Elon Musk

Virginia Democrat twice tried to get legislation passed to install tracking devices in our vehicles, using the "Per-Miles-Driven Tax" as the pretense. It got shot down, but we both know they will never go away. Right now EVs and other high-mileage vehicles are charged an annual amount based upon (1) the fuels tax rate at the time the vehicle is registered, and (2) the average number of miles traveled by a passenger vehicle in Virginia. This is updated annually. DMV Link

The current fee is $109 per year. That's $9/month and there are still EV people complaining that they drive less than the average number of miles so are being overcharged. Virginia's gas tax is 26¢/gallon and the Fed charges 18.4¢/gallon. At the combined rate of 44.4¢/gallon, that $9 equates to the tax on 27 gallons of gas, which is about 1.5 tanks per month. High mileage gas cars are paying that on top of the tax they already pay at the pump. Those EV idiots are gonna force us all into tracking devices for their perceived "overcharge" of $3/month.

 

The Maine legislature has tried it once, but it didn't pass. As you say, it will probably be passed later at a time when everyone is distracted by a squirrel or another pandemic.

 

I kinda resent paying for people's fuel like that. The IRS should look into this as taxable compensation...they do it with other stuff.

 

That's not terrible, although I'd prefer spending a couple of minutes filling a tank. It would be awful on long drives.

 

Every once in a while I read comments on this weird passive-aggressive battle where gas vehicles park next to charging stations while they go inside to shop or to work, effectively blocking them, then EVs will park at gas pumps while they go inside to shop, effectively blocking them, lather/rinse/repeat.

I don't know how much of this is just out of ignorance (because there's no other spots or it's just convenient in the moment) and how much is out of spite. I imagine it's a little of both, and one feeds off of the other. Some of it may also be contrived ("He's the kind of person who would..." morphs into "You won't believe what I saw him do!")

 

Interesting tweet from Elon Musk. The saga continues….

 

The board is blocking the buyout in direct violation of their fiduciary duty to the shareholders, so Musk is rightly pointing out that they are not the intermediaries for his offer to those shareholders.

This is from an American Thinker article on the subject:

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Twitter adopted a limited duration shareholder rights plan, often called a "poison pill," a day after billionaire Elon Musk offered to buy the company for $43 billion, the company announced Friday. The board voted unanimously to adopt the plan.

Under the new structure, if any person or group acquires beneficial ownership of at least 15% of Twitter's outstanding common stock without the board's approval, other shareholders will be allowed to purchase additional shares at a discount.

The plan is set to expire on April 14, 2023.

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This move grossly dilutes shareholder value, but the board falsely claims that they are protecting the interests of the shareholders. The board also claims [lies] that this sudden move has nothing to do with Musk. Other media is quick to defend this move, claiming that such poison pills are "common in public companies." While this statement might be generally true, such things are put into place early on as part of an anti-takeover strategy, they are not done in response to a specific tendered offer.

The article goes on to state that Twitter does not have an economically viable business model...that each additional customer represents incremental cost/loss (although this is not uncommon in the world of internet businesses.) This leads one to conclude that Twitter is solely there as a propaganda machine--not as a business--and that cash is flowing in from outside interests (U.S. government.) In light of this assertion, it causes one to understand Musk's motive in reducing the amount of advertising on the platform. Perhaps when he causes the revenue tide to go out, all of Twitter's stinky little fishes will be exposed on the beach for the world to see. Offering to buy the stock at such a huge [38%] premium might also be a preemptive to those claiming he's reducing ad revenue so as to drive down the value in order to get a bargain.

Another interesting sidebar is Musk has explicitly stated that he wants to buy the company in order to restore the platform's free speech principle. Section 230 of Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the Communications Decency Act) was put in place to protect online entities from liability for the posts of their users, even if such a post is illegal. So these social media claiming they are taking down users' "misinformation" posts are really just repressing opinions, since they have no legal exposure for such 3rd party postings, even if those posts violate law. Twitter has testified under oath before Congress that they are not doing this to repress Conservative opinion. Should Musk take over Twitter, he would have access to evidence that this is exactly what they are doing. So the board is not only concerned over their ability to continue to repress Conservative free speech, there is likely concern over their exposure from having perjured themselves to Congress. One has to wonder if the U.S. Government is also concerned over what Musk might uncover.

 

The problem is that lots of people do use them, and are subject to the platforms' propaganda. But you raise a good point...no one's motives are pure, and power does corrupt.

 

This is very true, @Hedi Mitchell , and it seems like no amount is ever enough for some people. The ridiculous part about it is how just about everything (every company) is owned by some multi-billionaire, and no one even pays any attention to that. Disney itself owns around 10+ companies, and Jeff Bezos, who was considered the richest man with Amazon, bought the Washington Post newspaper, and no one even cared or barely mentioned it .
But, Elon Musk makes an offer on another company, and half the country is ready to chase the guy out of town, and he is not doing anything different than any other rich billionaire does.

 

Twitter has long been referred to as “the battleground”, the place where conservatives can post information that might help someone liberal to look and have their eyes opened.
Many of the conservatives also belong to other social media, like Gab, Parler, or the new Truthsocial, and since there is not the same kind of censorship on those platforms, people copy and paste informative posts from there onto Twitter.

If you think of the whole thing as a “feeding the sheep” situation, then getting the good information from an uncensored platform is like going to the feed store and getting food to bring back and put out for the sheep to find , and hopefully, consume.