• Moghul@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        If you buy an electric car, his money and influence can affect where and how fast you can charge your car. Technology Connections has a video on electric car chargers that touches on this.

        If you study the stars, or even if you’re outside looking at the sky, you might see Starlink satellites above you.

        If you’re in a country that relied on twitter for public reach, you might not be able to read your government’s message because you have to log in to read it. I think the Dutch had an issue with that recently.

        If you have friends and family, coworkers, local leaders, government employees who use twitter (or you use it yourself), the way the site promotes information will influence their decision making, values, opinions, etc.

        For some of these, you might argue that you don’t live in this country or another, but countries influence each other. Weed is illegal in India because they needed to make friends with USA for example. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t follow everything everyone rich does in case they might do something I don’t like, I’m just answering your question. I don’t have a good opinion of him, and for the most part I’m indifferent to what he does, but he can and does influence our lives.

        • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          To add to this, If you’re a Ukrainian child in one of the cities recently shelled by the Russian navy you probably won’t care much - you’re too fucking dead.

          Musk decided he wasn’t happy with Ukraine taking out elements of the Russian navy, so he just disabled starlink in that area, stopping the attack on the ships that went on to target civilian populations.

          Musk has unparalleled visibility over the lines of battle in that war, and the power to shut off most communications there. He’s using that visibility and power to support an autocratic enemy of the United States that’s invading a sovereign democracy. The only thing preventing him being tried for treason is the lack of a formal declaration of war between the US and Russia. Did I mention that he’s chasing US defence contracts, and is the US’s only ticket to space?

          No big deal.