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When SpaceX landed the two rockets back on earth it was a media event, Tesla was at it's height, and the whole Twitter thing was years away, Elon might have been a bit weird, but he seemed like he was at the forefront of something new, something good.
And then? As the article states he lost his son, his business was threatened, and he felt insulted by the Whitehouse.
I think the last one is the key here.
If you think about it Putin, Trump, and Musk are very similar in that they all have reach positions of power, have delusions of grandeur, and have thin skins.
One perceived sleight and they lose their minds.
Putin launched a totally pointless war to somehow make Russia whole again.
Trump tried to overthrow U.S. democracy (among many other things).
Musk paid $40 billion, $25 of which he has lost, on a company that was a household name and turned it into...whatever the hell it is now.
Hell I'd throw Zuckerberg in as well with the Metaverse.
The problem with all of them is they thought they knew how to change history and now they can't back down from their actions, and basically their hubris.
That's accurate! I remember with the Tesla push, Musk was all "I need to do something to influence the rate of adoption of non-emitting vehicles". While that may well have been marketing, he seemed to back it up with the Space X Mars ambitions. It seemed like a refreshing change from the usual venture capitalists.
Then... what? This? I'm partly convinced the Twitter episode is to aid the push towards Trump, but even if not, or just hubris, the change is marked and the descent into the heart of darkness so rapid and public it's definitely a first.
At least Trump was never a serious figure (probably always like this) and Putin had the tools to control, if not disguise it. Zuck was just a misadventure (despite the hilarity of the court footage gifs 😂). But the growing, raving lunacy of Elon is something to behold. That it has political influence is scary af.
The article mentions the Musk thinks Trump is a con man, something I never knew or even thought about so I don't know about "the Twitter episode is to aid the push towards Trump".
I honestly have no idea.
The more I, and probably a lot of people, learned about Musk the more sense it made.
The "richest man in the world" from South Africa, who's family money was made from ruby mines, and who has one of the most fucked up families ever can't really be well balanced, and when he saw himself fail, or as vulnerable, slighted, challenged, etc. he just kind of the lost it.
That it has political influence is scary af.
I don't know how much influence it really has, quite honestly. I think Ailes, Murdoch, and co. have, and will continue to have, a much larger impact on culture than Musk will ever have.
He did succeed in getting his charging tech to be accepted by almost all of the major car manufacturers, so there's that, but in the end who had more influence on society as a whole?
Definitely not Musk.
Yes maybe I should have said "the right" rather than Trump (Trump IS the right currently so I shortcutted). A con man? Yes. But perhaps with aligned goals, politically at least. The trouble (saving grace) with Murdoch et al. is that they are very loosely bound by media standards. The danger with Musk owning Twitter and removing the (again, already loose) controls it has, is that it becomes an unmitigated platform to centralise the extreme side of the right. While I agree that the influence is much smaller than national media, the risk of focusing the more extreme elements presents a more dangerous prospect (less about elections and more about active dissidents etc.)
Good. Get them all in one place.
It's usually better when uncoordinated, then they can be thoroughly dismissed 😂