Max Boot says it better than I can:
Maybe he and Roger Waters can go on tour together.
I don’t think it’s necessarily that he’s a stooge/tankie as it is that Musk is a narcissistic prick who can’t understand that he is not an expert in all things.
If he wants to promote space tourism or electric cars, fine. But he is no expert in military strategy or diplomacy.
He seems to think he is some all-knowing jack of all trades. We saw this syndrome four years ago when he flew into a rage when experts told him that his submarine proposal to rescue the trapped Thai cave boys was totally unfeasible.
I think it’s probably this. He did the whole Starlink thing to help people in Ukraine get online during the invasion so it doesn’t seem like he’s all pro-Putin. But he does seem to be a jackass who assumes he has the simple answers to everything and expects to be patted on the head and praised for adding his two cents, even if it’s asinine. And, yes, “Let Russia have Crimea and hold new votes to see what other parts of Ukraine they get to keep and now we have peace!” is asinine. Likewise the idea that Ukraine should be bound to stay “neutral” to keep from being invaded when that worked so great for them seven months ago.
Yeah, I don’t think Musk is a conscious Russian stooge, the way someone like Tucker Carlson is, knowingly evangelizing for Putin’s agenda.
I do think he’s a megalomaniacal moron who believes even his squeakiest farts are blasts of rose-scented sunshine.
Exactly. He’s a narcissistic asshole who is bothered if a week goes by without him being mentioned in the news. If there’s no news about him, well, then, he will make something up, so he stays in the news.
That’s his MO. Lather, rinse, repeat.
But this time, it isn’t even a borderline original idea - it’s just the same old Russian propaganda that’s been bouncing around the MAGAsphere for months.
Wait what’s so bad about Russia getting back Crimea though? That’s the one thing I don’t feel bad about
Because the former Soviet republics set the borders when the U.S.S.R. dissolved, and Crimea was made part of the new independent Ukrainian nation. All parties involved agreed to it. Anything before that is irrelevant.
I told you he was behind those gas pipeline explosions!
I mean, making things explode is one of the few fields he actually excels in, so…
Some things from before the agreement to break up the USSR are relevant, in strengthening the case against Russia now: the basic post-1945 principle in the UN Charter that you don’t seek to redraw borders or acquire territory by aggressive war, and the Helsinki principles of accepting ethnic existing boundaries, and protecting minorities by respecting individual human rights rather than collective claims on territory.
When looking at Elon Musk, I figure this is true 80-90% of the time. But a solid 10-20% of the time, it also serves a purpose. To wit, Musk is currently still dealing with his backsies on the Twitter takeover, AND Tesla not meeting expectations. So, by injecting himself into the war in the Ukraine in such a half-assed, childish fix, he makes all the news about himself turn to THIS rather than the more sober issues he is currently facing.
PLUS he still gets to feed his ego as stated upthread. I mean, I’m not saying he isn’t an entitled, self-absorbed man-child as well as a manipulative bastard. 
Yeah, but those are earlier agreements that are still in effect today. When people nowadays appeal to the UN Charter or the Helsinki Accords, they’re not saying “Let’s abide by this way that things used to be before they were officially changed”, which is what advocates for Russia’s taking back the Crimea are doing.
Indeed
Which is still on brand for Musk.
Nailed it.
This is probably true, but I don’t know that it’s fair here. It’s not like he’s doing a ton to specifically draw attention to it. He’s just so immensely popular that any random spouting-off of ideas draws a lot of attention.
If I were the richest person in the world and a dozen news reports got written about every time I posted some half-baked idea in IMHO, I don’t know that it would be fair to call me out for courting attention. The rich and powerful deserve to post their mediocre ideas on subjects they have little expertise on, and it’s not really their fault that everyone treats it as a consequential event.
And that then turns into a self-reinforcing feedback loop. My every babbling gets commented upon, analyzed, debated, and propagated whether I want to or not. Therefore my babblings have got to be as deep and important as I believed, and I have to make sure the ones I want heard are heard.
The worst you can do with a narcissist IS give him more attention.
I agree. He sold 7 Billion worth of Tesla stock at it’s $870 per share and nobody noticed because of the Twitter deal. Tesla is currently trading at $247 down from $400. If he successfully backs out of Twitter he’ll have converted a lot of stock “wealth” to cash. The brash, unpredictable, idiot scam has always worked for him.
And also in 1991, a majority of Crimeans voted to be part of an independent Ukraine.