4 ms·

Whatever happened to Elon Musk? Tech boss drifts to margins of Trump world

16 points by jethronethro 1y ago

jethronethro 1y ago
He served his purpose, has little or no further use, so the boss cut him loose.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  Or he has active data taps in all agencies he cares about?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ggm 1y ago
I don't think Musk had a game plan for this level of net negative outcome. If he has a long range plan, it must span beyond this session of government and he has significant risk in a change in party controlling the system. It's easy for me to be critical, both because he's distant and because I have no skin in the game. That noted, I think his genius status was misapplied, unearned, and his lack of visible empathy for the real world makes this important: he is a powerful foolish man, he isn't a constructive force at the moment. He's sucking a lot of value out of the system.
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Honestly I'd just assume he didn't realise how badly this was going to go. After all, if he can go to Mars, build hypersonic vactrains, and cars that can drive across the US unaided in 2016, why should he not be able to reorganise the government? I assume the same levels of delusion applied here as in all his other endeavours.
  - Zigurd 1y ago
    I started criticizing Elon's management style because I thought the way he was running in the Starship project was unlikely to work well. Not because it was a bad rocket necessarily. It was a badly run rocket project. When you're developing an app, there's plenty of things you can figure out on your way to completing the project. Less so for the biggest rocket ever.
mmooss 1y ago
You can't trust anything said about it by the Trump world but you can judge by the economics (broadly defined) - actions that have significant gain or cost, in power, status, politics, money, etc. - in other words, cui bono. No matter what they say. It's a powerful, essential tool when dealing with disinformation. (It assumes that the outcome was intentional, to a great degree. On one hand that's not a safe assumption; unexpected things happen all the time and people make mistakes or don't plan carefully. But it's complicated - the actors can see what is happening and change their direction and adjust. The assumption also depends on them being sophisticated actors, which Trump and Musk certainly are and they have highly sophisticated advisors. And in serious, high-value situations, we can more safely assume intent - Musk wasn't choosing what to have for dinner, which might not involve a lot of thought, but world-changing and life-changing actions. And regardless of intent, they still benefit from the outcomes and are responsible for the consequences of what they do.) One great benefit of Musk's activities is being the fall guy for Trump: Doing the dirty work, keeping Trump from getting too dirty himself, and then Musk taking the stain with him when he leaves. Much of the coverage of many government activities attribute them to Musk; even the Democrats blame him at times to avoid attacking Trump (Dem leaders' tactics are to avoid alienating Trump supporters - seriously). We'll see how much the Trump camp blames him for the failures and unpopular things.
cdaringe 1y ago
He’s been out of sight for 10 seconds! Give it a minute, people!

16 points by jethronethro 1y ago

jethronethro 1y ago

He served his purpose, has little or no further use, so the boss cut him loose.

actionfromafar 1y ago
Or he has active data taps in all agencies he cares about?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ggm 1y ago

I don't think Musk had a game plan for this level of net negative outcome. If he has a long range plan, it must span beyond this session of government and he has significant risk in a change in party controlling the system. It's easy for me to be critical, both because he's distant and because I have no skin in the game. That noted, I think his genius status was misapplied, unearned, and his lack of visible empathy for the real world makes this important: he is a powerful foolish man, he isn't a constructive force at the moment. He's sucking a lot of value out of the system.

rsynnott 1y ago
Honestly I'd just assume he didn't realise how badly this was going to go. After all, if he can go to Mars, build hypersonic vactrains, and cars that can drive across the US unaided in 2016, why should he not be able to reorganise the government? I assume the same levels of delusion applied here as in all his other endeavours.
- Zigurd 1y ago
  I started criticizing Elon's management style because I thought the way he was running in the Starship project was unlikely to work well. Not because it was a bad rocket necessarily. It was a badly run rocket project. When you're developing an app, there's plenty of things you can figure out on your way to completing the project. Less so for the biggest rocket ever.

mmooss 1y ago

You can't trust anything said about it by the Trump world but you can judge by the economics (broadly defined) - actions that have significant gain or cost, in power, status, politics, money, etc. - in other words, cui bono. No matter what they say. It's a powerful, essential tool when dealing with disinformation. (It assumes that the outcome was intentional, to a great degree. On one hand that's not a safe assumption; unexpected things happen all the time and people make mistakes or don't plan carefully. But it's complicated - the actors can see what is happening and change their direction and adjust. The assumption also depends on them being sophisticated actors, which Trump and Musk certainly are and they have highly sophisticated advisors. And in serious, high-value situations, we can more safely assume intent - Musk wasn't choosing what to have for dinner, which might not involve a lot of thought, but world-changing and life-changing actions. And regardless of intent, they still benefit from the outcomes and are responsible for the consequences of what they do.) One great benefit of Musk's activities is being the fall guy for Trump: Doing the dirty work, keeping Trump from getting too dirty himself, and then Musk taking the stain with him when he leaves. Much of the coverage of many government activities attribute them to Musk; even the Democrats blame him at times to avoid attacking Trump (Dem leaders' tactics are to avoid alienating Trump supporters - seriously). We'll see how much the Trump camp blames him for the failures and unpopular things.

cdaringe 1y ago

He’s been out of sight for 10 seconds! Give it a minute, people!