Same article syndicated on msn.com, without paywall: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/new-york-californi...

The issues:

> The New York and California pension systems would become holders of SpaceX shares through their passive allocations if the company is admitted to major U.S. stock indexes.

> The officials… objected to the amount of power the board has given Musk over the company, including:

- voting control over the stock,

- veto power over his own removal as CEO, and

- protections from litigation, including mandatory arbitration for SpaceX shareholder claims.

> …

> In their letter, the pension leaders urged SpaceX to:

- adopt one-share, one-vote or sunset super-voting shares within seven years;

- install a majority-independent board and separate the CEO and chair roles;

- eliminate provisions protecting Musk from termination without his approval;

- scrap mandatory arbitration; and require independent approval of related-party transactions with Musk's other companies.

(Formatting mine; moved paragraph about becoming holders above the lists of concerns and recommendations.)

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AndrewKemendo 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I’d love to hear one of you staunch capitalists tell me why the description of this persons control over 13,000+ employees is any different than a feudal “Lord”

Over the entire lifetime of SpaceX Nearly 100% of the revenue comes from the government

They pay gifts and tributes to the government

They spend an absurd amount of money on lobbying and writing laws to take monopoly control of the subsection of the market

What am I missing here? Pretty sure there’s Universal agreement that the feudal system is not something anybody should be promoting

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jaccola 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The vast majority of those 13k workers are highly skilled and in very high demand. They could work elsewhere or start their own company. In addition, they are far better educated and have more welfare options than anyone living under a feudal system.

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AndrewKemendo 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Oh yes the classic “but the standard of living has gone up and now people have televisions” argument

They are living under a feudal system

Any one of the 13,000 could be fired on whim of Musk and even if it was in error they would have months if ever to get restitution. The employees describe him as a “tyrant” that fires people based on ego

The fact that people aren’t dying of scurvy is all you’re pointing to?

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-employee-survey-elon-m...

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jaccola 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Maybe you replied to the wrong comment? Peasants under a feudal lord couldn’t work elsewhere. If an engineer was fired from SpaceX they’d have another job before the end of the month… and if they didn’t then they wouldn’t starve to death because of welfare. That seems materially different.

	▲	AndrewKemendo 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> If an engineer was fired from SpaceX they’d have another job before the end of the month This is just wrong Have you not been paying attention to the last five years of layoffs and a decimated technology labor market?

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iamronaldo 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Why lie about something that's easily proven false with a Google search? Over last 5 years government revenue is under 25% and if you go off of last 2 years its closer to like 10-15% (and declining!) Starlink is the vast majority of spacex revenue

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AndrewKemendo 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The company was entirely dependent on government funding for its first 17 years

that’s undeniable

Starlink would not exist if the government did not prop up the whole thing in the beginning

This is precisely how the Commons get privatized and your ignorance around this topic is unbelievable

Unreal how simplistic you people are

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kjksf 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

SpaceX had to literally sue the military to even be allowed to bid for projects. And won. And then won the contracts.

The guy who landed on the Moon testified in congress opposing giving SpaceX any money.

The government wanted nothing to do with SpaceX.

SpaceX won the contracts despite the government, not because. They won the contracts because they offered the best product at the lowest price.

	▲	AndrewKemendo 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> SpaceX had to literally sue the military to even be allowed to bid for projects. And won. And then won the contracts. This is literally how government contracts work on massive multibillion dollar systems. Palantir famously did this with the Army: https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/03/29/palantir-who-suc... Every gov-tech company on the planet has a team of people hired and dedicated to suing the government via a well understood process that is intended to filter out organizations that do not have the financial capacity to deal with the government. As an AF SES I owned $300 million worth of contracts for the Air Force starting in 2020 and by 2022 my acquisition portfolio for AFLMC was $6B yearly. Guess how many of those contracts had actual competition despite months of solicitation? Almost none because the FAR is written/updated by corporations such that the barriers to entry are impossible to meet. Go tell me how quickly you can get a piece of software running on a govt network and come back to me and tell me that there’s equal competition. You have no idea how much corruption is baked into the structure of government contracts. The corruption is not that someone violated the acquisition system; the corruption is that the acquisition system legally converts concentrated contractor influence into unequal access, unequal rule-shaping power, and unequal probability of award.

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marknutter 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The government was a customer that paid for a product/service. Are you saying all entities that sell to the government are being "propped up" by the government?

	▲	AndrewKemendo 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Yes There are no non-corrupt government contractors if for no other reason then the government contracting market is not a open and free market it is regulated specifically by the federal acquisitions regulation which was in large part written and consistently adjusted by non-elected corporate leaders: https://www.jacksonlewis.com/insights/dod-seeks-contractors-... Read war is a racket and it will be clear: https://archive.org/details/WarIsARacket

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jrmg 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You don’t need to accuse someone of lying when correcting them.

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AdrianB1 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

You need if they are doing it on purpose.

	▲	jrmg 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Actually you don’t. Why are you lying about this? It’s enough to show that they’re wrong - and if you guess wrong that they are lying, and they were just wrong in good faith, you’re much more likely to convince them (and others). And, from the HN guidelines: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. … Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

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AndrewKemendo 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They’re just fanboy for these mini dictators because they view themselves as a future one

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jcranmer 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Feudalism is a political system whereby land is granted to vassals on the conditional basis that they provide levy or taxes to their lord. While the system is notionally a reciprocal system (the fief is a conditional grant, both sides have obligations to each other), by comparing it with the dominant form of taxation that preceded and succeeded it--tax farming--it's fairly clear that the locus of power is decisively with the vassal here and not the liege. Whereas a state who engages in tax farming lets out a new contract every few years, and usually to the same people, a fief is an explicitly hereditary instrument that is abrogated by the liege only at great risk, since the power he has to enforce such a decision comes from his other vassals and his ability to personally persuade them of a course of action.

That is to say that the hallmark of a feudal society is one with very, very weak central authority and powerful local authorities, mediated by the personal interrelationships within and across different levels of authority. Apply that to your analysis of SpaceX and the mismatch is clear. In your analysis, SpaceX is an entity that is utterly dependent on the government for its existence, and need to invest a large amount of energy in acquiring the beneficence of said government. That's not the behavior associated with a feudal society but rather the absolutist monarchies that replaced them, pretty much the antithesis of a feudal society.

	▲	AndrewKemendo 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> That is to say that the hallmark of a feudal society is one with very, very weak central authority and powerful local authorities, mediated by the personal interrelationships within and across different levels of authority This is precisely the state of affairs in the United States today. Where people get confused is that the idea of property being specific hectares of land rather than what property is at maximum is capitalism which is simply paper contracts and debt, per graeber > In your analysis, SpaceX is an entity that is utterly dependent on the government for its existence, and need to invest a large amount of energy in acquiring the beneficence of said government. That's not the behavior associated with a feudal society It is the behavior of a Lord. The United States is not an absolute monarchy and it has a rotating set of governors What doesn’t rotate are the capitalist leaders (investors) for the top 100 corporations and they are the actual governors of this society Because they determine where capital flows they are the ones who you have to pay homage to in order to get property so that you can then become a Lord