When I see this kind of emotional response I immediately lose all respect for someone. Instead of taking the time to explain what the person did wrong, they result to hyperbole?
He might be an ok engineer, and he's a talented enough business manager, and some of his businesses might serve some public good, but he's still a deeply flawed moral agent making moral choices very clearly driven by hatred, ignorance, and greed.
Also, whatever blaming Musk for his moral failings might be, it's not scapegoating. A scapegoat is by definition innocent. Musk is anything but that.
I can think of many other companies and rich owners who have done much worse things, so it's surprising people seem so passionate about Elon.
Given he apologized for his Tweet that had accusations of anti-semitism, is your main evidence of him being awful is that advertiseres pulled out of the platform? From what I understand, some of them are back. Will you retract your hatred if they all return?
Me too. He's still a trash fire of a human being on a moral level. The businesses that he runs aren't anything that I see as valuable contributions to society, of them SpaceX, the least bad, is still a trash fire of malfeasance that's doing harm to ground based astronomy and also allows Musk to interfere in world politics, as he did when he defended Russia by blocking StarLink access to Ukraine's offensives.
>is your main evidence of him being awful is that advertiseres pulled out of the platform?
I picked a particular instance of his regular expressions of bigotry since it's clear by the ramifications just how serious it was, but it's only one of a number of past racist and antisemitic episodes, I could have gone with his work to platform the worst of the far right on Twitter, many racist incidents at Tesla, his various sex abuse cases, his infantile labeling of a cave diving hero as a "pedophile" (while Musk himself deliberately chose to reinstate a Twitter account banned for posting child porn), I could have gone with his vindictive firing of employees who criticize him at his various companies, or his promoting "pizzagate" and other far-right extremism, his regular deception of investors at Tesla, and any number of his many other moral failings. The guy is a narcissistic sociopath who has made a long string of ethically dubious choices from the start to make his money with PayPal. He's a complete moral failure and always has been, this is why he's as successful as he is - he is clearly very comfortable transgressing moral boundaries that normal people are not.
>Will you retract your hatred if they all return?
I don't hate Musk, I mostly pity him, he's an absolute garbage fire of moral failure and knows it, it must be horrible. He spends a lot of time excusing himself and no time making amends and I see a pathetic, lonely, unhappy person incapable of establishing any healthy relationships with others.
I'm not a fan of Musk by any means, but this seems to wildly mischaracterize what happened. Are you going by the actual details of the situation, or just the reported headlines?
My understanding, which I just backed up with some review of the situation, is that SpaceX allowed starling service continuously, and footed the bill until the US government stepped in to pay it. They allowed it for humanitarian and defense purposes, but refused to extend service into contested territories that Ukraine was assaulting to recover, especially after a Starlink enabled assault drone was discovered.
I'm not sure it's accurate to say they defended Russia be refusing to allow their service to be used as an offensive weapon when they had the ability to control that. Many companies would do the same. Many developers would do the same for their code. I doubt they would consider their actions defending Russia.
2. Violated the social contract with employees, investors, suppliers, and regulators[2].
3. Fired SpaceX employees for criticizing his behavior[3].
4. Alleged affair with Nicole Shanahan, which he denied[4].
5. Neuralink's ethical concerns regarding animal testing and human trials[5].
6. Disbanded Twitter's 'Ethical AI' team after acquisition[6].
7. Accused a British cave diver of being a pedophile without evidence[7].
8. Reopened a Tesla factory in violation of public health orders[7].
9. Tesla accused of rampant racism and sexism[7].
10. Called working from home 'morally wrong' and criticized Silicon Valley's 'laptop classes'[8].
11. History of firing cybersecurity employees, harassing a flight attendant, and suing a whistleblower[9].
12. Prioritized his own image and greed over benefiting people[9].
13. Deceived investors by exaggerating the capabilities of his software[9].
14. Unreasonable work expectations and disregard for work-life balance[9].
15. Defended the decision not to allow SpaceX to be complicit in war and conflict escalation[10].
16. Tesla's involvement in alleged child labor and poor tax conduct[11].
17. Antisemitic and racist tweets spiked on Twitter after Musk's acquisition[12].
18. Spread misinformation and attacked perceived enemies on Twitter[7].
19. Paid a private investigator to dig up dirt on the cave diver he insulted[7].
20. Musk's posts on Twitter since 2020 deemed sexually suggestive and clashing with company policies on diversity and workplace ethics[3].
[1] Elon Musk: A timeline of his most recent controversial moments https://news.sky.com/story/elon-musk-what-are-his-most-recen...
[2] The business ethics of Elon Musk, Tesla, Twitter and the tech industry - Harvard Law School https://hls.harvard.edu/today/the-business-ethics-of-elon-mu...
[3] SpaceX fired employees for criticising Musk as 'distraction ... - WION https://www.wionews.com/world/spacex-fired-employees-for-cri...
[4] Elon Musk’s Most Controversial Moments Through the Years https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/pictures/elon-musk...
[5] Elon Musk's Neuralink dilemma: Decoding minds, challenging ethics https://www.trtworld.com/science-and-tech/elon-musks-neurali...
[6] Elon Musk Has Fired Twitter’s ‘Ethical AI’ Team https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-ethical-ai-team/
[7] A Reminder of Just Some of the Terrible Things Elon Musk Has Said and Done https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/04/elon-musk-twitter-te...
[8] Elon Musk: Working from home is 'morally wrong' when service workers still have to show up https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/16/elon-musk-work-from-home-mor...
[9] Uncovering Elon Musk's Dark Side: Unethical Behavior and Lies https://eightify.app/summary/scams-and-fraud/uncovering-elon...
[10] All the Elon Musk controversies we've seen this year | Euronews https://www.euronews.com/business/2023/12/30/all-the-elon-mu...
[11] How ethical is Tesla, Inc? | Ethical Consumer https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/company-profile/tesla-inc
[12] Elon Musk's most controversial moments https://theweek.com/elon-musk/1022182/elon-musks-most-contro...
[13] Neuralink: Elon Musk’s Brain Chip and Its Ethical and Privacy Concerns https://thesciencesurvey.com/news/2023/05/01/neuralink-elon-...
[14] Elon Musk's battle with Twitter shows that even the brashest, loudest leaders can face a reckoning https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-scandal-controvers...
[15] Criticism of Tesla, Inc. - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Tesla,_Inc.
[16] Elon Musk Slams Accusations of Antisemitism as ‘Bogus’ https://time.com/6337462/elon-musk-antisemitism-x-backlash-d...