Elon Musk Quits Mark Zuckerberg's Lobbying Club

theodp writes "Valleywag's Adrian Chen wasn't the only one troubled by the tactics of Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us political lobbying group. Composed of a Who's Who of tech millionaires and billionaires, the group boasted its control of massive distribution channels, broad popularity with Americans, and money would make it a political force to be reckoned with. But the group came under fire for embracing decidedly old-school political tactics, forming both left-leaning and right-leaning subsidiaries, thus broadening its appeal to those who might help advance its agenda. Reports that FWD.us had funded ads praising Arctic oil drilling drew fire from critics, including Tesla/SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who FWD.us listed as a 'Major Supporter.' Not anymore. Valleywag reports that Musk has quit Zuckerberg's lobbying cabal, apparently feeling that the group's ends did not justify their hit-both-sides-of-the-aisle-to-get-what-you-want means. 'I have spent a lot of time fighting far larger lobbying organizations in DC and believe that the right way to win on a cause is to argue the merits of that cause,' Musk said. 'This statement may surprise some people, but my experience is that most (not all) politicians and their staffs want to do the right thing and eventually do.' By the way, didn't members of the Zuck PACk create, fund, and appear on Code.org, which lamented the sad state of U.S. CS education and featured a slick documentary showing technically clueless little kids, just weeks before launching their pro-techie immigration push? Hey, all's fair in love and lobbying!"

Comments

Well

[hsmith]

If you are in the lobbying game, you have to grease the skids on both sides of the isle. It is a bit idealistic to think that isn't the way DC works. You pay to play and you get what you want. Buying legislation successfully takes both parties.

Re:Well

[Sir_Sri]

Sad but true.

I think the problem is more one of advocating for both sides of an issue, or advocating for a side that your supporters disagree with. You can't be for arctic drilling and against it at the same time, but you can be for spending lavishly and offering cushy 'jobs' to politicians from both sides of the political isle.

Re:Well

[interval1066]

Sad but true.

Sad too that I refuse to support any tech millionaires who are willing to fund H1B's rather than invest in American children for tech education. Never have, never will. What little control I have over my taxes; I send directly to scholorships for American children that send them to technical schools and write off those funds on my taxes on the next tax schedule. Best way to write down my taxes, giving to tech scholorships. I have a list of such funds if anyone is interested. Its activist, its American, and a visible protest against the large companies that make all kinds of money from America but refuse to invest in it.

Stupid summary

[MrEricSir]

By the way, didn't members of the Zuck PACk create, fund, and appear on Code.org, which lamented the sad state of U.S. CS education and featured a slick documentary showing technically clueless little kids, just weeks before launching their pro-techie immigration push? Hey, all's fair in love and lobbying!

I don't know what point you think you're making, but bringing smart people into the country and educating Americans are not mutually exclusive goals.

Re:Stupid summary

[ebusinessmedia1]

True, but bringing 100's of thousands of unqualified tech workers into this country to replace those who are already here is a bit much, don't you think? In fact, it's a direct attack on the American tech worker, no matter his/her ethnic origin. There is NO shortage of qualified tech workers in America; there is also no shortage of greed as professed by those in Zuckerberg's cabal of moneyed lobbyists.

Don't believe me? Here's some unbiased research and FACTS for you to peruse.

What's little known is that American corporations are using large-scale outright deception and manipulation in an attempt to displace American Workers.

Some of the information presented in the following links will shock most Americans, because American corporate leaders don't want us to know the truth, and they are paying off policy makers with contributions to keep the truth from us. The H-1B fiasco has cost Americans $10TRILLION dollars, since 1975. For anyone who wants to know the truth, read on.

One of the most respected technology pundits in Silicon Valley: http://www.cringely.com/2012/10/23/what-americans-dont-know-about-h-1b-visas-could-hurt-us-all/

Watch this attorney and his consultants teach corporations how to manipulate the law to replace qualified American workers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU

Here's more abuse of the L-1 Visa (H1-B's are only the tip of the iceberg http://economyincrisis.org/content/l-visa-programs-brimming-abuses

Professor Norman Matloff's extremely well documented studies: http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html

Re:Stupid summary

[phantomfive]

As a wise person....

This is overly generous. Anyone who stereotypes an entire country the same way is not wise.

Re:Stupid summary

[stenvar]

Professor Norman Matloff's extremely well documented studies: http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b.html

Those aren't "studies", they are a screwball's collected and biased web links. Matloff hasn't done "studies".

Have a look at his earlier web pages, where he was talking about the supposed evils of immigration in general:

http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/pub/Immigration/Imm.html

He switched over to flaming just against H-1B because that's presumably more politically correct.

True, but bringing 100's of thousands of unqualified tech workers into this country to replace those who are already here is a bit much, don't you think?

First of all, they are qualified to do the low-level tech jobs they get hired for, otherwise employers wouldn't hire them. And I don't think it's "a bit much". You can see a good economic analysis here:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2013/04/24/an-alternative-theory-of-the-skills-shortage/

In effect, US companies are willing to pay up to a certain amount for tech workers, but no more. If the price of labor rose more, companies would just move the jobs themselves overseas.

So, Matloff is right to the degree that H-1B visas are about keeping wages down. He's wrong in believing that that's a bad thing, since the alternative to hiring the H-1Bs is not higher-paid IT jobs for Americans, it is losing IT jobs from the US altogether.

Re:Stupid summary

[SpzToid]

Also last week NPR did a fair piece on the FWD.us agenda to viscerate the current immigration/H1B discussion; in order to except themselves (as a classic lobbyist move). If I didn't hate Zuckerburg enough before, I certainly do now. He's a freaking zillionaire, while having no concept of actually *working* in the tech field, as a career, and *trying* to grow old in this country while supporting self/family. Yet he's all in favor of rolling over older I.T. workers while importing fresh blood from abroad to support his business, at lower costs.

But let's not simply single Mark out. Let's also add LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, Dropbox's Drew Houston and Yahoo's Marissa Mayer to the list of those supporting FWD.us.

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/09/182516877/facebook-joins-lobby-for-overhauling-immigration

Miano is a former programmer. Now he's a lawyer who represents displaced tech workers. He blogs for the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that's decidedly right-wing. But for now, groups like this are just about the only ones opposing the increase in tech worker visas. Miano says with tech giants like Facebook teaming up with well-heeled liberal groups, he doubts his views will get much of a hearing on Capitol Hill. Martin Kaste, NPR News.

Kudos to Elon Musk for dropping out of this %$#@! lobbying group. This is just another example of extremely wealthy people working to buy influence with the best government money can buy.

LOL

[argoff]

"I have spent a lot of time fighting far larger lobbying organizations in DC and believe that the right way to win on a cause is to argue the merits of that cause"

HAHHHA HAHHA HH AHA HA HAH AH HAH A HA HAH A HH A HAHA

Yeah, uh huh.

umm

[buddyglass]

By the way, didn't members of the Zuck PACk create, fund, and appear on Code.org, which lamented the sad state of U.S. CS education and featured a slick documentary showing technically clueless little kids, just weeks before launching their pro-techie immigration push?

These two things are not contradictory.

Oops

[goodmanj]

Oops, we got so wrapped up in the whole "money buys power" thing that we forgot to make sure we wanted to buy the same stuff.

Re:Bad Name

[dmbasso]

Honesty and ethics was probably not much of a concern.

As it isn't for the majority of politicians. Money is all that matters. I'm not American, but if I were, I would surely join these guys: http://www.wolf-pac.com/
Getting money out of politics should be your (you, citizens) top priority.

Re:Bad Name

[Jane Q. Public]

"Getting money out of politics should be your (you, citizens) top priority."

I agree wholeheartedly. And as an American myself, I have trouble understanding why more Americans have not appeared to have the same concern.

Re:Elon Musk

[ridgecritter]

I watched when a vehicle he built launched launched on a successful ISS resupply mission. I've driven one of his Tesla S cars. Don't know if he's the next Steve Jobs, but gotta say, he's actually making things happen. Beats posting as AC on /., don't you think?

Zuck is a narcissist.

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Zuckerberg is a narcissist and likely also a sociopath:

Note the amusing pro forma disclaimer in this video before the slicing and dicing begins:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuB_ng5uVaI

He doesn't have a "value system" as normal people mean that concept. How many times does he need to prove that to everyone? Why do people sign up for FB? Does anyone really trust that when his ship starts sinking, he won't post a 3.am. *privacy policy update* and sell absolutely everything about you to the highest bidder who in turn just wants to mine your data to create a "character profile" and sell it to, say, your potential future employers? Or that Zuck will just do that himself ?

FB is one gigantic blackmailing data collection machine without the blackmail part. The profit will be derived from "concluding" things about your character and proclivities which will follow you, haunt you, limit you until the day you die .