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Elon has a wonderful ability to make use of other people to build his own image. I was a former fanboy in the 2010s but he's so far off the deep end I won't con

Elon has a wonderful ability to make use of other people to build his own image. I was a former fanboy in the 2010s but he's so far off the deep end I won't consider touching anything he has control over. It was a disappointing turn from someone who could lead with vision to a billionaire troll that shows signs of what looks like depression to me. He's slowly sliding off the deep end.

SwiftyBug 5y ago
In some way he reminds me of John McAffee.
- gonzo41 5y ago
  John McAffee was cooler, in the ride or die sort of way, but for taxes.
  - mmastrac 5y ago
    Every unstable, libertarian-leaning tech founder is really just one tax bill argument away from going McAfee.
- mhoad 5y ago
  Must be all the coke..
  - Fatnino 5y ago
    I think you can often tell when musk is tweeting while high or not.
Apocryphon 5y ago
We’re in an age that lionizes thinking different, that cherishes frank real comments that border on insanity, that embraces going viral. One person’s deep end is another’s genius. Musk is simply reinventing himself for American culture’s worship of celebrity and maverick contrarianism. In doing so he’s not only following the footsteps of polarizing figures like the previous president or Kanye West. There’s no shortage of such figures in tech, from pmarca to pg. Becoming a pontificating blowhard is practically a rite of advancement these days. The only difference is the degree of detached-from-reality contrarianism and level of politeness in tone.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  All you need is an outsized ego that's easily bruised and you too can be a Twitter legend.
  - mmastrac 5y ago
    The important next step is to tweet meaningless nonsense. So short that it can't be wrong, but so vague your followers will create their own illusion of your brilliance.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      Not meaningless, merely ambiguous. Twitter’s pithy format expedites this bigly. Entire site is one big series of Rorshach tests.
    - scruple 5y ago
      If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
- deckard1 5y ago
  The film Network (1976) predicted all of this. The difference is that instead of a TV network exploiting the crazy for profit, the lunatics are now fully in control. It's truly something that Elon went from calling a rescue diver a "pedo", spreading dangerous covid misinformation, and generally doing everything a normal person would get banned from twitter for to becoming a board member. But I'm not surprised.
- truculent 5y ago
  I'm not sure Kanye West or Donald Trump would be considered poster-boys of good mental health...
slickrick216 5y ago
Starlink is pretty good. Allowed me to work remote in an extremely rural location
- xoa 5y ago
  Yes, Starlink is fantastic. So are the Tesla Powerwalls and their roof. I don't have any of their cars, and I'm not sure the truck will end up being the right match for me though it appears more practical than most competition so far on paper, but friends do and love them so we'll see. Regardless of anything else, one of the things about Elon (or figures like Steve Jobs for that matter) is that there is real serious substance there too at the base of everything. That's a very important distinction to me vs the majority of blowhard figures, and something that a lot of people seem to have trouble dealing with vs throwing everything into the same bucket. I think Elon's Twitter investment, in capital and his own personal time, is stupid in the basic way that he has genuinely vastly more valuable (by his own words) things to do with both. At the same time the products that his vision, luck, and perhaps some level of madness have helped bring into being have directly improved my own life, the lives of a number of clients, and I believe the world. That's far more than most of us can say. And he didn't have to do it at all. As sibling comment points out, he made a solid fortune before SpaceX and Tesla, and could have done a range of other things that most rich people do. Both new startups were very risky endeavors, and very capital intensive very risky endeavors not just software. The classic kind where someone well off loses everything. A hundred someodd million is in one sense a lot of money, but it's not the money where one can just spend billions as a hobby. Those startups' resounding success shouldn't result in 20/20 hindsight white washing that, he was on the brink a number of times and some pride he feels over it is flat out justified. So sure it's too bad those same instincts and untempered self-confidence seem to result in self-destructive/counter productive tendencies in some spheres. But he has in fact earned it and it doesn't require any kind of "fanboy" thinking to objectively conclude based on his impact on my life and society that between what he apparently says sometimes on social media vs on the ground hard achievements the balance is tipped firmly towards the latter. I much prefer that to the scary "quiet" "civilized" rich barons who quietly, politely and out of the lime light go about their business of fucking us all over with pollution and corruption.
antattack 5y ago
I still think he has great intuition, better than anyone I am aware of, and his actions have been rooted in first principles. Unfortunately, he deviates from his ideals when he is threatened (justly or unjustly) and we, normal people, get to deal with consequences because he has billions of dollars and thus he matters more than others.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  The only “consequences” as I see them with Elon doing what you’ve described is that I’ve had to deal with are people around me kvetching about the dude. Which is a consequence that’s very easy for me to ignore. As easy as it is for me to ignore the dude himself. I suspect you probably mean more severe “consequences” though. Would you mind sharing some? Maybe seeing outside my own bubble here will lessen my cynicism
memish 5y ago
I disagree. He's one of the last reasons I have any optimism at all about the future. How can you watch this drone video of Giga Berlin and not be impressed and inspired? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-4yOx1CnXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-4yOx1CnXE Or inspired by what SpaceX is accomplishing? None of this would exist if he hadn't invested all his Paypal earnings and time over the past 20 years into them. He could have retired and burned it on a yacht instead.
- kaba0 5y ago
  He would have much less money if he would have spent it only on a yacht. Also, what about leaving space up for NASA, instead of funneling away government funds from it to a private company? How is that even okay?
  - leereeves 5y ago
    NASA has always funneled government funds to private companies. Atlas rockets were built by General Dynamics. Apollo lunar landers were built by Grumman. The space shuttles were built by Rockwell and Boeing. Because NASA is a civilian agency, not military, contracting operations out to commercial companies is the next logical step, just like the government hires commercial air travel, shipping, and ground transportation.
  - dotnet00 5y ago
    Why should space be left up to NASA? Plus, as the others said, NASA has always contracted private companies for building the hardware. I also don't really see how "funneling away" as a complaint makes any sense, if the government spends money, it's obviously going to eventually be spent on companies to pay for goods and services, unless you advocate a model where the government replicates everything any company might ever do for them. What we should want is for the government to get the most bang-for-buck, which they have been getting increasingly more of from SpaceX. We've spent much of the past 50 years since Apollo funneling money into aerospace giants like Boeing with very little to show for it in terms of efficiency. When SpaceX entered the launch market, the US was not particularly competitive with the rest of the world for commercial launches, Boeing and Lockheed had a duopoly and had grown fat on government money, with no serious desire to improve their rockets. Even today, we're at $80B+ invested into SLS+Orion to be years late and only capable of launching once per year at nearly $5B per launch. Meanwhile, SpaceX earned nearly 60% of the commercial launch market on the back of its significantly lower launch prices, has returned US human spaceflight capability for much less cost than the competition (who still haven't delivered), has been responsible for paving the way for all the other 'new space' startups (setting legal precedents and getting entrepreneurs interested) and has allowed NASA to do more on several missions due to much cheaper launch costs, for instance: - DART did not have to rideshare due to Falcon 9's dedicated launch price being lower than competition's shared price, eliminating the possibility of failure in case the new ion thruster design on it had issues - Europa Clipper will not have to spend an extra $1B to make its delicate instruments able to handle SLS's rough ride and will not have to budget an additional $2B for an SLS launch - Saving NASA the ~$4B extra that the less capable, more dangerous but more 'traditional' lunar lander design would've cost to make. Then add in that due to Soyuz becoming unavailable and pretty much all other western rockets in the same payload class being fully booked and in a transition phase to their next generation, Falcon 9 is saving the US a massive amount of government money that would have otherwise been funneled to companies like Boeing in another 'blank check' type project like SLS. Even considering future developments, as a direct result of their success with SpaceX, there's a big push from within NASA for future contracts for things like rockets and space stations to be fixed cost and partially commercially funded (with the hope that eventually these will be mostly commercially driven, where NASA only has to pay to be a tenant instead of paying for the entire thing from start to finish), again improving the cost effectiveness of space activity.
wutbrodo 5y ago
> It was a disappointing turn from someone who could lead with vision to a billionaire troll that shows signs of what looks like depression to me Are these mutually exclusive? My model is that he's picked up trolling as a hobby, but I don't understand the impulse to assume that it's changed his job performance.
- kaba0 5y ago
  What job? Owning something is not a job and I assure you it’s not he who comes up with any sort of design.
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    He's the CEO and Chief Engineer of SpaceX and CEO and Product Architect of Tesla, among other things if I'm not mistaken. Were you under the impression that he's a silent shareholder of the companies he's founded, spending his days sunning himself on his yacht?
    - kaba0 5y ago
      All bought titles. His only actual contribution to tesla for example is a single design-related one for the doors. No, my impression is that he is a very loud shareholder spending his days spewing stupid things on twitter.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

SwiftyBug 5y ago

In some way he reminds me of John McAffee.

gonzo41 5y ago
John McAffee was cooler, in the ride or die sort of way, but for taxes.
- mmastrac 5y ago
  Every unstable, libertarian-leaning tech founder is really just one tax bill argument away from going McAfee.
mhoad 5y ago
Must be all the coke..
- Fatnino 5y ago
  I think you can often tell when musk is tweeting while high or not.

Apocryphon 5y ago

We’re in an age that lionizes thinking different, that cherishes frank real comments that border on insanity, that embraces going viral. One person’s deep end is another’s genius. Musk is simply reinventing himself for American culture’s worship of celebrity and maverick contrarianism. In doing so he’s not only following the footsteps of polarizing figures like the previous president or Kanye West. There’s no shortage of such figures in tech, from pmarca to pg. Becoming a pontificating blowhard is practically a rite of advancement these days. The only difference is the degree of detached-from-reality contrarianism and level of politeness in tone.

cinntaile 5y ago
All you need is an outsized ego that's easily bruised and you too can be a Twitter legend.
- mmastrac 5y ago
  The important next step is to tweet meaningless nonsense. So short that it can't be wrong, but so vague your followers will create their own illusion of your brilliance.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Not meaningless, merely ambiguous. Twitter’s pithy format expedites this bigly. Entire site is one big series of Rorshach tests.
  - scruple 5y ago
    If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
deckard1 5y ago
The film Network (1976) predicted all of this. The difference is that instead of a TV network exploiting the crazy for profit, the lunatics are now fully in control. It's truly something that Elon went from calling a rescue diver a "pedo", spreading dangerous covid misinformation, and generally doing everything a normal person would get banned from twitter for to becoming a board member. But I'm not surprised.
truculent 5y ago
I'm not sure Kanye West or Donald Trump would be considered poster-boys of good mental health...

slickrick216 5y ago

Starlink is pretty good. Allowed me to work remote in an extremely rural location

xoa 5y ago
Yes, Starlink is fantastic. So are the Tesla Powerwalls and their roof. I don't have any of their cars, and I'm not sure the truck will end up being the right match for me though it appears more practical than most competition so far on paper, but friends do and love them so we'll see. Regardless of anything else, one of the things about Elon (or figures like Steve Jobs for that matter) is that there is real serious substance there too at the base of everything. That's a very important distinction to me vs the majority of blowhard figures, and something that a lot of people seem to have trouble dealing with vs throwing everything into the same bucket. I think Elon's Twitter investment, in capital and his own personal time, is stupid in the basic way that he has genuinely vastly more valuable (by his own words) things to do with both. At the same time the products that his vision, luck, and perhaps some level of madness have helped bring into being have directly improved my own life, the lives of a number of clients, and I believe the world. That's far more than most of us can say. And he didn't have to do it at all. As sibling comment points out, he made a solid fortune before SpaceX and Tesla, and could have done a range of other things that most rich people do. Both new startups were very risky endeavors, and very capital intensive very risky endeavors not just software. The classic kind where someone well off loses everything. A hundred someodd million is in one sense a lot of money, but it's not the money where one can just spend billions as a hobby. Those startups' resounding success shouldn't result in 20/20 hindsight white washing that, he was on the brink a number of times and some pride he feels over it is flat out justified. So sure it's too bad those same instincts and untempered self-confidence seem to result in self-destructive/counter productive tendencies in some spheres. But he has in fact earned it and it doesn't require any kind of "fanboy" thinking to objectively conclude based on his impact on my life and society that between what he apparently says sometimes on social media vs on the ground hard achievements the balance is tipped firmly towards the latter. I much prefer that to the scary "quiet" "civilized" rich barons who quietly, politely and out of the lime light go about their business of fucking us all over with pollution and corruption.

antattack 5y ago

I still think he has great intuition, better than anyone I am aware of, and his actions have been rooted in first principles. Unfortunately, he deviates from his ideals when he is threatened (justly or unjustly) and we, normal people, get to deal with consequences because he has billions of dollars and thus he matters more than others.

dvtrn 5y ago
The only “consequences” as I see them with Elon doing what you’ve described is that I’ve had to deal with are people around me kvetching about the dude. Which is a consequence that’s very easy for me to ignore. As easy as it is for me to ignore the dude himself. I suspect you probably mean more severe “consequences” though. Would you mind sharing some? Maybe seeing outside my own bubble here will lessen my cynicism

memish 5y ago

I disagree. He's one of the last reasons I have any optimism at all about the future. How can you watch this drone video of Giga Berlin and not be impressed and inspired? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-4yOx1CnXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-4yOx1CnXE Or inspired by what SpaceX is accomplishing? None of this would exist if he hadn't invested all his Paypal earnings and time over the past 20 years into them. He could have retired and burned it on a yacht instead.

kaba0 5y ago
He would have much less money if he would have spent it only on a yacht. Also, what about leaving space up for NASA, instead of funneling away government funds from it to a private company? How is that even okay?
- leereeves 5y ago
  NASA has always funneled government funds to private companies. Atlas rockets were built by General Dynamics. Apollo lunar landers were built by Grumman. The space shuttles were built by Rockwell and Boeing. Because NASA is a civilian agency, not military, contracting operations out to commercial companies is the next logical step, just like the government hires commercial air travel, shipping, and ground transportation.
- dotnet00 5y ago
  Why should space be left up to NASA? Plus, as the others said, NASA has always contracted private companies for building the hardware. I also don't really see how "funneling away" as a complaint makes any sense, if the government spends money, it's obviously going to eventually be spent on companies to pay for goods and services, unless you advocate a model where the government replicates everything any company might ever do for them. What we should want is for the government to get the most bang-for-buck, which they have been getting increasingly more of from SpaceX. We've spent much of the past 50 years since Apollo funneling money into aerospace giants like Boeing with very little to show for it in terms of efficiency. When SpaceX entered the launch market, the US was not particularly competitive with the rest of the world for commercial launches, Boeing and Lockheed had a duopoly and had grown fat on government money, with no serious desire to improve their rockets. Even today, we're at $80B+ invested into SLS+Orion to be years late and only capable of launching once per year at nearly $5B per launch. Meanwhile, SpaceX earned nearly 60% of the commercial launch market on the back of its significantly lower launch prices, has returned US human spaceflight capability for much less cost than the competition (who still haven't delivered), has been responsible for paving the way for all the other 'new space' startups (setting legal precedents and getting entrepreneurs interested) and has allowed NASA to do more on several missions due to much cheaper launch costs, for instance: - DART did not have to rideshare due to Falcon 9's dedicated launch price being lower than competition's shared price, eliminating the possibility of failure in case the new ion thruster design on it had issues - Europa Clipper will not have to spend an extra $1B to make its delicate instruments able to handle SLS's rough ride and will not have to budget an additional $2B for an SLS launch - Saving NASA the ~$4B extra that the less capable, more dangerous but more 'traditional' lunar lander design would've cost to make. Then add in that due to Soyuz becoming unavailable and pretty much all other western rockets in the same payload class being fully booked and in a transition phase to their next generation, Falcon 9 is saving the US a massive amount of government money that would have otherwise been funneled to companies like Boeing in another 'blank check' type project like SLS. Even considering future developments, as a direct result of their success with SpaceX, there's a big push from within NASA for future contracts for things like rockets and space stations to be fixed cost and partially commercially funded (with the hope that eventually these will be mostly commercially driven, where NASA only has to pay to be a tenant instead of paying for the entire thing from start to finish), again improving the cost effectiveness of space activity.

wutbrodo 5y ago

> It was a disappointing turn from someone who could lead with vision to a billionaire troll that shows signs of what looks like depression to me Are these mutually exclusive? My model is that he's picked up trolling as a hobby, but I don't understand the impulse to assume that it's changed his job performance.

kaba0 5y ago
What job? Owning something is not a job and I assure you it’s not he who comes up with any sort of design.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  He's the CEO and Chief Engineer of SpaceX and CEO and Product Architect of Tesla, among other things if I'm not mistaken. Were you under the impression that he's a silent shareholder of the companies he's founded, spending his days sunning himself on his yacht?
  - kaba0 5y ago
    All bought titles. His only actual contribution to tesla for example is a single design-related one for the doors. No, my impression is that he is a very loud shareholder spending his days spewing stupid things on twitter.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]