@augieray

The billionaires funding all the gratuitous cruelty...

• Elon Musk: $290 million
• Timothy Mellon: $150 million
• Adelson Clinic for Drug Abuse Treatment & Research: $106 million
• Linda McMahon of WWE: $16 million
• Hendricks Holding Co: $15 million
• Bigelow Aerospace: $14.1 million
• Laura & Issac Perlmutter Foundation: 12.4 million
• ABC Supply: $11 million
• Cantor Fitzgerald: $11 million
• Uline: $10 million

https://www.newsweek.com/american-businesses-supporting-donating-donald-trump-list-2027957

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The billionaires funding all the gratuitous cruelty...

• Pratt Industries: $10 million
• British American Tabacco: $10 million
• Southern Waste Systems: $9 million
• Elliott Management: $7 million
• Andreesseen Horowitz: $7 million
• Viotl Inc: $6 million
• Timothy Dunn of CrownQuest: $5 million
• Jeff Sprecher of Intercontinental Exchange and Kelly Loeffler: $4.9 million
• Phil Ruffin, a business partner of Trump's: $3.3 million

https://www.newsweek.com/american-businesses-supporting-donating-donald-trump-list-2027957

@jeffowski

The six dynasties that spent 50 years and billions of dollars on climate denial.

Bradley, Koch, Coors, Scaife, Seid, Uihlein.
https://www.desmog.com/2024/10/25/project-2025-trump-mapped-how-6-billionaire-family-fortunes-fund-climate-denial/

They're also against human rights, clean air & water, voting, green energy, health care, fair taxation of the wealthy, consumer protections, public education, civil rights & the EU.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/2/17/racism-and-the-roots-of-conservative-philanthropy-in-the-us

@joshisanonymous @petersuber @academicchatter

Just like last time, bigoted elites terrified of taxation imposed by a democracy, will support fascism to keep their wealth & status.

Elon Musk is today's Henry Ford.
https://www.thehistoryreader.com/historical-figures/hitlers-american-friends-henry-ford-and-nazism/

Larry Ellison's Oracle & Peter Thiel's Palantir are today's IG Farben.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/18/nazi-billionaires-book-hitler-bmw-porsche

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Billionaires

Koch Industries is today's Standard Oil
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_C._Teagle

https://time.com/5414055/american-nazi-sympathy-book/

https://www.shellnazihistory.com/?cat=103

@inthehands

Musk has become bored with Tesla. His main investors, the fossil fuel investors, want to end all EV's anyway.

https://www.americanbanker.com/news/peter-thiel-backed-palantir-plots-ai-tech-for-banks

According to Kara Swisher & Scott Galloway, they suspect that the next mirage that Musk wishcasts will be a pivot to AI-enabled surveillance state IT infrastructure.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/larry_ellison_wants_all_data/

That's where the next big cash cow will be launched.

Leveraged by a merger of SpaceX, X, xAI, & Tesla.
https://youtu.be/r4N7BKtgJHo?si=j_CBnYTzUHyLb7hU

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@knittingknots2

Six families are the main funders of Project 2025.

Bradley, Koch, Scaife, Coors, Seid, & Uihlein are funding a global recession for their own agenda.
https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/

Typical American half-court tennis.

It leads to world war, the greed of dynastic wealth. Tax the rich.

https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/sarah-paine-japan

https://financialpost.com/news/economy/trump-tariffs-echo-failed-american-trade-policy

@jonkeegan.com

Trump was always a tacky guy in the same gauche vein as Putin & Saddam Hussein

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/photos/2016/03/donald-trump-mansions-saddam-hussein-palaces

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/01/putin-imperial-palaces-wealth-navalny-corruption/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3962822/Donald-Trump-mansions-looks-Saddam-Hussein-s-palaces.html

https://www.rferl.org/a/photos-of-palace-allegedly-belonging-to-russian-president-vladimir-putin/31053780.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/25/gaddafi-compound-condoleezza-rice-photos

@dstndstn

The goals of LLM's are non-monetary.

1. The goals are political.
https://theconversation.com/4-ways-ai-can-be-used-and-abused-in-the-2024-election-from-deepfakes-to-foreign-interference-239878

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/23/nx-s1-5123927/russia-artificial-intelligence-election

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/25/canada-warns-of-election-threats-from-china-russia-india-and-pakistan

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/gauging-ai-threat-free-and-fair-elections

2. The goals are fraudulent.
https://mashable.com/article/fintech-app-nate-fraud-charges-artificial-intelligence

https://fortune.com/2025/04/11/albert-saniger-nate-shopping-app-fraud-ai-justice-department/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2025/04/13/ai-powered-tax-fraud-how-to-stay-safe-this-season/

https://decrypt.co/314498/spanish-police-crypto-scam-ai-21-million

3. The goals are economic warfare.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/06/18/artificial-intelligence-has-caused--50-to-70-decrease-in-wages-creating-income-inequality-and-threatening-millions-of-jobs/

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20230718-ai-artificial-intelligence-worker-wages-salaries

https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/internet/human-wages-crash-from-ai-top-investor-reveals-chilling-ai-goal/news-story/becc932a0434fb55e335ab4aab8bf109

https://bigeasymagazine.com/2025/04/10/if-ai-takes-all-our-jobs-whos-left-to-buy-anything/

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/01/24/labor-faces-artificial-intelligence-and-outsourcing-appeasement-or-class-struggle/

The goals are anti-democratic.

@jalefkowit

The extrajudicial renditions will spread from "Thou shalt not criticize Donald Trump" to:

"Thou shalt not criticize the billionaires that fund him"

Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Bill Ackman and others of their ilk are every bit as petty minded & thin skinned and anti-democratic as Trump.

@breadandcircuses

Six billionaire families and their allies funded Project 2025 to get climate action ended.

Bradley, Coors, Koch, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein

https://www.desmog.com/2025/03/14/heritage-foundation-project-2025-allies-mcc-ordo-iuris-discuss-dismantling-the-eu-european-union/

https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/

Yes, the moneyed are willing to risk global recession & wars to keep frying the planet.

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @pluralistic

Bradley, Coors, Koch, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein -- they bankroll Project 2025

Go after these dynasties' corporate interests

https://www.desmog.com/2024/08/14/project-2025-billionaire-donor-heritage-foundation-donald-trump-jd-vance-charles-koch-peter-coors/

Why?
They are targeting other democracies...
https://www.desmog.com/2025/03/14/heritage-foundation-project-2025-allies-mcc-ordo-iuris-discuss-dismantling-the-eu-european-union/

They're going to fry the planet if they aren't stopped
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2023/10/10/exclusive-charles-koch-koch-industries-has-given-more-than-5-billion-of-his-koch-industries-stock-to-two-nonprofits/

https://www.desmog.com/2024/10/25/project-2025-trump-mapped-how-6-billionaire-family-fortunes-fund-climate-denial/

#TaxTheRich
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/27/koch-americans-for-prosperity-trump-tax-breaks

https://popular.info/p/charles-kochs-5-billion-tax-loophole

@pvonhellermannn

The fossil fuel industry spent a lot of money trivializing wildfires in Australia, Colorado, Texas, California, and Canada to avoid lawsuits.
https://truthout.org/articles/big-oil-spent-445-million-to-influence-2024-elections/

https://www.commondreams.org/news/chris-wright-trump

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/11/los-angeles-fire-fossil-fuel-big-oil

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/02/fossil-fuel-companies-wildfire-liability/

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/australia-wildfires-unleash-millions-tons-carbon-dioxide-n1120186

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fires-doubled-australias-carbon-emissions-ecosystems-may-never-soak-it-back-up/

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532643-200-australias-fires-are-a-wake-up-call-lets-reduce-fossil-fuel-use/

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/08/28/1103186/canada-wildfire-emissions/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07878-z

https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/texas-is-on-fire-while-oil-companies-are-fueling-the-flames-of-climate-chaos/

https://www.cpr.org/2025/01/15/boulder-lawsuit-exxonmobil-suncor-energy-climate-change-scotus/

https://www.levernews.com/what-trumps-energy-secretary-pick-says-behind-closed-doors/

@knittingknots2

If American democracy manages to survive, lawsuits, discovery, legal settlements, and trials for crimes against humanity await.
https://www.splcenter.org/presscenter/settlement-forced-labor-case-against-private-prison-company-operating-immigration/

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-10-13/private-prison-operator-under-federal-scrutiny-spent-millions-settling-mistreatment-claims

https://fortune.com/2024/10/14/private-prison-corecivic-settle-mistreatment-complaints-tennessee-inmate-deaths/

Nazis saw their Nuremberg trials, including the industrialists IG Farben etc and it still taints their legacy decades later.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/hitler-oligarchs-hugenberg-nazi/681584/

https://jacobin.com/2022/10/nazi-billionaires-businesses-denazification-de-jong-interview

https://malwarwick-98471.medium.com/they-exploited-slave-labor-and-made-billions-a09d775a3024

@lin11c @Jackiemauro @sidereal @mkb @StillIRise1963

Ever read Octavia E. Butler's book on child kidnapping and forced adoptions?
https://www.octaviabutler.com/parableseries

It's supposed to be science fiction, not a game plan for a theocratic autocracy.

And yet,...
9 Republicans voted against the resolution condemning Putin's child kidnapping program in Ukraine.
https://www.businessinsider.com/house-republicans-vote-against-condemning-russian-abduction-ukrainian-children-2024-3

And a corrupt Supreme Court justice wanted abortion overturned to feed kids to an adoption system.

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@exador23

Nazis always target the family & friends of dissidents

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/georgetown-university-graduate-student-detained-immigration-authoritie-rcna197206

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/us/politics/georgetown-suri-detained.html

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/19/trump-deportation-georgetown-graduate-student-00239754

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-seeks-deport-pro-palestinian-georgetown-university-student-2025-03-20/

https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/meet-indian-scholar-badar-khan-suris-wife-mapheze-saleh-was-she-the-reason-behind-his-detention/3782628/

@lain_7 @kagan @tess

Be careful about the "Cost of Convenience"

1. AI is an energy hog. It's driving up electricity utility rates for everyone.

2. AI is insecure. Anything created by an LLM can be monitored & be sold to a competitor. Your IP isn't yours anymore.

3. AI robs junior programmers of growth and suppresses their wages.

4. AI is biased. Your ability to incorporate accessibility features etc are reduced.

@tzimmer_history

Anderson Cooper telling folks that they MUST listen to both sides is classic CNN bothsidism.

By this twisted logic, we are mandated, by a false sense of "fairness", to listen to the manifestos of mass shooters, consider the "good parts" of slavery, and weigh the pros & cons of an anti-democracy movement.

Hard pass.

Life is short, don't waste it listening to the ravings of a conman funded by Republican billionaire donors.

@noelreports

From Steve Carroll:

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Senator Jeff Merkley walked into the hearing room like a man who’d just been told his car got keyed and knew exactly who did it. On the other side of the table sat Christopher Landau, Trump’s nominee for Ambassador to Mexico, who looked like he hadn’t slept since Inauguration Day, and Matthew Whitaker, a former acting Attorney General who carries himself like a guy who still brags about his high school bench press record.

The setup was simple:...

@GottaLaff

Republican billionaires need to make room in the budget for the self-dealing & public corruption

@petergleick

Follow the money.

The Bradley Foundation was founded by a member of the John Birch Society. He pledged millions in 1965 & dedicated to ending the Voting Rights Act. John Roberts completed that task in 2013.

Charles Koch funded decades of climate denial and political & judicial public corruption. His nonprofits are dedicated to ending public education & health.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattdurot/2023/10/10/exclusive-charles-koch-koch-industries-has-given-more-than-5-billion-of-his-koch-industries-stock-to-two-nonprofits/

Those are just two of the billionaires bent on the destruction of democracy.