General Discussion

I had hope for Bezos. He had (and may still have) some degree of a more progressive view of many matters of importance. His public statements when he bought WaPo were pretty good. But he's been sucking Trump's dick so hard since just before the election that Bezos' skin is, itself, taking on a bit of an orange pallor.

But, I've always perceived Musk as a humorless, tone-deaf, psychopath with no human empathy evident in any of his words or deeds - even before he became a right-wing tool.

Zuck has always been known as conservative. I think he closeted his conservatism until he felt license to come forward and bring it out with the coronation of a national Nazi leader like Trump.

I didn't think it possible, but Musk, Bezos and Zuck rank lower than the Kochs and the Waltons on my lists now. The Waltons and Kochs donated heavily to Republicans and Republican causes. But they at least had robust, high profile philanthropic programs that helped a lot of people.

Musk, Bezos and Zuck are far, far more dangerous in that not only do they donate to Republicans, but they have a more direct impact on the information ecosystem of the country than the Kochs and Waltons had or ever will have. They can all manipulate their social media empires to engineer public opinion in any way they see fit.

Part of our mission as liberals should be to dismantle the mass propaganda machinery of these bastards, either through competition with more left leaning social media, or though outreach to companies advertising or doing business on X/Meta/Amazon. Every time you see an ad adjacent to a racist/homophobic/hate post on social media, take a screen grab. Publish it elsewhere and sent it to the advertiser. We must fight this.