Ed Howard Models

For those who celebrate... Eight years ago today, February 6, 2018, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy maiden flight thundered off from KSC's Pad 39A, launching Elon's red Tesla Roadster into space with Starman at the wheel, grooving to "Space Oddity." Mars awaits!

@wholemars Yes to "Miles Trials". Many people first realize the benefit of FSD on a road trip that might otherwise be taxing.

Send everyone an FSD free trial with 14.2 But don’t make it a 30 day trial. Make it a 1,000 mile trial. It expires after you’ve actually used it.

@KatieMiller So he could run for congress.

After reading this piece on Sam Altman, one can reasonably conclude he’s put profit over loyalty, principles, and company governance. There’s business savvy and ruthlessness, and there’s Sam, who at multiple points in his career has been the subject of investigations and forced departures from companies he’s founded. When those closest to him raise alarms, they should be heeded by those whom he tries to con into business dealings. While Dario is also insufferable, it should be obvious to all why both him and Elon, who worked closest with Sam, find him to be a dishonest swindler. The last takeaway I have — this article is written by a gay Democrat, one of Sam’s own people, and even he is quite unconvinced that Sam is a good person. OpenAI was clearly changed from a non-profit to for-profit to benefit Sam. It’s clear he lied to Elon and his co-founders. “I think there’s a small but real chance he’s eventually remembered as a Bernie Madoff- or Sam Bankman-Fried-level scammer.” This is the truth and the world sees it.

@Classon_x @TheMoneyApe My aunt says...

@TheMoneyApe my uncle who covers sanctions said revoking 4,000 visas is way beyond normal diplomacy. said this is targeting elite personnel for isolation

🚨IRAN'S ELITE ARE IN DANGER 🚨 U.S. IS REVOKING 4,000 VISAS OF IRANIAN REGIME-LINKED INDIVIDUALS. SOLEIMANI'S FAMILY ALREADY HAD THEIR GREEN CARDS PULLED. TRUMP TRYING TO… Show more

@SenRickScott Rick Scott is the DC politician of which he speaks, voting to increase debt by TRILLIONS.

America is over $39 TRILLION in debt. If it were up to DC politicians, nothing would EVER change. This is unsustainable! President Trump wants a balanced budget — and I’m fighting to help MAKE IT HAPPEN so our kids and grandkids have a strong future!

@MattKibbe I see what you did there. 👍🥵

Week six of two weeks to slow the spread of war with Iran.

@DataRepublican @reason Reason went rotten years ago. I hoped for years they would come to their senses. Only got worse.

No wonder the institutional thinktank libertarians have been counter-signaling anything remotely MAGA related without any concern about left-wing politics. Open Society got their hands on them. Steven Greenhut, who wrote this article, is a "region director" for R Street Institute, a thinktank that is an explicit Open Society Foundations grantee. They have personnel overlap with Reason Foundation (which runs @reason). So of course Reason spends more time worrying about the "authoritarianism" of targeting George Soros than about noncitizens voting in our elections.

There is no voting crisis that demands federal intervention. reason.com/2026/04/03/the…

@BillAckman @X I see what you did here. 🤔

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?

@AriFleischer @JonahDispatch bull. bull in a china shop.

Sorry Jonah. I actually sat in the room for the first half of the movie. For 24 polite years, Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama diplomatically asked NATO members to increase defense spending. For 24 years, it was one excuse after another, all focused in Western Europe on how they wish they could spend more, but their social welfare spending priorities wouldn’t let them. In other words, you the US will spend on defense and protect us. Along comes rude Donald Trump. Finally, someone made clear that if Europe kept freeloading the US was done. It took a bill in the China shop to move Europe. Diplomacy failed. Trump prevailed. That’s reality whether you or I like it. NATO self-withered after 75 years. If Spain, England, Italy and France won’t spend what’s necessary to have a real military, it’s time for something new.

I agree with some of this directionally, but my God the refusal to acknowledge that Trump has worked assiduously to poison the alliance and heap all the blame on Europe is just water-carrying hackery. Saying "NATO will never be the same, and Western European weakness and acquiescence is the cause" is like writing a movie review when you missed the first half of the movie.

@BillyM2k 📯📯📯

there are some really pointless emojis 🦹‍♀️🧌🫃🧏‍♂️🪢🦡🧆🫘🛖🪔⛓️📯📛🇨🇦

@CynicalPublius That is my wife's ring tone for me. Love it when she misplaces her phone and asks me to call it!

Oh yeah. youtube.com/watch?v=ZEcqHA…

@elonmusk @beffjezos Also if AI could correct typos.

@beffjezos It would be amazing if AI could figure out how to get anywhere close to the speed of light and then slow down for landing on aline planets

2035: Ok Solar Grok swarm, design me an antimatter-based interstellar drive to make civilization multi-stellar. Make no mistakes.

@BillyM2k @TMZ More

@TMZ lindsey graham is more or less evil

@BillyM2k Right now is THE present!

what's a good present

@TSLAFanMtl It is getting close. I say wait until it can pull into the correct driveway ‐ ie mine. Then market.

FSD is only adopted by a small % of people who buy a Tesla - and that's only 2% of people who buy a car. Clearly this is a combination of the consumer not seeing the value - even at $99/month - and not being aware. Tesla is trying to increase awareness with some ads - but it's not nearly enough - but the rate limiter is that most early adopters have been converted and FSD still needs to get a lot better before it goes mainstream.

A one off weird event. I had one of those years ago. Was driving down a country road midday and everything went black. Hit the brake to a stop and a minute later my eyesight returned. Didn't tell my better half for 2 years. Now with Tesla FSD I am prepared if it were to happen again.

@RetireDividend @PeterSchiff Gee I had to sell my gold and pay CapGains. Alternatives bad.

@PeterSchiff Schiff explaining Bitcoin again like it personally offended him.

The only reason GSEs are guaranteeing Bitcoin down-payment mortgages is so homebuyers do not have to sell their Bitcoin, which helps to slow Bitcoin's price decline. In the process, the government loses the capital gains tax revenue it otherwise would have collected on the sale.

@PeterSchiff A feature - not a bug.

@elonmusk The #1 metric.

Grok holds the line

@DataRepublican @LeaderJohnThune Can't say I didn't know he is a scum sucking slimeball.

Hello Senator Thune, At 3 AM on Friday, March 27th, in a near-empty chamber, you passed a bill by voice vote that excludes all funding for ICE and CBP. Let me repeat that: voice vote. No roll call. No record of who was there. No accountability. Just you, Barrasso, and a handful of senators shuffling paper in the dead of night while America slept. You could have demanded a recorded vote. You chose not to. You could have held the line for five more days until the House returned. You chose not to. You could have used the same procedural tools Democrats have used against you for 40 days. You chose not to. Instead, you gave Chuck Schumer exactly what he asked for, DHS funding minus immigration enforcement, and called it a win. Then you walked to the cameras and blamed the Democrats. Let's be precise about what you did: 1. You caved to a demand Democrats made on Day 1 of this shutdown. Forty-one days of supposed hardball negotiation, and you settled for their opening offer. 2. You handed them a template. The next time Democrats want to defund any agency — ICE, CBP, or anything else — they now know: just shut down DHS and wait. John Thune will fold at 3 AM. 3. You punted to reconciliation. "Good possibility," you said. Not "we will." Not "guaranteed." Just maybe. Meanwhile, ICE operates on fumes from last year's bill with no certainty of future funding. The precedent you set: You have argued for months that the filibuster is sacrosanct. That the 60-vote threshold protects minority rights. That we cannot bend Senate rules for policy wins. But at 3 AM on Friday, you bent every norm that actually mattered: • Voice vote to avoid accountability • Empty chamber to avoid debate • Midnight deal to avoid scrutiny • Immediate recess to avoid questions You'll bend the rules to avoid a fight. You just won't bend them to win one. What you've actually accomplished: Democrats demanded ICE restrictions. They got ICE defunded. Not reformed. Not restrained. Defunded. And you're out here tweeting about how Democrats are the "Defund the Police" party while you just voted to defund border enforcement at 3 in the morning. The question you should answer: Why did this deal have to happen at 3 AM? Why couldn't it happen at 3 PM, with cameras rolling and every senator on record? You know why. Because you didn't want your voters to see what surrender looks like. Here's my message: We saw it anyway. Stop hiding behind "Democrat obstruction." You're the Majority Leader. You set the schedule. You control the floor. You chose this outcome. Own it.

Let’s summarize where we are after a 40+ day Democrat shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. 1) ICE and CBP are funded, thanks to the Working Families Tax Cuts and the foresight of President Trump and Republicans in Congress. 2) After holding DHS and the American people hostage for over 40 days, Dems got ZERO restrictions that would prevent ICE and CBP agents from doing their jobs safely. 3) Due to Dem obstruction of the appropriations process, ICE and CBP will get even more funding through budget reconciliation. 4) Dems have once again established themselves as the “Open Borders, Defund the Police” party heading into an election. 5) Dem leadership has proven once again they can’t be trusted to make a deal. Which begs the question if you’re a Dem senator or one of their left-wing supporters: What was this really all about?

@ashleevance Content human or cuntent human?

The new podcast studio has allowed me to place actual Core Memory right behind my head, and I am now a content human