The Reign of King Elon Musk Begins at Twitter
The Socialist Program with Brian Becker
The Socialist Program
4.7 • 587 Ratings
🗓️ 2 November 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today's episode Brian Becker and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss how Elon Musk became the new owner of Twitter. The widely-hated billionaire immediately began to prepare layoffs, reportedly starting with the mass firing of a quarter of all employees at the company. Under the dictatorship of the rich, one of the main ways that people in society communicate with each other can become the private possession of a single ultra-wealthy capitalist.
Professor Richard Wolff is an author & co-founder of the organization Democracy at Work. You can find his work at rdwolff.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's official. Elon Musk is the new owner of Twitter. The widely reviled billionaire immediately |
| 0:10.3 | began to prepare layoffs of thousands of workers, reportedly starting with a mass firing, perhaps |
| 0:16.9 | as many as 25 or even 50% of the employees of the company. |
| 0:22.4 | Under this system, so-called democracy or what we might call the dictatorship of the rich, |
| 0:28.3 | one of the main ways that people in society communicate with each other can become the |
| 0:32.5 | private possession of a single ultra wealthy capitalist. |
| 0:38.2 | We need a new system. We need a new society. We need to demand that which may have sounded |
| 0:44.4 | impossible even a few weeks ago, but is not only realizable, but an imperative necessity. |
| 1:16.5 | Music necessity. Welcome to this episode of the Socialist Program. |
| 1:22.3 | We are excited to have Professor Richard Wolfe join us again for our regular weekly segment where we talk about the biggest stories related to the economy, the state of the working class, and the crimes of |
| 1:29.6 | big business. I'm your host, Brian Becker. The Socialist Program brings you content three |
| 1:34.5 | days a week thanks to the support of our patrons at patreon.com forward slash the Socialist Program. |
| 1:42.0 | We appreciate all of your support and encourage you to become a patron today if you enjoy listening to this show. |
| 1:49.5 | Richard Wolfe is the co-founder of the Organization Democracy at Work, the author of many books. |
| 1:54.8 | The latest being the sickness is the system when capitalism fails to save us from pandemics or itself. Be sure to check out all of his |
| 2:03.4 | work at rd wolf.com. That's r dwolff.com. Richard Wolf, welcome back. Thank you, Brian. Glad to be here. |
| 2:13.6 | Anyway, it's kind of mind-blowing that Twitter, the commons, the place where people communicate, |
| 2:21.5 | billions of people rely on it every day. There can be a transaction made in Elon Musk, I guess, |
| 2:29.1 | the richest man in the world, coming from a family who's, while his father previously owned an emerald mine in |
| 2:36.1 | Southern Africa, anyway, really something that Elon Musk, a billionaire, can take possession |
| 2:43.3 | of Twitter. But one of the themes of our show, Richard, and one of the themes of your discussions, |
| 2:49.4 | is that this system is so skewed and in fact |
... |
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