It's such a shame that he's sullying his reputation like this. Howard Hughes-like.
He could have retired in a blaze of glory a couple of years ago, straight into the pantheon of epic American entrepreneurs.
He could have retired in a blaze of glory a couple of years ago, straight into the pantheon of epic American entrepreneurs.
These were by far not as bad as some people tend to paint them, the problem with the Star Wars prequels IMHO was more that the "old guard" fanbase tends to be quite the whiny bunch.
The sequels are another topic entirely - these were corporate driven projects which isn't a bad sign per se (see the MCU), but unlike the MCU there wasn't a central person like Kevin Feige who actually took care about a cohesive storyline, directors and script writers kept changing, and the SW universe unlike Star Trek or MCU doesn't have a concept of multiple/alternate realities or time travel so a ton of lore went down the drain for nothing.
The fact those movies are terrible is irrelevant.
EDIT: I had heard he was South African. Googled it though: "South African-born American businessman" so I guess he is American now. Thanks.
To Americans, being born to a different nationality doesn't preclude you from being considered a full and true American. First generation immigrants and naturalized citizens tend to be completely accepted as equals by natural born citizens, so long as they are productive and not criminally destructive.
I do understand that this tends to not be the case in many other countries, where even second generation immigrants may not be fully accepted because ethnic identity is so deeply entwined in nationality in most countries.
Without context though my generous assumption is that when they say "Asian driving a Tesla" they mean "Asian-American driving a Tesla" and are lazy rather than racist.
Putting it another way, if Elon Musk was born in South Africa and happened to be black, I doubt he'd so easily be given a pass as an American. Every article would start "South-african born entrepreneur Elon Musk..."
If Elon had decided to just roll over a couple years ago and do everything the media asked him to do (shutdown the Fremont factory during covid, stop "polluting the sky" with starlink, rely on a nice unionized automaker like GM to "lead the EV revolution") Tesla & SpaceX wouldn't exist today.
No, it’s the fascist-friendly sex-mongering racist rhetoric that gets most people.
Even that could be explained the way if it weren’t for his inept business moves with Twitter and ugly cybertruck.
Jobs proved you can be worshipped while being an eccentric asshole if you’re at least competent.