Elon Musk donated nearly $40K to Republican PAC, filings show - Polidicks

i'm sure we're going to see carbon tax and renewable energy subsidy legislation coming out of the republican house any day now :v it's not like they're far more inclined to subsidize and support his far more wealthy competitors, right?

Musk has donated because he has considerable dealings in the Space cost that were important to SpaceX. Don't expect some monumental stuff from his donations.

Doesn't mean we shouldn't call him out on it.

In the other thread you talked about Musk being a force for good and that his wrongdoings could ultimately be looked past since overall the work he's doing is important to preserving our environment. However, now he's shown supporting the very people who are most responsible for enabling people to destroy the environment in the first place. Is that really something we should turn a blind eye to?

Ever heard of SpaceX? It operates a significant portion of it's business out of Florida, and competes for government contracts, and had to push politicians a lot to even be allowed to compete for them.

He donates to both. If he has pay a small amount to make these things happen then that's the cost if doing business. It's not like he's helping Inihofe or whoever build snowballs. Hell he should probably buy out more Republicans so Texans can buy Tesla's.

You're putting me in a tough spot here Morgen. If the only reason he supports republicans is so he can secure launch contracts, then that must necessarily imply the success of SpaceX is more important than the possibility of complete inaction towards global warming; something that's an inevitable result of republican control of the country. So which is it? Is he lying about the importance he places on humanitarian concerns, or is he just too stupid to realize that republicans will never listen to him?

You know, to be perfectly honest, I think you're really overstating the work Tesla has done at this point. They've made electric vehicles more popular and brought a lot of attention to them, yes. That's very important for a sustainable future, for sure. But that hugely pales in comparison to the importance of getting people who don't believe in or don't care about climate change out of office, and enacting policies that help conserve our environment. Even if everyone bought an electric vehicle right now, we'd still be fucking up the environment; the mass majority of our energy is still produced via gas, oil, and coal. Sustainable green energy taking over cannot and will not be a reality until the movement gains enough political power to force it to happen. Electric vehicles are only one piece of the puzzle to saving our environment, and now here Elon Musk is donating to the people who are actively keeping the other puzzle pieces from being laid down. It's not acceptable.

You guys are acting like he's donating to Trump's 2020 campaign. Jeeze.

if it's nothing then how would it help him secure launch contracts :v

Not to mention donating "practically nothing" doesn't usually get you a spot in the Top 50 Donors.

btw the answer is this.

It's not about securing contracts. It's about getting equal time with legislatures and getting a footing for your company when it's Chief competition is a company that probably literally sucks the GOPs dick. Honestly I think $40,000 is wayyyy low for what we get. It's the cost of doing business.

At this point I'd honestly believe it. What better way to get people to buy your electric car than tricking people into thinking you're making a difference? Sick of Elon's PR bullshit, man.

We should've had electric cars and nuclear 50 years ago. Without Tesla we wouldn't have them now. I'm confident saying this is a fact. We are doomed but with Musk we are less doomed. $40,000 is nothing to secure the future. I'll pay that myself.

idk man if politics is pay to play and his competition pays more than him why do they continue to pay more than him when he continues to get contracts is musk using money printed on Dr. Who psychic paper or something

SpaceX getting contracts isn't as important as political change for climate conservation. This is business over ethics, plain and simple.

Yes exactly.

Elon Musk made a conscious decision to participate in that system and it's worth criticizing him over that. Even if everyone else does it.

https://twitter.com/SierraClub/status/1018319251428577280?s=19

Are we blaming the rat for having to traverse the maze to get the cheese now?

Are we less doomed? Even with everything Tesla has done, electric cars have barely made a dent compared to gas cars. Single models of gas vehicles (e.g. the Toyota Tacoma) still sell magnitudes more than all electric vehicles combined. Political change is way more important. Hell, with enough political power, you could you eventually stop the sale of gas powered vehicles and the production of dirty energy entirely. No single corporation can do that. The opinion of an organization on someone who gives them funding can't exactly be trusted as unbiased.

man I've already posted my tl;dr on why I still supports musk's business endeavors but you're trying to tell me that he found the magic amount of money that's just enough to bribe republicans to buy his rockets and just not enough to actually support them in their ongoing efforts to sabotage any attempt at dealing with climate change. I'm just not buying it dog. What it looks like to me is a guy with a lot of money casually handing out what is to him a pittance to the people directly aligned against both him and the world itself. And while I can understand how that could happen, that doesn't make it smart, and it doesn't make it defensible. What you're doing right now just sabotages your credibility. Why should people listen to you when you expound the virtues of what tesla does when we can all see you'll tie yourself into a pretzel trying to come up with excuses for the obviously indefensibly bad things he does?

EVs barely making a dent now is better than EV barely making a dent in 50 years because the Oil Moguls denyed entry to market until people were choking on exhaust fumes, is it not? Everyone will own an EV in 50 years. Better that than 100 years. Tesla is the Ford of electric cars. Even if it fails in 5 years it still planted the seed. Also it's the SIERRA CLUB If their word means nothing today then we are truly doomed.

You haven't really done anything to demonstrate to me that that's the case. I mean, your explanation contradicts even Musk's, who said it's for pushing "humanitarian concerns". Maybe musk is just politically illiterate, dude. It wouldn't exactly be a surprise. Not everyone is a genius about everything.

If a rich guy gives politicans money to grease the wheels for contracts it is not cancelled out by him supporting electric vehicles.

The problem is when those PR stunts convince people to give him a free pass when he turns around and treats his workers like shit or donates to people hell-bent on destroying the environment or when he starts saying stupid shit on Twitter every other day.

I'm saying it's the cost of doing business. Elon personally considers his businesses humanitarian efforts. Discussing humanitarian issues is also business. It's not hard to see.

I think an important distinction to make here is that SpaceX doesn't really contribute to environmentally preservation like Tesla does. If the cost of doing business for SpaceX means donating to people who enable destroying the environment, then that means he's putting business over the environment, and business over ethics. It's not the same as donating for Tesla to get ahead in order to get a net positive for the environment. It's completely unsurprising and I would expect no different, but that doesn't make it okay. But it's important not to pretend that Elon is dedicated to environmental preservation above all else. He is showing, here and now, that business comes first.

My uncle owns an oil company. He has business cards of congressmen on his kitchen table and has been to Obama's State of the Union Address. We can not play the game and let them walk over us like they have for decades or we can attempt to compete against Giants and try to get any edge we can where we can.