That's what happens when a CEO associates themselves tightly with their brand and then publicly takes extremely polarizing political action that half the voter base considers antithetical to their values.
Of course that’s a humorous take, not a serious one but I do wonder how much of that is a part of his thinking.
I do think there is a chance he just runs Tesla into the ground and there definitely is an opportunity for another company to come in and position themselves as quality electric vehicles without the politics.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/08/13/e... | https://archive.today/LsqF9
https://www.wsj.com/tech/elon-musks-quest-to-make-men-great-... | https://archive.today/BgTwJ
It’s funny how fast the Hn crowd can go back and forth between asking “what radicalized you?” and looking away from the answer.
Congrats!
Like go read how he talked about it when he first started publicly fantasizing about mars about a decade ago. Ignore the technical stuff and take the few concrete details he does give about his goals per se and not just the means to accomplish them. And extrapolate out into how that could actually work as an economic or governance system. The only way it could work is as a novel configuration of indentured servitude or possibly straight up slavery. He's smoking the worst ideas from a century of dystopian sci fi and taking them as a blueprint. Literally torment nexus shit.
Or I mean the "pedo diver" thing was seven years ago, this was only just after pizzagate, it was a massive clue he was already deep in far right conspiracy theory subcultures. The article by his first wife came out years before that which sure you could have just dismissed as pure fabrication. But already by then there was enough evidence aligned with it that it was wholly credible. https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start...
Or uh, why did he leave south africa in the first place. Not why did he come to the US, which is what he tries to divert this question to if asked. Emigrating is a massive upheaval, it generally takes a lot of pressure, or anticipation of it, to get someone to do that. What pressure did he perceive to be on him?
I'm not willing or qualified to get too into the political history of south africa but 1987 is frequently mentioned in scholarship as when it became broadly clear to south africans that apartheid was going to collapse in the near future. Musk left in 1988. His father was a south african politician who resigned his party over their support of a constitutional reform that would give (limited!) representation to non-white south africans. People aren't their parents of course but a 18-year-old isn't completely free of their influence either. We'll never know for sure obviously but I think it's very likely ... why am I even writing this how can you not see it.
I ask that you read his words, look at the timing, and connect the dots. Any one of these could be a coincidence, sure, I guess. But given his more recent behavior a much simpler explanation is, again, that he was always an extremist freak.
I clocked this guy as a massive threat in like 2011 just based on vibes and kept an eye on him. I think I got this one right.
[I've edited this post rather than respond to some of the comments because I'm rate limited and out of comments for the next several hours.]
He doesn't exactly strike me as a democrat, but I would like to know his plans?
Indentured servitude I believe he proposed himself actually, though I can't find it now I think it was in a twitter thread and I don't think he used those words precisely. But the idea of people taking loans for the transit costs and then working them off on mars he endorses. That could be called a few different things based on implementation I guess but given the other information we have I find it alarming. At the very least it's company town + 21st century state surveillance apparatus + the above paragraph.
And well but anyway the larger point I was making was just that his extreme political views predate covid or his daughter coming out or democrats being mean to him or several other hypotheses that are regularly asserted. If you don't find that one compelling just skip it and check the others.
Isn't there a saying that companies/startups are all dictatorships? That's exactly what a privately-run space colony would actually be, but without any of the outlets that make working for a company tolerable (the theoretical possibility of getting a job elsewhere, being free outside of work hours, etc.).
I don't think it's helpful to use terms like "slavery" or "indentured servitude" to describe the situation, since those are legal concepts for polity where freer statuses are possible. It'd be more like North Korea. Are North Koreans slaves? Not really. Are they free? No. Do you want to be a North Korean? Probably not.
I'm not sure I see that connection. At the time I though "pedo diver" was more throwing around stereotypes about Thailand and the kinds of people who travel there (e.g full of prostitution, and foreigners seeking it) than anything to do with pizzagate. Like a bullying "Oh you went to Thailand, you must be a pedo. Ha ha, look so-and-so is a pedo!"
> The article by his first wife came out around that time too which sure you could have just dismissed as pure fabrication. But already by then there was enough evidence aligned with it that it was wholly credible.
Can you link that article, or at least give a more specific cite?
> I ask that you read his words and connect the dots.
Can you spell it out more clearly, since I don't have enough time to pour over Elon Musk's words to repeat your analysis right now?
You removed all the context. He replied to a professional diver, who dismissed Elon's useless submarine idea, with the genius retort that he was just a pedo guy. If that context doesn't change your view, then you must be fun at parties where it's fine to call people pedo if they have technical oppositions to your ideas.
> If that context doesn't change your view, then you must be fun at parties where it's fine to call people pedo if they have technical oppositions to your ideas.
I think you totally misread my point and my view of his behavior.
If a comment gets too much blowback: oh, I was just joking.
If it's popular and/or doesn't get blowback: I was absolutely serious.
I don't think Musk was joking with the pedo comment. I think we was being an asshole and a bully. He might have claimed to have been joking in his legal defense, but I think that was a lie.
But I don't think his comment has anything to do with pizzagate.
Vivian has pointed this out - Elon feels personally affronted by having a daughter. She was selected to be be male at birth in a VERY LITERAL sense. Her being transgender is an explicit rejection of his wishes, and that triggers him.
That's kinda f-ed up. I'd understand doing it once, because he wanted at least one boy, but 12 kids and all chosen to be boys? Why?
Maybe he has some dream about being a patriarch of a giant family.
Actually, considering his "pay someone else to play video games" actions, it makes sense that he's paying others to raise his kids. He seems to want the appearance but none of the work behind it.
He observed that all societies evolve from "Being" to "Having" and ultimately devolve into "The Appearance of Having".
It explains a lot of what we see with the rise of Twitter, TikTok, influencers, etc.
After Elon was spectacularly wrong he just canceled the friendship. Also forgot to pay the $1 million dollars.
- Heads: I win
- Tails: Fuck you, I'm never paying you your winnings
And yes, that's a short-term superior way to monetize one's life.
It also makes one an asshole to everyone around them.
Musk isn't interested in liberal/ecological/whatever agendas and never has been, it's a means to an end. Even his libertarian bent... go on shows/podcasts and smoke weed because hey, he's a libertarian. But work at Tesla? Better piss clean or you're fired.
Nissan Renault Hyundai Kia MG BYD
Honestly, there is no "opportunity" for an incumbent alternative to step in here, there are literal dozens of alternatives available right now for every taste and preference, sans any of the fascist political connotations.
More generally: this is what happens when someone in power gets so arrogant they totally lose sight about what they can and can't do, and what the consequences of their actions will be.
I'm reminded of this (about Musk), which is probably the root cause of his arrogance: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...:
> He has people around him who are just enablers. All these Silicon Valley people do. All his minions. And they are minions — they’re all lesser than he is in some fashion, and they all look up to him. They’re typically younger. They laugh at his jokes. Sometimes when he apologizes for a joke, which is not very often, he’ll say that the people around him thought it was funny.
It's worse than that. A significant fraction of the half that doesn't consider his political actions antithetical to their values consider EVs antithetical to their values.