[deleted_account]

The timing makes this look like a reaction to Musk firing Twitter engineers for criticizing him on social media[1]. It seems like a thinly veiled loyalty test instead of a marshaling the troops for the rough road ahead. The lowest performing engineers ostensibly got the axe in the first round of layoffs. Now Musk wants to root out those employees who aren’t willing to dedicate their lives to the bizarre theater[2] of Total Commitment.

Some folks seem content to give this behavior a pass citing Musk’s admission that he works 100 hours a week The self-satisfied joy that the gravy train is over for these “lazy tech socialists” is surreal. When you consider that Musk is literally the richest person on earth, it is physically impossible for Musk to work enough hours — over multiple lifetimes — to reconcile a $193B net worth with what any reasonable person would consider a fair compensation.

And to believe that he has a plan for Twitter 2.0 as a “digital town square”[3] strains credulity when he’s been a notorious shitposter. It’s almost as if he insists on sincere engagement from everyone but himself. The Twitter Blue fiasco makes it look like Musk is struggling with his first truly /complex/ challenge. As opposed to, you know, simply complicated shit like rockets and electric vehicles.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/11/musk-fires-twitt... [2] https://twitter.com/esthercrawford/status/158770970548883046... [3] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1518677066325053441

[mecha_ghidorah]

Not to mention "working 100 hours a week" is very different when you're the boss and set what your output is expected to be. Working 100 hours a week at the top is very different: it's voluntary (meaning he knows he doesn't have to if he doesn't want to, which means he won't feel trapped doing it), a lot of those hours are probably things like meetings or reading emails or whatever (not suggesting it isn't important, but it isn't the same as doing more involved engineering work for 100 hours a week by any stretch), etc.

And that's assuming we even believe Musk actually genuinely works 100 hours a week. I am sure he is around his businesses and stuff for that time, but I wouldn't be surprised if he took long breaks between doing anything of real value regularly which massively dropped it

[rurp]

The rate of his trolling alone shows that he has plenty of free time during his "hardcore work hours".

[mecha_ghidorah]

Hah, that is indeed true