Emperor

A former Tesla executive says he agreed to take a job working remotely for the electric carmaker, which then almost immediately went back on its word and threatened to fire him if he didn’t relocate from his home in Southern California — allegedly prompting the recurrence of an agonizing medical condition and threatening his marriage.

In a lawsuit filed last month in state court and moved to federal court on Wednesday, compliance and operational risk specialist Mike Tully accuses Tesla of a heartless bait-and-switch after “being promised and assured” he wouldn’t be required to move. The Irvine resident only accepted the position because of this guarantee, which came via his new boss, Associate General Counsel Charles Lee, according to the previously unreported complaint.

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When they subsequently reneged on the pledge, Tully, whose wife threatened to divorce him if he insisted on uprooting her and their two children, felt “completely blindsided and misled by Tesla and its leadership team,” the complaint says.

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The stress of the situation exacerbated Tully’s Crohn’s and Irritable Bowel Disease, which had rarely acted up during his tenure at BofA, according to the complaint. Flareups were now becoming increasingly common, causing inflammation and intestinal blockage that led to septic attacks and toxic buildup in his system, and leaving Tully bedridden, in agonizing pain, for days on end, the complaint says.

Tumblr always suited me better than micro-blogging as there is no word count restriction (I can find brevity a problem) and you could have any number of blogs/channels for whatever topic was tickling your fancy at the time.

So I've been keeping an eye out for Fediverse alternatives, jotting down notes and now I'd like throw this open to the Hivemind. ~~And yes, Tumblr is now on ActivityPub, but I am not putting my time into corporate platforms again.~~ edit: oh no it isn't, that was the plan (as if December 2023) but there's been no updates since Tumblr moved to WordPress.

Added bonuses: markdown (or something similar), adding links to posts, quoting other posts and perhaps being able to login from another Fediverse service.

Here's a few I found:

• Goblin - It's a FireFish fork from a former Tumblr employee. Allows multiple accounts but they have to have a different email address, some markdown but not links. I've heard it suggested that most *key forks could be set-up as a Tumblr alternative
• Loforo: "Another surprise is that Loforo is the second most active ActivityPub blog platform in the Fediverse, behind only WordPress." Easy multiple blog creation, formatting in HTML. Unfortunately you can't create your own instance, last time I checked.
• micro.blog - not free, not open source
• Wafrn

Not listed as Tumblr equivalents but some of the general services are flexible enough to do this:

• Hubzilla - has channels but seems more a CMS. Nomadic identities is a great feature.
• Friendica - the BlueSky integration seems increasingly important and, with Meta's enshittification, it feels like a general social media service is a good idea. The way you can have the equivalent of Google+'s circles seems a good feature (while I am no fan of Facebook, Google+ worked well for me while it lasted). The main issue I see is you can only replicate channels with different accounts.

Any suggestions? Have I missed any key features from the above?

Meta is deleting links to Pixelfed, a decentralized Instagram competitor. On Facebook, the company is labeling links to Pixelfed.social as “spam” and deleting them immediately.

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Bluesky user AJ Sadauskas originally posted that links to Pixelfed were being deleted by Meta; 404 Media then also tried to post a link to Pixelfed on Facebook. It was immediately deleted.

Pixelfed is experiencing a surge in user signups in recent days, after Meta announced that it would loosen its rules to allow users to call LGBTQ+ people “mentally ill” amid a host of other changes that shift the company overtly to the right. Meta and Instagram have also leaned heavily into AI-generated content. Pixelfed announced earlier Monday that it is launching an iOS app later this week.

Pixelfed said Sunday it is “seeing unprecedented levels of traffic to pixelfed.social.”

“He is a truly evil guy, a very bad guy. I made it my personal thing to take this guy down,” Bannon added. “Before, because he put money in, I was prepared to tolerate it; I’m not prepared to tolerate it anymore.”

At the heart of the recent clash between Elon Musk and Steve Bannon is the immigration question, and specifically the H-1B visas for skilled immigrants working in “specialty occupations,” which Musk has said he supports. But for Bannon, the issue is emblematic of a bigger problem in Musk’s thinking.

“This thing of the H-1B visas, it’s about the entire immigration system is gamed by the tech overlords, they use it to their advantage, the people are furious,” Bannon said, noting that “76 percent of engineers working in Silicon Valley are non-Americans.”

“No blacks or Hispanics have any of these jobs or any access to these jobs,” Bannon said.

“Peter Thiel, David Sachs, Elon Musk, are all white South Africans,” Bannon observed. “He should go back to South Africa. Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

Archive

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/22559111

The Government's counter-extremism unit has been assessing the risk posed to Britain by tweets shared by Elon Musk in recent weeks, the Mirror understands.

The tech billionaire has been using his platform X/Twitter to launch a barrage of attacks on the Labour government over the grooming gangs scandal. It comes as extremism experts warn that the toxicity of social media could once again trigger violence on our streets.

The Mirror understands the Home Office has stepped up extra monitoring to assess content and the reach of what is being shared on social media site X, especially in relation to accounts with large followings - including Mr Musk's. The counterterrorism unit has been involved in content analysis and wider risk assessment.

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It is understood monitoring has been ramped up following Mr Musk’s vile attacks on safeguarding minister Jess Phillips. Ms Phillips has admitted Mr Musk - a key aide to Donald Trump - was "endangering" her after labelling her a "rape genocide apologist" and calling for her to be jailed. She has reportedly had close protection officers assigned to her and has been advised not to go out in public alone following the increased threats to her safety.

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Fears over Mr Musk’s interference in UK politics increased on Thursday after reports emerged that he was looking at ways to replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister. Sources told the Financial Times Mr Musk believes that “western civilisation itself is threatened” and is examining how he can destabilise the Labour government beyond his aggressive X posts.

Joe Mulhall, director of research at campaign group Hope not hate, said “clearly this is naked foreign interference” and that Mr Musk “comfortably sits within any definition of an extremist”. He told the Mirror: “He is an international extremist and if he wasn't a billionaire and he wasn't close to the Trump administration, I imagine, probably wouldn't even be allowed into the UK at the moment.

Meta’s HR team is deleting internal employee criticism of new board member, UFC president and CEO Dana White, at the same time that CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced to the world that Meta will “get back to our roots around free expression,” 404 Media has learned. Some employee posts questioning why criticism of White is being deleted are also being deleted.

Monday, Zuckerberg made a post on a platform for Meta employees called Workplace announcing that Meta is adding Dana White, John Elkann, and Charlie Songhurst to the company’s board of directors (Zuckerberg’s post on Workplace was identical to his public announcement). Employee response to this was mixed, according to screenshots of the thread obtained by 404 Media. Some posted positive or joking comments: “Major W,” one employee posted. “We hire Connor [McGregor] next for after work sparring?,” another said. “Joe Rogan may be next,” a third said. A fourth simply said “LOL.”

But other employees criticized the decision and raised the point that there is video of White slapping his wife in a nightclub; White was not arrested and was not suspended from UFC for the domestic violence incident. McGregor, one of the most famous UFC fighters of all time, was held liable for sexual assault and was ordered by a civil court to pay $260,000 to a woman who accused him of raping her in 2018. McGregor is appealing the decision.

“Kind of disheartening to see people in the comments celebrating a man who is on video assaulting his wife and another who was recently convicted of rape,” one employee commented, referring to White and McGregor. “I can kind of excuse individuals for being unaware, but Meta surely did their due diligence on White and concluded that what he did is fine. I feel like I’m on another planet,” another employee commented. “We have completely lost the plot,” a third said.

Several posts critical of White were deleted by Meta’s “Internal Community Relations team” as violating a set of rules called the “Community Engagement Expectations,” which govern internal employee communications.

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One employee posted “Why do critical comments of this announcement keep getting deleted?” “LOL my comment got CEE’d too. Good stuff,” a second posted. A third said “I think it’s particularly fascinating that none of the comments I have seen disappear contained any specifically prohibited content under the CEE and must have fallen under ‘disruptive content’ - and if any criticism of company decisions falls under the ‘disruptive content’ bucket, the future of the company is looking bleak.”

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One employee brought up this apparent disparity: “Given Zuck’s message this morning on decreasing content moderation on our platforms, is that also going to apply internally?”

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“Curious to know if we can expect a similar shift to ‘more speech’ in internal Workplace posts/groups,” another employee asked. “CEE is quite chilling,” another said. “Basically any large scope critical post I make gets at least one message from ICR [Internal Community Relations].”

Archive

Billionaire Trump associate Elon Musk’s latest disinformation campaign is targeting the U.K. government, which Musk appears to believe is not sufficiently anti-immigrant. Musk, who has already shaped the incoming Trump administration’s economic policy by proposing cuts to government spending and tech-oriented privatization of services, signifies a “new era” in American politics, says our guest Quinn Slobodian, who is chronicling right-wing tech billionaires’ accelerating attempts to mold the world according to their “destructive” and “nihilist” beliefs. In a far-reaching conversation, Slobodian touches on Musk’s clear admiration of authoritarian strongmen, market deregulation and white supremacist rhetoric.

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For more, we spend the rest of the hour with a person who’s documented the power of Big Tech billionaires and the new techs, specifically, among others, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. Quinn Slobodian is professor of international history at Boston University. His latest book is Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy. He’s written several pieces for The New Statesman on Elon Musk, including one headlined “Elon Musk’s death drive.” Slobodian also recently contributed to The New York Review of Books running symposium about the reelection of Donald Trump, “The Return of Trump—II.”

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QUINN SLOBODIAN: Yeah, it’s a pretty extraordinary situation to find ourselves in, right? I mean, if you think back to 2017, there was a lot of concern and attention to the efforts of Steve Bannon to create a kind of transatlantic coalition of far-right actors and parties. Imagine now here we are only a few years later, and there’s a Bannon-like figure but who also happens to be the wealthiest man in the world, overseeing some of the most profitable companies in the planet, who is leading that sort of effort to create a transatlantic coalition. So, the stakes are much, much higher. They are being dealt with with perhaps even less kind of care than someone like Bannon, which is an extraordinary thing to say. But Musk, I think, has entered this field of politics as a kind of scaled-up version of his video game play, with no real thought to the kind of consequences of the disruptive effects that he’s creating, from here to Britain to Germany and beyond.

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And I think that, you know, the kind of — the horizon of what the kind of politics in real life that someone like Musk is aiming at is broadcast by him frequently on his own Twitter account. Most recently, for example, he celebrated Nayib Bukele, the leader in El Salvador, as having done something that has happened in El Salvador and will happen and must happen in the United States, which, in El Salvador, has been to imprison 2% of the adult population as an absolutely draconian way of cracking down on crime. So, this vision of sort of authoritarian strongman on politics, sort of gloves-off mass incarceration crackdowns, on the one hand, and then a deregulatory kind of unleashing of the free market, on the other hand, is — produced this kind of curious combination of, on the one hand, Elon Musk posting Milton Friedman memes all the time, on the other hand, scaremongering about the, quote-unquote, “genocidal rape tactics” of nonwhite immigrants in the U.K. So, he’s produced this sort of surreal effect, I think, of sort of the strong state and the free market turning the sort of Thatcherist vision, grafting it onto all kinds of online aesthetics and kind of video game dynamics in ways that have really, I think, blindsided, for good reason, sort of mainstream, normal politicians, like Olaf Scholz, Keir Starmer, Biden-Harris, who don’t know how to deal with this kind of chaotic energy, which, unfortunately, has a huge amount of legitimacy behind it, not only his multimillion-dollar — or, multimillion number of followers on social media.

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AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something. I’m looking at a piece in the Financial Times. “Elon Musk lived in apartheid South Africa until he was 17. David Sacks, the venture capitalist who has become a fundraiser for Donald Trump and a troll [of] Ukraine, left aged five, and grew up in a South African diaspora family in Tennessee. Peter Thiel spent years of childhood in South Africa and Namibia, where his father was involved in uranium mining as part of the apartheid regime’s clandestine drive to acquire nuclear weapons. And Paul Furber, an obscure South African software developer and tech journalist living near Johannesburg, has been identified by two teams of forensic linguists as the originator of the QAnon conspiracy, which helped shape Trump’s Maga movement. (Furber denies being ‘Q’.) In short, four of Maga’s most influential voices are fiftysomething white men with formative experiences in apartheid South Africa.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/22379800

Since becoming a major force in American politics, Elon Musk has attacked the UK’s new Labour Government on multiple occasions through his social media platform X (formerly Twitter). He claimed civil war was “imminent” as riots swept across the country this summer. He has signal-boosted one of the riots’ instigators, the currently jailed convicted far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (known as ‘Tommy Robinson’). And he is now reportedly considering donating up to a $100 million to Reform UK Leader and MP Nigel Farage.

This all prompts the question: why does Musk suddenly care about what’s happening in Britain?

In my new book, published by Byline Books, Alt Reich: The Network War to Destroy Democracy From Within, I explain Musk’s pivotal role in the network behind Trump’s return and the forming of a new ‘techno-utopian fascism’ that merges corporate tech power with the state.

Musk and X are part of a broader network of billionaire oligarchs with questionable views on race, tech platforms, and far-right groups that are fed up with democracy as we know it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is an integral player in this network. And this has significant implications that the Western national security establishment ignores at everyone’s peril.

a 2022, credible reporting has suggested that Musk has engaged in multiple, direct, and secretive communications with Putin and other high-ranking Russian officials.

These interactions have encompassed discussions on personal issues, business interests, and geopolitics. At one point, Putin reportedly personally requested Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favour to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Musk apparently complied.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk has been in regular contact with Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, who holds enormous sway over the Kremlin’s war effort and control of Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.

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To undermine the US-centric world order, Dugin advocated fostering internal discord throughout Western democracies. This implies exploiting social, political, and ethnic divisions, in order to fragment and destabilise democracies from within.

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The second element involves targeting the UK, due to its role as a vital ally to America. The aim is to diminish Britain’s influence in Europe, and to undermine NATO and other Western alliances in which Britain plays a significant operational and leadership role.

The third element seeks to encourage divisions within the European Union and promote Eurosceptic nationalist movements – usually far-right, nativist movements – that challenge EU integration and liberal democracy.

For Dugin, ‘cultural warfare’ is a key mechanism to undermine liberalism and the ideological integrity of the Western world.

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Having inserted himself into the 2024 Presidential Elections on behalf of Trump, Elon Musk’s sudden desire to interfere in British politics, by backing Nigel Farage, seems entirely consistent with Dugin’s strategy to destabilise the West through targeting the US, the UK, and Europe.

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Stoking division, fighting culture wars, spreading disinformation, and sowing confusion through the weaponisation of the far-right are all part of this strategy.

Now Trump’s co-chair of the new US Department of Government Efficiency, Musk’s sudden interest in British politics aligns with Putin’s playbook.

“All I can say is that I’m in touch with him and he is very supportive of my policy positions”, Farage recently told The Times in relation to rumours of Musk donating to Reform. “We both share a friendship with Donald Trump and Trump has said good things about me in front of Musk. We’ve got a good relationship with him.”

He later told GB News: “What I do know is that Elon Musk is very supportive of me and what I’m trying to do, and he thinks that if Reform do well in the UK, we can bring about the same kind of change that he intends to do with Donald Trump in America.”

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Any financial interest or involvement of Elon Musk with Nigel Farage is likely to signal the scale of what could be coming to the UK in the years ahead. The forces behind Donald Trump’s 2024 victory see this as merely another step in a longer-term strategy to destabilise Western democracies. They will want to urgently exploit the advantage brought about by resurgent Trumpism. Britain will be next in line. Europe is the prize.

And the entire Western world is at stake.

Speaking to the German weekly Stern, Scholz described the criticisms as nothing new. “You have to stay cool,” he said in the interview. “As Social Democrats, we have long been used to the fact that there are rich media entrepreneurs who do not appreciate social democratic politics – and do not hide their opinions.”

He said he would make no efforts to engage with Musk, who has endorsed the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in next month’s federal elections and will host a live discussion on his social media platform X with its candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel. “I don’t believe in courting Mr Musk’s favour. I’m happy to leave that to others,” he said. “The rule is: don’t feed the troll.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/22329761

Elon Musk has said Reform UK needs a "new leader" because Nigel Farage "doesn't have what it takes".

The X owner posted the tweet on Sunday following days of headlines over his comments about the historical grooming scandal that took place across UK towns and cities more than a decade ago.

Although Mr Musk is in agreement with Mr Farage and the Conservatives that there should be another national inquiry, a dividing line has emerged between the tech billionaire and the Reform leader over the former's support for jailed activist Tommy Robinson.

Shortly after Musk's post, Mr Farage said: "Well, this is a surprise!

"Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree.

"My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles."

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His comments about Mr Farage will be embarrassing for Reform, who have been courting the billionaire and soon-to-be efficiency tsar of the incoming president-elect Donald Trump.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/22307245

Elon Musk continues flexing his political muscle in 2025, calling for the release of a controversial British far-right political figure and increasing his support for a German far-right party.

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The Tesla CEO then made a slew of controversial comments in support of German and British right-wing movements.

He said he might invest upwards of $127 million into the right-wing Reform U.K. Party and later said the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is the "only" party that can "save Germany," while rejecting the idea that the party is "rightwing extremist."

Musk wasted little time in the new year before he hit out at the British government, calling for the release of Tommy Robinson, a pseudonym for Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

Robinson was a member of the English Defence League, a British social movement that has been described as racist and Islamophobic. He is among the most prominent far-right activists in the U.K.

Robinson is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for contempt of court after he aired a documentary that a judge said contained libelous claims about a 15-year-old Syrian refugee. This is Robinson's fifth prison term.

Musk posted the full one hour and forty-five-minute documentary to X, formerly known as Twitter, along with a message to "Free Tommy Robinson!"

Politico spoke with a number of British members of parliament (MP) who expressed shock over Musk's backing of Robinson. One anonymous Labour MP called Musk's language "dangerous," while another called it "manipulative rhetoric."

Robinson has also drawn criticism from other right-wing activists and politicians.

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What People Are Saying

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss wrote on X: "I am appalled by the attacks on free speech in Britain and Europe. We can't be truly free without free speech. Good for Elon Musk and X for standing up to these bullies."

Alex Jones of "InfoWars" reposted the Robinson documentary and wrote on X: "Tommy Robinson is an absolute hero! He is now in solitary confinement for defying the courts orders not to release his film exposed a huge Islamic child kidnapping sex ring! The totalitarian UK government governments attempt to suppress Tommy's film has completely failed and now it has over 122 million views."

"Veep" creator Armando Iannucci, who was born and raised in Scotland, wrote on X: Musk is a "dangerous fool" for supporting Robinson.

Labour MP for Walthamstow Stella Creasy responded to Musk's support of Robinson on X, writing: "Tommy Robinson is in jail for contempt of court because he repeated false claims against a Syrian refugee. Its not a 'debate'. Its a lie and he tried to use it to foment anger and hatred in our society for political gain. Elon Musk appears to be doing the same."

Shayan Sardarizadeh, a senior journalist for BBC Verify, wrote on X: "The owner of this app seems unaware that Tommy Robinson is in prison because he admitted to contempt of court after repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee who had been physically attacked at school despite being instructed by a court not to do so."

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/20808219

Labour is considering capping political donations by individuals and private companies amid reports Elon Musk will hand a $100m donation to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

The Tesla tycoon is said to be plotting the £79m donation, which would be by far the largest in British electoral history, via the British arm of his social media firm X.

According to The Sunday Times, leading businessmen and Conservative Party officials believe Musk could hand over the cash as a “f*** you Starmer payment” in his ongoing feud with the prime minister.

It would give Mr Farage’s insurgent Reform a significant financial advantage over Labour and the Conservatives and be enough to fund a near-endless barrage of attack ads against the government.

But the government is considering recommendations in an upcoming report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank that would cap individual and corporate political donations at £100,000 a year.

The Guardian reported that officials have asked for more details on the proposals, though work is at an early stage and any changes would unlikely be made until late in the parliament.

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The potential donation cap comes as Mr Musk and Mr Farage grow increasingly close, with the Reform leader describing the billionaire Trump ally as “my new friend” last week.