8 ms·

While Musk has personally been a bit odd lately I think Musk has shown something a little higher than eccentricity for as long as he's been in the public eye.

While Musk has personally been a bit odd lately I think Musk has shown something a little higher than eccentricity for as long as he's been in the public eye. I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member.

kinkrtyavimoodh 8y ago
> I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member. Which is perfectly fine as long as he keeps inspiring employees (and the world at large) so that they are even ready to "follow him into the gates of hell carrying suntan oil..." (https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-work-with-for-Elon-Musk/answer/Dolly-Singh-8 https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-work-with-for-Elon-...)
- bg24 8y ago
  https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-employees-best-ceo-2018/ https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-employees-b...
krn 8y ago
> I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member. There are people great for depending on, and there are people great for following. Even if from far away. They are still great. Just in a different way.
- jwn 8y ago
  That's an interesting perspective, one I had never thought about yet rings absolutely true.
- justinator 8y ago
  For better or for worse, a lot of those less-good parts of his public life are public, and made public by him. That's not accidental.
  - mat4magic 8y ago
    I think the flaws actually help him. It protects the ego of his followers. (Musk is more succesful, hard working, .... but he is an asshole) Many people are already irratioanlly triggered by him because their ego compares themselve to Musk. Would be way worse if he would act normal in Puplic ... and less PR of course
- falcor84 8y ago
  Agreed. Also, it reminded me of that quote by Colin Powell - "you'll know you're a good leader when people follow you if only out of curiosity"
  - achoice 8y ago
    Like Trump then?
burgerboy 8y ago
I'm sure most people wouldn't want that of you either, just happens that you have accomplished much less than Musk
TrainedMonkey 8y ago
If we take a step back to look at what Musk has done at scale: * Tesla has tremendously accelerated electric car deployments. I am going to count Solar City in this bucket as well. It was not a smashing success as Tesla or SpaceX are, but it helped to accelerate solar deployments. * SpaceX proven out booster re-usability and lowered launch prices. * Helped start open AI which is pushing limits of building machine intelligence by tackling progressively harder problems. Whatever you think about the man, you can't ever take away those accomplishments. All of the current controversy looks so small and insignificant compared to them.
- wavefunction 8y ago
  Accusing one of the divers that rescued the kids from the Thai cave of being a pedophile was where my admiration flipped to a much more measured regard.
  - uhhhhhhh 8y ago
    One can be a great person without being a good person. Something I feel people forget all to often. We like to idealize those that accomplish much, but we also like to ignore that those accomplishments come with sacrifices that many aren't willing to make and a focus and drive that inverts many peoples optimal live balance on its head.
    - drpgq 8y ago
      Never meet your heroes.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      I suspect that many of the accomplished people are less than sane and pursue things for neurotic reasons but get results. It is a known thing that many political figures lost their father young. Of course it is possible to be balanced and successful but the obsession leads to over-representation and the examples are outliers by definition essentially - otherwise it wouldn't be worth noting.
narrator 8y ago
I've seen what's happened to Musk happen to people who have seen the dark side of life.
- commonsensor 8y ago
  "took him for a cool $1 billion" is quite a way to spin it. https://jezebel.com/5637920/the-special-hell-of-being-a-starter-wife https://jezebel.com/5637920/the-special-hell-of-being-a-star...
LMYahooTFY 8y ago
> I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member. I fail to see the merit of such a condemnation without additional context. Though I question the validity of it to begin with unless you at least also claim that there are people who you have a similar level of optics on (i.e. "I see them on TV") and actually DO want to have them in one of those roles based on this perception.
aerovistae 8y ago
...why wouldn't you want to be his friend?
omarforgotpwd 8y ago
Do you know him? He is the subject of constant hit jobs from his enemies.
- AndrewBissell 8y ago
  Where "hit jobs" means "critical reporting," and "enemies" means "journalists."
  - omarforgotpwd 8y ago
    I'm not talking about journalists, I'm talking about you Andrew :) They call themselves "$TSLAQ" and spend all day fantasizing about Tesla going bankrupt. This is a great example of exactly what I'm talking about. https://twitter.com/arbissell https://twitter.com/arbissell
JabavuAdams 8y ago
Date him, or marry him, okay. Friend, dunno -- people are complicated. But family member? That's a bit harsh.
WalterBright 8y ago
> I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member. Your life wouldn't be boring.
- justinator 8y ago
  I hope you're not implying that my life is boring, as that would be rude. And wrong.
  - akamaozu 8y ago
    You seem pretty defensive for someone who made rude and probably wrong implications about Elon in this same thread.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    If A implies B, it does not follow that notA implies notB.
therein 8y ago
One of my previous managers worked with Elon Musk. He was a CTO at one of his past companies. When I asked him what he was like to be around, he said it's been over 10 years and all I remember about him is thinking "this guy is fucking weird".
icelancer 8y ago
You can't make that judgment without actually knowing Elon without being completely superficial and willing to be swayed by media reports of him.

kinkrtyavimoodh 8y ago

> I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member. Which is perfectly fine as long as he keeps inspiring employees (and the world at large) so that they are even ready to "follow him into the gates of hell carrying suntan oil..." (https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-work-with-for-Elon-Musk/answer/Dolly-Singh-8 https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-work-with-for-Elon-...)

bg24 8y ago
https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-employees-best-ceo-2018/ https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-spacex-tesla-employees-b...

krn 8y ago

> I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member. There are people great for depending on, and there are people great for following. Even if from far away. They are still great. Just in a different way.

jwn 8y ago
That's an interesting perspective, one I had never thought about yet rings absolutely true.
justinator 8y ago
For better or for worse, a lot of those less-good parts of his public life are public, and made public by him. That's not accidental.
- mat4magic 8y ago
  I think the flaws actually help him. It protects the ego of his followers. (Musk is more succesful, hard working, .... but he is an asshole) Many people are already irratioanlly triggered by him because their ego compares themselve to Musk. Would be way worse if he would act normal in Puplic ... and less PR of course
falcor84 8y ago
Agreed. Also, it reminded me of that quote by Colin Powell - "you'll know you're a good leader when people follow you if only out of curiosity"
- achoice 8y ago
  Like Trump then?

burgerboy 8y ago

I'm sure most people wouldn't want that of you either, just happens that you have accomplished much less than Musk

TrainedMonkey 8y ago

If we take a step back to look at what Musk has done at scale: * Tesla has tremendously accelerated electric car deployments. I am going to count Solar City in this bucket as well. It was not a smashing success as Tesla or SpaceX are, but it helped to accelerate solar deployments. * SpaceX proven out booster re-usability and lowered launch prices. * Helped start open AI which is pushing limits of building machine intelligence by tackling progressively harder problems. Whatever you think about the man, you can't ever take away those accomplishments. All of the current controversy looks so small and insignificant compared to them.

wavefunction 8y ago
Accusing one of the divers that rescued the kids from the Thai cave of being a pedophile was where my admiration flipped to a much more measured regard.
- uhhhhhhh 8y ago
  One can be a great person without being a good person. Something I feel people forget all to often. We like to idealize those that accomplish much, but we also like to ignore that those accomplishments come with sacrifices that many aren't willing to make and a focus and drive that inverts many peoples optimal live balance on its head.
  - drpgq 8y ago
    Never meet your heroes.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    I suspect that many of the accomplished people are less than sane and pursue things for neurotic reasons but get results. It is a known thing that many political figures lost their father young. Of course it is possible to be balanced and successful but the obsession leads to over-representation and the examples are outliers by definition essentially - otherwise it wouldn't be worth noting.

narrator 8y ago

I've seen what's happened to Musk happen to people who have seen the dark side of life.

commonsensor 8y ago
"took him for a cool $1 billion" is quite a way to spin it. https://jezebel.com/5637920/the-special-hell-of-being-a-starter-wife https://jezebel.com/5637920/the-special-hell-of-being-a-star...

LMYahooTFY 8y ago

> I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member. I fail to see the merit of such a condemnation without additional context. Though I question the validity of it to begin with unless you at least also claim that there are people who you have a similar level of optics on (i.e. "I see them on TV") and actually DO want to have them in one of those roles based on this perception.

aerovistae 8y ago

...why wouldn't you want to be his friend?

omarforgotpwd 8y ago

Do you know him? He is the subject of constant hit jobs from his enemies.

AndrewBissell 8y ago
Where "hit jobs" means "critical reporting," and "enemies" means "journalists."
- omarforgotpwd 8y ago
  I'm not talking about journalists, I'm talking about you Andrew :) They call themselves "$TSLAQ" and spend all day fantasizing about Tesla going bankrupt. This is a great example of exactly what I'm talking about. https://twitter.com/arbissell https://twitter.com/arbissell

JabavuAdams 8y ago

Date him, or marry him, okay. Friend, dunno -- people are complicated. But family member? That's a bit harsh.

WalterBright 8y ago

> I wouldn't want to be his friend, date him, marry him, or have him as a family member. Your life wouldn't be boring.

justinator 8y ago
I hope you're not implying that my life is boring, as that would be rude. And wrong.
- akamaozu 8y ago
  You seem pretty defensive for someone who made rude and probably wrong implications about Elon in this same thread.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  If A implies B, it does not follow that notA implies notB.

therein 8y ago

One of my previous managers worked with Elon Musk. He was a CTO at one of his past companies. When I asked him what he was like to be around, he said it's been over 10 years and all I remember about him is thinking "this guy is fucking weird".

icelancer 8y ago

You can't make that judgment without actually knowing Elon without being completely superficial and willing to be swayed by media reports of him.