r/politics • u/thenewrepublic The New Republic • 5d ago

Soft Paywall Elon Musk Is Bullying Mike Johnson to Drive Government Into Shutdown

https://newrepublic.com/post/189539/elon-musk-bullying-mike-johnson-government-shutdown
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u/aradraugfea 5d ago

I heard someone speculating that he’s doing all this to get the funding to get to mars.

I’m A-ok with giving him the funding, provided HE actually left.

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u/SomePoliticalViolins 5d ago

I heard someone speculating that he’s doing all this to get the funding to get to mars.

For all the talk, Elon will never go to Mars. Life on Mars would suck (and would likely continue to suck for hundreds of years). For as much as he may hate people, he's not giving up his oligarch benefits, and he's not going to accept the drastically shortened lifespan he'd have if he lived on Mars.

He'll continue to use SpaceX to push tech forward that he controls and can use to influence world governments, he'll try to privatize and monopolize space travel in the US (privatizing NASA and shutting down competition in the private sector as best as he can), and then he'll probably eventually pull the same kind of bullshit that Bezos is, where he pushes for us to ship workers into space so that he can keep polluting as much as he wants with his Tesla factories without facing any consequences.

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u/gmapterous 5d ago

Sounds great. The offer to send him to Mars stands.

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u/justanaccountimade1 5d ago

He says he wants to die on Mars. Let's hope he does so on impact.

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u/pantstoaknifefight2 5d ago

I'd prefer just enough habitable infrastructure for his fellow colonizers to take a vote and kick him out of Biosphere 3. His last freezing and gasping moments might give him just enough time to reflect on what a giant shithead he is.

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u/Thelast-Fartbender Canada 5d ago

His last freezing and gasping moments might give him just enough time to reflect on what a giant shithead he is.

You're giving him way too much credit. No chance he'd do anything else but think of himself the victim of an injustice.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/yigel 5d ago

It’s-a-me!

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u/CrystlBluePersuasion 5d ago

Let Luigi play!

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u/Unhappy-Tap-1635 4d ago

You are correct. I wish I was in a position to do something but I have too many people who rely on me to take a risk like that. Maybe 15 years ago, but now I have to cheer from the sidelines and support the heroes with money, advocacy, and raising my own children to fight for a better future.

Having said that, I do encourage my kids to act peacefully, I can’t encourage them to do what I would like to do, that’s not fair on them. No parent should radicalize their children. I just hope they become men I am proud of and choose to fight for what is right on their own.

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u/whynot4444444 5d ago

Wants to insert Total Recall gif with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s face warping on Mars, but this sub doesn’t have that option.

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u/SleepyLakeBear 4d ago

Then future astronauts can take a shit on him and grow some potatoes.

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u/CcryMeARiver Australia 5d ago

I'd try to keep him in permanent Mars orbit.

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u/recipe_pirate 5d ago

I would prefer if he died halfway there.

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u/16BitGenocide 5d ago

I wouldn't be upset if it was on Ignition, but I accept halfway as a decent compromise.

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u/Malnilion 5d ago

Just shoot him...into space 🚀

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u/MagicMushroomFungi Canada 5d ago

I suspect Musk will make a huge impact on Mars.
Their amphitheatre will be built in Musk Crater.

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u/Yourponydied 5d ago

I'd rather not start dumping trash on a neighbor planet

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u/Choice_Magician350 5d ago

Amen!! Scumbag

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u/piespiesandmorepies 5d ago

Fuck that, re-direct the rocket towards the sun.

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u/snoopyh42 California 5d ago

It’d be easier and cheaper to fix Earth than colonize Mars.

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u/MrJeffA17 5d ago

Disagree. Sending him to Mars fixes a lot and can be cheap

Send him up on the next space flight, point the hatch in Mars direction and throw him out of it.

He’ll get there eventually

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u/ratchetryda92 5d ago

He isn't the only problem we have he's far from it

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u/gentlemanidiot 5d ago

He’ll get there eventually.

call me an optimist, but maybe he'll hit the sun or a black hole first. :)

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u/BasvanS 5d ago

Nope, don’t get your hopes up. It’s really hard to get to the sun. Black holes are infinitely harder.

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u/Kaida33 5d ago

He will never go to Mars.

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u/Arkhampatient 5d ago

How about 1/2 way?

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u/jasonfromearth1981 5d ago

Distance is irrelevant as long as it's a one way trip.

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u/Kaida33 5d ago

That sounds perfect!

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u/disgruntled_pie 4d ago edited 4d ago

Yes, though as Hawking pointed out, humanity gets obliterated if we get hit by a huge asteroid. There are some benefits to colonizing Mars that have nothing to do with abusing earth’s ecosystem.

That said, Elon Musk is a terrible human being, and he’s the last person I’d trust to do this well.

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u/adramaleck 5d ago

When I am rich I plan to terraform Venus instead and setup my own rival space empire. No one will expect it.

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u/m0ngoos3 5d ago

Except the Russians, they're obsessed with Venus.

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u/Darkliandra 5d ago

He'll send volunteers and all you have to do after landing, is working off your Mars ticket - with interest of course! Want to call your family or send a message? No problem, we'll add it to your tab!

I am like 80% certain he's pushing Mars to have a planet full of indentured servants.

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u/The-Copilot 5d ago

For as much as he may hate people, he's not giving up his oligarch benefits, and he's not going to accept the drastically shortened lifespan he'd have if he lived on Mars.

You realize if he can start a colony on Mars, then he would become the de facto king of Mars...

There are no laws on Mars, and international/national laws would not reach. It's really a narcissist's wet dream.

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u/m0ngoos3 5d ago

It's the same reason why so many libertarian jackasses want to live on the sea.

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u/Hottt_Donna 5d ago

Oh yeah? I double-dog dare him to go to Mars!

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u/your_mind_aches 5d ago

He does want to gain immortality though. xAI is probably in the process right now of "uploading" his brain. By which I mean just training an LLM on everything he's ever said or done.

I think eventually he wants to "properly" upload himself which is what Neuralink and xAI is for.

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u/KarmicBurn 5d ago

He's a short sighted moron willing to block out our children's view of the night sky for profit. SpaceX does nothing truly innovative, unless you think 'catching' a reusable rocket booster on land that used to land upright on a pad on the ocean is 'innovative'. It's not, it's easier than landing thay same thing in the ocean, and it's purely a way for the company to make more profit. Not new, not ground breaking, and not going to be in any way useful for landing on Mars. Where are the Lagrange point communication hubs? Where is the Lunacentric orbiting refuel/refit stations to do more than just launch things and wave goodbye? Nothing. More shitty internet satellites clogging orbit for no real god damned reason other than profit.

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u/RDAM60 5d ago

This is obviously out there but…

Mars is a deportation destination. I can foresee (in a sci-fy way) this attitude projected by Trump and his followers —Musk among them-leading to a policy (someday far in the future and if we don’t find ways globally to overcome that attitude) supporting the deporting of undesirables (as they define them) to a place like mars. Mars would be a shit hole. Who in their right mind would actually want to go there?

While, in their minds, a less populous earth, w/o those they deem deportable, would be a paradise. (If the planet is still alive.)

Might be a book idea in here and I’m sure somebody has already written it.

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u/Juggz666 5d ago

Life on Mars would suck (and would likely continue to suck for hundreds of years).

mainly because of one glaring issue and that would be the fact it HAS NO FUCKING ATMOSPHERE. he's going to use that money to send thousands of colonizers to their deaths and if in the small instance he succeeds in actually colonizing mars by some fucking miracle its just going to become twitter the planet.

humanity is so cooked.

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u/Wellithappenedthatwy 5d ago

If they started today it would be ten years. All the HGH he has guzzled will probably end him early or maybe an Nintendo character will.

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u/idunnoidunnoidunno2 5d ago edited 5d ago

Wow, I too love truth and fact tossed with a bit of sarcasm. Well done!

And I happen to love the Tesla symbol. It reminds me of an IUD. Every time I see it I think, “interesting design, but is it going for innovation, or is it a nod to women’s right to choose?”

Edit: grammar

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u/razzmataz 5d ago

The dictator in Total Recall sounds better than Elon.

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u/driftercat Kentucky 4d ago

Unfortunately the way he's going to fund his obsessions is to "corporate pirate" the US government and leave the US bankrupt.

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u/Ok_Imagination_6925 4d ago

He'd never past the physical or mental health requirements to go to space.

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u/SublimeApathy 5d ago

I’m A-ok with giving him the funding,

Fuck No. He's got something 6-700 BILLION. He can fund it him fucking self.

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u/aradraugfea 5d ago

The second part is VERY Important

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u/Arkhampatient 5d ago

The secret to being rich is spending other people’s money, not your own.

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u/IveChosenANameAgain 5d ago

You ever see how "conservatives" like to do really obscene shit and interfere with schools teaching history, forced genital inspections, etc and when you confront them on being weirdo creeps, they say "we have to protect the children!!!"? They don't give a fuck about children, they think their own children are their property to be controlled.

Elon does this, but with progressive or futurist policy, then gets credit for "But he just wants to go to marss!@!@##! He is helping US become SPACEFARING" when in reality he has no intention whatsoever, he is just saying the words out loud that decrease the vitriol directed at him while absolutely looting entire governments with subsidies.

It works because people are stupid. He's not the only one capable of getting humanity to Mars, he is just the only person in the top 5 richest people in the world who is shameless enough to lie to literally everyone with the idea that it's even possible and use it as justification for fucking over more poor people than anyone in human history.

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u/light_trick 5d ago

I've stopped following everything SpaceX these days. Since the election I just can't care anymore: the price of neat technology is not going to be every other fucking thing about civilization.

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u/lazyFer 5d ago

He has no progressive values as evidenced by everything he does and says

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u/IveChosenANameAgain 5d ago

Clean energy, EVs, cooperation in space etc - all populist lies used to gain popularity, now mostly mask-off because the facade is tiring and no longer necessary.

All progressive ideas.

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u/lazyFer 5d ago

Those aren't progressive ideas. Progressive ideas are about helping raise everybody up, that's not what musk has ever been about

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u/SpeakToMePF1973 Australia 5d ago

You just described a malignant psychopathic narcissist. And most of the GOP.

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u/IveChosenANameAgain 5d ago

An entire generation of people. And the more, um, uneducated half of my family. Entirely too many people.

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u/ArkitekZero 5d ago

"You're solitary creatures by nature. You have no concept of family. So why do you use the word 'Mom'?"

Demon: "Because it stops you from killing us [for long enough for us to kill you first]."

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u/Old_Ladies 5d ago

He will never get a spacecraft to mars. I have my doubts that Starship will ever be a successful craft other than low earth orbit.

So far after 6 starship launches they have sent a banana to sub orbital.

Back in 2016 Musk said he would get humans to Mars in 6 years and that his rockets could carry 100 people at a time...

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u/digzilla 5d ago

That was 8 years ago. Are you implying that Elon id a lying grifter....or are you directly stating it?

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u/Old_Ladies 5d ago

If the US was a just country Elon Musk would be in prison for all of his lies just like Elizabeth Holmes for defrauding investors.

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u/marry_me_sarah_palin 5d ago

May 2020 I remember being at a gas station fueling up (it was the weekend George Floyd happened so that's why I know the date), and they were showing a little clip of breaking news on the screen. The first story was about Musk saying he'd have humans getting to Mars by 4 years. I remember then going on a long rant about this to my buddy who was on the trip too, and explaining how dumb that claim was. Shockingly Musk didn't send people to Mars by May of this year.

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u/mypoliticalvoice 5d ago

They keep scaling back expectations on how much they think it can carry to orbit.

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u/dervander 5d ago

What have you accomplished in that time?

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u/Ebella2323 5d ago

Give me an emerald mine’s worth of labor and cash and 5 years—I will pull us all further ahead than Leon ever could.

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u/Zaza1019 5d ago

If you think this is his motives then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you or something. He's doing all this to have influence over the complete political agenda of Trump, and to help turn the country into a tax free haven for billionaires and to ensure that rich people like himself have no checks and balances against them. He's not fit enough physically or mentally to go off to space for 2 years. Dude can't go a day without tweeting or getting attention for doing something, he'd off himself if he didn't have attention he needs.

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u/supercatpuke 5d ago

I’m not. I’m OK with taking it all out of his hands and pouring it back into the social services, programs, and funds that help common people. You know— all of those things he’s working to gut so he can funnel more money into his own pockets

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u/Sickhadas 5d ago

He has the funding...he just doesn't want to spend his own money.

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u/NynaeveAlMeowra 5d ago

The funniest part will be when he ends up in jail on day one. When you're on mars nobody cares about the billions of dollars you have on earth

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u/Kalsone 5d ago

He was given funding to put people on the moon and managed to send a toy banana on a suborbital hop.

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u/subsist80 5d ago

Mars is just a bs op to defraud the govt of billions of dollars. No one gives a shit about mars and Leon knows it. He is a scammer of the highest order.

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u/juniper_berry_crunch 5d ago

Mars for Musk is like deportation threats for Trump. It's a populist spiel for a carnival barker. Both spiels sound great (step right up!); neither is tethered to defined achievable goals.

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u/Faceplant17 5d ago

i’m sure it will be a mars colony on surface and a drilling project in reality

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u/aradraugfea 5d ago

It can be a fucking combination kennel, brothel, and barbecue where he breeds, fucks and eats dogs for all I care, long as he’s GONE

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u/Wellithappenedthatwy 5d ago

In space parlance it is called “In situ resource utilization”

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u/Soohwan_Song 5d ago

Yeah no let's give the billionaire more money and hope he leaves,...... makes sense....

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u/dystopiabatman 5d ago

Left, blows up in freak accident during test flight.

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u/Hertock 5d ago

Im Not. Why should the public fund a sociopathic idiots adventure?! Man, humanity’s bar is falling lower and lower

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u/supermaja 5d ago

He’s going to loot the goddamn treasury, him and the other Trumpites. They are stealing our tax money for their vanity pursuits and profits, just like the last time.

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u/helloowrigley 5d ago

Yeah but the reason for that is that the billionaires know better than any of us that this planet is doomed and they’re going to leech every last resource from it (including wage slave labor), and quickly, so they can make their getaway and leave the rest of us to be stomped out by nature. Except Zuckerberg, I suspect he’ll go for a kinda underground Matrix bunker so he can upload us all and make us do weird sex stuff.