Ask HN: Has Musk "lost the plot"?

[iamsanteri]

I’ve been following him for longer than I remember, and honestly, deep inside I still think he is on the right path despite him being autistic and putting his nose into politics. Do you think we are losing the man?

[verdverm]

Are we losing or discovering who the man actually always was? Those things people credit him for creating were in fact created by others before he took the wheel on them, sometimes forcibly

Fame and wealth hath destroyed many a great person too

[subsection1h]

Everyone with standards has considered Musk to be low-class trash since 2018 when he called Vernon Unsworth a "pedo guy" and "child rapist".

[EA-3167]

Correct. More critically when he refused to recant that until he was sued, and even then later doubled-down on the accusation. It wasn't just the evil of saying that about someone who isn't a pedophile, it was that he did this in a moment of childish pique at his unworkable, ridiculous, suggestion of a submarine to rescue the kids, being rejected! By the pros who did end up rescuing every last one of those kids!

[LightBug1]

Exactly this. That was the watershed moment.

I guess we'll never know if this was the unveiling of the real person after finally deciding he had enough wealth to lower the veil (fuck you money, so to speak) ... or if the journey changed him into the slivering mess we see today.

Disappointing, either way.

[sk11001]

He never had it. If this was 10 years ago, you'd be forgiven for not seeing through it but by this point there's really no excuse.

[RGamma]

His plot came from sci-fi books. Now that he can't have what he wants on his schedule, either he corrects or falls apart. Only question is how much damage he will do along the way.

[drpossum]

If you truly believe "he is on the right path" without evidence to present and then have to qualify it with "despite <things showing he is on the wrong path or demonstrating bad judgement>" you might want to reconsider how you make effective arguments, draw conclusions, or find people to admire.

[iamsanteri]

I guess it is more along the lines of trusting that he is in on the right path in terms of seeing things we don’t see. It’s a feeling. It’s hard to describe it as a solid argument by ”qualifying”, but I bet that most of us ”feel” something’s wrong. There are agendas, there are destructive powers at play. He might be one of them himself, so nobody should trust him blindly – if at all. But something large is at play. I don’t know… I guess it’s time to sleep.

[JumpinJack_Cash]

Yes, in the same way Howard Hughes lost it.

Mr. Hughes contribution however is valued because commercial aviation as an industry succeeded and with all his flaws he was part of it.

The jury is still out on all industries Musk is involved in namely: Electric Vehicles, Commercial Space Exploration and AI.

If they flop or the public rebels against them it's entirely possible that only the negative flaws of its character will remain as a testimony of his permanence at the top of the Forbes 400

[rsynnott]

Thing about Hughes is that he was mostly private in his madness; he had strong views on the proper size order in which to eat peas, say, but he didn’t try to insist that the general public followed it.

[dave4420]

Historians will have so much fun with him.

[bell-cot]

If you're trying to analyze Elon as a "normal-ish" human being, or view him as being on a path...nope, sorry. Traditional metrics for people are just too poor a fit for him.

Imagine trying play whale songs on a harpsichord.

[jsheard]

Yeah https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/1876168991330439314

[iamsanteri]

”EU must take action!” Jeez, what a disaster… I feel bad for the poor guy.

[parsimoniousplb]

He hasn't and he's performing at a higher level than ever, but I don't think that's what you're asking. You are looking for permission to be normal and like the guy, as the majority of the general public does, but you will not receive it on this site. It's now just geezers upvoting Alzheimers research, articles from The Atlantic telegraphing the party line and the occasional "I rewrote this thing that already works in Rust". I'd suggest you get on X for tech news instead.

[uncomplexity_]

i don't think so

but here's some facets of audiences i notice on most people, and my takes on it.

- people who think elon is no inventor, that he just hires people and takes credit of their work. i do think he clearly can spot talent and create environments for these people to work effectively and efficiently.

- people who think elon is so rich in cash, that he should just start giving money away. i think yes rich, but not cash rich. most of rich people's assets are on paper, and most use it as collateral and take loans against it to fund other projects.

- people who think elon is out to censor them. i think X hits a balance of freedom and audience size here. platforms like fb, ig, yt, tiktok are for general audience with a lot of limits. threads, bluesky, mastodon have the least restrictions but less audience. X has some restrictions but the maximum audience.

- people who think elon's projets are useless, that electric cars are useless, building rockets is pointless, that chips shouldn't be planted on humans. i think not.

- people who think elon is far right. i don't think he is, specially the recent discussions about immigrations. he was center-left before, and now i think he's center-right. i think he's really doing a great job using X as a platform for both far-left and far-right to talk about things and find a middle ground.

i think the funniest bit was when one side wants to fully allow immigrants, while the other side wants to fully ban immigrants, then both centers of the side are the ones who want to hit the sweet spot of allowing immigrants BUT filtering them carefully for qualifications on what value they can bring to the country.

then days later, all sides are in unison and in agreement because some kids are getting gang raped in Europe.

X is free, i paid for it, i think i still owe it some money.