Sen. Bernie Sanders took to Twitter calling Tesla CEO Elon Musk a

Elon Musk is back to his trolling his Twitter followers.

The Tesla CEOsent out a tweet about Microsoft founder Bill Gates around 3 a.m. EST on Wednesday that has since garnered more than 26,000 retweets and more than 232,000 likes.

"The rumor that Bill Gates [and]I are lovers is completely untrue," Musk wrote.

Musk also tweeted, "Billy G is not my lover," in response to a tweet sharing a Tuesday comment from Gates about Musk.

BERNIE SANDERS SLAMS ELON MUSK'S CORONAVIRUS STIMULUS OPPOSITION, CALLS HIM A 'HYPOCRITE'

"Elon's positioning is to maintain a high level of outrageous comments," Gates said in a CNBC interview. "He's not much involved in vaccines. He makes a great electric car. And his rockets work well. So he's allowed to say these things. I hope that he doesn't confuse areas he's not involved in too much."

Gates, who has been vocal about the Unites States' handling of the coronavirus and the importance of developing effective vaccines, made the comments after Musk posted a June 30 tweet suggesting that many positive COVID-19 tests could be false.

TRUMP PRAISES ELON MUSK FOR AGREEING TO BUILD TESLA PLANT IN TEXAS

"There are a lot of [COVID-19]false positives messing up the numbers. Even tests with 5% false positive rate (in *field*, not lab) would show up as ~17 million fake [COVID-19]cases even if there were actually none," he wrote.

It's not the first time Musk has shared acontroversial opinion regarding COVID-19. The Tesla founder brushed offvirus fears as "dumb" on March 6 and took some flak fortweetingthat children are "essentially immune" to COVID-19.

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Gates has donated hundreds of millions of dollarsto COVID-19 relief efforts, and Musk has donated personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators to hospitals across the country.

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Elon Musk tweet about Bill Gates goes viral - Fox Business

Latin America July 31, 2020 Vijay Prashad and Alejandro Bejarano

On July 24, 2020, Teslas Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second US government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people. Someone responded to Musk soon after, You know what wasnt in the best interest of people? The US government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there. Musk then wrote: We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.

Musk refers here to the coup against President Evo Morales Ayma, who was removed illegally from his office in November 2019. Morales had just won an election for a term that was to have begun in January 2020. Even if there was a challenge against that election, Morales term should rightfully have continued through November and December of 2019. Instead, the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivias far right and the United States government, threatened Morales; Morales went into exile in Mexico and is now in Argentina.

At that time, the evidence of fraud was offered by the far right and by a preliminary report by the Organization of American States; only after Morales was removed from office was there grudging acknowledgement by the liberal media that there was in fact no evidence of fraud. It was too late for Bolivia, which has been condemned to a dangerous government that has suspended democracy in the country.

Over his 14 years in office, Morales fought to use the wealth of Bolivia for the Bolivian people, who saw after centuries of oppression remarkable advances in their basic needs. Literacy rates rose and hunger rates dropped. The use of Bolivias wealth to advance the interests of the people rather than North American multinational corporations was an abomination to the US embassy in La Paz, which had egged on the worst elements of the military and the far right to overthrow the government. This is just what happened in November 2019.

Musks admission, however intemperate, is at least honest. His company Tesla has long wanted access at a low price to the large lithium deposits in Bolivia; lithium is a key ingredient for batteries. Earlier this year, Musk and his company revealed that they wanted to build a Tesla factory in Brazil, which would be supplied by lithium from Bolivia; when we wrote about that we called our report Elon Musk Is Acting Like a Neo-Conquistador for South Americas Lithium. Everything we wrote there is condensed in his new tweet: the arrogance toward the political life of other countries, and the greed toward resources that people like Musk think are their entitlement.

Musk went on to delete his tweet. He then said, we get our lithium from Australia; this will not settle the issue, since eyebrows are being raised in Australia regarding the environmental damage from lithium mining.

After Morales was removed, an insignificant far-right politician named Jeanine ez set aside the constitutional process and seized power. She showed the character of her politics when she signed a presidential decree on November 15, 2019, that gave the military the right to do whatever it wanted; even her allies found this to be too far and repealed it on November 28.

Arrests and intimidation of activists from the Movement for Socialism (MAS) the party of Morales began in November 2019 and still continue. On July 7, 2020, seven US senators published a statement that said, We are increasingly concerned by the growing number of human rights violations and curtailments of civil liberties by the interim government of Bolivia. Without a change in course by the interim government, the senators wrote, we fear that basic civil rights in Bolivia will be further eroded and the legitimacy of the crucial upcoming elections will be put at risk.

Theres no need to worry about that, since the government of ez seems unwilling to hold an election. By all polls, ez looks likely to be defeated in the general elections. A recent poll by El Centro Estratgico Latinoamericano de Geopoltica (CELAG) says that ez will get a mere 13.3 per cent, far behind the Movement for Socialisms Luis Arce (41.9 per cent) and the center rights Carlos Mesa (26.8 per cent). The election was supposed to have taken place in May, but it was rescheduled for September 6; it has now been postponed once more, this time to October 18. Bolivia would not have had an elected government for an entire year.

Luis Arce of MAS recently told Oliver Vargas, We face persecution, we face surveillance we are facing a very difficult campaign. But, he said, we are sure that we will win these elections. If elections are permitted.

The CELAG study shows that 9 out of 10 Bolivians have seen their incomes decline due to the coronavirus recession. Because of this and of the attack by this government on the MAS 65.2 per cent of Bolivians have a negative appraisal of ez. It is important to note that due to the positive policies of Morales MAS, there is widespread support for a socialist orientation; 64.1 per cent of Bolivians support taxes against the rich, and Bolivians in general support the resource socialism of the MAS and Morales.

The government of ez has been utterly incompetent regarding the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in this country of 11 million people is 66,456; since testing is low, the number is likely much higher.

Musk returns to our story. Earlier this year, on March 31, Bolivias Foreign Minister Karen Longaric wrote an obsequious letter to Musk asking him about the offer of cooperation posted by you regarding ventilators ready to be dispatched to countries where they are needed the most. Longaric said, If it is not possible to send it to Bolivia, we can arrange its receipt in Miami, FL. and transport them from there as quickly as possible. No such ventilators came.

Instead, the government bought ventilators from a Spanish supplier for $27,000 for each of the 170 devices; Bolivian producers had said they could supply ventilators for $1,000 per unit. The health minister in the ez government Marcelo Navajas was arrested for this scandal.

Evo Morales read Musks tweet about the coup in Bolivia and responded: Elon Musk, the owner of the largest electric car company, says about the coup in Bolivia: We will coup whoever we want. Another proof that the coup was about Bolivian lithium; at the cost of two massacres. We will always defend our resources!

The reference to the massacres is important. In November, from Mexico City, Morales watched as the government of ez let loose the dogs of war against the people of Bolivia from Cochabamba to El Alto. They are killing my brothers and sisters, Morales said at a press conference. This is the kind of thing the old military dictatorships used to do. It is the toxic character of the government of ez, backed fully by the US government and Elon Musk.

Protests across Bolivia began on July 27 for the restoration of democracy.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Alejandro Bejarano is a Bolivian musician, documentarian, and social media manager. In 2016, he received the Medal of Honor for Cultural Merit of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly of Bolivia.

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Elon Musk and the Overthrow of Democracy in Bolivia - The Bullet - Socialist Project

Elon Musk has made another jab at Jeff Bezos, the latest escalation of a years-long feud between the two billionaires over their competing space ambitions.

Over the weekend, The New York Times' Maureen Dowd published a wide-ranging interview with Musk that touched on everything from his girlfriend, Grimes, and their new baby, X, to the coronavirus and Musk's wealth.

When discussing SpaceX, the space exploration company Musk leads that recently helped send astronauts into space, Bezos' name came up. Musk took the opportunity to make a dig at the Amazon CEO, who founded a reusable rocket company called Blue Origin, which hopes to send people to the moon.

Musk appeared to call Bezos too old and Blue Origin too slow to ever accomplish that goal.

"The rate of progress is too slow and the amount of years he has left is not enough, but I'm still glad he's doing what he's doing with Blue Origin," Musk said.

While Musk and Bezos mostly operate in different industries on Earth, the two moguls have been feuding over space for over 15 years. Bezos founded Blue Origin, in 2000, while Musk founded SpaceX in 2002. Things heated up two years later, when the pair met for dinner to discuss their space ambitions.

"I actually did my best to give good advice, which he largely ignored," Musk said after the meeting.

Things escalated in 2013, when SpaceX tried to get exclusive use of a NASA launch pad and Blue Origin (along with SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance) filed a formal protest with the government. Musk called it a "phony blocking tactic" and SpaceX eventually won the right to take over the pad. Months later, the two companies got into a patent battle, and soon after, Bezos and Musk took their feud public,trading barbson Twitter.

Bezos has frequently criticized the idea of colonizing Mars a main goal of SpaceX describing the idea as "un-motivating." Once, when the BBC asked Musk about Bezos, he responded, "Jeff who?"

More recently, Musk has called Amazon a monopoly and tweeted that it should be broken up. He's also called Bezos a copycat for Amazon's plan to launch internet-beaming satellites and for acquiring self-driving-taxi company Zoox, as both are industries Musk currently operates in.

Originally posted here:

Elon Musk calls Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin too old and 'too slow' - Business Insider - Business Insider

Amber Heard was convinced that controlling ex-boyfriend Elon Musk had given her a Tesla sports car that was bugged, according to court documents.

Heards family friend Jennifer Howell insisted in a court declaration that the Justice League actress late mother, Paige, revealed her daughters paranoid secret early last year, according to DailyMail.com.

Paige shared with me while I was visiting [Ambers sister] Whitney that Elon Musk had gifted a Tesla or multiple Teslas (not sure if it was one or more), but Amber found out that they were bugged,' Howell said, according to the documents obtained by the Mail.

The mom claimed that the 49-year-old Tesla founder who was accused in court of seeing Heard while she was still married to Johnny Depp was controlling during their affair, Howell reportedly stated.

In comparison, Depp, 57, was an angel or a saint to Heard and the family wanted to see them reunited, Howell told Depps lawyers in a statement as part of his $50 million US lawsuit against his ex-wife.

Paige also told me the reason Johnny and Amber broke up was because Amber was violent and emotional and loved Johnny so much that she could not control it, Howell reportedly stated.

Howell who was Ambers sisters boss said she was taken aback by the confessions.

Whitney told me that Amber and Johnny were still in touch and that they were each others true loves or something to that exact sentiment, she reportedly stated.

Howells statement is one of dozens of depositions and declarations in Depps defamation case against Heard in Fairfax County, Virginia, over a Washington Post op-ed calling herself a victim of domestic violence.

She repeated the allegations from the stand during a three-week libel trial that ended in the UK this week, with a decision expected in weeks if not months.

Heards sister insisted that Howells claims were complete fiction, reps for the actress and her family told the Mail.

Jennifer Howells statements do not bear any relationship to the truth and I have no idea why she is saying this, she told the paper in a statement.

Musks reps declined to comment. Sources told the Mail that he described the declaration as pure fantasy land, saying the actress only ever said glowing things about him.

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Amber Heard thought ex Elon Musk gave her bugged Tesla, court docs show - Page Six

Warren Buffett has said he wouldnt invest in Tesla. On top of that, the Berkshire Hathaway bosss right-hand man once claimed that Elon Musk may overestimate himself.

Musk, for his part, admitted back in May that hes not the biggest fan of Buffett.

Two months later and not much has changed, apparently. When Musk was asked in a recent New York Times interview whether he thought Buffetts overrated, heres how he responded:

He has managed to create a great image for himself as a kindly grandfather, which is maybe overstating the case.

Buffett, not the kindly grandfather hes cracked up to be? Gasp!

OK, thats not a particularly vicious jab theyve both heard much worse but its pretty clear theres at least a bit of animosity between two of the richest men in the world.

This feud isnt exactly new. The deep-pocketed duo stole headlines back in May 2018 when Musk said in a call with analysts that Buffetts concept of economic moats is lame. Buffett returned fire saying, I dont think hed want to take us on in candy.

But are there enough competitive juices flowing for Musk to send this classic clip to Buffett after he briefly passed him on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index earlier this month?

When asked that question by the Times, Musk responded: I did that!? Deny!

Of course, Musk has been drinking the milkshakes of many of his haters lately, with Tesla having more than tripled so far this year. Buffett, on the other hand, has taken some heat as Berkshire has lost more market value in 2020 than all but a handful of publicly traded U.S. companies.

Read: Buffetts lost some of his mojo, says longtime Berkshire shareholder

Tesla TSLA, -1.60% shares were up almost 2% in Mondays session, while Berkshire BRK.A, +0.05% was stuck in the red. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.65% , S&P 500 SPX, -0.33% and tech-heavy Nasdaq COMP, +0.28% were all moving higher.

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Dont be fooled! Elon Musk says Warren Buffett isnt quite the kindly grandfather hes cracked up to be - MarketWatch

Tech mogul Elon Musk attempted to clarify a controversial tweet from May in a New York Times interview published Saturday.

On May 17, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted "Take the red pill." The phrase originates from "The Matrix," in which Keanu Reeves' character takes a red pill that allows him to see the true nature of the world. However, the phrase has acquired a more complicated meaningthese days. Online, incels and men's rights activists first appropriated the idea for their cause, and now, the phrase is widely used among conservatives to describe when people have ideological shifts towards conservativism.

The tweet was amplified when Ivanka Trump, an advisor to the president, quote retweeted Musk with the caption, "Taken!" In turn, "Matrix" director and co-creator Lilly Wachowski responded to Ivanka, saying, "F-ck both of you." The mother of Musk's partner Grimes criticized Musk for "blaring MRA bullsh--."

In an interview with The New York Times published on Saturday, Musk told interviewer Maureen Dowd that he thought that Ivanka may have taken the tweet the wrong way, claiming that he didn't intend for it to have a political message.

"No, it's just: Accept reality as it is as opposed to what you wish it were," he told The New York Times. "I think [Ivanka Trump] was interpreting it through more of a political lens then it was intended."

Musk has spoken before about the possibility that, la "Matrix," we're all living in a simulation, but has espoused right-wing talking points on Twitter in the past, particularly in relation to the coronavirus pandemic: hecalled stay-at-home orders "fascist" in April and tweeted dismissively about COVID-19 statistics in May.

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Elon Musk says that Ivanka Trump read his 'red pill' tweet too politically - Business Insider - Business Insider

SPACEX was hoping to bring two Nasa astronauts back to Earth this weekend but a huge storm is threatening the mission.

US astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley made history on May 30 when they were the first to be blasted into space by Elon Musk's space company.

4

Nasa administrator Jim Bridenstine recently tweeted: "We're targeting an Aug. 1 departure of @SpaceX's Dragon Endeavour spacecraft from the @Space_Station to bring @AstroBehnken and @Astro_Doug home after their historic #LaunchAmerica mission.

"Splashdown is targeted for Aug. 2. Weather will drive the actual date. Stay tuned."

He later said in a press briefing: "We cannot wait to get Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley back to Earth. But of course we have some weather pending."

The weather pending is Tropical Storm Isaias and it's already caused high-winds and flash floods in Puerto Rico.

4

The storms current path is bringing it straight towards several potential landing sites for the SpaceX mission that Nasa is overseeing.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft that will bring Behnken and Hurley home can't land if there's winds exceeding 10 mph (16 km/h).

It also can't land is there's rain, lightning or big waves expected.

Isaias was named a tropical storm when it's wind speeds exceeded 39 mph (62 km/h) on Wednesday evening.

4

SpaceX is aiming for it's Endeavour Crew Dragon capusule to land the astronauts in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico.

The original plan was for the capsule to undock from the ISS at 8pm ET on August 1.

This will be midnight in the UK.

Then the astronauts are expected to splash into the ocean at 2:48pm ET (6:48pm GMT) on August 2nd.

However, three potential landing sites prescribed for the test mission are in the storm's path.

According to Nasa, the sites are are just off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Daytona, and Jacksonville.

That should still leave some other potential landing sites free.

Nasa has said it will be keeping a close eye on the weather before it makes a final decision.

When the astronauts undock from the International Space Station they'll have to land within three days or their resources will run out.

The Endeavour has been docked to the ISS and in space for around 63 days.

4

It's been designed to last for about 120 days.

In theory, this means the astronauts don't have to rush back and can wait a while longer if the weather is dangerous.

What is SpaceX?

Here's what you need to know...

SpaceX was founded by billionaire entrepreneurElon Muskwho still has part ownership of the company with 54 per cent equity and 78 per cent voting control.

SpaceX is a private American aerospace manufacturer that is based in California.

It was founded in 2002 with the goal to build affordable rockets and enable the colonisation of Mars.

The manufacturer also aimed to reducespacetransportation costs.

Since its creation, the firm has gained fame primarily as a pioneering rocket firm.

In 2008 it launched the first privately-funded liquid-propellant rocket to reach orbit and later became the first private company to launch an object into orbit around the sun.

The company has grown dramatically over its lifespan, from 160 employees in November 2005 to around 7,000 as of November 2019.

As of March 2018, SpaceX had over 100 launches on its manifest representing about $12billion (9.24billion) in contract revenue.

ROCK AND A HARD PLACEMystery of where giant Stonehenge rocks came from finally SOLVED

WAR GAMESChinese Navy adds mega-generators to warships to power high-energy railguns

DISAPPEARING ACTTwo Arctic ice caps have VANISHED as Nasa reveals images of global warming

WISE UPStunning shot of Comet Neowise shows Elon Musk's Starlink satellites 'photobombing'

HORROR-SCOPEYou've been reading the wrong horoscope for years because the stars have moved

In other space news, Musk's Starlink satellites have come under scrutiny again after ruining a stargazer's photo of Comet Neowise.

Nasa sent a rover on a journey to Mars today in a bold bid to hunt down signs of alien life on the planet's surface.

And, Musk announced last month that SpaceX's mission to get man on Mars is now the company's"top priority".

Would you like to travel to space? Let us know in the comments...

We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk

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Huge tropical storm threatens Elon Musks historic mission to bring two Nasa astronauts home this weekend - The Sun

Drawing by Nathaniel St. Clair

On July 24, 2020, Teslas Elon Musk wrote on Twitter that a second U.S. government stimulus package is not in the best interests of the people. Someone responded to Musk soon after, You know what wasnt in the best interest of people? The U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there. Musk then wrote: We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.

Musk refers here to the coup against President Evo Morales Ayma, who was removed illegally from his office in November 2019. Morales had just won an election for a term that was to have begun in January 2020. Even if there was a challenge against that election, Morales term should rightfully have continued through November and December of 2019. Instead, the Bolivian military, at the behest of Bolivias far right and the United States government, threatened Morales; Morales went into exile in Mexico and is now in Argentina.

At that time, the evidence of fraud was offered by the far right and by a preliminary report by the Organization of American States; only after Morales was removed from office was there grudging acknowledgment by the liberal media that there was in fact no evidence of fraud. It was too late for Bolivia, which has been condemned to a dangerous government that has suspended democracy in the country.

Lithium Coup

Over his 14 years in office, Morales fought to use the wealth of Bolivia for the Bolivian people, who sawafter centuries of oppressionremarkable advances in their basic needs. Literacy rates rose and hunger rates dropped. The use of Bolivias wealth to advance the interests of the people rather than North American multinational corporations was an abomination to the U.S. embassy in La Paz, which had egged on the worst elements of the military and the far right to overthrow the government. This is just what happened in November 2019.

Musks admission, however intemperate, is at least honest. His company Tesla has long wanted access at a low price to the large lithiumdeposits in Bolivia; lithium is a key ingredient for batteries. Earlier this year, Musk and his company revealed that they wanted to build a Tesla factory in Brazil, which would be supplied by lithium from Bolivia; when we wrote about that we called our report Elon Musk Is Acting Like a Neo-Conquistador for South Americas Lithium. Everything we wrote there is condensed in his new tweet: the arrogance toward the political life of other countries, and the greed toward resources that people like Musk think are their entitlement.

Musk went on to delete his tweet. He then said, we get our lithium from Australia; this will not settle the issue, since eyebrows are being raised in Australia regarding the environmental damage from lithium mining.

Suspension of Democracy

After Morales was removed, an insignificant far-right politician named Jeanine ez set aside the constitutional process and seized power. She showed the character of her politics when she signed a presidential decree on November 15, 2019, that gave the military the right to do whatever it wanted; even her allies found this to be too far and repealed it on November 28.

Arrests and intimidation of activists from the Movement for Socialism (MAS)the party of Moralesbegan in November 2019 and still continue. On July 7, 2020, seven U.S. senators published a statement that said, We are increasingly concerned by the growing number of human rights violations and curtailments of civil liberties by the interim government of Bolivia. Without a change in course by the interim government, the senators wrote, we fear that basic civil rights in Bolivia will be further eroded and the legitimacy of the crucial upcoming elections will be put at risk.

Theres no need to worry about that, since the government of ez seems unwilling to hold an election. By all polls, ez looks likely to be defeated in the general elections. A recent poll by El Centro Estratgico Latinoamericano de Geopoltica (CELAG) says that ez will get a mere 13.3 percent, far behind the Movement for Socialisms Luis Arce (41.9 percent) and the center rights Carlos Mesa (26.8 percent). The election was supposed to have taken place in May, but it was rescheduled for September 6; it has now been postponed once more, this time to October 18. Bolivia would not have had an elected government for an entire year.

Luis Arce of MAS recently told Oliver Vargas, We face persecution, we face surveillance we are facing a very difficult campaign. But, he said, we are sure that we will win these elections. If elections are permitted.

The CELAG study shows that 9 out of 10 Bolivians have seen their incomes decline due to the coronavirus recession. Because of thisand of the attack by this government on the MAS65.2 percent of Bolivians have a negative appraisal of ez. It is important to note that due to the positive policies of Morales MAS, there is widespread support for a socialist orientation; 64.1 percent of Bolivians support taxes against the rich, and Bolivians in general support the resource socialism of the MAS and Morales.

CoronaShock and Bolivia

The government of ez has been utterly incompetent regarding the coronavirus. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in this country of 11 million people is 66,456; since testing is low, the number is likely much higher.

Musk returns to our story. Earlier this year, on March 31, Bolivias Foreign Minister Karen Longaric wrote an obsequious letter to Musk asking him about the offer of cooperation posted by you regarding ventilators ready to be dispatched to countries where they are needed the most. Longaric said, If it is not possible to send it to Bolivia, we can arrange its receipt in Miami, FL. and transport them from there as quickly as possible. No such ventilators came.

Instead, the government bought ventilators from a Spanish supplier for $27,000 for each of the 170 devices; Bolivian producers had said they could supply ventilators for $1,000 per unit. The health minister in the ez governmentMarcelo Navajaswas arrested for this scandal.

Morales

Evo Morales read Musks tweet about the coup in Bolivia and responded: Elon Musk, the owner of the largest electric car company, says about the coup in Bolivia: We will coup whoever we want. Another proof that the coup was about Bolivian lithium; at the cost of two massacres. We will always defend our resources!

The reference to the massacres is important. In November, from Mexico City, Morales watched as the government of ez let loose the dogs of war against the people of Bolivia from Cochabamba to El Alto. They are killing my brothers and sisters, Morales said at a press conference. This is the kind of thing the old military dictatorships used to do. It is the toxic character of the government of ez, backed fully by the U.S. government and Elon Musk.

Protests across Bolivia began on July 27 for the restoration of democracy.

This article was produced by Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

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'We Will Coup Whoever We Want': Elon Musk and the Overthrow of Democracy in Bolivia - CounterPunch

The message from Jeff Bezos: Big Techs not so powerful.

The message from is his personal fortune: Oh yes it is.

As Bezos and three other technology magnates prepare to defend their businesses at a Congressional hearing on antitrust worries Wednesday, their fast-growing wealth provides a breathtaking measure of their companies economic might. The Amazon.com Inc. founder has seen his net worth soar by US$63.6 billion this year. On one day this month, it leaped an unprecedented $13 billion. The worlds richest man is now on the cusp of another record: a fortune exceeding US$200 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Another chief executive officer set to testify, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook Inc., has grown US$9.1 billion richer this year, placing his fortune within reach of the centibillionaire status already held by Bezos and Bill Gates.

The mind-boggling accumulation of money underway in technology is unrivalled in speed and scale. No other group of executives has prospered to such a degree. Indeed, the worlds richest people are growing even richer, even faster, as the coronavirus pandemic upends the global economy and drives ever more activity online.

We moved the brick-and-mortar economy to an online economy dramatically, said Luigi Zingales, a finance professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Probably the same thing would have happened in a longer period of time. Now its happening in weeks instead of years.

The hearing will be held by video conference and also features Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai, the CEOs of Apple Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Its poised to be a combative affair as lawmakers express heightened frustration with how the industry wields its clout.

Bezoss stance will be that his company is an American success story that achieved its position through risk-taking and a relentless focus on customers, according to his prepared testimony. He will tell his personal story and that of his parents, who invested in what would become the worlds largest online retailer.

The collective wealth of tech billionaires in Bloombergs index, a ranking of the worlds 500 richest people, has nearly doubled since 2016, from US$751 billion to US$1.4 trillion today. Thats faster than in every other sector.

Seven of the worlds 10 richest people derive the bulk of their fortune from technology holdings, with a combined net worth of US$666 billion, up US$147 billion this year.

Elon Musks net worth has more than doubled to US$69.7 billion this year.STR/AFP via Getty Images files

Big winners so far in 2020 include Elon Musk, whose net worth has more than doubled to US$69.7 billion on the back of surging Tesla Inc. shares.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer have also soared, long after they left the company. Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, whose fortune is tied up in the worlds largest oil refinery has also profited from the shift online. Shares of Reliance Industries Ltd., the conglomerate he controls, have risen 45 per cent this year as the company has expanded into digital and retail businesses, making him the fifth richest person in the world.

Among the top 10, only two have seen their wealth decline in 2020: luxury mogul Bernard Arnault and Berkshire Hathaway Inc.s Warren Buffett. While tech has surged, more than 200 of the 500 billionaires tracked by Bloomberg have lost money this year.

Giant tech companies control the infrastructure of the digital economy in a similar vein to how Gilded Age trusts monopolized Americas industrial economy at the turn of the 20th century. Yet in 1900, the five largest U.S. companies had combined market values that equaled less than 6 per cent of the nations economy, according to estimates by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Daron Acemoglu.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.s Warren Buffet has seen his fortune decline this year.Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg files

Currently, five of the largest American tech companies Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Microsoft have market valuations equivalent to about 30 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product. Thats almost double what they were at the end of 2018.

The economic power of the Robber Barons created a fiery counter-reaction, in violent labour unrest and the adoption of reforms that once seemed radical, like the Sherman Antitrust Act and a federal income tax. Compared to the political difficulties faced by John D. Rockefeller and other early 20th-century industrial magnates, government moves against Big Tech have been relatively mild. At least so far.

On the left, politicians including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have delivered blistering attacks on widening inequality and the growing wealth of billionaires. Protesters have gathered outside Bezoss Manhattan penthouse, demanding a wealth tax. Facebook employees have spoken out about their employers role in spreading disinformation and hate speech.

Monopolists like Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie helped repair their public images with large-scale philanthropy, a move echoed in this new Gilded Age.

The Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away the majority of your wealth in your lifetime, was founded by Gates and Buffett. Zuckerberg also has stepped into the realm of philanthropy, establishing the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, or CZI, in 2015 with a goal to advance human potential and promote equality.

But even these acts have sparked criticism.

The modern ultra-billionaire is someone who feels a right, in many cases, to privately govern the people of the United States, said Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, an influential critique of billionaire philanthropy.

The modern ultra-billionaire is someone who feels a right, in many cases, to privately govern the people of the United States

Anand Giridharadas

Gatess generosity and activism during the pandemic has earned him widespread praise, but its also attracted conspiracy theorists suspicious of his motives. A YouGov and Yahoo News poll found that 44 per cent of Republicans and 19 per cent of Democrats believed Gates wanted to use vaccinations to give people tracking implants.

The criticism of Bezos also hasnt let up, even as his giving increased recently with a US$10-billion commitment in February to fight climate change and a US$100-million donation in April to the nonprofit Feeding America. When he made the announcements, his wealth had already grown by significantly more than those amounts this year. He hasnt signed the Giving Pledge.

MacKenzie Scott, Bezoss ex-wife, signed the pledge not long after the two announced their split. Scott said Tuesday that she has since donated US$1.7 billion to several causes including racial equity, climate change and public health.

Theres no question in my mind that anyones personal wealth is the product of a collective effort, and of social structures which present opportunities to some people, and obstacles to countless others, she said.

Big Tech companies have earned some grudging respect, even from critics, during the pandemic.

We have been fortunate to have these digital technologies, said MITs Acemoglu. Without them, the fallout from the lockdowns and social distancing would have been worse.

MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezoss ex-wife, has donated US$1.7 billion to several causes since signing the Giving Pledge.Jorg Cartsensen/dpa/AFP via Getty Images files

That may come with a cost: This is going to make the domination of tech companies over the economy and our social lives much worse, and its going to significantly accelerate the trend toward greater automation, Acemoglu said. He warns that techs rapid ascent may deepen inequality, shrink the number of good jobs, and weaken democracy.

Such concerns could help shift Big Tech and its billionaires into the crosshairs of governments whose finances have been devastated by the pandemic. Heading into this years U.S. presidential race, Elizabeth Warren and Sanders proposed wealth taxes on billionaires, an idea that polled well with voters.

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, hasnt embraced the wealth tax, but hes campaigning on higher rates on the rich and corporations, as well as the closing of estate-tax loopholes.

Absent a wealth tax or some other innovative new kind of levies, it will be difficult to tax the fortunes of Zuckerberg, Bezos and other tech billionaires. Much of their fortune is in the form of rising stock, which isnt taxed until its sold.

Billionaires are accumulating a huge amount of unrealized capital gains, on which theyre not paying much if any tax, said University of California at Berkeley economics professor Gabriel Zucman, who helped Sanders and Warren develop their wealth-tax proposals.

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Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have made $115 billion this year - The Province

Grimes has a much bigger role in parenting her son than her boyfriend Elon Musk.

The Genesis singer and the 49-year-old Tesla CEO welcomed their son, X A-XII, into the world in May, but Elon has confessed theres not much he can do to help Grimes look after the tot yet, because so far all he does is eat and poop.

He said: Well, babies are just eating and pooping machines, you know? Right now theres not much I can do. Grimes has a much bigger role than me right now. When the kid gets older, there will be more of a role for me.

But Elon has insisted he will help raise his son when hes a little bit older, because hes already a hands on father to his five other children, whom he has from previous relationships.

He added: I think just doing what Ive done with my other kids. If I have a trip for Tesla to China, for example, Ill bring the kids with me and well go see the Great Wall or we took the bullet train from Beijing to Xian and saw the Terracotta Warriors.

And whilst he might not be hands on with X A-XII who is affectionately known to his parents as Little X right now, the SpaceX founder does think babies are super cool.

He said: I think babies are super cool and really people need to have more babies because, it sounds obvious, but if people dont have enough babies, humanity will disappear.

Elon also had kind words to say about his 32-year-old girlfriend, Grimes.

In a profile for The New York Times newspaper, he gushed: Yeah, shes pretty special, thats for sure. Shes one of the most unusual people Ive ever met.

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