How many $s to tell the truth?
We all hold back on some unpleasant truths, at least now and then. That’s partly due to fear of angering co-workers, friends or family. We wish to be polite. But if I were rich enough, then I’d be able to say whatever I wish. I would have no fear of losing my job in response to a non-PC remark. And zillionaires always have loyal friends and family.
Or would I? Maybe there is no amount of money that would turn me into a completely honest man. Perhaps I’d still have all my current personality flaws, even if I became the richest man on Earth.
What do you think? In the comment section, tell me how high a net worth you’d need to feel confident expressing the unvarnished truth in 21st century America.
PS. This Matt Yglesias tweet caught my eye:
Elon is absolutely correct, on both points. I truly believe that.
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14. August 2024 at 05:54
“I would have no fear of losing my job in response to a non-PC remark”
Scott, you have answered your own question. If you are super rich and still working, you value your job for non-monetary reasons. Therefore, for a rich person with a job, the answer is, “no amount.”
14. August 2024 at 07:27
You do realize that none of these political tactics work anymore, right?
It’s no secret to anyone that Elon supported DeSantis. Many people did. DeSantis was a very good choice, but he wasn’t chosen as the nominee.
All of us who are not suffering from TDS, now understand that there are three choices. Trump, RFK jr., and Kamala.
Kamala was voted the most radical left wing senator — even left of Bernie Sanders — BY HER OWN PEERS. Let’s restate that so that even you can understand it. Her own peers voted her the most radical left wing senator. Her father was a marxist. When she was a district attorney in SFO, crime rates went through the roof. When she was attorney general, she was vindictive and applied the law selectively. Her track record in CA was absymal.
Robert F Kennedy Jr., unfortunately, doesn’t have the big party apparatus behind him, and therefore has very little chance of winning. Despite this, the democrats continue their lawfare against him, trying to keep him off the ballot in every blue state. Biden refused to provide him with secret service protection (first candidate in history denied) until the Trump assination attempt.
Donald Trump is the only other option. Not that articulate — but more articulate than you — great business man, good personality, and above all, good policy proposals.
Elon is simply choosing to back the person who he feels has the best chance of stopping marxist Kamala.
Your pathetic comments don’t work anymore. Calling people a racist doesn’t work. They just laugh at you. Nobody cares that Elon and Vance changed their mind. It’s normal. That’s what people do. DeSantis isn’t on the ballot anymore dummy.
Get a grip with reality.
14. August 2024 at 08:02
It’s always a mistake to assume a politically active person like Musk has any integrity. He will support whomever he thinks will be better for his own personal outcome and even at that like most business people he will mostly focus on short term results.
Steve
14. August 2024 at 08:31
Ken, Maybe. But who would fire the richest man on Earth?
Sara, You said:
“Nobody cares that Elon and Vance changed their mind.”
LOL, they didn’t change their minds. They aren’t idiots. They still see Trump in exactly the same way as they did before.
They changed their mouths. They decided to stop telling the truth about Trump.
You are so naive about the world. Recall the recent email revelations that showed Tucker Carlson still despises Trump in private. It’s all an act on the part of these guys. Sad that you aren’t able to see that.
Steve, Maybe, but how does his almost daily Twitter insults of Democrats help increase his fortune, given that the vast majority of Tesla buyers are left-of-center?
14. August 2024 at 14:09
Kamala was voted the most radical left wing senator. HORROR! As a small-government classical liberal that sounds really bad to me. But then, all horrors are relative. Let’s see…
Was Kamala’s private business voted the perpetrator of $355 of fraud by a judge as it was put into receivership?
Has her family charitable foundation been closed for fraud and forced to repay million$ of contributions?
Was she voted by jury and judge to be the perpetrator of $85 million worth of sexual assault and libel?
Has her private business been voted guilty of criminal tax fraud?
Have a dozen of her closest associates been voted into prison? (CFO Weisselberg, 17 counts; personal lawyer Cohen, campaign manager Manafort, etc. etc. )
Have 20+ more members of her administration and cabinet voted to never have anything more do do with her? (VP Pence, Chief of Staff Kelley, National Security Advisors Bolton and McMaster, etc. etc….)
Has she been voted “guilty” 34 times by a criminal jury?
No. Trump who won all those votes. Gosh, it’s like he’s running the Capone Organization! But Kamala, while representing very liberal California, voted very liberal. This is a hard choice! Well, if she’s so liberal, that decides it…
‘Elect Trump – Voted the “Best Defender of Conservative Principles since Al Capone” by Sara!’
14. August 2024 at 14:22
Elon is simply choosing to back the person who he feels has the best chance of stopping marxist Kamala.
ROTFL. Just how anti-big government and “anti-marxist” is Elon? Hey, Trump told us himself in his most honest tweet ever, right from the White House. Take a look. See Elon standing there like an obedient puppy dog in training next to his master, waiting for his treat — as his master explains his training technique…
Hey, we all know how well Elon responds to a lot less disrespect than that! What’s keeping him standing there as such a well-mannered puppy? “May I have another sir?”
Trump put his finger right on it. Elon is the biggest hog of government handouts and subsidies in the entire world. Not just in the US but in Europe, China, everywhere. Without those rivers of government cash Tesla and Space X would be performing like Twitter-X with its “super finance app on the way to taking 50% of the US market” and the hyperloop. Thusly, “May I have more please, Master Donald, sir?”
I mentioned China. Xi’s explicitly Marxist-Leninist China. Even Trumpistas object to what’s going on with the CCP’s China. When Tesla was flat on its back, belly-up with all four legs in the air, who gave Elon the sweetheart deal that bailed him out? The CCP. And the CCP’s been subsidizing him ever since. In all that time has “ideologically free speech” Elon ever said even one word critical of the CCP? Nah, in fact the CCP actually writes his public statements released over his name over there! “May I have more please, Comrades?”
P.T. Barnum famously said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” But even the world-champion suckingest of suckers of his era would have choked, gagged and died on what members of the Cult of Elon are happy to swallow every day. As to Donald, he’s admitting right now that he’s not contributing money to his own campaign because he *can’t afford it*, since those mean judges have required him to put up millions as security in his losing lawsuits, leaving him with none of his billions left over. So he’s relying 100% on contributions from others … Elon!
Campaign contributions-for-pork. The oldest story there is. The incentive system that drives honest rich people to set aside their differences and make friends. But even when it is publicly proclaimed by the nation’s Pork Distributor in Chief sitting at his White House desk, the true deniers can’t see it. Life is entertaining. 🙂
14. August 2024 at 18:08
“who would fire the richest man on earth?”
Scott: As Elon has quite publically discovered, customers can take their business elsewhere.
Steve: You’re way off the mark on Musk. He has paid a massive price for his free-speech activism since the outset of the pandemic. He choked up $40B (? I think that’s right) for Twitter, a company well known to be a pile of shit profitability-wise, mostly for the purpose of protecting free speech.
Steve you should reconsider your view that Musk has “no integrity”. You can’t possibly understand the magnitude of what he has accomplished if you believe that. It’s mind boggling, especially what he has accomplished with Space-X. All the more highlighted by the disaster that is the Boeing space program – a company with half a century of experience in space programs! – not to mention the routine failures of Blue Origin, Virgin, all the other pile of crap space companies.
Space X is an extraordinary organization – perhaps the most important organization in human history – and Musk is the person who made that happen.
14. August 2024 at 19:53
Kangaroo, Musk is an outstanding entrepreneur who has accomplished amazing things in the business world. One of the best ever. He also shows the maturity of an 8th grader when he sends out all of those stupid and insulting tweets. Just an embarrassment.
That’s how people are–they have good sides and bad sides.
Everyone, Not one commenter has told me how much money they’d need to have in order to tell the truth. Would $227 billion be enough? Anyone?
14. August 2024 at 22:23
People with $227 billion often find it hard to know the truth, as they are so often surrounded by people telling them flattering comfortable lies. Not knowing truth how can they speak it?
Money may not be much of an inducement for me to speak truth rather than hide in silence, when what I really lack is courage.
15. August 2024 at 07:59
“Money may not be much of an inducement for me to speak truth rather than hide in silence, when what I really lack is courage.”
Bingo.
15. August 2024 at 19:03
Scott,
What Craig said.
I would never, ever, publicly say everything that I hold to be true on every subject. I sometimes comment on some subjects but I have many views I would never express publicly at all. I applaud and commend those that do. True courage. Even Elon’s absurd inanities … ultimately yes I must admit he has that courage. No amount of money or power will protect you from being hounded by governments and the public, even with “free speech” protections. History is full of warning examples, from monarchs to oligarchs, that lost their heads over words.
15. August 2024 at 19:19
Scott said:
“Just an embarrassment…That’s how people are–they have good sides and bad sides.”
Oh for sure!! I sold my stock. Trump does lots of embarassing things too.
Not that it will change my vote. Tragically, we’re chosing the lesser of two evils, not the best man for the job. The world is complicated.
Which fork to follow? Biden is a moron or Musk is a genius? Musk.
So your “in the business world” qualifier seems intended as a demoting qualifier. I disagree with that seeming demotion.
We’re now two decades into the post-blackberry world, the mostly forgotten pre-iPhone “smart phone” that ruled the world in 2003. it’s easy to forget now that the Blackberry was **THE** “smart phone” of the 0-5 era, even though there were competing iphone-ish windows-ish products, like the Compaq “IPAQ”. But Jobs single handedly killed the blackberry and created the smart phone world that we live in today. Had he not done so, it’s sure the modern smart phone would have eventually emerged, but it could have taken another decade if not two judging by the IPAQ.
soooo…yeah, I think it’s all too easy to qualify musk’s accomplishments on the basis of his more recent behavior but I think that will be seen as a mistake in the larger view of history.
15. August 2024 at 21:29
mbka, Maybe, but I’d say more foolishness than courage.
(Apparently not enough courage to continue pointing out that Trump is too old and senile to be president.)
Kangaroo, “Not that it will change my vote.”
You have an amazing ability to miss the point. This post is about truth telling, not voting. Who cares who you plan to vote for?
15. August 2024 at 23:16
Scott,
on that point (Musk’s effusions over the years re: Trump) I don’t understand what the tech broligarchs are doing right now. Are many of them genuinely going insane in supporting Trump or is it all a utilitarian ploy for them?
17. August 2024 at 20:45
mbka, I’ve never understood the appeal of Trump, so you’ll have to ask someone else.
18. August 2024 at 04:40
Enough that I could buy citizenship in a non-US extradition country and maybe a middle class lifestyle until death plus the cost of getting that truth in front of Americans so let’s say $2 million + couple hundred million for the media budget.
18. August 2024 at 04:53
@Jeff: Or let’s to a metric that matters, how many INNOCENT people did Trump personally and knowingly put in prison vs. how many people did Harris. The most conservative estimate on Harris is at least one and more likely hundreds. You call Trump corrupt, how many California cops, Judges, prosecutors, and politicians did Harris imprison given we know statistically all of those groups commit crimes at a higher rate than the general public. Pretty sure California prisons aren’t littered with judges or prosecutors, hell I’d bet she didn’t prosecute a single judge or sitting government official in high office. Trump maybe be corrupt in the personally enrichment way but at least he didn’t make his entire life about destroying Americans lives while protecting corrupt government officials.
The fact anyone is legitimately thinking about voting for anyone who ever worked as a prosecutor is insane, we all know they are scum of the earth.
20. August 2024 at 10:38
I guess I’d just need enough money to hire people to find out what the truth is so I could repeat it. No amount of money could overcome my fear of being wrong publicly.
30. August 2024 at 04:25
About as much as I’d need to retire and keep up with both inflation and economic growth indefinitely. $5-10M should cover it. At that some I don’t need anyone else’s approval beyond those I actually want to engage with, and no one cares enough about me to take me all that seriously.
At some level above that (10x higher or so), I’d worry the money itself would create dependencies and obligations, and that I’d start censoring myself to avoid losing opportunities to maintain growth, income, and status.