Very much like the Iraq War, somehow "I thought Elon Musk was a genius until a couple years ago" is now considered the more respectable and serious opinion than "I knew he was a fraud for a decade and was never fooled by him."
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As soon as he had a meltdown about a cave diver saving a bunch of kids instead of him and his shitty inefficient submarine idea that's when I knew he was a fucking petulant moron. and even before then I never understood the hype he was some asshole who appeared overnight and purchased a car company
I was too young and non-US to have an opinion on him super early, but the hyperloop shit and then the Thai cave rescue solidified to me that he was a massive cunt
The Boring Company, the ridiculous promises about self driving cars and the one car at a time Hyperloop were the turning points for me. All of which I learned from Atrios to give credit where it's due.
During the Iraq war we used to make bitter comments referring to "premature antifascism" but since it absolutely is fascists this time, rather than bloodthirsty imperialists, it doesn't even have to be a reference.
Yeah, but the former sentiment demonstrates some self-reflection and ability to learn from mistakes, while someone who espouses the latter could easily be a "predicted 10 of the last 3 recessions" type.
This is true only within the left. In half this evil empire, people have always felt the Iraq War was fuckin rad. You hear from once-conservative middle-American veterans you respect and assume most people understand how embarrassing Iraq was but nope, that was a wild success until Biden.
The only question I care to ask enlightened smart people is “when do you think America as we believe in it now become absolutely unrecoverable?” and if your answer starts with 20 or 19 I know you’re not smart or enlightened.
Honestly, I was being both sincere and hyperbolic in a confusing way but I think you got me. That’s a legit answer. That’s the discourse I’m looking for. I would challenge you, but only on levels we’d have to drink a lot of beer to cover.
I have a problem with the founders and with the system of checks and balances which imho have always been fugazi. Abstractly, I feel like US democracy has always been a sham waiting for a moment to go mask-off ‘slave-owner’s utopia’, but I think ‘we reformed that’ is a rational losing view to take.
I honestly think I may have gotten on the Musk is an idiot train too early. I was eagerly predicting the collapse of Tesla in 2016-2018, but they somehow pulled through
The person that exposed his fraud-iness to me was @alonlevy.bsky.social with a short post about how the hyperloop would be an obvious barf ride and anyone that's serious about high speed ground transport is aware that the limiting factor is human comfort.
Prior to that, I thought he was a pretty neat guy. But the whole hyperloop nonsense and then his boring company bloviating really made me feel like it was all bullshit.
Landing a rocket is neat, although I suspect that's mostly investors giving a huge leash to blow things up.
The SpaceX successes were the Musk of the 2000s, before he became a cult figure; he had trusted advisors who knew how to manage him (he was always megalomaniac), and he doesn't have the bandwidth to keep micromanaging it now. Then he became a cult figure and imposed his crayons on others.
To be fair, Hyperloop did inspire a bunch of work into permanent-magnet passive maglev systems that could lead to cheap and practical maglevs one day, but yeah the original concept was a whole heap of wishful thinking.
Had nothing to do with him it was all Mueller. Ask Shitlon to do a livestream where he ‘designes’ something simple in CAD ,like a bolt. And sends it to CNC. Something 1st year engineering student can do. See how it goes. Dude is a fkin imbecile conman lmao.
Tesla and SpaceX were the perfect companies bc other people cared about the cause and were willing to do the work as long as the PayPal money kept things going. I wish the companies could survive without him, but as long as he has control they need to die off.
Money that kept things going was mostly from Obama administration. Another reason why i despise that gatekeeping fraud,and i voted for him 2ice.Nothing ShitX did wasnt done before. McDonnel was doing self landing rockets in 90s. Congress saw no need for it and Bush the Idiot pretty much killed Nasa.
I was lucky. The first I heard of him was through various YouTube channels debunking his ludicrous claims. So my introduction to him was essentially, "here's this guy making this claim and here's the cornucopia of reasons his claims are ignorant and impossible".
same deal here, was lucky that my first time hearing his name was in the context of people... *addressing* his "nuke mars" idea. impression certainly didn't get better from there
but, glad people are coming around at least, better now than never
Thinking Elon's a cunt because of bad vibes doesn't make you correct in disliking him.
Thinking Elon's a cunt because he's a generational slavery profiteer, an alt-right brain-rotten 4-chan dweller teenager in the body of a deformed billionaire, an insecure hero-complexed huffing his own farts does
Ngl he kinda flew under my radar until after the curtains had started falling. It's probably just because Tumblr was my primary social media which didn't rotate a cult of personality around him. At least it saves me from the embarrassment of thinking he was ever cool.
Actually I think I knew him as "founder of Paypal" first and then started seeing headlines about how the founder of Paypal wanted to build seasteading cities and thinking "wow that guy sounds like a weird asshole."
Personally, I didn’t think much of him one way or the other until he started going down the right wing conspiracy rabbit hole a few years ago. I don’t know what that stands in the spectrum above.
As someone who also didn't have any firm opinion of Musk till he got public about that right wing conspiracy rabbit hole, I'm prepared to defend my position - none of us can pay enough attention to every CEO to place them all on a genius to fraud spectrum.
Even in the early days, I thought he was shit compared to Steve Jobs, who I actually liked as a figure cause he gave a shit about music and art and books and the humanities. Liking reading literature should be a prerequisite for tech CEOs
The whole thing with the Thai cave rescue—both his plan and the accusation he made about the rescuer—should have been a big red flag. In fact, it’s a pattern we see today, him trying to solve problems without understanding them, and making wild untrue statements regardless of consequence
Well for me it was "I didn't know very much about him," I just saw that the falcon rocket was really impressive and the whole landing both boosters at the same time looked cool as shit.
The more I learned about him the more I realized this might not be a good guy.
I think that he is nothing more than a man child. He has unlimited amounts of money and likes to play with cars and rockets. He’ such a narcissist that he buys things like Tesla but then tells everyone it was his idea. That’s why people think he’s smart. He takes credit for other peoples’ work.
Pretty sure I read somewhere that one of the things the CIA took as suspicious in the 1950s was people being anti-nazi too early, as in before the usa was at war with them.
If you were mad about Nazis in the 30s (before the war) the CIA would consider you a Communist in the 50s for being anti-fascist before the government gave the okay.
Fellow capitalists don't like it when the ruse is revealed that it's only about concentration at our expense now. So they celebrate the overvalued in hopes they will be the next to be anointed for nothing but hype.
Well, I do kinda wish that I said yes when my financial planner recommended Tesla stock to me 15 or so years ago, but what I said was on the order of "I think that guy's a dick and I don't trust him so no thanks". Obviously right on both counts but I'd have made good money if I'd bought the stock
I never liked him. I’ve always seen him for what he is. It’s been frustrating when so many others idolized him but now I feel vindicated. Small comfort I guess while he destroys my country.
omg. just thought while reading this passage (at least to myself) a hilarious idea - describing people against the russians during WWII (obviously not Axis people) as "premature anti-communists"
There is a little bit of like, "Treating Life as a Story" brain thing that goes on with society. Having changed your mind proves growth, it provides a narrative arc that people latch on to, micro stories that give them hope others will follow suit, or make them feel better for following the same arc
There was a period where he was the primary factor behind both a new golden age for space AND making electric cars "cool." Studying how he transformed from that to his current state is far more useful than pretending that he was always evil and some people instinctively knew
I agree, far more interesting & perhaps revealing.
Money, power and limelight esp harmful for addicts, obsessives inflating ego fantasies in manic off the rails ways.
It would be dishonest to say I didn’t buy into the hype, even just a little. I never believed he was going to save the world or anything, but I thought he was a positive figure, or at worst neutral. The first big crack was his meltdown at the Thai cave diver, and it’s been downhill since.
I am in tech and I have been warning people since 2009 that it is very dangerous to be handing the keys of our society over to these anti-human sociopaths. People like Kara Swisher gave them cover and respectabilty. People who work in Tech knew!
iirc that was the "oh shit" moment for me after starting to suspect as much when i heard workers were getting injured because he wouldn't allow standard CAUTION markings in Tesla factories because he didn't like the color yellow
The only good thing he's ever done is pay smart engineers to lower $/kg to orbit and they've done amazing work but I have never understood people who thought that made *him* a genius. It's an indictment of the rocket industry that this was new.
A book could be written about how he recruited his lieutenants that did the work.
Another about how he raised money and got government contracts, which is more understandable in the orbit of the rich and powerful, but still an opaque topic.
I don't remember when I realized it. I know back in 2010ish when he promised free internet I thought he was harmless and hopefully about to improve lives. I know I learned he wasn't harmless between then and the stupid submarine incident. I don't remember what happened to change my mind though.
Saaaaaame. Completely insane and psychotic behaviour that somehow seemed to fly under the most people's radar. Everything since has been a slow escalation.
I was already a hater when I heard about him firing a woman after doing her job for a hot minute when she was sent on paid (?) leave by him. He concluded her job was meaningless and just fired her, after she had the audacity to ask for a raise.
But at least there I might have missed some details...
I had no real clue who he was until he launched that car into space which, at the time and now, I will forever look on as the biggest waste of cash and resources I've ever seen.
So my view of him has never been rosey.
Not to defend Elon (the stunt was cringe) but the launch wasn't done to put that car in space, the car just so happened to be about the same size and weight as a usual dummy payload for a rocket test launch.
I know test flight mass simulation is a thing but once you start throwing out Nazi salutes your entire history of razzle and dazzle immediately becomes a bit sus. You start to question what might have simply been a means for this end.
Loads of people sent me the video because I'm a massive Bowie fan. His use of one of my favourite songs to 'soundtrack' it just set my teeth on edge instantly.
That's definitely my moment too, and being a rocket nerd I was prepared to overlook a lot of "quirks", but this seemed weirdly unhinged. Later he admitted to wanting Starship (a pretty stupid name) to have a pointy nose cone because it would "look cool", reinforcing my notion of his unseriousness.
I think this was when a lot of people perked up. I know that for me, I didn’t really have an opinion on him other than “that’s a tech guy right?” until divergate
I had always heard uncomfortable stories about what he was like to work with back in the early 2010s, but yeah this is when it just couldn't be ignored
yup. regardless of any good will and reputation he had earned up until that point, he revealed himself as a deeply insecure liar in that moment and it's only been downhill since then
When I went to college for engineering I was inspired by the original Tesla founders. When Elon tried to pretend like it was his company I immediately knew he was a piece of shit.
I realized he was cracked when someone I know who worked for SpaceX showed me a picture of their factory floor in El Segundo about a dozen years ago. The rockets were packed tightly together on the floor, and when I inquired when they were going to expand, he told me that Elon liked it that way.
Looking back on it now, I think the ‘I was never fooled by him’ people are closer to being right. But I also remember a lot of those folks, back in the day, completely dismissing the legitimately impressive accomplishments of Tesla and SpaceX (setting aside how much credit Elon deserves for those)
Because none of those things were ever "legitimately impressive" if you already knew he was a huckster selling vaporware. The very few things they did do others were clearly already doing better while he sucked up all the funding and oxygen and created far worse conditions for his workers.
Not quite. When I saw the first test of Falcon Heavy, those two boosters landing side by side, I thought "this is legit science fiction stuff and it's real" and I was not wrong.
Difference is, I always credited Gwynne Shotwell, not Elon Musk. She's the actual rocket scientist. He's... not!
There’s nothing really impressive about handing actual scientists and engineers a bunch of money because that’s all he did and it’s what our government should be doing in the first place instead of giving this dipshit more money to blow on coke, IVF for a kid that won’t hate him and POE botting.
I don't remember not knowing he's a billionaire and that's one of the very few categories of person where I automatically make several very unflattering assumptions about a person. When the cave thing happened, I was, like, ah, well, this just confirms my priors.
I remember being apolitical b4 & getting pissed off & writing W a letter in late 2002 telling him not to invade as it was crazy.
And then I remember people that were wrong about the war finally figuring it out & acting like it was a badge of honor that they were the serious people. Sheesh!
It was probably 2018 when I finally had the co-worker Musk stan explain to me what was so great about him. He went into excited detail about the hyperloop and all I could say was that it sounded a lot like a tunnel to me. It's all been downhill from there.
I have a pair of younger coworkers who pointedly DID NOT believe me when I explained to them that the Vegas hyperloop was precisely that, and that was last week. The media is failing 20something men in the worst way right now.
I am so disappointed in some of my younger coworkers. These are very smart people who seem to have empathy for the people in their lives, just spouting garbage that takes like 2 seconds of thought to break down. It's just crazy to watch
For me it was 2018, when those kids were trapped in a cave in Thailand.
Musk made a big deal about how he was going to rescue them, then somebody actually did rescue them, and Musk’s reaction wasn’t “Thank God they’re safe!” but to call their rescuer a pedo.
I didn't really think about him at all until either the nonsense Hyperloop stuff came out or the weird online culture defending him sprouted, whichever was first. So a long while now. Dude benefited hugely by being a more vague cultural presence.
I remember this article very clearly, though I don't remember how I came to read it. Definitely among my earlier "I don't like this guy" memories. I also did not like how he played it fast and loose with some marketing, such as "full self driving."
Since I lived in a spot where Waymo was testing before they took rides, I could see they ran their project with sound and dogged engineering discipline, with a focus on safety. This was not what I took from him or Tesla's activity in that area.
Also the chicanery with Solar City, reported in Matt Levine's column Money Stuff. That was a bit unseemly as well. And then there was that cave diver thing. It all just kept adding up.
The absolute moron called Vernon Unsworth, Pedo Guy because he ridiculed Elon's asinine solution to rescue the kids from that cave in Thailand in 2018. Unsworth assisted with the successful rescue of the kids in spite of Musk's attempted disruption.
And Vern lost his righteous defamation case while being represented by Lin Fucking Woods, after Woods started hearing the voices, but before this was common knowledge
Shit i even regret my 2010-era “he’s not some brilliant engineer but he’s a talented hype man and every new technology needs someone who knows how to sell shit” opinion
I had never heard of him until he started talking about self-driving cars. At that point I dismissed him as Yet Another American Asshat with too much money and zero technical understanding.
I mean, isn’t it just all of us with heightened pattern recognition (whether it be from being an abuse survivor or some kind of neurospicy) just trying to Cassandra it up?
doesn’t quite fit. Iraq was always nonsense. even as the war started weapons inspectors were looking for nonexistent weapons. elon was presented as a genius and his every behavior since refutes that claim.
gosh, it was *at least* 2018 with the sub thing but i recall there being more before that because the Nazi side of his personality was really starting to emerge in 2015
Yes! It was such a stupid idea that I couldn't believe everyone couldn't see the obvious flaws. It felt like the emperor's new clothes. A precision underground tube with no escape hatch in a seismically active state? What could go wrong?!
at the time i thought that's a bit much, all we need is a train. Then saw an article about "team" finally building it. slowly realized that it was still in design. And not engineering company, it was college students. One of several teams of college students. In a *contest*. That was it for me.
What! U don't believe that having gazzilion compressor stations and host of sensory machinery to keep vacuum is cheaper than rail!? Outrageous! Funniest thing for me was when Shitlon being imbecile had no idea how thermal expansion works 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣And still media shithead hyped him as ‘genius’ lmao.
Agreed. Hyperloop or the announcement that he would have people on Mars in 2024, not sure which was earlier. That was the fraud-point.
The psycho-point for me though, was also the diver story. After that it was inconceivable for any sane person to look up to the guy.
I think he used to have some decent publicist, who managed to hide that he is terrible person.
The fact that he was a fraud was harder to notice back when he was talking about things most people did not understand,but once he talked about stuff you did understand, you realized what he really is.
The first time I remember seeing/hearing him it was some documentary I had to watch bc I was pitching Fisker. I told my boss “that guy’s a dick and they will be divorced momentarily” (he appeared with some wife).
I had someone seriously opine about his genius in successful business yesterday to me and I had a challenge keeping from saying, "You mean spending his dad's emerald mine money on already successful businesses and then tanking several of them due to his lack of business acumen?"
Real geniuses don't buy Twitter because they made dumb drunk tweets when their wife left them and then ruin it to the point that it loses 75% of the purchase price in value....
Lots of True Scotsmen in the replies. I don't care how you got here, honestly. I don't care if you just realized 5 minutes ago how much of a threat Musk is. Let's figure out some actions we can take to save what's left of our federal government.
I mean I kind of do tho, the lack of reflection when people got worked over by one of the most obvious charlatans ever is incredibly concerning. Like if this realization is recent, you should look inward on how that happened lol
underrated "this guy is a fucked up megalomaniac who's completely full of shit" moments early on were when he used a lawsuit to retcon himself into being the founder of tesla, and when he claimed the title "chief engineer" at spacex
Years ago, Dana Perino told the Fox News audience that Musk was propped up by federal government contracts and Musk would hype new tech to distract from non-delivery of what he had promised before. She was extremely skeptical of his shtick.
Well his ‘pr & marketing’ was all provided for free by your friendly ‘legacy’ media morons. See back then ,during MCU hi-days they were desperately in search of Green Jesus T Stark character. And they decided hair plugged stuttering conman fool that peddles bad 50 scifi is that….
I even feel bad thinking he was smart 10 years ago. I reserved a Tesla Model 3 in 2016, cancelled my reservation in 2018 when it was getting obvious he was a douchebag.
I think he clearly is a genius. Lots of people set aside moral considerations in a quest to be the richest person on the planet. Musk succeeded where most others failed.
I remember first learning who he was about a decade ago because a friend had an extremely bad manic episode and thought Elon Musk was tapping his phone. Looking back that seems less insane, even with my friend being totally separated from his mind at the time.
I never supported the Iraq war FWIW. Buy then I’m nobody. My son (aerospace engineer) knew people he graduated from school with in 2018 who went to SpaceX. He never wanted to go because they told him how bad the working conditions were.
I didn't like that fukker since day one, didn't like any of the Silicon Valley types, especially after Zuck.
I demand we all get our land lines and desk tops with beautiful, big screens back. And whatever happened to code is poetry in PHP only?
i didn't know much about him before he revealed his stupidity any nazi love openly. heck, i didn't even recognize him in iron man. before i basically heard he was a smart guy who did smart guy things and had no reason to doubt. boy was that ever wrong.
There's a severe distaste for skeptics in the stock-trading class, and I don't think it's a coincidence that all the most drastic explosions of wealth are all fueled with hype and hot air. I guess it's impolite that we point out the evidence was always there to begin with.
I've disliked/side-eyed him since 2008 but had to play it super diplomatic. When the sub thing happened I was like YES OKAY WE ALL SEE IT NOW RIGHT?? and yettttttt lol
I thought highly of him before that, but I only knew him as the electric car guy. Looking him up and learning about him after that really did it for me
Him calling a cave diver a pedophile and siccing his fans on said diver made me realize he was a horrible person. His "We will coup whoever we want. Deal with it!" tweet after the coup in Bolivia made me realize he was an authoritarian with political ambition.
He lost me when he bragged about shooting a car into space like he was the first person to do so. NASA launched a car into space, landed it on the moon, and had a couple of astronauts drive it around in the 1970s.
alon levy had a great blog post at the time where he determined the g-forces of musk's imagined system parameters would have all the passengers throwing up
At that point I was like “this seems absurd, does he know something we don’t?” Then he started talking about tunnel boring and I realized oh no he’s just the equivalent of Tim Robbins in The Hudsucker Proxy.
For me a pretty key moment was when he introduced that, everyone with transport/city knowledge like @humantransit.bsky.social explained that induced demand exists, so putting cars through a tunnel doesn't magically solve congestion, and he insulted and blocked them instead of learning anything.
My old Twitter was literally "elonmuskisanazi" and was 2 years old. Hated him before he bought twitter and went full fash, got shit for it from friends too. There is no prize for being right about things.
I don’t think it was as far back as a decade, but when he said on television that it was statistically probable that this universe was a simulation, I began to suspect that he was not an intellectual.
Its a shame because the latter was actually me! i was an engineering student then and an alumni friend of mine who was an elon fan (like many eng students were was) got fucked by SolarCity then laid off. Never forgave Musk for fucking over my friend and since then the hatred has grown.
I think it is true that media laundering and not paying attention closely are most people’s legitimate excuse. but somewhere between 2013 (hyperloop) and 2018 (pedo guy, funding secured, etc) it became undeniable to even casual observers.
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My answer would be some time between the Southern Strategy and Reagonomics.
Landing a rocket is neat, although I suspect that's mostly investors giving a huge leash to blow things up.
but, glad people are coming around at least, better now than never
It's fine not liking someone because of vibe, you're not somehow more prescient by having a good reason for them down the line.
Thinking Elon's a cunt because he's a generational slavery profiteer, an alt-right brain-rotten 4-chan dweller teenager in the body of a deformed billionaire, an insecure hero-complexed huffing his own farts does
If one doesn't look too close there is a similarity.
The more I learned about him the more I realized this might not be a good guy.
But the truth is plain for everyone to see.
https://bsky.app/profile/mtsw.bsky.social/post/3lipzoj6mds2e
https://albavolunteer.org/2024/02/premature-antifascism-and-the-power-of-self-identification/
absolutely cackled. anyway, as you were
Money, power and limelight esp harmful for addicts, obsessives inflating ego fantasies in manic off the rails ways.
Another about how he raised money and got government contracts, which is more understandable in the orbit of the rich and powerful, but still an opaque topic.
But at least there I might have missed some details...
So my view of him has never been rosey.
that doesn't make his censorial and possibly totalitarian oppoistion any better .
it's not good.
let's say he says somthing that is true like the sky is blue. there are people who reasonably hate him and will agree the sky is blue.
the others... well that's my fear
Difference is, I always credited Gwynne Shotwell, not Elon Musk. She's the actual rocket scientist. He's... not!
And then I remember people that were wrong about the war finally figuring it out & acting like it was a badge of honor that they were the serious people. Sheesh!
Musk made a big deal about how he was going to rescue them, then somebody actually did rescue them, and Musk’s reaction wasn’t “Thank God they’re safe!” but to call their rescuer a pedo.
That’s when I realised how awful he is.
Or put another way:
https://theonion.com/its-not-nice-to-be-smarter-than-other-people-1819584000/
Anyway, women knew
https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/
https://www.jezebel.com/the-special-hell-of-being-a-starter-wife-5637920
When did he randomly call some Thai cave diver a pedophile? I think that's when he hit my consciousness.
Nobody has learned anything from SBF and the other fraudsters. Anyone can hoodwink Silicon Valley and Wallstreet with the right slide deck it seems.
Me: “whatevs. not on my radar. electric cars good tho.”
Cave rescue happens
Me: HOW VERY DARE THAT LACKWIT MOTHERFUCKER SMOTHER IN YOUR OWN IDIOT CORPSE TORPEDO YOU MOTHERFUCKER
The moment the dude scoffed at OSHA violations, I realized he was THAT GUY™. Then he kept doing it.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/26727/tesla-had-3-times-as-many-osha-violations-as-the-10-largest-us-plants-combined
The psycho-point for me though, was also the diver story. After that it was inconceivable for any sane person to look up to the guy.
The fact that he was a fraud was harder to notice back when he was talking about things most people did not understand,but once he talked about stuff you did understand, you realized what he really is.
I’ve NEVER understood why so many kept saying he was some genius.
I guess to idiots even unremarkably average intelligence seems miraculous.
By whom?
Then it became pretty obvious he has been a success despite himself.
If you like that guy we’re not getting busy bc you’re probably a misogynistic racist manchild.
I demand we all get our land lines and desk tops with beautiful, big screens back. And whatever happened to code is poetry in PHP only?
How people didn’t hold him accountable for that is beyond me
I think some cities even paid for studies.
rubes.
https://deadspin.com/visionary-brain-genius-elon-musk-has-invented-the-world-1831210269/
I feel the big year for hating him was 2018 w/ the soccer team incident
Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!
We had no idea!
It's also the same song and dance through time immemorial.
PUBLIC SCHOOL
HOSPITAL MEDICARE
FARMING SUBSIDIES
ALL GETTING DESTROYED BY TRUMP AND MAGA!!!!
Keep voting in these idiots at all levels…you get dumb outcomes…
The propaganda machine has you in spin cycle!