Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

It's wild to me how many conspiracy theories I've seen about how this is all staged, like it's a distraction or it's just Elon repairing his image and trying to rescue Tesla (whose sales are cratering).

Psychologically, I think this is reflective of cognitive dissonance. The two conflicting ideas are that two people with much to lose would get in the dumbest fight imaginable and the myth of meritocracy [1]. You see, people want or need to believe that people get into these positions through merit: skill, intelligence and hard work.

That's simply not true. We are talking about two of the egotistical, thin-skinned, genuinely stupid narcissists on the planet. Drugs may even be a factor. There is no planet where a charade like this involves calling the president of the United States a pedophile [2].

Media reports seem to universally agree that everybody in the administration absolutely hates Elon. Additionally, IMHO Elon is absolutely on the spectrum. As such, he is a terrible room reader and I believe is deluded into thinking he has a loyal following. He does not. Any clout he has is solely because of being a Trump acolyte.

The myth of meritocracy is perpetuated to keep you working hard to make somebody else rich. It is to reinforce the existing social and economic order. It is to assign blame to those who are poor because poverty is treated as a personal moral failure.

If Trump chooses to, he can effectively bankrupt Elon. That's how insane all of this is.

For starters, Trump can simply revoke Elon's security clearance. There's no recourse for this. And that makes SpaceX's military contracts real awkward.

There are negotiations over a trade deal with China because of the tariffs and what is quite likely the dumbest trade war in history. The terms of that deal could be fatal to Tesla's future.

Trump could even get Elon denaturalized and deported. How? Immigration fraud. It's fairly clear from the facts (and his brother's statements about 10 years ago) that when Elon dropped out of a Stanford PhD to start a company he was technically undocumented. If you misrepresent to USCIS then it is absolutely grounds for denaturalization should they choose, although such proceedings are incredibly rare.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy

[2]: https://deadline.com/2025/06/trump-musk-epstein-files-claim-...

>For starters, Trump can simply revoke Elon's security clearance. There's no recourse for this. And that makes SpaceX's military contracts real awkward.

This isn't an issue. Execs nor shareholders are required to have clearance and even the ones that have clearance aren't read in to top secret stuff without a need to know. Elon's focus was starship which is quite far removed from any of those contracts (falcon gov launches or starshield). Gwynne Shotwell runs and will continue to run those parts of SpaceX just fine without Elon having clearance.

> Execs nor shareholders are required to have clearance and even the ones that have clearance aren't read in to top secret stuff without a need to know

No clearance would absolutely compromise Musk’s ability to control SpaceX. (I think that’s a good thing.)

Aren't they using the same rockets for non-government missions that they use for government missions, so the classified parts of government missions would just concern the payload and where they fly it to? Musk shouldn't need access to that information to run the company.

> the classified parts of government missions would just concern the payload and where they fly it to?

Which in turn affects practically everything from launch timing to fuelling thresholds to whether the rocket can be used in reusable or expendable mode and thus whether that booster can be reüsed for the next launch. (Same for Starshield’s requirements impacting Starlink.)

Note that I’m not even touching ITAR, which Musk could be found subject to as a triple national.

It wouldn’t matter for spacex, which is the point. It wouldn’t make “military contracts awkward”, whatever that means.

Musk would still maintain the ability to control what SpaceX targets as far as customers go. And he could easily decline any plans to pursue contracts that require changes in strategy.

Him having clearance is irrelevant to both the govt and to the future of spacex. Gwynne runs those parts of the company. Musk is only playing with Starship when he’s looking at spacex at all.

The proof is in the black eye.

MAGA cope is astonishing in its intensity. I’ve never seen anything like it. Truly a different take on reality.

> or it's just Elon repairing his image and trying to rescue Tesla (whose sales are cratering)

I'm not going to say for sure that it's true, but this is not a conspiracy, or even a super genius move by Elon. I think it's a very natural and plausible instinct given the circumstances. He can't have avoided noticing the crash in sales, and the back of the mind can realize things the consciousness is in denial about. It would just register in his mind as "need to detach my image from this enemy".

> Elon is absolutely on the spectrum. As such, he is a terrible room reader and I believe is deluded into thinking he has a loyal following.

Two things:

* Being on the spectrum doesn't make you completely clueless. Elon is also a drug addict, as was revealed recently to all that couldn't tell yet. And his unique position of "richest man ever" certainly must warp his self-image into a form of sociopathy.

* He does have a loyal following, looking at the braindead blue check marks approving of his every tweets. Although it's hard to say how many of them they really are, as they are extremely vocal.

There's nothing invalid about meritocracy, but that's not what we have. We have some other kind of "ocracy": government by the lucky. I lack the Greek literacy to name the phenomenon correctly but that's what it would translate to in English.

Neither Trump nor Musk has any business running anything more impactful than a used car lot or a corner Starbucks franchise, but their competition was permanently out to lunch in both cases, and here we are. How can anyone be surprised when two merit-free, chaos-loving narcissists fail to get along?

Meritocracy is like perfect communism, in that it's never been tried (and never will).

“ For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.”

Meh, tell it to Darwin. Heat death will come for us all in the end, and there is no refuge to be found in our navels. Why accelerate it by embracing mediocrity? We should identify talent, reward it, and do the best we can with what we have, while we can.

The part about "identifying talent" is where people seem to lose the plot, unfortunately.

It's much easier and more satisfying to give opportunities to family and friends, so that's what we do.

The current US administration has gone all-in on this idea. Not an actual merit hire in the bunch.

I had a history prof who said "Communism is for the angels. But the angels don't need it."

That being said, I don't fully agree with grandparent's statement that ...

> We have some other kind of "ocracy": government by the lucky.

As much as it pains me to say it, it wasn't just "luck."

Musk is reasonably bright and Trump is ... well ... he's not as dumb as many portray him.

Instead they're both horribly broken in other ways.

Trump seems devoid of empathy and that metaphorical vacuum is filled with malevolence. He also appears to have very little self-control.

I can't tell you what is broken with Musk. Maybe the same stuff as w/ Trump, but to a slightly lesser degree.

Luck certainly played a part in their respective successes, but so did intelligence and ruthlessness.

It's been described as kakistocracy (government by the people who are most unsuitable for government).

I think you're aiming for some idea of "tychocracy," but really, you mean "oligarchy."

> Trump can simply revoke Elon's security clearance

Probably a bit late to do that as Musk can tap into the Starlink setup at the White House: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/unvetted-starli...

Why wouldn’t it be staged? There is a much simpler explanation than “this is cope for people who think life is based on merit”.

To underestimate your enemy is the most common mistake.

You think a carefully staged spat between two men with long track records of impulsive idiocy is the simple solution?

I mean, there is a sense where a conspiracy is always the simplest explanation for public affairs, in the same way "a wizard did it" is simple. But that's not usually what people mean when they talk about Occam's razor.

There is no myth. Both Trump and Elon have generational talent in their respective domains. This is the kind of talent that’s so unique, it creates its own domain that didn’t exist before, and that no one will be able to replicate after.

But they’re both unstable, and have many other negative features.

One can have an extraordinary talent in starting generational companies, and have a social media addiction (among possibly other addictions and problems) that makes one unstable. These aren’t mutually exclusive.

One of their fathers was a successful slumlord, and the other owned an emerald mine in South Africa. Those provide a one-time advantage (which in Trump's case would have been more profitable if he had socked it away in an index fund.) How do they establish 'generational talent' for being POTUS or building rockets and cars?

It will be interesting to see if any of Elon's offspring choose to follow in his footsteps. Probably not the transgender child he disowned, or the one whose name has to be written with Unicode characters, but that leaves something like 20 others to vie for the throne.

> One can have an extraordinary talent in starting generational companies

I though Musk was just adept at buying certain companies

Maybe he is talking about Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump U, Trump Airlines...

The only talents they are great at are grift and daring someone to enforce rules against them in a society that largely relies on people holding themselves to standards and risk avoidance instead of active enforcement.

> Both Trump and Elon have generational talent in their respective domains

That's an interesting way of saying they were born into a wealthy family

I was also born into a wealthy family but I haven't created multiple billion dollar companies.

Well presumably you have some actual morals.

I bet you would have no moral given the opportunity.

This seems like the sort of projection where someone is inadvertently "telling on themself".

I bet you have none, opportunity or not.

You're probably right!

Neither has Trump, so don’t feel bad.

Elon maybe—we’ll see if they outlast him. Trump did not start any generational companies.

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