5 ms·

Elon Musk, Video Game King? Well, Maybe Not

4gotunameagain 2y ago
https://archive.md/ayoEv https://archive.md/ayoEv I wonder what HN's view is on the recent nazi salute of Elon ? All the relevant threads seem to become flagged very quickly. I think it would be a very interesting discussion, especially here.
- FloorEgg 2y ago
  As a community member I wholeheartedly disagree. Hacker News is one of the few places I can go and not be inundated with the political pocket sand nonsense. In fact, I think this entire post is probably off topic. With respect, please get your politics out of here. From the community guidelines: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic
  - 4gotunameagain 2y ago
    I see your point of view, but I would argue that many hackers would find interest in the fact that an idolised tech magnate made such an extreme gesture. In my (non American) point of view this transcends left vs right arguments, but this is exactly why I am curious what this community would have to say. It is an interesting topic, if only from an anthropological perspective.
    - meiraleal 2y ago
      it’s kinda obvious. The people that already like him would defend it and justify the act and the people that dislike him would do the opposite. I guess he might have lost a small % of people liking him here but I would not bet it to be much
      - bwb 2y ago
        It might be a dumb question, but if HN was alive in the 1930s, at what point did it start talking about things? Is there a point in the 1930s or 1940s when it needed to voice some concern? I don't think we are anywhere near that point. I am generally curious about the question, as I struggle with this answer as a person. I hate the constant troll/media cycles we are stuck in, but at what point should I be concerned?
        Neonlicht 2y ago
        What's the point of being concerned? If the majority want their fascist leader they will have it. If you have money look into getting a passport. Quite a few Dutch Jews found their way to the Carribbean. Or join the resistance and end up like Sophie Scholl.
        zfg 2y ago
        > What's the point of being concerned? So you don't turn into Russia: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/how-has-state-owned-media-in-russia-shaped-public-opinion-on-ukraine https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/how-has-state-owned-media-in-russ... Authoritarian regimes rely on disengagement and nihilism to remain in power.
        CamperBob2 2y ago
        It might be a dumb question, but if HN was alive in the 1930s, at what point did it start talking about things? Not a dumb question IMHO, but a hard one to answer. The closest thing to a 1930s-era HN might have been the classrooms and labs at places like Gottingen and Leipzig, where the 'hackers' of the day were watching the politicization of their profession nervously. At some point it would have been too late for our counterparts with Jewish ethnicity to ask whether Ferdinand Porsche gave a Nazi salute or whether Wernher von Braun was giving speeches at Goering's favorite beer hall. They were too busy struggling with questions like, "When do I have to leave, where can I afford to take my family, and who will take us in?", bearing in mind that even the United States imposed ethnic quotas on Jewish immigrants at the time. Those questions are the ones that crop up later, after polite society fails to pay enough attention to the earlier ones. The smart 'hackers' might have suspected what was coming, but it's always too soon to speak up, isn't it?
  - zfg 2y ago
    > unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon Musk performing fascist salutes at a political rally is an interesting new phenomenon: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elon-musk-salute https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elo... Like it or not, this is what's happening to the tech industry. So much of the tech sector is now precisely about politics and power. You can't run away from it. You can't ignore it. And, if you're in the tech industry, you're responsible for it. It's always best to see things as they are.
- sph 2y ago
  Meaning no offense, it is quite naive to assume that the level of discussion about very controversial political topics on here will be any better than, say, on a random subreddit. Sure, memes and one liners do not do well on Hacker News, but on the other hand, most "hackers" believe they are smarter and with better opinions than anybody else, which is often just a severe case of Dunning-Kruger. And the population of this site post Reddit fiasco is no different than Reddit anyway; how many Eternal Septembers have we gone through? Your account has been created pre-COVID, so you must have witnessed that some topics should just be avoided for the sake of anybody's sanity, whether it's on HN or not. In general, up/down vote systems just create echo chambers, not interesting and nuanced discussions. I might be the stereotypical old man yelling at clouds, but I miss when this place was about startups, programming and Wozniak-tier hackers, not an Ars Technica with a Bay Area accent that attracts anybody calling themselves a "techie" to discuss the daily news.
- tim333 2y ago
  Pretty much any user can flag a thread and some did but there was much discussion. 300+ comments here for your entertainment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42772995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42772995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42774621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42774621 I'm not sure it was that interesting though. This I found kind of interesting: Apparently his mum's parents were Hitler supporters and moved to South Africa from Canada as it was too liberal. Musk's dad talking about it: https://youtu.be/B6e1ES4MLD0?t=200 https://youtu.be/B6e1ES4MLD0?t=200
- jaybrendansmith 2y ago
  I find it interesting. I love SpaceX. I used to like Musk quite a bit. Now that he has shown us his true stripes, I find the man abhorrent. He is a disgrace and an embarrassment. He should probably be deported or jailed, he does not belong in a free and just country. I doubt very few of us would be tolerant of Nazis and Fascists, and indeed we should be completely intolerant of Musk.
danso 2y ago
If he really is as busy as he purports to be, I’d think Christmas Day is one of the few occasions he has to spend extended quality time with family. 17 hours in a single day (on a boosted account, no less) sounds really sad. > Shivon Zilis, who has worked with Mr. Musk at several of his companies and is known to be the mother of three of his children, posted a video last week of Mr. Musk playing Diablo. In the replies, she recounted a memory of when he gamed for 17 hours on Christmas Day in 2023. > “He took breaks for family meals and Xmas presents but was too excited for sleep, which is how he made both time with the kiddos and a 17 hour AoZ push work that day,” she wrote, referring to a challenge in Diablo. “Was a joy to see him having so much fun with it!”
- archagon 2y ago
  The man utterly lacks empathy: > I see people posting that Elon was at Auschwitz this time last year - therefore, his recent "gesture" is not antisemitic. I was there, too. Last year. With Elon. I am embarrassed that I have photos of this on my phone. My love, Gidon Lev, was the "special guest" of this photo-op event. We thought, at the time, that it would be good publicity. But I would not share the photo today. I chatted with Elon Musk. I spent hours with him and walked with him through Auschwitz. I stood with him, looking at the nauseating heaps of hair, luggage, and shoes flooded with violet light meant to preserve it. Is Musk an antisemite? People, actually, it's worse - he doesn't care whatsoever. Elon, father of "little X" as he described his freezing cold son to me, literally does not care. He was unmoved by the experience. For Gidon, to be in the place where his father, Ernst, died on a death march - whether shot by the side of the road or having simply collapsed - was a huge deal. Elon did not care. He was about his press junket and his bodyguards. I was ten feet from him as he posed for the cameras of his entourage. He was utterly detached. He cared about how he looked. When he placed a wreath at Auschwitz and Gidon was overlooked, he walked away with the cameras whirring. This is Elon Musk. A sociopath, if ever there was one. To deduce, from this visit, that he is a friend of the Jews is desperately naive.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    How does the author know what Elon was thinking from 10 feet away?
gladiatr72 2y ago
I'm genuinely curious why anyone cares about this.
- Neonlicht 2y ago
  Trust me I'm trying to dodge watching anything Musk but it ain't easy. The man becoming Rasputin doesn't help.
- amenhotep 2y ago
  1) it's really weird. He's the richest man in the world, and he's spending his time by pretending to be good at video games? Humanly, it's just darkly fascinating. 2) an important part of his public persona is that he's supposed to be genuinely super smart and capable at everything. Many employees and other related figures have attested to him having preternatural abilities at rocket and car engineering. If he is willing to make under the table payments and shamelessly pass off other people's work as his own for such an insignificant feat as being good at video games, what does that say about his involvement with actually important things? The parallel is very easy to draw.
  - Centigonal 2y ago
    > Many employees and other related figures have attested to him having preternatural abilities at rocket and car engineering. Do you have examples of this? In the past, I've looked for accounts of people who've worked with Musk praising his technical (not product, not sales/marketing) skillset, and I have been unable to find any firsthand accounts. Such an account would somewhat change my assessment of Musk.
  - dutchbookmaker 2y ago
    The worst part is I don't even know video games at all but just assumed someone else was playing for him when I first heard this. All I know about video games is people play them 24/7. It was completely obvious to me he wasn't going to invest his time in something so stupid. The idea the world's richest man who is trying to amass political power could be this delusional is deeply disturbing.
  - 2y ago
metalman 2y ago
This is very important, but it would be nice to get ELON, and Emperor Kim Dong Kong, to play a few rounds of golf in Florida, you know to make sure the Emperor does not have too much advantage playing on his own course in Peonyang, welll that is if ELON has any time off from the ultra MMA circuit cage fights,beating up the other social media owners, strait up all money to money, uh, moneo a moneo, ah, whatever right!
belter 2y ago
"Elon Musk admits cheating in video game where he claimed world-class skills" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42817995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42817995

https://archive.md/ayoEv https://archive.md/ayoEv I wonder what HN's view is on the recent nazi salute of Elon ? All the relevant threads seem to become flagged very quickly. I think it would be a very interesting discussion, especially here.

FloorEgg 2y ago
As a community member I wholeheartedly disagree. Hacker News is one of the few places I can go and not be inundated with the political pocket sand nonsense. In fact, I think this entire post is probably off topic. With respect, please get your politics out of here. From the community guidelines: On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic
- 4gotunameagain 2y ago
  I see your point of view, but I would argue that many hackers would find interest in the fact that an idolised tech magnate made such an extreme gesture. In my (non American) point of view this transcends left vs right arguments, but this is exactly why I am curious what this community would have to say. It is an interesting topic, if only from an anthropological perspective.
  - meiraleal 2y ago
    it’s kinda obvious. The people that already like him would defend it and justify the act and the people that dislike him would do the opposite. I guess he might have lost a small % of people liking him here but I would not bet it to be much
    - bwb 2y ago
      It might be a dumb question, but if HN was alive in the 1930s, at what point did it start talking about things? Is there a point in the 1930s or 1940s when it needed to voice some concern? I don't think we are anywhere near that point. I am generally curious about the question, as I struggle with this answer as a person. I hate the constant troll/media cycles we are stuck in, but at what point should I be concerned?
      - Neonlicht 2y ago
        What's the point of being concerned? If the majority want their fascist leader they will have it. If you have money look into getting a passport. Quite a few Dutch Jews found their way to the Carribbean. Or join the resistance and end up like Sophie Scholl.
        zfg 2y ago
        > What's the point of being concerned? So you don't turn into Russia: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/how-has-state-owned-media-in-russia-shaped-public-opinion-on-ukraine https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/how-has-state-owned-media-in-russ... Authoritarian regimes rely on disengagement and nihilism to remain in power.
      - CamperBob2 2y ago
        It might be a dumb question, but if HN was alive in the 1930s, at what point did it start talking about things? Not a dumb question IMHO, but a hard one to answer. The closest thing to a 1930s-era HN might have been the classrooms and labs at places like Gottingen and Leipzig, where the 'hackers' of the day were watching the politicization of their profession nervously. At some point it would have been too late for our counterparts with Jewish ethnicity to ask whether Ferdinand Porsche gave a Nazi salute or whether Wernher von Braun was giving speeches at Goering's favorite beer hall. They were too busy struggling with questions like, "When do I have to leave, where can I afford to take my family, and who will take us in?", bearing in mind that even the United States imposed ethnic quotas on Jewish immigrants at the time. Those questions are the ones that crop up later, after polite society fails to pay enough attention to the earlier ones. The smart 'hackers' might have suspected what was coming, but it's always too soon to speak up, isn't it?
- zfg 2y ago
  > unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon Musk performing fascist salutes at a political rally is an interesting new phenomenon: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elon-musk-salute https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/20/trump-elo... Like it or not, this is what's happening to the tech industry. So much of the tech sector is now precisely about politics and power. You can't run away from it. You can't ignore it. And, if you're in the tech industry, you're responsible for it. It's always best to see things as they are.
sph 2y ago
Meaning no offense, it is quite naive to assume that the level of discussion about very controversial political topics on here will be any better than, say, on a random subreddit. Sure, memes and one liners do not do well on Hacker News, but on the other hand, most "hackers" believe they are smarter and with better opinions than anybody else, which is often just a severe case of Dunning-Kruger. And the population of this site post Reddit fiasco is no different than Reddit anyway; how many Eternal Septembers have we gone through? Your account has been created pre-COVID, so you must have witnessed that some topics should just be avoided for the sake of anybody's sanity, whether it's on HN or not. In general, up/down vote systems just create echo chambers, not interesting and nuanced discussions. I might be the stereotypical old man yelling at clouds, but I miss when this place was about startups, programming and Wozniak-tier hackers, not an Ars Technica with a Bay Area accent that attracts anybody calling themselves a "techie" to discuss the daily news.
tim333 2y ago
Pretty much any user can flag a thread and some did but there was much discussion. 300+ comments here for your entertainment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42772995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42772995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773778 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42774621 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42774621 I'm not sure it was that interesting though. This I found kind of interesting: Apparently his mum's parents were Hitler supporters and moved to South Africa from Canada as it was too liberal. Musk's dad talking about it: https://youtu.be/B6e1ES4MLD0?t=200 https://youtu.be/B6e1ES4MLD0?t=200
jaybrendansmith 2y ago
I find it interesting. I love SpaceX. I used to like Musk quite a bit. Now that he has shown us his true stripes, I find the man abhorrent. He is a disgrace and an embarrassment. He should probably be deported or jailed, he does not belong in a free and just country. I doubt very few of us would be tolerant of Nazis and Fascists, and indeed we should be completely intolerant of Musk.

danso 2y ago

If he really is as busy as he purports to be, I’d think Christmas Day is one of the few occasions he has to spend extended quality time with family. 17 hours in a single day (on a boosted account, no less) sounds really sad. > Shivon Zilis, who has worked with Mr. Musk at several of his companies and is known to be the mother of three of his children, posted a video last week of Mr. Musk playing Diablo. In the replies, she recounted a memory of when he gamed for 17 hours on Christmas Day in 2023. > “He took breaks for family meals and Xmas presents but was too excited for sleep, which is how he made both time with the kiddos and a 17 hour AoZ push work that day,” she wrote, referring to a challenge in Diablo. “Was a joy to see him having so much fun with it!”

archagon 2y ago
The man utterly lacks empathy: > I see people posting that Elon was at Auschwitz this time last year - therefore, his recent "gesture" is not antisemitic. I was there, too. Last year. With Elon. I am embarrassed that I have photos of this on my phone. My love, Gidon Lev, was the "special guest" of this photo-op event. We thought, at the time, that it would be good publicity. But I would not share the photo today. I chatted with Elon Musk. I spent hours with him and walked with him through Auschwitz. I stood with him, looking at the nauseating heaps of hair, luggage, and shoes flooded with violet light meant to preserve it. Is Musk an antisemite? People, actually, it's worse - he doesn't care whatsoever. Elon, father of "little X" as he described his freezing cold son to me, literally does not care. He was unmoved by the experience. For Gidon, to be in the place where his father, Ernst, died on a death march - whether shot by the side of the road or having simply collapsed - was a huge deal. Elon did not care. He was about his press junket and his bodyguards. I was ten feet from him as he posed for the cameras of his entourage. He was utterly detached. He cared about how he looked. When he placed a wreath at Auschwitz and Gidon was overlooked, he walked away with the cameras whirring. This is Elon Musk. A sociopath, if ever there was one. To deduce, from this visit, that he is a friend of the Jews is desperately naive.
- rayiner 2y ago
  How does the author know what Elon was thinking from 10 feet away?

gladiatr72 2y ago

I'm genuinely curious why anyone cares about this.

Neonlicht 2y ago
Trust me I'm trying to dodge watching anything Musk but it ain't easy. The man becoming Rasputin doesn't help.
amenhotep 2y ago
1) it's really weird. He's the richest man in the world, and he's spending his time by pretending to be good at video games? Humanly, it's just darkly fascinating. 2) an important part of his public persona is that he's supposed to be genuinely super smart and capable at everything. Many employees and other related figures have attested to him having preternatural abilities at rocket and car engineering. If he is willing to make under the table payments and shamelessly pass off other people's work as his own for such an insignificant feat as being good at video games, what does that say about his involvement with actually important things? The parallel is very easy to draw.
- Centigonal 2y ago
  > Many employees and other related figures have attested to him having preternatural abilities at rocket and car engineering. Do you have examples of this? In the past, I've looked for accounts of people who've worked with Musk praising his technical (not product, not sales/marketing) skillset, and I have been unable to find any firsthand accounts. Such an account would somewhat change my assessment of Musk.
- dutchbookmaker 2y ago
  The worst part is I don't even know video games at all but just assumed someone else was playing for him when I first heard this. All I know about video games is people play them 24/7. It was completely obvious to me he wasn't going to invest his time in something so stupid. The idea the world's richest man who is trying to amass political power could be this delusional is deeply disturbing.
- 2y ago

metalman 2y ago

This is very important, but it would be nice to get ELON, and Emperor Kim Dong Kong, to play a few rounds of golf in Florida, you know to make sure the Emperor does not have too much advantage playing on his own course in Peonyang, welll that is if ELON has any time off from the ultra MMA circuit cage fights,beating up the other social media owners, strait up all money to money, uh, moneo a moneo, ah, whatever right!

belter 2y ago

"Elon Musk admits cheating in video game where he claimed world-class skills" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42817995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42817995