Who’s Afraid of Elon Musk? | A Penguin Pete’s Halloween Special!

Ooooooooh! Elon Musk! Elon Muuuuuuuuusk! He comes like a towering Godzilla of Capitalism, like the old Sim City game punishing you for your economy running too hot.

Elon-Musk-GodzillaIt’s like if you took every evil adjective of every Bond villain, ran it through a Warner Brothers’ cartoon filter, had Mel Brooks direct, and… fudge, there’s no use comparing this self-digesting multimedia fireball of midlife crisis frenzy. YOU explain Elon Musk? I dunno, “lovechild of Cthulhu and Mammon?” “The business news world’s equivalent of ___ye West?”

Here it is, Halloween 2022, and the scariest recent event that anyone can think of is that the Musk-Twitter deal went through. People bailing, mass panic. Yet it has been a few days, and Twitter is not, to me, noticeably worse than it has been over the 13 years I’ve been there.

This is precisely what I predicted would happen up to now. And now, speaking from my experience in media science studies in the context of eCommerce marketing, I will walk you through the logic of How I Knew That – and how I know the ways this social media storm is likely to abate.

elon-musk-terminator

I don’t blame anybody for bailing right now. Yes, the big stomping global gazillianaire muppet monster towering down Fifth Avenue is an impressive public spectacle which the media likes to follow around like puppies being fed a trail of breadcrumb treats. Join me after the jump, I promise you that once again, it’s not the end of the world…

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From the Trenches of #2022 : Your War Blogger

Good morning, and how are all my cosmic blueberries? Here, if you need a mood fix, there’s a gallery of hippie New Age good vibes I threw together on an old IMGUR post.

Sorry for not catching up more, but things have been busy. Blah blah blah, Pete doesn’t blog enough, blah blah, I don’t have time to boost my own site because I’m too busy boosting my clients’ sites.

I’ve also been hypnotized by the endless Doomscrolling feed of world news like the rest of you. Ukraine Putin Russia COVID climate change. Bad news all around. I’ve been telling you all it would get this bad years ago.

I Predicted Everything!

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how much of the year 2022 I prophesied, years and years ago. I’ve been tracing this line between Trump and Putin since Sally Yates got fired – yes, remember her, New Years’ Eve, 2017?

Trump-fires-Yates

Oh, I am sure that we are all shocked at Vladimir’s Putin’s INSANE and senseless massacre of Ukraine, as well as his own soldiers, citizens, economy, etc. But, boys and girls, I have been following this yellow brick road a long ol’ time. Won’t you join me on my adventures?

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Now My Other Gigs Are Infected With Occult Influence

You could say the same for every day of the cursed year of 2020, but my timeline seems to have been particularly dark since reviewing – and being bit by – Cultist Simulator. It was indeed a fit spooky choice for October, which dragged me through the month as I’ve tried to keep up my horror viewing in the middle of everything else.

Ignite_Cannabis_Co-1021x574

Is Ignite Cannabis Co. trying to tell us something?

At my stoner DabConnection gig, we’ve become the freelance police of the cannabis industry busting fake brands of THC vape cartridges left and right. But this time I got interested in a real brand managed by an Instagram influencer Dan Bilzerian, though “real” and “managed” are both up for debate. The brand has raised millions in investor funding and squandered millions more with Bilzerian apparently going through the most hysterical public midlife-crisis ever. We’re talking $50 million in 2019 alone!

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For your Christmas catching-up: The Impeachment of Donald J. Trump

Here it is Christmas Eve, and I’ve JUST NOW shoveled my way out from under my workload to pay attention to my own site for a change.

I know most of you want to think about this like you need a hole in your mistletoe, but I promise it’s funny and enlightening. The Impeachment of Donald J. Trump examines where we are, how we got here, where we might be going, and – are you sitting down for this? It actually explains things so they make *some* sense!

It’s a defining Christmas for the Trumpster. Lots of soul-searching is due (though we may be sure none will be undertaken). If ghosts of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and John McCain visited him tonight, that would be most fitting.

 

A Biography of Warren Buffett

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.


Warren Buffett is consistently ranked by Forbes magazine in the top-ten richest people on Earth, with a net worth last clocked at $84 billion USD. So, how did he manage that?

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A Biography of Casino Tycoon Sheldon Adelson

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.


Sheldon Adelson is currently the fifteenth-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $33 billion USD. This comes as no surprise when you consider that he is in the United States, and his business is casinos. He is the CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation and its subsidiaries. Casinos and resorts currently owned by Sand Corp. include the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, the Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino, and the Sands Expo and Convention Center, all three in Las Vegas, USA, the Sands Macao and the The Venetian Macao Resort Hotel, both in Macau, China, and the Sands BethWorks in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

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A Biography of Saudi Royal Tycoon Prince Al-Waleed

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.


His full name is “Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud”, and one could imagine that with a name like that, you’d have to be rich. He is among the richest people in the world with a current net worth of $15 billion USD, and is the second richest man in royalty next to the Sultan of Brunei. Time magazine has called him “the Arabian Warren Buffett.”

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A Biography of Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.


Oleg Deripaska was once the tenth richest billionaire in the world, with a personal net worth around $28 billion USD. He has since been knocked back to $3.3 billion in the wake of the 2007-08 Great Recession. He has also been the richest person in all of Russia and the Chairman of the Board – not the CEO – of United Company RusAl (Russian Aluminum), the world’s largest aluminum company.

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A Biography of India’s Business Magnates Mukesh and Anil Ambani

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.


Mukesh Ambani is the world’s eighteenth richest person, with an estimated net worth of $44 billion USD.
His father, Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, was himself one of India’s greatest business tycoons and the founder of Reliance Industries, India’s largest private sector conglomerate. Born in relative poverty, Dhirajlal worked his way up and built the business empire, which his sons Mukesh and Anil have since taken over to spur on to even greater success.

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A Biography of Dell Inc. Founder Michael Dell

Originally published 2007, part of a series I did for a biography website. Can’t even remember who now, but it’s long gone.


Michael Dell is among the top 100 richest persons in the world and the founder and CEO of the computer company Dell, Inc. His net worth is estimated by Forbes to be $28 billion USD.

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