5 ms·

The guy's a kook. He's like Michael Jackson: a very rich guy, with complete control over who he meets. Unsurprisingly, the people he does meet all tell him what

The guy's a kook. He's like Michael Jackson: a very rich guy, with complete control over who he meets. Unsurprisingly, the people he does meet all tell him what they think he wants to hear. I mean, who's going to tell him something he doesn't want to hear, and then see their name smeared all over Twitter by the richest man in the world? I expected Twitter to crash and burn as soon as he took over; I was wrong. I guess it's like Truth Social - if you're fabulously wealthy, you can run a social media site that's a complete train-wreck, without it ruining you. /me never had a Twitter account. Nor Faceache.

jrockway 3y ago
Because Tesla has been significantly underperforming the rest of the S&P 500, Elon is not the world's richest person anymore. He's in like 4th place or something.
askafriend 3y ago
Well Michael Jackson is also one of the most talented musicians and entertainers of the last 100yrs. His wealth is the least impressive or defining thing about him. I do get the point you're trying to make though. Just thought that emphasis was a little off. Just like with Elon, you have to consider that extreme outcomes are the result of extreme people or people that were forged in extreme circumstances (which is certainly true of Michael Jackson).
- arp242 3y ago
  I feel both Musk and Jackson could have greatly benefited from a few more people telling them "you idiot, that's fucking mental". In general being in a position where this doesn't happen is not good for your sense of reality (very rich, very famous, a lot of political power, or something else). In that sense Michael Jackson having sleepovers in his bed with 12-year olds[1] and Musk's x.com rename are very similar. [1]: taking the most generous interpretation; no comment on whether he was a nonce or not.
  - Philadelphia 3y ago
    Also Michael Jackson’s having an amateur anesthesiologist putting him under every night with a wide variety of easily lethal sedatives, and Musk’s use of ketamine and mushrooms and stimulants and whatever else he’s on this week.
  - askafriend 3y ago
    > I feel both Musk and Jackson could have greatly benefited from a few more people telling them "you idiot, that's fucking mental". I agree with you but imagine if Elon had listened when people said the same thing about starting an electric car company, a reusable rocket company or a brain-interface company. Or if Michael Jackson had listened to all the people that told him the sounds on his album were too crazy and fused too many genres together. Ultimately it's a fine line between genius and crazy. You have to acknowledge that often where genius resides, so does crazy. I mean look at Steve Jobs, clearly incredible talent - but also harbored some unconventional beliefs about medicine which many say ultimately led to his premature death. Even Achilles had his heel.
    - arp242 3y ago
      Most smart/innovative people don't pull off this kind of weird behaviour. Lots of not-so-smart people do the exact same shitty behaviour. It's just a bullshit excuse for bullshit behaviour. And those weren't widely held views either so it's not even accurate.
      - askafriend 3y ago
        I'm not excusing the shitty behavior or saying the behavior isn't shitty. The world would be such a simple place if it really was as simple as "shitty behavior = shitty person". It'd certainly make my life easier if this were the case. But the world is so much more complicated and difficult to comprehend than that. Often the most interesting stuff happens in the gray areas where you have to wrestle with multitudes. We all contain multitudes ourselves.
Atotalnoob 3y ago
Not fair to Michael Jackson. He had talent and defined multiple cross cultural trends/memes (not memes as in internet memes). He was deeply troubled, but he still had a huge, lasting impact
- vanviegen 3y ago
  Are you suggesting that Musk is not having huge lasting impact? Perhaps his name won't be as sticky as Michael Jackson, but some of his companies are definitely changing society, partly thanks to him.
  - ffsm8 3y ago
    Musk likes to take credit for things he at most participated in. Electric cars where already gaining traction by the time Tesla got their production in order, so if he had an impact there, its only in marketing a product you could only buy from other companies. The charger network maybe? But wasn't most of that heavily subsidized? SpaceX's success is massively overstated, every time it's brought up. Their rockets are still not stable and if you actually tally up all the money they've received from the state, it'd be way more expensive - even adjusted to inflation - then the space shuttle launches from the nineties. What other impact are you thinking of? The hyper loop? The solar rooftop's? His vaporware robots? The boring company? Everything turned out to be pure hype with hilariously overstated success. Or maybe the autopilot which is still only usable by people that enjoy gambling with pedestrian lives?
    - tomoyoirl 3y ago
      Musk’s true talent is hype, fundraising, and getting buy-in from a crowd of people who Want To Believe. He does an incredible job of this, attracting capital investment on absurdly favorable terms. (Delivery on his wild promises, well, sometimes the true believers he hires make that happen, sometimes not.)
      - nkozyra 3y ago
        > Musk’s true talent is hype, fundraising, and getting buy-in from a crowd of people who Want To Believe. I wonder how long this lasts, though? The more we see of him, the less smart/magical he seems other than to devotees. I feel like his getting in the limelight has pulled the curtain back quite a bit.
rurp 3y ago
He took a roughly breakeven business and turned it into a money incenerator. If Musk actually had to answer to a board or investors things would shut down or change drastically. That'll still happen at some point but he has enough money to subsidise his crazy vanity project for a long time.
bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago
Of all the pointless rich people on the planet, you chose Michael Jackson to make that point? So weird.
gofreddygo 3y ago
> who's going to tell him something he doesn't want to hear The emperor has no clothes.

jrockway 3y ago

Because Tesla has been significantly underperforming the rest of the S&P 500, Elon is not the world's richest person anymore. He's in like 4th place or something.

askafriend 3y ago

Well Michael Jackson is also one of the most talented musicians and entertainers of the last 100yrs. His wealth is the least impressive or defining thing about him. I do get the point you're trying to make though. Just thought that emphasis was a little off. Just like with Elon, you have to consider that extreme outcomes are the result of extreme people or people that were forged in extreme circumstances (which is certainly true of Michael Jackson).

arp242 3y ago
I feel both Musk and Jackson could have greatly benefited from a few more people telling them "you idiot, that's fucking mental". In general being in a position where this doesn't happen is not good for your sense of reality (very rich, very famous, a lot of political power, or something else). In that sense Michael Jackson having sleepovers in his bed with 12-year olds[1] and Musk's x.com rename are very similar. [1]: taking the most generous interpretation; no comment on whether he was a nonce or not.
- Philadelphia 3y ago
  Also Michael Jackson’s having an amateur anesthesiologist putting him under every night with a wide variety of easily lethal sedatives, and Musk’s use of ketamine and mushrooms and stimulants and whatever else he’s on this week.
- askafriend 3y ago
  > I feel both Musk and Jackson could have greatly benefited from a few more people telling them "you idiot, that's fucking mental". I agree with you but imagine if Elon had listened when people said the same thing about starting an electric car company, a reusable rocket company or a brain-interface company. Or if Michael Jackson had listened to all the people that told him the sounds on his album were too crazy and fused too many genres together. Ultimately it's a fine line between genius and crazy. You have to acknowledge that often where genius resides, so does crazy. I mean look at Steve Jobs, clearly incredible talent - but also harbored some unconventional beliefs about medicine which many say ultimately led to his premature death. Even Achilles had his heel.
  - arp242 3y ago
    Most smart/innovative people don't pull off this kind of weird behaviour. Lots of not-so-smart people do the exact same shitty behaviour. It's just a bullshit excuse for bullshit behaviour. And those weren't widely held views either so it's not even accurate.
    - askafriend 3y ago
      I'm not excusing the shitty behavior or saying the behavior isn't shitty. The world would be such a simple place if it really was as simple as "shitty behavior = shitty person". It'd certainly make my life easier if this were the case. But the world is so much more complicated and difficult to comprehend than that. Often the most interesting stuff happens in the gray areas where you have to wrestle with multitudes. We all contain multitudes ourselves.

Atotalnoob 3y ago

Not fair to Michael Jackson. He had talent and defined multiple cross cultural trends/memes (not memes as in internet memes). He was deeply troubled, but he still had a huge, lasting impact

vanviegen 3y ago
Are you suggesting that Musk is not having huge lasting impact? Perhaps his name won't be as sticky as Michael Jackson, but some of his companies are definitely changing society, partly thanks to him.
- ffsm8 3y ago
  Musk likes to take credit for things he at most participated in. Electric cars where already gaining traction by the time Tesla got their production in order, so if he had an impact there, its only in marketing a product you could only buy from other companies. The charger network maybe? But wasn't most of that heavily subsidized? SpaceX's success is massively overstated, every time it's brought up. Their rockets are still not stable and if you actually tally up all the money they've received from the state, it'd be way more expensive - even adjusted to inflation - then the space shuttle launches from the nineties. What other impact are you thinking of? The hyper loop? The solar rooftop's? His vaporware robots? The boring company? Everything turned out to be pure hype with hilariously overstated success. Or maybe the autopilot which is still only usable by people that enjoy gambling with pedestrian lives?
  - tomoyoirl 3y ago
    Musk’s true talent is hype, fundraising, and getting buy-in from a crowd of people who Want To Believe. He does an incredible job of this, attracting capital investment on absurdly favorable terms. (Delivery on his wild promises, well, sometimes the true believers he hires make that happen, sometimes not.)
    - nkozyra 3y ago
      > Musk’s true talent is hype, fundraising, and getting buy-in from a crowd of people who Want To Believe. I wonder how long this lasts, though? The more we see of him, the less smart/magical he seems other than to devotees. I feel like his getting in the limelight has pulled the curtain back quite a bit.

rurp 3y ago

He took a roughly breakeven business and turned it into a money incenerator. If Musk actually had to answer to a board or investors things would shut down or change drastically. That'll still happen at some point but he has enough money to subsidise his crazy vanity project for a long time.

bdjsiqoocwk 3y ago

Of all the pointless rich people on the planet, you chose Michael Jackson to make that point? So weird.

gofreddygo 3y ago

> who's going to tell him something he doesn't want to hear The emperor has no clothes.