21 ms·

I used to like Elon circa 2018 up until he started acting up (pedo guy, et al), but the main thing that soured my opinion of him lies in being -- don't know if

• feintruled 4y ago
  I think the word that might fit better than unhinged is 'capricious' - given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behaviour.
• tjpnz 4y ago
  I just listen to the space stuff and tune everything else out.
  • ctvo 4y ago
    Same here. SpaceX does impressive work. The rest of Elon's companies? Not so much for me. He's such a polarizing figure folks can't seem to detach the worthwhile things he's done from all his other flaws. Elon isn't particularly impressive as an engineer or scientist, but incredibly impressive as a product and business person. Realize that he's a brand, and try not to fall for the marketing.
• hartator 4y ago
  > don't know if this is the right word -- unhinged [my bad misunderstood what unhinged means.]
  • hnbad 4y ago
    I wish people would stop excusing bad behavior with "oh they're autistic". It just makes us autistic people look bad by association.
  • mikeyjk 4y ago
    That is not a clinically recognised term.
    • hartator 4y ago
      Some doctors do give that diagnostic.
    • pigeons 4y ago
      anymore.
    • nicce 4y ago
      That is quite misleading as it has been. It is part of the ASD in these days [1, 2]. [1]: https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/5855/asperger-syndrome https://rarediseases.info.nih.gov/diseases/5855/asperger-syn... [2]: Mirkovic B, Gérardin P (April 2019). "Asperger's syndrome: What to consider?". L'Encéphale. 45 (2): 169–174. doi:10.1016/j.encep.2018.11.005. PMID 30736970. S2CID 73452546. "Asperger's syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is part of the large family of autism spectrum disorders."
    • equalsione 4y ago
      To be fair, it was a distinct diagnosis from autism until relatively recently. It was "absorbed" into autism in DSM 4 or 5. So if he was diagnosed with Asperger's in the past, he would now be considered to be on the autism spectrum.
    • Ensorceled 4y ago
      It's now considered a autism spectrum disorder, but you could literally have received an "Asperger's Syndrome" diagnosis in the past 10 years. It IS a "clinically recognized term" in the sense that if you went to a mental health professional and said "I have Asperger's Syndrome" they might say politely "we don't call it that anymore" but it is very unlikely they would rudely say "I don't know what that is, it is not a clinically recognized term."
  • itsoktocry 4y ago
    >He said that he has Aspergers. People are often looking for explanations for their personalities or interests. Look at how many people claim to be "on the spectrum" on HN underneath any article on the topic.
    • Ensorceled 4y ago
      I've known many people with spectrum disorders. Some were difficult to work with and you make accommodations. A few were assholes. Universally, the assholes with spectrum disorders used their diagnosis to get away with abusive behaviour and, in two cases, sexual harassment.
  • shakna 4y ago
    Most people go to some lengths to ensure that their health doesn't present in such a way that it needs to be an excuse for their behaviour. Especially in autistic communities. A certain amount of masking seems to be a requirement to function as a responsible adult.
  • TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
    I and lots of my friends have that or equivalent diagnoses. It doesn't make you unhinged.
    • jaggs 4y ago
      If you've met one person with Aspbergers, you've met one person with Aspbergers?
      • Ensorceled 4y ago
        What does this even mean? Meeting one person with Asperger's who is not unhinged is sufficient to show that not all people with Asperger's are unhinged.
• RivieraKid 4y ago
  He's always been like that - narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged. I can't believe that so many people still haven't figured him out (which is also true for the previous American and current Russian presidents, who have similarly repulsive personalities).
  • zozbot234 4y ago
    > He's always been like that - narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged. That only makes it even more impressive that he has managed to accomplish truly world-changing things like building reusable rockets or practical mass-market EV's. Most "narcissistic, manipulative, dishonest, hateful, lacking empathy, attention-seeking, unhinged" folks wouldn't manage to do anything even marginally worthwhile, even in such a key position as, e.g. being president of a large superpower. (Also, let's give the previous U.S. president credit where credit is due; he might have a repulsive personality, but at least he didn't start any foolish wars! So there's that, too.)
    • akie 4y ago
      You should read Steve Jobs' biography for another example of someone with these characteristics.
      • thomasz 4y ago
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
        • lapcat 4y ago
          > Steve Jobs was charismatic and somewhat of an asshole to the people around him. But he wasn’t unhinged, self aggrandizing and attention seeking. He wasn't unhinged. He was definitely self aggrandizing and attention seeking. Jobs was an asshole, but he was an adult asshole. A mature asshole. He wasn't a juvenile asshole. Both Musk and Trump give the impression of having the emotional maturity of a pre-teen.
• Avicebron 4y ago
  I also used to like him or at least respected him a bit more, I think the best way I can put it is that he seems lost in his own sauce. I remember listening to someone describe a conversation they had with him or where he was speaking, and he relayed that Elon was telling them that in his world he can't relate to people because to him its like everyone is a toddler mentally and he has to go down to their level....now, I just fully don't believe that, that sounds like the most contrived "I'm a genius peasants" story imaginable, something out of a movie.
  • smt88 4y ago
    This comes across in his public persona too. Elon's entire vibe is like a 14 year old who thinks they know everything and everyone else is stupid.
    • jmprspret 4y ago
      I agree but I'm also unsure if he's putting on that persona because his audience has reacted to it in a positive way. Flanderisation, I think they call it?
      • themitigating 4y ago
        My mom called it "seeking negative attention"
      • ascagnel_ 4y ago
        Flanderisation is a little different -- generally applied to fictional characters, its when a single trait overrides every other aspect of your personality. Ned Flanders on the Simpsons is the inspiration for the term: a character initially created as a foil and mirror for Homer Simpson (kind, calm, and collected where Homer is typically brash, emotional, and chaotic) became a one-note character defined by his faith. I guess you could kind of apply it to Musk in that he seems to revel in being something of a jerk, but (in the view of someone who's been very skeptical of Musk for a while) it's not an all-consuming thing.
    • 4y ago
• hericium 4y ago
  > Also, the guy is always going to extreme lengths to seek attention, just like one certain US politician There are other similarities - impulsiveness in business, Twitter obsession, strong COVID downplaying...
• exodust 4y ago
  Isn't the deal on hold because the price might be too high for a bunch of spam accounts? If so, I'm not sure what you're on about. Sounds reasonable to confirm the actual number of spam accounts before spending 44 billion. Likewise I double check the service history of used cars too.
  • cinntaile 4y ago
    Do you think it is reasonable to do your due diligence after you made an offer?
    • throwawaylinux 4y ago
      How do you know what due diligence was done and what new information might have come up? If the company misrepresented its users to Musk during negotiations that wouldn't be very reasonable.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • cinntaile 4y ago
        I obviously don't know the details, but knowing the number of actual users on Twitter is probably the most important factor to base an offer on? He's not exactly new on Twitter, so if Twitter claims 5% bots he just accepts that? I find that extremely unlikely, unless he had another motive.
      • itsoktocry 4y ago
        >How do you know what due diligence was done and what new information might have come up? Based on the "Funding secured" or "Pedo guy" nonsense revealed in court documents, I have a pretty good idea how much due diligence was done prior to the offer: zero.
    • xienze 4y ago
      This would be more akin to the inspection period when buying a house. The threat of the deal blowing up with so much on the line is what holds Twitter’s feet to the fire.
• pyb 4y ago
  As Benedict Evans said, Elon breaks our mental model of productive people because he is a bullshitter who delivers.
  • andrepd 4y ago
    Delivers? Hardly. Autonomous driving? Hyperloop? The tunnel thing?
    • inglor_cz 4y ago
      As of today, some Ukrainians are alive (and some Russians dead) because of Starlink. Not a small feat, to substantially influence the progress of a major war between European powers. Few businesses aside from manufacturers of weapons can claim something like that.
    • Sebb767 4y ago
      Cheap space launches, fast satellite internet and arguably the car company that made EVs a commodity. He also invested a lot of money in the things you mentioned and, as far as I'm aware, none of those is canceled. He promises a lot, but to say he didn't also achieve a lot would be lying.
      • hef19898 4y ago
        I agree woth Tesla, it accelerated the EV market by a couple of years. Without a model considerably cheaper than 30k USD so Tesla is far from being a commodity. Not sure how much cheaper SpaceX launches are for comparable payloads and orbits. I'd suspect they are, with e.g. Ariane developed for other thongs than LEO launches. As SpaceX isn't public wr don't have any reliable numbers. Based on some old leaked material, it is less than sure whether or not SpaceX is coonsiderably cheaper than the competition. Regardless, SpaceX is impressive. If Starlink is actually sustainable and profitable has to be seen, it could as well just be a way to push SpaceX profitabiliy further down the road through a Starlink IPO. Now way to tell either way.
        • 4y ago
• noufalibrahim 4y ago
  While you've described his behaviour quite accurately, I don't believe he's a fool. This could of course be due to the marketing buzz and fanboyism around him which I might have imbibed myself but I don't believe he's a fool. Squaring his public behaviour with his presumed intelligence suggests that he's doing all this for some specific purpose. Either it's marketing to a certain contingent that he's interested in selling to. Perhaps it's brand building to help hiring or something else for one of his companies. His movie cameos, shitposts etc. all seem to be calculated to create a connection between him and a younger demographic. Or maybe, I'm over intellectualising and he's just drunk on his own image or power. Can't really say. I don't particularly "like" the guy. But then again, I make it a point to try not to have an emotional opinion about any public figure. The default position is "ignore" and that's where I'm still at.
• cyco130 4y ago
  Some years ago a friend suggested someone should make a browser extension that replaces the text of every Elon Musk tweet with “PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!” and I made a quick MVP: https://gist.github.com/cyco130/d96f678d41fd7acfe4ac6c4e01d2d173 https://gist.github.com/cyco130/d96f678d41fd7acfe4ac6c4e01d2... Edit: Alas, it doesn't work anymore. Updates are welcome. Edit2: Updated!
• situationista 4y ago
  I have the distinct feeling that Elon's motives are genuine, that he genuinely believes he is on a mission to save humanity, and is genuinely convinced that he is the only one who is able to do it. The problem is the last point - he's developed something of a saviour complex, and has convinced himself that if what is at stake is important enough (reverse climate change, become interplanetary species, restore free speech) he somehow has a moral obligation to take it upon himself. Whereas earlier in his career financial constraints might have hemmed him in, not that he's the richest man in the world he's becoming tempted to use that power in an Emperor of the Universe fashion, attempting to fix everything he believes important. If he stuck to solving just one existential problem, such as electrifying transport, he'd probably be quite well respected in the long run. The richest man in the world, who already holds massive power, also buying up the "de facto town square" was never going to go down well. We need more people with Elon's vision, drive and determination, not one Elon with more and more power.
  • rez9x 4y ago
    I agree with you on this and think his savior complex is likely compounded by things like the potential Twitter buyout. There are a lot of people who view Twitter as a extremist echo chamber and want to see it change, so they're treating Musk like Twitter's savior now. Anecdotally, I've seen as much support for Musk's actions accidentally destroying Twitter as 'fixing' it. When I see how small of a subset of the population actively use Twitter, or have even posted once, compared to the political power it has, it's hard for me to argue we're better with it around.
    • jsmith45 4y ago
      The outsized influence of twitter largely has to do with the fact that basically every journalist, celebrity, politician, brand, influencer (original, pre-Instagram meaning of person on youtube/twitch/whatever who can accidentally/deliberately create trends just by wearing something or offhandedly mentioning something). Having all of those people, plus pretty small proportion of "regular people", can make it really feel like everyone is on twitter. But the many of the heaviest "regular people" users are often actually those who are trying to promote some agenda, which can be one that is very not-representative of the public at large. But this feeling of everyone being on there, means that if a small group of vocal participants who have an agenda can get something trending, especially if they can do with with only limited pushback from other groups, it makes it feel like something everyone cares about. Worse is that the algorithm tends to promote extreme views a lot because they get more interactions. Now the influencers, politicians, celebrities, journalists, etc are not very much not immune to mistaking an artificially algorithmically inflated hot take by a tiny but vocal minority on twitter as representing a consensus of a huge group of regular people on twitter. The next thing you know, the current twitter outrage is on the news, and your favorite celebs are probably talking about it both on and off twitter. This can cause people who never would have seen or interacted with the twitter controversy to become involved. Obviously if the news is talking about it, this is a big thing that a very sizable chink of the population is feeling, right? It could not possibly be not something initially stirred up by at most few hundred extremists of some form on Twitter, right? Wrong.
• rayiner 4y ago
  You dislike someone who built multiple pioneering tech companies because of mean tweets and a vague resemblance to Trump’s demeanor? Being a bit of a blow hard isn’t exactly unusual among CEOs of multibillion companies! Does anyone remember Steve Jobs? Heck, narcissism is currency in Silicon Valley. I don’t know what else I’d call the whole “we’re changing the world through Ad Tech” shtick.
  • tptacek 4y ago
    He doesn't just write mean tweets. He broadcasts to an audience of 90 million people that a cave diver who was critical of him (correctly so, as it turned out) is a pedophile. He attempts to get a lawyer fired from a firm working with his companies because she happened to work at SEC on enforcement cases related to his companies. None of this is news to you, which is why I'm wondering why you would be so glib.
• version_five 4y ago
  The overall sentiment on HN is pretty clear from the replies here. And I agree with a lot of it, he seems to do and say a lot of things impulsively without thinking them through, that often tend to be dumb. The one thing I respect though (and expect most people here won't) is that he appears to have the "nouveau riche" disrespect for the establishment, and doesn't feel he needs to kiss anyone's ass or play by the rules in a system that is already rigged for rich people. The fact that he has annoyed so many, especially elite/establishment figures, is a good thing. I'd much rather see him use his wealth to piss off the establishment than just to grow richer safely, which he could easily do. So maybe his annoying behavior is at least partially by design, and the fact that it bothers everyone is exactly what he wants, which I think deserves some respect.
  • basisword 4y ago
    What anti-establishment stuff has he done? All of the negative things I see people mention about him are just general asshole behaviour rather than things that annoy the establishment.
    • memish 4y ago
      He's supporting free speech, while the establishment supports censoring the population. Censorship is the tool of the establishment. Free speech gives power to the people. That's as anti-establishment as it gets.
      • Jordrok 4y ago
        Is he really though? You say this as if the twitter acquisition is over and done, and Free Speech has been saved by Musk doing......what exactly? So far we have so few details about what his plans for the platform are (or if he even has any) that everyone is free to project their own ideal outcome onto his actions. Let's wait a bit and see what happens before declaring him the savior of free speech.
      • philistine 4y ago
        He has multiple examples of using censorship himself to protect his companies. He denied a reviewer access to their vehicle, has stifled the speech of former employees of his companies, and has tried to silence a dissenter publishing publicly available data of his plane. You've fallen for the hype; Elon merely dresses himself in the flag of a free speech absolutist. He is exactly like the establishment in this regard: speech for me, but not for thee.
• manmal 4y ago
  I have similar feelings as you do about Elon, and take anything he says with a grain of salt. But, he’s in some (not all!) aspects the world’s most successful company leader, and he got there with exactly this behavior. Evolutionary pressures in our society and markets seem to favor this behavior (also keeping in mind the last US president).
  • hef19898 4y ago
    Musk is the best, or at least among the best, marketers currently alive. That's it. Let's not make more out of this than it is.
    • manmal 4y ago
      I agree, and Elon seems to know - he closed Tesla's PR department a while back to (re)gain full message control. That's a pretty big deal though, since businesses usually run on marketing, and not on raw engineering prowess. Without great marketing, you can't even attract great engineers. Some people argue that the Nazis were as successful as they were due to propaganda (my final thesis at school was about Goebbels) - a sibling of marketing. Marketing rules the world.
  • basisword 4y ago
    >> Evolutionary pressures in our society and markets seem to favor this behavior (also keeping in mind the last US president). Trump was the first president since the 80’s/early 90’s not to get a second term. Acting like an asshole only gets you so far maybe until people grow tired of it.
    • hef19898 4y ago
      Bring an a*hole got T his first term, being an idiot lost him his second. And, I'd argue, all the terms until his death after the second one. Putin is another example. Being a ruthless, smart sociopath got him all his power, being an idiot once lost him almost everything.
      • 4y ago
• nabla9 4y ago
  He seems to know his limits in the public. He throws low blows to US politicians, but if he has nothing but good to say about China or Xi Jinping he stays silent. He likes to punch down. That's a behavior Twitter and his supporters rewards. He is the second most effective Twitter user after Trump. It's indecent and disgusting behavior but it works. His business process is to try many things and fail a lot, nothing wrong with that as long as some of them succeed. He jumps into very hard challenges, then fails or iterates until there is success. His full automation of of Tesla factories with robots attempt cost Tesla several years, but Tesla is still success. His marketing is full of bullshit. He he has at least 4 vaporware announcements for each real product. For example, that dancing robot man and self-driving cars “Next Year” every year since 2014.
  • inglor_cz 4y ago
    Do you realize that the Russians are literally threatening him openly because of the Ukrainian Starlink operation? The Kremlin mob has a lot of assassinations behind it, so their threat is absolutely credible, not a random brain fart on the Internet.
    • nabla9 4y ago
      >The Kremlin mob has a lot of assassinations behind it, Only against former Russians or Russians. Russia throws lots of empty threats, but has not threatened Musk personally. Angering Xi and China can affect his business, so he shuts up like a good boy.
      • philistine 4y ago
        Yeah, the supposed free speech absolutist, cowtowing to Communists. Who Elon doesn't talk about is more interesting than the punching down he always does.
• pontus 4y ago
  I mostly agree with you. Just to play devil's advocate though, I wonder if this is just an artifact of him being overly open / verbose. In other words, I suspect that all this stuff would normally happen behind closed doors anyway during due diligence. Similarly if you look at his performance in Tesla / SpaceX is terms of hard metrics I guess he's doing pretty well even though he might be talking about self driving being a year away all the time.
• xattt 4y ago
  It would sure be ironic if he followed the genius-to-madman trajectory of Nikola Tesla.
• shapefrog 4y ago
  Influencer attention seeking has broken people brains. The troll is fed, and for some there is an infinite loop of getting attention from certain acts leading to more extreme acts. Its just a prank bro.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• themitigating 4y ago
  I have no evidence but was thinking about his work schedule, which by his own omission is insane, and he is running multiple companies. Along with his outspoken nature and need to insult people publicly makes me wonder if he is using some amphetamine or similar. Erratic behavior seems to be a side effect that comes with all that energy. Again, no evidence just throwing it out there
• danjac 4y ago
  Best nickname I heard for him was "Phoney Stark". We want to believe in the cool, if a bit unhinged, hero-engineer that builds all the cool stuff we were promised in all the sci-fi movies as kids but failed to materialize, such as Mars colonies and self-driving cars. A lot of that failure is due to some things being a ton harder in reality than fiction, but a lot is also due to a managerialist, short-term culture that no longer seems to be thinking big and taking risks. Musk is the avatar for those who want these cool things and kicks back against the prevailing culture - a real-life counterpart to the billionaire genius in the Marvel movies. The problem is, of course, that Tony Stark is a fictional character and Musk is not. Not only has he been drinking his own kool aid of late, but he's not much of a hero either, rather a spoiled bully who punches down.
  • elorant 4y ago
    The dude built a rocket company, an automotive juggernaut, a brain implant research company, and a few other things. I wouldn't call these "phoney".
    • turtledove 4y ago
      The dude did not, in fact, build those things. The dude was present for them in some capacity. And Tesla is hardly a juggernaut, their cars have horrible build quality (speaking as someone who owns a Tesla) and are likely to face stiff competition in the next five years from companies that know how to actually build cars.
    • stusmall 4y ago
      Tesla's market share is approximately 14%. They are impressive, innovative and might have a bright future but they aren't at the juggernaut stage yet. Their huge market cap and cultural share is because of their dominance in a small, previously ignored subset of the market that is expected to grow.
• typeofhuman 4y ago
  It amazes me how easily you cast aspersions onto someone you don't even know. To go so far to accuse someone who leads massive innovations and organizations and still has enough time to share his thoughts on Twitter as someone who's "disorderly". What would we say of you, if your life were so public?
• TimPC 4y ago
  The main thing that soured my opinion is that he supported Bitcoin and other crypto. The environmental damage from crypto is larger than the environmental savings for all electric cars. Elon Musk went from being one of the best things to happen to the planet to someone doing less than nothing for it.
• alex_duf 4y ago
  Same here, for me I started to lose interest for him when he started to sell the boring company as a solution to traffic jams. The solution already exists and it's called "public transport". I suspect this might be due to being surrounded by people who are too impressed by him to called out an idea when it's not sound. Then the memes, then the crypto tokens, then it just got all weird so I stopped listening.
  • fourseventy 4y ago
• yangikan 4y ago
  unhinged is absolutely the right word to describe him. Not just in terms of acting up, but also in terms of testing the boundaries of lawful behavior. A kind of behavior that can only be explained by the assumption that he thinks he is above the law (probably because he has a large number of fanboys and money). This is also similar to the behavior of the US politician that you are alluding to.
• treeman79 4y ago
  Funny how many smear articles against him are going on. Because he wants to stop online censorship of conservatives. How many here would do what they consider right knowing they will be vilified for it.
  • itsoktocry 4y ago
    >Funny how many smear articles against him are going on. He was The Left's darling, now he's The Right's darling. Personally, I think he made a mistake. I feel like Elon wants to be liked, but the celebrity/media left are now going to have their go at him.
  • vmurthy 4y ago
    I can't vouch for everyone supposedly writing smear articles/commenting on Musk but my own problem is that there is a public cost to his antics like "Going private" , "just bought 9% of TWTR" , "won't buy TWTR" etc. There's a reason SEC has rules around these. If Musk had done it once, you could call it eccentric or just plain stupid. If there's a pattern to it, perhaps his intentions aren't really to save the world or even noble. I'd trust someone who is openly greedy than someone who claims to do virtuous things while doing shady things.
• MichaelMoser123 4y ago
  Unhinged? It is possible, that Musk didn't expect the twitter deal to become as politicised, as it did. Maybe he just got afraid of getting into the center of politics in the US. For example the state is a major customer, and they could just stop buying launch services from SpaceX for example, as the president might not agree with the politics of Mr Musk. I mean look at Bezos, he got into a fight with Trump, and the pentagon preferred Azure to AWS, all of a sudden. Yeah, and a year later that deal got cancelled too, by the next administration [1]. I mean Musk has a lot of business with Uncle Sam, he really can't play his own game, in terms of politics. I mean, i mean, they really have a lot of 'leverage' with Musk, to begin with. I would guess that Musk would be looking for a way out of the twitter deal, in order to protect his business. Also the economy is going into a recession, therefore his deals with the various governments are going to be much more important. Look, there is even talk of Musk building an e-tank with a German firm, Rheinmetall [2] [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/pentagon-terminates-controversial-10-billion-jedi-cloud-contract-with-microsoft/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/pentagon-terminates-controvers... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDe7OGpPodM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDe7OGpPodM
  • inglor_cz 4y ago
    After this war, Musk is probably in no danger of losing federal contracts just because of his free speech politics. The Russians knocked out the entire Ukrainian SATCOM infrastructure at the start of the war, plus quite a few stations elsewhere in Europe; AFAIK none of them went online again. Electronic warfare at its finest. Once this happened, Starlink was used as a drop-in substitute and defeated all Russian attempts to knock it out too. The Ukrainians coordinate their artillery, drones etc. over Starlink and the Russians can ... gnash their teeth. This is an impressive capability and it gives the U.S. a huge advantage in any potential future military conflict with a near-peer power. Advantages like that aren't discarded just because of random culture war flare-ups.
    • MichaelMoser123 4y ago
      Interesting perspective. Actually the US government payed for the service: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietly-paying-millions-send-starlink-terminals-ukraine-contrary-spacexs-claims/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/us-quietl... https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/spacex-ukraine-elon-musk-starlink-government-b2055491.html https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/spacex-ukraine-elon-musk-...
• b65e8bee43c2ed0 4y ago
• memish 4y ago
  He's autistic and a genius. That combination is typically misunderstood and derided in their time. When there is distance he'll be able to be viewed with a dispassionate lens. Historians and future generations will put the mistakes in their proper context as they benefit from sustainable transport, reusable rocket ships and free speech in the public square.
  • hn_throwaway_99 4y ago
    > He's autistic and a genius. That combination is typically misunderstood and derided in their time. Going to call bullshit on that one, because it's an easy way to discount all the downright shitty crap he's done. I think it is amazing what Musk has accomplished, and if you look throughout history most hard-charging folks that get shit done tend to have a ton of narcissistic traits and are not really folks you'd want to be friends with. Both Newton and Edison were legendary assholes. Many of "... The Great" leaders throughout history achieved their "greatness" by mass murder. So it's not incongruous at all to call out Elon for being a giant narcissistic, lying dickhead, and to also be in awe of his accomplishments.
• demygale 4y ago
  It all makes sense if you assume he’s a dumb guy who got rich by accident.
• alex_young 4y ago
  Isn’t trying to reprice a shrewd move at this point? The market has taken a huge hit since he made his move and the options for Twitter haven’t exactly improved.
  • phyalow 4y ago
    I absolutely agree. He will save himself $5-15 billion depending on the new offer price, a total no brainer. A big short selling hedge fund came out 4 days ago and laid this exact scenario out on the table https://hindenburgresearch.com/twitter/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/twitter/
  • hooande 4y ago
    No. A shrewd move would have been to not do a fumbling hostile takeover. Everyone knows that tech stocks traditionally take a hit when the fed raises rates. He could have done this in a slower and more traditional way instead of attempting the largest leveraged buyout in history on a whim. Now he has to work with a ton of contractual and legal issues, up to and including twitter being able to force him to go through with the deal, unless he can find clear evidence of fraud in their user numbers.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• ryandvm 4y ago
  Couldn't agree more. I think "unhinged" is the perfect descriptor. I like a lot of what he proposes and how he thinks (when he's not attention seeking), but I absolutely cannot stand the pathetic meme crap and shit-posting he does. Sadly, he also reminds me of the failed coup guy, but I honestly think he might be more dangerous. Because not only is he desperate for attention, he's also pretty clever. That's a bad combination and I fear old age Elon is going to be even more trouble...
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• causality0 4y ago
  Same. It was the saga of the media talking about poor working conditions and safety at Tesla, then his response by making an anti-media media site, then the fallout from that, then his decision to use those trapped kids as an opportunity to publicly virtue-signal by "building a rescue submarine", and his infantile tantrum when he was told that wasn't useful. If Elon Musk had shut the fuck up in 2010 I'd probably be calling for statues to be built of him.
• mungoid 4y ago
  Elon is acting like the weird kid in school who accidentally did something that kinda made him popular and thought he could do it over and over but everyone just got tired of it after the first couple times
• nailer 4y ago
  > indecisive and disorderly. This deal is a perfect demonstration of how I feel. Why is it disorderly to not want to acquire a company that may be lying about their figures?
• nailer 4y ago
  dang can we flagkill this entire thread? The thread is mainly unsubstantiated character attacks with no supporting arguments.
• rdelpret 4y ago
  I think he’s always been like that to an extent. In his biography there are stories of him staying up all night and re-writing everyone’s code in his earlier days.
• zosima 4y ago
  Elon gets attention because he is doing absolutely astonishingly amazing things. The appearance of indecisiveness and disorderliness is because he's doings things nobody has done before. And that's how that sort of thing looks.
  • FartyMcFarter 4y ago
    > The appearance of indecisiveness and disorderliness is because he's doings things nobody has done before. Indecisiveness and disorderliness are the least of his problems, at least as far as the public is concerned. He's a bully and he's untrustworthy.
    • zosima 4y ago
      Well, if he was a sensitive soul he would have stopped what he was doing, long time ago. Just look at this thread.
    • hunterb123 4y ago
      Thank you FartyMcFarter for your judgment, hopefully we can all live up to your standards.
  • boringg 4y ago
    I agree with this too. It's like everyone on this thread wants Elon to be a perfectly manicured fully formed opinion on everything and that he needs to be batting 1000. He's batting far beyond anyone else that's try to move the needle - don't forget that. I don't pretend that I agree with a lot of what Elon does but I recognize someone who is fundamentally changing the planet. To the comments of him not wanting to talk to the press most of the time because it's boring ... do you guys know how boring talking to the press is? You get equal parts adoration and pot shots without actually gaining anything but trying to get a message threw. There are very few enlightening moments in dealing with press and podcasts and you are constantly guarded about some asinine sound byte taken out of context. It's not like the podcast/press corps are typically deeply knowledgeable and are going to bring up some new idea to help you out. It's about getting a message out to different groups of people and it is really boring/wearing if you don't like saying the same thing over and over again. I guess the saying goes - haters are going to hate as is deeply visible on the thread.
• syndacks 4y ago
  I lost all respect for him when he seriously posited that life is a simulation.
• koheripbal 4y ago
  Why are we so obsessed with loving or hating him. Both amount to celebrity worship. We enable the drama which feeds off both the love AND the hate. I posit that mature intelligent people don't care about Elon. Our rallying for or railing against him, is an expression of our own narcissism, as if our individual opinions of him change literally anything in the world. People need to grow up and focus on their own lives and changing things within their power.
  • ausbah 4y ago
    musk is kinda the closet thing to a celebrity there is in the tech scene
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • Bubble_Pop_22 4y ago
    I very much agree with all you said, but it's also a way to find likeminded people. If I discuss with somebody and they agree with me that Musk is a conman and a cult leader, chances are they have the same mental framework around other broader things such as how SV has become a hotspot for cults. How maybe it's time to get out of such hotspot for cults, how maybe the template for success isn't inflating a financial bubble such as Tesla but going old school like Microsoft, without raising any money, going straight to building products and attack Goliath without fear like they did with IBM, not in the press but in the marketplace.
  • Jach 4y ago
    I mostly agree with this, and would add that thoughts on Elon make a great Rorschach test (and a less great but still interesting test on what bits of misinformation have stuck to a person). But I disagree with the "enlightened disinterested middle" prescription. A mature intelligent person can love and hate and be disinterested in things (and people), too, and regardless of how other people think (or don't think) about the thing or person. There's an old copypasta going around again that implicitly makes this point at least for liking -- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/if-x-has-a-million-fans-im-one-of-them https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/if-x-has-a-million-fans-im-on... -- a mature intelligent person should be able to have their likes and dislikes be mostly independent of what others think. (My own bias is somewhat contrarian, I notice myself irrationally starting to like something less if it becomes more popular. Sometimes I can justify it more rationally by saying that popularity changed the thing -- our opinions are part of our brains and thus are part of the world and can indeed sometimes affect the world even beyond our brains, effects are more likely when more brains share opinions -- and I like the thing it became less, or even actively dislike it, without having to diminish my liking of what used to be. Sometimes I realize I'm being irrational, notice my feelings aren't what I want them to be, and attempt to correct them (sometimes towards disinterest!). Sometimes I don't care. But the correct thing is not necessarily disinterest, nor a more extreme stance I once thought which was abandoning my likes and other emotions altogether.)
• IAmEveryone 4y ago
  I think what’s worst is how boring he is in all these shenanigans. Peter Thiel invents a method to sue your business out of existence. Evil, yes, but also smart. Musk? Calls people he doesn’t like pedophiles. Like some schoolchild, or Republican House candidate. And Musks politics are similar: dumb, but also dumb in exactly the same half-informed wannabe libertarian 20-year old American guy way as half the people on Reddit. It’s really rather strange, because Musk isn’t anywhere close to normal in many other ways, and good ways, too. Making five or six businesses work, some at the same time, with only two or three duds along the way, is far ahead of anyone else and can almost claim statistical significance.
• Jach 4y ago
  The word you're looking for is eccentric.
• unclebucknasty 4y ago
  Seems a lot of what drives Musk is a need to feel that he's smarter than everyone else, even (or especially) if he suspects it may not be true. So he takes the position that the minions of the world are unworthy burdens to him. This includes governments, other organizations and anything/anyone he perceives is attempting to regulate or otherwise "constrain" him. There's an obvious immaturity there too, wherein he responds to any criticism, hint that he may be wrong, or regulatory effort with the equivalent of a childish "you're just stupid!" His battles with the SEC are a classic example, and it would be on-brand if this Twitter deal was as much about thumbing the eye of regulators as anything else. His announcement today had at one point caused a 20% dip in Twitter's pre-market price and 5% bump for Tesla's. The entire ride has been an exercise in manipulation. So, I've wondered at times if a lot of this superiority act is really just deep insecurity, and he needs the world to constantly reassure him that he's as smart as he needs them to believe he is. When you look at the attention-seeking behavior you mentioned, it definitely aligns.
  • boringg 4y ago
    You've got it wrong - the tumbling today was because Twitter was artificially inflated and being held on the hopes of a deal. As soon as the market tanked, the price of twitter still held out hope on a deal. Elon isn't about to pay full freight in a sinking macroeconomic environment. In terms of his behavior you speak of - could be right, could be wrong. I don't think he needs the reinforcement at this point. He's already proved himself - he now just needs to keep executing. My concern is that he doesn't have the energy, focus and clarity of thought to make it happen. Also I do have legit concerns on the mental health of our older twitter guys (> 50 ) as I have noticed there has been a lot of trolling poor behavior in that crowd and a turn to the hard right. Maybe it's the social validation needed at a later age?
    • unclebucknasty 4y ago
      >the tumbling today was because Twitter was artificially inflated and being held on the hopes of a deal We're saying the same thing. Yes, the deal itself inflated the price. But, Musk announcing today that the deal was on hold pending proof of the fake account numbers contributed to the steep pull back. Musk did not have to make the announcement publicly, and he knew what would happen when he did. Now, guess what happens to the price when he comes out next week and says the numbers he sought were proven to his satisfaction. He's been playing a deal-on, deal-off game from the start and the stock has responded accordingly. He has a history of enjoying that market manipulation power, including on the crypto side. He's been slapped for it by the SEC for his other companies, and has made no secret about his disdain for that fact. >He's already proved himself Insecurity is frequently not rooted in reality. Musk knows he's a smart guy, but the kind of insecurity I'm talking about may never be quenchable.
• mzs 4y ago
  Parag Agrawal warned us all more than a month ago, "There will be distractions ahead…" https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1513354622466867201 https://twitter.com/paraga/status/1513354622466867201
• ur-whale 4y ago
  > he has a significant history of being indecisive and disorderly. Think of it as simulated annealing [1]. Usually finds pretty decent extrema [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulated_annealing
• ineedasername 4y ago
  >if he was always like that or grew into it at one point. He went from being wealthy growing up, to being very rich after Paypal, to being an extremely rich billionaire, to being the most richest person in the world (maybe ever?). And now a single utterance of his can shape markets or otherwise influence millions of people. I think it would be difficult to go through the above and not come out the other end without it impacting your behaviors & world view. At a minimum, before he was this wealthy & influential he didn't have as much margin for error. A single bad decision might have tanked Tesla or SpaceX when they were getting started. It would have required Musk to be a lot more careful & deliberate. He also had to care a bit more (or at least pretend to care) about other people's thoughts/ideas etc. These days he can lose $1B in a twitter acquisition breakup fee and it barely matters. And he has enough "f*ck off" money (the amount required to tell someone to "f*ck off" with no significant consequences) to tell anyone to f*ck off. The need to adhere to social niceties is greatly reduced. This is all on top of the fact that the average person's behavior is usually going to change at least a little as they get older. All of which is to say that I think there's an excellent chance that he's grown into his current personality. If so, I think it's very possible that it's a mixture: He grew into where he is now, but the seeds were always there & his track in life has amplified or caused those seeds to take hold.
  • zionic 4y ago
    >He went from being wealthy growing up This most definitely is false. Elon grew up middle class at best.
    • bthrn 4y ago
      His dad was half owner of an emerald mine. From wikipedia: "The family was very wealthy in Elon's youth; Errol Musk once said, 'We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe.'" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Childhood_and_family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Childhood_and_family
      • jlmorton 4y ago
        When people start using abstract measures to describe something easily quantifiable, it's usually because they're dissembling. We have a pretty good idea what Errol's net worth is, and it's a couple million bucks. The emerald mine in question was purchased for the equivalent of $40,000.
• zarzavat 4y ago
  There’s been a huge stock market crash since he first initiated the buyout. It would have been unhinged if he didn’t try to renegotiate the price or otherwise pull out. It can be argued that the whole idea of Musk buying Twitter is unhinged, but it doesn’t seem much different to Bezos buying WaPo, it’s simply on a larger scale. Media companies provide good political power/$ value to billionaires.
• tasty_freeze 4y ago
  I get the feeling he is a lifelong nerd with poor social skills, but after his success and wealth he is now perceived as an interesting person with high social status, and it just isn't in him to deal well with it. He divorced his wife, starts dating actresses and musicians, the latter turns him on to smoking pot and he thinks to himself, "Hey, I'm now a cool guy who smokes pot. I need to show people I'm a cool guy who smokes pot" and goes on Joe Rogan and shows off his new coolness. Same thing with his twitter antics. The first time I heard him speak was watching clips from his solar roof announcements. He had the charisma and presentation skills of a 4th grader giving a book report.
• brentm 4y ago
  This + the bro cult around him on Twitter certainly make him hard to stomach sometimes. But still, when I see he is on a podcast or some other media it is usually worth the listen.
• duxup 4y ago
  I wonder how different I would be if what I did was highly successful and I had the money to do what I want / indulge myself at my whim... I worry it wouldn't be pretty...
• dcow 4y ago
  Is it not possible that Elon is acting in a perfectly rational way based on information that has come to light during diligence? Or am I missing something more subtle between the lines? It seems at least possible that Elon or Twitter’s board or both hold inaccurate views about how valuable Twitter actually is…
  • turtledove 4y ago
    No? Have you seen his communication style? It's not one of a person acting "perfectly rational".
• seshagiric 4y ago
  He does not look indecisive :), to the contrary seems to be jumping to action without bothering much about consequences. For example, why make acquisition bid without checking on spam accounts first? IIRC his offer letter to the Twitter did not carry this condition about spam bots.
• rland 4y ago
  The foundation of Musk's wealth, above all else, is that he operates as a one-man marketing machine. The funding for all of his ventures depends on Musk. The magnet for ravenous, loyal, intelligent nerds (and thus, the ability to eventually deliver on his promises!) is powered by Musk. The ability for any of his ventures to cover a failure to deliver with a PR/controversy storm -- yup, it depends on Musk. I like your comparison with Big T. He is, in some sense, a sleeker and more savvy Trump. Trump does have a similar psychic energy to Elon, but he's an older model. He came from the TV world. Now, the TV world was pretty powerful -- it got DT elected president! But Americans are not living in the TV world this century; they're living in the social media world. This is the origin of the Twitter thing. It's not about Twitter's profit, or free speech, or anything as lofty as that. Here's what happened with Twitter: Trump got elected based, in part, on his statements on Twitter. Around the same time, Elon was astroturfing Reddit, Twitter, etc. to build the hype machine that eventually became the $1T social media product, Tesla. Elon, consciously or not, came to realize that simply by his statements on Twitter, could manipulate the world to his whim. He fired the entire corporate PR team at Tesla. He realizes, why do I need a PR team? I can shape the narrative just as well with my social media account! Then, BOOM! Trump gets banned from Twitter, and immediately disappears completely from discussion. Just like that, in the blink of an eye -- erased from public imagination. Do you remember how quickly this happened? He was black holed from the public imagination in a couple days. As soon as the trending hashtag disappeared, Trump was gone. Elon saw this happen. He made the connection between his valuations and his Twitter account. And remember, at this point, Elon's compensation is basically tied entirely to the stock price. He realizes that leaving his podium on someone else's property is a mortal risk. And... here we are. Twitter is pretty stupid not to have banned Elon as soon as he left the slightest hint of acquisition. Musk does not come from a scientific or technical lineage: his father wasn't a geotechnical engineer, a computer programmer, or a physicist. He was a chiropractor. A chiropractor! This is the essence of Elon. He is the greatest influencer of our time.
• deleted 4y ago
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• belter 4y ago
  Elon Musk did this recent keynote for the FT. "Future of the Car: Elon Musk Keynote Interview" https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc Said he will have full FSD in the next 6 months: https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=3107 https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=3107 Will be landing uncrewed Starship on Mars in 3 to 5 years: https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=2444 https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=2444 Most ironic of all is the talk about Tunnels: https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=4000 https://youtu.be/VfyrQVhfGZc?t=4000 It was a shame that the FT, with a London based journalist, forgot to ask the question if he has ever heard about this Sci-Fi tunnel transport system called the London Metro :-)
• DrBoring 4y ago
  > unhinged I have this speculative theory that Elon Musk's public behavior is a complex long term ruse. I suspect his odd behavior is intentionally designed to get other to underestimate him. Consider it a mental form of the drunken fist martial arts style [1], where a fighter will use unpredictable body movements to confuse the opponent. I use the word "theory" intentionally. I have explainable reasons for how I formed this theory. But now is not the place for that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_boxing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_boxing
• api 4y ago
  The only reason Elon looks superhuman to so many people is by comparison to our worthless decadent elite. He's a decent engineer with a strong work ethic and resources who actually does do things, making him look like a comic book superhero. That's because the rest of his class is mostly jacking off on yachts, sponsoring bullshit politics of various flavors, posturing at glorified overpriced TED sessions (Davos etc.), or running companies whose products and market they don't understand full of people who have meetings to discuss the meeting schedule. If our elite really were a meritocracy Elon would be average among his peers, if that.
• philliphaydon 4y ago
  I’m not a fan of Elon, would never buy a Tesla. But Vernon Unsworth was worse in the whole incident. He started the whole argument. Elon was asked for help. He tried to help. Vernon threw his toys out of the cot. Elon responded like a child. Vernon sued and got laughed out of court. There’s a lot of reasons to dislike Elon. The ‘pedo guy’ thing isn’t one of them.
  • filoleg 4y ago
    To add details, Elon's sub prototype seemed fine, and his team worked with Thai authorities to evaluate its use to resolve the incident. It was deemed they didn't have enough time (given the constraints) to actually finish it, and diving was a more practical option given the entirety of the situation. Thai authorities told Elon as such, boys in the cave were already saved by the time he brought over the sub, and everything was fine. Then that one specific diver comes out of nowhere and tweets that it was all just a PR stunt and that Elon could "shove that sub up where it hurts". While Elon's response was an immature retort, it is a bit disingenuous how people seem to imply that he lashed out at the diver out of nowhere with that insult just because his sub wasnt used for the incident. That wasn't an issue at all, and he took the rejection from Thai authorities just fine. It was one of the divers that decided to throw this random insult at him, and Elon's retort (no matter how appropriate or inappropriate it was) was just a "one-up" response. Immature and inappropriate response, sure. But let's not act as if he decided to lash out on some innocent guy out of nowhere. Direct quote[0]: "Just as I didn’t literally mean he was a pedophile, I’m sure he didn’t literally mean shoving a sub up my a--". 0. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/elon-musk-tells-jurors-insult-provoked-pedo-guy-tweet/2188845/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/elon-...
• peterth3 4y ago
  I started to become concerned about Elon when I read his 2017 interview with Rolling Stone[0]: > I explain that needing someone so badly that you feel like nothing without them is textbook codependence. Musk disagrees. Strongly. “It’s not true,” he replies petulantly. “I will never be happy without having someone. Going to sleep alone kills me.” He hesitates, shakes his head, falters… He’s been in desperate need of therapy for a long time. It’s sad in some ways. He is one of the most brilliant men alive, but he would be 10x happier and more effective if he worked on himself as hard as he works his companies. [0] https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/elon-musk-the-architect-of-tomorrow-120850/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/elon-m...
  • brtkdotse 4y ago
    > He is one of the most brilliant men alive I wonder where this notion started. Tesla was an existing company he bought and all the heavy lifting a SpaceX was done by other people. He made some good business calls, but I’d say a lot of his success stems from being at the right place, at the right time with the right wallet.
    • malnourish 4y ago
      While I don't disagree with you, there must be _some_ level of 'right place and time' involved with anyone who holds superlative accolades. Same can be said for the converse.
      • tragictrash 4y ago
        Yeah it's called being born wealthy, and then becoming a billionaire.
        • hunterb123 4y ago
          Yeah that's why Bezo's Blue Origin is doing so well compared to SpaceX.
    • brunnock 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
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• mlindner 4y ago
  > Also, the guy is always going to extreme lengths to seek attention, just like one certain US politician...Something turns me off from these types of people. Elon Musk isn't an attention seeker and never has been. I don't get how people make this argument. Every chance he gets, he redirects praise to the people of his companies.
• danans 4y ago
  He is the kind of person one has to maintain complex opinions about. He didn't create the first mass market modern EV (that was Nissan), but he did what the rest of the auto industry could have but refused to do: Reverse the polarity of the desirability of EVs. His views on metropolitan public transit and car facilitated sprawl are backward, but I doubt most traditional auto executives think any differently (just look at the amazing metro system in the Detroit area! /s), they just don't voice it as openly. He has tons of money and power but feels little accountability to anyone, not even his shareholders, much less any community, country, or society. You might say that's great, that it frees him to think "outside the box". That is true, but societal obligations are not all bad - they ground a wealthy and powerful person in the reality of people who have far less power than them, and temper some of the blindness brought on by their narcissism.
• Mezzie 4y ago
  He was always like this, from what I remember. Then again, I was put off of him back in the 90s because it was just kind of embarrassing to watch someone who was (at the time) 2-3x my age be so desperate for validation. Elon was bullied pretty heavily, and I think he clung to the nerds as his social savior in response, but he still doesn't have the self-confidence/spine to let his ideas stand on their own. It's kind of sad: He basically has a parasocial relationship with the geek/nerd community (and probably the rationalists too) and he thinks it's real, but it can't be when Elon brings his resources to bear whenever he's losing an argument.
• ARandomerDude 4y ago
  > Also, the guy is always going to extreme lengths to seek attention, just like one certain US politician Take it easy on Biden. Many geriatric patients act strangely because their sense of self awareness has faded with age.
• rednerrus 4y ago
  The problem is reward this kind of behavior. Trump became president by be the most outlandish buffoon. Kanye is a billionaire for his antics. It's all free advertising for their brands. Probably 100s of millions of dollars worth of free advertising.
• rhacker 4y ago
  One thing I really like about this new Elon is, while he is liberal, he's more real. There are a lot of liberals playing a part - like towing the liberal line. However a lot of ACTUAL liberals in person might be like, shit let's stop abortion or lets stop illegal immigration or lets cheer black people but I don't want everyone on TV to be black (I'm not saying all of them - but real people have actual opinions like that). There's too much focus on hyper liberalism or LEFTism right now and I rather think the word is not unhinged it's REAL. Same REAL that elected Trump.
  • saila 4y ago
    In the United States there is very little leftism. If you think there is, point to any major party etc that is advocating to dismantle the existing power hierarchy and transfer ownership of the means of production to workers. The most "radical" mainstream advocacy we typically see is around reform, which really isn't radical at all. It's true that there are pockets of leftist activism here and there, but said activists have very little power or influence. There's no communist bogeyman waiting round the corner to redistribute your wealth (or whatever else it is that people imagine communism to be). It's important to reiterate that liberal and progressive are not synonyms for leftism. Advocating for social change in and of itself is not leftism. More Black people on TV isn't leftism, and the notion is quite absurd, especially since it's far from true that everyone on TV is Black now. The reason this is so important IMO is that we can't have productive discussions about social and political issues if we don't understand the basic terms and concepts under discussion. As to Musk, I don't know what to think. He's certainly made some good business decisions, but he also goes off the deep end on occasion. I don't think calling him liberal really makes much sense. When you're one of the richest people in the world, your world view is undoubtedly much different than that of an average person. And just in general the labels "liberal" and "conservative" aren't very meaningful, especially in that most people could be considered either depending on which issue you're looking at. And when you look at how people actually live and what they prioritize, the lines become even blurrier.
• dqpb 4y ago
  > I just can never trust anything he says because he has a significant history of being indecisive and disorderly. All agents have two modes: exploiting and exploring Indecisive and disorderly are the qualities of exploring.
• Joeri 4y ago
  The thing with Elon is that he has no respect for rules. This is what makes his companies successful. His company will zag when everybody zigs, because he will say “zigging is stupid, and only an idiot would do it that way”, after which he will be mocked by all the zigging rule-followers, and ultimately either be proven right, or dead-wrong. This lack of respect of rules brought him to the top, and somewhere along the way he seems to have forgotten how to turn it off. So now he does whatever he wants whenever he wants and who cares about the consequences because why should he follow someone else’s rules? This greatly offends many people, while simultaneously attracting a fan club who love his rogue character.
• goshx 4y ago
  I’m a fan of Tesla, SpaceX, etc. but I think Elon has been acting a little off lately. It feels like he started acting like any other rich guy who is more concerned about his own money than anything else. If Trump is reelected this year, Republicans can thank Elon. He’s campaigning against democrats, wants Trump to be back on Twitter, said banning Trump was morally wrong (I guess letting the incitements of violence, lies about election fraud while committing the fraud himself, was morally acceptable to Elon).
• leobg 4y ago
  This is exactly what Charlie Munger said when asked why he and Buffett invested in BYD and not in Tesla. He said Elon was a certified genius and a lose cannon. (That was before TSLA did 20x. And also well before Musk teased them about their love of moats and candy.)