I like Musk on the whole and have a lot of respect for his engineering stuff with the cars and rockets at which I think he's very talented but really on social media he's a bit rubbish and seems to be losing it slightly.
I mean accusing advertisers who stop advertising of blackmailing him and saying he'll let Twitter/X go bust to show them what for is a bit bonkers.
The caption on the photo says it all: "Musk’s missteps at Twitter are playing out in public view."
The old way of thinking, the old paradigm looks down on "misteps." That's not how Musk and his ilk operate. They're comfortable with authenticity (if you will). Mind you, HN knows this. But the rest of the world is still stuck in the past (esp. The Media).
As it is, "Musk" in a headline is the clickbait-y word of the momemt. The (shameless) Media will say anything if it gets clicks and plays to the conventional narrative (i.e., take him down and pray he fails). They see themselves as gods.
For what it's worth, I once heard Mark Cuban say he often goes to Twitter to vet ideas. That the Twitter feedback loop is efficient and effective. Now perhaps the new owner is taking his new toy to a whole new level? We'll see.
No one can see into the future. We can say that Musk has placed bets in to past and has done well for himself. I'm not defending him. Only that he's a big boy, with a proven track record and I for one am wise enough to wait a couple more months before I start making judgements about his "missteps".
Musk isn't an idiot, he's overseen some great things at the companies he runs, and I hope the companies he's running continue pushing technology forward.
But Musk as a human isn't so great. He'd do better to keep his mouth shut sometimes, and lay off Twitter every now and again. Between falsely accusing people of being pedophiles, claiming to take Tesla private in a tweet, and various other "incidents", he's kind of an idiot when it comes to PR.
Musk is simply roleplaying as a competent businessman, with a side mission of appeasing his bizarre army of deluded sycophants who worship him for being a kooky crazy genius (he isn't). This is exactly the kind of image he thought he had when he swanned in and fired everyone: he thought it made him look like a cutthroat, intelligent businessman; it's simply a coincidence that Twitter does happen to be a bloated, mismanaged mess.
I'd argue Musk himself has fallen prey to this partisan politics - it is really hard to support a large part of his tweets these days. He seems to have fallen into some strange mental quagmire with the failure of his twitter buyout, and his ego is not letting him accept any other reason for it than partisan sabotage.
But the way he is portrayed in the aggregate here and on reddit is even worse. He is either a genius beyond any criticism, or a complete fool, was always a fool and twitter is now exposing that.
We can't simply accept any middle ground, which is that he is likely a flawed human being who did some pretty amazing things once upon a time. If anything I hope we can steer him back to moonshot ideas, because he had a talent for it.
Seems a lot of what drives Musk is a need to feel that he's smarter than everyone else, even (or especially) if he suspects it may not be true. So he takes the position that the minions of the world are unworthy burdens to him. This includes governments, other organizations and anything/anyone he perceives is attempting to regulate or otherwise "constrain" him.
There's an obvious immaturity there too, wherein he responds to any criticism, hint that he may be wrong, or regulatory effort with the equivalent of a childish "you're just stupid!"
His battles with the SEC are a classic example, and it would be on-brand if this Twitter deal was as much about thumbing the eye of regulators as anything else. His announcement today had at one point caused a 20% dip in Twitter's pre-market price and 5% bump for Tesla's. The entire ride has been an exercise in manipulation.
So, I've wondered at times if a lot of this superiority act is really just deep insecurity, and he needs the world to constantly reassure him that he's as smart as he'd like to believe he is. When you look at the attention-seeking behavior you mentioned, it definitely aligns.
He is an unseriousness person on twitter for sure. If you as a person take anything Musk says on twitter seriously you have greater problems. You shouldn't take anything on twitter seriously in fact.
It's almost like the people who dislike him most are taking him the most serious. It's funny actually.
This is Musk's exact defense - he very cleverly says nothing concretely positive about anything, and very specifically puts it in a public forum with Twitter.
It's quite brilliant, although maddening to folks with less of a stomach... which is why he's in the position he's in - he makes those grey-area decisions.
Where all of them add up in the future, only time will tell - but for now, results are squarely in his favor.
Considering he’s also facing a defamation suit for calling a man a pedophile on Twitter, and then doubling down on the claim later, I think we can afford to be less charitable about Musk at this point. He has an inexplicably fragile ego, whether it’s in relation to his PR move around those trapped kids and the people who actually saved them, and his conspiratorial ideation concerning “the shorts,” or his willingness to tank his own stock to lash out.
He doesn’t come across as caring too much about anything except his ego.
The more Musk tweets, the further away he gets from the visionary with dreams of Mars and the closer he gets to Trump. I used to be a fan, but I’ve found it impossible to defend Musk in recent years.
I can, but made a choice to be opinionated here. The CEO of Twitter leverages clownishness for effect, titling himself (at present) as 'Mr Tweet' and uninhibitedly trolling others, often in crude or aggressive terms. While I could take a Ghandian approach of not reciprocating such negative behavior and instead maintain a diplomatic/academic air of prim neutrality, I think Musk's behavior is strategic in that he asserts social permission to 'act out' as the natural consequence of his wealth and power, whereas his critics are obliged to water down their opinions or suffer reputational attack.
While I certainly don't want to import the combative and shallow standards of Twitter 'debate' to HN, I do think we have a right tp be opinionated, and that my the term 'manchild' labels a specific sort of behavior rather than some petty or crude dig at his appearance or personal life.
Let's not pretend Musk plays a 4D chess game we can't understand. Musk admits he makes it up as he goes. He repeatedly demonstrates an inability to plan or make meaningful predictions, or to deliver on promises. He lacks the planning ability and patience to play even 2D chess.
Musk craves constant attention. If he can get that by flirting with the right and pissing off some segment of "the libs" he'll take it. A person tweeting nonsense at 4am just wants attention, in whatever form it takes.
I love a lot of what Musk does but thought those tweets were just insane, classless, and reprehensible.
Fortunately, he's seemed to have calmed down his social media game since 2018 (thank God), but he should still absolutely have to settle with this guy for a lot of money.
I think he's referring to his tendency to pick weird twitter fights.
I have tons of respect for what Musk has done with Tesla and SpaceX, but it's undeniable that some of his tweets should not have been sent. And while I generally appreciate weirdos, he's a bit much sometimes.
Musk likes to look good. He weighs in on notable events to boost his brand. He is also an extremely savvy investor who is very greedy, and has routinely manipulated markets for profit. Considering he is willing to roll over for the chinese (with a direct link between tweet and outcome), I don't trust him. It's not cute anymore.
Right now, he looks like an arrogant fool at best and an incompetent fraud at worst.
He seems to be trying now to look more like victim of Twitter's bad faith, even though that won't change a judge's mind.
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