Go Fuck Yourself

And of course, the recent renewal of the Israel-Palestine conflict carries more than just sociopolitical and security implications for the world. This time around, the issue impinged on business and celebrity and economic issues as well. The focus on the conflict engulfed the entire world, and everyone got involved in the conflict one way or another this time around. In terms of the business and celebrity and economics dimension of this conflict, a raft of anti-Israel boycotts was announced through the internet and social media and in turn targeted major Western companies such as Starbucks, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and a number of others. Whether these boycotts are effective and whether the aim of the boycotts are to induce a change in policy or to simply bring these companies down is unclear. 

Of course, boycotts and lawsuits went the other way around as well. There is a case that involves UC-Berkeley which claims that universities in America are leaving antisemitic expression and speech “unchecked.” The issue even led to a British Home Secretary to resign from her post because of her row with police over pro-Palestinian protests. But the case which made the most headlines in recent days in the United States involved Elon Musk and Twitter or “X.” In a sense, Elon Musk brought it upon himself, but there is also a possibility that Elon Musk brought it all on himself unconsciously. And it may not hurt Elon Musk over the long run. In fact, Musk may recover from it faster than one can expect. Nevertheless, Musk’s combination of placing ads next to neo-Nazi content and his lackadaisical response to a sensationalist post which lambasted Western Jews led to a raft of ad boycotts on the part of a number of Western companies. In a way, this conflict hurts business for some of the world’s richest companies and people.

But surprisingly or perhaps not surprisingly, Musk recently responded to the ad boycotts which targeted “X” by saying “go fuck yourself” to the architects of the ad boycotts. And there is perhaps a sensible rationale and strategy behind Musk’s response to the ad boycotts. The response on the part of Musk may not have been as non-sensical as some may have perceived. In a sense, all Elon Musk has to do is to make up for the ad shortfall by turning to Russian, Chinese, and Gulf Arab money. After all, the main global trend aside from the relative decline of the West and the rise of the “Global South” is “Easternization.” 

Moreover, the East is now an alternative to the way in which the West approaches reality as a whole. Israel wants to exclude and kill off everyone else and hold the West in its own grip. But that logic and mindset led to an alternative for the world. This point about how the East serves as an alternative to the way in which the West approaches reality as a whole is even more significant than the point about money. Nevertheless, on the billionaire level where Musk is situated, everything is about money and growth. But the world no longer revolves around stingy American companies like Axios. Other people around the world have money too. And as a result, there are alternatives for entrepreneurs like Musk, which is perhaps one reason why Musk told everyone to go fuck themselves. 

It is also worth mentioning that billionaires are an exclusive club in the world and perhaps are the most exclusive club in the world. There are only about two-thousand of them in a world with a population of about 7.8 billion people. And the main competition which a billionaire faces is from other billionaires. When a person becomes a billionaire, the competition and the focus starts to come from within a very narrow circle of people. In turn, these billionaires think differently than other people. Billionaires like Musk do not tend to be the ones who think in existentialist terms when it comes to issues of culture, race, and religion. Common people who live in fear and petty politicians think in those existential terms, not billionaires. In short, billionaires like Musk think differently, and it is the thinking and mindset which sets a billionaire like Musk apart from everyone else. If these individuals did not think outside of the box per se, they would have never become billionaires. It all starts from a thought and from mindset. Sooner or later, China will have more billionaires than the United States, and that is if China has not already surpassed the United States in terms of number of billionaires. And as suggested before, it all comes down to one’s thoughts and mindset.