Summary

Carlos Slim’s telecom giant, América Móvil, canceled $22 billion in planned Starlink orders after Elon Musk insinuated Slim had ties to drug cartels.

The decision, made within hours of Musk’s tweet, costs Musk his main partner in 25 countries and shifts business to Chinese and European competitors, further reducing U.S. commercial influence.

Musk’s increasing political entanglements and conspiracy-laden posts are alienating key business partners and consumers, with potential ripple effects on Tesla sales.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Yesterday someone posted a thread that claimed that was the actual intention. Awfully questionable but it’s a funny enough idea to spread anyway ……

      The claim is some economic mastermind in the administration believes our entire problem is interest rates and the dollar is too strong. Ok as far as that goes, but the further claim is all the tariffs, flip flopping, broken contracts are just to persuade countries to kick us in the dick until we feel better. They may not have used those exact words

      • TheBrideWoreCrimson@sopuli.xyz
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        2 days ago

        There are better ways to devalue your currency. It’s not such an uncommon thing for countries to do. Why go out of your way to be a dick? This new type of behavior we are observing from US officials just smacks of sheer incompetency and lack of direction on the diplomatic stage.

      • rumba@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        There’s some merit to them purposefully tanking stocks. Prior to the flip-flopping, a lot of big money pulled out of the market significantly (which also contributed to it crashing and people freaking) As far as the dollar being too strong, it just has to stay stronger than the stockmarket so they can buy back cheap.

        Of course, it’ll cause a recession. fuck over everyone and just about every company in the country, but Elon doesn’t care, he’ll just grant himself a bunch of defense and aerospace contracts, maybe order a 30 billion in teslas for the government.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      No, they said it right.

      In this case, Elon is mouthing off like a bitch, and someone else kicked him in the dick for it (if it did really happen).

      That’s really really important, because usually these guys do shit, then no one kicks them in the dick. That’s what allows them to continue doing the shit.