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Comment by craig1f | Hacker News Reader

The thing I like about Elon, is that when he is attacked for not being perfect, everyone goes back to this one thing that happened.

If the worst thing you can bring up about him is that he called a rescue diver a pedophile this one time, he's pretty reliable. This is what, in space, we call an anomaly. They happen. It's ok, until they become a pattern.

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Besides that fact that human perfection is not a meaningful concept, I personally consider that episode just a symptom of his personality - nothing more or less than a narcissist, who craves attention. I actually find it a genius, in a perverse way, in the fact that he turned the attention in a business model (although this approach is nothing new). Don't get me wrong, I credit him as a successful enterpreneur - just much inferior than the one he projects (and that a non-small audience believe he is).

Oh, if it was the only bad thing he done - but the work conditions are terrible at his factories, he actively sabotages unions, he is absolutely just sells this engineer image of him: he is NOT a founder of tesla, he simply bought the title, he takes credit for his workers’ accomplishments, the only thing he engineered in tesla for example is some design work. He also sells himself as a self-made millionare, while his father has an emerald mine in South Africa.

So basically he is a narcissist scammer.

His tweets show a trend of narcissistic behavior, the pedophile incident is merely the most egregious.

EDIT: Thanks, @brianlweiner

EDIT2: For the downvoters, whom I can only assume don't agree that he shows narcissistic asshole behavior:

Yeah, I lift a little … pic.twitter.com/UAJdv8qSw1

We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.

I’m not at risk [of contracting Covid-19], neither are my kids

Everybody dies

Tesla stock price is too high imo

Pronouns suck

If I am a narcissist (which might be true), at least I am a useful one

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

FYI you probably meant 'egregious'

In this case both seem to apply.

The "pedophile diver" remark was the culmination of a series of tweets and actions where Elon "designed" a vehicle highly unlikely to help rescue the kids trapped in the cave and tried to convince the rescuers to use it while ignoring their judgement on the matter. It's not a little mistake, it's the culmination of an extended narcissistic rampage. He seems completely incapable of admitting that he might wrong about something when faced with pushback.

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