Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[Josquius]

Saw a post somewhere that I think is spot on: "People wonder why El*n and his ilk are so ambivalent about Ukraine and open to Russia. My 2 cents: they see most reasonable people being pro Ukraine, and because they think they're too smart to go with the crowd, they inherently gravitate towards the other side".

Funny image.

The analysis potentially gives them too much credit.
I think much of it is as simple as the left eyes say Russia bad and we should help Ukraine hence this is wrong.

[FunkMonk]

In a bit of cross topic news...

https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-blocked-ukraine-starlink-access-crimea-russia-war-putin-2023-9

Prick

We need someone to defend Musk. Where is Berkut?

[DGuller]

To be fair to Berkut, he said what he said back when Musk was far less gone than he is now.  It didn't age well, but at the time it wasn't that unreasonable of a take.

[Barrister]

To be fair to Berkut, he said what he said back when Musk was far less gone than he is now.  It didn't age well, but at the time it wasn't that unreasonable of a take.

I wonder is Musk realizes how badly he's torched his reputation in the last 12 months or so.  Or does the adulation of the Twitter groypers make up for it?

[HVC]

To be fair to Berkut, he said what he said back when Musk was far less gone than he is now.  It didn't age well, but at the time it wasn't that unreasonable of a take.

I wonder is Musk realizes how badly he's torched his reputation in the last 12 months or so.  Or does the adulation of the Twitter groypers make up for it?

To those people he was always a misunderstood genius. Musk has been an ass for more then 12 months. This thread alone is 5 years old. Most of the berks out there probably still feel the same.

[Valmy]

I obviously misunderstood Musk. I always thought he was a showman and an attention whore but I thought he was using his powers for good causes, he was the guy getting stuff worked on and then promoting it. I never thought he was some kind of engineering genius, I mean he got big by investing in internet banking.

But I thought he really cared about the environment and space exploration and science and all that. But he seems completely contemptuous of all of those things. So what the hell did he do all that for? He doesn't seem to have any consistent positions or principles on anything.

[Josquius]

I obviously misunderstood Musk. I always thought he was a showman and an attention whore but I thought he was using his powers for good causes, he was the guy getting stuff worked on and then promoting it. I never thought he was some kind of engineering genius, I mean he got big by investing in internet banking.

But I thought he really cared about the environment and space exploration and science and all that. But he seems completely contemptuous of all of those things. So what the hell did he do all that for? He doesn't seem to have any consistent positions or principles on anything.

Same.
I used to have fairly mixed views on him. Yeah he's a credit hog and might have been doing the right things for the wrong reasons but a lot of what he was doing seemed  good.
This has passed the point of being less and less the case.

[crazy canuck]

To be fair to Berkut, he said what he said back when Musk was far less gone than he is now.  It didn't age well, but at the time it wasn't that unreasonable of a take.

If you ignore those of us who did say Berkut's take was unreasonable at the time.  This is the orginal title of the thread 

[garbon]

To be fair to Berkut, he said what he said back when Musk was far less gone than he is now.  It didn't age well, but at the time it wasn't that unreasonable of a take.

If you ignore those of us who did say Berkut's take was unreasonable at the time.  This is the orginal title of the thread 

Though peep 2nd post in the thread

[Barrister]

I was curious what exactly I said 5 years ago about Musk, so I went back.

He's kind of made from the Steve Jobs mold.  If he wasn't an egotistical SOB I doubt he'd have been able to founded two separate billion dollar companies that are trying to change the world.

I admire the heck out of the man, but he is not someone I'd really want to have a beer with.

I would no longer say "I admire the heck out of the man", but I don't think the rest aged too badly.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I think the comparison to Jobs is pretty apt in terms of business, both had massive egos, horrible interpersonal skills, and were both basically miserable human beings on an interpersonal level. Elements of all those flaws likely were required for them to achieve what they did--note I don't think it is required everyone who is successful have flaws like that, but I think certain personality types are only capable of success on those terms.

The biggest difference between Musk and Jobs I think is their relationship with the public. Jobs certainly cultivated a bit of a cult of personality, but I would argue Apple's success was less based on that than Tesla's has been based on Musk's cult. People have very consistently valued Tesla shares at levels simply unsupported by any fundamentals of investing, and that has created a hype effect that kept pushing the share price ever higher. This enabled a lot of Musk's broad success in the last 5 years because it transformed him from "just a billionaire" to the world's richest person.

Musk also is far more interested in direct public interaction, while social media wasn't as prominent in Jobs' lifetime, Jobs never showed much sign of caring about the sort of direct social interactions Musk lives on. Jobs preferred to communicate with the public at big stage events and things like that, it is unlikely if Jobs was still alive that he would be living on social media like Musk does.

I also think if Jobs were still alive he would be far less likely to get involved in right wing politics, Jobs had a much more narrow interest in business dominance and seemed largely contemptuous and disinterested in the political system.

[Berkut]

As I've said about a dozen times in this thread, Musk is an asshole. 

I also said I thought the things he accomplished vastly outweigh the damage he has done personally. Mainly because the damage he has done is mostly just bullshit - he says stupid stuff, and acts like a douchebag, but none of that really mattered beyond enraging people who like to be enraged.

Twitter I thought was shit before he bought it, and it becoming even more shit....so what? It is a cancer, and the world would be better if Twitter had never been invented. Now, for Musk, the fact that he was destroying something that *I* think was terrible to begin with doesn't really exonerate him in particular, since he thinks it was useful, but it does mean my analysis of his relative value to humanity was largely unaffected by is Twitter antics. If he wants to rub shit all over himself, and act like a douchebag while torching Twitter, what do I care? I care about electric, autonomous vehicles and advancing space exploration and exploitation and shit like that.

The latest though....well, this is something very different. Using his position as business leader to pass judgement on sovereign nations ability to defend themselves is far, far, FAR different from anything else. That is fucked up on so many levels, I don't even know where to start. I cannot even imagine how it is even legal. 

And at this point, it is clear that any benefit he ever had, even as I measured it, has long since ceased. SpaceX does not need him anymore, nor does Tesla, and in fact they both would certainly be better off not being associated with the guy. He is toxic, and has been for some time.

I am perfectly happy with everything I've said in this thread, at the times I said them. The guys is obviously an asshole, and I never said otherwise.

[Syt]

I obviously misunderstood Musk. I always thought he was a showman and an attention whore but I thought he was using his powers for good causes, he was the guy getting stuff worked on and then promoting it. I never thought he was some kind of engineering genius, I mean he got big by investing in internet banking.

But I thought he really cared about the environment and space exploration and science and all that. But he seems completely contemptuous of all of those things. So what the hell did he do all that for? He doesn't seem to have any consistent positions or principles on anything.

My impression is that he's only really interested in "saving humanity" or doing "good" if he's the one doing the saving.

I think that may have been best exemplified during the incident with the kids trapped in a cave where he offered help to be a big shiny hero, but when someone else did the job he disparaged them non-stop.

[Legbiter]

Berkut!   

Elon's biggest problem since taking over twitter is that he's been distracted from what he's good at which is Tesla and affordable space travel.

Because he took over twitter and gave bluechecks to the masses the American shitlibs employed within legacy media have been absolutely livid, he personally diluted their aristocratic privileges down to worthless. His bizarre penchant for shitposting while actively running businesses has been...ill advised. Then again, common sense should have steered him away from impregnating a married close coworker...

His Ukrainian position is the classic "dealmaker" trap. Everything can be negotiated if the right people just sit down in good faith. Which breaks down once you get to someone like Putin. 

The only answer is to supply Ukraine with what it needs to win the war. May every Zigger on this earth be killed.

[Grey Fox]

People are overthinking Musk. He's shitlord that is so rich that he forgot which side he is on. He seemed to have always thought laws didn't apply to him.

The Western world should really do something about our capital owning class being a bunch of traitors in the making.