I personally fucking love rockets and what he did. But for the past years made me hate the man.
My guess is that most people here are center-right wing, or at least a majority of HN isn't left-leaning.
It's surprising he managed to make even that audience hate him
I wouldn't call management-bashing leftist, everyone engages in that, even if right-wingers refuse to go further than individual action.
That you think they are is the propaganda working on you.
I can believe in the profit motive without thinking that we should ignore science.
Even the current administrations project 2025 comes from right wing tech extremists (mixed with christian faschists) that believe that tech CEOs should be feudal kings in a broken up America, I don't think any website is closer to this than hackernews.
Why bother engaging? Lefties in America are mad they lost the election and lefties in Europe are mad that Americans are expressing their opinions about European politics. They are angry, and don't want to engage in good faith or have a real conversation. So why bother trying to engage with people that just want to rant.
It is like if your girlfriend comes to you and rants about her day. She doesn't want to debate the issue she is ranting about and if you tried to do so you'd be reading the room very wrong.
Your entire comment, by the way, is inaccurate. He is not incompetent or stupid, obviously. He isn't failing: the EU is putting tariffs on EVs made in China because it can't compete on price. The rest of the stuff is just pathetic. Nazi! REALLY? That is the level of discourse on HN now.
It is so obvious that these threads are brigaded.
Apart from the leftists, the pro war lobby is also mad at peace talks. And they have many more organizations like USAID.
Musk is one of the largest beneficiaries of the "pro-war lobby", through government contracts. See how well DOGE will (not) go after those, you might be surprised. I won't.
Elon Musk is an idiot, he did abandon his child [1], he did do a nazi salute [2], he did have a neonazi background even before that [3], he did cheat at video game for attention [4]. The guy tweets an average of 800 times a week [5], how is he finding the time to work on his companies AND run a governement agency? He doesn't work, that's the answer.
Obviously you won't open these links, you won't change your mind. You won't document yourself on how Elon failed several ventures through his management, how he didn't build his succesful ones, etc. I'm starting to wonder what is would take for the likes of you to reconsider your position at this point. Have the guy yell "BLOOD AND SOIL" during a rally, maybe? Would that even be enough?
[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/elon-musk-...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/21/the-gestu...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Views_of_Elon_Musk#Race_and_wh...
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/22/elon-musk...
[5] https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/14/elon-musk-tweets-so-much-p...
I've seen some weird meltdowns from people who were Ukraine boosters saying they should ally with China. Russia and China are allies though, so this doesn't make much sense. Europe is so ridiculously weak militarily and ideologically opposed to spending money on defense that all they can do is talk. They're just a minor player on the world stage now, like South America or something. At least South America decided war was a bad idea in the 19th century with the war of the Triple Alliance and smartly sat out all the 20th century's wars.
I'm from Rhodesia - not far from where Musk was - and my dad was called up to fight the communist guerillas there that you Americans helped to get into power.
I'd be interested to know how do you spin that to make it about "lefties?"
Because the media repeatedly slanders them as extremist far-right nazis. They are just a normal right wing party. All their policy positions are bog standard right wing politics. Their leaders are milquetoast and the electoral system in Germany means they would need to compromise in coaliton anyway.
>and saluting-
He didn't do a Nazi salute but I am glad he waved his arm like that because it is a great diagnostic factor for MDS. If you look at that gesture in the proper context, with the sound on, and remember that these people go and talk in public every day, and remember he is literally a massive autist and we ALL know that aspies can be a bit prone to awkwardness in their movement, and you combine all of that data and conclude it was a Nazi salute, you have MDS. You are letting your hatred of the guy cloud your judgment.
>I am very angry about his incredible behavior and statements about Ukraine.
Ukraine is complicated though. It isn't black and white. Those regions in the east really are different from the rest of Ukraine. Do they have the right to self-determination? They weren't getting it from Ukraine.
On the other hand, Russia likely had some hand in formenting the rebelliousness of the region.
It goes without saying that invading countries is bad. But, no progress on the ground in Ukraine since what, November 2022? They aren't going to kick Russia out entirely, and Russia isn't going to take Ukraine.
It seems obvious to me that there will need to be a negotiated settlement, it will need to involve Donetsk and Luhansk being part of Russia. But that would have also been a solution years ago, or before the war even started (in 2022) given that the war actually started in 2014.
So obviously there is a tension between condemning Russia for its invasion and also recognising that Ukraine will probably come out of the war in the same position territorially it would have been in 10+ years ago if the Donbas regions had been allowed to break away.
With that context, the idea that Zelensky is somewhat responsible for the billions of wasted money and many wasted lives is a bit more palatable.
That all said, fuck Russia and fuck Putin.
>I'm from Rhodesia - not far from where Musk was - and my dad was called up to fight the communist guerillas there that you Americans helped to get into power.
What happened in Rhodesia during the decolonial period was one of the worst things the international community has done. A functioning and prosperous country that is now a dysfunctional racist hellhole.
Well, you should listen to me then because I know the smell of the people who made it like that and they are the same smells coming from your pal and his handler. That's what you don't get.
He has no place in European democracies, if Americans want to surrender their government to power drunk robber barons, they're free to do so. But stay the f away from our continent, we still care about "woke stuff" like human rights and basic empathy.
As for his nazi salute, at the very least that "akward gesture" was a dog whistle to actual neonazis. That's how they interpreted it anyway [1]. Musk didn't go out of his to deny it was. It's also not the first time he engaged with neonazis [2]. "If it looks like a nazi salute, serves the same purpose as a nazi salute, etc.".
[1] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250121-musk-salute-a...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Views_of_Elon_Musk#Race_and_wh...
Secondly, being right of the centrist party doesn't make them far right. The CDU have arguably moved from centre to centre-right but that just makes the AfD plain old normal right. Not hard or extreme or far. Not centre or soft or light. Just right-wing. Not a nasty, dirty, wet right, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy right with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat.
>But anyway, why shouldn't Germans be angry at Musk, a foreign oligarch, using his wealth and influence to help the right-most party?
I don't remember Americans kicking up a fuss over European leaders criticising Trump during his election campaigns. And if they did, they were wrong to do so. We are allowed to have an express opinions about what goes on in other countries including in their elections. It appears to have made almost no difference anyway. How many German people are really going to change their vote because of what an American thinks?
>if Americans want to surrender their government to power drunk robber barons, they're free to do so. But stay the f away from our continent, we still care about "woke stuff" like human rights and basic empathy.
Except you also demand they defend you, police the world's trade routes, buy your products, sell things to you, invest in your markets, act as the world's reserve currency so you can trade, etc. How many countries want to sell goods internationally for Euros? Not many. Most want US dollars.
The European idea of human rights has become so divorced from the original definition that it is a joke. It is a new and different concept masquerading as "human rights" because those words have some cultural cachet, although that is fading as it becomes clearer and clearer that is is just used as a cudgel to mean whatever policies the Greens and socialists want to pass.
Can't convince people that your energy policy is sensible? Don't worry, it is "environmental human rights". Climate rights and cultural rights and social rights and everything under the sun is now a human right. Privacy is the worst. It now means everything. Privacy is the right to control everything about how you are observed, perceived, remembered, and recorded. You have the right to control how information about you is sent and received. No longer can you do something as simple as ask the question "When he worked for you, how did he do?" No no no. That is collecting personal information about him without his consent! You can't google him, that is using the information for a purpose other than the purpose for which it was created! Human rights have become a way to control what you may think about other people and to justify any policy. If you have a human right to everything the term loses all its meaning. If you have a right to everything, you have a right to nothing.
>As for his nazi salute, at the very least that "akward gesture" was a dog whistle to actual neonazis.
No it wasn't. It didn't look anything at all like a Nazi salute. It is 100% confirmation bias because of people being primed by headlines.
A dog whistle requires intent. A dog hearing a high pitched noise does not mean someone blew a dog whistle.