He seems like kind of a dick
Unlike most comments in this thread, which discuss his social-political orientation, I wanted to question his (please forgive me) genius status.
Yes, he does own some pretty innovative companies that do some pretty innovative cool things, but what exactly was his part in it besides buying/co-founding them? That’s my genuine question. The reason I would ask something like this or doubt his genius in the first place are the things that he proposes purely on his own, with nobody else’s involvement.
For example, the tesla roadster air thrusts, flying cars or the hyperloop as the most notable examples, both extremely dumb ideas that anyone with the most superficial understanding of physics will recognize as completely infeasible.
Yes, he does have a Bachelor’s degree in physics and economics, which makes me think that he is simply very capable of recognizing potential in things, but not conceiving these ideas by himself. He is a very talented business manager and PR strategist, but I have some doubt about his abilities beyond that…
He’s cringe, and an awful person. I might even hate him more than a purely vile person like Rupert Murdoch - who at least seems like he has some idea of how evil he is.
Money inherited from colonization and slavery. He constantly tries to show how cool he is by doing performative crap like referencing anime, smoking weed, or doing some forced zany eccentric billionaire shit.
Putting solar panels on stuff and desperately trying to colonise Mars won’t save us if workers and the planet are being exploited into annihilation.
Unionize SpaceX.
Unbelievable you are denying climate change. This guy made more for solving climate change than all politicians combined.
You just read news titles without reading/watching source material - for example his “smoking weed” was a first try and after few seconds his cough was visible as hell. But all media made a weed smoker from him and people trust mainstream media because they are always one and the only source of truth.
When did I deny climate change?
Green capitalism isn’t going to stop climate change, and colonizing Mars isn’t any kind of solution as long as we’re still living under a system that expects and enforces unrestrained exploitation and consumption.
If we can’t do what’s required to keep this planet habitable, we don’t have much chance of surviving Mars.
The solution to climate change isn’t making electric luxury cars so some Silicon Valley techbros can drive them to Burning Man to take LSD and feel like they’re changing the world. The solution to climate change is for workers to build power in their workplaces, communities to organize, strike, abolish capitalism and build a system from the bottom up that works for the health and happiness of all people, animals, and the planet that we live on - not enslaving most of us so a select few billionaires can hoard obscene amounts of stolen wealth.
“The media” hasn’t done anything to Elon Musk except fawn over him and paint him as some kind of benevolent saviour. Just go look at his Twitter and you’ll see that he’s a right wing “Libertarian” who thinks it’s funny to actively exploit workers and destroy their attempts to unionize and organize against his exploitation. He makes clueless references to pop culture to try to seem cool. He supported the fascist Trump and was shouting about “FREEDOM” for people not to wear masks during a global pandemic.
