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Comment by andsoitis | Hacker News Reader

> If he wants to be remembered as the dude global labor had to organize against, I mean, the bar is already pretty low where he's at but perhaps we have yet to hit bedrock. Probably with a bit to be said about dying a hero or living long enough to become the villain through the appropriate lens.

Highly recommend watching the full interview that Andrew Ross Sorkin did with Elon Musk (it is the one where he told advertisers to go fuck themselves) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BfMuHDfGJI

It is wide ranging and fascinating. In it, he explicitly says that he doesn't do things in order for other people to like him. Instead, he focuses on making the best products (e.g. best cars, best rockets, best satellite).

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MANY things he does are explicitly to be liked. That’s why he posts all the time, goes on interviews, shows up on SNL. Buys a social media company then burns company hours on figuring out why he isn’t the most viewed person on it.

He really, really, wants to be internet liked, that’s he claims he doesn’t care about.

I'd hazard it's more important to him to be famous, whatever the sentiment, rather than liked.

No, he wouldn’t get into so many mudslinging fights if he just cared about being famous. He desperately wants to be liked and thought of as cool.

There is a melancholy, defeated aspect to saying someone with such notable imagination and success as Elon is motivated only by insecurity.

I think many deeply insecure tech bros relate to him so much because they don't realize they themselves are that same sort of insecure. Also, I never said he was only motivated by it, he is just obviously extremely insecure.

I don't know what motivates him, but his outward behaviour is that of an incredibly insecure individual, who is constantly seeking validation, and often throws a tantrum when subject to criticism.

It's possible that Elon in his 20's was a better person than Elon today. People change, and not always for the better. In Particular, get drunk on power, surrounded by yes men, etc.

> MANY things he does are explicitly to be liked. That’s why he posts all the time, goes on interviews, shows up on SNL. Buys a social media company to goose his number of views. > He really, really, wants to be internet liked, that’s he claims he doesn’t care about.

If that were true, then why consciously piss so many people off?

Because his fans love it when he does

> He really, really, wants to be internet liked

Which is different than "liked by 100% of the global population"

Liked by certain interest groups and not others.

Despite really disliking Elon as a whole, one thing I like about him is that he expresses himself like a human being, contrary to most of the HR/PR/D&I drones who claim he's an antisemite now.

Not having a PR team is cool but it’s really just a doorway to seeing how most of these folks really are and it’s just desperately wanting to be seen as Tony Stark.

> claim he's an antisemite

We saw the tweets (it wasn't just the one) he boosted and agreed with.

You can absolutely be a 'real' and authentic person without promoting that kind of garbage.

I don't think I'm alone in having previously thought he was perhaps a bit eccentric, but involved in some cool stuff. I lost a lot of respect for him though.

It sounds like you've made up your mind that he is antisemitic, so this might be in vain, but see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38544345

I read what I read, on multiple occasions, on the platform itself, rather than reported by some 3rd party.

We all screw up, and IDK, maybe once could be like "uh, sorry, I was really high and not at all myself and I did this thing", but a repeated pattern is enough to convince me that where there's smoke, there's fire.

I don't take any pleasure in it. I preferred thinking he was a bit weird (but who isn't) and doing some cool things.

> but a repeated pattern

You think he repeatedly demonstrates antisemitism? The evidence is quite the opposite if you listened to the interviews he does on the topic of the war between Israel and Hamas (this interview being one of them, where he talks in nuanced terms about the difficulty of peace in the Middle East in general and the difficulty of the current war in particular).

Cherry picking things someone says or endorses which aren't anti-semetic doesn't explain the things they say or endorse which are anti-semetic. I have no idea how someone comes to believe "look over there" is a defense for explicitly endorsing an anti-semetic conspiracy theory.

This is like pointing out that a murderer went their whole life up until the alleged murder doing stuff that wasn't murdering (as far as we know), and has done so since, too (as far as we know), so how can they be a murderer?

It's worth noting, too, like the killer, the examples we know of are just the examples we know of.

If there's part of the interview where he admits he endorsed an anti-semetic conspiracy theory, and was wrong to do so (not just that it was a mistake) and explains how he came to endorse an anti-semetic conspiracy theory, and how he now rejects the anti-semetic conspiracy theory and the anti-semites who subscribe to it, perhaps he should put that info into the format and platform that he used to endorse an anti-semetic conspiracy theory.

I don't think he's antisemitic, but I think his beliefs rhyme with antisemitism, sufficiently close that he could go "yep, totally true" to a slightly-coded antisemitic trope like Great Replacement Theory without realizing he's endorsing antisemitism.

I think he wants to be polarizing. It's not the same thing.

I think that his political bloviating (to put it mildly) is best explained by Matt Levine's theory, that he wants to expand Tesla's appeal to conservatives. Getting plugged by Ramaswamy at the last Republican debate to cheers from the audience suggests it isn't the worst strategy. But Tesla's core product will still have issues with this segment, because conservatives are particularly suspicious of heavily computerized cars.

However, putting Tesla directly into the political line of fire with the union fight seems more like a case of personal beliefs run amok. Many companies making cars in the United States run non-union shops, including most of the Japanese ones. Their behavior abroad doesn't usually create a problem. But the more that Tesla itself is positioned as a political entity, rather than a car company that happens to have a conservative CEO (which didn't kill Taco Bell), the more he invites the kind of backlash that could really hurt. European regulators watching him scorn their beliefs may take that into account, fairly or not, if they are called on to mediate this union dispute. It seems like a very risky overextension.

> I think that his political bloviating (to put it mildly) is best explained by Matt Levine's theory, that he wants to expand Tesla's appeal to conservatives.

Or, he's a 50yo man with multiple divorces, few personal friends to vent to, and numerous children he's not on speaking terms with.

He just joined the millions of men his age that have the same baggage and the free time to spend bloviating online about wokeness.

I find it funny that you think he should not be able to do whatever he wants with his companies. He bought Twitter and it was his prerogative to direct everyone there to tell him why he's not number one on that platform. He did not buy Twitter to make money.

Where exactly did the poster say he should not be able to do so? It’s just vain.

> Where exactly did the poster say he should not be able to do so?

It is implied with the phrase “burns company hours”

All I see is the implication that it’s a giant waste of everyone’s time.

I hear your sarcasm, but it is also worth to be skeptical of the claim in that same sentence that “to direct everyone there”…

there isn't any sarcasm there, just a poster pointing out the implication that elmu's twitter antics are a giant waste of everyone’s time.

elmu's tasking of his staff to figure out why his trolling wasn't making him popular enough was a real thing, and a good example of his time wasting abilities in furtherance of his desperate, desperate, desperate need to feel popular.

> He did not buy Twitter to make money.

Is that what he told the banks when he was taking out the loan to buy Twitter?

The guy seems to be a textbook case of narcissistic personality disorder.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-...

Remember when he wedged himself into that Thai cave rescue mission, and talked shit about one of the divers on Twitter? Yeah, that was definitive proof that the man is an attention addict. It's sad because he's a brilliant businessman.

His behavior on X seems to contradict that though. What does any of that have to do with building the best products?

> His behavior on X seems to contradict that though.

Then why piss off advertisers?

Because that grows his popularity with other groups. Same tactics Trump uses.

You're trying to find a rational reason for impulsive behavior. There is no "why". He thought the anti-semitic meme was funny/right without thinking too much about it. Then he got mad at advertisers for, as he thought, trying to rein him in.

If you want proof that Elon isn't too concerned about making good products, try using Twitter/X without being logged in. The experience is significantly worse than before the takeover.

> You're trying to find a rational reason for impulsive behavior. There is no "why". He thought the anti-semitic meme was funny/right without thinking too much about it.

If you cared to watch the the interview I linked to above with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the NYT Dealbook summmit, you will hear three things:

a) remorse for the dumb thing he said (he says it is probably the worst mistake he has made)

b) when you say a lot, you're abound to say foolish things and that he has

c) he actually re-explained his clarification of the logic that was widely labeled as antisemitic but that people have chosen to ignore it. If you think this is a cop out, look at (a) again, where he expresses remorse for having said what he said in the way he said it.

> Then he got mad at advertisers for, as he thought, trying to rein him in.

Yes, when people try to limit what you say (beyond the law) then it is natural to be upset about it.

> If you want proof that Elon isn't too concerned about making good products, try using Twitter/X without being logged in. The experience is significantly worse than before the takeover.

Let's talk in 3 years.

Meanwhile, I'll point you to Tesla (Model Y is the best-selling car of any kind across the world), SpaceX, and Starlink. I don't know about you, but I would classify these as best in class.

Beyond what law?

> Beyond what law?

X operates worldwide and even though Elon Musk is a staunch believer in free speech, X also has to follow laws of different jurisdictions, including limitations on speech.

>> Elon Musk is a staunch believer in free speech

That's just, like, your opinion, man. And I don't believe it.

Agreed, what a deranged position to take despite the huge evidence to the contrary.

It’s a very specific and weird personality type that’s constantly drawn to white knighting racists and billionaires.

> b) when you say a lot, you're abound to say foolish things and that he has

"Foolish things" sure, but this is a little too forgiving. If I talk enough, I'm bound to call someone the N word at some point, for example?

> a) remorse for the dumb thing he said (he says it is probably the worst mistake he has made)

This is the same interview where he told the advertisers he needs for revenue to go fuck themselves. I don't think the remorse is genuine.

> Yes, when people try to limit what you say (beyond the law) then it is natural to be upset about it.

I also feel that Disney is limiting what I say by not giving me millions in ad revenue. That's just the reality I have to live with though.

Most people have all kinds of practical limitations on what they can say. I can't tell my boss to go fuck himself and still put food on the table. Joe Biden can't tell the American public to go fuck themselves and still get elected. I'm not sure why Elon feels entitled to be uniquely free from consequences for his utterances.

because advertisers make X worse?

How does his behavior on X contradict it? I'm not following.

Continually posting on social media about topics unrelated to building cars, rockets, satellites is all about influencing public perception of yourself. So clearly he does care what people think of him and actively spends time managing that.

You’re giving him way too much credit, there.

He posts on Twitter because he’s addicted to it &can’t really stop himself. It’s not a grand strategy of PR.

I'm regularly posting on the media simply to check, if I'm wrong about something - and, more importantly, if so, why. It's not necessarily trolling, when someone posts an opinion, that is "out there".

In that sense, I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt there, but I don't understand why he has to do it with his real name.

But he bought X so he's also going to post about it which runs the gamut on topics around the entire world.

Stares in soviet-era car body fitment issues. Best what now?

...best cars, best rockets, best social network for spreading propaganda and false narratives.

> ...best social network for spreading propaganda and false narratives.

You might have that view of YouTube in general but this is an interview during the New York Times Dealbook summit.

In this one he admitted something about he said some very dumb shit on tweeter, so maybe his fans can accept that he does say dumb shit and stop defending that, let his lawyers and PR team defend him.

IMO soon he will admit all this anti union stuff was also dumb.

> so maybe his fans can accept that he does say dumb shit and stop defending that

For what it’s worth, I don’t consider myself a fan, for the simple reason that I think no human is perfect or likable (Steve Jobs, Bach, Napoleon, Mother Theresa, to name a few). Instead it is better to evaluate someone’s ideas and impact.

What is disappointing to me is that we (I count myself here too) make up a rigid opinion of people based on memes, sound bites, unnuanced morsels of information, rather than demonstrating deep curiosity.

And so my responses on this thread should be viewed through the lens of surfacing more nuance and curiosity, rather than cheap and absolutist opinions that lack nuance.

More conversation please.

I like people who say what they mean and don't care what other people think even when they say things I disagree with. I hate people who read from PR scripts. So why would I not defend it?

I do not understand, you like Elon because he says dumb shit, so you try to defend the dumb shit? How do you do that? You try to make the dumb shit look smart or you try to excuse Elon because maybe he was drunk/tired/drugged when he said that dumb shit ?

When he admits it was dumb and his fans argued for hours that it was smart how do they feel?

Who doesn't say dumb shit sometimes? Why would that bother me?

>Who doesn't say dumb shit sometimes? Why would that bother me?

I do not mean you should stop loving Elon if he says say some dumb stuff, but why should Elon fans defend dumb stuff with even more dumb arguments.

Agreed, and if Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, are for the people, let the people decide whether want to buy a Tesla and support Elon. Cutting off shipping to their rightful owners sounds like you are curtailing your own citizens from living as they please. Would be interesting if they and other countries unions had stopped the shipments of iPhones to their citizen consumers due to the working conditions and no unions allowed at the time in China. I am sure a lot of sanctimonious iPhone users would be caught in a conundrum.

As I understand, this is not a top-down decision by the government, but unions and their workers.

You can still drive from Sweden to Germany and buy a Tesla there, if you care enough about it.

BTW, you will always reach the point where you need to "curtail[..] your own citizens from living as they please" or else you'll end up with kids blowing up your stuff just for the fun of it.

I am not equating citizen adults with children, and I do not believe in trying to legislate intelligence.

More in the classic libertarian sense that if what I enjoy is not directly harming you or taking away your rights, keep to your own business.

Here it is a Scandinavian choosing to buy a Tesla with no concern or argument concerning labor unions. BTW, the UAW sucks.

They aren’t protesting working Tesla conditions outside their countries. They’re protesting how Tesla treats the workers/unions inside Sweden.

The capitalist idea of voting with your wallet doesn't really work that way, it's throwing away the power of collective bargaining and instead leaving every man for himself, which would be an instant race to the bottom.

The workers are unionised because if they weren't, Tesla would be leading the charge on torching whatever rights workers had previously agreed to.

More countries could stand to do this, to show that it is the people who have power over corporations, not the other way around.

Presumably many of those citizens are union members (potentially more than one at the same time), so at worst they'd be ambivalent.

What a bizarre parallel to the iPhone. No one is buying a $50,000+ car because they want to 'support Elon', who is Top 5 among the world's richest people.

If the freight workers unloading shipping containers containing iPhones choose to strike, it will be due to changes in working conditions that affect them, not what conditions are like in a foreign factory.

My parallel to the iPhone was a reference to the horrendous conditions at Foxconn from 2006 to 2010, and the West's insatiable need for iPhones didn't draw any much support until it blew up in the media, and Apple looked evil. I think the formation of a union in Shenzen, China mirrors early unions in first-world countries, however, my belief is that unions in first-world nations are now more like extortionists and are not as needed and do not truly represent their members.

Tesla is a big seller in Norway, then Sweden, followed third by Denmark in Scandinavia. The governments push them legislatively and via financial subsidies. I am not fully informed of the metal worker's gripes in Sweden, nor the labor structures in Scandinavia, but the mob of Norway dock workers and others in Denmark unions all joining in, because Elon doesn't agree with unions or forming them, seems more a first-world problem (like people not potentially getting their iPhones), but with the iPhone nobody boycotted Apple from 2006 to 2010, and then in 2012, writers, not unions, started to raise consumer consciousness on the issue with suggestions of boycotts on Apple.

I hope Elon tells Scandinavia to F-off like he just did to X advertisers. Sweden is one of the world's most unionized nations, but it is a fairly homongenous society. The percentages are going down as they accept more immigrants into their society. In addition, Scandinavia has bought the EV craze hook, line, and sinker, even though EVs are turning out not to be the cure for all the ills of the world as many thought they once were. They are heavily invested in many ways. I am curious to see how this plays out.

[Edit] I don't think the consumers are personally buying Teslas to financially support Elon personally, but by choosing to buy a Tesla they are voting with their wallets, and I think pro- and anti-union are two valid stances. Neither is the product of being brainwashed as some have commented here.

> let the people decide whether want to buy a Tesla and support Elon.

Okay, let's let the people decide whether they want to buy heroin and support violent cartels. Let's take the same approach to slavery. Or fire safety of buildings.

In fact, can you name 1 occasion in history when a consumer boycott stopped any kind of bad corporate behaviour - it does not even stop child slavery.

Wow, from an anti- to pro-union discussion and allowing people to purchase products that are currently and legally on the market for purchase in their country, and let a mob of workers come in between that contract, to heroin and violent cartels, slavery, and fire safety.

Do you agree with the legal sale of alcohol then? Over 80% of violent crimes involve it. Prohibition didn't work, did it? Personally, I don't drink, but hey, you can drink yourself to death as long as you don't drive and hurt me or others - DUIs, violence, etc...

The unions will fall in Scandinavia once the countries become less homogeneous as much as some fight it. They are already declining in number and you can't blame Elon.

While your at it, according to your logic, they should put curfews on citizens going out at the hours surrounding noon and midnight to prevent crime, since so much of it takes place at that time. You don't want to support violent crime do you? While your at it, ban alcohol and end government taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, because bad, and people are infants to be raised by Big Brother.

> let a mob of workers come in between that contract

Without the 'mob of workers' you would enjoy the same working conditions as currently they have in factories in China, for children.

We literally used to send children to die in the coalmines untill the 'mob of workers' stopped it.

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