Time Flies

It's all PR b******* even the hate. these sociopaths just appeal to the people that will make them the most money.
- I believe this is the truth of the matter. This is what happened with Rogan as well. He used to be somewhat centrist but left-leaning and open-minded. During the COVID era his audience exploded after he started inviting right-wing guests and conspiracy theorists onto the show, and the rapid shift toward that type of content was blatant thereafter. That shit went downhill fast. It was that and the Spotify money that ultimately corrupted him. But maybe he was a fucking dick all along. Hard to recall.
- Bullshit.
  Don't mind me just corrupting the children you are trying to protect.

Getting their name on Epstein list makes people show their true colors

Musk: "Don't buy our car if that's a problem."

Consumers:

Musk: "You can't stop buying my stuff! I'll sue you all!"

what's happened?
- He's suing a bunch of advertising companies because they stopped advertising on his platform full of Nazis after he told them (the advertisers, not the Nazis) to "Fuck off"

Has he been checked for a worm in his brain? Just thinking about someone else that went off the rails.

I mean, was RFK Jr. ever on the rails? Him being off the rails is likely how he got his brain worm in the first place.

Sometimes I wonder if the hard right wing turn was just to sell more trucks. You'd have to be a right wing cultist to want a cybertruck

But then I realize he's not that smart.

Doesn't really seem to work. Right wing guys still want a truck that makes the vroom noise and has smoke coming out of it. And the main constituency for electric cars ( smug liberals with a lot of money ) don't want to be associated with Musk so they'll buy a different brand (luckily other automakers have mostly caught up to Tesla now).
- And the main constituency for electric cars ( smug liberals with a lot of money )
  You lost it right here. It's normal people who don't want the world to burn.
- Other auromakers have caught up to Tesla because Tesla has gotten worse, not because they progressed so much. Unfortunately. In terms of software, efficiency and horses per dollar Tesla is still best. They just like to shoot themselves in the foot with weirdo decisions regarding steering wheels, removing components, etc.
  The best electric car on the market IMHO is a 2022 Telsa Model 3/Y (especially given the depreciation).
The initial right turn was because he didn't like California's covid policies. But then the right started sucking up to him and the left denounced him, he just leaned further and further.
Along the way I think he realized how easy it is to play right wingers, how much they accommodate ultra rich people, and decided he likes it.
He's right wing now for the same reason all the other ultra rich people are, not because he's dumb.

Elon is desperate to be liked, the center of attention, a total egomaniac. He's one of those people who will say or do whatever it takes for people to tell him he's great and have them pay attention to him. Id argue even negative responses would be a positive to him as it's still someone talking the time to listen to him.

Putting out messages of peace and love don't get the same returns as messages of hate, because people expect peace and don't need to add anything more to it. Not that long ago the scum of the internet wouldn't bother to respond to a post like that.

But a message of hate will get the fascist voice cheering him on as one of their own and the voices for peace calling him out. On top of that, every time he posts some dumb shit it gets copied all over the socials, just like this, fueling that ego over and over.

You could just say he's a narcissist who changes his tune as the wind turns.

I mean you guys are clearly moving the goal post here

They really had no choice but to take away abortions, we were just being unbearably woke.
Didn't the right also move massively towards the far right nazi shit? I mean, I see how the left has moved toward beeing more progressive, but the right has shifted their positions enormously.
They never explain how liberals moved further left when we all know they are pissed that liberals became more accepting of trans rights.
- Yeah liberals didn't go further left. Conservatives went hard right and that's obvious from the fascist rhetoric. Just another case of projection there.
It is remarkable how allergic some far-right people in America are to being called far-right. Even Richard Spencer often refers to himself as a moderate. I think it originates from their inability to understand the views of other people and place their own in context (sometimes, of course, they are just acting in bad faith, but I think there is a real undercurrent of far-right folks who just can't see their views for what they are).
- I think they often do that because they want to be "normal” and of course dislike the “abnormal” (in their eyes) parts of society.
  Honestly I think a lot of trumpers are that way too. They don’t need to look into his policies and background. They just know he’s the one their Republican friends and family like now. He’s the normal/conformist choice in their messed up world.
- It's a new take on being self-centered.
I mean it's not totally off base though - imagine asking a Clinton era Democrat during that time period how they'd feel about a law making it a cause for civil action if someone absconded with your child to have them do transgender treatments without your knowledge or approval. I guarantee you it would have waaaaay more support from Dems then than it would from Dems now. You know, now when it's being opposed for being transphobic.
But then we can just look at Hillary Clinton for an example of the drift in action - Hillary from that era said her politics were primarily shaped by her conservative upbringing, she strongly opposed gay marriage, and she spent some effort as first lady trying to subvert the 1st amendment with Tipper Gore because rap lyrics are naughty.
Yeah, the Jan 6 Insurrection happens every 4 years, it is kind of a tradition at this point.

Im still for sure he started doing drugs

Or stopped.

Damn that dude went off the deep end. This is why people should never put celebrities or others on such a high pedestal.

Dude started hanging out with Joe Rogan and his virtues just got shredded by the manosphere.

Or he fired his PR team.
- Interesting that multiple people in this thread seem to think the same thing.

Just a few short weeks before it all went off the rails with the "pedo guy" tweet.

Back then, that was kind of out of character for Musk's public persona. Now, it might not even make the news.

well this was before he was exposed as a sex-pest and could appeal to people who wanted to get an EV to save a planet.

Now he wants his money out of tesla because he knows that shit is priced ridiculously and dip into some other shit.

I guess Elon loves Kool-Aid.

Elon knows who's going to cover up for Epstein

This guy is such a fucking mess, I don’t even want to imagine their family bbq

They don't BBQ in South Africa, they brai.
- Been to one, probably the most amazing feed of my Aussie life this far.
The family BBQ is really just a race up the will standings.

right? right? right? i told you that guy wasn't that bad just a few years ago. it's only recently that he's become a right-wing extreme. i wonder why/what happened.

I think it all started to unravel when he wanted to gain prestige from making a submarine to save some kids that needed to go through some flooded caves but then one of the divers embarrassed him by rejecting the idea without the kid gloves on (it was a naïve idea, the sub wouldn't have been able to get to the kids and the divers got them out without it).
Elon then accused the guy of pedophilia because he was already on Thailand when it happened and, according to Elon, pedophilia is the only reason a man would want to travel there.
That moment was enough for me to realize the image he had created for himself as a real life Tony Stark was false, he was a billionaire who wasn't even smart enough to stfu and bitch about something behind closed doors, plus he chose a really bad idea to throw this tantrum over.
- It was probably around that time he started doing ketamine.
He certainly did not treat his trans daughter terribly well even before a few years ago. Then again he did not treat anybody around him well, but still he certainly seemed homophobic in private back then. The issue is that EVs are mostly sold to left leaning people and most tech workers are also left leaning. So he was not talking about it. Now it is out and he has a fan club, which celebrates him for it. Hence no reason to hide it anymore.
- may i ask, what makes you so sure he was an asshole way back? maybe you just want to see it that way, because you want to see all billionaires in a bad light?
I've been saying for years that the man has had some kind of mental breakdown, and what we're seeing now is a man that is using a mixture of hard drugs and the dopamine hit from being a billionaire right-wing edge-lord to keep himself from going utterly bonkers.
If he were a normal person his employer would have either fired him or requested that he seek help. He's a billionaire without a boss or a support network, so he lacks that safety net. He's the very definition of "you don't know they're laughing at you, not with you, right?"
- Yeah, right. I can agree to this. I wonder, whether it's the fate of all successful people to eventually turn into bad people. I really wonder.
Because he used to hide it
He thrived on the positive attention. When he started getting negative attention, it was the media/mob/etc.'s fault and never his own. When your ego prevents you from introspection, it creates monsters.
He always was incompetent and an asshole, it's just the recently he pushed the volume to 11. If you look at past interviews with him, it's all there already. If you read about his past behaviours you can see that he's still the same.
- once I saw him on the simpsons, that's when I realised things were off. Anyone who goes that hard out of their way to tell others how great he is, is probably not a good person.
He mis-calculated who is buying his cars.
Failure, public humiliation, and lots of Twitter and YouTube.

Now he sues people who don’t want to send their money on his services

Thanks for reminding me that I'm not totally crazy in thinking that Musk seemed like a sane person not long ago.

Probably just got enough fuck you money that he figured he could fire his PR team

Guys like Musk is why I would prefer to keep low profile. If I am rich, I would not like sycophants bestowing me praises. One of the things I genuinely would not like to happen to me is becoming arrogant and out of touch. I'm no longer religious but I still remember what Christianity taught me. A lot of people don't really take into heart and mind of good teachings where ever they may come from.

Edit: clarity

Maybe the arrogant and out of touch tendencies are part of the mental illness that drives somebody to be like him. Not just the right wing bullshit, but the fact that he has to keep accumulating billions too. He can live anywhere and buy anything (except love, lol) and generally do whatever he wants every day for the rest of his life. But no, he has to have multiple jobs fucking up useful companies and keep himself in the news all the damn time.
Due to a guy at work spewing right wing radio into my work space for a few weeks before he was stopped I heard a lot of Musk in interviews... It is the most sycophantic non-sense that they pass off as journalism. The framing of the questions are always overflattering ("So we know your new plans for the widget is AWESOME but what can you tell us about....") and no actual critical questions are even posed.
A lot of it is that his entire company exists on hype. Critical thinking is trained out of his audience by simple lack of exposure. I imagine if an interviewer were to treat him as anything less than the tech messiah he just doesn't give them the opportunity. Provided the novel data problems with AI remain unsolved he may find himself in hot water if his audience ever gets wise.

M-m-m-money