Confidence is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.
I would say Elon Musk is a high functioning person with Asperger Syndrome.
Exactly - and even WE know that Elon isn’t cool.
Can you imagine Steve McQueen sharing a photo of his beside table to show us all the cool things he has?
Steve McQueen participates in a 12 hour road race with a cast on one foot from a motorcycle accident and his team comes in second to… Mario Andretti’s team.
Fonzie says: cool ain’t nothing but good manners.
Regarding Master Musk’s fashion sense:
On the occasions when he’s appeared at political events, he’s worn a basic polyester suit of the same style bought off the same rack as Japanese salarymen the day they go job-hunting. Gap-collared, riding up and down with every movement, the waist not at all where his own is: the cliche of “the suit wears him, he doesn’t wear the suit” come alive.
At SpaceX events he’s worn aviator cosplay: sheepskin collar and leather jackets (both USAF brown and Luftwaffe black) with engineer boots. “This is my fantasy party, and my daddy paid your daddies for you to come!”
Social events: You remember the high school power couple? Rich parents, him with the hot car, her with the good genes and style awareness, putting in brief appearances at the dance and the parties, but not much of a connection with one another besides as mutual fashion accessories.
If failing as an innovator of stylish cool, how is he at long-established conventions, like when he wore white tie and tails to the Met Gala with his mom (a former fashion model who might have lent a guiding hand)? No shirt cuffs visible below the jacket sleeves, but the waistcoat well below the bottom of the jacket. Where have we seen that piker’s mistake before?
Politics aside, I have always been amazed at how shitty Trump dresses. For a guy with that much money, you’d think he wouldn’t constantly look as though he’s wearing his dad’s suit on a Jr High date.
I don’t think you have to be cool to know for sure someone else isn’t.
He’s a coarse, perverted, perennially uncouth man who prefers cheap fast food, gaudy adornments, trophy wives, childish insults, tacky music, foul language, and a legendarily terrible haircut. To the extent that he has a style, ill-fitting suits and badly composed dinner ensembles fits it perfectly, whereas dressing to impress would mark him as an ‘insider’ that needs the approval he secretly screams for inside. No Hugo Boss-designed uniforms for this burgeoning despot; he’s an off-the-rack fascist all the way, an autocrat for (but not of) the common man, a sultan of shab.
Stranger
Elon Musk is literally the least cool person ever to walk the earth. Even without all the fascism his every utterance is a cringeworthy vain attempt to use his billions to seem cool, which is pretty much the definition of uncool. Random example…
You win the thread.
Pro-tip from the Duke of Windsor: have your tailor add gussets in the right armpit for heil-hitlering.
That’s a standard option for Savile Row tailors.
Stranger
Fun article, but ultimately meaningless. Cool just is. You know it when you see it. Barack is cool. Donald and Elon not. (Joe? 2020 Joe was, 2024 Joe was not.) Of course it is in the eye of the beholder. One person’s cool can be another’s dork.
Come on, everyone knows the only way to be cool is to not give a shit if anyone thinks you are cool or not. Elon Musk ABSOLUTELY does NOT qualify.
Yeah this. He so so wants the cool kids to like him. Everything he does is clearly a cringeworthy attempt to seem cool.
There is nothing uncooler than that.
Unlike the hideous creature who inspired it, that paragraph is a thing of beauty.
Or, if you feel your country is in dire straits, a sultan of schwing?
Bravo! Bravo!
Although it’s kinda hard to schwing a mushroom.
It’s easy.
You just grab ‘em by the volva.
(Apologize if you thought that was in spore taste. I actually heard Elon Musk is a fun gi.)