Musk Is Cancelling Multi-Billion Verizon Contract and Giving it to... Himself

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1 year ago 02/28/2025 10:06am EST

re: high school xc coach

high school xc coach wrote:
Also, I think Musk is less interested in money than some people think. Money just represents power to people like him. With twitter, he knew was a bad deal moneteraily, but the power he gained through controlling twitter was more valuable to him than the money it cost.
This isn't a power play, imo. Nobody will even remember or think about it 1 year from now. starlink is just better. Companies like verizon fail over and over and over again with stuff like this.

Money IS power. This is America where giving $250M to a campaign is somehow not seen as a bribe. These people (no different than the mafia) expect a return on their investment - they are not donating out of the goodness of their heart. Why Americans do NOT see this is absolutely mind-boggling. This is the society/country of the bribe - which rules over ideology and morality. Yet only Americans are blind to this transgression. Another reason why Canada doesn't want to become the 51st State - the other 50 are corrupt, by design. The whole electoral process is corrupt. If you do NOT have access to money or are backed by money, then you cannot ascend to a high level - even great politicians (even if I don't agree with his politics) like Bernie Sanders. Sadly, it is only getting worse and not better. Trump is for sale - he could not have made that any clearer in his first term, and is even worse now. Stop making excuses for this, simply to own the Libs. I think the SC is for sale from what I can see - that is an even more dangerous slippery slope.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 10:16am EST

re: do you even get it?

Some laws in the US are really dumb and the requirement that the President was born in the US is super dumb. Elon did what he had to do to be president. I'm actually surprised that it "only" cost 250 mil. I'm sure Elin will get that back on Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink contracts.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 10:32am EST

re: Runtothelight

Runtothelight wrote:
...Trump and Musk froze $500 million in food aid - bought from US farmers - to Africa. It is now rotting on the docks. You know who is moving it to replace it? China. And in return China will get more access to the people and governments of those countries. Those countries will look to China for investment in their mines, their factories, their ports, etc. Those countries will look to China as allies for new reciprocal trade deals. Those people's best and brightest will go to China for graduate school instead of the US. Google, and yes Tesla and Space X and thousands of other US companies were started by immigrants who came to America to study, and stayed. Now China will get the next Google. And finally this money supplements our influence WITHOUT spending money for troops or bombs or putting troops on the ground. You can make a legitmate arguement that USAID does more to exert US influence around the world than the US Military. We NEED that influence unless Trump and Musk want to further cede power to Russia and China and make the US a backwater country uninterested in the rest of the world.

Kudos for explaining so eloquently what just really happened while other people buy into the $50M for condoms distractions. By essentially shutting down USAID, the US has now ceded the African continent to China, whose Foreign Direct Investment already dwarfs the US investment enormously. If the financial investment and loss of influence via boots on the ground performing humanitarian duties aren't enough, the US also announced it will be shuttering its AFRICOM operations and handing them off to other military commands outside of the region. This was one of the key bulwarks against the growing networks of terrorists in the Saharan region of the continent, as well as a key deterrent to shenanigans by our global rivals. All hail Beijing, I guess - that's what Elon is implicitly stating with all of his actions (gotta ensure that Tesla sells some cars within China until BYD and the other Chinese national automakers finish their marketing to 'Buy Chinese' and Teslas end up as popular as GM's cars over there* - they've gone from 4.2M cars in 2017 to less than 2M in 2024 and will decline even further in 2025).

theguardian.com

GM to write down value of China business by more than $5bn

Guardian staff and agencies

Automaker is restructuring in China after losing about $350m in the region in the first three quarters of this year

Open link

oh sh*t if a boomer hs coach thinks so, it must be true wrote:
high school xc coach wrote:
There is zero chance that starlink won't be far better than Verizon for this.
Can you please share some technical details about why you think that?

Cause Elon is so cool and amazing at video games.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 10:48am EST

re: LetsRunSpecial

LetsRunSpecial wrote:
Enough swamp already? wrote:
Ha, ha his $250 million in donations are already paying off big time.
He never donated one penny in his lifetime. The $250 million he spent during the campaign season is an all or nothing investment. He took in a sizable return because he risked of getting zero or even negative returns if he’d lost the bet.

But that Big Bang episode!!!!!! Time = Money, doesn't it?

1 year ago 02/28/2025 10:59am EST

re: Ending Corruption

ok, here's the upshot. where does a necessary ATC upgrade fall under "waste, fraud, or abuse?"

exactly.

setting aside DOGE is unauthorized, and impoundment and line item veto are illegal......

this is asking a student in a class graded on a curve to grade class papers, his, his classmates', when only one student gets the top grade and the goldstar.

you don't get to evaluate your competition. you don't get to award yourself contracts. even if verizon was messing up -- and we've not heard word 1 how -- we redo the technological evaluations and bidding. this is like my nephew who used to interrupt extended family board games, point at someone, and say, "you're disqualified, i win!"

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:04am EST

re: Birds of a feather

Birds of a feather wrote:
rojo wrote:
Considering I've been on the phone for 9 straight days trying to get xfinity to fix a downed line on my proprerty which is a major safety hazard, I have a hard time believing that switching away from the bloated legacy internet providers will be bad for the country. Those companies have had a monopoly for decades and their service reflects that.
I know comcast/xfinity isn't the same as verizon but i doubt it's much different. The lady told me today that there recods indicated that they've already been to my property 3 times to fix the problem and the technicians reported they were here at least 40 minutes each time. I told her, "That's a lie. The job would take 10 minutes. Plus I have a video camera in my back yard. They (contractors) weren't here at all and just told you that so they could bill you."
All of that being said, if the govt wants to switch to starlink, the proper protocols should be followed. We shouldn't just be switching large contracts to supporters of the president in power. That being said, I think Starlink is brilliant.
During the last administration, I saw the gov twas going to spend $42 billion to provide rural broadband, I thought "That makes no sense. Just buy everyone a starlink terminal."
You may recall Verizon was recently hacked which brought down their entire network for almost a day.

you want me to go down the list of starlink hacks, including the russians using it?

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:10am EST

re: Veee Eyee Teee

Starlink is really slow for what it is. 100mpbs is nothing at this point.

I assume they're trying to build high-speed backbones between airports or regional centers of some kind or another. Doing that by satellite is stupid.

Fiber is not expensive and is a far better choice for this sort of thing than any wireless solution.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:14am EST

re: FinnJ92

FinnJ92 wrote:
This is very interesting! The so called socialist countries care more about free competition than the so called capitalistic country US.
In the so called socialist countries they want hard work to pay, and a government that doesn't control it all. In the US the government now rules it all

we held the competition already. presumably issued an RFP, received presentations, evaluated the tech, the bid's already been awarded.

as i understand it, verizon was setting up skyward, skyward is a competitor to starlink, and this is starlink's executive using his government position to attack the contract with verizon/skyward.

it's like if boeing could buy a government role and say, no, we're canceling competing planes and rockets. "something's wrong with them."

we've basically run fast first into (and splatted backwards from) the conflict of interest issue. you see now where merely announcing your conflict is insufficient, particularly if we lack checks and balances and congress voting. you need to recuse.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:14am EST

re: rojo

rojo wrote:
Considering I've been on the phone for 9 straight days trying to get xfinity to fix a downed line on my proprerty which is a major safety hazard, I have a hard time believing that switching away from the bloated legacy internet providers will be bad for the country. Those companies have had a monopoly for decades and their service reflects that.
I know comcast/xfinity isn't the same as verizon but i doubt it's much different. The lady told me today that there recods indicated that they've already been to my property 3 times to fix the problem and the technicians reported they were here at least 40 minutes each time. I told her, "That's a lie. The job would take 10 minutes. Plus I have a video camera in my back yard. They (contractors) weren't here at all and just told you that so they could bill you."
All of that being said, if the govt wants to switch to starlink, the proper protocols should be followed. We shouldn't just be switching large contracts to supporters of the president in power. That being said, I think Starlink is brilliant.
During the last administration, I saw the gov twas going to spend $42 billion to provide rural broadband, I thought "That makes no sense. Just buy everyone a starlink terminal."

I agree with ROJO. There are 2 sides to the story. Verizon has been raking in billions and my cell signal and coverage has only gotten worse year after year.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:18am EST

re: Chad Move

one of its Tesla’s biggest factories is in China. It was built from loans from China state run banks and Tesla is taxed at lower rates than other Chinese companies.

last I saw about 40 percent of Tesla batteries production chain relies on China.

musk has meet with high ranking Chinese government officials.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:28am EST

re: Ending Corruption

let me pose a basic comment to the conservatives here. assuming this isn't now a dictatorship. assuming we have elections in 2 and 4 years and so on.

what happens if a non-trump approved candidate wins the next election. someone mentioned threats to shut off ukraine's skylink. what's to stop an increasingly politicized musk from saying, "you stole this election, you can't use my tech?"

and that's highly speculative, but a lot of the chatter lately seems to assume a 1000 year reich where we just do Trump Things now. that we should long term enshrine trump friends' products. that we should trust their motives. that we should have no potential "take their ball and go home" concerns if the electorate, upset by all this bs, has the Wrong Team win the next elections.

this stuff should be done on long term national, tech, safety, etc. reasoning. not flipped and handed to the party who wins each election. then doled out to their donors.

donors who then might be upset at the next guy.

last point but based on x's politics and the erroneous and unilateral way DOGE is done, i don't see where you can trust the man as some sort of neutral tech.

half the reason for it to be verizon or somesuch is we can't name the CEO, it's just tech. it's not an adjunct of The Cult. whose Cult may not want to run neutrally under the next guy. my guess is after 4 more years of this people will want to be done with this crap. but if elon hands himself this deal, he's cemented himself into the government.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:28am EST

re: high school xc coach

high school xc coach wrote:
Also, I think Musk is less interested in money than some people think. Money just represents power to people like him. With twitter, he knew was a bad deal moneteraily, but the power he gained through controlling twitter was more valuable to him than the money it cost.
This isn't a power play, imo. Nobody will even remember or think about it 1 year from now. starlink is just better. Companies like verizon fail over and over and over again with stuff like this.

The phrase "head in the sand" fails to do this post justice. This advanced naivete. If you can't acknowledge incredibly obvious corruption at play here, then there is simply no rational conversation to be had with you. If Elon Musk personally drained your bank account and laughed in your face, I am sure you would still find some way to justify it.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:29am EST

re: rojo

rojo wrote:
Considering I've been on the phone for 9 straight days trying to get xfinity to fix a downed line on my proprerty which is a major safety hazard, I have a hard time believing that switching away from the bloated legacy internet providers will be bad for the country. Those companies have had a monopoly for decades and their service reflects that.
I know comcast/xfinity isn't the same as verizon but i doubt it's much different. The lady told me today that there recods indicated that they've already been to my property 3 times to fix the problem and the technicians reported they were here at least 40 minutes each time. I told her, "That's a lie. The job would take 10 minutes. Plus I have a video camera in my back yard. They (contractors) weren't here at all and just told you that so they could bill you."
All of that being said, if the govt wants to switch to starlink, the proper protocols should be followed. We shouldn't just be switching large contracts to supporters of the president in power. That being said, I think Starlink is brilliant.
During the last administration, I saw the gov twas going to spend $42 billion to provide rural broadband, I thought "That makes no sense. Just buy everyone a starlink terminal."

read my name rojo

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:36am EST

re: Danicmic1

Danicmic1 wrote:
rojo wrote:
Considering I've been on the phone for 9 straight days trying to get xfinity to fix a downed line on my proprerty which is a major safety hazard, I have a hard time believing that switching away from the bloated legacy internet providers will be bad for the country. Those companies have had a monopoly for decades and their service reflects that.
I know comcast/xfinity isn't the same as verizon but i doubt it's much different. The lady told me today that there recods indicated that they've already been to my property 3 times to fix the problem and the technicians reported they were here at least 40 minutes each time. I told her, "That's a lie. The job would take 10 minutes. Plus I have a video camera in my back yard. They (contractors) weren't here at all and just told you that so they could bill you."
All of that being said, if the govt wants to switch to starlink, the proper protocols should be followed. We shouldn't just be switching large contracts to supporters of the president in power. That being said, I think Starlink is brilliant.
During the last administration, I saw the gov twas going to spend $42 billion to provide rural broadband, I thought "That makes no sense. Just buy everyone a starlink terminal."
I agree with ROJO. There are 2 sides to the story. Verizon has been raking in billions and my cell signal and coverage has only gotten worse year after year.

what's the other side? and not about "cell signal." about the ATC. it's not like we've been chattering for months on here about verizon's contract being corrupt, or the ATC tech is failing testing, or something.

this is, a donor to the president bought himself a budget role. the donor, going through various agencies' budgets, noticed a competitor has the FAA ATC upgrade deal. donor goes out to TV cameras and says, verizon is messing up. we're doing a deal with me for ATC. period.

your answer is, "sure?"

not, "you get we have a deal?'

not, "show your work?"

particularly when mr. cobol screwed up the SS critiques and 20 other things on DOGE?

particularly when he has a competitive and financial stake in making such comments and decisions?

i would think there being sufficiently "another side" on this would involve something more than superficially saying, "verizon failed" to a bank of tv cameras.

this is particularly odd because if this was your business procurement you would never stand for this. you'd be this is bs. you'd be suing tomorrow. "a deal is a deal."

likewise, when you lot screwed me on student loans recently, what was it? "a deal is a deal?" so now we can improvise, modify, tear up things?

this is a Cult. Cult Leaders say it, must be true. jesus.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 11:39am EST

re: Ending Corruption

Ending Corruption wrote:
Bold, selfless decision-making by the worlds richest man, risking the appearance of absurd corruption in order to keep us all safe. But we all know that he just has our best interests at heart. Take that, government corruption!
"Elon Musk said Thursday that Verizon’s efforts to provide a critically needed upgrade to the FAA’s air traffic control system is failing. And he said that it is important that Starlink, a unit of his SpaceX satellite and rocket company, take over."
Link:www.cnn.com/2025/02/27/business/elon-m...

Of course he is - and where do you think all the "DOGE" mult-billion dollar savings are going? "Stimulus checks"? Jesus Christ people...

1 year ago 02/28/2025 12:04pm EST

re: rojo sucks

rojo sucks wrote:
rojo wrote:
Considering I've been on the phone for 9 straight days trying to get xfinity to fix a downed line on my proprerty which is a major safety hazard, I have a hard time believing that switching away from the bloated legacy internet providers will be bad for the country. Those companies have had a monopoly for decades and their service reflects that.
I know comcast/xfinity isn't the same as verizon but i doubt it's much different. The lady told me today that there recods indicated that they've already been to my property 3 times to fix the problem and the technicians reported they were here at least 40 minutes each time. I told her, "That's a lie. The job would take 10 minutes. Plus I have a video camera in my back yard. They (contractors) weren't here at all and just told you that so they could bill you."
All of that being said, if the govt wants to switch to starlink, the proper protocols should be followed. We shouldn't just be switching large contracts to supporters of the president in power. That being said, I think Starlink is brilliant.
During the last administration, I saw the gov twas going to spend $42 billion to provide rural broadband, I thought "That makes no sense. Just buy everyone a starlink terminal."
I don't care for you Rojo.

informative,

1 year ago 02/28/2025 12:38pm EST

re: rojo

Between the Powell burnout post, the Bullis coaching post, and now his Xfinity griping/Starlink bootlicking, it's been a real great 24 hours for rojo.

1 year ago 02/28/2025 12:45pm EST

re: bruce dentons gold medal

When all of our government services are privatized, you'll spend the rest of your life on hold, rojo

1 year ago 02/28/2025 3:02pm EST

re: rojo sucks

rojo thinks he's a smart guy but he's not.

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Musk Is Cancelling Multi-Billion Verizon Contract and Giving it to... Himself

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