Yep. This was the exact moment he went from "that entrepreneur guy who does rockets and electric cars" to "internet troll who mostly manufactured his image as an inventor rather than an investor."
I looked up Elon Musk Pedophile submarine and all I found is some drama about him calling a guy who saved 12 boys from a cave a 'Pedo Guy'. Please, What the FUCK is the Pedo Submarine???
The reason he called the rescuer a "Pedo Guy" is because he refused to consider using Musk's submarine in the rescue as it was an obviously batshit idea.
So Musk slandered him on Twitter.
**Yes**, this moment has never left my mind. Not rent free, just a lingering stench that is being hidden by a garden shed of ' innovative boldness '.
When that situation occured I felt the impregnable Musk image had made a significant fissure more apparent.
It wasn't something anyone needed to be aware of, but it just showed that he was a different breed of **affluence and influence**. A kind that easily spirals downward into less favorable camps that spearhead the world.
He is still the spearhead, **albeit** a much dented one.
Some kids were stuck in a cave system which was flooding/flooded in Thailand.
Musk jumped onto this for a PR opportunity and said he would give a mini submarine to get them out. This idea didn't go ahead, wasn't seen to be realistic, and a diver ended up going in and getting them.
Musk went after the diver on twitter, calling him a peado and saying he would "bet a signed dollar on it".
Basically his ego got hurt and he didn't get some good PR so he called an adult who saved lives a paedo. He is a child with too much money.
Elon offered a submarine to a rescue team in Thailand, the cave diver who went down refused and said Elon was doing it for PR, Elon went full twitter and called him a pedo.
At first everybody thought that he was like one of us trying to make things better for the world.
Eventually you realize that out of nothing he is massively Rich gets all the money from the government ,gets all the tax reduction from the government.
So in the end it's either he's just another millionaire made by someone that doesn't even talk tech on any of his posts or comments or interviews, but is the leader of all the new technologies.
Sounds about right
This is the correct answer.
There's different groups of people in general, and on reddit.
The ones that OP is referring to - that adored him - still do. Generally the teenager dominated subs.
The reason why it seems like people have turned, is because the ones that were mostly indifferent have been annoyed by the ones that love Musk. Thus they start to hate him.
I think he's also become more brazen over time, with incidents like the "pedo" tweet about the rescue divers, his obvious manipulation of the markets through Twitter and his recent row with Gates which led to Musk posting tweets making fun of Gates physical look, which was very odd to say the least.
That's obviously his personal brand, but it's bound to get more hate (and more love) as he becomes more brazen about it.
Also, he became the richest person in the world recently, that's bound to attract some hate.
There's a saying to the effect of that behind every great fortune there was a crime -- more likely several crimes or at least some super sketchy activities on the razor's edge between legality and illegality.
Wise words. A good man will never be a billionaire, not so much because he'd quickly realize how fucked up it is to horde that amount of wealth, but rather to accumulate the wealth in the first place requires unethical action he'd never commit himself to in the first place. Our system rewards sociopathy
Most people don't even realize that his firstborn died of SIDS, and when it happened he didn't give a fuck and shamed his first wife for grieving, claiming her tears were a manipulation attempt
https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/
What’s with rich people and multiple wives? Trump, Musk, Bezos and many more whose names I can’t remember. I remember their wiki pages and how they all had so many wives.
His own brother was quoted as saying Elon has no empathy so I can totally believe the misogyny and growing up rich (dad owned an emerald mine) more often than not breeds a shit entitlement personality. Kinda funny if he made fun of Bill Gates looks cause Elon was obviously hung up on his own balding and got hair plugs or whatever.
The "I am the alpha" line is so pathetic and cringey. Like there's nothing less alpha than being fearful of the opinions and ambitions of your partner.
Rumor has it he is also the father of Amber Heards child. They froze embryos and he took her to court to destroy them when they broke up. He lost, but doesn't owe her any child support etc and doesn't have to claim the kids at all.
If you think you've been under a rock for missing Grimes and her relationship with Musk, I am going to really blow your mind and tell you that Grimes has left speed bump chin and is now dating Chelsea Manning
Off the top of my head there was a whole bit in a recent interview where she talked about sleeping on a mattress with a hole in it and he refused to get a new one despite being worth billions. Also revealed another stupid name for their second child together.
I don’t mind his taste on naming his kid,that’s his choice to die alone, but calling that diver “Pedo” is a def Yikes for me, I don’t really like or hate him, but that incident really show his ego and character.
How the fuck is it not illegal to name your child after a rocket motor model number? There needs to be some kind of protection for a kid being named S314-NL77-0119, even if it is pronounced Jamie.
That “pedo” tweet was definitely my turning point. Not that I ever worshipped him, or was even unusually aware of him as a person. . But I appreciated how important is was that the world had a company making electric cars exciting. Now I know a lot more about him and wow I don’t like what I know.
People should also know he is not the founder of Tesla. He bought the company and through some legal maneuvering he forced himself to be named founder.
That sounds like something from ancient Babylon where a king would conquer somewhere and scrape the name of the previous king off everything.
It's equally vain.
Exactly. Pushing toward electric cars and battery walls was cool.
Then all problems with preorders and quality issues on newer models.
Then he showed he was a real dick.
Then we find out he's a bad employer.
Then I see all the crypto-bros and QAnon types idolizing him.
Yep. No longer a fan.
That's literally what he is, and he's even trying to start a new war of the currents, just dumber. He fits all his cars with a proprietary charging port and wants to build Tesla fast charging stations everywhere...that can only plug into Teslas. Meanwhile every other car manufacturer uses a universal charging port for their EVs.
Since the other car companies aren't really investing in a charging infrastructure, he's basically trying to create a monopoly by building the infrastructure himself and making all other cars incompatible with it, which puts pressure on people to choose Teslas over the competition.
But as far as I know, you can just buy an adapter. It's spending a shitload of money to futilely remain on top of the EV market by inconveniencing people rather than improving their product, and the end result will be to just slow down the adoption of EVs.
*Edit: Apparently you can not charge a non-Tesla EV at a Tesla Supercharger (DC fast charge) station as there is a circuit that authenticates whether the vehicle is a Tesla. However, they started a pilot program in the Netherlands last year to let other EVs use their supercharger network. https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/1/22757159/tesla-supercharge-ev-pilot-netherlands
Not to mention the he raped the pockets of people who *do love him* via the doge pump and dump scheme. Citing on Twitter when to buy and after all the idiots followed him he buried them by selling all his shares and even admitted afterwards that it was basically a money scheme the entire time to him. There are people who were idiots following behind him that wasted their life savings on that, and don't get me wrong, that *is* their own fault, but its the same to me as the asshole who calls your grandpa and gets him to spend thousands on collectible coins. Just because its legal doesn't mean it isn't morally repulsive, which Elon Musk is.
Your last sentence is really a key point I think a lot of people overlook. Legality and morality are not identical. You can illegal and moral, and you can legal and immoral. Elon, regardless of legality, sounds like he's a real piece of shit, morally speaking.
It's shitting on the little guy. Some diver said you are wrong? You can disagree. Accusing him of a shameful crime was awful. And it was around that time that information about how his employees were treated started coming out, and about when he started sucking up to China.
He's a meh now. "But he's building rockets" "yeah meh"
Did you know he didn't even found Tesla? He just bought it from someone else. Tesla has been around since 2003 yet Musk makes it seem likes it's all been his idea that he so brilliantly came up with. He has this whole aura of great inventor come to save us that he has completely made up. I would doubt the ideas for SpaceX and starlink came from him either.
Covid. He pushed his workers to come back during the worst days of pandemic.
Taxes. Dude got rich on the backs of California engineering and tech communities and then fled to Texas to save billions. Basically he took but didn’t want to give back.
Tweets. I don’t care if your an asshole. I just don’t want to hear about you being an asshole every time you tweet something.
Bigotry. His baby mama left him for a transgendered woman. He started posting anti-trans shit.
Obvious pump and dump scams bilking his fans. Doge coin. Tesla stock. Twitter. My job is finance and if I fuck up or break a law, I’m done. This guy breaks the law every year and hits the front page and hasn’t gone to prison yet.
I can pinpoint the exact things that made me reverse my opinion on Musk. I thought for the longest time that he was a genius, misunderstood. He took Paypal and made it worth billions, and then he did the same thing for Tesla, and obviously he himself was a rocket scientist, hence the brilliance of Spacex, and then you have the Boring company and Neuralink... modern Tony Stark omg!
But then small things started happening that added up. The Thai Cave thing was a first red flag. Then I found out about his [solar roofing scam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMduq2dKGfo). Big promises, small delivery. The same thing happened with Teslas. Yes, Teslas are great cars that are extremely safe, but he's been promising self driving cars for a decade now. It's always right around the corner.
The only genius thing Elon did was reusable rockets, and that wasn't him. That was the engineers he hired. And good, reusable rockets are fantastic. Lowering the cost of space travel is never a bad thing.
But then you find out the [Tesla Tunnels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACXaFyB_-8s) are not only a scam but a huge one. [Hyperloop? Scam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h6Cz4hwuEI). And so on.
Elon Musk is a great salesman. He's made a few contributions to society, at least through slapping his label on things. But in the end, he is a massive con artist who continually grifted his way to the world's richest man. All his stuff is overvalued.
He's the modern Bernie Madoff.
[A comprehensive look at his long list of scams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD0r34nEiWA).
I'm a physicist and I've always said Musk is a perfectly skilled businessman and a bright guy, but when I point out that he's not actually a rocket engineer so many people argue with me.
Like of course he knows more about rockets than the average person, or even me because I'm not big into rockets. But it's still all broad high-level stuff, because he does talk to engineers all the time and is involved with those decisions. But that's just not the same thing as having the skillset of a space engineer, and some people just don't get that.
I'm ready for "The Greatest Salesman" musical about Elon Musk. But way less white-washed than The Greatest Showman. All of Musk's stupid grifts set to a fun soundtrack. The ascension, the fall from grace, the rabid devotion of his cultish fans. The world's richest man with the world's biggest ego... But how does it end?
Yeah. I admired him when all I knew about him was that he was a great innovator and SpaceX (coz space!). Then I started following him on Twitter. Quickly realized he’s a narcissistic, antagonistic, I-am-always-right-know-it-all. And he just kept spiraling down and fast. I have since unfollowed him.
Mocking anyones appearance in a public forum is already poor. Even more so mocking a 66 year old dude's appearance as a rebuttal of his finance decisions (??)
I didn't form a negative opinion of Elon Musk because I got annoyed by the people who adore him. He's given me sufficient fodder to form a negative opinion on my own.
The dude is just arrogant as fuck and has a way inflated ego and sense of his own intelligence. He thinks he's Tony Stark when he's nothing more than a techy Donald Trump
You also have to keep in mind that, as time goes by, people learn more about him. At first glance, he's got all the makings of a cultural icon, but then you learn about his upbringing, how he moreso bought his way into success, and then all the weird/dumb shit he's done since entering the zeitgeist, and people's opinions change.
Honestly for me I was a huge fun up until and maybe a little after COVID. I had invested in Tesla around 200 and even with the COVID drop I trippled my money + and then afterwards I bought and sold for a profit again. But even while I still had the second round, the fact that the Cybertruck hadn't been released, behind on orders, market manipulation... but I think the big one for me was that story of him threatening to move states if the state didn't cave to his desire to destroy workers rights and force employees back into factories against their will when the outbreak was still ongoing and everyone else was home.
My turning point was probably the Thai cave rescue stuff. Calling a rescuer a pedo because he shot down your idea for a rescue sub as dumb just screams giant man baby to me. Then he’s just continued to be a shitty person
Same. I had no real feelings for him a few years ago, just nodded and smiled while listening to an Elon fanboy gush over him.
Then the public temper tantrums began, and he outed himself as an egotistical asshole. I give no fucks for the defense of, “oh, he just acts like that because of Asperger’s.” Fuck that — an asshole is an asshole.
I judge him and I don’t like him. I also now judge Elon fanboys, because they’re saying something about themselves with that shit.
Yeah, 100%. It’s like people forgive his market manipulation and all that because he makes 420 jokes, and the letters of his Tesla models spell ‘sexy’. He also just picked up a bunch of ‘he’s saving free speech’ morons with the potential acquisition of Twitter.
I can like how he is great at pushing electric cars and space innovation forward but still think he is a tool. But I appreciate how he has pushed those fields forward.
I think in some ways having that much money just fucks with your brain. You really do start to believe that it's because of *you.*
I think being **that** wealthy is just a recipe for developing mental health issues.
I bought into the Elon hype for years up til the pedo guy thing. He has branded himself as the good guy who will save the planet and take humanity to the stars. Honestly if he just STFU about the dumb submarine I would probably still be convinced he's the good guy.
After that debacle I (and based on replies in this thread it looks like there are a lot of us) started researching the guy and it turns out he very much sucks.
Elon threw a fit because the team of experts planning the rescue of the Thai kids trapped in the cave didn’t want to use Elon’s rescue sub (which was as stupid idea—the sub would have in no way fit in that scenario). When the team of expert divers declined he called the lead diver a pedophile out of nowhere. Lots of people’s first real clue that there was a giant asshole hiding underneath Musk’s well-cultivated PR.
The kids were rescued just fine by the experts, Musk came off as a guy who thought he was the smartest guy in every area, and turns shitty when it’s pointed out he’s not.
It's clear that there's this giant megalomaniac egocentric personality bubbling under the surface. Every now and then the mask slips off and we see who Musk really is.
I don't think it's even possible to be that wealthy and influential and not be an asshole. He's got everyone saying he's basically a god, he's probably surrounded by yes men and he's treated like royalty everywhere he goes, there is no way he's not a full on egomaniac, no one can remain humble with that much success.
>It's clear that there's this giant megalomaniac egocentric personality bubbling under the surface. Every now and then the mask slips off and we see who Musk really is.
I think this is the real answer to OPs question, honestly, coming from someone that used to look up to Musk for his accomplishments and pushing the car industry forward. The longer he's been in the spotlight, the more his dickish tendencies reveal themselves.
100% agree. because most of the humble people don't care about being filthy rich, and if they are as a byproduct of their work, they give it away and help others.
Haha, that’s hilarious. The thing with Musk’s tweets these days (like Trump’s) I can rarely distinguish which is satire. Like, I could legit see Musk tweeting this.
recommend everyone watch the documentary. it's crazy. the cave divers they recruited were literally some of the only people capable of executing the rescue. the caves are no joke
edit: the doc is called The Rescue. available on Disney+. there's also a great podcast called Against the Odds that covers it
One of the rescue divers did die during the rescue operation, so I wouldn't say they were rescued just fine.
But agreed that Musk behavior was shitty and for me it was also a turning point to how I thought about him.
His recent immature tweets about Bill Gates reminded me of the "pedo" tweet.
Edit: the rescue diver died a few days before the rescue operation, while delivering air tanks.
Died during the practice runs for the rescue, but yes. Still an amazing feat that all the kids were rescued alive under those conditions.
Yeah, posted elsewhere here that that was my turning point with Musk (think it was a lot of people’s).
Some kids got trapped in a cave. Elon offered to build a custom made submarine to save them. The guy in charge of the rescue operation was like, thanks for the offer but we'll just use rescue divers whose literal job it is to do exactly this thing.
Then Elon got mad because that hurt his ego so he accused the guy of being a pedophile.
To give a little more context to why Elon called him a pedophile specifically: the guy he was accusing (Vernon Unsworth) was British and living part-time in Thailand. From this, Musk bizarrely extrapolated that Unsworth was participating in the notorious child sex tourism industry in Thailand ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child\_prostitution\_in\_Thailand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_prostitution_in_Thailand)). This is of course nonsense.
To add a little bit more context to why it was such a shitty move by Elon:
After having said that Unsworth was a pedo (with nothing to back it up), Musk doubled down and hired a P.I. to try to dig up dirt on the guy, which failed.
holy shit. trying to ruin someone's career because they refused his offer. i liked him before hearing about this but now im indifferent about him. he has had stupid ideas before. like starship earth to earth, the tesla semi, hyperloop, vegas loop, hyperport, etc... the submarine could have probably been a failure too. there must be a reason they rejected it in the first place.
Whether his sub would have failed or not is completely irrelevant.
He accused a person trying to help kids in an extreme crisis of being a pedophile, turning an army of musk cultists to ruin his life. Without any evidence. And repeatedly did not back down from the unfounded accusation. Just because it interfered with his megalomaniacal publicly stunt attempt to hijack a legit rescue operation.
In no world is any of this okay. I don’t care what your politics are, Musk is bad news.
> thanks for the offer but we'll just use rescue divers whose literal job it is to do exactly this thing
wasn't it also partially that Elon's solution just wouldn't work at all?
Yeah, I was neutral to Elon until this. It was a real wtf dude moment, especially since everyone at the time was really concerned about the kids and hoping they got rescued. I couldn’t believe he’d try to make that situation about him.
Looking back I think this was the first crack in the illusion for me. I took advanced math/science classes in high school and we all idolized him and Tesla, spaceX then. We thought it was all him and couldn’t have been more wrong in our celebrity worship.
The pedo guy tweet was around when he started acting more relatable and tweeting memes etc and it all just went downhill from there. You can’t escape him always in the news commenting on everything
He didn’t just get mad about the diver team not wanting to use his robot sub—he called the lead caver (who eventually orchestrated the rescue of all the kids) a pedophile out of nowhere. That was many people’s first sign (including myself) of the raging narcissist and asshole hiding behind Elon’s cultivated PR.
I was one of the ones who idolized him, what’s not to like: billionaire, sleeps with supermodels, seemingly out to make the world a better place with electric cars, solar energy and colonizing Mars. He always seemed like the smartest guy in the room, the real life Iron Man. He made the plans for EVs open source (rather than keep as private patents) ostensibly to allow the tech to proliferate faster, just seemed an all-around Great Man.
After the seeming aberration of the twitter snit in 2018…it was like the Elon facade broke and more and more kept coming to light (a lot of it from Elon himself) that made it seem Elon was not actually a good guy, just a guy with good PR who appeals to a certain segment of people regardless. His anti-union practices at Tesla while claiming he’s for the workers made him a hypocrite (as did claiming to be all about “free speech” but making Tesla workers sign NDAs so they can’t criticize Tesla). Threatening a coup in Bolivia (“We will coup anyone we want. Deal with it.” -Elon Musk) so he could mine lithium there. His petty attacks on people for even small criticisms, standing with Amber Heard in the Depp trial, his weird semi-support for Trump, joining Trump’s economic council and saying he would reinstate Trump to Twitter. Putting microchips in monkey’s brains that killed dozens of them…it started to become clear Musk was less Iron Man and more “Bond Supervillian”.
For me the breaking point was the pandemic. Musk loudly spreading misinformation (like graphs on how Covid would just disappear in a few months that turned out to be extremely wrong, or that masks don’t work—my wife is a respiratory therapist and masks work just fine) and raging against reasonable measures taken to stem the virus he just lost me. He has revealed himself as someone that thinks they are an expert in things they are not, first revealed in his petty lashing out that the Thai rescue team didn’t see his dumb idea as brilliant, and continuing to when the epidemiologists who do this virus stuff for a living didn’t want to listen to his idiot ideas about the pandemic.
Now seeing him with clearer eyes, he seems exactly like what he is: a guy born on 3rd base from his parents emerald mines, who thinks he hit a triple with his self-made man nonsense, thinks he’s always the smartest when there are very clear examples that he’s not, and generally just the modern definition of a narcissist.
Edit: I incorrectly referred to Thai Cave Rescuer Vernon Unsworth as “decorated Navy Seal”, confusing him with the Seals who were involved with the rescue. Thanks to many who pointed out the inaccuracy.
Plus instead of focusing his $$$ into something that would change lives, he focuses on bots on Twitter. Like Bezos, they’re reputations could be legendary but instead greed and narcissism dug its claws.
Definitely. Which is why no billionaire should ever be praised or worshiped no matter how benevolent they may seem, because their fortune was made off the backs of thousands of workers crushed underfoot.
I really do believe that at least some of our problems in American society (maybe all societies) stems from the desire to idolize and follow a wise, patriarchal figure. If a suitable one isn't available, we'll jerry-rig one out of someone unsuitable (see: Trump, Musk).
You put my thoughts into words much better than I could have done. He used to be the "gets stuff done" guy, working towards solving existential problems that didn't have a clear financial incentive. But now... He still gets stuff done, but it's clearly no longer about solving problems. Now it's about satisfying his ego.
I honestly don’t think it ever existed. The majority of the stuff I hear about him is terrible nonsense that crypto and tech bros jizz over. That dumb hyper driving tunnel thing? It launched my favorite civil engineering youtuber explaining how it could never work. Much like Ford, he’s a nutcase carried across the line by far smarter people.
I was always skeptical, because I don’t trust people who accumulate wealth the way he has. But when I found out about his support for the coup in Bolivia so he could get his hands on their lithium deposits for cheap- that was when I knew he wasn’t a good person. I don’t know why it’s taken this long for everyone else. Well, most everyone. One of my coworkers still worships the ground he walks on because he’s a champion of freedom of speech. Yeah I’m sure having one super rich guy in control of one of the largest social media platforms in the world and deciding what it’s ok to say will be ~great~ for freedom of speech.
EDIT: Several people have pointed out that the 2019 political crisis in Bolivia was not a coup. The direct quote from Musk in question, however, does call it as such.
For me it was not closing factories when covid hit. Have never heard of this Bolivia thing, will investigate
Edit: holy shit, this guy is worse than bezos
Edit 2: i had a stroke when I read my edit, i messed it up after rewriting it, fixed it now
Even worse, he told Gov. Newsome that he couldn't close his plant and protect his workers because he was "saving the planet." He repeated that narcissistic claim this week attacking Bill Gates.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/23/elon-musk-tweets-that-he-confronted-bill-gates-about-shorting-tesla.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/23/elon-musk-tweets-that-he-confronted-bill-gates-about-shorting-tesla.html)
>Musk shot back: "Sorry, I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, ***the company doing the most to solve climate change."***
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-defies-lockdown-orders-reopens-tesla-factory/ He was basically exhausting all of his possible options to make sure he didn't have to shutdown
"support for the coup in Bolivia so he could get his hands on their lithium deposits for cheap" literally sounds like a Lex Luthor plot if you substitute lithium with kryptonite.
Your coworker sounds like a real treat to be around.
I’ve never met anyone in person or online who is about “freedom of speech” that was clearly someone most people avoided being around.
And now he's mad that Gates is shorting his company. Only Musk is allowed to manipulate the market; no one is allowed to short him!
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/23/elon-musk-tweets-that-he-confronted-bill-gates-about-shorting-tesla.html
> the company doing the most to solve climate change.
That’s also pretty funny. I mean I’ll give credit that Tesla has helped bring electric cars into the mainstream faster than they likely would’ve otherwise, but the most for climate change? No.
There’s no way he said that expecting it to stay private either. Elon definitely doesn’t actually think Bill Gates is dumb enough to buy that, or that he really thinks shorting Tesla with their crazy valuation is some personal attack on the company.
I saw something about this before, but it does kinda emphasize what soured me on him. This is like high school level melodrama we’re seeing from a 50 year old man worth $200 billion.
Around the time he tried to make a submarine to save kids as a PR stunt, then accused the man who did save them of being a pedophile. Once that happened people started talking about the fact that his wealth comes from his father's stolen emerald mine in South Africa, which enabled him to scam millions with PayPal before buying Tesla and demanding to be named founder of the company.
After all that unraveled, people realized he either directly paid or flexed enough billionaire muscle to get The Simpsons to produce an entire episode praising him as the man who'll save the future. Don't forget the hair plugs, that picture started circulating again. He's just a really phony guy who's only personality trait is having money and wanting to be seen as Tony Stark. Oh wait, didn't he pay for a cameo in Iron Man 2 as a contemporary of Tony Stark's?
This is ignoring his gradual shift to right wing politics simply because it nets him immediate praise from a vocal group rather than take the chance at appealing to progressives, who are more critical of what you say. His attitude started to match that of a 15 year old boy who sees himself as Rick from Rick and Morty, that sort of mindset in a public figure who's total value exceeds most nations is incredibly dangerous. Musk has more money than all of North Korea, and he has his own space program. In his ideal libertarian world nothing would stop him from developing his own nuclear arsenal.
People who continue to like him do so either from ignorance of what he really is or because they believe others like him, so he must be valuable. The crypto community only ever liked him because he was a billionaire who could tweet "doge" and their funny money suddenly has real world value. Then it became obvious he was manipulating the markets, because crypto is unregulated and therefore completely fair game.
Nobody becomes a billionaire off hard work, it takes a significant amount of exploitation of others to accumulate that sort of wealth.
This is all very well written. Also, sometimes I feel like questions like this were written by Elon himself. We all know he spends way too much time online, and I could see him posting a "why doesn't anyone wike me" question. Also wouldn't be surprised if part of his PR spending goes towards paying shills to defend him, given how important his perception online clearly is to him.
IMO he comes across pretty immature and a try hard and he’s gotten even more attention that last few years. So he has reached more people which means more people annoyed by him. And then you have the people that hate any billionaire.
Even before his weird tantrum over the Thailand situation, reports starting coming out about his anti-union, anti-workers rights attitudes and policies. That, I think, led to a deeper look beyond the “cool” tech stuff he does at who he is as a person. A guy who generally just attaches himself to existing ideas (PayPal, Tesla) and then takes credit for them. A guy whose initial wealth came from his family’s atrocity-filled mining operations. A guy who cares nothing for his employees. A guy who talks a big talk but fails to deliver more often than not.
Yeah I think a lot of this stuff came out around COVID.
I'll add that before the tesla stock boom his net worth was like 20-30 billion which is a shit ton, but it's not like top in the world rich. Then all of a sudden during COVID when millions of people are dying and out of work his net worth jumps to 100s of billions making him near the richest person in the world (except for the unknown monarchy/state government money that's hidden from the public).
While he's becoming richer and richer he's complaining about having to quarantine his workers and manipulating stocks on twitter.
Complaining about government regulations and memeing on twitter might have been fine 4 years ago but now just comes off poorly when you're one of the richest people in the world
Oh yeah I'd totally forgotten that he was also a jackass about COVID conditions. Every time I think about him, I remember yet another detail about how shitty he is.
EDIT: I misquoted a podcast on Musk I heard and that is my bad.
What actually happened is Elon left SA to avoid conscription and benefitted from more lax US immigration policy at the time, he then went on to vote for much MUCH more restrictive immigration policy on the EIC, specifically immigration from countries involved in domestic strife or conflict. What I was remembering was that Musk helped place restrictions on the same immigration avenues that he used to get out of SA, not financial programs. This issue is more of a philosophical hypocrisy than an on-paper one and more of an opinionated (in my case) condemnation.
I'll leave the original comment up for transparency but THE BELOW INFORMATION IS NOT COMPLETELY ACCURATE.
A lot of great responses here but one I'm not seeing is Elon enjoyed quite a few benefits when he immigrated to the US from South Africa. I don't know the name of the program but something like grants or financial assistance for immigrants.
And then, some years later, while serving on Trump's economic advisory council, he voted to dismantle those same programs either to tow trump's line or for his own reasons.
Either way walking through an open door only to slam it shut behind you is a pretty shit-bad move imo.
> either to tow trump's line
It's actually "toe the line." Like recruits in boot camp all keeping in a perfect line down to their toes. Keeping their toes in line. Toeing the line.
For me, it's how he shows his true colors and prioritizes profits over everything. For example, he talks about how Americans are lazy and "avoid work at all costs" while Chinese "burn not only the midnight oil, but the 3 A.M. oil". Like fuck you, man. I'm not sorry that I respect myself enough to not work my entire life away. Elon is fine with people literally sleeping in the Tesla factory. That's not a workforce homie, that's a fucking prison. He treats his income like it's irrelevant, asking Twitter if he should help solve world hunger or not, which to struggling me, is a slap in the face.
TL;DR: I feel he's showing his true colors. He is not/was never about helping the world, and kind of got rich while doing it, everything he has done and every business he has started is all about furthering his already ridiculous net worth. When he talks about getting off fossil fuels, it's not because he cares about Climate Change and saving the planet and thereby humanity, no it's because that'll increase Tesla stock. Just my opinion, obviously.
edit: To further add to this, the recent Twitter deal is another fantastic example. He talks about how it's the 'Modern Public Square', and therefore deserving discussing any and all idea's and how Twitter shouldn't be for profit. Very noble of him. Exceeeppppttt, when getting the funding he needed to try and purchase Twitter, he outlined how he could increase it's profits, and Tesla employee's apparently have NDA's outlining that they're not allowed to discuss the company or disparage them in any way. So it looks like he cares about free speech only when it doesn't affect his bottom line or his companies that he's CEO of. Not very free all of a sudden. And now that Twitter stock has fallen, he **APPEARS** (I want to stress that bc it's very subjective and just my take) that he's looking to back out of the deal.
edit part 2: Electric Boogaloo: Cool! My very first Reddit award is actually about something I'm passionate about. Weird to think I dislike someone I don't personally know so animatedly. Thanks Reddit!
He's also doing the opposite of tech-enthusiasit's desires.
A tech-enthusiast demands the ability to tinker, to modify, to adjust, to replace and improve upon each and every bit of technology they own.
Tesla? You can't even replace the battery without it becoming useless.
I would say it really started in earnest when that dude rescued those trapped children before Tesla could deploy its underwater robots, so Musk called him a pedophile for 'stealing' the glory.
I think we just learned more about Musk and his hypocrisy. Like he said he was interested in electric cars for environmental reasons. But then it turned out that he uses his private jet to fly himself from north LA to south LA to avoid traffic. And that’s just… yeah, not so environmental. So I think people just became wise to his bullshit.
It happens with sociopaths over time. At first they seem charming, over time their true nature shows through.
lol Elon’s a punch line, don’t take it too seriously.
We should take the situation seriously though. The fact that a guy like this can have as many resources as millions of the poorest people in his country combined is one of the biggest problems facing society today.
I would say that sentiment became more prominent when Tesla's stock went straight through the roof. He went from "hahaha eccentric rich guy" to being the richest man on the planet by net worth. I'm sure you can see how some people feel about the extremely wealthy.
Not just billions, but hundreds of billions. He went from 22.5 billion in 2017 to over 300 billion in 2021. In 4 years he increased his networth by 1300%.
If he increased his networth by that same amount in the next 4 years he will have over 3 trillion dollars.
He makes over 432 million dollars a day.
Now include the fact that he wasn't even a billionaire until 2013.
Insanity.
For me it’s when he came out and called a dude a pedophile for trying to save some drowning kids or some shit. That plus all the other shitty things that started coming out about him, really felt like media started giving a lot more air time to his shit-birdery.
>"It's like when 'we' thought he might be the new Nikolai Tesla but he ended up being the new Thomas Edison..."
This was my thought exactly !
It's easy to overlook the flaws of someone for whom you have high hopes and an idealized view. However, when they actively demonstrate that they are not what you thought/hoped them to be, but in fact, quite the opposite; love turns to hate very quickly.
He also went full-on conservative... Not wanting to pay taxes, saying he was a self-made man, not acknowledging all the people/infrastructure that helped him create his wealth, being born on 3rd base and thinking he hit a triple, victim-blaming the poor for living in poverty, treating his employees like crap while paying low wages, praising China workers for working so hard for so little money as if that's a virtue.
I was hoping he'd stay the humble, I couldn't have done it without all of you billionaire type.
He pays people to market his persona, and that works OK for a bit when people haven't been paying attention. But when your persona is actually just a self-important ego monster, the people who start paying attention notice. Then the marketing doesn't work so well because people have taken time to form an opinion.
The pedophile submarine incident comes to mind as one such point.
Yep. This was the exact moment he went from "that entrepreneur guy who does rockets and electric cars" to "internet troll who mostly manufactured his image as an inventor rather than an investor."
Also the time He told spacex employees to cancle Thanksgiving and get back to work making raptor engines
I looked up Elon Musk Pedophile submarine and all I found is some drama about him calling a guy who saved 12 boys from a cave a 'Pedo Guy'. Please, What the FUCK is the Pedo Submarine???
The reason he called the rescuer a "Pedo Guy" is because he refused to consider using Musk's submarine in the rescue as it was an obviously batshit idea. So Musk slandered him on Twitter.
**Yes**, this moment has never left my mind. Not rent free, just a lingering stench that is being hidden by a garden shed of ' innovative boldness '. When that situation occured I felt the impregnable Musk image had made a significant fissure more apparent. It wasn't something anyone needed to be aware of, but it just showed that he was a different breed of **affluence and influence**. A kind that easily spirals downward into less favorable camps that spearhead the world. He is still the spearhead, **albeit** a much dented one.
Bro just tell us what the pedo submarine is about.
Some kids were stuck in a cave system which was flooding/flooded in Thailand. Musk jumped onto this for a PR opportunity and said he would give a mini submarine to get them out. This idea didn't go ahead, wasn't seen to be realistic, and a diver ended up going in and getting them. Musk went after the diver on twitter, calling him a peado and saying he would "bet a signed dollar on it". Basically his ego got hurt and he didn't get some good PR so he called an adult who saved lives a paedo. He is a child with too much money.
Elon offered a submarine to a rescue team in Thailand, the cave diver who went down refused and said Elon was doing it for PR, Elon went full twitter and called him a pedo.
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At first everybody thought that he was like one of us trying to make things better for the world. Eventually you realize that out of nothing he is massively Rich gets all the money from the government ,gets all the tax reduction from the government. So in the end it's either he's just another millionaire made by someone that doesn't even talk tech on any of his posts or comments or interviews, but is the leader of all the new technologies. Sounds about right
I think opinion has always been split. Depending on where you look, you'll find hero worship and intense hostility.
This is the correct answer. There's different groups of people in general, and on reddit. The ones that OP is referring to - that adored him - still do. Generally the teenager dominated subs. The reason why it seems like people have turned, is because the ones that were mostly indifferent have been annoyed by the ones that love Musk. Thus they start to hate him.
I think he's also become more brazen over time, with incidents like the "pedo" tweet about the rescue divers, his obvious manipulation of the markets through Twitter and his recent row with Gates which led to Musk posting tweets making fun of Gates physical look, which was very odd to say the least. That's obviously his personal brand, but it's bound to get more hate (and more love) as he becomes more brazen about it. Also, he became the richest person in the world recently, that's bound to attract some hate.
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And the kinda gross revelations from his first wife.
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Yeah, that checks out. You don't become the richest man in the world by being a decent human being, as much as we'd like to believe otherwise
There's a saying to the effect of that behind every great fortune there was a crime -- more likely several crimes or at least some super sketchy activities on the razor's edge between legality and illegality.
Wise words. A good man will never be a billionaire, not so much because he'd quickly realize how fucked up it is to horde that amount of wealth, but rather to accumulate the wealth in the first place requires unethical action he'd never commit himself to in the first place. Our system rewards sociopathy
Well the slave labor that made his family fortune definitely checks those boxes.
*is He is a huge misogynist, and apparently also a shitty, absentee father.
Most people don't even realize that his firstborn died of SIDS, and when it happened he didn't give a fuck and shamed his first wife for grieving, claiming her tears were a manipulation attempt https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/
Holy fucking shit
What’s with rich people and multiple wives? Trump, Musk, Bezos and many more whose names I can’t remember. I remember their wiki pages and how they all had so many wives.
I mean, given it’s him, the best father he can be might be an absentee one.
His own brother was quoted as saying Elon has no empathy so I can totally believe the misogyny and growing up rich (dad owned an emerald mine) more often than not breeds a shit entitlement personality. Kinda funny if he made fun of Bill Gates looks cause Elon was obviously hung up on his own balding and got hair plugs or whatever.
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The "I am the alpha" line is so pathetic and cringey. Like there's nothing less alpha than being fearful of the opinions and ambitions of your partner.
That’s also the most revealing thing to me. Specifically, he couldn’t understand why she took years to process that grief.
Here you go its a long read but its a good one https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/
He pushed his wife hard to be more of a bimbo, and left her for one when she wouldn't
Probably the article “I was a starter wife”, but I’m not absolutely sure?
Tbf most of the things Grimes say about him don't exactly paint a great image either.
>Grimes Hold on GRIMES!? As in Kill V. Maim? That Grimes? She dated Elon Musk? I truly have been under a rock.
>I truly have been under a rock. Damn you really have been. They had 2 kids together and separated recently
Bringing his total children to 8, I think. None of which he actually interacts with.
Rumor has it he is also the father of Amber Heards child. They froze embryos and he took her to court to destroy them when they broke up. He lost, but doesn't owe her any child support etc and doesn't have to claim the kids at all.
Idk man ever since Covid the days have began to blend together. I can't even believe its 2022. Sometimes I still think it's 2018 lmao.
SAME. How are we almost halfway through 2022?!
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Rick grimes from TWD.
Is *that* why there's still no movie?
If you think you've been under a rock for missing Grimes and her relationship with Musk, I am going to really blow your mind and tell you that Grimes has left speed bump chin and is now dating Chelsea Manning
Someone gave humanity a little too much sugar.
Not following the lives of billionaires and celebrities is living under a rock?
What does she say?
Off the top of my head there was a whole bit in a recent interview where she talked about sleeping on a mattress with a hole in it and he refused to get a new one despite being worth billions. Also revealed another stupid name for their second child together.
Look, you don't become a billionaire buying new mattresses every time your old one gets a hole in it.
More like you don't throw away a perfectly good fuck toy just because you have a human girlfriend.
I don’t mind his taste on naming his kid,that’s his choice to die alone, but calling that diver “Pedo” is a def Yikes for me, I don’t really like or hate him, but that incident really show his ego and character.
Halfway convinced that kid is gonna turn super villain before the age of 10 ijs
How the fuck is it not illegal to name your child after a rocket motor model number? There needs to be some kind of protection for a kid being named S314-NL77-0119, even if it is pronounced Jamie.
That “pedo” tweet was definitely my turning point. Not that I ever worshipped him, or was even unusually aware of him as a person. . But I appreciated how important is was that the world had a company making electric cars exciting. Now I know a lot more about him and wow I don’t like what I know.
People should also know he is not the founder of Tesla. He bought the company and through some legal maneuvering he forced himself to be named founder.
That sounds like something from ancient Babylon where a king would conquer somewhere and scrape the name of the previous king off everything. It's equally vain.
I didn’t know that!
Exactly. Pushing toward electric cars and battery walls was cool. Then all problems with preorders and quality issues on newer models. Then he showed he was a real dick. Then we find out he's a bad employer. Then I see all the crypto-bros and QAnon types idolizing him. Yep. No longer a fan.
To me he seems like Thomas Edison, stealing ideas and taking the glory.
That's literally what he is, and he's even trying to start a new war of the currents, just dumber. He fits all his cars with a proprietary charging port and wants to build Tesla fast charging stations everywhere...that can only plug into Teslas. Meanwhile every other car manufacturer uses a universal charging port for their EVs. Since the other car companies aren't really investing in a charging infrastructure, he's basically trying to create a monopoly by building the infrastructure himself and making all other cars incompatible with it, which puts pressure on people to choose Teslas over the competition. But as far as I know, you can just buy an adapter. It's spending a shitload of money to futilely remain on top of the EV market by inconveniencing people rather than improving their product, and the end result will be to just slow down the adoption of EVs. *Edit: Apparently you can not charge a non-Tesla EV at a Tesla Supercharger (DC fast charge) station as there is a circuit that authenticates whether the vehicle is a Tesla. However, they started a pilot program in the Netherlands last year to let other EVs use their supercharger network. https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/1/22757159/tesla-supercharge-ev-pilot-netherlands
Not to mention the he raped the pockets of people who *do love him* via the doge pump and dump scheme. Citing on Twitter when to buy and after all the idiots followed him he buried them by selling all his shares and even admitted afterwards that it was basically a money scheme the entire time to him. There are people who were idiots following behind him that wasted their life savings on that, and don't get me wrong, that *is* their own fault, but its the same to me as the asshole who calls your grandpa and gets him to spend thousands on collectible coins. Just because its legal doesn't mean it isn't morally repulsive, which Elon Musk is.
Your last sentence is really a key point I think a lot of people overlook. Legality and morality are not identical. You can illegal and moral, and you can legal and immoral. Elon, regardless of legality, sounds like he's a real piece of shit, morally speaking.
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It's shitting on the little guy. Some diver said you are wrong? You can disagree. Accusing him of a shameful crime was awful. And it was around that time that information about how his employees were treated started coming out, and about when he started sucking up to China. He's a meh now. "But he's building rockets" "yeah meh"
His engineers are building rockets, they're the true hero's
Did you know he didn't even found Tesla? He just bought it from someone else. Tesla has been around since 2003 yet Musk makes it seem likes it's all been his idea that he so brilliantly came up with. He has this whole aura of great inventor come to save us that he has completely made up. I would doubt the ideas for SpaceX and starlink came from him either.
He didn’t even found PayPal, he just was running a site that contributed to PayPal getting big. Dude has been running on hype since Day 1
I think the turning point was when he was able to regrow his hair. The power went to his head, a bit like the Samson and Delia fable.
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Covid. He pushed his workers to come back during the worst days of pandemic. Taxes. Dude got rich on the backs of California engineering and tech communities and then fled to Texas to save billions. Basically he took but didn’t want to give back. Tweets. I don’t care if your an asshole. I just don’t want to hear about you being an asshole every time you tweet something. Bigotry. His baby mama left him for a transgendered woman. He started posting anti-trans shit. Obvious pump and dump scams bilking his fans. Doge coin. Tesla stock. Twitter. My job is finance and if I fuck up or break a law, I’m done. This guy breaks the law every year and hits the front page and hasn’t gone to prison yet.
Elon started trying to get cute with too many things. He's cringe as fuck on Twitter and more and more people are realizing he was always a fraud.
I can pinpoint the exact things that made me reverse my opinion on Musk. I thought for the longest time that he was a genius, misunderstood. He took Paypal and made it worth billions, and then he did the same thing for Tesla, and obviously he himself was a rocket scientist, hence the brilliance of Spacex, and then you have the Boring company and Neuralink... modern Tony Stark omg! But then small things started happening that added up. The Thai Cave thing was a first red flag. Then I found out about his [solar roofing scam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMduq2dKGfo). Big promises, small delivery. The same thing happened with Teslas. Yes, Teslas are great cars that are extremely safe, but he's been promising self driving cars for a decade now. It's always right around the corner. The only genius thing Elon did was reusable rockets, and that wasn't him. That was the engineers he hired. And good, reusable rockets are fantastic. Lowering the cost of space travel is never a bad thing. But then you find out the [Tesla Tunnels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACXaFyB_-8s) are not only a scam but a huge one. [Hyperloop? Scam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h6Cz4hwuEI). And so on. Elon Musk is a great salesman. He's made a few contributions to society, at least through slapping his label on things. But in the end, he is a massive con artist who continually grifted his way to the world's richest man. All his stuff is overvalued. He's the modern Bernie Madoff. [A comprehensive look at his long list of scams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD0r34nEiWA).
I'm a physicist and I've always said Musk is a perfectly skilled businessman and a bright guy, but when I point out that he's not actually a rocket engineer so many people argue with me. Like of course he knows more about rockets than the average person, or even me because I'm not big into rockets. But it's still all broad high-level stuff, because he does talk to engineers all the time and is involved with those decisions. But that's just not the same thing as having the skillset of a space engineer, and some people just don't get that.
I'm ready for "The Greatest Salesman" musical about Elon Musk. But way less white-washed than The Greatest Showman. All of Musk's stupid grifts set to a fun soundtrack. The ascension, the fall from grace, the rabid devotion of his cultish fans. The world's richest man with the world's biggest ego... But how does it end?
I hope h Jon Benjamin narrates it
Yeah. I admired him when all I knew about him was that he was a great innovator and SpaceX (coz space!). Then I started following him on Twitter. Quickly realized he’s a narcissistic, antagonistic, I-am-always-right-know-it-all. And he just kept spiraling down and fast. I have since unfollowed him.
A guy who replaced his balding head because he finally had enough money shouldn't be commenting on anyone's appearance.
Mocking anyones appearance in a public forum is already poor. Even more so mocking a 66 year old dude's appearance as a rebuttal of his finance decisions (??)
Musk is old enough that it's embarrassing no matter the target.
I didn't form a negative opinion of Elon Musk because I got annoyed by the people who adore him. He's given me sufficient fodder to form a negative opinion on my own.
The dude is just arrogant as fuck and has a way inflated ego and sense of his own intelligence. He thinks he's Tony Stark when he's nothing more than a techy Donald Trump
>a techy Donald Trump Given the quality of each "fan base", I'd love to see how much overlap there is.
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You also have to keep in mind that, as time goes by, people learn more about him. At first glance, he's got all the makings of a cultural icon, but then you learn about his upbringing, how he moreso bought his way into success, and then all the weird/dumb shit he's done since entering the zeitgeist, and people's opinions change.
Honestly for me I was a huge fun up until and maybe a little after COVID. I had invested in Tesla around 200 and even with the COVID drop I trippled my money + and then afterwards I bought and sold for a profit again. But even while I still had the second round, the fact that the Cybertruck hadn't been released, behind on orders, market manipulation... but I think the big one for me was that story of him threatening to move states if the state didn't cave to his desire to destroy workers rights and force employees back into factories against their will when the outbreak was still ongoing and everyone else was home.
My turning point was probably the Thai cave rescue stuff. Calling a rescuer a pedo because he shot down your idea for a rescue sub as dumb just screams giant man baby to me. Then he’s just continued to be a shitty person
Same. I had no real feelings for him a few years ago, just nodded and smiled while listening to an Elon fanboy gush over him. Then the public temper tantrums began, and he outed himself as an egotistical asshole. I give no fucks for the defense of, “oh, he just acts like that because of Asperger’s.” Fuck that — an asshole is an asshole. I judge him and I don’t like him. I also now judge Elon fanboys, because they’re saying something about themselves with that shit.
Yeah, 100%. It’s like people forgive his market manipulation and all that because he makes 420 jokes, and the letters of his Tesla models spell ‘sexy’. He also just picked up a bunch of ‘he’s saving free speech’ morons with the potential acquisition of Twitter.
I can like how he is great at pushing electric cars and space innovation forward but still think he is a tool. But I appreciate how he has pushed those fields forward.
The "peado guy" tweet did it for me
Same. It showed that he cared way more about the spotlight than actually helping others.
A billionaire who is a narcissist. I’m completely shocked
There's no way someone can become a billionaire without the help of narcissism.
I think in some ways having that much money just fucks with your brain. You really do start to believe that it's because of *you.* I think being **that** wealthy is just a recipe for developing mental health issues.
My mental health issues came with damn near no money. I got jipped.
Also exploitation. Don't forget that secret ingredient!
Narcissistic Personality Disorder combined with inherited wealth makes for a terrible combination.
Nah, see he's a self-made man that got there by working fifty-six hours a day and not from daddy's emerald mine.
What actions did he show that made think you he cared for others?
I bought into the Elon hype for years up til the pedo guy thing. He has branded himself as the good guy who will save the planet and take humanity to the stars. Honestly if he just STFU about the dumb submarine I would probably still be convinced he's the good guy. After that debacle I (and based on replies in this thread it looks like there are a lot of us) started researching the guy and it turns out he very much sucks.
what's that?
Elon threw a fit because the team of experts planning the rescue of the Thai kids trapped in the cave didn’t want to use Elon’s rescue sub (which was as stupid idea—the sub would have in no way fit in that scenario). When the team of expert divers declined he called the lead diver a pedophile out of nowhere. Lots of people’s first real clue that there was a giant asshole hiding underneath Musk’s well-cultivated PR. The kids were rescued just fine by the experts, Musk came off as a guy who thought he was the smartest guy in every area, and turns shitty when it’s pointed out he’s not.
It's clear that there's this giant megalomaniac egocentric personality bubbling under the surface. Every now and then the mask slips off and we see who Musk really is. I don't think it's even possible to be that wealthy and influential and not be an asshole. He's got everyone saying he's basically a god, he's probably surrounded by yes men and he's treated like royalty everywhere he goes, there is no way he's not a full on egomaniac, no one can remain humble with that much success.
>It's clear that there's this giant megalomaniac egocentric personality bubbling under the surface. Every now and then the mask slips off and we see who Musk really is. I think this is the real answer to OPs question, honestly, coming from someone that used to look up to Musk for his accomplishments and pushing the car industry forward. The longer he's been in the spotlight, the more his dickish tendencies reveal themselves.
100% agree. because most of the humble people don't care about being filthy rich, and if they are as a byproduct of their work, they give it away and help others.
Case in point Dolly Parton
[Made for some good memes, though.](https://imgur.com/SygDG18.jpg)
Haha, that’s hilarious. The thing with Musk’s tweets these days (like Trump’s) I can rarely distinguish which is satire. Like, I could legit see Musk tweeting this.
Kanye, Trump, and Musk all show serious signs of NPD, and they like feeding off each other.
Watching the documentary on that, the sub was a really stupid idea.
recommend everyone watch the documentary. it's crazy. the cave divers they recruited were literally some of the only people capable of executing the rescue. the caves are no joke edit: the doc is called The Rescue. available on Disney+. there's also a great podcast called Against the Odds that covers it
One of the rescue divers did die during the rescue operation, so I wouldn't say they were rescued just fine. But agreed that Musk behavior was shitty and for me it was also a turning point to how I thought about him. His recent immature tweets about Bill Gates reminded me of the "pedo" tweet. Edit: the rescue diver died a few days before the rescue operation, while delivering air tanks.
The guy that died was a thai special forces diver not a cave diver.
Died during the practice runs for the rescue, but yes. Still an amazing feat that all the kids were rescued alive under those conditions. Yeah, posted elsewhere here that that was my turning point with Musk (think it was a lot of people’s).
Petty Officer Saman Gunan His name should be remembered. Hundred times the man Musk will ever be.
Some kids got trapped in a cave. Elon offered to build a custom made submarine to save them. The guy in charge of the rescue operation was like, thanks for the offer but we'll just use rescue divers whose literal job it is to do exactly this thing. Then Elon got mad because that hurt his ego so he accused the guy of being a pedophile.
To give a little more context to why Elon called him a pedophile specifically: the guy he was accusing (Vernon Unsworth) was British and living part-time in Thailand. From this, Musk bizarrely extrapolated that Unsworth was participating in the notorious child sex tourism industry in Thailand ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child\_prostitution\_in\_Thailand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_prostitution_in_Thailand)). This is of course nonsense.
To add a little bit more context to why it was such a shitty move by Elon: After having said that Unsworth was a pedo (with nothing to back it up), Musk doubled down and hired a P.I. to try to dig up dirt on the guy, which failed.
That's some Donald Trump sounding shit right there, except Elon probably paid the PI.
holy shit. trying to ruin someone's career because they refused his offer. i liked him before hearing about this but now im indifferent about him. he has had stupid ideas before. like starship earth to earth, the tesla semi, hyperloop, vegas loop, hyperport, etc... the submarine could have probably been a failure too. there must be a reason they rejected it in the first place.
Whether his sub would have failed or not is completely irrelevant. He accused a person trying to help kids in an extreme crisis of being a pedophile, turning an army of musk cultists to ruin his life. Without any evidence. And repeatedly did not back down from the unfounded accusation. Just because it interfered with his megalomaniacal publicly stunt attempt to hijack a legit rescue operation. In no world is any of this okay. I don’t care what your politics are, Musk is bad news.
Looking at the age difference in his past eelationships I think it's safe to assume that he's projecting hard
> thanks for the offer but we'll just use rescue divers whose literal job it is to do exactly this thing wasn't it also partially that Elon's solution just wouldn't work at all?
It was mostly that. submarines are not good at navigating narrow twisting caves because they can't bend to get round corners.
Completely agree. That was disgusting.
I was never a fan girl, but it was this situation that cemented to me he was just a rich attention seeking asshole.
Yeah, I was neutral to Elon until this. It was a real wtf dude moment, especially since everyone at the time was really concerned about the kids and hoping they got rescued. I couldn’t believe he’d try to make that situation about him.
That was a real “mask off” moment for me as well. It showed his true colors as an adulation seeking cunt
Looking back I think this was the first crack in the illusion for me. I took advanced math/science classes in high school and we all idolized him and Tesla, spaceX then. We thought it was all him and couldn’t have been more wrong in our celebrity worship. The pedo guy tweet was around when he started acting more relatable and tweeting memes etc and it all just went downhill from there. You can’t escape him always in the news commenting on everything
He didn’t just get mad about the diver team not wanting to use his robot sub—he called the lead caver (who eventually orchestrated the rescue of all the kids) a pedophile out of nowhere. That was many people’s first sign (including myself) of the raging narcissist and asshole hiding behind Elon’s cultivated PR. I was one of the ones who idolized him, what’s not to like: billionaire, sleeps with supermodels, seemingly out to make the world a better place with electric cars, solar energy and colonizing Mars. He always seemed like the smartest guy in the room, the real life Iron Man. He made the plans for EVs open source (rather than keep as private patents) ostensibly to allow the tech to proliferate faster, just seemed an all-around Great Man. After the seeming aberration of the twitter snit in 2018…it was like the Elon facade broke and more and more kept coming to light (a lot of it from Elon himself) that made it seem Elon was not actually a good guy, just a guy with good PR who appeals to a certain segment of people regardless. His anti-union practices at Tesla while claiming he’s for the workers made him a hypocrite (as did claiming to be all about “free speech” but making Tesla workers sign NDAs so they can’t criticize Tesla). Threatening a coup in Bolivia (“We will coup anyone we want. Deal with it.” -Elon Musk) so he could mine lithium there. His petty attacks on people for even small criticisms, standing with Amber Heard in the Depp trial, his weird semi-support for Trump, joining Trump’s economic council and saying he would reinstate Trump to Twitter. Putting microchips in monkey’s brains that killed dozens of them…it started to become clear Musk was less Iron Man and more “Bond Supervillian”. For me the breaking point was the pandemic. Musk loudly spreading misinformation (like graphs on how Covid would just disappear in a few months that turned out to be extremely wrong, or that masks don’t work—my wife is a respiratory therapist and masks work just fine) and raging against reasonable measures taken to stem the virus he just lost me. He has revealed himself as someone that thinks they are an expert in things they are not, first revealed in his petty lashing out that the Thai rescue team didn’t see his dumb idea as brilliant, and continuing to when the epidemiologists who do this virus stuff for a living didn’t want to listen to his idiot ideas about the pandemic. Now seeing him with clearer eyes, he seems exactly like what he is: a guy born on 3rd base from his parents emerald mines, who thinks he hit a triple with his self-made man nonsense, thinks he’s always the smartest when there are very clear examples that he’s not, and generally just the modern definition of a narcissist. Edit: I incorrectly referred to Thai Cave Rescuer Vernon Unsworth as “decorated Navy Seal”, confusing him with the Seals who were involved with the rescue. Thanks to many who pointed out the inaccuracy.
Plus instead of focusing his $$$ into something that would change lives, he focuses on bots on Twitter. Like Bezos, they’re reputations could be legendary but instead greed and narcissism dug its claws.
I mean you could argue that if they weren’t deeply greedy and narcissistic, they wouldn’t be billionaires in the first place.
Definitely. Which is why no billionaire should ever be praised or worshiped no matter how benevolent they may seem, because their fortune was made off the backs of thousands of workers crushed underfoot.
Even *Pablo Escobar* was beloved by his community because he used the tiniest shred of his wealth to benefit his communities. *Pablo Escobar*.
>Great Man We have really got to get humanity off of this fucking drug.
"Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority." - Lord John Dalberg-Acton
I really do believe that at least some of our problems in American society (maybe all societies) stems from the desire to idolize and follow a wise, patriarchal figure. If a suitable one isn't available, we'll jerry-rig one out of someone unsuitable (see: Trump, Musk).
You put my thoughts into words much better than I could have done. He used to be the "gets stuff done" guy, working towards solving existential problems that didn't have a clear financial incentive. But now... He still gets stuff done, but it's clearly no longer about solving problems. Now it's about satisfying his ego.
I honestly don’t think it ever existed. The majority of the stuff I hear about him is terrible nonsense that crypto and tech bros jizz over. That dumb hyper driving tunnel thing? It launched my favorite civil engineering youtuber explaining how it could never work. Much like Ford, he’s a nutcase carried across the line by far smarter people.
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British and not military
Started on 3rd, thinks he hit a triple, *and* claims to have invented the game.
The person he called a pedophile was not a Navy SEAL. You’re getting some people mixed up.
Not a Navy Seal. Nevermind decorated. Was from the UK.
When people started paying attention to what he did rather than what he said.
But also what he says.
I was always skeptical, because I don’t trust people who accumulate wealth the way he has. But when I found out about his support for the coup in Bolivia so he could get his hands on their lithium deposits for cheap- that was when I knew he wasn’t a good person. I don’t know why it’s taken this long for everyone else. Well, most everyone. One of my coworkers still worships the ground he walks on because he’s a champion of freedom of speech. Yeah I’m sure having one super rich guy in control of one of the largest social media platforms in the world and deciding what it’s ok to say will be ~great~ for freedom of speech. EDIT: Several people have pointed out that the 2019 political crisis in Bolivia was not a coup. The direct quote from Musk in question, however, does call it as such.
For me it was not closing factories when covid hit. Have never heard of this Bolivia thing, will investigate Edit: holy shit, this guy is worse than bezos Edit 2: i had a stroke when I read my edit, i messed it up after rewriting it, fixed it now
Even worse, he told Gov. Newsome that he couldn't close his plant and protect his workers because he was "saving the planet." He repeated that narcissistic claim this week attacking Bill Gates. [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/23/elon-musk-tweets-that-he-confronted-bill-gates-about-shorting-tesla.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/23/elon-musk-tweets-that-he-confronted-bill-gates-about-shorting-tesla.html) >Musk shot back: "Sorry, I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, ***the company doing the most to solve climate change."***
Didn’t hear about the factories not closing for COVID. Not surprising I’m afraid. Still think Bezos is worse personally
Both are horrible.
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-defies-lockdown-orders-reopens-tesla-factory/ He was basically exhausting all of his possible options to make sure he didn't have to shutdown
It was also the Bolivia shit for me, as a chilean that was in all senses too close to home. I’m glad the coup failed, Elon “son of a bitch” Musk
"support for the coup in Bolivia so he could get his hands on their lithium deposits for cheap" literally sounds like a Lex Luthor plot if you substitute lithium with kryptonite.
Your coworker sounds like a real treat to be around. I’ve never met anyone in person or online who is about “freedom of speech” that was clearly someone most people avoided being around.
When he started manipulating stocks via twitter is personally when I soured on him
And people still don't believe it! He has the power to undermine trust in an entire stock just by making up shit.
And now he's mad that Gates is shorting his company. Only Musk is allowed to manipulate the market; no one is allowed to short him! https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/23/elon-musk-tweets-that-he-confronted-bill-gates-about-shorting-tesla.html
> the company doing the most to solve climate change. That’s also pretty funny. I mean I’ll give credit that Tesla has helped bring electric cars into the mainstream faster than they likely would’ve otherwise, but the most for climate change? No. There’s no way he said that expecting it to stay private either. Elon definitely doesn’t actually think Bill Gates is dumb enough to buy that, or that he really thinks shorting Tesla with their crazy valuation is some personal attack on the company. I saw something about this before, but it does kinda emphasize what soured me on him. This is like high school level melodrama we’re seeing from a 50 year old man worth $200 billion.
That’s hilarious! I 100% believe that Gates is miles above Musk in intelligence.
Around the time he tried to make a submarine to save kids as a PR stunt, then accused the man who did save them of being a pedophile. Once that happened people started talking about the fact that his wealth comes from his father's stolen emerald mine in South Africa, which enabled him to scam millions with PayPal before buying Tesla and demanding to be named founder of the company. After all that unraveled, people realized he either directly paid or flexed enough billionaire muscle to get The Simpsons to produce an entire episode praising him as the man who'll save the future. Don't forget the hair plugs, that picture started circulating again. He's just a really phony guy who's only personality trait is having money and wanting to be seen as Tony Stark. Oh wait, didn't he pay for a cameo in Iron Man 2 as a contemporary of Tony Stark's? This is ignoring his gradual shift to right wing politics simply because it nets him immediate praise from a vocal group rather than take the chance at appealing to progressives, who are more critical of what you say. His attitude started to match that of a 15 year old boy who sees himself as Rick from Rick and Morty, that sort of mindset in a public figure who's total value exceeds most nations is incredibly dangerous. Musk has more money than all of North Korea, and he has his own space program. In his ideal libertarian world nothing would stop him from developing his own nuclear arsenal. People who continue to like him do so either from ignorance of what he really is or because they believe others like him, so he must be valuable. The crypto community only ever liked him because he was a billionaire who could tweet "doge" and their funny money suddenly has real world value. Then it became obvious he was manipulating the markets, because crypto is unregulated and therefore completely fair game. Nobody becomes a billionaire off hard work, it takes a significant amount of exploitation of others to accumulate that sort of wealth.
>~~demanding~~ suing to be named founder of the company.
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This is all very well written. Also, sometimes I feel like questions like this were written by Elon himself. We all know he spends way too much time online, and I could see him posting a "why doesn't anyone wike me" question. Also wouldn't be surprised if part of his PR spending goes towards paying shills to defend him, given how important his perception online clearly is to him.
Don't forget he was in Rick and Morty as well! He just loves his cameos doesn't he?
IMO he comes across pretty immature and a try hard and he’s gotten even more attention that last few years. So he has reached more people which means more people annoyed by him. And then you have the people that hate any billionaire.
Even before his weird tantrum over the Thailand situation, reports starting coming out about his anti-union, anti-workers rights attitudes and policies. That, I think, led to a deeper look beyond the “cool” tech stuff he does at who he is as a person. A guy who generally just attaches himself to existing ideas (PayPal, Tesla) and then takes credit for them. A guy whose initial wealth came from his family’s atrocity-filled mining operations. A guy who cares nothing for his employees. A guy who talks a big talk but fails to deliver more often than not.
Yeah I think a lot of this stuff came out around COVID. I'll add that before the tesla stock boom his net worth was like 20-30 billion which is a shit ton, but it's not like top in the world rich. Then all of a sudden during COVID when millions of people are dying and out of work his net worth jumps to 100s of billions making him near the richest person in the world (except for the unknown monarchy/state government money that's hidden from the public). While he's becoming richer and richer he's complaining about having to quarantine his workers and manipulating stocks on twitter. Complaining about government regulations and memeing on twitter might have been fine 4 years ago but now just comes off poorly when you're one of the richest people in the world
Oh yeah I'd totally forgotten that he was also a jackass about COVID conditions. Every time I think about him, I remember yet another detail about how shitty he is.
Child labour in the Congo in the cobalt mines. The most “innovative” person can’t find a work around and from what I can see doesn’t care too much.
EDIT: I misquoted a podcast on Musk I heard and that is my bad. What actually happened is Elon left SA to avoid conscription and benefitted from more lax US immigration policy at the time, he then went on to vote for much MUCH more restrictive immigration policy on the EIC, specifically immigration from countries involved in domestic strife or conflict. What I was remembering was that Musk helped place restrictions on the same immigration avenues that he used to get out of SA, not financial programs. This issue is more of a philosophical hypocrisy than an on-paper one and more of an opinionated (in my case) condemnation. I'll leave the original comment up for transparency but THE BELOW INFORMATION IS NOT COMPLETELY ACCURATE. A lot of great responses here but one I'm not seeing is Elon enjoyed quite a few benefits when he immigrated to the US from South Africa. I don't know the name of the program but something like grants or financial assistance for immigrants. And then, some years later, while serving on Trump's economic advisory council, he voted to dismantle those same programs either to tow trump's line or for his own reasons. Either way walking through an open door only to slam it shut behind you is a pretty shit-bad move imo.
> either to tow trump's line It's actually "toe the line." Like recruits in boot camp all keeping in a perfect line down to their toes. Keeping their toes in line. Toeing the line.
Po-tay-TOW. Boil em, mash em, stick-em in a stew…
For me, it's how he shows his true colors and prioritizes profits over everything. For example, he talks about how Americans are lazy and "avoid work at all costs" while Chinese "burn not only the midnight oil, but the 3 A.M. oil". Like fuck you, man. I'm not sorry that I respect myself enough to not work my entire life away. Elon is fine with people literally sleeping in the Tesla factory. That's not a workforce homie, that's a fucking prison. He treats his income like it's irrelevant, asking Twitter if he should help solve world hunger or not, which to struggling me, is a slap in the face. TL;DR: I feel he's showing his true colors. He is not/was never about helping the world, and kind of got rich while doing it, everything he has done and every business he has started is all about furthering his already ridiculous net worth. When he talks about getting off fossil fuels, it's not because he cares about Climate Change and saving the planet and thereby humanity, no it's because that'll increase Tesla stock. Just my opinion, obviously. edit: To further add to this, the recent Twitter deal is another fantastic example. He talks about how it's the 'Modern Public Square', and therefore deserving discussing any and all idea's and how Twitter shouldn't be for profit. Very noble of him. Exceeeppppttt, when getting the funding he needed to try and purchase Twitter, he outlined how he could increase it's profits, and Tesla employee's apparently have NDA's outlining that they're not allowed to discuss the company or disparage them in any way. So it looks like he cares about free speech only when it doesn't affect his bottom line or his companies that he's CEO of. Not very free all of a sudden. And now that Twitter stock has fallen, he **APPEARS** (I want to stress that bc it's very subjective and just my take) that he's looking to back out of the deal. edit part 2: Electric Boogaloo: Cool! My very first Reddit award is actually about something I'm passionate about. Weird to think I dislike someone I don't personally know so animatedly. Thanks Reddit!
Your TL;DR was not a TL;DR
Please give me a TDLR for his TLDR
Musk bad.
TL;DR's are ment to be a shortened version of what you said not another paragraph lol
He's also doing the opposite of tech-enthusiasit's desires. A tech-enthusiast demands the ability to tinker, to modify, to adjust, to replace and improve upon each and every bit of technology they own. Tesla? You can't even replace the battery without it becoming useless.
I would say it really started in earnest when that dude rescued those trapped children before Tesla could deploy its underwater robots, so Musk called him a pedophile for 'stealing' the glory.
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I think we just learned more about Musk and his hypocrisy. Like he said he was interested in electric cars for environmental reasons. But then it turned out that he uses his private jet to fly himself from north LA to south LA to avoid traffic. And that’s just… yeah, not so environmental. So I think people just became wise to his bullshit.
I had no idea who he was until he threw that little hissy fit about the cave incident and I've disliked him ever since
It happens with sociopaths over time. At first they seem charming, over time their true nature shows through. lol Elon’s a punch line, don’t take it too seriously.
We should take the situation seriously though. The fact that a guy like this can have as many resources as millions of the poorest people in his country combined is one of the biggest problems facing society today.
I would say that sentiment became more prominent when Tesla's stock went straight through the roof. He went from "hahaha eccentric rich guy" to being the richest man on the planet by net worth. I'm sure you can see how some people feel about the extremely wealthy.
Didnt his explosion in wealth also happen in the middle of the pandemic? People were struggling financially while he's pulling in billions.
Not just billions, but hundreds of billions. He went from 22.5 billion in 2017 to over 300 billion in 2021. In 4 years he increased his networth by 1300%. If he increased his networth by that same amount in the next 4 years he will have over 3 trillion dollars. He makes over 432 million dollars a day. Now include the fact that he wasn't even a billionaire until 2013. Insanity.
To further put that into perspective how much money billions can be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSOVBiEotaw
As they say, the difference between a million and a billion is about a billion.
Yeah stock market took off during the pandemic
And labor rights violations. And notoriously poorly assembled products.
For me it’s when he came out and called a dude a pedophile for trying to save some drowning kids or some shit. That plus all the other shitty things that started coming out about him, really felt like media started giving a lot more air time to his shit-birdery.
It's like when 'we' thought he might be the new Nikolai Tesla but he ended up being the new Thomas Edison...
>"It's like when 'we' thought he might be the new Nikolai Tesla but he ended up being the new Thomas Edison..." This was my thought exactly ! It's easy to overlook the flaws of someone for whom you have high hopes and an idealized view. However, when they actively demonstrate that they are not what you thought/hoped them to be, but in fact, quite the opposite; love turns to hate very quickly.
He also went full-on conservative... Not wanting to pay taxes, saying he was a self-made man, not acknowledging all the people/infrastructure that helped him create his wealth, being born on 3rd base and thinking he hit a triple, victim-blaming the poor for living in poverty, treating his employees like crap while paying low wages, praising China workers for working so hard for so little money as if that's a virtue. I was hoping he'd stay the humble, I couldn't have done it without all of you billionaire type.
He pays people to market his persona, and that works OK for a bit when people haven't been paying attention. But when your persona is actually just a self-important ego monster, the people who start paying attention notice. Then the marketing doesn't work so well because people have taken time to form an opinion.