I think it comes down to his personal conduct. Specifically, just as I said, I think he actively tries to harm people who might inconvenience him or cause him damage to his public image.
In short, I see him as a bully.
One of the great examples of this is the infamous "Pedo guy" incident in which he showed himself as very unempathetic and petty the moment people dismissed him as he attempted to hastily insert himself into a tragic moment.
He's also regularly sued people exercising their free speech to comment on or criticise his financial interests, knowingly attempting to drown influential people he doesnt like in legal fees and frivolous lawsuits.
In the past he has participated in doxing governmental employees who might cause him financial damages, often encouraging his followers to harass beuraucrats and lawyers who are just doing their legal jobs.
There are plenty of examples of Elon regularly engaging in bullying of others who may not have access to the resources he does, its not just limited to these few examples.
In my eyes, any measure of success or wealth will never excuse how a person conducts themselves in public. And I think Elon no longer thinks that the rules apply to him as so many are willing to overlook his behavior due to worshiping his money and influence.
Elon's nazi salute is the perfect example of this.
So my original statement still holds.
Neuralink has a very large mountain to climb when it comes to consumer trust. Products in the Healthcare industry can massively impact people's lives, especially when they dont work as intended.
Any company that participates in this space is morally and ethically required to be empathetic to the lives that they impact.
And this level of empathy is not something that I see coming from the man behind neuralink which I think should disqualify it as a company with the potential to impact a lot of people.
> In the past he has participated in doxing governmental employees who might cause him financial damages, often encouraging his followers to harass beuraucrats and lawyers who are just doing their legal jobs.
In general, yes. With narrow exceptions, employment as a public servant is a matter of public record and subject to public comment. Such comments are not only protected by US constitional law but in many cases are statutorily required to be taken into account by regulatory proceedings.
This makes it rather galling that Elmu is seeking to shield DOGE employees from such accountability, but understandable when people on Reddit are openly advocating their assassination.
>understandable when people on Reddit are openly advocating their assassination.
Is this standard of shielding government employees from accountability applicable only to DOGE employees, or could we also have applied it to the many employees receiving death threats from Elon's fan base? Consistency on this would be welcome.
I think that in general it's going to be hard to square the liberal bedrock ideal of government accountability with networked mob violence, individual superempowerment, the rise of surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state, and autonomous swarming weaponry. When the people winning every armed conflict are those who can protect their anonymity while penetrating the anonymity of their opponents, republicanism itself seems like it has to be politically unstable, much less the consent of the governed.
Briefly, in the firearm age, respecting the popular vote was a Nash equilibrium, because if you lost the vote, you probably wouldn't be able to field enough riflemen to win on the battlefield either, so your best option was to lick your wounds and make do under the opposition party until the next election. Despite the resounding defeats of the US by masses of riflemen in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and of the USSR in Afghanistan in between, that equilibrium seems increasingly unstable in the drone age. The first warning signs of this were the staggeringly unequal death tolls in the US's first Iraq invasion, reminiscent of the Scramble for Africa. Recent examples of this instability might include the US's successful initial invasion of Afghanistan, the US's successful eventual defeat of Daesh in western Iraq (despite the relative hostility of current Iraqi leadership to the US, which counts as a sort of defeat), Israel's utter dismemberment of Hizbullah, Israel successfully stymieing Iran's nuclear weapons program, and Ukraine's surprisingly successful resistance to the invasion by Russia's much larger army. Also Hamas doesn't seem to be doing very well at defending Gaza.
Unfortunately the literature I could recommend to you on this topic has mostly been flagged as wrongthink, so I won't recommend that, but Slaughterbots is probably still safe to watch. It contains the memorable line "nuclear is obsolete", a riff on Putin's remarks at Valdai in Sochi 11 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
It's fiction, of course, but thought-provoking fiction, scripted by leading AI researchers to be as realistic as possible, and it may have more truth in it than we would like.
> There are plenty of examples of Elon regularly engaging in bullying of others who may not have access to the resources he does, its not just limited to these few examples.
There’s no “probably” about it. There are hundreds of thousands of doses of tuberculosis treatments that aren’t being delivered and will expire. Every untreated case of TB will lead to some other number of infections and increases the odds of more drug resistant strains popping up. It will take a long time to undo the damage of killing those programs alone.
Even if you subscribe to the notion that US government should not be paying for this, you can phase it out with enough notice for others to step in and take over the funding. The flippant, "tech disruptor" method of abruptly ending an organization that has for decades been funding critical public health initiatives in countries where they would otherwise not happen... That is the truly infuriating part.
In the grander scheme of things, the US voters do indeed have the right to vote for not providing foreign aid. Which is sad of course, but is a valid political position.
Kind of like the chip from Lumen on Severance. I don't understand why anyone would want a chip placed in their brain, unless it's to help overcome a disability.
Overt nazi salutes is one, but another is the intentional tinkering-with and partial dismantling of the US Government's system to dispense appropriated funds, and act that is blatantly illegal.
There also doesn’t seem to be any corroborating data to suggest he’s a nazi. I’m all for calling a spade a spade if he is, but it seems that people are working backwards from the “I hate Musk” position rather than forwards from the facts.
"Sorry officer, I did not flip you off twice, that were both just very awkward gestures"
There is tons of data on how Musk became a far right supporter and sympathizer, like his support of UK racists and the German far right.
You seem to still use X, you could just scroll through his posts there and try to not ignore the evidence you see with your own eyes
Have you considered that perhaps the increasing levels of vitriol and outright hatred directed at him by the left might have had something to do with his rightward trend? They seem pretty correlated.
I struggle to see how doubling down on the hatred is going to convince anyone other than _already hateful_ people of the righteousness of your cause?
No, it's not okay, and I'm not trying to justify it.
But you (and everyone else in this thread, with perhaps a few exceptions) hated him long before the salute, so to try to blame it on that is pretty disingenuous.
I think trying to justify your hatred of someone based on something the did after you started hating them is pretty "not okay", too, fwiw
The ADL's current leadership appears to be ideologically aligned with Elon Musk for reasons unclear. Here's an article with other Jewish voices, including the former director of the ADL, emphatically stating that it was a Nazi salute: https://forward.com/fast-forward/690745/adl-elon-musk-sieg-h...
> Musk later denied being antisemitic and described himself as a "pro-Semite".
So which is it? It seems wildly inconsistent to me to intentionally make a nazi salute but verbally deny being antisemitic. I don’t think someone like him would need to rely at all on plausible deniability, given that everyone already seems to hate him and he’s been granted immense power without having been elected to any position.
It strikes me there's no particular reason a modern Nazi should hate Jews when there are plenty of other groups to be scapegoated, like immigrants or liberals. There was historical prejudice against Jews then, there is against others now. I can well see Musk loving the trappings of fascism, the hilarious fun of trolling as a Nazi, and having people pay attention to him, while not being directly antisemitic.
You have to remember that fascism's application of othering is not logical, it's just a convenient method of gaining leverage. The Nazis targeted Jews because it was easy to weave a narrative about them, and because their population within Germany itself was so small that it was electorally inconsequential to victimise them. You see this with the Musk-Trump regime's position on trans people; trans people are not a threat to anyone, and are so few in number that you can easily weave a narrative about them and use it to push a more extreme agenda.
You are absolutely correct that modern Nazis are not really bothered by the Jews, but you have to remember that fascists just look for easy targets to hate.
Essentially, yeah, fine, he's not a card carrying member of the NSDAP. But he's a hateful individual pursuing a hateful agenda all the same, and he did the salute to signal to edgelords that he sees them.
Forigner here, one who's family has been shaped on both sides by the nazis and lived through either bombing, or were active members of the resistance in occupied europe.
That was a Hitlergruß, no ifs no buts. More over it wasn't just the once.
Does it make him a nazi? no.
But one has to question why the fuck he thought it was a good idea.
He's terminally online, he knows exactly what it is. He's seen the same memes as us, and knows exactly what that gesture means. So why do it?
That is the far more concerning question.
But thats irrelevant as he appears to be gaining absolute control over the executive.
As far as I understand, most of the leaders of the historical NSDAP (the Nazi party) / the Nazi regime were not Nazis themselves, insofar as they did not believe in whatever was written in Mein Kampf. Nazism was just a mean to grab and hold power. The true believers were basically victims of a con.
So... I don't care whether Elon Musk is actually a Nazi. I do believe that he is willing to use Nazism as a lever, which makes him much more dangerous.
Probably some of the Nazi leaders may have been opportunists to varying degrees, but to say that most of the leaders were not hardcore Nazis is not accurate. Out of the various biographies and books I've read, they're were all aligned about racial supremacy, antisemitism, and German expansionism, this is 100% crystal clear. Even private diaries from people like Goebbels that are now public, makes their commitment abundantly clear.
Another example is Albert Speer (whose biography I've also read), where he initially was an opportunists but eventually became active participants in furthering the goals and believing the "mission" of the Nazis, even though initially (and afterwards) wasn't as convinced (edit: by his own accounts, many historians disagree with this today).
Characterizing the leadership/inner-circle/leaders as merely power-seekers who didn't believe their own ideology minimizes their moral culpability and misrepresents the historical record.
Likely trolling and pushing boundaries to see what he can get away with. Similar to Trump. They're grifters and like being the center of attention. I don't think they have real ideologies. Whatever works for them. Well, maybe Musk buys into techno feudalism.
>But one has to question why the fuck he thought it was a good idea.
Probably not a good idea publicly. I'd say he slipped if he did do it. I do find NS to be very funny because it annoys/offend some people, most comedians similarly will find it funny.
I mean yeah, but he did it more than once, and it wasn't like it was an odd sort of wave, it was a full on parade standard Hitlergruß (thumpy on the chest hand out at the ascribed hitler angle). Which he then repeated to the audience in the front and the people behind him.
Monty python use to do it all the time, as did a number of other comedies. but the important distinction is that comedians aren't in power.
Musk arguably has more power than the president. So him thinking that it can't harm to try the old nazi salute, with unprecedented power isn't a healthy thing for democracy, regardless of who you think should be in power. Do you think he's going to give up that power willingly?
I have to admit, if I had all the power in the world I'd be openly offending various groups. Although in bad taste, it serves as a test to weed out petty people. Further I'd be offering those groups a clean exit to from their own 'offenseless' society.
Now coming to the democracy thing - I'm not sure it's the best form of governance as is commonly understood, so I personally don't value it. I don't imply that the opposite of democracy is tyranny either. I suspect that groups exist that are outside of typical govts and personally I'd be a part of such group, than participate in a 'democracy' which caters to a relatively low IQ - the stuff that Monty Python highlights.
I would think that EM has already reached that stage of no wanting the approval of those easily offended people.
I don't think there's any real question as to what he's doing there.
The ADL these days mainly exist to shout "antisemite" at anyone criticising Israel. Their giving him a pass was sickening, and undoubtedly related to Republican support of ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Other Jewish organisations have called it as the world has seen it. One organisation does not speak for a very diverse people.
> On November 15, a Zionist account posted a tweet attacking Nazis for being “cowards” and posting ‘Hitler was right.’” In response, a fascist account replied that “Jewish communities have been pushing... dialectical hatred against whites” through “hordes of minorities... flooding their country.”
> Musk responded to the latter post with the statement, “You have said the actual truth.”
Those, and so much more, are the facts. You cherry-pick the ADL, say "there doesn't seem to be anything else", and conclude everyone, including Auschwitz survivors who seriously have better things to do, just "hate Musk".
Musk just recently had to go tour Nazi death camps to do a PR tour after promoting Nazy theories on Twitter. The people on the tour with him said touring the camps had zero emotional impact on the guy.
> it was genuinely a white nationalism thing or if he was just being an edgelord.
Can we admit to ourselves that most edgelords are actually people infatuated with exact same movements and value systems? Literally all edgelords get angry and strongly dislike anyone left leaning. For example, you do not see them harassing right wing, but you do see them harassing perceived sjws.
Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord. And that is because when left wing people act badly, they are blamed as bad left wing people. Edgelord is just a way to not blame right wing people and attributing them benefit of the doubt never given to the center or to the left.
> Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord.
Your comment is absolutely correct; Musk and his ilk are just people who "joked around" on 4chan and essentially radicalised themselves doing it.
HOWEVER left wing edgelords absolutely exist. Look up (at your peril) the phenomenon of "tankies". They're not your average communist, but rather apologists for Stalin's genocides.
Maybe your comment is more about the terminology at play, but it's interesting to see that the left wing mirror image of the average 4chan poster absolutely exists.
> HOWEVER left wing edgelords absolutely exist. Look up (at your peril) the phenomenon of "tankies". They're not your average communist, but rather apologists for Stalin's genocides.
But that is my point - tankie is someone who is a communist, hardcore pro-Stalin. There is no assumption that tankie is someone apolitical who is just joking around. There is no "he is just a tankie, doing things for fun, stop accusing him of being a communist".
Meanwhile, edgelord is someone who is supposedly just joking. A fine guy who just happen to draw swastika to get a reaction. Someone who you should let say and do movement things, because "deep down they do not mean it".
> there's room to discuss if it was genuinely a white nationalism thing or if he was just being an edgelord
This is what I reacted to. You cant replace "edgelord" by "takie" and white nationalism by stalinism in that sentence. It wont work. The "there's room to discuss if it was genuinely a stalinist thing or if he was just being a tankie" does not work, because tankie is literally a stalinist .
> Musk and his ilk are just people who "joked around" on 4chan and essentially radicalised themselves doing it.
Or rather, the were attracted to 4chan because they had the same opinions and values as those people. They did not just joked around, it was what they believed and who they were. And while both center and left pretended they are just playing, they meant it and managed to radicalize other people too.
> Somehow, there is no such thing as left wing edge lord.
I mean, I'm a pretty staunch socialist/commie and there are plenty of hard-left edgelords out there "joking" about gulags and executing academics and so on.
Yeah, but you call them "hard-left" and do not pretend they are not communists or Stalinists. Meanwhile, edgelord is consistently supposed to be someone did the nazi salute, but the gesture was supposed to be innocent and totally not a far right thing.
You have put joking into quotes. Even in this comment, you are not trying to convince me that they are actually fine, that they are something less then Stalinists.
One of the great examples of this is the infamous "Pedo guy" incident in which he showed himself as very unempathetic and petty the moment people dismissed him as he attempted to hastily insert himself into a tragic moment.
He's also regularly sued people exercising their free speech to comment on or criticise his financial interests, knowingly attempting to drown influential people he doesnt like in legal fees and frivolous lawsuits.
In the past he has participated in doxing governmental employees who might cause him financial damages, often encouraging his followers to harass beuraucrats and lawyers who are just doing their legal jobs.
There are plenty of examples of Elon regularly engaging in bullying of others who may not have access to the resources he does, its not just limited to these few examples.
In my eyes, any measure of success or wealth will never excuse how a person conducts themselves in public. And I think Elon no longer thinks that the rules apply to him as so many are willing to overlook his behavior due to worshiping his money and influence. Elon's nazi salute is the perfect example of this.
So my original statement still holds. Neuralink has a very large mountain to climb when it comes to consumer trust. Products in the Healthcare industry can massively impact people's lives, especially when they dont work as intended. Any company that participates in this space is morally and ethically required to be empathetic to the lives that they impact. And this level of empathy is not something that I see coming from the man behind neuralink which I think should disqualify it as a company with the potential to impact a lot of people.