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Comment by antiviral | Hacker News Reader

This should be getting alot more attention. Even if Musk gets away with these things right now, this article raises awareness of what’s truly going on, raising the likelihood that future victims will be much more believable, similar to the way the dam eventually burst with Uber.

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He gets away because people's attention span is short and they trust good PR and things that reinforce their opinions. So they will take the undeniably good stuff (SpaceX + Tesla successes), then assume everything else that's tacked onto them is also real, any other claim Musk makes on Twitter are real, and the bad press is just enemies and haters.

Also his position and money make him more or less legally untouchable even if his image would be permanently tarnished. This goes for anyone in his position whether they have his good PR or not. Money is indeed a superpower. Just ask Batman.

Edit. Funny how all my comments received the same number of downvotes at almost the same time.

I have a different position, which is that I actively tolerate quite a lot of crappy behavior from great minds doing great things. Sure, when someone breaks the law, do whatever is normal when a person breaks that law. If he violated SEC regulations, okay the SEC will do whatever the SEC does. But I don't really care on an emotional level if some investors lost some money. And there's almost no manner of wrong-think or Twitter bullying or any other obnoxious but not illegal behavior that would upset me at all.

Have you ever noticed how many of the greatest actors/actresses are a bit on the crazy side? Genius and "craziness" tend to go hand in hand. I believe we'll all be better off if we tolerate quite a bit of craziness from geniuses. Better art, better science, better world.

Elon Musk is really not a genius or a great mind. Both his companies appear to need large amounts of government mandates & subsidies and constant injections of capital to stay afloat. Teslas are neat cars but their environmental benefits are questionable and far more expensive than other methods of carbon abatement. Landing rockets is cool but the jury is out on whether it's financially better than the disposable ones used by the rest of the industry.

Hi did however manage to push his people towards achieving what they did so far with Tesla and Space X. I guess that's also a big thing? Not genius but definitely something, although I'm sure everything came at a huge cost for the people involved. You just have to ask yourself if the result justifies it.

It's true, he might ultimately be unsuccessful at getting us off ICE vehicles or to Mars. But he's surely made a better go at it than anyone else. At this point his ultimate success or failure has no bearing to me on whether it's worthwhile to just ignore dumb things he might say on Twitter or otherwise. And he is almost certainly a genius in the technical sense of high IQ.

Funny thing is, it’s actually incredibly reasonable to compare this CEO to an eccentric actor/actress. It’s about all his theatrics have amounted to: entertainment.

It's really frustrating how many people don't see through this narcissistic double-faced CEO.

We should really learn not to bother. I see there's a flood of downvotes/flagging on any comment presenting Musk in a bad light in any way. Evidence be damned.

It might be because your comments aren't really adding much to the conversation other than wild speculation and hyperbole.

My comments are mostly based on the information in the article and common sense. Anything in particular you have to object to the comment above? Feel free to object in a productive manner. With words and arguments should you have any, not generic accusations.

Also when I said “all my comments” I actually meant all my comments that could be downvoted. Full day. Nothing to do with the value of the comments.

Might I add the irony of you replying to my comment by speculating?

A site like this is going to be full of tech proselytes who still live and breathe the devine tech CEO BS from the last decade. It’s to be expected.

HN is divided on this divisive topic just like it's divided on most other divisive topics. What's more annoying about this one is how much groundless metacommentary it gets.

I was a massive admirer of Musk (though not a vocal one) but his behaviour over the last year or two has been pretty shit.

The whole calling someone a paedophile without cause thing was the final straw.

Now I just think he's a talented narcissistic arsehole.

Yes, I think that was kind of the beginning of the end. That one event sort of puts the subsequent behavior in the proper frame. Had that never happened, one might be forgiven for overlooking this situation.

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