# Is Elon Musk cool? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [July 4, 2025, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491 "2025-07-04T16:47:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/1 "2025-07-04T16:47:16Z")
This CNN article seems to think so. > **[‘Cool’ people tend to have these six things in common, study finds | CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/04/health/cool-traits-study-wellness)** > > An international team of researchers may have just cracked the code for what makes someone “cool.” ---
**Author:** ![pjd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pjd/32/3009_2.png) [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/2 "2025-07-04T16:53:11Z")
Certainly not by my definition. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/3 "2025-07-04T16:53:22Z")
Elon Musk is one of the least cool people to ever live. He spends a significant amount of his time trying to appear cool to teenage nazis on the internet. He’s unfunny, desperate, and cringe. And this is including that he’s involved with some of the coolest things happening in the world. SpaceX is legitimately cool. How much of a fucking drug-addled weirdo do you have to be so that [this](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZyioMxNr5xQ) doesn’t offset it? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/4 "2025-07-04T16:55:09Z")
Even prior to his politics nonsense, Musk always struck me as a dork. Didn’t he try to joke about it on his SNL appearance? And, in this current day, between stuff like his hopping around on stage next to Trump like a sugared-up kid or lying about his video game accomplishments, he feels like a weird try-hard. His attempts at internet humor are just… sad. That said, a large following of Musk acolytes think he’s the coolest so we obviously ain’t looking for the same things. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/5 "2025-07-04T16:58:17Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > lying about his video game accomplishments, Yeah, no kidding. Pays people to play video games for him so he can brag about it. That’s so incredible uncool. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/6 "2025-07-04T17:03:19Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Elon Musk is one of the least cool people to ever live. He spends a significant amount of his time trying to appear cool to teenage nazis on the internet. He’s unfunny, desperate, and cringe. Elon Musk is the smartest, hippest, swellest, most sauve dude I’ve known in my life. Now excuse me; I have a sudden desire to play game of solitaire. > [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Pays people to play video games for him so he can brag about it. That’s so incredible uncool. Only poor people spend time actually playing video games in order to master them. A cool, rich billionaire like Musk pays others to do that fore him so he can spend his time doing more important things to do like DMing random women that he’s never met to ask them if they’ll bear children for him. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/7 "2025-07-04T17:06:33Z")
He’d be pretty cool if he kept up the real-life Tony Stark thing by shooting rockets into space and reinventing the automobile, but being kind of down to Earth about it. He didn’t do that though. ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/8 "2025-07-04T17:07:27Z")
Does anybody here think that there is real substance to this ‘study’ by a marketing company? Define cool with a sciencey report? This is like the dude at a party that instead of returning a quip, delivers an analysis of the joke you just made, just in case you didn’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/9 "2025-07-04T17:08:53Z")
> [@FluffyBob](#): > > Does anybody here think that there is real substance to this ‘study’ by a marketing company? I assumed it was funded by a subsidiary of SpaceX ---
**Author:** ![FluffyBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecb155/32.png) [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/10 "2025-07-04T17:09:30Z")
Okay that made me laugh. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/11 "2025-07-04T17:09:52Z")
He wants to be one of the _cool kids_, Don’t fly. Ick. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/12 "2025-07-04T17:11:25Z")
If being “cool” results in more easily garnering a crowd of fans, you can sure see why a marketing company would try to find out what’s in the secret sauce. So they could bottle and sell it. Deciding that Musk is cool? Maybe 20-30 years ago. Maybe. Or at least his public persona then was cool, whatever the actual private reality. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/13 "2025-07-04T17:16:55Z")
From the article: > But the formula for being “cool” was having the six character traits – more extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous – no matter the person’s age, gender or education level. I’m not sure I agree with that anyway. I think of “cool” as having a certain style, grace and self-assurance. Being rich and extroverted helps those things (it’s easier to have style and a devil-may-care attitude if you’re rich) but they’re not required and being rich & extroverted is no guarantee that you can reflect style, grace and self-assurance. Musk has no personal style worth noting. Nothing he’s pulling off in my opinion, anyway – he’s not exactly making his clothes and presentation “work”. He lacks any sort of grace or smoothness. And he’s desperate for attention and praise. He’s pretty much the diametric opposite of what I see as “cool”. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/14 "2025-07-04T17:33:47Z")
I don’t agree with grace. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t graceful, neither is Indiana Jones, but they’re both cool. I think self assurance is the big one. So much of what Musk does is screaming “please like me, I’m doing the meme. We all like memes and that means you like me too, right?” ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/15 "2025-07-04T17:37:01Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > I don’t agree with grace. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t graceful, neither is Indiana Jones, but they’re both cool. I think we’re mentally defining “grace” differently. I think of it as how well you fit into your style versus looking like a poser wearing clothes picked out of a “Best Looks” magazine. Indiana Jones has a grace to him. Probably less so with Arnie but I think of his characters as more “cool” in terms of spectacle than “cool” as a person. I don’t have a strong opinion of Schwarzenegger as a person. ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/16 "2025-07-04T17:37:23Z")
Is Elon cool? Dear god NO. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/17 "2025-07-04T17:38:49Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Musk has no personal style worth noting. Oh, I don’t know, I think “off-putting buffoon” is a style. [![](https://townsquare.media/site/366/files/2022/11/attachment-elon-musk-3.jpg?w=780&q=75) ](https://townsquare.media/site/366/files/2022/11/attachment-elon-musk-3.jpg?w=780&q=75) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/18 "2025-07-04T17:41:39Z")
Musk has as much coolness as money can buy. Unfortunately for him, that amount is zero. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/19 "2025-07-04T17:41:46Z")
Pretty much everyone looks stupid in a Halloween costume. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2025, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491/20 "2025-07-04T17:53:24Z")
[![](https://usrimg-850.fark.net/I/I0/fark_I08DmPXU5hoBGQvNLNQOl8xc8K4.png?AWSAccessKeyId=JO3ELGV4BGLFW7Y3EZXN&Expires=1751860800&Signature=qyfI94MYK2uIx%2BX4siCNy1n93nc%3D) ](https://usrimg-850.fark.net/I/I0/fark_I08DmPXU5hoBGQvNLNQOl8xc8K4.png?AWSAccessKeyId=JO3ELGV4BGLFW7Y3EZXN&Expires=1751860800&Signature=qyfI94MYK2uIx%2BX4siCNy1n93nc%3D) Until last week I worked at an office for Economical Security, less federal money also means less money for State programs… I’m hoping to get a new job soon, but in the meantime… You are not cool at all Space Karen. At least he is finding out that Trump did use even billionaires that thought that they were using him. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-elon-musk-cool/1020491.md?page=2)