[flagged]
The weird thing here is that Elon waltzed in with a 'solution' that was ostensibly flawed to anyone but those with the most superficial understanding of what was required, and blithely presented it to actual experts who were putting their lives at risk, and then expected to be praised. What would be normal, would have been to graciously take the reality check he was given and adjust his priors. This is what actually intelligent people do: they learn; they grow up. And maybe one day, Elon will make it to adulthood, but his early fortunes have insulated him from any need for introspection.
This is a pretty interesting interview with a journalist who appears to have spent a fair bit of time with Musk: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas.... It made this relevant observation:
> Which I felt was a little dramatic. And I thought: Wow, this is a man in his 40s who thinks that he’s the center of the universe. So it always has that element of drama.
> I think he’s greatly informed by video games. Someone described him to me as Ready Player One, and everybody else is an N.P.C. — a nonplayer character. He always has to be the hero or the person who matters the most. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he has engineered it — getting the founder role when he’s not actually the founder or rewriting history or using public relations to make himself the founder.
> He understands the hero’s journey kind of thing rather well. Also the stakes have to be very high, and if it doesn’t work, we’re doomed. He tends to overstate problems. Most companies have problems, but: Everything is a disaster here, and I’m here to fix it. Or: Everything sucks, and everybody previously is criminal or evil or “pedophiles.” A word he likes to use a lot.
> In one tweet, he called Yoel Roth, who was head of trust and safety at Twitter, “evil.” And said that I was “filled with seething hate” — which is really dramatic and ridiculous. I’m not seething with hate.
That quote wasn't from Ezra Klein, it was from Kara Swisher. Klein was interviewing her.
I completely forgot this feeling and now I want it back
I find it borderline offensive that you equate someone under stress saying "stick it up his ass" as "toxic attitude" that is on the same level as going to the media and saying "I have evidence that this person is a pedophile" (Oh, not to mention the fact that Musk then fucking HIRED a PI to try to gather evidence for when he was called on his bullshit).
"Stick it up your ass" and "I have evidence that you are a pedophile" are not "reflections of the same".
"Stick it up your ass" won't ruin anybody's life. Being falsely accused of pedophilia can, has, and does ruin lives.
I think it takes a clear bias to even conflate the two in some attempt to defend Musk and make the cave diver the bad guy.
Except that like the kings of old, Elon is not a normal person, and therefore his "mistakes" are not normal either, because they have repercussions.
The whole point is that with great power comes great responsibility. And when you have someone who can't handle that power responsibly without lashing out the way Elon does in a highly immature manner, then you do wind up with a modern version of the "off with your head" tyrant. Sure, he may not cut off your head, but he can cut off your livelihood.
This isn't accurate.
> "He can stick his submarine where it hurts," Unsworth replied. [1]
There are plenty of places that a submarine can go where it will hurt, such as ear canals. You are assuming in bad faith that Unsworth told him to place it in a specific area.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2018/07/16/629348178/elon-musk-and-briti...
Being an asshole is almost always a red flag. It's like teaching someone to not eat grilled babies by eating grilled babies yourself to show them how bad it looks.