If I have a child, and I don’t know if they are gay or transgender, am I a parent?
Here we go again. And again. Musk threatens to pull Twitter, SpaceX out of California
Elon Musk is threatening yet again to take his ball and go home, this time claiming he's going to move X and SpaceX from California to Texas because he's upset over a new state law designed to prevent teachers from being required to out LGBTQ students. California AB 1955 was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 17th July 2024 20:01 GMT MachDiamond
"If I have a child, and I don’t know if they are gay or transgender, am I a parent?"
If only The State knows, can parents send in an expense statement for reimbursement with regards to the cost of raising that child? What will Gavin sign next, a bill that states that grades are confidential between the teacher and the student and parents don't have a "right to know" how well their children are doing?
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Wednesday 17th July 2024 22:02 GMT Michael Strorm
whaaaaargaaaaarbl
> can parents send in an expense statement for reimbursement with regards to the cost of raising that child?
Well yeah, they can certainly do that if they like.
So long as they don't mind getting laughed at or receiving a reply "helpfully" informing them that some asshole is signing their name to stupid letters!
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Thursday 18th July 2024 14:04 GMT anothercynic
Re: Boris Johnson on the other hand ...
That's only part of the story. Apparently he didn't know that he was considered a US citizen, given that both his parents are British and he was registered as a British citizen. However, US citizenship rules (as any fool no) are such that if you're born on US soil, you automatically have/acquire/are eligible for US citizenship. This only became an issue when post-9/11 he travelled to the US on a UK passport (as you do when you're British and consider yourself British), and the US border authorities noticed that his birth place was "New York". He had to explain that he was born in the US, which then triggered a long lecture on how he was a US citizen and US citizens are required to enter the US with a US passport and given he didn't have one, he was required to obtain one. That of course also led to the US IRS to take an interest... long story short: He went off to have his citizenship renounced.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 16:21 GMT A.P. Veening
Re: Boris Johnson on the other hand ...
Not knowing you are considered a US citizen has become something of a problem for lots of Dutch people in the recent years. Some of them were born there because their parents had to be there for some time because of their job(s), some inherited their US citizenship from a parent. And all complain about the IRS and the problems with getting rid of that which enriched them not.
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Friday 19th July 2024 07:40 GMT The Man Who Fell To Earth
Re: Starbase, Texas
Well remember, Musk's vision of Mars colonization is not as a democracy, but as a feudal system with him as King. A place that makes China and Russia look like liberal democracies. None of that human rights crap, free speech & with everything owned by Musk. Especially the air the colonists breath. Imagine how layoffs will work.
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Wednesday 17th July 2024 20:47 GMT Howard Sway
The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
He appears bemused that the public aren't all lining the streets cheering on the mega-rich bigmouth demanding that the world is run entirely for the purpose of solving his own petty personal grievances. He'll never realise that he's just building himself an ever bigger reputation as the ultimate example of a rich spoilt brat who squeals whenever he doesn't get every single thing he wants.
His main contribution to the world will be to remembered as a cautionary tale of why you should never just surround yourself with sycophants.
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Wednesday 17th July 2024 21:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
Restoring free speech to twitter and revealing the collusion between the big tech companies, media and the state in the Twitter Files were epic wins.
The fact he went from the darling of liberals everywhere, with Tesla, to their enemy number one, is just the icing on the cake!
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Wednesday 17th July 2024 21:55 GMT Andy 73
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
I'd be interested why you think the famously thin skinned one has restored free speech anywhere, when he is notoriously controlling on what can be said through any of the work places and platforms he runs.
The evidence seems to disagree with you. The fact he released information that conveniently damaged his enemies doesn't make it free speech, does it?
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Wednesday 17th July 2024 22:03 GMT cornetman
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
> I'd be interested why you think the famously thin skinned one has restored free speech anywhere, when he is notoriously controlling on what can be said through any of the work places and platforms he runs.
I support free speech, but if you come into my house and call my wife a whore, then you are going to get punched and kicked out of the door.
It is possible to support the ideal of free speech, generally, yet not tolerate the deliberate insulting or myself and my family. You might say that I'm a hypocrite, but I say that intent is actually quite important.
If you own a company and an employee defames that company, then said employee can expect not to work there for much longer. That's because employees have agreements that arbitrate what is acceptable between said parties. They're not always equitable but if you work with the devil, you expect to potentially get burned.
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Wednesday 17th July 2024 22:15 GMT Andy 73
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
> I support free speech, but....
No, you don't support free speech then, do you? The word 'but' pretty much negates anything you go on to say. You explicitly threaten violence if someone says something you don't like.
Just to remind you, Musk has claimed not just to be in favour of free speech, but to be a "Free Speech Absolutist", whatever that particular brain-fart is meant to mean. If you believe that, then I have a flight to Mars to sell you.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 09:35 GMT Andy 73
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
> Free speech does not mean you can avoid the consequences of unwise comments.
Note that I didn't claim it should.
If you threaten violence or actively prevent someone saying something you do not like, then you are not supporting free speech. You are making it conditional.
Otherwise we could claim that Russia supports free speech - it just happens to lock people up for life if they say the wrong thing. But that's ok, because it's just the consequence of unwise comments, eh?
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Thursday 18th July 2024 16:40 GMT A.P. Veening
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
If you threaten violence or actively prevent someone saying something you do not like, then you are not supporting free speech. You are making it conditional.
Freedom of speech is always conditional in any civilized society. Insults and slander/libel are punishable by law. Your freedom ends where it impinges upon mine. If you can't accept that, I am free to take whatever measures are necessary to teach you that.
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Monday 22nd July 2024 14:34 GMT werdsmith
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
Free speech does not mean you can avoid the consequences of unwise comments
In fact, punching and kicking someone out of the door for merely speaking hurty words would land a person on assault charges, but the verbal assailant would escape without further consequence as long as they didn't utter anything considered to be "hate speech" e.g. racist.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 10:07 GMT The Dogs Meevonks
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
" free speech absolutist " means that he and he alone should be allowed to say and do anything he wants free from any consequences... any anyone who disagrees (especially on his own platform) is to be silenced, censored and/or banned because how dare anyone say anything contrary to what he does.
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Wednesday 17th July 2024 22:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Oi! Edmonds! *NO*!
> if you come into my house and call my wife a whore, then you are going to get punched and kicked out of the door
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Thursday 18th July 2024 08:02 GMT Flocke Kroes
Re: hypocracy
Back when Twitter was not owned by a free speech absolutist Twitter kicked Trump off because he hindered there ability to sell adverts. (People were boycotting products advertised on Twitter because Twitter had not banned Trump.) I supported the ban on the grounds of free speech. Twitter had the right to decide if they wanted Trump on their site or not. RWNJs objected strenuously. They argued that Twitter was not a publicly traded company in business to make a profit for their shareholders but was actually a public forum for anyone to publish their ideas. I asked them if they supported my free speech right to paste "Vote Hillary" posters on their homes.
Here you are making the exact same argument. Musk bought Twitter so it is now his right to promote transphobic and homophobic content on his site. It is my right to boycott any product advertised on X and advertisers can make up their own minds.
Musk fought hard for my legal right to call you "paedo guy". If you respond with violence that will get you into legal trouble.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 10:12 GMT Cruachan
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
"Restoring free speech to twitter"
Yeah, unless you disagree with him. The only difference between Musk and the idiots on GB News complaining about being "deplatformed" was that Musk is rich enough and arrogant enough to buy the platform.
As usual too, almost all Musk defenders in this thread are ACs. Wonder why that is?
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Thursday 18th July 2024 15:26 GMT Crypts Bloods
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
"Restoring free speech"? You know twitter is a private company right? As a private company they have the right to make and enforce rules. That is how a company exercises its "Free Speech"
"Collusion"? You mean government agencies abiding by the rules and politely asking for false misinformation to be removed and the company voluntarily granting SOME of the requests?
The 1st amendment deals with GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP. It does not apply here. There was never any free speech issues.
Please learn how government works.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 15:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: The ultra-rich boy who cried wolf
"You mean government agencies..."
"The 1st amendment deals with GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP"
So you admit it DOES apply here!
And the requests were not always polite, coupled with requests to remove posts/users who were being critical of the govt and the revolving door from big tech to govt to big tech again and wanting to make sure that you had a cushy job to go to.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 03:46 GMT Bebu
Woke Mind Virus
new to me - is it a cross between the common garden variety earworm and ebola? ;)
Or am I confusing it with Wannabe Musk Virus?
there had been two attempts in Texas to murder him [Musk] in the past eight months.
I suspect a lot of problems might be solved if any prospective firearm purchasers were required a to demonstrate a certain profficiency in hitting a target with their chosen weapon. Probably save quite a few innocent(ish) lives.
I was wondering if it were possible to contract septicemia from a nicked ear lobe or is that too much to pray for?
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Thursday 18th July 2024 08:11 GMT Flocke Kroes
Re: Musk for VP
The primary qualification for VP is someone so awful that no-one would assassinate the president because the replacement would be worse. If Musk could legally be president he would be well qualified. I thought a suitable candidate to be Trump's VP would be hard to find but it turns out all the Republicans had to do was ask Putin to recommend someone.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 16:30 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: Musk for VP
Vance was an obvious pick for the party. Appeals to blue-collar and social-reactionary voters, lends some gravitas and intelligence to the ticket.
Noem sank her own ship by both lying (e.g. about meeting Kim) and telling the truth (about shooting puppies) in her idiotic autobiography. The main stratum of Trumpists in the House — folks like MTG and Boebert — are just too stupid, crazy, and loud to be good VP choices.
I can't abide Vance myself, but if I were a Republican strategist, he's precisely whom I'd pick. Tim Scott must be feeling pretty low, though, after all the effort he put into abasing himself and licking Trump's boots.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 09:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Business suicide
I get it if a new tax system was unfavourable to your business and the cost of moving it elsewhere would yield savings over X number of years.
But moving your company because your current location has made a change to a non-business law like this?
Thats just insane.
Hope the shareholders are happy with the turmoil and cost thats going to create for litterally no financial advantage.
Presumably in that process they will shed a load of experienced staff, because no move of work location will be followed by everyone. Unless of course all of his employees are brainwashed cultists...
He just seems to think his position gives him some private plaything.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 11:35 GMT sev.monster
Re: Business suicide
That's exactly the issue. Elon is an emotional hothead that seems to forget that the company he founded is no longer solely his. He has shareholders, sub brands, sister/daughter companies, and other business partners with considerable stake that have vested interest in every poor decision he makes.
His darling Tesla and SpaceX would be substantially more profitable without his inane decisions, which is why the board allowing him to continue doing this nonsense and even receive pay packages for it is even more baffling.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 12:34 GMT Andy 73
Re: Business suicide
The thing is, his companies are severely over-valued by normal metrics. That is down to his ability to bring investors on with a vision of "jam tomorrow", offering world-changing ideas that are just around the corner, honest.
If he were not the head of Tesla, its valuation would plummet. The same is true of SpaceX, Solar City and a lot of his other enterprises. Without his public persona, the dysfunctional and sometimes unprofitable state of those businesses would dominate their valuations.
So, for the moment most of his investors, and most senior management with stock options desperately need him to stay on. Many personal fortunes depend on Musk continuing to claim that any day now he's going to land on Mars, solve self-driving and end world hunger (though I gather that's dropped off his to-do list, he's a busy guy).
Yes, the businesses themselves would probably perform better without his mercurial and childish whims, but the stock would still tank. That means he's got them by the balls. There is not a single C-level executive who would dare oppose him and loose their retirement fund.
Should it all collapse, we will suddenly get a lot of stories about how they knew it all wouldn't work, but couldn't get him to listen...
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Friday 19th July 2024 12:40 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Business suicide
"If he were not the head of Tesla, its valuation would plummet. "
Yes, likely, but they would also finally settle to a valuation that's more in-line with the worth of the companies and trade based on real, quantifiable metrics. Dreams and promises augmented with slick CGI isn't a basis for buying stock in a company that sells a tangible product.
The air may come whooshing out at a nervous cough with all of Elon's enterprises which may also have a very bad domino effect. As to senior management needing the mumbling one to stay on, many have left before they'd qualify for stock or before what they have vests. I expect that Linda finally hit her limit at Xitter. Gwen has grown a armor shell and may realize that she doesn't have a lot of options if she were to leave SpaceX other than retire filthy rich.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 12:22 GMT Cliffwilliams44
Re: Business suicide
Because rewarding these people when they do these utterly insane, idiotic things only encourages them to do more. Until California feels the serious pain from the nutty things they do, it will never change.
Business Suicide? Hardly, He will effectively cut his tax burden by 40% and give everyone who relocates to Texas a raise without spending a cent. Texas has no income tax and a significantly lower cost of living.
Although Austin isn't much better than San Fransisco when it's all said and done.
(Though none of you morons will see this, because your heads are shoved so far up your little demoralized Marxist asses you can't even see the world around you!)
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Thursday 18th July 2024 14:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Business suicide
Hey Cliff, OP here.
So why not say "and it will be much better value for the shareholders" - you know, like any person who was in charge of a big company and not unhinged...
And I don't know about you, but I live and work where I do because its where I want to be, not just because its cheap. In fact, cheap usually means "worse" - if it wasn't everyone would live there.
Why haven't you moved to some "low tax regime" like Somalia. No, you don't need to answer that.
BTW what is "Marxist" about pointing out how a profit making (lol) business is making an unforced financial error.... If I was a Marxist I'd be cheering them on as they fail into oblivion...
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Thursday 18th July 2024 15:30 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Business suicide
Texas games league tables by having low income tax but they recover those losses by having very high property taxes. Texas was in the top 5 for high property taxes last time I looked. Musk may not care about that but his staff (those he may wish to retain and those he may wish to attract) will.
I wonder if relocating engineering from Texas back to California had something to do with the ability to get staff.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 13:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Business suicide
There used to be this thing that the Financial Times dubbed the "Tesla Financial Complex". In short, because Tesla shares were rising so steadily with great yields it more or less forced large investors that had to beat The Index to buy Tesla shares too. Even if they would otherwise not invest in automotive, tech or shares that have big red "I am overvalued" klaxons going off 24/7. That's how serious institutional investors that do thorough due diligence, such as pension funds, got to hold Tesla stock.
There have been signs that the Tesla Financial Complex is no more as some big players are taking a step back. I suspect the recent CEO compensation drama (where the big institutional investors were largely against but the smaller individual shareholders were largely in favor) will have pushed more towards selling. I also suspect that a move of these two companies from CA to TX (if that move ever really happens) for this peculiar reason will alienate even more serious investors.
TSLA is on its way to becoming a meme stock, largely held by individuals and more susceptible to hype and
vague promises based on children's science fiction storiesvisionary comments by Musk himself, less susceptible to underlying performance of the company. -
Thursday 18th July 2024 20:56 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Business suicide
"But moving your company because your current location has made a change to a non-business law like this?"
Changing your registered business address is pretty easy, cheap and non-disruptive. It may or may not have tax implications either for or against depending on the old and new jurisdictions. Actually physically moving the HQ admin function is something that may or may not happen and isn't required. And anyway, as far as SpaceX is concerned, they are close to finishing a huge new office complex at Boca Chica that's been in the offing for over a year now, so moving the HQ to there, lock stock and barrel has quite possibly been the plan for quite some while now. Moving Xitters HQ admin functions might be a more complex kettle of fish. I suppose it depends on how much of the critical staff are willing to relocate and/or if they can be easily replaced by locals or people prepared to live in the arse end of no where :-)
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Wednesday 24th July 2024 02:03 GMT MachDiamond
Re: Business suicide
"as far as SpaceX is concerned, they are close to finishing a huge new office complex at Boca Chica that's been in the offing for over a year now"
Pull up Google Maps and see where Boca Chica is, what's nearby and would you want to move there? If your kids aren't fluent in Spanish, they might have trouble in school.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 10:30 GMT Andy 73
Moderation
Praise to the moderators here, who took a rather emotive post out of the forum.
Personally, I would have kept it, since the responses and voting made it clear that the views being expressed were - at best - in the minority.
The conversation remained pretty civilised too, but it's understandable that sometimes moderation is necessary.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 12:18 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Moderation
> The conversation remained pretty civilised too, but it's understandable that sometimes moderation is necessary.
Given the kind of language used over on John Oliver, my comment was pretty moderate.
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Friday 19th July 2024 16:35 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: "I've made many overtures...but she doesn't want to spend time with me."
Sorry, it's a bit of a nebulous term. I used "young adult" to emphasise the age, ie not a very young child or early teen. "Child" in most jurisdictions is a legal definition, usually limited to 18 years after which one is an "adult". "Young adult" may have not been the best term to use since you quite likely have a different definition or age range in mind than I do.
In the case of Musks child, I gather the child is now 20 and "came out" aged 18 and did the legal stuff to switch gender and "divorce" Musk as an adult, so not legally a child anyway.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 14:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Government kids
I dont' give a rats ares about musk, but family yeah. So the government says it is a better parent that parents because the gov will let kids be whatever the child thinks or are convinced they are. Comprehension skills grow with age, the lack of communication (government blocking parents awareness of children) is not good for anyone. Kids need guidance, not from government employees, but from parents that care about their well being. It is wrong to remove parents from their role.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 16:30 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: Government kids
AB 1955 does not "remove parents from their role". The role of parents remains exactly the same: work to communicate with, understand, and raise their children. AB 1955 just removes a bit of surveillance-state support for lazy, incompetent parents, by preventing the busybodies and martinets who run local school boards from forcing teachers to be spies for them.
Try applying some critical thinking next time.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 16:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
This Isn't Typical El Reg Snark...
Sad to read the open hatred for Elon in this article.
While your typical "El Reg Snark" is a large part of what draws many (including me) to your site, this was straight-up hatred disguised as.... well... I guess not disguised at all, really.
You don't have to like, and certainly don't have to agree with, Elon. But open hatred is unbecoming of a (normally) beautifully-sardonic, highbrow outlet such as yourselves.
You didnt mock, you attacked. You didn't contrast, you labeled.
This article isn't up to your wonderfully-twisted "standards". Please ask ClaudeAI to rewrite it using its standard pre-biased, left-leaning. pro-woke/pro-DEI training. (Oh, and ask it to replace all the hyphens in my comment with d**ks.)
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Thursday 18th July 2024 16:26 GMT Andy 73
Re: This Isn't Typical El Reg Snark...
There is a point where a pattern of behaviour goes beyond needing gentle mocking to outright criticism.
Sure, we can disagree where exactly that point is, but moving three multi-billion dollar companies because you don't like a law that is absolutely irrelevant to their operation is... quite something.
And at least in the UK, we get quite critical when people mix politics and business.
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Friday 19th July 2024 12:37 GMT PTW
Re: This Isn't Typical El Reg Snark...
These days it's not "the woke mind virus", it's simply "dog whistle retardation" on the left, and the right, el Reg used to be so much better than this.
I used to love a healthy debate, these days it just descends to people threatening violence/spewing hate. Which to me, is a sure sign that your argument doesn't hold water.
You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into, and by reason, I mean looked at the data, from numerous sources.
Beer, cos it's Friday, and I don't have to deal with CrowdStrike. Have a good weekend whatever your political persuasion
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Thursday 18th July 2024 16:05 GMT martinusher
Corporate doth not a company make
A lot of America is enjoying a long, hot, summer -- too damn hot, in fact, and Texas is one of the states that's really enjoying itself in the heat and humidity along with the slow repair of electrical infrastructure damaged by Beryl. California, OTOH -- at least the coastal bit -- is enjoying quite decent weather. Summer, certainly, but decent temperatures and levels of humidity. Its why so many people want to live here -- which is why housing is so damned expensive.
Musk, like other corporate leadership types, is rich enough to live anywhere and everywhere. Most of us just settle in one community and the fact is that once you're settled in somewhere like California then its going to take rather more than a few dumb pronouns (and yes, sorry, the whole pronoun thing is dumb IMHO) to get me to move. Especially to some hick Red state where the leadership is obsessed with trying to stop people from doing and thinking things that deviate from their own narrow minded view of humanity. Obviously if I'm broke -- drowning in debt -- then there is an incentive to move and cut costs but what you'll save on housing will get lost on utilities, clothing, indirect taxes (places like Texas get their money through 'fees' -- look it up). So if I was working in Hawthorne for SpaceX and the company decided to move me to Texas -- well, it would either have to come up with serious money or I'd regrettably have to part ways with them.
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Thursday 18th July 2024 16:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Corporate doth not a company make
"where the leadership is obsessed with trying to stop people from doing and thinking things that deviate from their own narrow minded view of humanity"
Do you not think that this is also happening in the blue states? For example the utterly failed decriminalisation of drugs in Oregon? Or the approach to homelessness in CA?
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