Badger

This country drives me mad and I love it anyway. Best rugby team on earth. Most corrupt government we've ever had. Wine that belongs on any table in the world. Politicians who'd rather divide us than build anything. I'm going to talk about all of it. Straight. Stick around if that's your thing

@elonmusk @RealJamesWoods I’m not sure if she is saying the prisoners shouldn’t be in jail, or if she should be in there with them Something off about this golf cart story

@RealJamesWoods She killed her sister!?

Setting aside whether her childhood accident was an unconscious act for the moment, her astonishing theory that most of the rapists, murderers, and child molesters in prison acted “accidentally” is mind-boggling. More importantly it is a powerful lesson about the liberal mind. We can now be assured that this opportunistic little piece of work, like so many of her ilk, will invariably weep for the criminal, but consider his victims, if she indeed considers them at all, as collateral damage. One thing is clear: she’s an even more dreadful monster than her vile, dangerous, deranged husband.

@RealJamesWoods I’m not sure if she is saying the prisoners shouldn’t be in jail, or if she should be in there with them Something off about this golf cart story

@Abramjee SA government is soft on crime, intentionally. It suits their purpose and hides their own criminal activity. We could be like El Salvador if the government of the day really wanted it. Meanwhile, people drinking their lattes from across the street get upset about this

Cape Town: ⚠️ Graphic.

Today in South Africa: 70 murders 124 rapes (reported) Of those the conviction rate in courts for serious crimes is about 5-10% Crime is out of control and there is no justice within the justice system. So justice devolves to the streets, to townships, to bodyguards, to private security, and to the individual. If that fails, you become another crime statistic. Because SAPS isn’t going to stop the crime, the most they will do is cover your dead body with shiny foil and let it lay in the sun for hours until the body van arrives. It doesn’t look right what happened, but that guy wasn’t apprehended for jaywalking. Private security is necessary because the alternative is far worse

Today in South Africa: 70 murders 124 rapes (reported) Of those the conviction rate in courts for serious crimes is about 5-10% Crime is out of control and there is no justice within the justice system. So justice devolves to the streets, to townships, to bodyguards, to private security, and to the individual. If that fails, you become another crime statistic. Because SAPS isn’t going to stop the crime, the most they will do is cover your dead body with shiny foil and let it lay in the sun for hours until the body van arrives. It doesn’t look right what happened, but that guy wasn’t apprehended for jaywalking. Private security is necessary because the alternative is far worse.

People love to hate Elon Musk in this country. The man grew up in Pretoria. Built Tesla from nothing. Put rockets into orbit. Bought the world's most powerful media platform. Advises the US president. Whether you like him or not, that's an extraordinary life. SA produced him. We should at least own that

But "kill the Boer" is just words...

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@SBakerMD That’s hectic. All of it. Huge respect for all that you guys go through

Anyway a few days later the kid died and I have to admit I had mixed emotions about it! I survived the month went on to finish out my residency and practice orthopedics. I’ve had plenty of tough experiences over my life but the cumulative stress plus complete exhaustion of that experience will always stand out!

It was the worst month of my life!! September 2001, I was a surgical intern at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas and I was doing a rotation at the Shriner Pediatric Burn Hospital. Now remember this was back in the day before they passed laws limiting how many hours you were allowed to work and historically surgical residency has often been fairly abusive. Long hours, little sleep and consistently being berated was a pretty typical experience for many residents, more so with the surgical ones. My size, being 6’5” and 280 lbs, coupled with the fact that I pretended to be slightly unstable kept my beratement to a minimum. Size has its advantages! Anyway, the burn hospital had the reputation among the residents as a pretty hellish experience and I was right in the middle of it. When you saw another colleague around the hospital and they asked you what rotation were you doing and you said Shriner’s, it was alway met with an “ouch, hang in there” or something similar. As an intern, even though you just finished medical school, you are basically at the level of an idiot, when it comes to managing patients. And the Shriner Burn hospital was filled with critically burned little kids in the intensive care unit where you were assigned. Now as I was just at the beginning of my journey I had not yet become used to the constant fatigue that I would learn to embrace over the next 5 years of my orthopedic residency. After 4 years of college, 4 more years of medical school I was about 60% of the way through my education, but the light at the end of the tunnel was still a long way off. Residents in general, were largely just cheap labor for the hospitals as our salaries were way less than minimum wage given the number of hours we were expected to work and quitting was never a good option. Orthopedic surgical spots were extremely competitive and highly coveted among medical students and if you were not in the top 10% of your medical school class good luck getting in. Fortunately, I was a very good medical student, good grades, good at standardized testing and a hard worker. I got my spot and wasn’t going to let being tired or anything else deter me from finishing. As I mentioned sleep was a luxury during residency, some months better than others. Over the years I can remember being so exhausted that I would be falling asleep while standing up assisting in surgery. It was a common trick to clamp non penetrating towel clips to our arms, chests or even nipples in order that the pain would keep us awake during surgery. I remember many times I avoided sitting down in the clinic because the second I sat down I would immediately fall asleep. The burn hospital was the worse place for not being able to sleep. We were on what is known as Q2 call, which means every other night you would be staying at the hospital on call to take care of the sick kids and often would be up all night. This coupled with the typical daily schedule which started at around 4 am and often lasted to 10 pm meant that you basically worked 40 hrs straight, went home for 7-8 hours and then did another 40 hours over and over again for the whole month. 120-130 hours per week was the average for the month rotation and that aspect really beat you up. Now, the guy who ran the hospital, was a world renowned burn surgeon named David Herndon, who I think might still be the chief of staff there. Anyway the rumor was that he was a little bit crazy and the staff and burn fellows were terrified of him. He was loud, yelled a lot and had no problem letting someone know that they were an idiot in front of the entire staff. Morning rounds with him was a stressful event. Each intern, residents, and fellow would be responsible for 2-3 of the ICU kids and we’d walk around the ICU going from bed to bed presenting our patients when it was our turn. It was always a dog and pony show with about 20 people following Dr

@bryan_johnson Quality of life is more important than not dying

The strongest case against me is that I've built an identity around not dying so completely that I can no longer evaluate evidence that dying might be acceptable. If survival is the only framework, I have no way to test whether survival is worth it.

@pmarca @romanhelmetguy Pity it’s going to end at the midterms

I have never been so bullish on the United States of America.

🇿🇦What is truly mind-blowing about this 1930's Stalinist style show trial is how the SA regime is milking it for all its worth. The accused have been imprisoned since 2002, yet the end of the trial is nowhere in sight... The state already closed its case in 2007, yet the ANC-controlled judiciary seems determined to deny justice to the accused by delaying the trial for as long as possible, ostensibly for propaganda purposes. Approximately 50 Boer political prisoners are currently being held captive in South African prisons under inhumane circumstances. The Boeremag trial is still ongoing since 2002. Ten of the accused in the Boeremag trial are repeatedly refused bail, still in incarceration, and still being detained for more than 20 years. There are many White political prisoners who are rotting in jail in South Africa, never to see the light of day again. WHERE IS THE WORLD for these men? Why is there no sanctions and international media to condemn the actions of these ANC terrorists? These same organisations couldn't contain themselves during Apartheid - every small incident blown totally out of proportion - all to vilify and demonise the Whites of South Africa. Yet here is the BIGGEST human rights infringement ever in South African history and not a peep from any of these bleeding heart organisations. Where is Amnesty International? Where are the UN's Human Rights committees to investigate?

Just stop, we all know your scam. >Democrats raise taxes. >Money flows to NGOs packed with Democratic operatives. >Those operatives take their cut, write a check to Democratic campaigns > Report back that the problem still exists and needs more funding. If you fix the problem... the money stops. So nothing ever gets fixed. The money vanishes into a network of nonprofits and nobody goes to jail and nobody loses their job and then freaking YOU go on X and point at billionaires. You doesn't want to fix anything. Fixed problems don't generate donations or fund your life... If you wanted to fix the problem you'd care about the fraud, BUT YOU DO NOT. That's how I know you're lying.

@KanthanPillay He doesn’t give two shits and I’m here for it

The only reason I signed up for Truth Social …

@MissyIsMaga @BillAckman AI and bad taste for likes. That’s a perma block

@BillAckman @X @grok summarise Bill’s tweet into no more than 250 characters

I am reaching out to the @X community for advice with the likely risk of sharing TMI. I have been sufficiently upset about the whole matter that I have lost sleep thinking about it and I am hoping that this post will enable me to get this matter off my chest. By way of background, I started a family office called TABLE about 15 years ago and hired a friend who had previously managed a family office, and years earlier, had been my personal accountant. She is someone that I trusted implicitly and consider to be a good person. The office started small, but over the last decade, the number of personnel and the cost of the office grew massively. The growth was entirely on the operational side as the investment team has remained tiny. While my investment portfolio grew substantially, the investments I had made were almost entirely passive and TABLE simply needed to account for them and meet capital calls as they came in. While TABLE purchased additional software and other systems that were supposed to improve productivity, the team kept increasing in size at a rapid rate, and the expenses continued to grow even faster. While I would periodically question the growing expenses and high staff turnover, I stayed uninvolved with the office other than a once-a-year meeting when I briefly reviewed the operations and the financials and determined bonus compensation for the President and the CFO. I spent no time with any of the other employees or the operations. The whole idea behind TABLE was that it would handle everything other than my day job so that I would have more time for my job and my family. Over the last six years, expenses ballooned even further, employee turnover accelerated, and I became concerned that all was not well at TABLE. It was time for me to take a look at what was going on. Nearly four years ago, I recruited my nephew who had recently graduated from Harvard and put him to work at Bremont, a British watchmaker, one of my only active personal investments to figure out the issues at the company and ultimately assist in executing a turnaround. He did a superb job. When he returned from the UK late last year after a few years at Bremont, I asked him to help me figure out what was going on with TABLE. When I explained to TABLE’s president what he would be doing, she became incredibly defensive, which naturally made me more concerned. My nephew went to work by first meeting with each employee to understand their roles at the company and to learn from them what ideas they had on how things could be improved. He got an earful. Our first step in helping to turn around TABLE was a reduction in force including the president and about a third of the team, retaining excellent talent that had been desperate for new leadership. Now here is where I need your advice. All but one of the employees who were terminated acted professionally and were gracious on the way out (excluding the president who had a notice period in her contract, is currently still being paid, and with whom I have not yet had a discussion). The highest compensated terminated employee other than the president, an in-house lawyer (let’s call her Ronda), told us that three months of severance was not enough and demanded two years’ severance despite having worked at the company for only two and one half years. When I learned of Ronda's request for severance, I offered to speak with her to understand what she was thinking, but she refused to do so. A few days ago, we received a threatening letter from a Silicon Valley law firm. In the letter, Ronda’s counsel suggests that her termination is part of longstanding issues of ‘harassment and gender discrimination’ – an interesting claim in light of the fact that Ronda was in charge of workplace compliance – and that her termination was due to: “unlawful, retaliatory, and harmful conduct directed towards her. Both [Ronda] and I [Ronda’s lawyer] have spoken with you about [Ronda’s] view of what a reasonable resolution would include given the circumstances. Thus far, TABLE has refused to provide any substantive response. This letter provides the last opportunity to reach a satisfactory agreement. If we cannot do so, [Ronda] will seek all appropriate relief in a court of competent jurisdiction.” The letter goes on to explain the basis for the “unsafe work environment” claim at TABLE: “In early 2026, Pershing Square’s founder Bill Ackman installed his nephew in an unidentified role at TABLE, Ackman’s family office. [His nephew]—whose only work experience had been for TABLE where he was seconded abroad for the last four years to a UK watch company held by Ackman—began appearing at TABLE’s offices and conducting interviews of employees without a clear explanation of his role or the purposes of these interviews. During this period, he made a series of inappropriate and genderbased [sic] comments to multiple employees that created an unsafe work environment. Among other things, [his nephew] made remarks about female employees’ ages (“Tell me you are nowhere near 40”), physical appearance (“Your body does not look like you have kids”), as well as intrusive questions about family planning and sexual orientation (“Who carried your son? Who will carry your next child?”). These incidents were reported to senior leadership at TABLE and Pershing Square. Rather than being addressed appropriately, the response from senior management reflected, at best, willful blindness to the inappropriateness of [his nephew]’s remarks and, at worst, tacit endorsement.” The above allegations about my nephew had previously been brought to my attention by TABLE’s president when they occurred. When I learned of them, I told the president that I would speak to him directly and encouraged her to arrange for him to get workplace sensitivity training. The president assured me that she would do so. When I spoke to my nephew, he explained what he actually had said and how his actual remarks had been received, not at all as alleged in the legal letter from Ronda’s counsel. I have also spoken to others at the lunch table who confirmed his description of the facts. In any case, he meant no harm, was simply trying to build rapport with other employees, and no one, as far as I understand, was offended. Ironically, Ronda claims in her legal letter that TABLE didn’t take HR compliance seriously, yet Ronda was in charge of HR compliance at TABLE and the person who gave my nephew his workplace sensitivity training after the alleged incidents. In any case, Ronda, as head of compliance, should have kept a record or raised an alarm if indeed there was pervasive harassment or other such problems at the company, and there is no evidence whatsoever that this is true. So why does Ronda believe she can get me to pay her nearly $2 million, i.e., two years of severance, nearly one year of severance for each of her years at the company? Well, here is where some more background would be helpful. Over the last two months, I have been consumed with a major family medical issue – one of my older daughters had a massive brain hemorrhage on February 5th and has since been making progress on her recovery – and I am in the midst of a major transaction for my company which I am executing from a hospital room office next to her . While the latter business matter is publicly known, the details of my daughter’s situation are only known to Ronda because of her role at our family office. Now, let’s get back to the subject at hand. Unfortunately, while New York and many other states have employment-at-will, there has emerged an industry of lawyers who make a living from bringing fake gender, race, LGBTQ and other discrimination employment claims in order to extract larger severance payments for terminated employees, and it needs to stop. The fake claim system succeeds because it costs little to have a lawyer send a threatening letter and nearly all of the lawyers in this field work on contingency so there is no or minimal cash cost to bring a claim. And inevitably, nearly 100% of these claims are settled because the public relations and legal costs of defending them exceed the dollar cost of the settlement. The claims are nearly always settled with a confidentiality agreement where the employee who asserts the fake claims remains anonymous and as a result, there is no reputational cost to bringing false claims. The consequences of this sleazy system (let’s call it ‘the System’) are the increased costs of doing business which is a tax on the economy and society. There are other more serious problems due to the System. Unfortunately, the existence of an industry of plaintiff firms and terminated employees willing to make these claims makes it riskier for companies to hire employees from a protected class, i.e., LGBTQ, seniors, women, people of color etc. because it is that much more reputationally damaging and expensive to be accused of racism, sexism, and/or intolerance for sexual diversity than for firing a white male as juries generally have less sympathy for white males. The System therefore increases the risk of discrimination rather than reducing it, and the people bringing these fake claims are thereby causing enormous harm to the other members of these protected classes. So what happened here? Ronda was vastly overpaid and overqualified for the job that she did at TABLE. She was paid $1.05 million plus benefits last year for her work which was largely comprised of filling out subscription agreements and overseeing an outside law firm on closing passive investments in funds and in private and venture stage companies, some compliance work, and managing the office move from one office to another. She had a very good gig as she was highly paid, only had to go into the office three days a week, and could work from anywhere during the summer. Once my nephew showed up and started to investigate what was going on, she likely concluded that there was a reasonable possibility she would be terminated, as her job was in the too-easy-and-to-good-to-be-true category. The problem was that she was not in a protected class due to her race, age or sexual identity so she had to construct the basis for a claim. While she is female and could in theory bring a gender-based discrimination claim, she reported to the president who is female and to whom she is very close, which makes it difficult for her to bring a harassment claim against her former boss. When my nephew complimented a TABLE employee at lunch about how young she looked – in response to saying she was going to her 40-year-old sister’s birthday party, he said ‘she must be your older sister’ – Ronda immediately reported it to our external HR lawyer. She thereby began building her case. The other problem for Ronda bringing a claim is that she was terminated alongside 30% of other TABLE employees as part of a restructuring so it is very difficult for her to say that she was targeted in her termination or was retaliated against. TABLE is now hiring an external fractional general counsel as that is all the company needs to process the relatively limited amount of legal work we do internally. In short, Ronda was eminently qualified and capable and did her job. She was just too much horsepower for what is largely an administrative legal role so she had to come up with something else to bring a claim. Now Ronda knew I was a good target and it was a good time to bring a claim against me. She also knew that I was under a lot of pressure because on March 4th when Ronda was terminated, my daughter had not yet emerged from consciousness, she was not yet breathing on her own, and my daughter and we were fighting for her life. I was and remain deeply engaged in her recovery while at the same time I was working on finishing the closing for the private placement round for my upcoming IPO. Ronda also knew that publicity about supposed gender discrimination and a “hostile and unsafe work environment” are not things that a CEO of a company about to go public wants to have released into the media. And she may have thought that the nearly $2 million she was asking for would be considered small in the context of the reputational damage a lawsuit could cause, regardless of the fact that two years of severance was an absurd amount for an employee who had only worked at TABLE for 30 months. She also likely considered that I wouldn’t want to embarrass my nephew by dragging him into the klieg lights when her claims emerged publicly. So, in summary, game theory would say that I would certainly settle this case, for why would I risk negative publicity at a time when I was preparing our company to go public and also risk embarrassing my nephew. Notably, she hired a Silicon Valley law firm, rather than a typical NY employment firm. This struck me as interesting as her husband works for one of the most prominent Silicon Valley venture firms whose CEO, I am sure, has no tolerance for these kinds of fake claims that sadly many venture-backed companies also have to deal with. I mention this as I suspect her husband likely has been working with her on the strategy for squeezing me as, in addition to being a computer scientist, he is a game theorist. My only advice for him is to understand more about your opponent before you launch your first move. All of the above said, gender, race, LGBTQ and other such discrimination is a real thing. Many people have been harmed and deserve compensation for this discrimination, and these companies and individuals should be punished for engaging in such behavior. Which brings me to the advice I am seeking from the X community. I am not planning to follow the typical path and settle this ‘claim.’ Rather, I am going to fight this nonsense to the end of the earth in the hope that it inspires other CEOs to do the same so we shut down this despicable behavior that is a large tax on society, employment, and the economy and contributes to workplace discrimination rather than reducing it. Do you agree or disagree that this is the right approach?

@Jonathan_Witt It took me 10 minutes just to read his tweet, imagine being his lawyer!

Bill, you took way too long to get to the question here. Yes you should absolutely fight this and everyone should be grateful to you for doing so. A lesson I learnt during covid is that if you have the money you annihilate your enemies with legal recourse.

@BillAckman @X Stick around for the ride Ronda! Ronda and hubby are reading this and thinking “Ohhhh sh!t” FAFO

Maybe the people saying Black people are too stupid to get an ID to vote… are the racists. Maybe the people saying married women can’t figure out how to get a birth certificate… are the sexists. Maybe the people calling everyone else a threat to democracy… are the ones trying to rig it. Maybe the people obsessed with “equity” while ignoring merit… are the ones holding people back. Maybe the people who can’t name a single limit on immigration… are the extremists. Maybe the people who say they’re fighting for the working class… while flying private, actually aren’t. Maybe the people who say they care about the poor… have run every major American city for 50 years and made them ALL worse. Maybe the people calling for more gun control… travel with armed security paid for by taxpayers. Maybe the people who claim to love science… but can’t define what a woman is aren’t following it. Maybe the people demanding unity while calling half the country fascists… don’t actually want unity.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Maybe it was never about justice, equity, tolerance, or democracy. Maybe it was always about power. And maybe the way you know that, is that they never stop accusing YOU of exactly what THEY are doing.