Elon Musk And The Terrible Brand X…

Russell Brand - Image by all2need

Lately I’ve started reading a book called, “The End Of Reality” by Jonathan Taplin which has the tagline: “How Four Billionaires Are Selling Out Our Future.”

While the book has been interesting so far, there was a section about Elon Musk which grabbed my attention. He was driving Peter Thiel, his partner in PayPal, to a meeting and demonstrating “the awesome acceleration” of his $150,000 McLaren sports car when he plowed into an embankment. Apparently Musk told Thiel: “You know, I read all these stories about people who made money and bought sports cars and crashed them. But I knew it would never happened to me, so I didn’t get insurance.”

Musk had the controlling interest in the company at the time and he wanted to drop the name PayPal in favour of X.com, even though there was some suggestion that sounded more like a porn site and it was likely to confuse existing customers.

Of course, the money men were a wee bit concerned about Musk’s erratic behaviour, so they forced him to step aside as CEO and, as we know, PayPal still exists as PayPal and the only things that have the name “X” are one of his children and the site that used to be known as Twitter.

Musk resembles a child whose parents won’t let him name their pet “Fartin’ Martin”, so he grows up and names his first child that to show that he’s now an adult and he can do what he likes, so there!

For anyone who’s noticed how business normally works, it’s pretty usual to try and keep your customers happy and if you have a recognisable brand and name then it’s a good idea to keep it. Frequently the reason people change the name of a business is so that unsuspecting people won’t realise that it’s the same company that has been annoying their friends and family.

And speaking of Brands, you’ve probably heard about Russell’s troubles…

Well, I want to make it clear here that I support the concept of the legal process which includes the whole we need presume innocence until guilt is proven.

HOWEVER…

I would just like to point out that it’s rather strange when people start down the path of the whole innocent until proven guilty thing, only to then start to suggest that various other people are guilty of various other misdeeds.

For example, when someone asks why they didn’t report it at the time, it shows not only a misunderstanding of how intimidating it can be to report a crime and how it may take time to process what’s happened and to summon up the strength to see it through. Add to that the fear that they may not be believed. Strangely that last point is dismissed by the very people who are doubting the person who has come forward.

The other strange idea is that this whole thing has been manufactured because good old Russell is presenting alternative views and has upset certain people and that it’s all part of some conspiracy. Well, of course there is a possibility that certain people have been upset by some the things he’s said and they’re more than happy to let the story run. But again, this sort of makes it sound like Mr Brand has only just lately started saying the sort of things that upset the powers that be and that this is how they’re going to shut him up.

Notwithstanding the idea that everyone has a potential influence, it would be easier to shut someone up by not giving them any airtime, the fact remains that something like this is more likely to give Russell Brand an audience than no publicity at all. This gives him the perfect platform to announce that he’s being stopped from speaking in much the same way that Andrew Bolt frequently uses his colon to complain about censorship. (The “colon” was initially a spellcheck error but it sounds more appropriate than “column” so I let it stand.)

Of course Russell has previously had the support of Elon Musk: “I watched some of his videos. Ironically, he seemed more balanced & insightful than those condemning him! The groupthink among major media companies is more troubling. There should be more dissent.” We’ll probably find Musk tweeting… sorry, Xing, something that will give an even bigger boost to Russell even though they may have seemingly different political philosophies.

In some ways, they don’t differ all that much. Musk espouses an anti-government libertarian philosophy and some of you may remember a number of years ago when he was guest-editing “The New Statesman”, Russell Brand announced that he didn’t vote because the system was ineffectual and encouraged others to do the same, because by not voting then politicians would somehow feel the pressure and lift their game.

It seems to have worked a treat because in the intervening years, the British have had Conservatives elected a number of times and the Brexit referendum passed. It’s easy to say that the other party are no better when you’re not the one relying on the government to actually provide funding for your wheelchair. Those Communists in the British Labour Party may not have the same enthusiasm for lining the millionaire up against the wall as we’ve come to expect in the 20th Century, but they still spend a touch more on things like Health and Education.

And, devotees of Russell’s Revolution not voting in the United States may have helped Trump to become President where he managed to appoint enough judges to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe versus Wade.

Even if you don’t like the alternatives being presented, simply not voting isn’t really likely to change the system. If enough people turn up and vote for the “Let’s Have A Party” Party or the “May The Fourth Be With You” Party, then, at the very least politicians will start to wonder what ideas they need to steal from them.

But like I said, let’s not presume guilt just because a handful of women who don’t know each other all make a claim against someone. After all, it could be that Big Pharma is so upset that Russ is complaining about them and they regard him as so influential that they feel the need to make up this whole thing instead of just having him arrested by planting drugs on him… which being Big Pharma, they could manufacture quite easily…

 

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About Rossleigh 1447 Articles
Rossleigh is a writer, director and teacher. As a writer, his plays include “The Charles Manson Variety Hour”, “Pastiche”, “Snap!”, “That’s Me In The Distance”, “48 Hours (without Eddie Murphy)”, and “A King of Infinite Space”. His acting credits include “Pinor Noir Noir” for “Short and Sweet” and carrying the coffin in “The Slap”. His ten minutes play, “Y” won the 2013 Crash Test Drama Final.

8 Comments

  1. Brand: Presumption of innocence must be applied.
    Brand: Funny as a comedian? Not a jot.

    Phil,

    I looked through a telescope from the late 1890’s recently at Mars and saw a farr canal.

  2. I recall when Russell Brand hosted the Radio 2 programme between 2006 and 2008. He resigned after the BBC suspended both him, and Jonathan Ross, for a prank phone call made during a broadcast to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs [Manuel].
    In the call, Brand claimed he had had sex with Sachs’ granddaughter.

    It caused the Sachs family great distress.

    I thought at the time, this bloke’s a grub !

  3. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. The Fourth Estate, an effluvium rising from first principles, to none at all.

    As it tires of death and the killing fields, and trying to divine any meaning from Matushka and the righteous Uncle, it resorts to attenuating its ennui by tossing itself off for a buck. I am reminded of The Master and Margarita.

    Our shape-shifting Master, Rupert. Ever overshadowed by the olde garde, ever unrequited, his only salve to modernity and the wrinkles of time, is to rescript reality via the accumulation of cabbage.

    And of course, our aspiring Woland, Musk. Having found his vehicles of beguilement, monied, he emerged to dizzying heights. And, never sated, but weirdly attached to heaven, on into unearthly realms. But troubled by the inadequacy of earthly tech, he happened upon a magic mirror, discovering there a new sublimity. Would it be that he could out-master the Master? Of course, the irresistible X-factor, at any price! Seems though, as part of his execution, he’s dug himself a hole, into which from his attitude of altitude, he is falling to his own reinterment.

    Then there’s the irrepressible bearded Behemoth, Russ. What a naughty cat.

    The Musk-o-vites et al, spinning on a dime, drugged-up, and plagued by guilt, are left to their own madding devices.

    But I’m alright, Jack!

  4. Uhm ….. what is a Russell brand? It cannot be too important because it has never appeared on ABC\ television.

    Seems to be another case of a BBC staff member believing that they are above reproach.

  5. Elon Musk is about the only tech billionaire that deserves any trust imo. Years ago he warned the world of the dangers of AI, but the toddlers were so smitten with shiny toys it didn’t register. Musk is a lineage holder of Technocracy, his grandfather was Research Director and then Head of Technocracy Inc (Canada). With that background it is no surprise Elon got an inside track to where he is today. Bill Gates, with his family background in eugenics, also suffered a similar fate, set up for success in terms of finance, he was effectively thrown under the bus in terms of not receiving an education that valued diverse humanity. Musk, unlike any other billionaire in the TechSpace, eg Zuckerberg, Bezos (Amazon), Kurzweil (Google) Thiel, etc. still displays a functioning conscience. He has reinstated ‘free speech’ on the X platform, but from what I see it is a ‘freedom’ with strings attached. Russell Brand like everyone else, is a product of his environment. Now watch as past and present employees at the BBC run for the metaphorical hills. The situation for the BBC is nothing that a managerial ‘data scrub’ can’t fix. The environment doesn’t do self-analysis, it does obscuration. Vote YES.

  6. Most of the “*insert accused-person-of-choice is innocent until proven guilty” crowd have no difficulty in avering, loudly and frequently, that the accuser/s is/are lying. Apparently the rule only works one way ….

    Barry:
    Musk has invented nothing and done nothing worthwhile. He inherited money and spends it on toys: Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, etc. He has been forcibly removed from the management of some of those companies because he was so erratic and incompetent. What he has done to Twitter is a great example of his business nous – it’s on a par with Liz Truss’s economic understanding.
    As for “free speech” at Xitter … oh yeah, that’s going great. Any and all sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, bigoted commentary is fine, but refer to someone quite accurately as “cis” and you’ll get wiped. He doesn’t champion actual free speech, he promotes the most outspoken bigotry around but can’t take even the mildest criticism of his behaviour. He has yet to demonstrate any cognizance of the existence of such a thing as personal consciience, must less his possession of such.

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