# Elon “ Ready to serve”
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [August 20, 2024, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939 "2024-08-20T11:31:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/1 "2024-08-20T11:31:39Z")
> **[Elon Musk 'willing to serve' after Donald Trump hints at cabinet post for...](https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/world-news/elon-musk-willing-to-serve-after-donald-trump-hints-at-cabinet-post-for-tesla-ceo/amp_articleshow/112641525.cms)**
>
> Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has expressed his willingness to serve in a cabinet role or advisory post if Donald Trump wins the presidential election. This willingness came after Republican candidate Trump hinted at such a possibility in a...
Now the circus is complete.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/2 "2024-08-20T11:37:13Z")
Somebody needs to be in charge of the new Ministry of Mind Control. And why not somebody with a history of delivering very innovative solutions to a tough problem.
Makes complete sense to me. Within the current Bizarro context of US politucs. 🤪
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/3 "2024-08-20T11:38:23Z")
> **[Office of Digital Strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Digital_Strategy)**
>
> The Office of Digital Strategy (ODS) is an Executive Branch agency that promotes the U.S. President's messaging through digital and social media. It is part of the White House Office and is led by the Assistant to the President and Director of Digital Strategy, who reports to the White House Chief of Staff. The incumbent director is Christian Tom.
> The Office of Digital Strategy (ODS) manages the President's and the White House's online communications across social media, digital influencers and ...
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### Author:  [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/4 "2024-08-20T11:38:49Z")
> **[https://i.redd.it/8eiwek7jbs811.png](https://i.redd.it/8eiwek7jbs811.png)**
Does he have a similar remote?
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### Author:  [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/5 "2024-08-20T11:56:44Z")
I don’t care how well you cook him, he’d never be ready to serve in my opinion. What a nasty piece of work. He and Don the Con share a mistaken sense of superiority, a total lack of empathy, and the morals of a snake. Sure, he’d fit right in with a DJT administration, but he is by no means fit for anything.
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### Author:  [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/6 "2024-08-20T12:15:59Z")
I am longing for a Secretary of ~~Trans~~ Portation Musk!
A nation undermined by single lane tunnels, filled with electric cars powered by internal, gasoline powered (of course), generators is a dream that must become reality!
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### Author:  [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/7 "2024-08-20T12:44:42Z")
“Project 2025…it’s a cookbook!”
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### Author:  [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/8 "2024-08-20T13:13:49Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#):
>
> I don’t care how well you cook him, he’d never be ready to serve in my opinion.
I still hope one day we’ll be able to stick a fork in him because he’s done.
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### Author:  [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/9 "2024-08-20T13:29:17Z")
A modern day Propaganda Minister, like [Joseph Goebbels](https://www.azquotes.com/author/5626-Joseph_Goebbels)…
_Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play._
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### Author:  [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/10 "2024-08-20T13:31:31Z")
He could head up the Department of the Interior. He has a background in mining, after all.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/11 "2024-08-20T14:08:13Z")
_Of course_, Elon Musk should take a position in a Trump administration (in the unfortunate event that there is one). It’s not as if he doesn’t already have something to do. (Sarcasm, of course. Seriously, though, at what point do the stakeholders of his many companies not raise a stink about how much he does?)
Actually, perhaps he should take a White House role; in the olden times, pre-Trump, that would have forced him to step down from running Tesla, Twitter and his other companies. The companies could hire someone sane and competent.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/12 "2024-08-20T15:18:07Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> Actually, perhaps he should take a White House role; in the olden times, pre-Trump, that would have forced him to step down from running Tesla, Twitter and his other companies. The companies could hire someone sane and competent.
He can’t, and won’t. That’s the irony here. He even promised to do that at Twitter which would at least have allowed him to focus on his original tech companies, but instead hired a powerless figurehead who is “CEO” in name only.
So basically he’s trying to run half a dozen companies, all of which he obsessively micromanages because he’s completely incapable of delegating. Meanwhile he pushes his employees toward a “hardcore” work ethic with “long hours at high intensity”. Yet he somehow feels that he has time to devote to a senior government position including Cabinet Secretary.
Musk is not only a terrible manager but an outright sociopath largely disconnected from the real world. He has a narrow range of technical skills but has zero empathy or understanding of people. This is just another example of how utterly disastrous a second Trump term would be, immeasurably worse than the first one and a historical threat to the American experiment in democracy. Musk is often the butt of jokes but having him in any senior government position is no joking matter.
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/13 "2024-08-20T15:26:39Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> He has a narrow range of technical skills but has zero empathy or understanding of people.
I’d almost reverse these.
He has, at best, a dilettante’s technical skills (the engineers/actual founders of Tesla were other guys, and the the best decision he made at SpaceX was finding the right eggheads and letting them do their thing) but he has a narrow but very good understanding of certain types of people.
He’s obviously very good at drumming up support for his companies from some groups of people. The obsessive online fandom is just obvious. And many of those folks are betting on him to the extent of a massively overvalued Tesla. And he was, at least at one time, able to just let Gwynne Shotwell and Tom Mueller do the actual legwork at SpaceX while personally acting as poster boy/PR guy.
Less so his actual technical acumen when he gets more directly involved. The Boring Company? A bust. Neuralink? Other companies are already doing it better AND safer. He’s even falling behind in self-driving cars in this country and overseas. And that’s before the Twitter debacle.
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/14 "2024-08-20T15:40:15Z")
Secretary of Transportation would be a natural choice …
if you hate that cabinet position.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/15 "2024-08-20T15:43:38Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#):
>
> > [@wolfpup](#):
> >
> > He has a narrow range of technical skills but has zero empathy or understanding of people.
>
> I’d almost reverse these.
>
> He has, at best, a dilettante’s technical skills (the engineers/actual founders of Tesla were other guys, and the the best decision he made at SpaceX was finding the right eggheads and letting them do their thing) but he has a narrow but very good understanding of certain types of people.
We’re just going to have to disagree. Musk’s lack of empathy is legendary, going way back to when he unceremoniously fired his long-time personal assistant because she had the audacity to ask for a raise, to the way he treats his employees, tolerates abuse and racism at Tesla factories, engaged in mass firings at Twitter, and drives his employees to burnout. The reason he came across so badly in his appearance hosting SNL (and indeed tends to come across badly in interviews) is because he has absolutely no skills in interacting with people, and has all the charisma of a cinder block.
When I said he has a narrow range of technical skills, I was perhaps giving him too much credit, intending only to indicate that he has no others, especially in management. He’s certainly not the technical genius he thinks he is. Musk’s inability to manage his way out of a paper bag and the inability to delegate is the main reason Twitter is such a disaster.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/16 "2024-08-20T15:46:18Z")
> [@Gyrate](#):
>
> > [@BobLibDem](#):
> >
> > I don’t care how well you cook him, he’d never be ready to serve in my opinion.
>
> I still hope one day we’ll be able to stick a fork in him because he’s done.
You have that wrong. You stick a fork in him _until_ he’s done.
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### Author:  [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/17 "2024-08-20T15:48:06Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> When I said he has a narrow range of technical skills, I was perhaps giving him too much credit, intending only to indicate that he has no others, especially in management.
Oh, totally agreed he’s a bad manager, but his strength really is more on the people side.
Investment types were saying (are still saying) “I don’t want to bet against Elon”. These aren’t people who understand or care about technical details or management strength at all. They’re still enamored. And some people on this board, despite his deficiencies, are still enamored of him.
So, sure, he’s a “buzzy” name to throw around for an administrative position based solely on how some people react positively to just the mention of his name.
Do I think he’ll ever actually be offered such a position in an administration? Nah. Would he accept even if offered? He’d play with the idea on social media (the part where his ego gets stroked publicly) but wouldn’t ever accept (the part where he’d have to do a lot of anonymous work and the boss gets the credit).
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### Author:  [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/18 "2024-08-20T16:09:35Z")
He seems perfectly qualified for a Trump cabinet post: he’s a spectacularly incompetent racist. That’s the primary requirement in the job description.
One slight problem is he’s not completely beholden to Trump in every way. So I don’t see it happening. Given the way his previous cabinet appointees have reacted after his fall from power. I think being completely craven and beholden to Trump in every way, and willing to commit whatever crimes he asks of them, will be an even more important qualification for any (god forbid) future cabinet appointee.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/19 "2024-08-20T16:11:35Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#):
>
> Investment types were saying (are still saying) “I don’t want to bet against Elon”.
They would have been fine betting against Elon on his Twitter takeover. Though it’s no longer publicly traded, there are stakeholders other than Musk, such as the mutual fund Fidelity. At the end of November of last year, Fidelity had calculated that its holdings had lost 71.5% of their original value, and that was nine months ago. By that estimate Musk has lost around $31.5 billion due to the shambles he’s made of the company. In fact the decline of Xitter is nearly as impressive as the drop in DJT (Truth Social) currently hovering near record lows. Trump and Musk – two peas in a pod in terms of managerial incompetence, racism, narcissism, and general psychosis.
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### Author:  [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)
#### Post date: [August 20, 2024, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-ready-to-serve/1005939/20 "2024-08-20T16:41:42Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#):
>
> “Project 2025…it’s a cookbook!”
I laughed.
I think it’s funny that he AI’d himself as more handsome specimen.
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> This is just another example of how utterly disastrous a second Trump term would be, immeasurably worse than the first one and a historical threat to the American experiment in democracy. Musk is often the butt of jokes but having him in any senior government position is no joking matter.
Agreed, serious stuff.
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