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Comment by samirillian | Hacker News Reader

As a person who really wanted Musk to be an exception to the rule of shitty billionaires, this story really is the last nail in the coffin. Way too much moral casuistry you'd have to go through to justify or cast doubt on all of these insane stories.

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TIL "casuistry". Thanks!

casuistry: n: the use of clever but unsound reasoning, especially in relation to moral questions; sophistry

I wonder if the issue is that most people are just shitty but society acts as a check. When you're above societies rules you can act and do anything you want.

Billionaires are not by any means a random sample of humanity, particularly for the self-made billionaires. They are among the most insanely ambitious or the most insanely risk-loving.

This makes them go to much greater lengths to protect their empires than most of us would, if plunked into such a position.

I think the power and fame has also changed Musk quite a lot, and perhaps something about his lifestyle and substance consumption has changed, because he is acting different than he had even three or four years ago... which was still well into the era of him being a billionaire.

That reminds me of one point: I highly respect that Elon Musk doesn't wall himself off from the mind of the internet (aka the populace). It's something you won't see other CEOs do, unless it's a PR stunt meant to achieve some positive PR statistics.

Yeah, I think a lot of people here are just naive to how much dirty dealing goes on in the world. This stuff is just more public.

Musk was never some wonderful person that should have been looked up to for his own merit. But I generally don't pick cars based on how much we like or dislike their CEO, and I suspect that most others don't either.

Possibly. I'd say there are a lot of people who are lacking in the principles / integrity department, but I also think Musk tends to stand out among his peers. He's not normal, even for that group of people.

I agree with you that he's not an exception, but at the same time I got a chronic sickness from the air pollution that's caused by oil and diesel car companies, and I know that millions of other people are dying, so I still think that other car company CEOs are even more shitty.

It's not like Tesla is novel or unique or better at electric cars.

Conventional car companies have worked on electric cars, and have their own models for decades.

Tesla's unique proposition was about building an electric supercar (and even that is not working very well, profits wise).

They'll hardly be the one's replacing the mass oil and diesel cars with electric models...

Have you ever seen a Tesla?

Yes, so?

I don’t even know what to say to the first sentence in your comment.

Just admit it? Being a "sports car" doesn't make it any better, in the same way a Ferrari is not better than a Lexus.

Tesla caused a hype around EV cars and is probably the primary cause as to why everybody is talking about EVs.

I doubt regular manufacturers would have begun releasing real EV cars without their pressure.

>Tesla caused a hype around EV cars and is probably the primary cause as to why everybody is talking about EVs

That's not a technology thing though. Just a marketing thing.

marketing matters. electric cars have been around for 100 years, but they weren't getting any measurable adoption until Tesla came around and made them seem cool. I don't like a lot about Tesla or Musk, I'm not sure they have what it takes to mature, but you can't dismiss the effect their shenanigans have had on the industry.

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