This might be the most blatantly corrupt thing I've ever scene a sitting president do. Might as well have Elon hand him a cartoonish bag with a dollar sign on it at this point.
Not sure about that - the same president launched a meme coin 48h before being sworn in ! Admittedly, he wasn't yet a sitting president.
I'm very torn on HN way of handling all this Musk / Trump news. From my perspective (non US), this is the biggest scandal and power / money grab in recent history, comaprable only to dismantlement of URSS and the rise of the oligarchs. US foundations are being tested and from what we see so far, they are failing.
And it was years in the making - both men lied blantantly and abused power and government countless times, without any consequences. Now, we will ALL (US and abroad) face the consequences of it.
Frankly, I have absolute disdain for YC and the entire silicon valley investor class. So many people have shown their true colors as no better than the robber barons. I'm glad I made the decision to leave the US years ago, but yeah, the world will suffer from this immensely. It's hard to both want to distance myself from a government (and plurality of electorate) so heinous, while still wanting to do what I can in any small way to prevent the worst from happening.
The mask really fell with the second trump campaign and yes YC and the broader capitalist class have shown themselves to be enemies of civilisation at this stage. Far from being techno utopians the YC ilk and associates are just your boring garden variety fascists and they will be remembered as such.
You can say that about Wall Street too, or even the oil industry. Lots of smaller players doing smaller mundane things. Logically I know that there are plenty of smaller players doing more neutral or just mundane capitalist things, without world domination plans, but the ethos of the industry has a lot of poison at the top. If this naked power grab doesn't totally backfire (which I hope it does), I'm worried for the path of the entire SV tech industry.
> and threatening anti-Tesla protesters with "hell."
Crony capitalism at its finest. Trump turns the White House into a Tesla showroom and threatens protestors, all while the GOP, who claim to champion free markets, stand by and enable this blatant corruption. Will they ever get sick of their own hypocrisy?
