Philip Low Unmasking Musk

While I hate Elon's politics, I love space exploration, and I believe his motivation with SpaceX is sincere. From the start he made SpaceX with the goal of getting to Mars, and after all these years SpaceX is actually getting near the capability of sending tens of tonnes of cargo to Mars. He's been talking about getting to Mars for more than 20 years, he became a member of the Mars Society in 2001 and wanted to fund a small (unmanned) Mars mission[0], when he wasn't yet a billionaire, but very rich from PayPal, and before SpaceX was founded. Then he invested a big part of his fortune in SpaceX, which was a very risky bet. Even in the early days of SpaceX he planned to make a big rocket capable of getting a big payload to Mars[1] (the "BFR" that the 2005 article is talking about is today's Starship). I wish he had stayed focused on Mars, instead of making Earth's dirty politics even dirtier.

[0] https://spaceref.com/status-report/marsnow-19-profile-elon-m...

[1] https://www.thespacereview.com/article/497/1

Edit: example https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1763054266762121517

Yesterday, I posted an "Ask HN" on the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42892245

I wonder if there's some sort of coordinated flagging of Musk-related topics going on, especially given Musk's ongoing (and possibly illegal) government interference. The fact that the flags seem to come so rapidly (enough to mark [dead] within ~30s) is suspicious to me. Can dang comment on this?

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/24/nx-s1-5087892/nasa-starliner-...

Elon did two Nazi salutes.

He did them for five main reasons:

1. He was concerned that the "Nazi wing" of the MAGA movement, under the influence of Steve Bannon, would drive him away from Trump, somewhere in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, rather than in the West Wing which is where he wants to be. He was already feeling raw over the fact that Trump did not follow his recommendation for Treasury Secretary and that the Senate also did not pick his first choice;

2. He was upset that he had had to go to Israel and Auschwitz to make up for agreeing with a Nazi sympathizer online and wanted to reclaim his "power" just like when he told advertisers to "go fuck yourself". This has nothing to do with Asperger's;

3. There are some Jews he actually hates: Sam Altman is amongst them;

4. He enjoys a good thrill and knew exactly what he was doing;

5. His narcissistic self was hoping the audience would reflect his abject gesture back to him, thereby showing complete control and dominion over it, and increasing his leverage over Trump. That did not happen. Bottom line: Elon is not a Nazi but he did give two Nazi Salutes, which is completely unacceptable.

N.B. For the few whining about my post "sans connaissance the cause" and either trembling about my having shattered their illusions about their cult leader or thinking I am defending Elon:

I. My point is that he is transactional rather than ideological;

II. That being said, I am not defending him or his actions, just explaining them and confirming that he did, in fact, do two Nazi Salutes if anyone had doubts or believed the doctored footage of Taylor Swift doing the same thing to normalize what Elon did;

III. At some point, it matters to few people if one is a Nazi or if one acts like one. My father was a Holocaust Survivor. 32 out of 35 of his family members were murdered by Nazis. My mother's grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz;

IV. After Elon tried to manipulate NV's stock in 2021, 1 fired him with cause, and he was unable to exercise his stock options. In the aftermath of the Nazi Salutes, I told both him and his wealth manager to fuck off. Any remaining friendship between us ended with the Nazi Salutes. He is blocked on my end and I am pretty sure l am blocked on his;

V. I did not share what he told me in confidence. I just happen to know him extremely well, the person, the aspirations and the Musk Mask;

VI. I know who I am, have no desire to be famous and give exceedingly few media interviews. I prefer to work in obscurity and let the work speak for itself. I am certainly not envious and would definitely not want Elon's life, including living in a bubble and having to make one outlandish claim after another and manipulate the public, elections and governments to shore up my stock and prevent the bubble from bursting. Unlike Elon, I am an actual scientist and inventor and I am not pretending to be someone I am not, like a fellow who got his BA in Econ at 26 all of a sudden pretending to be an expert in mechanical engineering, chemistry, rocket science, neuroscience and Al and keeping the people actually doing the work hidden and paying people to play online games in his name to appear smart and feed his so-called "Supergenius" Personality Cult — the "Imperator" has no clothes, and he knows it. I am just very disappointed in what happened to someone I had a lot of deep admiration for and the first person to find out about my concerns about his behavior was always him;

VII. He is the one who betrayed a number of his friends, including Sergey, and, given his actions, many other people who believed him and believed in him. I have no sympathy for this behavior, and at some point, after having repeatedly confronted it in private, I believe the ethical thing to do is to speak out, forcefully and unapologetically, whatever the risks may be, so as to not be part of the timid flock remaining silent while evil is being done, including propping up far right governments around the world in part to deregulate his companies and become the first trillionaire and otherwise to "rule the planet" — he knows Mars won't be terraformed in his lifetime and he really wants his planet. No joke... Ethics matter. People matter. The truth matters.

I took down Descartes (through the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness) and I am definitely not afraid of a so-called inventor whose greatest invention is his image.

I will not be silent. You should not be either. I am a sovereign individual, and so are you. I stood up to bullies, and am stepping out of the dark to do it again.

Stop working for him and being exploited by him. Sell your Tesla and dump your Tesla stock. Nikola Testa was a great, creative and courageous man who led with ethics and by example and he would not have wanted for his good name to have been used by him and would agree with my principled stance. Sign off of "X" which is boosting far right propaganda, and of your Starlink as well. He is a complete cunt (British slang not meant to be offensive to women) who doesn't give a shit about you — only about power. Just ask Reid Hoffman. He only wants to control, dominate and use you — don't let him and cut him and his businesses out of your and your loved ones' lives entirely. Remember he is a total miserable self-loathing poser, and unless you happen to be one too, he will be much more afraid of you than you should ever be of him.

He will probably come after me, and I am completely fine with that. I am a self-made multibillionaire with an armada of lawyers — literally — and most importantly, I know who I am and who I stand for, the people and their freedoms, whatever happens. He can send his dumb Proud Boys and Oath Keepers after me and they will be butchered on sight. Either way, I would rather die with honor than live as a coward.

"Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." — Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Then watch the videos from the past where he reaches out from his heart and lack of facial contortions. There is zero similarity between his past 'from my heart' and his salutes.

Then put his salute videos next to nazi salutes and try to find the difference. Look at the un-natural elbow position, unnatural finger placement, straight rigid wrist, the angels, un-natural timing of the movement.