How'd you like to be Elon Musk right now? I mean, the Scrooge McDuck swimming around in all your money must be fun, I guess, but what a year he's had.
Musk's reputation was built on batteries specifically and Tesla more generally. Somehow the idea was created that Musk was an engineering genius over there, building next generation lithium batteries. All this guy ever was was a dork with money who made more money. The dork part is important because he represents this generation's "tech bro uber tech bro". While not actual a tech guy that anyone can tell, he used his first position with Tesla - a company he did not start - to seize the imagination of those who see electrification and batteries as the future.
However, I have some real doubts about Tesla's profitability - which is claimed to be around $6bill.
The idea that Musk can be the richest man in the world seems odd to me. There just aren't THAT many Teslas on the road and SpaceX isn't exactly raking in good headlines either. Finally, we have his absolutely disastrous takeover of Twitter.
I still poke around on Twitter a bit, but the whole "fun" of Twitter - like TikTok for that matter - are the people there creating interesting posts. There is no nothing special about Twitter itself - in fact its ability to produce trolls always made it pretty terrible even when it was good. Musk never seemed to understand that and proceeded to alienate much of the customer base.
Except for a certain cadre of young men.
When SpaceX announced an "unscheduled vehicle disassembly" most of us rolled our eyes and this description of a rocket blowing up. But man, those Musky Boys just couldn't accept that their chosen avatar of success saw failure. Sure, they can learn from the failure, but it was still a failure.
I've argued before that motivated reasoning is one of the most powerful forces in the universe, and it's interesting to see people lock themselves into personalities then bend time and space to protect those personas from criticism or condemnation. Trump, Musk...it's the same dynamic.
I like Joe Biden. I don't love him. I think he's actually a pretty sound politician with a penchant for saying dumb stuff off the cuff. I'm not invested in Joe Biden or Dark Brandon or whatever. He's a politician I helped hire to run the country. My identity isn't tied to his.
For so many young men, it sure seems like they desperately need someone to invest their own hopes and dreams into. Like the kids who want to be Darth Vader for Halloween, because Vader is powerful - never mind that he's the bad guy. He's powerful! Most kids - even most boys - outgrow this stage.
Some don't. Fragile themselves, they attach themselves to the reputations of charlatans who make them feel big vicariously.
It's a damned shame.
No comments:
Post a Comment