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Ask HN: Why do HN feel so negatively about Musk?

• PaulHoule 4y ago
  My take is he has some good attributes and some bad attributes. I like what he's done with Tesla and SpaceX. His behavior around Twitter and around politics has been bizzare and erratic and (I think) endangers the good things he's done. It seems like trouble with Twitter could sidetrack Starship which would be a tragedy.
• Finnucane 4y ago
  He's not quite as openly fascist as say, Peter Thiel, but he's clearly a douchebag who cares about nothing beyond himself. He's clearly sympathetic to racists and autocrats. He does not have a desire to make humanity a multi-planet species. He just wants an escape pod from the burning Earth.
  • freejazz 4y ago
    Exactly. Likewise all the hemming and hawing about "free speech" is just self-serving nonsense.
  • logicalmonster 4y ago
    When did mind-reading become a thing?
    • abeisgreat 4y ago
      It's not mind-reading if you look at someone's actions and words then speculate about what their motivations and future decisions will look like - that's just deductive reasoning.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • jfengel 4y ago
        Well, inductive reasoning. But yes, that.
  • aliasxneo 4y ago
    I don't read the news, so I'm a bit ignorant on these matters, but mind providing some references for some of these remarks? I'm also genuinely curious as to the sentiment and would like to be informed on the matter.
    • gregjor 4y ago
      You can easily find everything Musk has said and done, every broken promise, and every actual accomplishment. Few people get as much media coverage as Musk. Use Google, don't ask people on HN to read and summarize for you.
    • illuminerdy 4y ago
      You know how a little old grandma will have a Trump yard sign out front of her house and anyone on the left who sees it will say "she must be a transphobic bigot"? It's that level of evidence.
  • chitowneats 4y ago
    • rvz 4y ago
      Let us not forget to mention that they realize much later that all along they have been 'useful idiots' for someone else's gain whilst also parroting that they support the current thing and whoever disagrees is a fascist. Now we are all told that the villain of the month is Elon Musk according to the reporters. Time to complain on Twitter!
      • trs8080 4y ago
        I don't need a reporter to tell me that Elon Musk is a villain.
    • jcuenod 4y ago
      Except for the ones who are idiots who parrot GOP talking points?
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • freejazz 4y ago
        Those are the "free thinkers"
  • archon1410 4y ago
    >He does not have a desire to make humanity a multi-planet species. He just wants an escape pod from the burning Earth. These are not mutually exclusive things. The primary reason cited for the desire to become multi-planetary is to use other planets as a escape hatch in case something happens. And they are incentived to escape themselves and leave others here to rot. It's much more efficient than trying to save one planet from armageddon every time.
    • freejazz 4y ago
      "It's much more efficient than trying to save one planet from armageddon every time." It's actually not. If we can't figure out how to live here, we aren't going to figure out how to live in a less hospitable environment.
      • archon1410 4y ago
        Why would that be? Musk's dream of a Mars colony seems easier than trying to co-ordinate that 1.5C global warming plan or prevent myriad of other apocalypse scenarios. It seems pretty intuitive two planets are better than one. Thinking from Musk's perspective, as a proud Homo sapiens who "must secure the existence of our people and a future for ~~white~~ human children", will he have better luck trying to prevent global warming by coordinating a global (including China and India) response, or starting a company to reach Mars by himself? Surely it's the second one.
        • nathanaldensr 4y ago
          Sorry, but there is no evidence that either of those two plans are feasible at all.
        • sshine 4y ago
          > It seems pretty intuitive two planets are better than one. Spoken like a true colonialist! ;-)
        • freejazz 4y ago
          >"Musk's dream of a Mars colony seems easier than trying to co-ordinate that 1.5C global warming plan or prevent myriad of other apocalypse scenarios." In the best case scenario, we go to mars and do the same thing again. That's disregarding all the actual problems it would take to get there, and live there. And also disregarding all the problems we actually HAVE to solve about living here (and living, in general).
  • s9w 4y ago
  • tmaly 4y ago
    how do you define fascist in this context?
    • yucky 4y ago
      Anybody to the right of Mao.
  • Jdmdnnd 4y ago
    How is Peter Thiel a fascist?
  • cvccvroomvroom 4y ago
    Sort of. EM is a dick to employees in an apolitical way. Peter Thiel is absolutely a warmongering, nutter ahole. EM has no direct incentive to not "stick us with the check" on a dying Earth, although I don't think it's feasible to sustain human civilization on Mars. Logistics.
• incomingpain 4y ago
  >Every thread about something relating to him is filled with posts describing him negatively. As someone posting positively, this is due to brigading and downvoting of anything positive. They tend to go to your profile and downvote everything you ever said as well. Luckily they can only do a few pages. Overall, Musk is brilliant and when he fixes twitter. It will be the place to be. >So, what is behind the attitude? Politics; there's a dying political movement which will soon no longer be represented in legislature. It's about to become a religion on the otherhand.
  • eatonphil 4y ago
    > downvote everything you ever said as well. I don't think you can downvote things older than a day or two for what it's worth.
    • hckrnewser 4y ago
  • lostgame 4y ago
    Or; y’know, the majority of people here just don’t approve of his behaviour… Also; downvoting expires pretty quickly. This isn’t Reddit, you can’t just go back and downvote every comment someone wrote. :/
    • xeromal 4y ago
      The guy you're replying to is so downvoted you can barely see their comment. They didn't even write anything bad. Just an opinion. lol
      • pwinnski 4y ago
        He accused people of brigading, rather than expressing their honest opinion. I'd downvote such an unsubstantiated (and false, at least in my case) statement if it weren't already so downvoted. I don't want to pile on, but they did write "something bad." Something can be "just an opinion" and still be "something bad."
• jwmoz 4y ago
  Because he's clearly an idiot demonstrated multiple times and also I find his weird obsession with having many children really strange.
• rvz 4y ago
  It is because he clearly is the villain of the month according to the entire media. But looking at Twitter, this company was chronically losing money in the hundreds of millions and it seems that he knows that a headcount of 7500+, with extremely high operational costs nearing the billions is quite unsustainable as they doubled headcount very quickly recently. Either way, the layoffs were going to happen regardless of the Twitter deal, which I don't care, since this is business as usual. I mostly critique Musks plans for FSD, since that is more concerning to the safety of drivers on the road than these layoffs at Twitter. I guarantee that Twitter would already be run to the ground much quicker if it stayed as it is and adding more headcount. Now, with this reduction, they can save on costs, make more money and bring back Vine.
• ben11kehoe 4y ago
  An article that sums it up well for me is "Surely We Can Do Better Than Elon Musk" in Current Affairs (2021) https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/04/surely-we-can-do-better-than-elon-musk https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/04/surely-we-can-do-bett...
• interdrift 4y ago
  He just lost his humbleness (if he even ever had it).
  • calyth2018 4y ago
    He's got an emerald in his mouth when he was born. Not sure if he ever had it.
    • interdrift 4y ago
      there's something about guaranteed wealth that takes away those feelings of accountability. You can be 100% morally strong, yet 20 years of this BS and your humbleness goes down the drain. Totally human, yet totally wrong to be on top of the food chain for too long.
• abeisgreat 4y ago
  Personally, I turned my opinion on him when he tweeted about having approvals from major cities for Hyperloop tracks and then the mayor of one of those cities tweeted that they had never spoken to him. It's clear he's willing to lie and manipulate on a mass scale (and we let him). He's either immature, evil, or something in between.
• jrm4 4y ago
  The reverse question is far more interesting: Why is Elon Musk assumed to be admirable given the true nature of his "accomplishments?" It is quite true that he's been around and a part of many good and big things, Tesla, SpaceX, etc -- but there's increasing evidence that his "contribution" hasn't been much besides being born rich and following hobbies. That's not inherently bad, of course. It's no ones fault that they were born rich, and it's great if you can leverage that to do good things. But the facade is coming off of Musk, and he appears to be shifting from "hey cool science things" to being greedy for straight up power -- which is an absurdly predictable path. This sort of thing happens all the time in history.
• draugadrotten 4y ago
  HN is centered around Silicon Valley where the stereotype politics are extreme liberal [1] Musk is a technocrat more in favour of free-market capitalism and a streak of social conservatism. [2] Hence the friction. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/technology/silicon-valley-politics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/technology/silicon-valley... [2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-twitter-deal-politics-b2213628.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
• kahrl 4y ago
  Enough Musk spam.
• travisgriggs 4y ago
  For me personally, I don’t like single point of failures. It’s less about not like Musk personally and more about “no single person or institution” should have that kind of power for an extended period of time. It dehumanizes us when we don’t need to work with others. As I look around the world today, and it’s headliner problems, they all trace to single people/institutions staying in their realm of power/influence too long. Musk has become such a person to me.
• erokar 4y ago
  I started to dislike him after "the pedofile tweet". That kind of behaviour points to dark narcissistic personality traits. Apart from that, where to start? He has pressured his employees to work under the risk of contracting covid in the early phases of the pandemic, and now as the latest thing he comes off as a Russia apologist, if not outright sympathiser of their war against Ukraine. Musk has an uncanny ability to fall lower with regards to moral standards when you didn't think it possible.
• dagmx 4y ago
  Your post focuses on his technical achievements. Have you considered his social capital though? - made various transphobic, fat shaming, and otherwise derogatory remarks against people - spreads conspiracy theories - accused rescuers of being pedos - plays around with other people’s livelihoods like they don’t matter - he’s been accused of sexual harassment - he allies himself with other problematic people like Joe Rogan - he routinely flouts local ordinances, especially around health care - constantly tries to make it appear as if he’s being benevolent but either does nothing on onerous terms (cave rescue submarine, world hunger pledge), comes up drastically short (ventilator support) or renegs as soon as it’s slightly inconvenient (starlink) - supports Russia invading and taking land. (Yes he donated starlink to Ukraine, but also overcharged both the US government and the people of Ukraine) Then let’s look at the technical side, which provide other areas of criticism: - solar roofs are incredibly behind schedule for many people who’ve signed on - Tesla routinely fails to ship vehicles on schedule that he’ll still constantly hype up - Tesla use full self driving as a sales term but are routinely behind schedule on things for years - Tesla keep cutting parts from their vehicles reducing functionality , while raising prices There’s a lot of fodder to dislike about him. Maybe people can dismiss one or the other, but they add up and have been adding up at an increasingly large rate recently. Also I know this will likely result in a lot of sea-lioning responses. I won’t respond to any non-good faith discussion.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • nathanaldensr 4y ago
    I think humanity should stop putting its trust into flawed men no matter who they are. I couldn't care less about labels, only ethics. Musk isn't close enough to virtually pure for me to put any faith in him, despite that he has done some "good." Let's look inside ourselves for leadership.
  • illuminerdy 4y ago
    > "he allies himself with other problematic people like Joe Rogan" He what?! There should be a law against allying with problematic people (and, by problematic, I of course mean someone who does nothing more than ask questions that should never be allowed to be asked).
• rkangel 4y ago
  I once read a quote (possibly on here) "just because someone has done important things doesn't make them a nice person". For example, Wikileaks was a societal benefit, but it's possible Julian Assange is a rapist. Tesla has dragged the car industry into electric. Space X has made access to space infinitely more affordable and to some extent got progress in space back on track after a big lull. These are good things. As a person though, he seems quite out of touch with what the majority of humans on this planet experience. Also more outlets for "free speech" being under the control of the incredibly wealth (see Washington Post as well) is a very bad thing. They already wield too much power and influence enabling them to hold onto incredible wealth while people go hungry, and the need less not more.
• shafyy 4y ago
  It's not only HN, it's many people "out there" bashing him. The problem is that people can't seem to have a nuanced view. He has done some shitty things, but he also has done some objectively impressive and useful things. He is a weirdo, but it doesn't seem like he is an evil person. We all can use some more nuance in our discussions (here's my blog post on this topic from a few days ago: https://canolcer.com/post/we-need-more-nuance/ https://canolcer.com/post/we-need-more-nuance/). And here's a great article about "Grey Thinking" by Farnam Street: https://fs.blog/value-grey-thinking/ https://fs.blog/value-grey-thinking/
  • freejazz 4y ago
    Pretending its a lack of nuance is exactly what's annoying about Musk and the rest of the grief-complex
• orange_joe 4y ago
  I (mostly) liked him before the twitter saga. Not anymore. I liked him because he was working on serious technology that was going to make us better. But this twitter adventure is a real problem. Twitter is his spruce goose. His purchase of the company was totally ego driven. He's now laying off half the workforce (3700 people), which will likely severly effect around 10,000 people. Families will be deported from the country, people will lose their health insurance, some will miss their mortgages or rent payments. And here's the kicker. Despite doing all that, the company still won't be profitable as he performed a leveraged buyout. Twitter now has to take on 12B in debt, roughly half of its 2019 market cap. In all likelihood this debt load will be way too high for twitter and the company will go bankrupt.
• georgeecollins 4y ago
  I have this book, "Steve Jobs and The Next Big Thing." It was written when Steve Jobs was running Next Computers and struggling. It was all about what a terrible manager he was, how he had bad ideas, etc. It is actually a good book and I like to keep it in mind. We tend to hero worship really successful people we admire. The trouble is that all humans are flawed. Worse, when people get very successful they lose the people around them that can call them on their bs. I am sure I have a bunch of dumb, poorly thought out opinions in my head. If everything I thought was broadcast before someone could point out the flaws in what I was saying I would sound callous, foolish, maybe even dangerous. Some people are very accomplished but no one is smart about all things all the time.
• jfitzpa22 4y ago
  I was cautiously optimistic that he might approach the spread of disinformation through social media as an engineering problem until I read his leaked text messages.
• MSFT_Edging 4y ago
  "I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it!" Musk is a sad, spiteful man, with more money than sense. Of course money can make things happen, but Musk isn't his engineers. He's a bad, bad man who is worshiped by legions of equally bad nerds who just go around making everyone's day worse. More than that, he sells a story of an imaginary way to get out of the spiral of collapse created by many men, just like him, who came before him. He sells false hope, a road-side prophet. This false hope he sells has convinced enough people to effectively derail any possibility of fundamental societal change that would enable the population at large to live relatively comfortable lives. If we just keep consuming, eventually we can consume on Mars! Infinite growth is physically impossible, yet the world we live in keeps charging forward assuming infinite growth is mandatory and will never go away. It's impossible to work towards stability when the only thing that keeps society running is a lie built on a jenga foundation. Musk is simply the annoying talking statue that represents all of that, and he's really. Fucking. Annoying.
• Apreche 4y ago
  Why does the Daily Planet feel so negatively about Lex Luthor?
  • jfengel 4y ago
    Ah, but why does the Daily Bugle feel so negatively about Spider-man? (I loved the re-imagining of Jameson as a vlogger in the latest Spider-man film. It's what the character has really wanted to be since the beginning.)
• cardosof 4y ago
  He's too erratic for his position at the public company he runs and others he's part of. He tends to run away from technical confrontations. He seeks attention, most often in childish ways. He runs business based on hype, guerrilla marketing and raising consumer expectations, not necessarily on technological breakthroughs (although they do exist). Some people think he's an asshole or he's fraudulent and practices market manipulation (that's either subjective or a legal matter).
• karaterobot 4y ago
  For the longest time, I disliked him because he allowed a myth to be created about him being the inventor of technologies, when in reality he's the CEO, the guy who employs the people who invent things and build them for him. I don't recall him ever actually saying "I single-handedly invented the Tesla and the Falcon rocket", but I never saw him take even a minute to credit the people who actually did that work, either. Maybe he did once, and I didn't catch it, but I've seen enough interviews where he didn't go out of his way to correct the public image of him as Tony Stark. Now, I dislike him because I recognize in him the showman who makes a lot of claims that are exciting, but don't pan out. The massive delays in Tesla production, the complete failure of full self driving, the more or less completely nonexistent brain-computer interface he was going to sell, and on and on. For a while, I thought of him as an audacious and exciting douchebag who might, despite being personally distasteful, end up making great things and pushing humanity forward. Now, I still hold out hope, but I suspect that he may be just another asshole with money.
• xeromal 4y ago
• caradine 4y ago
  The better question is why are so many weird nerds so quick to jump to the defense of a multi-billionaire con man who has done nothing for any of us?
• ilaksh 4y ago
  Politics
  • Yoofie 4y ago
    Exactly. Reading all the replies (so far) in this discussion reads like a left-wing talking point pamphlet. Alot of the stated reasons here are straight up silly and over dramatic. People simply don't like him because he does not share their values as much as they think he should.
• sidcool 4y ago
  Any reason this is flagged?
  • pwinnski 4y ago
    Because people hit the flag button.
    • sidcool 4y ago
      /r/technicallyTheTruth Any reason people are flagging this?
      • jfengel 4y ago
        I'm sure each has their own reason, but it doesn't feel like an especially productive discussion. It's rehashing a lot of arguments that have been made countless times. The question itself seems self-negating: if you've observed HN long enough to conclude that it "feels negatively about Musk", then you've also seen the reasons. It's not as if HN is filled with comments to the tune of "I hate Musk with an irrational passion I don't wish to explain just now". I suppose if you've only been here a few days you'll see only schadenfreude about the troubles he's having with Twitter. But any longer than that and you'll have had plenty of opportunity to hear about all of the problematic things. Given that the question asks for nothing more than a rehash of existing HN comments and old antipathies, I suspect that is why many have flagged it.
• caradine 4y ago
  Tesla and the electric car industry is a scam. More car-dependency won't save our environment. Instead, we are just digging giant holes in the ground for lithium using slave labor. Space X is just the privatization of NASA, and the promise of a Mars colony is nothing more than a marketing tactic, or possibly an unrealistic backup plan for a small number of billionaires (probably not you) when our planet fully combusts.
  • tdhz77 4y ago
    No, but a logical first step given climate emissions.
• catapart 4y ago
  He was born with a silver spoon, used that to purchase great companies, and fund important research, and then assumed that the success of the projects he invested in meant that he had good business acumen, instead of recognizing that all he did was "provide money for projects which had well-known solutions (or paths to them) but lacked funding." Then, he used that narcissistic self-aggrandizement to consider himself as "intelligent" and began opining on things, publicly, which proved that he had no comprehension of the things on which he opined. When challenged about that reality, he routinely retreated into mocking, memeing, and general non-engagement with criticism. To that end, he misunderstands free speech (both the humanitarian necessity, and the constitutional protection in the US), economics (beyond smithian / libertarian circle jerks), labor (thinks it's "people that work for me" rather than an engagement with business partners), and various other highly-abstract, low-provability topics, which leave him at the disadvantage of having to use interpretations of statistical trends, rather than empirical, peer-challenged hard science (like physics for rockets/mining/light sensing/etc). So, overall, you have a rich narcissist that pretends to be intelligent while employing the instincts and tactics of infantile dissidents, all the while being bad at the business side of running a business, and only ever PROVING that he can be competent at "providing money" (which he has done quite excellently, I think anyone would agree. From PayPal to Tesla to SpaceX; Elon's funding choices have been both profitable and valuable). In that, there's not much for an engineer to appreciate about the man. Not much for a "techie" to admire. There's plenty of surface level self-congratulatory wank for anyone to aspire to (without giving it real consideration). But not a ton of true, appreciable motives, actions, or considerations. Engineers tend to revere those that do incredibly hard, laborious, tedious, or otherwise complicated work for the love of the work being done. That sounds about as far from Elon Musk as I could describe. Which, to be clear, I think translates into "distaste", "malaise", "annoyance" or a myriad of other types of negativity that barely rise to the mantle of "inconvenience", much less "hate". But if you give an engineer an inch of real-estate to talk about what's stuck in their craw, you can be prepared to get a mile of answer. So there's a lot of "negativity" for Musk because he's an annoying person and we all commiserate about that to whatever degree we're feeling institutional, that day. Some days, he's a union-busting, selfish douche-bag who managed to launch a rocket. Other days, he's the gutless dickhead who tried to reneg on military communications for a besieged country. And on other days, still, he's just "the guy who bought twitter." tl;dr: people are negative about him because he does so much which is collectively recognized as "shitty", and people respond to shittiness with negativity; often in commensurate amounts.
• chasing 4y ago
  I don't know what he's like deep inside, but in public he comes off as an enormously powerful man who is childish, cruel, not nearly as smart as he thinks, and is (frankly) really annoying. If he doesn't want people reacting to him with negativity, he can reflect on his behavior and change. If he's really a super-genius, he would understand this and wouldn't continue to lean into the shitty public behavior. The amount of actual public good he could do with the money he set on fire over this whole Twitter debacle... mind-blowing. You're right in that he's involved in a lot of nerdy stuff. A lot of people are! And I might argue that a lot of people are way more deeply and interestingly involved in nerdy stuff than Elon Musk. Go hunt them out if you want to idolize people who are actually doing the hard work to make us a multi-planetary species or whatever.
• NickC25 4y ago
  Just seems like an egotistical nutcase to me. Born into wealth and thought he hit a home run, even though he was already halfway past 3rd base with no chance of not being able to score from day 1. Keep in mind he didn't start Tesla, he bought it. His whole "pedo guy" comment about rescue divers really irked me too. While I dislike his political stances, it doesn't cloud my judgement as much as it does for others....The only real thing that bothers me is how much he makes from government subsidies yet people claim he's some sort of business savant. He's not. I don't like anyone with a cult of personality around them.
• pwinnski 4y ago
  His behavior as a person is not admirable in the slightest[0]. I would be ashamed if one of my children had acted like Musk. So you have a man who is personally a train wreck but professionally accomplished, and he has many people who completely ignore the former because of the latter. This seems backward, so you have many people who go the other way instead. Then you start getting into questions of how much he's actually done, instead of just financed, and the teeter-totter gets even more unbalanced. If he would just shut up and quietly amass his billions, he wouldn't be so reviled. Asshole CEOs are common, and most aren't publicly scorned. But he cherishes the limelight, seeks it out, and seems to care inordinately much about what teenage boys think of him, generally wanting to be the center of attention. 0. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-terrible-things-hes-said-and-done https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-te...
• LarsDu88 4y ago
  I work in the bay and even met with one of his former direct reports at Tesla. Elon is a brilliant guy in certain areas and has revolutionized the stagnant automobile and rocketry industries by taking immense personal and financial risks. However at a personal level, he has a reputation for being a douchebag. People who actually work for him know that he throws tantrums (and objects) like a petulant child. In recent years he's also tarnished his own name by flouting bad coronavirus science, accusing cave divers of being pedos, pumping and dumping crypto, disowning his own transgender child, and engaging with right wing conspiracy theories. It's like ever since he moved to Texas, the recommender systems on social media started pumping boomer conspiracies into him
• hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  I was more or less neutral until he posted Russian propaganda - then I realized he is willing to talk about things he has no idea about (he posted election stats from 10 years ago ignoring more recent elections and the fact that even people who were very much pro-Russia completely changed their views once the Russian army started shelling them).
• el_don_almighty 4y ago
  Because I have really great ideas that will die in the dark, like me, after toiling my useless life away in a cube of obscurity staring at a glowing screen hoping they don't fire me tomorrow. I'm doing what I was told but my life sucks. Elon breaks all the rules and he gets to fly around in a private jet with supermodels. The outcomes don't match the 'natural law' story in my head so I'm reflecting the anger and frustration of my own personal tragedy at the biggest outlier I can find. I don't understand politics because the game is filled with criminals and sports is too boring. So, I focus my puerile venom on tech leaders. I'm a creep, and my hatred for Elon is based on my own self-loathing for being irresponsible with the talents I have. When I win the Powerball this weekend, I am going to buy one of his damned rockets and fly it to the moon, and build my own casino. With blackjack, and hookers.
• styluss 4y ago
  Why do you feel like he should be a hero?
• kodyo 4y ago
  He's the most interesting person on the planet and doesn't fit into a simple classification along political lines. Almost everybody is going to be dissatisfied with anything he does. HN leans left. Criticism from the left is what you'll see here more than other types of gripes.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• sinenomine 4y ago
  >So, what is behind the attitude? Self-censorship of a quiet majority respecting him for his accomplishments, as often is the case.
• illuminerdy 4y ago
  I think the comments here should tell you all you need to know. The reaction to Musk is your typical virtue signaling. Mind you, 90% of the people complaining about Musk for things like "spreading conspiracy theories", "misinformation" or being a "sexual harrasser" have almost certainly voted people into political office who have all done the same thing.
  • karmakurtisaani 4y ago
    > Mind you, 90% of the people complaining about Musk for things like "spreading conspiracy theories", "misinformation" or being a "sexual harrasser" have almost certainly voted people into political office who have all done the same thing. What an absolutely convoluted way to try to discredit people who disagree with you.
    • illuminerdy 4y ago
      I'm not "trying to discredit", I'm pointing out the hypocrisy. A man can't own a company because he's a "sexual harasser", but I'm sure many of you did/would vote for Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, or Andrew Cuomo. All "sexual harassers". Just shows how much this is actually about Elon Musk's morals as opposed to just hating him because he said that censorship is bad.
      • karmakurtisaani 4y ago
        I'm sorry, but that's just being stupid. Firstly, many of us are not Americans, so we don't vote for those people. Secondly, that's an election you're talking about, and in the US, it's either "your guy" or the other guy - voting for the "ideal guy" is the same as not voting at all. You can in fact think that someone is not morally a good person and still have a solid reason to vote for them. Case in point, Joe "at least he's not Trump" Biden. Would you like to keep arguing why you have a point or do we stop here?
• dns_snek 4y ago
  Musk can inexplicably get millions of people to buy into his technobabble when he has a long history of not delivering on 95% of the things he promises. He's a billionaire selling futuristic dreams to the gullible with a single goal - to enrich himself. What's there to like for the average person? He's not a "hacker" in any sense of the word, he's a used car salesman.