In 1989, it was no longer “propping up” so much as “helping wind down”, since the Border War was over after the Tripartite Accord.
If he’d done it in, say, 1982, I’d feel differently.
I feel getting out of the way of a bad war, vs just shirking service, are not the same thing.
Musk sure seems to have an immature Twitter habit which does him no favours. It is interesting to compare him with Bill Gates, Bezos and the rest. They all get unwelcome attention and have to deal with a lot of haters.
However, these are the figureheads of huge organisations that are achieving great things. Musk employs some of the best engineers in the auto and space business.
If his antics make him into a lightening conductor for the attention of critics and fans. But really, is that a big deal? We live in a media obsessed world that needs personalities to gossip about. Musk seems keen to oblige and provides the entertainment.
If that is the price to be paid for allowing all those talented people room to get on with building innovative companies, then it seems small enough. I guess Steve Jobs occupied a similar position at Apple.
Tesla famously does not do advertising. But they get huge amounts of free publicity by its association with Musk and the product sells itself.
His ass-hole remarks remind me of another character. Michael O’Leary of RyanAir, the hugely successful cheap airline in Europe. A rascally fellow whose marketing strategy seemed to be based on manufactured controversy and publicity stunts. Whose company famously did not do customer service. Even the more excitable press outlets grew very tired of the ludicrous procession of pronouncments and stunts.
So, therein lies a question: how much of Musk’s remarks are just contrived to draw attention and keep his enterprises in the public eye?
I feel like he’s the Kanye West of the tech world.
Conscription quotas are going to be met, and if smart, healthy rich kids evade them, their places will be filled with unqualified conscripts. The Mi Lai massacre was one result.
So just trolling for the lulz? Do you think that somehow makes someone less of an asshole?
You’re ignoring that Musk combines his “remarks” with actions.
That is so wrong. Elon would never be so gracious to say, “Imma let you finish!” after interrupting and stealing the spotlight. He’d probably call them a “pedo” on Twitter and the threaten to sue for defamation, because what is the point of having multiple law firms on retainer if they aren’t actively suing someone?
Also, he’s even petty and vindictive enough to demand that one of the many law firms he uses fire an associate, not because the associate worked on anything involving Tesla or Musk but just because he had formerly worked at the Securities and Exchange Commission on matters relating to Musk’s conflicts with the agency:
One has to wonder at the self-proclaimed “work ethic” of a multibillionaire supposedly intimately involved in running multiple companies who has time to pursue a petty, one-sided feud with a minor functionary of a mostly toothless regulatory agency that Musk largely ignores anyway, particularly after the target of his ire has left the agency and has nothing to do with Tesla.
Forget Mars, Elon; go for Pluto. The farther you are from Earth, and interfering with the people trying to manage your companies for you, the better.
Stranger
If Musk is trying to win the ‘asshole boss’ competition in the corporate world, he has a great deal of competition.
He is selling cars to a market dominated by the concerns of gentlemen on a quest for personal agency, are unafraid of expressing uncompromising opinion and feel entitled to the best performing designs that engineers can devise. Contrarian views are not exactly uncommon in this demographic.
I guess if he ever produces an affordable EV city car that parks itself and simplifies the driving process and ticks all the environmental boxes, his customers base and their sensitivity may change. The frat boy antics will start to undermine sales and investors will encourage him to go away and play with the rockets.
“Nope, it’s true”? On what basis are you saying the sourced WSJ article is wrong?
Musk has done a few impressive things. But I bet his parents ignored him completely.
There is an article in today’s Toronto Sun, didn’t read it, saying he “wanted to challenge Putin to a fight.” Or something like that.
There is a funny but crass comedian who derides politicians and celebrities when they respond to major disasters with “their thoughts and prayers”. He correctly pointed out that these people are not offering their money, time or even their compassion. They are just saying “Don’t forget about me! There’s a major crisis, but don’t forget about me!”
The fact that Musk thinks it’s neat to slum it in a well appointed $50,000 trendy modular house that he says is “kinda awesome” doesn’t really move the needle anyway. It’s not as though he’s living in an old double-wide so he can give his vast fortune to orphans, he’s living there because he’s a single guy who thinks his house is neat and lets him be near his project while publicly whining about billionaire taxes.
Ok. I think we can amicably disagree here.
If he just wants to “provide entertainment” as a celebrity billionaire, he could do that by, oh, I don’t know, wearing outrageous runway fashions in public or having dramatic relationship crises with famous supermodels or endowing a bijou theater for German Neo-Expressionist operas or supplying free ice cream cones on a hot summer day for the entire population of Carson City, Nevada. Or hell, maintaining a Bat Cave in New York City with a stable of experimental superhero vehicles that he drives around town in the dead of night. Really, there are endless options.
But “providing entertainment” by constant lying and assholery about things like an emergency rescue operation or a global pandemic? Entertainment: Elon Musk’s not doing it right.
But none of those would give him more than a single blurb by CNN.com, probably at the bottom of the page. Calling an expert advisor to a rescue effort “pedo guy” or making tweets about buying back Tesla stock at $420 (the innuendo! so clever!) gets him more ongoing media attention than his fortune could buy.
On the other hand, whenever he actually talks about the technical details of rocket propulsion, manufacturing automation, brain-machine interfaces it is clear he is just repeating buzzwords that he has other people use with little comprehension about the underlying technologies and challenges in implementing them. His ‘genius’, such as it is, seems to be convincing other people that’s he’s real, real smart about things that the general public doesn’t really understand very well. He’s hardly unique in this; the Silicon Valley startup culture from where he came is chock full of this kind of nonsense (witness the massive amount of life extension, nootropic, and DIY gene therapy startups, none of which have any implementable technology behind them) but Musk takes the bullshititude to new zeniths.
Stranger
Elon Musk is admired by the kind of people who watch Rick and Morty and think to themselves “Rick is so cool and I want to be just like him”.
I always wonder if Tesla and SpaceX are successful because of him, or in spite of him.
At least Rick has the good sense to hate himself
This was the deal-breaker for me. It was basically “I have more money and power than the government, and I will not let public health laws prevent me from making money” :
Oh, and the part about wanting the freedom to tweet materially significant info (including all-out lies) about Tesla without the FTC having a say.
And yes, the submarine thing was the absolute worst - the way he called an actual expert rescue diver working on the scene “pedo guy” was beyond the pale.
His companies make good cars and his rockets seem very credible developments. He employs some people who certainly seem to know what they are doing.
The other BS he comes out with is ignorable. But I understand that others might have a lower tolerance threshold and expect much more of Silicon Valley billionaire types.