Yes, I understand that and we know that WSJ leans more conservative than New York Times. Murdoch's empire reflects his worldview.
I mean "stay out of it" as in micro-managing day-to-day newspaper stories or writing constant op-eds to respond to his critics. That's the type of distracting minutiae that Elon has sucked himself into with hyper-reactive Twitter bans and incoherent replies with juvenile statements.
"Special report: Rupert Murdoch, a hands-on newspaperman"
"To illustrate the extent to which Rupert Murdoch used to micro-manage his newspapers,..."
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-newscorp-murdoch-papers-i...
The article is past tense, but there's no reason for it to have changed.
The difference between Musk and Murdoch is that Murdoch lets other people do the talking, even if they are his words.
The 2011 article you linked emphasizes his activity with tabloid newspapers. I'm unfamiliar with those. From what I've read, he doesn't meddle with his "prestige" newspaper like WSJ. Maybe that's why the WSJ didn't censor itself on negative Theranos stories even though he invested $125 million in it and Elizabeth Holmes asked him to kill the articles.
Rupert Murdoch's influence is a very hot topic in Australia, with 2 former prime ministers from opposite sides teaming up to try to push a royal commission into his media monopoly, and in particular his influence on elections. Some of the commission is directed at the actions of his properties, but a lot of it is directed at his specific meddling as an individual. There have been many claims of directives and squashed stories coming straight from the top, whether that's from him or Lachlan Murdoch.
Rupert Murdoch on the other hand is quite possibly the biggest piece of shit in the entire world outsides of dictators, the tailban , etc.
You should read how he meddled in UK politics and played king maker
https://www.businessinsider.com/gordon-brown-rupert-murdoch-...
I can't wait until he dies
They meddled in USA politics to throw the presidential election.
I assume you’re very mad at Russia too?
Would you like to buy this bridge I have for sale?
NFI why you’re on about election fraud, you’ll have to show me where I made any claims about that.
Had xcrunner simply asked for proof the burden would be on Alvah to provide it, but because xcrunner made a claim he took the burden of proof on himself.
I was never discussing the leaks. I was discussing what Twitter took down (aka what was reported to them).
> I assume you’re very mad at Russia too?
But, but, whatabout the other guys!
No, because I don't have a reason to trust Putin or the Russians, and neither do US citizens. But they do have a reason, and a right, to trust their elected officials.
And no they don’t have a right for something illegal (revenge porn, unconcent) and the company certainly has their own right to censor how they want and choose who they listen to.
The Russian thing was about the actual facts about Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election and if you were crowing about that influence too.
The emails are probably the most politically relevant, and possibly damaging, as they contain possible evidence of corrupt dealing.
Earlier in this thread you made a claim that the leak was only dick pics, have you read a source which claimed that, or is it only that you haven't seen a source talk about anything else?
There're these, many of which are verified: https://bidenlaptopemails.com/
I don't know the entire contents but it is certainly more than just dick pics. I've heard someone discuss using the dates in those to corroborate other stories which means they aren't just salacious either.
Because Jack Dorsey said to congress that they blocked the NYPost story because of reports by the dems and the FBI. The NYPost's story didn't have porn thus they reported at least some non-porn links.
We've known the broad strokes of this for quite a while and it's just the emails and chat logs of the conspirators that we're seeing for the first time now.
I cannot think of a more fundamental violation of the US first amendment.
https://bidenlaptopemails.com/
We also know that the emails, or at least many of them, are valid. The signatures, made years before the leaks, check out.
https://blog.erratasec.com/2020/10/yes-we-can-validate-leake...
It contains possibly legal things that the voters might find to be a turn-off, such as the ne'er-do-well son selling access to his dad in his official position.
Considering Hunter appears to be speaking to leaders and oligarchs it feels that Joe needs to control him, and imho could easily do it through the courts by making Hunter's allowance conditional on not claiming a business relationship with his dad.
> It’s laughable you think any American cares after all the selling access the Trump admin did and the kids getting access without clearances.
Biden thought they would, or they wouldn't have tried to squash the story.
> Fuck off.
What's that, you say I'm right in every way?
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
This isn't a partisan viewpoint. I'm not in the USA or attached to either party.
The Murdoch dynasty (Keith, Rupert, Lachlan, ...) are master newspapermen. Why burn goodwill killing a story about money that is already lost when that goodwill could be spent on influencing even bigger things?
To be clear - I’m not trying to suggest one is better than the other. Just that they are a very interesting comparison.
The rest of Murdoch's business empire is nothing like it, compare WSJ.com to FoxNews.com at any given point and you'll see a drastic difference.
The WSJ had a right-wing political bias (beyond just a vague pro-business bias) under Dow Jones (in the news, not just the–even then–absurdly right-wing opinion pages), and it got stronger under Murdoch (I haven’t read it as much in recent years, but I did regularly around and for a while after the takeover.) It’s not strident in tone (outside of the opinion pages) the way that Fox News is, but its notable both in story selection and focus.
Thanks for the laugh.
I realize this is part of his narrative but I struggle to find the genius. As best i can tell he's a generally successful businessman.
But I think Musk is also a good example of the reason that I would probably not work for a company whose head is a sales guy. Salespeople are great at hype, but they often do it by living in a fantasy land, and someone insufficiently connected to reality is in charge, things can get wacky. I knew of one place where the CEO was absolutely great at closing deals, but he would do it by promising more new features than the company could build. The well-meaning tech people did their best, but rushing to meet the CEO's promises meant a worse and worse code base, with bug counts skyrocketing and feature velocity slowing.
At Tesla and SpaceX, he apparently had competent people in charge to buffer his impulses and direct him toward what he's good at. But here we see that fantasy dynamic play out as he absolutely flails around trying to run a business that he doesn't really understand after firing most of the people who did and terrifying the remainder. If anything, I think the Twitter saga demonstrates that on his own, he's actually bad at a bunch of core business skills.
A big falsifying hypothesis from this would be to predict that there are NOT any high-up PR staff of notable quality that have been around him for a long time.
If the PR people around him evince no particular talent for it and have been in constant flux for the duration of Musk's career such that he is the only constant, then yea, there'd probably be something to this.
Otherwise, if there is at least one person that was in his inner circle for a critical period of time that can also be said to have strong PR talent, then it's questionable ... sometimes success is having, on top of other things, the right team.
Elon had a lot of luck, no doubt, but his track record is simply impressive and for that, I think it's fair to say that he has extraordinary talent.
Sure, but it becomes hard to distinguish luck from talent. How would you know that an up and coming but talented PR person didn’t pick him? Or that was random?
It’s the major flaw with idolisation. Ends and means aren’t that tightly coupled. Against the utility of idolising someone, is the noise worth it? Ever?
That it coincided with a period of advertiser regression doesn't help.
I think we need to stop pretending that the only possible answer for seemingly misguided decisions is secret brilliance.
EV cars have existed for more than a century and been tried out by many companies. They all failed to mark a significant dent in the market because batteries technologies weren't as advanced as now, and because regulations weren't as strict as they are now.
Tesla was founded right when at a crossing point when California and European Union emissions regulations started to be more and more stringent and efficient batteries affordable enough. Being an EV-only company it was granted a very generous loan from the US government. This is a kick start no small automotive company ever got.
Not saying Musk hasn't any part in how the development, manufacturing and sale process was done. He certainly is one of the first to make people accept and even pay to be beta testers of an unfinished product/vehicle.
SpaceX was truly his and he found great people to lead the company judging by their results. Contrary to your statement though, space travel wasn't dead at all. During the early SpaceX era when they launched zero rockets there were still a number of successful missions from organizations around the globe as well as routine commercial satellite launches. The key thing SpaceX did was cheapen launch costs to the point where existing launch companies had to start competing. This is down to the engineering achievements at SpaceX.
Musk is a face for businesses but if I were an investor in those other two ventures I'd definitely be concerned that this focus on Twitter is distracting him from his actual important work at those other companies, and I'd probably be pissed about what he's done to the share price of Telsa.
"In 2002, Griffin was President and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests. During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The unsuccessful trip is credited as directly leading to the formation of SpaceX.[11] Griffin was an early advocate for Musk calling him a potential “Henry Ford for the rocket industry".[12]"
You clearly have different sources from me (which are primarily Wikipedia).
My understanding was that Tesla did not have: - Ownership of the Tesla brand - Any real funding. During the Series A founding in 2004, Elon contributed $6.5M / $7.5 total. - An actual car. During the development of the Roadster, Elon was both Chairman and Architect/CTO. - Employees, beyond Eberhard and Tarpenning.
Before Elon, Tesla seems to have been only one of many early stage electric car startups with poor prospects for their future.
As for the developments around 2008, it becomes speculation who is telling the more true story between Musk and Eberhard. But as for what both have achieved elsewhere, it seems to me that Musk is also more effective as CEO.
Maybe you have sources that can contradict the above.
- Ownership of the Tesla brand
Tesla was founded (as Tesla Motors) on July 1, 2003, by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in San Carlos, California.
- Employees, beyond Eberhard and Tarpenning.
Ian Wright was the third employee, joining a few months later.[2] The three went looking for venture capital (VC) funding in January 2004[2] and connected with Elon Musk, who contributed US$6.5 million of the initial (Series A) US$7.5 million[10] round of investment in February 2004 and became chairman of the board of directors.[2] Musk then appointed Eberhard as the CEO.
- Any real funding. During the Series A founding in 2004, Elon contributed $6.5M / $7.5 total.
- An actual car. During the development of the Roadster, Elon was both Chairman and Architect/CTO.
Similarly, "before they had funding, they didn't have any vehicles to show for it." A car is not software, to actually build a functioning vehicle takes quite a bit of time. It took Tesla two full years after his investment to demonstrate a prototype Roadster. Musk had left the CEO position when the first Roadsters started shipping.
From reading the original founders' thoughts about where they initially wanted to go, it seems that the company was going to be focused on automotive technology, with their cars being largely showcases for their technology, essentially the way Unreal engine used to be sold and the way the Doom games have been showcases for id's engines. They were not really setting out to be a mass-market automaker, is the gist I get from their various interviews. It's very possible that this was because they believed they couldn't disrupt the automotive market, feeling it was too entrenched, and Musk had the money to put that goal within reach.
He definitely reset Tesla's aim and the company demonstrated there was money to be made making EVs. He had a big part in it but a lot of the engineering work was courtesy of Lotus' engineering teams[2]. His main contribution appears to have been forcing the team to pursue carbon fiber and pushing them to make custom headlamps that met DOT standards, in spite of costs associated with both. Despite how Wikipedia words it, if you look at the source - [2] below - it makes the following mention about the headlights, for example:
Again, Elon pushed us to spend the considerable money necessary to develop custom (and DOT-compliant) headlights to make the front look great.
Eberhard acknowledged that Musk was the person who insisted from the beginning on a carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer body and that Musk led design of components ranging from the power electronics module to the headlamps and other styling
As to this point:
As for the developments around 2008, it becomes speculation who is telling the more true story between Musk and Eberhard. But as for what both have achieved elsewhere, it seems to me that Musk is also more effective as CEO.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.#The_beg...
The name was taken:
https://fortune.com/2018/12/09/tesla-name-faraday-elon-musk/
> I don't understand this argument. It basically says "before they sought funding they didn't have any funding"
It was in reference to this:
>> The ball was already rolling on Tesla before Elon came along though.
In what way do you think "the ball was rolling" before Elon came along?
> They were not really setting out to be a mass-market automaker, is the gist I get from their various interviews. It's very possible that this was because they believed they couldn't disrupt the automotive market, feeling it was too entrenched, and Musk had the money to put that goal within reach.
In other words, Tesla as we know it today, is due to Elon.
> From all the sources, it appears that he was a guiding influence on style and basic statements about features and materials, rather than actually sitting down and designing individual components.
Well, I suppose he was clearly in charge of it, Kind of like Steve Jobs for the iPhone. Unlike Steve, though, Elon has a technical (physics) education and a background as a developer, so he had the ability to drill into more details than Steve.
> Billionaires make effective CEOs is the argument here?
Effective CEO's tend to become Billionaires, especially if they're owners/founders. Musk has done so twice, at the same time, in Tesla and SpaceX, while also playing a key role in the creation of several other companies.
And this empire was built from essentially nothing (a few thousand dollars from his father at some point). It's not like Musk was born a billionaire.
Eberhard has far less to show for.
You are undoubtedly right that Murdoch's political influence is everywhere in Fox News and his other, very profitable, properties.
But have you ever heard a single juicy sound bite by Murdoch about Hillary Clinton, or Obama, or "wokeness?"
I just checked: turns out he's made a handful of comments, all of which basically qualify as obscure. He stays out of the way, despite running what is maybe the most politically impactful business of our times.
Compare to Musk, who, just a week or two ago, tweeted "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci."
Murdoch is of course well known for using his media empire to promote his own political interests. His British tabloids were ridiculously strongly pro-Brexit because Murdoch was a respected guest at Downingstreet, but didn't have any meaningful influence in Brussels.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2021/jun/24/rupert-murdoc...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/10/ban-on-rupert-...
During the Brexit referendum campaign, one came out pro-Remain (The Times), and one pro-Leave (The Sun). Which one did Rupert want to win?
In truth his media has perfected the echo chamber: they echo back to the audience what they already believe.
It’s for this reason a middle class paper and working class paper can be so divided and why his US operational flagship (Fox News) can be vehemently politically opposed to his UK operational flagship (The Times).
He’s not schizophrenic - he knows to play his hand very, very lightly and the rest of it is all based on audience research these days.
Besides, I don't think Twitter is what did Elon's reputation as a "savior" in. The current affair is more reaffirming than opinion shifting, for everyone I've talked to.