• HumanPenguin
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    6 hours ago

    Musk has positioned himself in a place where the UK (and a bunch of other countries for that matter) need to be ok his friendly side.

    Not really. Twitter / X is his only real influence. And since taking over, he has trashed his reputation. So much so, only people like Farage pay any attention to him. Who also has a pretty awful reputation.

    He has gained power in US politics. But only in a role that is limited to US gov internal affairs.

    His companies SpaceX and tesla have limited power in the UK. Starlink is growing, but still not a major player here.

    He really is no more than a very rich, mouthy idiot that our government tends to ignore.

    • mannycalavera
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      4 hours ago

      An idiot he may be, but if you look at the industries that this cunt has aligned himself with (Space, clean electric transport, clean electric storage, mass demographic social media, AI) these are all things that the UK wants to have a foot in the door with.

      Best case scenario is that other players emerge in these industries that are of equal or bigger weight to this clown such that the government doesn’t need to listen to him. But if you think how hard Murdoch has clung onto governments around the globe using traditional media then this arse hat is Murdoch on Ket!

      Unfortunately he’s going to be around for a lot longer than anyone would like.

      • HumanPenguin
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        3 hours ago

        Yep but other then space. (where we already have a huge foot)

        He has no ability to limit the UK and is not an actual leader.

        Clean transport he is actually just a name. He owns no standards that other does not have alternatives to. Tesla really is not very popular in the UK. Other cheaper options from Nissan (and others) are much more common.

        Storage. Again, her does not have a huge hold on that market. Competition is huge and generally cheaper.

        Space is the only place he has something unique. That being reusable launch. And while he is likely to remain cheap compared to other options. The UK also has a huge hold in satellite technologies and production (Much of it built a couple of miles from me). Along with a huge influence in radar and space tracking technology. Launch has really been the only area the UK avoided. And our government works through ESA to handle the limited launch they need. So only corperations need deal with him. Few that do are UK only.

        He simply does not have a huge hold over the UK gov. This is in part why he is working with Outlier parties rather than the 2 main ones. The main ones ignore him as he has little actual hold over them economically.

        • mannycalavera
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          3 hours ago

          It’s not huge, I don’t mean to suggest that. You’re totally right.

          I suppose my point is that for the industries of the future he may become a key player. These industries are relatively small now but you’d imagine they would grow over the next ten years.

          Storage. Again, her does not have a huge hold on that market.

          Maybe I’m misremembering but wasn’t there a huge giga / mega factory that Tesla was involved within the UK for battery storage?

          I do hope he has little to nothing to do with the UK over the next decade. But something tells me this turd isn’t going away 😕.

          • HumanPenguin
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            3 hours ago

            Giga factory did not happen in the UK.

            If I was a sceptic, I’d say the UK was one of a few nations he proposed to try and gain some economic influence.

            But few here generally believed he would choose a place with expensive labour like the US or UK to host such a thing. Honestly, factory manufacturing is not huge in the UK for good reason economically.

            We do have a good few smaller corps building batteries. But honestly, it’s mainly importing cells from China and putting things together. But nothing huge exists.

      • qprimed@lemmy.ml
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        4 hours ago

        his industry alignments absolutely show a purposeful arc. he’s either bright and deranged or lucky and deranged. there is only one common element here.

        • mannycalavera
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          4 hours ago

          He’s very good at getting US government subsidies and taking credit for other people’s hard work. That’s a skill… right?