• darvocet@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    Imagine if you will, Elon writing a check to twitter so they have the funds to cover all of his mistakes.

    • bighi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s the US. If there is a country that hates its citizens more than this one, I haven’t heard of it yet.

      Any time they can take things from you and give it to companies, they will.

      So it shouldn’t really be a surprise.

      But if you forget to pay $1 to a company, all hell breaks loose.

      • whatsarefoogee@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s the US. If there is a country that hates its citizens more than this one, I haven’t heard of it yet.

        Russia has been in the news cycle for over a year because of the war they started.

        They imprison anyone critical of the government or the war. They imprisoned a man and deprived him of his fatherly rights because his daughter made an anti-war drawing at school.

        They conscript men from poor ethnic regions by offering them a salary that’s 10x of their current one. Then they send them to the front with no training or equipment to be cannon fodder.

        They are stealing from the pension fund to support their war, which will have catastrophic consequences for the elderly population in the future.

        I mean shit. Have you never heard of North Korea?

        I guess none of that counts. US bad.

        • crastoman@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Yeah but it’s too easy to compare with non-democratic countries and regimes. You know from the start they are not fair to citizen.

          You should compare with the best (if any) not the worst.

        • ℓostme@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Russia has been in the news cycle for over a year because of the war they started.

          The US isn’t much of a peace-loving hippie country either.

          And even with corrupt, oppressive and consistently shit in general government Russia seems to have better worker rights than the US.

          On the topic of the post, the employers in the US can terminate anyone for any reason as long as it doesn’t break anti-discrimination or anti-retaliation laws, and do so without any severance pay, unless it is specified in the contract. Source

          In contrast, the employers in Russia can terminate workers only on grounds stated in the federal laws. And in case of redundancy the employer has to offer suitable alternative employment, pay severance pay equal to a monthly wage and then keep paying salary for up to three months while former employee is searching for a job. Source

          On an another egregious note, in the US paid leave is up to the employer to offer once again, whereas Russia mandates 28 paid vacation days annually and 14 days of national holidays (which are also paid). Wikipedia link

          While there isn’t much info on North Korea, the US is doing barely more than nothing in terms of worker protection, so, as fucked up as it sounds, North Korea being better in that aspect is within the realms of possibility. Either way, be it “the worst” or “second worst, just after North Korea”, it is mind-boggling how a rich and developed country can be so shit that you have to look at the very bottom of the barrel to find something worse.

          In conclusion, US bad.

      • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They ought to rename “US citizens” to “US consumers” or “US production units”, then they wouldn’t have to sue all the time.

    • jivandabeast@lemmy.browntown.dev
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      1 year ago

      Do you want the real answer? Its because workers rights in this country have been slowly eroding over the last 70 years. So now we’ve ended up in a situation where everyone keeps their head down and does as their told because they have no power to do anything about it.

      Then the companies pay millions to prevent unions by telling us that unions are worthless. But if unions are worthless, why are they spending millions to prevent them …?

    • moistclump@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Agreed. Unfortunately, recently fired people are vulnerable and tired, and in financially precarious situations. Does anyone know who’s pursuing this, if it would cover everyone who wasn’t paid, and what happens if Twitter doesn’t follow through?

  • Tygr@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I think we’ve established that Elon, in fact, cannot run Twitter better if he owned it.

    • flipht@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Not so much at the moment.

      He borrowed 44 bn to buy Twitter and has a 1.5 bn payment coming up.

      He is of course more liquid than any of us, but the fact that he keeps not paying various bills seems to indicate that he’s having cash flow problems and is having to scrounge for his loan payment.

      This is just one of many multi million dollar payments that musk and/or Twitter are fighting.

      • markr@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Eh. He can sell his tesla stock anytime he wants cash, he just would have to pay taxes on it and instead would likely borrow against it. Oh the sad pitiful life of our beleaguered oligarchs.

        • fuck reddit@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          At least in Russia you have to be Russian or a closely affiliated state to attain that level of influence

      • SeaOtter@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        He did not borrow 44 billion to buy Twitter.

        He put about ~13 billion dollars of debt on Twitter itself, so he had to come up with about 31 billion in equity. He was able to secure third party equity commitments of around 7 billion (Larry Ellison, the Saudis, etc.). He also held a minority interest of about 4 billion in Twitter. He funded the remaining 20 odd billion with a combination of cash (from cash holdings and selling Tesla shares in early 2022) and equity margin loans on his remaining Tesla shares. It is understood that he likely paid off most of his margin loans as he continued to sell further Tesla shares in late 2022.

        The 1.5 billion interest expense you mention is just for the bank debt (that the banks still hold, and have been unable to sell), and is Twitter’s responsibility, not Elon’s.

        This is a long way of saying that I think the banks will own Twitter within 6-12 months. They will not roll over like landlords, and its far more clear cut for a missed loan payment.