossil fuel industry was receiving the equivalent of ~$5 trillion in subsidy a year. Both reports came out around the same time.

“After the IMF came out with their study showing that fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of $6 trillion a year [it’s was actually $5.3 trillion in 2015]–like $6 trillion per year," Musk said. "Then some representatives from the oil and gas industry added up all the incentives that Tesla had received and will receive in the future, which happens to coincide with the $6 billion figure.”

“We need to appeal to the people–educate people to sort of revolt against this and to fight the propaganda of the fossil fuel industry which is unrelenting and enormous,” he concluded.

Earlier in his talk, Musk also predicted that autonomous cars are the future of transportation.

“It’s going to become common for cars to be autonomous a lot faster than people think,” Musk said, adding that half of all new cars will have self-driving technology within seven to 10 years.

“It’ll just be something where it’s odd if it’s not in your car. Like not having GPS or something like that, but even bigger. It’ll just be normal,” he said.

The entire interview was captured by Electrek in the video below. Musk's discussion about the fossil fuel industry starts around the 18:30 mark.

http://www.ecowatch.com/elon-musk-we-must-revolt-against-the-unrelenting-propaganda-of-the-fos-1891128550.html

ref

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-musk-subsidies-20150531-story.html

...

usk declined repeated requests for an interview through Tesla spokespeople, and officials at all three companies declined to comment.

The subsidies have generally been disclosed in public records and company filings. But the full scope of the public assistance hasn't been tallied because it has been granted over time from different levels of government.

New York state is spending $750 million to build a solar panel factory in Buffalo for SolarCity. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company will lease the plant for $1 a year. It will not pay property taxes for a decade, which would otherwise total an estimated $260 million.

The federal government also provides grants or tax credits to cover 30% of the cost of solar installations. SolarCity reported receiving $497.5 million in direct grants from the Treasury Department.

That figure, however, doesn't capture the full value of the government's support.

Since 2006, SolarCity has installed systems for 217,595 customers, according to a corporate filing. If each paid the current average price for a residential system — about $23,000, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists — the cost to the government would total about $1.5 billion, which would include the Treasury grants paid to SolarCity.

Nevada has agreed to provide Tesla with $1.3 billion in incentives to help build a massive battery factory near Reno.

The Palo Alto company has also collected more than $517 million from competing automakers by selling environmental credits. In a regulatory system pioneered by California and adopted by nine other states, automakers must buy the credits if they fail to sell enough zero-emissions cars to meet mandates. The tally also includes some federal environmental credits.

On a smaller scale, SpaceX, Musk's rocket company, cut a deal for about $20 million in economic development subsidies from Texas to construct a launch facility there. (Separate from incentives, SpaceX has won more than $5.5 billion in government contracts from NASA and the U.S. Air Force.)

Subsidies are handed out in all kinds of industries, with U.S. corporations collecting tens of billions of dollars each year, according to Good Jobs First, a nonprofit that tracks government subsidies. And the incentives for solar panels and electric cars are available to all companies that sell them.

Musk and his investors have also put large sums of private capital into the companies.

But public subsidies for Musk's companies stand out both for the amount, relative to the size of the companies, and for their dependence on them.

"Government support is a theme of all three of these companies, and without it none of them would be around," said Mark Spiegel, a hedge fund manager for Stanphyl Capital Partners who is shorting Tesla's stock, a bet that pays off if Tesla shares fall.

Tesla stock has risen 157%, to $250.80 as of Friday's close, over the last two years.

Musk has proved so adept at landing incentives that states now compete to give him money, said Ashlee Vance, author of "Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future," a recently published biography.

"As his star has risen, every state wants a piece of Elon Musk," Vance said.

Before his current ventures, he made a substantial sum from EBay Inc.'s $1.5-billion purchase of PayPal, the electronic payment system in which Musk held an 11% stake.

Soon after, he founded SpaceX in 2002 with money from that sale, and he made major investments and took leadership posts at Tesla and Solar City.

Musk is now the chief executive of both Tesla and SpaceX and the chairman of SolarCity, and holds big stakes in all three, including 27% of Tesla and 23% of SolarCity, according to recent regulatory filings. The ventures employ about 23,000 people nationwide, and they operate or are building factories and facilities in California, Michigan, New York, Nevada and Texas.

Tense talks

The $1.3 billion in benefits for Tesla's Nevada battery factory resulted from a year of hardball negotiations.

Late in 2013, Tesla summoned economic development officials from seven states to its auto factory in Fremont, Calif. After a tour, they gathered in a conference room, where Tesla executives explained their plan to build the biggest lithium-ion battery factory in the world — then asked the states to bid for the project.

Nevada at first offered its standard package of incentives, in this case worth $600 million to $700 million, said Steve Hill, Nevada's executive director of the Governor's Office of Economic Development.

Tesla negotiators wanted far more. The automaker at first sought a $500-million upfront payment, among other enticements, Hill said. Nevada pushed back, in sometimes tense talks punctuated by raised voices.

"It would have amounted to Nevada writing a series of checks during the first couple of years," said Hill, calling it an unacceptable risk.

With the deal imperiled, Hill flew to Palo Alto in August to meet with Tesla's business development chief, Diarmuid O'Connell, a former State Department official who is the automaker's lead negotiator.

They shored up the deal with an agreement to give Tesla $195 million in transferable tax credits, which the automaker could sell for upfront cash. To make room in its budget, Nevada reduced incentives for filming in the state and killed a tax break for insurance companies.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Musk sealed the agreement in a Labor Day phone conversation. Hill said it was worth it, pointing to the 6,000 jobs he expects the factory to eventually create.

The state commissioned an analysis estimating the economic impact from the project at $100 billion over two decades,but some economists called that figure deeply flawed. It counted every Tesla employee as if they would otherwise have been unemployed, for instance, and it made no allowance for increased government spending to serve the influx of thousands of local residents.

A $750-million factory

Musk has similar success with getting subsidies for a SolarCity plant in Buffalo, N.Y. The company currently buys many of its solar panels from China, but it will soon become its own supplier with a new and heavily subsidized factory.

An affiliate of New York's College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany will spend $750 million to build a solar panel factory on state land. SolarCity estimated in a corporate filing that it will spend an additional $150 million to get the factory operating.

When finished in 2017, the 1.2-million-square-foot facility will be the largest solar panel factory in the Western Hemisphere. New York officials see the subsidy as a worthy investment because they expect that it will create 3,000 jobs. The plant will replace a long-closed steel factory.

"The SolarCity facility will bring extensive benefits and value to this formerly dormant brownfield that provided zero benefit to the city and region," said Peter Cutler, spokesman for Empire State Development, New York's economic development agency.

SpaceX, though it depends far more on government contracts than subsidies, received an incentive package in Texas for a commercial rocket launch facility. The state put up more than $15 million in subsidies and infrastructure spending to help SpaceX build a launch pad in rural Cameron County at the southern tip of Texas. Local governments contributed an additional $5 million.

Included in the local subsidies is a 15-year property tax break from the local school district worth $3.1 million to SpaceX. Officials say the development still will bring in about $5 million more over that period than the local school district otherwise would have collected.

"That's $5 million more than we have ever seen from that property," said Dr. Lisa Garcia, superintendent of the Point Isabel Independent School District. "It is remote.... It is just sand dunes."

Crucial aid

The public money for Tesla and SolarCity factories is crucial to both companies' efforts to lower development and manufacturing costs.

The task is made more urgent by the impending expiration of some of their biggest subsidies. The federal government's 30% tax credit for solar installations gets slashed to 10% in 2017 for commercial customers and ends completely for homeowners.

Tesla buyers also get a $7,500 federal income tax credit and a $2,500 rebate from the state of California. The federal government has capped the $7,500 credit at a total of 200,000 vehicles per manufacturer; Tesla is about a quarter of the way to that limit. In all, Tesla buyers have qualified for an estimated $284 million in federal tax incentives and collected more than $38 million in California rebates.

California legislators recently passed a law, which has not yet taken effect, calling for income limits on electric car buyers seeking the state's $2,500 subsidy. Tesla owners have an average household income of about $320,000, according to Strategic Visions, an auto industry research firm.

Competition could also eat into Tesla's public support. If major automakers build more zero-emission cars, they won't have to buy as many government-awarded environmental credits from Tesla.

In the big picture, the government supports electric cars and solar panels in the hope of promoting widespread adoption and, ultimately, slashing carbon emissions. In the early days at Tesla — when the company first produced an expensive electric sports car, which it no longer sells — Musk promised more rapid development of electric cars for the masses.

In a 2008 blog post, Musk laid out a plan: After the sports car, Tesla would produce a sedan costing "half the $89k price point of the Tesla Roadster and the third model will be even more affordable."

In fact, the second model now typically sells for $100,000, and the much-delayed third model, the Model X sport utility, is expected to sell for a similar price. Timing on a less expensive model — maybe $35,000 or $40,000, after subsidies — remains uncertain.

"Some may question whether this actually does any good for the world," Musk wrote in 2008. "Are we really in need of another high-performance sports car? Will it actually make a difference to global carbon emissions? Well, the answers are no and not much.... When someone buys the Tesla Roadster sports car, they are actually helping to pay for the development of the low-cost family car."

Next: Battery subsidies...

So now, instead of massive top-down attempts to cram innovation into the public school system, some tech-minded parents and entrepreneurs are building their own alternatives. Home schooling has become a trend in the tech community; it’s “off the charts” at Google, Khan says. When it came time to educate his own children, Elon Musk hired a local teacher and built a 20-person school without grades or age-based cohorts. Zuckerberg and the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz participated in a $100 million funding round for AltSchool, a software-driven private school franchise founded by a Google alum. Facebook has partnered with a network of charter schools to build pedagogical software, one of a wave of new California schools using technology to make classroom education more flexible and individualized. “The Bay Area is the destination for educators who want to see early signs of what these new school models could look like,” says Brian Greenberg, CEO of the Silicon Schools Fund, a nonprofit that has backed the Lab School and other new schools.

Oil baron brothers Charles and David Koch of are two of the four richest Americans according to Forbes, holding more than $80 billion combined in net worth. It’s an open secret that the conservative oil barons have funneled eye-popping sums of money to curry influence in their favor, including nearly $1 billion to GOP candidates for the 2016 presidential election as well as vicious campaigns against climate change and renewable energy.

“The Kochs have invested heavily in a pugnacious defense of fossil fuel consumption,” a conservative energy analyst told HuffPo. “They’ve done this in the electricity sector, and as the debate shifts to transportation they’re behaving true to form.”

One source claimed that the new Koch-backed organization “may be doing work that’s now being done by the Institute for Energy Research.” The Institute for Energy Research (IER), registered by Charles Koch and energy expert Robert L. Bradley Jr., pushes for deregulation of utilities, climate change denial and claims that conventional energy sources are virtually limitless, according to SourceWatch.

Incidentally, the IER is behind an attack on Tesla’s Powerwall, Autoblog reported. The IER claims that it will take nearly 40 years to pay off. Tesla responded, calling the report “elementary, at best, and completely misses the value of the Powerwall.” The IER also responded to Tesla.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk—who believes electric cars “are the future”—breathed digital dismay over news of the Koch’s latest assault, tweeting “Sigh … ” and linking the HuffPo report.

Sigh …https://t.co/VelOzAKIW6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 19, 2016

Musk followed with another tweet of a UK GUARD URL report that shockingly revealed $10 million a minute from global subsidies goes to fossil fuel companies, according International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates.

“Worth noting that all gasoline cars are heavily subsidized via oil company tax credits & unpaid public health costs,” Musk wrote.

Worth noting that all gasoline cars are heavily subsidized via oil company tax credits & unpaid public health costs https://t.co/4li5E013Dj

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 19, 2016

apple EV http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/29/elon-musk-china-solar/

vs NV buffett http://ecowatch.com/2016/01/29/elon-musk-china-solar/

http://ecowatch.com/2015/12/04/elon-musk-carbon-price/

“We’ve dramatically increased the power capability of the Powerwall,” Musk said at Tesla’sannual stockholders’ meeting in Mountain View, California this week. “It basically more than doubled the power output of the power pack, and the price is going to stay the same.”

According to Computer World, prices for the products will stay at $3,000 for the seven kilowatt-hour (kWh) daily cycle version and $3,500 for the 10 kWh backup UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) version. The batteries will go from having a two kilowatt (kW)

Elon Musk (TEDtalk) has made huge contributions as a designer and entrepreneur because he imagined what was inevitable and caught the wave to that early: Tesla electric cars, private sector spaceflight and solar energy. extensive bio interview 1/13 The Future of Energy and Transport Oxford 2012. He promises to share the technology.See also Electric cars. SpaceX will carry people. See Solar; critique on Hydrogen fuel. 2/15.

Tesla founder Elon Musk (TEDtalk) has made huge contributions as a designer and entrepreneur because he imagined what was inevitable and caught the wave to that early:Tesla electric cars, private sector spaceflight [(video on founding)] and solar energy two videos). extensive bio interview 1/13 The Future of Energy and Transport(video bio) Oxford 2012. His four heroes.

http://grist.org/business-technology/elon-musks-solar-company-used-cheap-prison-labor-for-a-big-taxpayer-subsidized-project/

http://www.alternet.org/environment/elon-musk-and-solarcity-executives-announce-plan-worlds-largest-solar-panel-production

space x manned flight!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/science/space/spacecraft-to-ferry-us-astronauts-is-unveiled.html?_r=0

Just recently in my home state of North Carolina, a legislative proposal was unanimously approved by the State Senate's Commerce Committee that could make it illegal for Tesla to sell to NC state residents, or at the very least sell in any way other than via the established dealer network. The irony of lawmakers trying to ban the sale of an American-built, Motor Trend Car of the Year that sources from over 30 manufacturers in NC makes me shake my head and wonder.

WASHINGTON -- Billionaire eco-entrepreneur Elon Musk announced on Friday that he was quitting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's immigration advocacy group, upset over its controversial political strategy.

Fwd.us told The Huffington Post that a second funder also had decided to withdraw. Several media outlets have reported that David Sacks, founder of the business networking site Yammer and a former colleague of Musk's, had dropped off the list of the group's supporters.

Zuckerberg started http://FWD.us to press for comprehensive immigration reform. But the group has been heavily criticized by some immigration reform supporters in recent weeks for its television ad campaign praising lawmakers for backing projects like theKeystone XL pipeline and drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.Fwd.us has argued that the ads were meant to give home district support to lawmakers backing immigration reform.

In a statement to AllThingsD on Friday, Musk, the founder of the electric carmaker Tesla Motors, made clear he was unhappy with the pro-oil ads.

“I agreed to support Fwd.us because there is a genuine need to reform immigration," Musk said. "However, this should not be done at the expense of other important causes. I have spent a lot of time fighting far larger lobbying organizations in D.C. and believe that the right way to win on a cause is to argue the merits of that cause. This statement may surprise some people, but my experience is that most (not all) politicians and their staffs want to do the right thing and eventually do.”

tesla capt 10/16

“Tesla is a fraud. [It] has gotten $2 billion from the taxpayer and has not made a penny yet in cash flow. Here again, it’s subsidies,” Murray claimed. Read more.

Toyota has announced that it will allow its competitors to use any and all of its 5,680 patents for hydrogen fuel cell cars, a move the company hopes will jump-start the widespread commercial production of cars powered byzero-emission hydrogen gas.

Companies that manufacture and sell fuel cells will be allowed to use the patents royalty-free for the next five years, Toyota announced Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Of the nearly 6,000 patents, about 1,970 are related to the in-vehicle fuel cell stacks, 290 surround the technology of high-pressure hydrogen tanks needed to safely transport the fuel, and 70 relate to hydrogen production, according toGizmodo.

If the move sounds familiar, that’s because it is very similar to what famously innovative electric car company Tesla Motors did this summer. In June, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that the company would let its competitors use its patents under what Bloomberg Businessweek called “open-source-inspired agenda” at Tesla. “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology,” Musk said at the time.

The reason both Toyota and Tesla would want competitors to use their technology is simple: without more production of these low-emission cars, there is little incentive to create the expensive infrastructure needed to make them mainstream. Electric cars need recharging stations; hydrogen cars need hydrogen gas filling stations. Without that infrastructure, it is unlikely that either electric or hydrogen cars would be able to compete with the massive gas-powered vehicle market.

...

ut the auto dealers — knowing their business model is flawed, antiquated and imperiled — are not going down without a fight. Dealer associations are aggressively protecting their turf using their powerful state lobbies to pump legislators and governors either to shut Tesla down or hobble it so it can't become a threat. Many states already have laws stating that automakers can’t sell cars directly to the public and compete with the independent dealerships that sell their brands. But now, dealers want statehouses to rewrite those laws to apply to automakers that don’t have dealers, like Tesla.

Last month, Iowa became the latest state to challenge Tesla Motors’ right to sell its cars directly to consumers. The state’s Department of Transportation told the electric-car manufacturer that it must stop offering test drives in the state, because it isn’t registered as an auto dealer there. The state's DOT ordered Tesla to halt its test drives only after it was tipped off by the state’s Automobile Dealers Association, according to the Des Moines Register.

Iowa joins Arizona, Maryland, New Jersey, and Texas in restricting the direct sales of Teslas. The only states to formally approve of Tesla's direct-sales model are California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Virginia.

Tesla’s ability to sell cars directly is being vigorously challenged across the country. According to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing the 12 largest automakers,dealers have pushed 33 bills in 26 states so far this year. Auto dealers have also tried to challenge Massachusetts laws allowing Tesla sales operations there, taking their case to the state's courts; however, the state’s Supreme Judicial Court recently ruled in the car maker’s favor.

Why Are Dealers Afraid of Tesla?....

Pennsylvania House Passes Bill Capping Number of Tesla Retail Stores at Five

Jul 3, 2014

Source:

(Wall Street Journal (sub. req'd))

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed legislation to cap at five the number of Tesla Motors Inc. retail stores in the state, a compromise that allowed the electric car seller to avoid a battle with dealer groups.

The state Senate passed the legislation last week, and the bill is expected to be signed into law by the governor. Ohio and New York adopted similar legislation, and a similar bill is pending in New Jersey.

6/14

Back in March, the Chris Christie administration barred Tesla from operating in New Jersey, saying the electric carmaker didn’t have the right to unilaterally change the way cars are sold in the state. But now the New Jersey legislature will decide whether the automaker can sell cars without using the old dealership/franchise model.

Christie’s political appointees on the Motor Vehicle Commission voted unanimously to shut down two Tesla stores in the state, making it impossible for Tesla to sell its cars there. However, a State Assembly panel says that Christie’s decision was ill-advised. Not only is the panel proposing to re-open the two closed stores, its bill would let Tesla open up two more stores. The vote by the panel was 4-0....

http://www.alternet.org/environment/chris-christies-tesla-ban-challenged-nj-legislators

alternet: 2. After Electric Automaker Tesla Becomes A Success, Fox Forgets Its Federal Loan.

Fox News and Fox Business hosts and pundits alike attacked Tesla Motors after the green technology company received federal loans to begin to produce electric automobiles. Once Tesla turned a profit, however, these conservative media figures developed amnesia [6] about the company's federal loan, even trying to use the company to dismiss the need for clean energy subsidies.

Bill O'Reilly Smears Tesla, Falsely Claims It Had Net Losses.

Fox News aired mixed messages about Tesla, offering the company praise and then disparaging it, all within the same week. Host Bill O'Reilly called the company a failure and claimed that it posted net losses. O'Reilly's statement, however, was untrue [7]. In fact, just days earlier, Fox News had heralded Tesla as a "success story [8]" after the company turned a profit [9].

http://www.alternet.org/new-jersey-bans-tesla-motors

With New Jersey taking action to ban Tesla from selling its cars there, the Garden State has joined with Arizona, Texas, Virginia and Maryland in making law only an auto-dealers association could love. Tesla has a presence in those states, but its “stores” are really nothing of the sort. They are instead “galleries” where its representatives are not salespeople and cannot tell you what the car costs, nor can they actually help you purchase one. Instead, thanks to the free-flowing capitalism of Republican governors like Jan Brewer of Arizona, Rick Perry of Texas and Bob McDonnell of Virginia, would-be Tesla customers get to look at the cars and then head home to buy them online. (So far, you can still do that everywhere.) Not that things are much better in Maryland, where Democrat Martin O’Malley runs things. There, you can at least take a test drive at a Tesla gallery. After that? Still no purchase allowed.

Colorado: Tesla has one store, outside of Denver at the Park Meadows shopping center in the suburb of Lone Tree. It’s aptly named as under a law passed subsequent to the store’s opening, Tesla cannot open any more in Colorado.

If at first you don’t restrain trade…

Ohio: Last December, state auto dealers tried to get legislators to sneak a Tesla ban through on an unrelated bill. They failed. The bill is back this year, in cleaner form. If passed, it will limit Tesla to the two dealerships it has in Ohio, making it akin to the Colorado situation.

New York: Auto dealers obtained a promise from aides to Governor Andrew Cuomo (more Democrats joining the fray!) that he’ll sign a Tesla ban working its way through the state legislature, assuming it passes.

So far, no ban

Massachusetts: Tesla won a lawsuit brought by auto dealers there challenging its license for a dealership in Natick, a Boston suburb. The dealers lacked standing under the law, according to the court.

Minnesota: A bill to stop Tesla died in the state legislature there. Auto dealers gave up the fight last March, though they suggested they could start fighting again someday.

North Carolina: In June, a similar bill to Minnesota’s died in North Carolina’s statehouses.

Scorecard

Overall, that makes 5 states with bans on selling, 2 with significant restrictions, 2 with pending legislation. The population of those states is 57 million (bans), 15 million (restrictions), 31 million (pending). If Ohio and New York go through with their rules, Tesla will have problems in 9 states representing more than 100 million people — close to 1/3 of the U.S. And there’s no reason to believe that dealers associations in other states won’t be emboldened by what happened in New Jersey. In fact, even victories for the company can prove short-lived, as Tesla’s win in the New York courts last year showed.

CEO Elon Musk told Automotive News in March of 2013 he didn’t want to keep fighting the states one by one and might consider a federal challenge: “If we’re seeing nonstop battles at the state level, rather than fight 20 different state battles, I’d rather fight one federal battle,” he said. It’s become clear that Tesla is going to be butting heads with the states for some time to come. Check back in this space soon as I take a deeper look at the company’s prospects if Mr. Musk goes to Washington.

forbes

But Tesla’s troubles don’t end there. The crazy-quilt of restrictions proposed, in place, morphing and beaten back is shown on the map. And they break down as follows:

Limits on what Tesla can do

Georgia: The company can only sell 150 cars a year there, under an “exemption” from state auto-dealer regulations. A pending bill would increase that to 1500 per year, but would eliminate Georgia’s generous $5,000 electric-vehicle rebate.