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Comment by fourseventy | Hacker News Reader

For someone with a supreme lack of judgement he sure does own a lot of billion dollar companies. I strive to have the same lack of judgement that he has.

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Caligula was pretty successful too. Maybe money and power aren't the magical trump card you think they are.

Pretty sure there's a correlation between intelligence + sociopathy and money.

I hope not, I'd rather have fewer narcissistic sociopaths in the world. He only cares about himself and what people think of him. Nothing he does is to benefit other people. He's not Iron Man, he's Lex Luthor.

I guess people have always idolized the creeps of the world, though.

It will never cease to amaze me how some people think they can know somebody the've never met as well as you think you do. I attribute it to projection.

This guy tweets all day and the press talks about every little thing he ever does, there are hundreds of videos of him on youtube, dozens of his employees and ex-employees telling stories about him on the net. How much more do you think you are going to learn if you actually talk to him?

I would argue a lot of Musk haters are not getting a representative sample of his behavior, but rather only the most outrageous things he says and does, which tend to be the things that penetrate their bubble.

I don’t hate him. I think he’s a sad, small man who makes himself feel big by being a bully and faking technical experience and knowledge. I think his fans confuse being in the right place at the right time in possession significant capital as genius. I think he is an incredibly toxic public figure. I think farming outrage and feeding trolls is bad for everyone. I think Nazi salutes are bad. I think that lying is bad. I think abandoning children is bad. I think buddying up with fascists is bad.

So sure maybe I miss out on his generous acts but honestly he does enough bad that I don’t particularly care about any good he does. He’s only doing it for himself anyway.

I read this Musk biography a few years ago: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-SpaceX-Fantastic-Future/dp/...

I don't think he's short of technical skill. I think he is a genius, and I think he's sincere in his desire to make humanity multiplanetary.

I recommend reading the biography to get the facts that aren't penetrating your bubble.

I think Musk is going kind of insane due to ketamine abuse, bipolar disorder, and/or whatever caused his father to go insane around his current age.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PaL38q9a4e8Bzsh3S/elon-musk-...

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/03/ketamine-...

You keep saying I’m in a bubble. I read the Vance bio, and the Isaacson one. I came away with very different opinions of him. At least the Isaacson book didn’t leave me with the taste of boots in my mouth.

> in the right place at the right time in possession significant capital as genius

1. he created the capital he had

2. he is not the only person with capital

3. the opportunities he saw, no one else did

When someone wins the lottery 3 times in a row, it is no longer credible to call it "luck". He's simply a genius.

> Nothing he does is to benefit other people

The only way Elon makes money is through people voluntarily giving it to him in exchange for what he creates.

That, and billions of government contracts and subsidies.

The government contracts were simply being paid for a service, like you paying a taxi for a ride. Not a gift in any way, shape, or form.

The subsidies were EV subsidies, which were available for all electric cars.

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