They would be nowhere if they didn’t have his money. Otherwise Musk actively hinders his companies with his idiocy. This is well known from SpaceX employees.

https://x.com/yoloption/status/1595213678147764224?mx=2

The companies’ success is from being in fields that the employees are passionate about so they’ll grit their teeth and put up with it to be able to work there.

And fighting for free speech, are you kidding? He’s fighting for his own speech period. Anything he doesn’t like tends to get journalists temp banned or shadowbanned from Twitter for example.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2022_Twitter_suspensions#:~:text=On_December_15,_2022,_Twitter,,_CNN,_and_The_Intercept.

Because in most places adults are allowed to make unhealthy choices. It’s the same principle as not being allowed to market alcohol to kids.

The enemy of my enemy is a useful temporary ally.

The context is the SK President suddenly declared martial law.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cn38321180et

Yeah if that’s all that needed replacing. The entire system is ancient, not just the disks, like:

Much more critical than the dated use of floppy disks is the system’s loop cable, which transmits data between the central servers and the trains and, according to Roccaforte, “has less bandwidth than an old AOL dial-up modem.”

The SFMTA’s website adds:

The loop cable is fragile and easily disturbed. This makes subway maintenance more difficult. This also means the system cannot be extended outside the subway, along surface rail, where currently we don’t have automatic train control.