If you're coming into the comments to glaze Musk and his wealth, just ... don't.

I don't think "bought" is the right word but they woo'ed him. And successfully.

Buying yes not because I think the answer is yes, but because I think the market creator will resolve yes.

@BrunoJ I think the answer is yes but won't be resolving until definitive evidence either way

@Lorelai What would be a potential No evidence?

@Lorelai I think there's no practical way of to resolve this market No, regardless of the true answer, by design.

@Lorelai So, you're telling me that if I bet this up to 99%, I'll never be punished, right? This market can only resolve YES, never NO?

@Quroe the answer can still resolve no if there is proof of no.

@ProjectVictory it's cute that you think Russian officials and oligarchs are open about the value of their assets

https://theweek.com/vladimir-putin/956928/what-is-vladimir-putins-net-worth

Vladimir Putin: how much is Russian president's net worth?

Some reports suggest he is one of the richest people in the world

@Lorelai Your article says "The Russian president is worth up to $200 billion", which is 1/5th of Musk's worth. Also please answer my previous question: What would be a hypothetical example of a NO proof?

@ProjectVictory still only an estimate, of a single individual inside the regime controlling the biggest country in the world. We don't know when he might have started being paid off by repressive regimes either and how that could have contributed to existing net worth (and don't get me started on other means by which Musk has manipulated perceptions and realities of own wealth.) If there's proof in either direction it will be used to resolve market and that could take different forms. Your Musk glazing isn't going unnoticed.

@Lorelai To address my question far above in this thread, let's take an extreme example.

Say, for the sake of argument, he dies, and there currently isn't any evidence of a YES. How long would you hold our mana in this market before you'd resolve it NO?

@Lorelai The problem I'm trying to address is that, if you're trying to test a null hypothesis, you can only ever disprove it, never prove it.

This is not to be mistaken with creating a mathematical proof. That operates in the realm of strict logic, not the realm of probing for evidence.

Forgive me if this next bit sounds a bit cross, but I want to drive the point. Can you give us definitive evidence that you yourself are not bought by Russia? Prove it. I don't think you can.

If you can't do that, then you can't do that with Musk either, and therefore this market is flawed.

@Quroe so don't put mana in it? Literally nobody is forcing you to participate here

@Lorelai Oh, it's not that I feel forced to participate. Quite the opposite. I'm thinking about abusing this market because it seems like this market either never resolves or it resolves YES. Therefore, I should bet it up pretty high, right?

If these are the epistemics of this market, then be prepared for shenanigans. 😈

So, just to confirm, you're saying that there is some set of circumstances that can resolve this market NO, but you cannot even think of one circumstance that would qualify, so we should imply that it is an empty set, right? This market cannot resolve NO?

@Quroe there are many sets of circumstances that can resolve the market no and I'm not going to bother listing infinite hypothetical scenarios for you because you lack imagination

@Lorelai I do not seek all circumstances. We are only asking for one example so we can understand the shape of this market better.

@Lorelai an easy way to resolve the issue raised by @Quroe would just be to set an end date for this market.

Keep it arbitrarily high if you like (years), but once you set the deadline you can say that if no definitive proof emerges by that date then you will resolve this market NO.

There was this example of what a NO would look like described below, but what would definitive evidence of that look like? What set of evidence could lead to that conclusion definitively?

DOGE are siphoning data and gaining access to systems without security precautions and the Russians — and likely Chinese and who knows who else — has probably broken into their amateurishly run operation and are seeing and recording everything.

https://x.com/slantchev/status/1913106430279757903

I think there is an ongoing operation on twitter; using a large number of bot accounts to upvote content that is effective at manipulating Elon Musk's perceptions.

@MalachiteEagle I don't think that qualifies as him being "bought" by Russia though. They don't need to do that. Getting him hooked on conspiracy theories tailored to his weaknesses is much cheaper, lower risk and more likely to achieve the desired outcome.

@MalachiteEagle uh, does this count

https://www.yahoo.com/news/russian-oligarchs-investments-elon-musk-194258467.html

@Lorelai that is absolute bullshit, but given you are trading YES on absolute bullshit in your own market, I sold my NO

@AlQuinn I bought yesterday after seeing this news, I haven't decided if this qualifies as having been bought by Russia. What part are you suggesting is "absolute bullshit"? This is pretty damning, Russian shareholders were literally disclosed in court

@Lorelai It's two rando sons of Russian oligarchs, and nowhere can I even find the amount of investment that is involved. If mere investment in X was proof that Musk was "bought" we should maybe worry more about Saudi Arabia "owning" Musk. The singular focus on Russia is just part of a larger US intelligence community-driven disinformation/smear campaign that started with the Trump Russian collusion accusations during the 2016 election (Eric Weinstein's recent podcast with Chris Williamson makes a good deal of sense in explaining potential calculus involved). The irony is that the machinery built to channel Russia collusion memes into the spotlight has been weaponized by Putin, which is why he is constantly trolling that apparatus by "endorsing" US politicians and using these self-manufactured internal divisions against the US.

For me, something that would matter for this market would need to be a massive investment by a sanctioned entity (post-sanctions, which would potentially be illegal), and/or proof a quid pro quo with entities directly tied to the Russian government as part of any funding agreement.

@AlQuinn it's cute that you think investment from two sons of oligarchs is "random" but I do actually agree that Russia is trying to take more credit for things occurring in the US than it is responsible for – it pretends to be more influential than it is.

Like you said, we don't know how big the investment is. It could be massive. But any involvement of Russian entities is damning.

@Lorelai I think your market is ok, but you should probably add more specific criteria and sell your position (+ not buy back in) to remain objective. The community is happy to give you feedback to improve the description/criteria of this market. It's a legitimate question to ask, but you should try and avoid adding bias in order to improve its epistemic value.

@AlQuinn Eric Weinstein the crackpot who claims to have a unified field theory? The guy who works as a managing director at Thiel capital. Yes that Peter Thiel. What a joke! Crying about the Trump collusion accusations are also funny, the ties are deep and well documented (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Links_between_Trump_associates_and_Russian_officials) the real disinformation/smear was the constant hampering and blockade of any real investigation.

Links between Trump associates and Russian officials - Wikipedia