Is it so much to ask of the world to just get over the fact that sometimes highly intelligent and highly effective people are also sometimes highly disagreeable? I would argue this is often the case, but most of them are never allowed to flourish. Forcing everything to be cookie cutter agreeable niceness is how you achieve stagnation.

It's entirely normal and healthy to constantly question whether we've gone too far by locking everyone up inside for months on end. Even if that answer is mostly: no, it's not.

It seems people today are okay with trying to weed out anyone who they think is "wrong" from being able to communicate. That scares me more than Elon tweeting.

I strongly believe it's good having "crazy" or "wrong" people challenging the norms, especially when they have good intentions and contribute meaningfully to the conversation. Society has always had these sorts of people on the edges/fringes and the world didn't end. Frequently they helped move things along for the better.

That doesn't mean we should kill any conversation before it even starts - or, even crazier, calling to prevent them from running their own companies because they express unpopular opinions in their spare time.

You're talking as if he was frank but rude, or exprimed himself in crude words, "à la" Linus.

Elon is the one that leaked/lied about Saudi investment money, or chose to call a rescuer a pedophile (and by extension all expats in thailand pedophiles) just because the man in question was focusing on saving kids and couldn't be bothered with Elon's constant attention seeking during that crisis.

High executives being incisive, direct and sometimes not socially good enough is expected; only the best of the best manage to do that (one exemple in the tech world would be Gates). But being insulting and losing control is not.

Yes! it´s too much to ask someone who is trying to do non-conformist things to conform. You can´t have your cake and eat it too.

Also what you call bullshit is not bullshit to everyone. You don´t like it? dont invest. Leave the rest of us be.

> non-conformist

I'd use the word "immature" instead.

For some definition of mature. You can think of behavior as being convergent or divergent. When performing optimally, convergent behavior follows the herd and produces incremental innovation. Again when performing optimally, divergent behavior shoots off in unexpected directions and produces disruptive innovation.

We tend to associate maturity with convergent behavior. Musk is clearly divergent so, in that sense, he is immature. As he should be.

Both behaviors are needed for society as a whole to progress. There is not one better optimization choice. Many Musk detractors or supporters make the error of assuming one optimization is better than the other, when it is not clearly the case.

Can we accept Musk as an immature valid individual? We should.

> We tend to associate maturity with convergent behavior.

Not me. A lot of very mature people were/are going against the flow, because their maturity does not allow them to participate in the madness that is the preexisting reality they find themselves in. For a trivial example, see for example how a lot of older, more mature developers have harder time adapting to shitty companies. For more extreme cases, see Simone Veil, Ghandi etc.

Investor fraud isn't just whimsy nonconformism.

That's not what OP is saying. OP is saying what makes Elon good at his job is always what makes him say a meme tweet that gets him in trouble with the SEC. You get both.

Though he might have visionary moments of non-conformity, it sets an awful precedent to allow people to violate common ethics in order to allow them to just "be themselves."

It would be awful but ethics change often so what can you do.

> meme tweet that gets him in trouble with the SEC

The "meme tweet" defrauded investors. He barely got in any trouble with the SEC relative to what it was.

Ideally, yes, it's too much to ask - ever - since people should just brush off the bullshit and get on with their lives. However, society in general has developed a really thin skin over the past couple of decades, so realistically, no, it's not too much to ask - right now.

> Is it so much to ask for him to tweet responsibly so we can enjoy the fun future stuff without all the bullshit?

I don't know, that rave cave in Berlin sounds pretty awesome, and that was from a tweet. The Pedo thing was in poor taste, sure, but they got Tesla guys working on a sub to get some kids out of the cave, so you have to see the positive outweighing the negative. Besides, he won that case and no one here cared.

The Truth is that his controversy is part of his Branding Prowess, him smoking weed on JRE created way much more awareness for everything he is involved in amongst the masses more than I thought it would. And I saw it happen live.

> - TSLA trying to run an amazon HQ2 like process for Truck and Model Y factories, look for small, southern, and poor cities to bid and probably win

Does this apply to Cybertruck or Semi? I was thinking of putting a deposit on a dual motor Cybertruck but I'm waiting to see where it will be built.

Fremont was already building Y does that mean they will stop if they get another US based factory online? I just don't understand why Sparks isn't being utilized, its so f'ing massive!

> The Pedo thing was in poor taste, sure

Poor taste is one thing, potentially ruining someone's life is another.

I didn't say he shouldn't tweet about having a dance club, try to save kids, smoke weed, or be weird.

He just shouldn't do irresponsible things like spread misinformation about a global pandemic or lie.

To be clear, he tried to destroy an innocent man/hero's life because said guy dared criticize his attempt to take the glory for himself. He then doubled and tripled down on it and hired a fraudulent private investigator to prove it (he did not). There are those of us that care very much and find actions like that horrific, but we're in the silent minority apparently. It struck me as the actions of a sociopath.

Why do you feel like that is appropriate behavior?

> Why do you feel like that is appropriate behavior?

Honestly, its a means to an end. He has beceome the defacto person for the EV movement, Mars colonization, and to a degree AI (for good or for bad).

many have tried before him, but none had the savvyness or presence that he has.

I worked for Kimabl and approached him several times while at work and I can tell you right now, I would never try that with Elon. My friend asked if I saw Elon at either Tesla or SpaceX when I went to my interviews, I told him if he was I'd walk other way. Definitely say thank you in passing, but that's about it.

He's not someone I'd bother, I like what he does and how it effects all the movements I care about, that's how I justify it. The polemics from his twitter antics can be entertaining at times, and that's engaging a broader audience so I encourage it as well.

His stance on COVID was misinformed to say the least, but he isn't an epidemiologist so I'm not going to listen to him on that. When i want to hear about Starship SN4 I'm all ears.

He’s not an epidemiologist. He’s not an engineer. He’s a businessman. And by pissing so many people off, he’s definitely not being a good businessman.

> He’s not an epidemiologist. He’s not an engineer. He’s a businessman. And by pissing so many people off, he’s definitely not being a good businessman.

Sure.

But you're pointing your ire at the wrong person, I'm not in the 'Cult of Elon' and here to defend his antics; I'm responding to someone asking why I accept it for what it is, and how it benefits the things I care about. I forgot to mention Starlink, too.

But, last I checked he is actually the Chief Engineer of SpaceX and Starship [1].

I don't entirely disagree with your assessment, but as I said, its a means to an end.

And the truth is he actually can piss off who ever he wants, and still be a good business man so long as he gets the Best Talent in the World lining up work for him (for little money) and people falling over themselves to give him funding and politicians letting him prototype stuff underground in one of the most seismically active places in N. America (SoCal/San Andreas Fault line) because he 'gets things done.'

1: https://www.spacex.com/news/2019/09/30/starship-update

And because I can't edit my first post:

Cybertruck is being made in Texas:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla-will-build-i...

Interesting choice, there were rumors at the SpaceX launch facility in Boca Chica that he was thinking of Texas as a new giga factory. But also, Texas has some of the cheapest gas in all of the US, I hadn't seen 99 cent gas since 1999 and yet on my trip there I saw it multiple times in various cities in Texas and there were so many big lifted trucks going 100 MPH everywhere.

He's definitely an engineer. He's going into his companies' factor floor, making engineering decisions day in and day out. Good or bad, the bucks stopped with him.