• @Aidinthel@reddthat.com
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    1057 months ago

    “I don’t want them to advertise,” Musk said at the New York Times DealBook Summit in New York. “If someone is going to blackmail me with advertising or money go fk yourself. Go. Fk. Yourself,” he said.

    Some people think being wealthy proves that a person is smarter than everyone else or has some special skill that makes them more valuable to society. Then there’s the richest man in the world who thinks it’s a good idea to curse out his company’s primary source of revenue.

    • I like to imagine what I could have done if my father owned an emerald mine and I could have afforded multiple prestigious universities

      My Dad cooked meth in the early 2000s and I dropped out of community college at 17 because my Mom had brain cancer.

      I always just look at people who don’t see the benefits of standing on the shoulders of others as entitled and childish.

      • @OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee
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        127 months ago

        The secret is that you have to have emerald mining money without emerald mining parents if you get me.

        My dream is to raise my kids middle class and surprise them when they graduate college with 5-figure (or if we’re dreaming, maybe 6-figure) lump sums to set them up for life. All the generational wealth without the spoiled attitude.

      • @idiomaddict@feddit.de
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        107 months ago

        If Elon musk had been in your position, he wouldn’t have dropped out. I mean that in a negative way towards him, because obviously dropping out makes sense if you’re a normal human in that situation (my sister did the same for the same reason, and it fucked her too).

        But musk is egotistical and wouldn’t give a fuck about his mom’s cancer if it stood in his way

        • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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          47 months ago

          Yeah I powered through and stayed in college while taking care of my mom for the same condition and it was an intense level of difficult where I’m extremely grateful that I was able to not need to financially support myself or her. I can’t imagine someone able to do all three things well, and I wasn’t the only one caring for my mom, I was just the one most able to drive her to things like doctors appointments

      • @tacosanonymous@lemm.ee
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        77 months ago

        That’s part of it though. He was born with insane privilege and no amount of premature balding humbled him.

        You were born with hardship and learned humility and empathy. You would cringe at doing the sorts of things that make someone a billionaire.

      • bedrooms
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        27 months ago

        Give the money back to your Apartheid victims. That’s the only correct answer.

    • @Kittengineer@lemmy.world
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      147 months ago

      lol of course he thinks the companies are “blackmailing him” and not that the companies don’t want to advertise in the cesspool he has turned twitter into.

      Even if you didn’t like twitter before, it’s much worse now than Elon has worked his magic. Why would companies want to pay money to have their brands side by side with nazi posts.

      • @piecat@lemmy.world
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        57 months ago

        It’s the “free market in action” when we’re forced to keep a job for healthcare, pay for things like food and rent.

        But it’s “blackmail” when it’s against a billionaire’s company.

        Huh.

    • @xkforce@lemmy.world
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      107 months ago

      But the market never misallocates resources and if it does its the evil gubments fault! -some plutocratic sycophant

      • gregorum
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        27 months ago

        “Something something damn regulations, something something taxation is theft!”

  • Xariphon
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    557 months ago

    How evil do you have to be to be too evil for Walmart?

    • Pons_Aelius
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      307 months ago

      Walmart does what is good for walmart profits.

      Having walmart adds placed next to Nazi shit is not good for walmart profits. (and then the public finding out, which is the real problem)

      So walmart pulls adds from twitter.

    • @Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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      107 months ago

      I bet it’s more like peer pressure. If everybody else is doing it then they feel they should too to avoid backlash. They don’t care about musky’s rants or how right wing xitter has become.

    • gregorum
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      7 months ago

      Lmao, oh, my, no… this isn’t a moral stance they’re taking… hehehe… oh, sigh

      No, they’re protecting their profits. At least some of their customers object and it might affect Walmart’s bottom line, so that’s why they’re pulling their ads. They don’t give a shit about the content on Twitter, or they would have stopped advertising there long ago.

      • Xariphon
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        27 months ago

        They’re definitely more evil than average, the average is just also pretty fuckin’ evil.

  • stopthatgirl7
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    407 months ago

    They pulled ads back in October, according to their statement in the article, so it seems to me like this is more a sign of how big companies are no longer seeing X as being worth the money to advertise there.

    • @Rediphile@lemmy.ca
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      277 months ago

      And it has literally nothing to do with ethics and is profit driven. The entire point of advertising is to make money.

      • stopthatgirl7
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        237 months ago

        And the fact that they did this in October and no one noticed until now says they made the right choice. They weren’t getting enough eyes on their ads anymore and quietly dropped them.

        I bet a lot of the companies that dropped advertising on X were already planning to do so before Elon opened his big mouth.

      • @jmp242@sopuli.xyz
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        147 months ago

        Is this like the opposite of “go woke go broke”? It sure seems like you lose more money being a hate monger as a public company, or maybe that’s just Musk?

        • @EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
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          27 months ago

          Apply the same critique to anything someone hopes.

          I hope Santa brings me a bike this year!

          I hope my cancer goes into remission.

          I hope I get to see them in heaven someday.

          • Zuberi 👀
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            57 months ago

            The presence of hope doesn’t necessarily mean the person believes their statement is going to happen though. On the tangent of Walmart, I hope Amazon Fails too :).

            • @EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world
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              47 months ago

              No I’m just saying it’s a funny thing to say to someone saying “I hope” I think hope’s just an unrealistic distraction, but I also hope big box stores get collapsed.

      • @Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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        57 months ago

        Because, while they do provide low prices to consumers. They are absolutely evil to their employees. And source inventory from extremely evil companies (i e. Slave and child labor)…

    • ugh
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      57 months ago

      They’re going to run out of options

  • @lennybird@lemmy.world
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    87 months ago

    Has there been any analysis on what impact Musk’s clear attempt to sabotage Twitter has on electorate engagement in elections?

    Because here’s my thought: X is becoming a right-wing extremist echo-chamber. A safe space for bigotry. So while reasonable eyes leave, the mold festers largely unchecked.

    So going to past elections, was Twitter a greater driver for turning out Democratic voters, or Republican ones? I am genuinely curious.

    • @Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
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      57 months ago

      I feel like that’s what’s happened with school boards and other such. The reasonable people who used to be in charge were badgered until they gave up in disgust and now all the fuckfaces took over.

      • Except in the last local elections most of that was undone because the voters are starting to listen. I just hope we aren’t to late. We did well in 2018, 2020, and 2022 2023 if you look at the histories of such things.

        I do feel we are really trying hard to keep our democracy but at this point in time I feel one bad midterm or presidential election will be our downfall.

        • ThrowawayOnLemmy
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          37 months ago

          I do feel we are really trying hard to keep our democracy but at this point in time I feel one bad midterm or presidential election will be our downfall.

          That’s basically where we are though. We let it get so bad that now if we take our eyes off the ball they’ll end up destroying democracy. Thank God we’re finally pushing back, but we really should have done this stuff a couple decades ago.

      • @lennybird@lemmy.world
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        27 months ago

        The exact same strategy has been and continues to be at play with election officials at every level of government. So many election workers have been harassed so much that especially in lieu of the pay and lack of security they don’t consider it worth it. So then naturally the nazis fill these spots.