this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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[–] [email protected] 167 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Laid off 10% of workforce for the raise he doesn't deserve. What a piece of shit.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Assuming a salary of $200,000/year, this $56B bonus could pay the salaries of 280,000 employees.

The actual layoff was around 14,000 employees. Assuming the same $200k salary, he could have asked for a bonus of $53B instead of $56B and paid for them.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

But laying people off is the thing he hates most in the world

[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago

But how can he survive on only $178.3 billion? He's living paycheck-to-paycheck!

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (44 children)

Tesla should seek to oust Elon from the company. He’s ruining it. Cybertruck, falling sales, and important people heading for the exits.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 7 months ago (6 children)

Tesla should seek to oust Elon from the company.

They can't. The only thing propping up the ludicrous stock price is the myth of "Elon Musk, Super genius" and the legions of Musk fanboys. If they kick Musk out they lose both and the stock will tank. So they've got to keep him in place, even as he runs the company into the ground.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 7 months ago (7 children)
[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's not. He even has defenders on Lemmy. Say that he has no experience as an engineer when it comes to cars and rockets and they come crawling out of the woodwork with quotes from people who worship him saying he's totally an engineering genius.

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[–] GooseFinger 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

I have a handful of ~~tankie~~ capitalism and "democracy" loving, American "traditional" leaning and religious Republican coworkers who absolutely still believe that he's a genius. They feel that way about other billionaires too.

Edit: TIL that "tankie" doesn't mean "capitalism and 'democracy' loving, American 'traditional' leaning and religious Republicans." I guess the shorthand for that is just "stereotypical conservative."

[–] [email protected] 35 points 7 months ago (1 children)

A Tankie is a Communist who likes Stalin's method of achieving communism.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 7 months ago

tankie

I think you were looking for the word "ancap" instead.

[–] minibyte 9 points 7 months ago

That there’s a bootlicker.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Are your tankie friends buying tesla vehicles?

Edit - real question. I have doubts his neo nazi/ libertarian followers are buying EVs because they seem to actively want to harm the environment as much as possible.

I'm genuinely curious what the tankie demographic is like. I could see them as off the grid solar/battery doomsday prepper types.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago

They also won't because they are hand selected by Musk. 2 out of 3 board members share his last name.

The other is the alleged director of the board after Musk was forced to vacate the position. All indications are that she is his puppet.

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[–] [email protected] 101 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Oh so that's why he laid off all those people.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

$56 billion could pay 56 thousand workers $100k per year for ten years straight.

Instead they laid of thousands of workers not making anywhere near that sum.

Yet this one man deserves all that "value" he personally surely generated.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 7 months ago (1 children)

there was nothing he hated more, "but it must be done".

sure. he's in agony. pure pain. insurmountable suffering

Maybe the board can buy him out of the company at some point. It might actually safe the company without him at the top

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago

If he weren't involved, I'd go back to considering a Tesla

[–] [email protected] 39 points 7 months ago (2 children)

How many employees could still have their jobs if that pay package was reserved for salaries instead of bonuses to this guy who spends all day, every day, fucking around with a completely different company he's running into the ground.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

All of them. They could have hired 20x as many as they laid off, and gave them all raises.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Who the fuck is Tesla in this context?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

This news is frustrating:

  • I am put off by the judge ruling against it because "it's unfair to shareholders". It's unfair to a lot of people, especially in the wake of layoffs. If the law does not protect the basic necessities for working Americans, then the law needs changing.
  • How many of Elon's workers could get paid a living wage for that $56bn? If he passed it up could he stop trying to oppose unions and make some life-changing concessions for his employees?
  • Even putting that aside, how is that money going to change Elon's life? As in the daily experience of what he eats, vacation opportunities, housing, etc? Because money is kind of like water - it's incredibly important if you don't have enough, but once you have more than you could use the only reason to keep hoarding it is restricting others' access for pride, greed, or leverage (i.e. purchasing influence).

I'm not even as far left of center as I probably sound. I believe that different economic classes should exist or people aren't motivated - you need to pay surgeons well in order to get enough surgeons. However, "the floor" should be raised to ensure housing/food/utilities security at the cost of "the ceiling" being lowered (or existing at all). Oxfam says a wealth tax of 5% on multi-millionaires/billionaires would solve world hunger in 10 years, lift 2 billion out of poverty, and much more. As of 2023 the bottom half of the USA, as in about 170ish million citizens, only have access to 3% of America's wealth while the top 10% control just over 66% of wealth. Deals like this, coupled with the mass layoffs across multiple industries, is only making that obscene inequality worse.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I don't know how many employees Tesla has, but that literally could turn 56,000 employees into millionaires. Well, not literally, because taxes, but you get the idea.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Exactly, or put it in a fund collecting even low-level interest and give that many a raise of 50 grand/year for 20 years.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Raise the floor too high and suddenly nobody needs to sign up to be a murderer for hire to go to college. Suddenly people who actually know how the sector functions can create their own firms. Suddenly the idea of an industry being to big to fail and getting a bailout every decade isn't as necessary. Suddenly your carefully protected tax shields aren't quite so effective.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How many of Elon’s workers could get paid a living wage for that $56bn?

There are 140,000 employees, so each one could get $400,000. That is WAY more than a liveable wage. He could give every single person in his company $200,000 and STILL have $28B leftover for his bonus. I can't imagine what it would be like to have a billion, and I'm a pretty imaginative person who makes a lot of money. If someone said to me, "I can give you $56B, or I can give you $28B and 140,000 other people $200,000. You choose." I would gladly give all of those 140,000 people handjobs by me personally along with that $200k. It might take awhile to give all those handjobs, but I'd commit to it for $28B.

It would take 972 days of 12 hours per day giving 5 minute long handjobs. Roughly 3 years of indentured servitude to get $28B. Worth it.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 7 months ago

Absolutely nuts. That's about what Tesla's fair market value should be in total.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well ok now let's tax the fuck out of that.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 7 months ago (1 children)

A bonus that high needs to be taxed at 99%. That would leave $56M, which is more than 99.9% of the world will make in their entire lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 7 months ago

1% of $56B is actually $560M. That's how astronomically stupid this package is.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago

how long until shareholders revolt considering elon has cost the company billions.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago

I always thought that maybe if Musk was gone someday, it would be ok to like Tesla's again... Fuck Tesla Forever.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I would pay $56bn to watch him get eaten alive by a bear.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I don't condone cruelty. Poor bear did nothing to deserve this.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago

He should be paying the company $56 billion in damages for the dumb cybertruck he pushed through.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago

However, the deal was rejected by a US judge in January who described it as "an unfathomable sum".

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