[Endama]

I think the thing that people really like about Elon Musk is that he just doesn't care about the interpersonal social status dynamics at play with his position in the world. If you look at the interview, he's very dismissive of Kara's questioning about how others perceive him:

Kara: What’s Twitter? Okay, let’s start with Twitter. I have an obsession with Twitter, too, and an addiction. What happens with you and Twitter?

Elon: Well, I tweet interesting things pretty much as they come to me, and probably with not much of a filter.

Kara: And why?

Elon: I find it entertaining. I think, “Oh, other people might find this entertaining.” Sometimes they do.

Kara: Just at night? What are you, at home you’re doing this?

Elon: Yeah. Mostly at home. I spend a lot less time on Twitter than people probably think. It’s like maybe 10-15 minutes or something.

Kara: Yeah, well people pay attention when you do that.

And then he continues on to legitimize his tone by showing his prowess in entrepreneurship and science:

Kara: Do you take criticism to heart correctly?

Elon: Yes.

Kara: Give me an example of something if you could.

Elon: How do you think rockets get to orbit?

Kara: That’s a fair point.

Elon: Not easily. Physics is very demanding. If you get it wrong, the rocket will blow up. Cars are very demanding. If you get it wrong, a car won’t work. Truth in engineering and science is extremely important.

Kara: Right. And therefore?

Elon: I have a strong interest in the truth.

Kara: All right. And you are —

Elon: Much more than journalists do.

I think people find this kind of backed-up braggadocio incredibly entertaining and exciting to watch, it makes Elon musk an irresistible personality to follow.

[rdtsc]

> I think people find this kind of backed-up braggadocio incredibly entertaining and exciting to watch, it makes Elon musk an irresistible personality to follow.

I think they follow him because he created Tesla, Space-X and other things. Braggadocio without results to back it up won't take him as far.

[rayvy]

> I think the thing that people really like about Elon Musk is that he just doesn't care about the interpersonal social status dynamics at play with his position in the world

At least from what you've quoted, I have a hard time seeing your point. Seems to be a fairly conservative conversation from a 47 year-old entrepreneurial billionaire physicist, and an interviewer. She asks questions and he gives her straightforward answers with no fluff.

While I would agree that he (clearly) doesn't play by the rules of mortals (how could you, and get to where he's gotten?), I'd hardly call this a matter of he just doesn't care about the interpersonal social status dynamics at play

[Endama]

My read from the interview is that he is just had no patience for how Kara was conducting the interview. My point is that the dismissive attitude he expresses is kind of funny and impressive considering all the pressure he (and his companies) are under.

[esotericn]

He's just a pretty no-nonsense individual.

Bureaucracy, and coded ways of doing things, seem to be irresistible to many.

He types some words into a phone, presses an enter key, and a decent subset of the world loses their minds.

Golly gosh.

If I were him, I'd be doing it for the amusement factor alone.

[camjohnson26]

He's the CEO of one of the most valuable car companies and the words he speaks affect those trading on that information. Saying whatever he wants for entertainment is horribly irresponsible when his words have financial consequences for real people.

The "funding secured" tweet wasn't harmless, it was a lie that gave a false valuation basis for Tesla at $420. If he was just an employee or outsider that wouldn't matter, but as the CEO he should know better.

[esotericn]

There's a gap in thinking here that I'm not really sure how to bridge, but I'll do my best.

In that specific situation, he performed an action, which resulted in a disciplinary action based on some rule somewhere by the SEC.

Some traders won, some lost. I've worked both as, and around traders for a decent period of time. It is what it is.

As far as I'm concerned, it makes life exciting.

I think any concept of 'harm' is pretty far removed from that.

In short, yes, in life, things happen. Other things happen as a result of those things.

We're all here to have fun, in the end.

[ryandrake]

Unpopular opinion but I’m coming up pretty short on sympathy for someone trading stocks based on a few words in a tweet and then losing their shirt. These people are grownups and fully aware of the risks they are taking when they walk into the casino. Nobody is forcing them to read twitter or take it seriously as a source of investment advice.

The $420 thing didn’t hurt grandma’s pension fund or long term buy-and-holders. It hurt day traders, options traders, shorts, and other gamblers.

[camjohnson26]

I'm sorry but this kind of thinking is so dangerous. Pumping hurts anyone who buys it after the pump, including grandma's pension fund, because now they're buying it at an artificial value.

Traders have a right to accurate information from the officers of the company, which is the whole reason we have regulations in the first place.

[Proziam]

Pension funds don't buy the most shorted equity on the market, typically. He's right that the people most affected were in effect gamblers. They gambled on the 5k number happening or not and got creamed in aftermath.

[CPLX]

You don't want to live in a world where corporate officers of publicly traded companies can make completely false statements about funding events without severe consequences.

You really just don't actually want that.

[esotericn]

Sure. But this can be dealt with via the legal system.

Do the thing, get fined (obviously we should set the fine high enough that it's more than a speed bump), sorted.

We don't want the thing to happen because it causes inefficiency in markets, bad outcomes, etc.

Moralizing it doesn't really serve a purpose.

[EpicEng]

He's actually CEO of one of the _least_ valuable car companies, but I get your point.

[ThirdFoundation]

By market cap it is top 5...which is a common measure of value

[beatgammit]

How so? Tesla is worth more than Ford and GM.

[EpicEng]

Maybe in la la land where the only thing that matters is market cap or othe rmeasures that don't consider actual revenue.

[ryanmercer]

>The "funding secured" tweet wasn't harmless, it was a lie that gave a false valuation basis for Tesla at $420.

If you make a snap financial judgement based on a single tweet, you deserve to lose money.

[nopriorarrests]

Tesla explicitly declared in their official filings that Elon twitter is a source of material news about Tesla Inc.

[ryanmercer]

People got trolled (blatantly so, I and several friends laughed as soon as we saw the price) and deserved it.

[agumonkey]

I trust his physics knowledge. But 'truth' is very dependent on how you model your world. If he was so rigorous he probably would have done his factory design properly instead of rushing things somehow randomly.

[lalos]

Sounds like he just took notes of his PR management lessons, do you think they throw a CEO without teaching him how to interact with journalists? That's not his personality, see early videos of CEOs to see how their personality really was before all the PR makeover (make them go to the gym, get hair plugs, pick their clothes, train them how to talk, what to say, when to say it, etc). Another perfect example is Zuckerberg, he was basically trained to be someone else after the (coincidentally) Kara interview where he cracked and almost died of dehydration from sweating.

[ryanmercer]

>I think people find this kind of backed-up braggadocio incredibly entertaining and exciting to watch, it makes Elon musk an irresistible personality to follow.

I can only speak for myself but yes, exactly this. Didn't they model the movie Tony Stark after him? I like that character for the same reason; he's confident, he's cocky, he does what he wants, he doesn't really care what others think, he's not afraid to offend and he's generally entertaining.

Sometimes he crosses the line, example being calling that guy a pedo, but come on... we've all crossed a line before and said something out of frustration or misguided hate. When my father was terminally ill, he died 12 days before my 13th birthday, I wanted one of those WWWJD (what would Jesus do) bracelets that were huge in the mid to late 90's while we were at a checkout counter somewhere. He said no and absolutely would not buy it for me, I lashed out and said "I hate you!" which legitimately hurt my father, I didn't mean it, I didn't even think about it, it just flew out of my mouth. Musk does the same thing, sure he doesn't seem to show remorse when he does but ehhhh when you're as high profile as him sometimes it might be worse for you personally to apologize and retract something because the fallout might be greater than if you just wait for the next news cycle.

[victoriasun]

> Didn't they model the movie Tony Stark after him?

Iron Man the character was created in 1963.

Elon Musk was born in 1971.

The actor of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr) did say in 2011 he was inspired in part by Elon Musk when developing his character, but that was 7 years ago now and certainly predates some of Elon Musk's more notorious antics.

We all certainly cross the line and should be forgiven for it, but the standards are different when you're a public leader.

[agumonkey]

interweaved feeback loops between the two maybe

[redryder]

Howard Hughes Jr. is much more likely.