[Slartie]

Can totally understand that guy, and I hope he follows through on legal action against Musk.

Having a verbal fight is one thing, even throwing around "dirty" language is in some way acceptable among grown-ups, as long as both sides know the limits. One of those limits is that you never, never, never, NEVER accuse your opponent of socially stigmatizing behavior, especially not if you have no basis for doing so (and even if you have evidence for it, it's still kind of bad style to bring that up). Being a pedophile is probably the most stigmatizing accusation possible in todays' society - just the accusation alone, no evidence whatsoever necessary, can destroy the life of perfectly honest people if it "catches on" somehow, and stuff like that quickly catches on and develops a life of its own. Especially when publicized by some guy with a cult-like following of 22 million people on Twitter.

If Musk was a kid, he should have gotten seriously disciplined by his parents for this, in hopes that he'd learn where the limits are. For adults, it's up to the legal system to do this job. To be honest, I have little hope for Musk to learn any new tricks with regard to acceptable limits for his childish temper tantrums, but I nevertheless hope he doesn't get out of this entirely unscathed - this one was just way too far over the line.

[ddalex]

I think Elon Musk lacks the empathy to understand the damage he's doing to those around him - family, employees, strangers on the internet - when he's throwing away words like that; I genuinely think he's actually lacking these social skills.

It doesnt' help that Silicon Valley basically made this behavior glamorous - Steve Jobs is the primary exponent of a crass person getting a cult-like following. While I think it's a useful trait while in pursuit of achieving unreasonable things - like ground-breaking design innovation, sending cars in space, expanding a niche car market to mainstream - all these guys, Musk, Jobs, and so on are basically sociopaths, and we shouldn't be afraid to call them as such.

[masklinn]

> I think Elon Musk lacks the empathy to understand the damage he's doing to those around him - family, employees, strangers on the internet - when he's throwing away words like that; I genuinely think he's actually lacking these social skills.

It's not just social skills that he lacks, the interview with his first wife[0] where she notes that he regarded her grieving for their first kid (SIDS death at 10 weeks) as "emotionally manipulative"[1] is something else entirely.

[0] https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-start...

[1] https://i.imgur.com/YDYeRW0.png

[ryanwaggoner]

Steve Jobs is the primary exponent of a crass person getting a cult-like following

Uh, maybe in SV, but not in, say, politics ;)

[dnel]

I doubt any amount of damages he'd get would even slightly sting Musk, the worst Musk will get is the bad press about this but that's already happening. At least the guy might get some legal cleasing from the stain Musk put on him and a bit of cash in compensation. I hope he follows through because throwing about accusations like that is not on and kids, and some grown-ups, who look up to a man like Musk need to see that he has boundaries of acceptable conduct and he's stepped over them this time.

[mruniverse]

Hopefully people will idolize Musk a little less.