This now the modal Elon Musk tweet:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2024
I know I've asked this before, but what the hell happened to the guy? His feed these days is nothing but an endless firehose of retweeted lies and conspiracy theories, and not even remotely believable ones. It's just made-up Alex Jones level lunacy about immigrants and FEMA that's meant solely to outrage the true believers who will blindly accept anything he says. Nobody else over the age of five believes a word of it.
But why? It's self destructive, makes him look like a moron, and persuades no one. At least Donald Trump does this stuff because he wants to win an election. What's Musk's motivation?
I suppose he gave in to his narcissistic tendencies, full stop. He sees the adulation Trump gets, and he wants in on the action. MAGA loves Musk now too.
I see Musk is going to show up with Trump at Trump's next vanity rally. But sorry Elon, Trump has to be the star of the show.
From a practical business point of view, it’s odd Musk favors the rather anti-EV Trump.
Musk knows Trump will likely die or stroke out in office, and then Musk and Thiel will own their puppet president, JD Vance.
Musk is simply flooding the zone with shit in advance of being co-regent of the president.
Well, if their ticket wins the election, it will just be a question of which lunatics run the asylum.
ETA: Get ready to change your underwear twice a day, and to wear it on the outside so they can check.
Trump is rapidly changing his position on EVs
I really don't see the big mystery. Musk finally had enough of the peasants (AKA moochers) having the unmitigated effrontery to not only regulate his businesses but also steal his money (AKA taxes) and let his tech bro flag. Plus, like Henry Ford, Elon probably spends his spare time educating himself by studying things like The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. When you literally think it is an outrage that the law applies to you, your brain is marinated in right wing looniness, and you're surrounded by an echo chamber of lickspittles, this is what happens.
Without the conspiracies, Musk is just another rich guy running a big company. The real world is full of people who are more knowledgeable than he is in many, many conventional ways. Conspiracies let him be a polymath in a way that is impossible in the real world.
Some people just desperately need to feel smarter than everyone else, and Musk happens to be a very rich version of this. Terence Howard is another example, though less rich and less famous. There are plenty of poorer, totally unkown versions who just annoy their friends and family.
Oh, this one's easy: He's not that smart, he's not that hard working, he knows that what he's achieved is by far the larger part due to luck and circumstance. He knows this. Worse, the people who know him know this, they know he knows, and he knows they know. No one's saying anything out loud, but no one is fooling anybody. Finally, he was raised entitled. So he resents these opinions of him even as he knows they're fully justified. Is it any wonder that cognitive dissonance is strong in this one. Or the extremely high levels of resentment? What made him choose this path is exactly what made the lowest of the low MAGAs choose the same path and there's no mystery about it at all. The only difference is scale.
Why does everyone ignore the family he comes from? These people benefitted from South Africa’s apartheid system.
This quote is about how Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson downplayed the extremism of his grandfather:
“ Musk’s grandfather J. N. Haldeman, whom he presents as a risk-taking adventurer and whose politics he dismisses as “quirky.” In fact, Haldeman was a pro-apartheid, antisemitic conspiracy theorist who blamed much of what bothered him about the world on Jewish financiers.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-world-according-to-elon-musks-grandfather?_sp=d420a5f0-e20f-4c4e-a83d-43c4a44d4a17.1728244634415
He does this for the same reason Putin tries to influence US elections. He knows he can manipulate the former guy and he wants the power that manipulating him would provide so he does what he can to get him elected..
So Musk is claiming that the StarLink units that his company has delivered are being claimed by FEMA as being delivered by FEMA
As all StarLink units are made by his company I would need a lot more information to say that he was lying
(1) Is FEMA still claiming that they are delivering the modules??
(2) Who actually paid for the modules and delivered them??
Musk has said a lot of stupid stuff - but on this I suspect that he is probably 100% correct
No, some *other* guy who said he bought and delivered starlink units are being claimed by FEMA.
Of course, nowhere in this does it show FEMA claiming any units are theirs.
The thing is, *anyone*, be it FEMA or joe blow, can buy a starlink dish and activated it in the affected areas.
The claim that FEMA is making a false valor claim is missing the evidence of FEMA making any such claim at all.
What is Elon's (or Trump's or Vance's) record of truth telling?
Highly unlikely that Elon (or Trump or Vance) is telling the truth. Deliberate lying is a integral part of the deliberate Fox/Trump/Putin firehose of lies strategy.
Elon Musk wouldn't be 100% correct if his hair was on fire and he ran down the street screaming "My hair is on fire!"
Why?
1) Because he can, insulated by great wealth
2) Ketamine brain damage
3) Prospect of massive government assistance if Trump wins in 2024
You're assuming he hasn't always been this way. I don't think that's true.
The simplest explanation: If someone is saying or doing something that makes them “look like a moron” it is because they ARE a moron.
If you previously thought this person was NOT a moron, it is worth reevaluating the basis of prior beliefs because it is more likely that you were incorrect about this person than it is that something about this person has changed.
Well said and I think the far likelier explanation. Musk's being a genius was largely a myth promoted by himself and very gullible tech reporters (looking at you Kara, oh, and you Kevin!).
With that said, I suppose he was a genius at self promotion and taking the credit of other smarter people, but that was the limit of his his "genius". And now that he is talking to the QAnon conspiracy crowd pretty much exclusively he isn't even a "genius" at self promotion anymore. In fact, he is now self immolating his reputation multiple times a day.
And, again, he is just, in fact, a fucking moron. Occam's razor and all that shit.
I just have to say, 'no.'
Tapioca is edible, and if properly prepared, quite delicious. It's the best thickener for a blueberry pie.
Musk's brain would likely cause mad cow disease.