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I very violently recoil from any of Musk's ventures these days. Im sure there are some very smart and talented people working at Neuralink. They should go work

I very violently recoil from any of Musk's ventures these days. Im sure there are some very smart and talented people working at Neuralink. They should go work for someone else as their boss has shown himself to be a revolting person and the kind of leader who seeks to actively harm people who inconvenience him. This kind of behavior is not befitting of a company that will need to cultivate an incredible amount of trust from customers before they buy into the idea of a brain implant.

MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
What is the problem with Musk? I know his many shenanigans, but what about his helmanship causes you to violently recoil?
- phillipcarter 2y ago
  Overt nazi salutes is one, but another is the intentional tinkering-with and partial dismantling of the US Government's system to dispense appropriated funds, and act that is blatantly illegal.
  - steveoscaro 2y ago
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    - krige 2y ago
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      - steveoscaro 2y ago
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        archagon 2y ago
        AfD supporting, white supremacist amplifying dude from a deeply racist family being a closet Nazi is the least surprising thing imaginable.
    - SimianSci 2y ago
      When people mistakenly make a gesture, they dont do it once more exactly the same. And when people point out that they made this gesture their answer is usually not to crack jokes about how they made a Nazi salute in response. We can maybe disagree about WHY he did it, there's room to discuss if it was genuinely a white nationalism thing or if he was just being an edgelord. But it WAS a nazi salute and denying this is disingenuous.
      - watwut 2y ago
        > it was genuinely a white nationalism thing or if he was just being an edgelord. Can we admit to ourselves that most edgelords are actually people infatuated with exact same movements and value systems? Literally all edgelords get angry and strongly dislike anyone left leaning. For example, you do not see them harassing right wing, but you do see them harassing perceived sjws. Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord. And that is because when left wing people act badly, they are blamed as bad left wing people. Edgelord is just a way to not blame right wing people and attributing them benefit of the doubt never given to the center or to the left.
        lewispollard 2y ago
        > Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord. I mean, I'm a pretty staunch socialist/commie and there are plenty of hard-left edgelords out there "joking" about gulags and executing academics and so on.
        phillipcarter 2y ago
        Yeah, they exist. The big difference is that we don't accept their behavior, especially when in positions of power.
        watwut 2y ago
        Yeah, but you call them "hard-left" and do not pretend they are not communists or Stalinists. Meanwhile, edgelord is consistently supposed to be someone did the nazi salute, but the gesture was supposed to be innocent and totally not a far right thing. You have put joking into quotes. Even in this comment, you are not trying to convince me that they are actually fine, that they are something less then Stalinists.
    - deleted 2y ago
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  - romaaeterna 2y ago
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    - computerthings 2y ago
      > question your motivations/funding sources for the accusation That's the 1930s-1940s German ideological element. You're doing it right now.
      - romaaeterna 2y ago
        Questioning the motivations and funding of a biased source is more generally viewed to be a Journalism 101 thing than a 1930s-1940s German thing. Nor am I Elon Musk, which seems to be the subtext of this "you're doing it now" claim (one I find quite bizarre).
        computerthings 2y ago
        That's not questioning as in asking, that's accusing someone of something nobody can disprove. And if every single person who doesn't see the Nazi salute acts this way, smearing those who do, that's kind of telling. Basically "because it's not a Nazi salute, you're just a far leftist foreign agent nonperson" -- okay? That really does prove the point, and being confused by that shows having read zero bookshelves about Nazi Germany. It's perfectly on point, that's exactly been the Nazi MO -- projection and the most insane accusations dropped casually, like "questioning the funding that would make someone say it's a Nazi salute". It's also been the MO of Stalinism and Maoism, and lots of cults, and thousands of other things. But he happened to do a Nazi salute, so hey. And in Germany there's mainly two main: people who are appalled by Musk's Nazi salute and Nazis who love it. Not to mention how Elon Musk mingles with Nazis, which he does, and that it happened during the inauguration of a president who said he could shoot people in broad daylight and his supporters wouldn't mind. There's plenty of context. If your goal post is 1920s to 1945 NSDAP then that means having learned nothing.
        romaaeterna 2y ago
  - sneak 2y ago
    I have no extremely strong pro- or anti- Musk feelings, but the ADL (who seem to me to be the experts on antisemitism) say that’s not what that was. https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403 https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403 There also doesn’t seem to be any corroborating data to suggest he’s a nazi. I’m all for calling a spade a spade if he is, but it seems that people are working backwards from the “I hate Musk” position rather than forwards from the facts.
    - specproc 2y ago
      I don't think there's any real question as to what he's doing there. The ADL these days mainly exist to shout "antisemite" at anyone criticising Israel. Their giving him a pass was sickening, and undoubtedly related to Republican support of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Other Jewish organisations have called it as the world has seen it. One organisation does not speak for a very diverse people. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk-far-right-antisemitism https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk...
    - zwirbl 2y ago
      The 'awkward gesture' take is a fun one. "Sorry officer, I did not flip you off twice, that were both just very awkward gestures" There is tons of data on how Musk became a far right supporter and sympathizer, like his support of UK racists and the German far right. You seem to still use X, you could just scroll through his posts there and try to not ignore the evidence you see with your own eyes
      - try_the_bass 2y ago
        Have you considered that perhaps the increasing levels of vitriol and outright hatred directed at him by the left might have had something to do with his rightward trend? They seem pretty correlated. I struggle to see how doubling down on the hatred is going to convince anyone other than _already hateful_ people of the righteousness of your cause?
        phillipcarter 2y ago
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    Musk just recently had to go tour Nazi death camps to do a PR tour after promoting Nazy theories on Twitter. The people on the tour with him said touring the camps had zero emotional impact on the guy.
    - amelius 2y ago
      The guy is a psychopath, which is probably also why he's so good at doing business. He just doesn't care about other people's feelings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace > Hare further claims that the prevalence of psychopaths is higher in the business world than in the general population.
- SimianSci 2y ago
  I think it comes down to his personal conduct. Specifically, just as I said, I think he actively tries to harm people who might inconvenience him or cause him damage to his public image. In short, I see him as a bully. One of the great examples of this is the infamous "Pedo guy" incident in which he showed himself as very unempathetic and petty the moment people dismissed him as he attempted to hastily insert himself into a tragic moment. He's also regularly sued people exercising their free speech to comment on or criticise his financial interests, knowingly attempting to drown influential people he doesnt like in legal fees and frivolous lawsuits. In the past he has participated in doxing governmental employees who might cause him financial damages, often encouraging his followers to harass beuraucrats and lawyers who are just doing their legal jobs. There are plenty of examples of Elon regularly engaging in bullying of others who may not have access to the resources he does, its not just limited to these few examples. In my eyes, any measure of success or wealth will never excuse how a person conducts themselves in public. And I think Elon no longer thinks that the rules apply to him as so many are willing to overlook his behavior due to worshiping his money and influence. Elon's nazi salute is the perfect example of this. So my original statement still holds. Neuralink has a very large mountain to climb when it comes to consumer trust. Products in the Healthcare industry can massively impact people's lives, especially when they dont work as intended. Any company that participates in this space is morally and ethically required to be empathetic to the lives that they impact. And this level of empathy is not something that I see coming from the man behind neuralink which I think should disqualify it as a company with the potential to impact a lot of people.
  - bmacho 2y ago
    > In the past he has participated in doxing governmental employees who might cause him financial damages, often encouraging his followers to harass beuraucrats and lawyers who are just doing their legal jobs. Is this legal in the US?
    - Philpax 2y ago
      Legality is only relevant when enforced, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon.
- javcasas 2y ago
  Last time that people doing the nazi salute experimented with health, well it wasn't pretty.
  - 42772827 2y ago
    It wasn’t pretty, and for their crimes some of them were sentenced to positions as top scientists for the US government after the war.
- zero_shift 2y ago
  He seems hostile to regulatory oversight which is a problem when he's selling a microchip you implant in your brain
  - goatlover 2y ago
    Kind of like the chip from Lumen on Severance. I don't understand why anyone would want a chip placed in their brain, unless it's to help overcome a disability.
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - willturman 2y ago
      Diagnosed or otherwise.
- noworld 2y ago
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- hoseja 2y ago
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- amelius 2y ago
  Pulling out of USAID probably killed more helpless people than his companies helped enhance lives.
  - naravara 2y ago
    There’s no “probably” about it. There are hundreds of thousands of doses of tuberculosis treatments that aren’t being delivered and will expire. Every untreated case of TB will lead to some other number of infections and increases the odds of more drug resistant strains popping up. It will take a long time to undo the damage of killing those programs alone.
    - kspacewalk2 2y ago
      Even if you subscribe to the notion that US government should not be paying for this, you can phase it out with enough notice for others to step in and take over the funding. The flippant, "tech disruptor" method of abruptly ending an organization that has for decades been funding critical public health initiatives in countries where they would otherwise not happen... That is the truly infuriating part. In the grander scheme of things, the US voters do indeed have the right to vote for not providing foreign aid. Which is sad of course, but is a valid political position.
- drawkward 2y ago
  Well the nazi salute for one. The attempt to gaslight earth about it for two. Those are just two of very many recent examples.
- kjrfghslkdjfl 2y ago
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14 2y ago
Well I personally don't think he is trying to better the world for the sake of being some amazing person giving back to humanity, I do think he really wants to succeed being the first trilionaire. And even if he is not doing this for compassion of those who have lost so much, I do think he wants nothing more then this to be successful so he can sell it to those who need it. Even if his motivation is fully monetary, I don't think anyone with complete loss of mobility ultimately cares what it costs to get some freedom back even if it comes from the a person some see as evil. He has access to a lot of money so maybe these people working on it should continue to work for him. Maybe he wants to charge an outrageous fee for it but ultimately at some point down the road if he can do it others will to and it will be common place for those who need it and probably common place for those who don't need it but want it.
- tsimionescu 2y ago
  > And even if he is not doing this for compassion of those who have lost so much, I do think he wants nothing more then this to be successful so he can sell it to those who need it. I'm sure he wants to sell it to those who need it, but I don't think that this means he cares that much whether it's successful as a medical device. He generally cares whether some device appears to work well enough that he can sell it, especially to investors, and far less about whether it actually solves a problem/doesn't introduce worse problems. Tesla FSD is the best example of something he's been selling for at least 7 years now without it actually working as advertised. Cybertruck was sold long before it came out, and now they're producing only a trickle. Roadster has been sold by the tens of thousands and it's not even in a design phase yet. Solar Roofs was presented to investors as a working product when it was a plastic mockup. There are probably others.
  - 14 2y ago
    lol I never said I think this means he cares. He cares only as far as being able to sell it. So ultimately he wants it to work and work well but if it works just good enough that those who are desperate for some fraction of improvement are will be willing to pay whatever he will be happy.
- 2y ago
throwaway290 2y ago
> Im sure there are some very smart and talented people working at Neuralink I'm sure there are. There may also be people with The Com background (https://cyberscoop.com/the-com-764-cybercrime-violent-crime-fbi-intellignce-report/ https://cyberscoop.com/the-com-764-cybercrime-violent-crime-...) working on it too: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-team-graduated-from-the-com/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-team-... yea more known as the DOGE guy but worked at Neuralink before that. Imagine the potential for abuse.
- Yoric 2y ago
  Sadly, this kind of brings back memories of a few regimes employing criminals for enforcement.
JohnTHaller 2y ago
Considering that Musk is purging government agencies and employees that investigated/are investigating Neuralink, it would be smart to stay far away from it.
abc123abc123 2y ago
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- theoreticalmal 2y ago
  Are you saying OP can’t interact with the world? What does “again” mean?
- junon 2y ago
  What does this even mean?
  - maleldil 2y ago
    > It's given me the ability to do things on my own again without needing my family at all hours of the day and night --Noland From TFA. I dislike Musk as anyone with a brain, but some smart people are doing important work in his companies.
misja111 2y ago
Sadly it seems that the most visionary and successful CEO's tend to be a*holes to the people around them. Steve Jobs with his 'reality distortion field' comes to mind as well.
- andrewoneone 2y ago
  What's his vision though? (This isn't me being naive - it's more of me asking the reader of these comments to contemplate this)
  - afpx 2y ago
    Everyone connected to spacex via brain implant with him in control - i.e. the borg. If the guy has demonstrated anything, it's that he wants total control.
  - otikik 2y ago
    Musk's vision is a big picture of himself.
  - NikkiA 2y ago
    Basically Bioshock's Rapture, but on Mars.
    - rob74 2y ago
      And to have enough candidates for that, he's doing his best to make life on Earth as bad as possible for as many people as possible as fast as possible?
      - ben_w 2y ago
        Now he looks like a cross between film and book versions of Hugo Drax, or like Joiler Veppers from Surface Detail. But — despite all the things that should've (but didn't) set alarm bells ringing in my head at the time — until just after he bought Twitter and immediately starting making harmful decisions with its new rules, the output of his companies looked kinda like it was helping improve the world. With SpaceX, humanity was finally unlocking that cheap spaceflight the Space Shuttle promised but didn't deliver ever since Rockwell started building the Enterprise-née-Constitution in 1974, which is one of the few areas where their work is still going great. (Buuuut even then, for Mars missions to be viable they must have a working Sabatier plant that fits in the payload bay and can produce 330 tons of methane every 2 years from a Martian atmosphere and irradiance level, and I've not seen any sign of this actually getting worked on by any Musk-group company; such machines would be really useful for Earth's environment, and it's a requirement for his Mars plans as otherwise the Starship vehicles can't return to Earth). With Hyperloop we were finally getting high speed transit to compete with polluting flights, but TBC has completely failed to do anything noteworthy, not even when it is news-worthy. With Tesla, we were finally getting non-polluting cars, when the competition was hydrogen vapourware, milk-floats, an excuse for ongoing corn subsidies, and the occasional slow news day when some back-yard inventor made a car that was propelled by springs and/or hamsters.
swat535 2y ago
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- bryanrasmussen 2y ago
  I guess I have to say suggesting one not trust a Musk brain implant sounds spot on and pretty pertinent.
- Loughla 2y ago
  The CEO of the company has proven himself time and again to not be trustworthy depending on his moods. Is that not relevant to this?
- deleted 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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- smallpipe 2y ago
  “This kind of comments” is pointing out a completely valid reason for which you wouldn’t want to do business with a company, let alone have them implant something in your brain.
superflow 2y ago
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- synthetic-echo 2y ago
  Is he rooting out corruption and wasteful spending though? Or is he himself corrupt and attempting to stomp out agencies for his own benefit? It seems like the latter to me, considering which agencies he's targeting, half (or more) of his statements about the spending being falsehoods, the lack of proper processes, the people he's hired, etc. I don't understand how people can be against due process, accountability, and genuine public service. Or are you just brainwashed by right-wing media?
- simianparrot 2y ago
  It's really suspicious how much media attention there is on the _people_ rooting out wasteful and corrupt spending, and not on the _data_ that's been released by said people _revealing_ that spending. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but that sure seems like a conspiracy to bury the data with emotionally-laden garbage fear-mongering headlines. Also note how in any positive/neutral article that even tangentially involves Elon Musk, there's a proverbial army of people reminding the rest of us how bad we should feel for enjoying the technological achievements when they're indirectly connected to said bad person, and the language that's being used is very emotionally laden. People "violently recoil" from any of Elon's ventures. That's not normal.
  - superflow 2y ago
    indeed, exactly this. It's discouraging to see people that read hackernews, act in this way, and not look at the facts, and actual data, but rather use up all their energy on just reacting violently against Elon.
    - synthetic-echo 2y ago
      You mean the data that was already public and debunking half the shit he's said? You can't mean the data he refuses to actually release, do you? So with that in mind, let me rephrase your comment. > It's discouraging to see people that read hackernews, act in this way, and not look at the facts, and actual data, but rather use up all their energy on just blindly praising Elon.
BluSyn 2y ago
I violently recoil at comments like this. Elon is so effective as a leader he seems to break people’s brains. No other person could have started this company and had even half this success. There’s a reason all the most talented flock to his companies, despite “conventional wisdom” saying they shouldn’t. It takes a lot of self deception to ignore the reality that he obviously must be doing something right.
- jlengrand 2y ago
  Both views can exist at the same time. Many effective leaders are terrible human beings. It's up to everyone to choose their own, ethics and empathy is high on my list of things I care about in a new job but it may be different for others.
- simianparrot 2y ago
  I also think the way DOGE has gone about their business is the only way that'd work in a systemically corrupt environment. If you give these institutions ample warning they'll bury or destroy any and all evidence, because that's how it's been done for decades. That doesn't work.
  - goatlover 2y ago
    Why should we trust DOGE to get it right? They're not elected, and Elon has serious conflicts of interest with his business ventures.
    - simianparrot 2y ago
      They're appointed by your president to do the job. What do you mean, "not elected"?
      - craftsman 2y ago
        They are unelected in exactly the same way that anyone appointed by the President--namely the entire Executive Branch--is unelected.
deleted 2y ago
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MathMonkeyMan 2y ago

What is the problem with Musk? I know his many shenanigans, but what about his helmanship causes you to violently recoil?

phillipcarter 2y ago
Overt nazi salutes is one, but another is the intentional tinkering-with and partial dismantling of the US Government's system to dispense appropriated funds, and act that is blatantly illegal.
- steveoscaro 2y ago
  Edit
  - krige 2y ago
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    - steveoscaro 2y ago
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      - archagon 2y ago
        AfD supporting, white supremacist amplifying dude from a deeply racist family being a closet Nazi is the least surprising thing imaginable.
  - SimianSci 2y ago
    When people mistakenly make a gesture, they dont do it once more exactly the same. And when people point out that they made this gesture their answer is usually not to crack jokes about how they made a Nazi salute in response. We can maybe disagree about WHY he did it, there's room to discuss if it was genuinely a white nationalism thing or if he was just being an edgelord. But it WAS a nazi salute and denying this is disingenuous.
    - watwut 2y ago
      > it was genuinely a white nationalism thing or if he was just being an edgelord. Can we admit to ourselves that most edgelords are actually people infatuated with exact same movements and value systems? Literally all edgelords get angry and strongly dislike anyone left leaning. For example, you do not see them harassing right wing, but you do see them harassing perceived sjws. Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord. And that is because when left wing people act badly, they are blamed as bad left wing people. Edgelord is just a way to not blame right wing people and attributing them benefit of the doubt never given to the center or to the left.
      - lewispollard 2y ago
        > Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord. I mean, I'm a pretty staunch socialist/commie and there are plenty of hard-left edgelords out there "joking" about gulags and executing academics and so on.
        phillipcarter 2y ago
        Yeah, they exist. The big difference is that we don't accept their behavior, especially when in positions of power.
        watwut 2y ago
        Yeah, but you call them "hard-left" and do not pretend they are not communists or Stalinists. Meanwhile, edgelord is consistently supposed to be someone did the nazi salute, but the gesture was supposed to be innocent and totally not a far right thing. You have put joking into quotes. Even in this comment, you are not trying to convince me that they are actually fine, that they are something less then Stalinists.
  - deleted 2y ago
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- romaaeterna 2y ago
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  - computerthings 2y ago
    > question your motivations/funding sources for the accusation That's the 1930s-1940s German ideological element. You're doing it right now.
    - romaaeterna 2y ago
      Questioning the motivations and funding of a biased source is more generally viewed to be a Journalism 101 thing than a 1930s-1940s German thing. Nor am I Elon Musk, which seems to be the subtext of this "you're doing it now" claim (one I find quite bizarre).
      - computerthings 2y ago
        That's not questioning as in asking, that's accusing someone of something nobody can disprove. And if every single person who doesn't see the Nazi salute acts this way, smearing those who do, that's kind of telling. Basically "because it's not a Nazi salute, you're just a far leftist foreign agent nonperson" -- okay? That really does prove the point, and being confused by that shows having read zero bookshelves about Nazi Germany. It's perfectly on point, that's exactly been the Nazi MO -- projection and the most insane accusations dropped casually, like "questioning the funding that would make someone say it's a Nazi salute". It's also been the MO of Stalinism and Maoism, and lots of cults, and thousands of other things. But he happened to do a Nazi salute, so hey. And in Germany there's mainly two main: people who are appalled by Musk's Nazi salute and Nazis who love it. Not to mention how Elon Musk mingles with Nazis, which he does, and that it happened during the inauguration of a president who said he could shoot people in broad daylight and his supporters wouldn't mind. There's plenty of context. If your goal post is 1920s to 1945 NSDAP then that means having learned nothing.
        romaaeterna 2y ago
- sneak 2y ago
  I have no extremely strong pro- or anti- Musk feelings, but the ADL (who seem to me to be the experts on antisemitism) say that’s not what that was. https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403 https://x.com/ADL/status/1881474892022919403 There also doesn’t seem to be any corroborating data to suggest he’s a nazi. I’m all for calling a spade a spade if he is, but it seems that people are working backwards from the “I hate Musk” position rather than forwards from the facts.
  - specproc 2y ago
    I don't think there's any real question as to what he's doing there. The ADL these days mainly exist to shout "antisemite" at anyone criticising Israel. Their giving him a pass was sickening, and undoubtedly related to Republican support of ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Other Jewish organisations have called it as the world has seen it. One organisation does not speak for a very diverse people. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk-far-right-antisemitism https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk...
  - zwirbl 2y ago
    The 'awkward gesture' take is a fun one. "Sorry officer, I did not flip you off twice, that were both just very awkward gestures" There is tons of data on how Musk became a far right supporter and sympathizer, like his support of UK racists and the German far right. You seem to still use X, you could just scroll through his posts there and try to not ignore the evidence you see with your own eyes
    - try_the_bass 2y ago
      Have you considered that perhaps the increasing levels of vitriol and outright hatred directed at him by the left might have had something to do with his rightward trend? They seem pretty correlated. I struggle to see how doubling down on the hatred is going to convince anyone other than _already hateful_ people of the righteousness of your cause?
      - phillipcarter 2y ago
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  Musk just recently had to go tour Nazi death camps to do a PR tour after promoting Nazy theories on Twitter. The people on the tour with him said touring the camps had zero emotional impact on the guy.
  - amelius 2y ago
    The guy is a psychopath, which is probably also why he's so good at doing business. He just doesn't care about other people's feelings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace > Hare further claims that the prevalence of psychopaths is higher in the business world than in the general population.
SimianSci 2y ago
I think it comes down to his personal conduct. Specifically, just as I said, I think he actively tries to harm people who might inconvenience him or cause him damage to his public image. In short, I see him as a bully. One of the great examples of this is the infamous "Pedo guy" incident in which he showed himself as very unempathetic and petty the moment people dismissed him as he attempted to hastily insert himself into a tragic moment. He's also regularly sued people exercising their free speech to comment on or criticise his financial interests, knowingly attempting to drown influential people he doesnt like in legal fees and frivolous lawsuits. In the past he has participated in doxing governmental employees who might cause him financial damages, often encouraging his followers to harass beuraucrats and lawyers who are just doing their legal jobs. There are plenty of examples of Elon regularly engaging in bullying of others who may not have access to the resources he does, its not just limited to these few examples. In my eyes, any measure of success or wealth will never excuse how a person conducts themselves in public. And I think Elon no longer thinks that the rules apply to him as so many are willing to overlook his behavior due to worshiping his money and influence. Elon's nazi salute is the perfect example of this. So my original statement still holds. Neuralink has a very large mountain to climb when it comes to consumer trust. Products in the Healthcare industry can massively impact people's lives, especially when they dont work as intended. Any company that participates in this space is morally and ethically required to be empathetic to the lives that they impact. And this level of empathy is not something that I see coming from the man behind neuralink which I think should disqualify it as a company with the potential to impact a lot of people.
- bmacho 2y ago
  > In the past he has participated in doxing governmental employees who might cause him financial damages, often encouraging his followers to harass beuraucrats and lawyers who are just doing their legal jobs. Is this legal in the US?
  - Philpax 2y ago
    Legality is only relevant when enforced, and it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon.
javcasas 2y ago
Last time that people doing the nazi salute experimented with health, well it wasn't pretty.
- 42772827 2y ago
  It wasn’t pretty, and for their crimes some of them were sentenced to positions as top scientists for the US government after the war.
zero_shift 2y ago
He seems hostile to regulatory oversight which is a problem when he's selling a microchip you implant in your brain
- goatlover 2y ago
  Kind of like the chip from Lumen on Severance. I don't understand why anyone would want a chip placed in their brain, unless it's to help overcome a disability.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - willturman 2y ago
    Diagnosed or otherwise.
noworld 2y ago
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hoseja 2y ago
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amelius 2y ago
Pulling out of USAID probably killed more helpless people than his companies helped enhance lives.
- naravara 2y ago
  There’s no “probably” about it. There are hundreds of thousands of doses of tuberculosis treatments that aren’t being delivered and will expire. Every untreated case of TB will lead to some other number of infections and increases the odds of more drug resistant strains popping up. It will take a long time to undo the damage of killing those programs alone.
  - kspacewalk2 2y ago
    Even if you subscribe to the notion that US government should not be paying for this, you can phase it out with enough notice for others to step in and take over the funding. The flippant, "tech disruptor" method of abruptly ending an organization that has for decades been funding critical public health initiatives in countries where they would otherwise not happen... That is the truly infuriating part. In the grander scheme of things, the US voters do indeed have the right to vote for not providing foreign aid. Which is sad of course, but is a valid political position.
drawkward 2y ago
Well the nazi salute for one. The attempt to gaslight earth about it for two. Those are just two of very many recent examples.
kjrfghslkdjfl 2y ago
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14 2y ago

Well I personally don't think he is trying to better the world for the sake of being some amazing person giving back to humanity, I do think he really wants to succeed being the first trilionaire. And even if he is not doing this for compassion of those who have lost so much, I do think he wants nothing more then this to be successful so he can sell it to those who need it. Even if his motivation is fully monetary, I don't think anyone with complete loss of mobility ultimately cares what it costs to get some freedom back even if it comes from the a person some see as evil. He has access to a lot of money so maybe these people working on it should continue to work for him. Maybe he wants to charge an outrageous fee for it but ultimately at some point down the road if he can do it others will to and it will be common place for those who need it and probably common place for those who don't need it but want it.

tsimionescu 2y ago
> And even if he is not doing this for compassion of those who have lost so much, I do think he wants nothing more then this to be successful so he can sell it to those who need it. I'm sure he wants to sell it to those who need it, but I don't think that this means he cares that much whether it's successful as a medical device. He generally cares whether some device appears to work well enough that he can sell it, especially to investors, and far less about whether it actually solves a problem/doesn't introduce worse problems. Tesla FSD is the best example of something he's been selling for at least 7 years now without it actually working as advertised. Cybertruck was sold long before it came out, and now they're producing only a trickle. Roadster has been sold by the tens of thousands and it's not even in a design phase yet. Solar Roofs was presented to investors as a working product when it was a plastic mockup. There are probably others.
- 14 2y ago
  lol I never said I think this means he cares. He cares only as far as being able to sell it. So ultimately he wants it to work and work well but if it works just good enough that those who are desperate for some fraction of improvement are will be willing to pay whatever he will be happy.
2y ago

throwaway290 2y ago

> Im sure there are some very smart and talented people working at Neuralink I'm sure there are. There may also be people with The Com background (https://cyberscoop.com/the-com-764-cybercrime-violent-crime-fbi-intellignce-report/ https://cyberscoop.com/the-com-764-cybercrime-violent-crime-...) working on it too: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-team-graduated-from-the-com/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/teen-on-musks-doge-team-... yea more known as the DOGE guy but worked at Neuralink before that. Imagine the potential for abuse.

Yoric 2y ago
Sadly, this kind of brings back memories of a few regimes employing criminals for enforcement.

JohnTHaller 2y ago

Considering that Musk is purging government agencies and employees that investigated/are investigating Neuralink, it would be smart to stay far away from it.

abc123abc123 2y ago

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theoreticalmal 2y ago
Are you saying OP can’t interact with the world? What does “again” mean?
junon 2y ago
What does this even mean?
- maleldil 2y ago
  > It's given me the ability to do things on my own again without needing my family at all hours of the day and night --Noland From TFA. I dislike Musk as anyone with a brain, but some smart people are doing important work in his companies.

misja111 2y ago

Sadly it seems that the most visionary and successful CEO's tend to be a*holes to the people around them. Steve Jobs with his 'reality distortion field' comes to mind as well.

andrewoneone 2y ago
What's his vision though? (This isn't me being naive - it's more of me asking the reader of these comments to contemplate this)
- afpx 2y ago
  Everyone connected to spacex via brain implant with him in control - i.e. the borg. If the guy has demonstrated anything, it's that he wants total control.
- otikik 2y ago
  Musk's vision is a big picture of himself.
- NikkiA 2y ago
  Basically Bioshock's Rapture, but on Mars.
  - rob74 2y ago
    And to have enough candidates for that, he's doing his best to make life on Earth as bad as possible for as many people as possible as fast as possible?
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Now he looks like a cross between film and book versions of Hugo Drax, or like Joiler Veppers from Surface Detail. But — despite all the things that should've (but didn't) set alarm bells ringing in my head at the time — until just after he bought Twitter and immediately starting making harmful decisions with its new rules, the output of his companies looked kinda like it was helping improve the world. With SpaceX, humanity was finally unlocking that cheap spaceflight the Space Shuttle promised but didn't deliver ever since Rockwell started building the Enterprise-née-Constitution in 1974, which is one of the few areas where their work is still going great. (Buuuut even then, for Mars missions to be viable they must have a working Sabatier plant that fits in the payload bay and can produce 330 tons of methane every 2 years from a Martian atmosphere and irradiance level, and I've not seen any sign of this actually getting worked on by any Musk-group company; such machines would be really useful for Earth's environment, and it's a requirement for his Mars plans as otherwise the Starship vehicles can't return to Earth). With Hyperloop we were finally getting high speed transit to compete with polluting flights, but TBC has completely failed to do anything noteworthy, not even when it is news-worthy. With Tesla, we were finally getting non-polluting cars, when the competition was hydrogen vapourware, milk-floats, an excuse for ongoing corn subsidies, and the occasional slow news day when some back-yard inventor made a car that was propelled by springs and/or hamsters.

swat535 2y ago

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bryanrasmussen 2y ago
I guess I have to say suggesting one not trust a Musk brain implant sounds spot on and pretty pertinent.
Loughla 2y ago
The CEO of the company has proven himself time and again to not be trustworthy depending on his moods. Is that not relevant to this?
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smallpipe 2y ago
“This kind of comments” is pointing out a completely valid reason for which you wouldn’t want to do business with a company, let alone have them implant something in your brain.

superflow 2y ago

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synthetic-echo 2y ago
Is he rooting out corruption and wasteful spending though? Or is he himself corrupt and attempting to stomp out agencies for his own benefit? It seems like the latter to me, considering which agencies he's targeting, half (or more) of his statements about the spending being falsehoods, the lack of proper processes, the people he's hired, etc. I don't understand how people can be against due process, accountability, and genuine public service. Or are you just brainwashed by right-wing media?
simianparrot 2y ago
It's really suspicious how much media attention there is on the _people_ rooting out wasteful and corrupt spending, and not on the _data_ that's been released by said people _revealing_ that spending. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but that sure seems like a conspiracy to bury the data with emotionally-laden garbage fear-mongering headlines. Also note how in any positive/neutral article that even tangentially involves Elon Musk, there's a proverbial army of people reminding the rest of us how bad we should feel for enjoying the technological achievements when they're indirectly connected to said bad person, and the language that's being used is very emotionally laden. People "violently recoil" from any of Elon's ventures. That's not normal.
- superflow 2y ago
  indeed, exactly this. It's discouraging to see people that read hackernews, act in this way, and not look at the facts, and actual data, but rather use up all their energy on just reacting violently against Elon.
  - synthetic-echo 2y ago
    You mean the data that was already public and debunking half the shit he's said? You can't mean the data he refuses to actually release, do you? So with that in mind, let me rephrase your comment. > It's discouraging to see people that read hackernews, act in this way, and not look at the facts, and actual data, but rather use up all their energy on just blindly praising Elon.

BluSyn 2y ago

I violently recoil at comments like this. Elon is so effective as a leader he seems to break people’s brains. No other person could have started this company and had even half this success. There’s a reason all the most talented flock to his companies, despite “conventional wisdom” saying they shouldn’t. It takes a lot of self deception to ignore the reality that he obviously must be doing something right.

jlengrand 2y ago
Both views can exist at the same time. Many effective leaders are terrible human beings. It's up to everyone to choose their own, ethics and empathy is high on my list of things I care about in a new job but it may be different for others.
simianparrot 2y ago
I also think the way DOGE has gone about their business is the only way that'd work in a systemically corrupt environment. If you give these institutions ample warning they'll bury or destroy any and all evidence, because that's how it's been done for decades. That doesn't work.
- goatlover 2y ago
  Why should we trust DOGE to get it right? They're not elected, and Elon has serious conflicts of interest with his business ventures.
  - simianparrot 2y ago
    They're appointed by your president to do the job. What do you mean, "not elected"?
    - craftsman 2y ago
      They are unelected in exactly the same way that anyone appointed by the President--namely the entire Executive Branch--is unelected.

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