5 ms·

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
    [flagged]
    - steveoscaro 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - 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.
      - toasteros 2y ago
        > Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord. Your comment is absolutely correct; Musk and his ilk are just people who "joked around" on 4chan and essentially radicalised themselves doing it. HOWEVER left wing edgelords absolutely exist. Look up (at your peril) the phenomenon of "tankies". They're not your average communist, but rather apologists for Stalin's genocides. Maybe your comment is more about the terminology at play, but it's interesting to see that the left wing mirror image of the average 4chan poster absolutely exists.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- romaaeterna 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - 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
[flagged]
hoseja 2y ago
[flagged]
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
[dead]

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
  [flagged]
  - steveoscaro 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - 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.
    - toasteros 2y ago
      > Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord. Your comment is absolutely correct; Musk and his ilk are just people who "joked around" on 4chan and essentially radicalised themselves doing it. HOWEVER left wing edgelords absolutely exist. Look up (at your peril) the phenomenon of "tankies". They're not your average communist, but rather apologists for Stalin's genocides. Maybe your comment is more about the terminology at play, but it's interesting to see that the left wing mirror image of the average 4chan poster absolutely exists.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
romaaeterna 2y ago
[flagged]
- 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

[flagged]

hoseja 2y ago

[flagged]

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

[dead]