Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Grey Fox]

Silly question, or maybe not so silly. Is Musk on the spectrum?

Yes. He has ASD, formerly known has Asperger's. He revealed it live on SNL when he hosted it in 2021.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah that matches my read as well.

I guess there's one scenario where it works out. If all the new accounts being created are actually real people who've avoided Twitter because it's too "woke" or whatever (as opposed to mostly bots and trolls signing on to take advantage of the chaos) and Twitter stabilizes with a new political centre more to Musk's liking - but with no significant stream of continual outrages - then maybe the advertisers will come back and Musk will make lots of money while being able to influence politics to his liking.

One of Musk's immediate problems is he is the sole face of Twitter now. There is no executive team really other than him, nor a board of directors. That means anything he says or does is going to be tightly linked with Twitter's reputation. He bought Twitter in part because he was annoyed about "censorship", but the reality is if he cares about protecting his investment he may find himself significantly needing to edit and reduce his own personal behavior on the platform.

There's plenty of businesses, even ad-supported ones, owned by controversial (even far right) billionaires. But they very often avoid the public limelight and do not make themselves the center of attention. Musk has obviously done the exact opposite.

[The Minsky Moment]

And this is where my point was before. Would you rather have team republican or team democrat on your side in congress for the next few years?

It's a tough question.  On the one hand, you could pocket the billion dollar contract to knock out the Jewish space lasers.  On the other hand, what happens when they want proof you've captured the evil space lizards that abducted Queen Elizabeth and JFK Jr.?  All those vintage Dr. Who costumes costs serious money.

[The Minsky Moment]

Any political organization willing to give Marjorie Taylor Greene and Herschel Walker real, tangible power in the hope of squeezing out a couple more tax loopholes cannot be trusted.  The destruction of the nation is bad for business. A 24% tax vs a 26% tax on a smoking ruin is no great benefit.

[grumbler]

I have had enough of the fuckwads here throwing around accusations of dishonesty.

[alfred russel]

And this is where my point was before. Would you rather have team republican or team democrat on your side in congress for the next few years?

It's a tough question.  On the one hand, you could pocket the billion dollar contract to knock out the Jewish space lasers.  On the other hand, what happens when they want proof you've captured the evil space lizards that abducted Queen Elizabeth and JFK Jr.?  All those vintage Dr. Who costumes costs serious money.

I doubt Elon Musk has the power to change the direction of US politics, and if he does it will take more commitment than a tweet that he favors a divided government and we should vote republican. But he really does have an interest in legislation, and legislators in him. He is also from South Africa and has three citizenships so I'm not sure he is the most likely to put his business interests behind the general health of the US.

[Valmy]

And this is where my point was before. Would you rather have team republican or team democrat on your side in congress for the next few years?

It's a tough question.  On the one hand, you could pocket the billion dollar contract to knock out the Jewish space lasers.  On the other hand, what happens when they want proof you've captured the evil space lizards that abducted Queen Elizabeth and JFK Jr.?  All those vintage Dr. Who costumes costs serious money.

I doubt Elon Musk has the power to change the direction of US politics, and if he does it will take more commitment than a tweet that he favors a divided government and we should vote republican. But he really does have an interest in legislation, and legislators in him. He is also from South Africa and has three citizenships so I'm not sure he is the most likely to put his business interests behind the general health of the US.

Well the Democrats threw him a pretty big bone for his Tesla interests this term. So clearly doing nice things for Musk doesn't give you anything, is that a good message for the politicians to take on? And a divided government is going to empower the executive branch to steer policy since the legislature will be paralyzed. I don't know how those benefit him.

[viper37]

That are two different things.  No one is denying these accomplishments.

But Musk's supporters since to place him at some kind of super human genius of engineering.  Which I'm less and less convinced he is.

Some Musk supporters are like that, but we've seen groupies like them for all kinds of people.  Musk groupies are no better nor worse than Bernie groupies or Trump groupies or Jobs groupies or any other kind.  Love is blind.

Very true.  And I wasn't pointing anyone on this board.

[Admiral Yi]

Tesla has been dropping like a rock.

[Valmy]

Tesla has been dropping like a rock.

Goddamnit Elon

[Berkut]

It's rather fascinating to watch him just destroy his entire career and everything he has done.

[FunkMonk]

It's rather fascinating to watch him just destroy his entire career and everything he has done.

[CountDeMoney]

I think Musk now ripping off the mask and endorsing Republicans is stupid as he runs a major social network and is terrible for business.

But do you think this will "move the needle" in US elections?

I don't think so in this election but it will in the future. Musk is a hero to many.

grumbler says that love is blind, and there are all sorts of groupies--but you can figure out the attraction, and there's a logical path to it.

When it comes to Musk, I really don't understand the nihilist/GamerGate/cryptobruh fanbase attraction to the Bond villain archetype.

[Jacob]

grumbler says that love is blind, and there are all sorts of groupies--but you can figure out the attraction, and there's a logical path to it.

When it comes to Musk, I really don't understand the nihilist/GamerGate/cryptobruh fanbase attraction to the Bond villain archetype.

Musk is kind of an aspie nerd, but (almost) everyone thinks he's super bright - and he's undeniably very rich, so if you don't think he's super bright then that's just you being jelly. He says all kinds of dumb shit - with internet memes and for the lulz - and he's never had to face any consequences. He's rich and successful and gets to have lots of sex with all kinds of chicks.

Bascially he's what they wish they were AND he plays to the gallery for them. So they love him.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I hadn't really noticed much different at Twitter, but the rollout of the $8 verification system seems to have been a prompt for a huge uptick in the creation of troll / impersonator accounts, to the point my feed now feels significantly lower quality than it was previously (much of this is people retweeting the impostors because they are funny, but the net effect is largely mucking up things if you were someone who had a curated feed.)