Recently it seems like Musk has been acting like someone who is either burned out and/or not realizing he has a really unmet emotional need(s). He's done some poorly thought out things (buying Twitter, passing on the due diligence) that contrast with he seems to have been capable of in the past (SpaceX, Tesla, realizing and executing on the need for a gigafactory). Sleeping with your best friend's wife seems like one of those things you'd do when you're more focused on trying to get your needs met in the short term.

"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" - Acton

No need to dress it up or over-analyse it.

It's simple.

He's corrupt.

You're being downvoted, and I have no idea if that's what is happening here, but I will say I've seen people become shift manager and lose their shit power-tripping.

The consolidation of wealth/power (which are synonymous anyways) is super dangerous and getting worse.

Aside- Yongyea used a word in a video today I hadn't heard in so long it legitimately worried me- 'profiteering'. It perfectly describes our entire society now, but it was frowned upon when I was younger (80s-90s).

Like calling the rich 'elite'. Our language has even been weaponized against us.

I'd say our entire society is corrupt.

Jeez...How many women does this guy juggle at the same time? I admire Musk's entrepreneurial/innovative prowess, but nothing about his personal life. I guess this is what happens when wealth and power gets to one's head.

Everything comes with a price

Seems like he’s openly denying this as a hit piece:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1551386634741895170?s=21...

Imagine your CEO tweeting this as part of the response...

    "Haven’t even had sex in ages (sigh)"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1551389048572301312

> Imagine your CEO tweeting this as part of the response..

That's pretty based TBH, and definitely better than the usual corpo-speak.

I would personally love my CEO for being open and not an NPC figurehead. Our enterprise customers? Guessing not so much hahaha

There’s also the narrative that post-divorce Brin hit on Travis Kalanick’s then-girlfriend according to Super Pumped, leading to the whole Otto imbroglio.

What scandal and pettiness the auto tech industry has involved.

I find it interesting that everyone is shitting on Musk, and no one is blaming Nicole Shanahan, Brin's former wife.

It can't be because of a general hatred towards tech CEOs, as Nicole Shanahan herself is the CEO of ClearAccessIP, a "patent management solutions" company. [1]

[1]: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2017/08/01/patents-with...

And Brin was only with Shanahan because he cheated on his ex wife leading to his first divorce. A-holes all around.

Interesting point... I don't know if this is part of the answer, but apparently around 1800 there was a shift in Christianity (which would have been society as a whole, at least nominally) that piety came naturally to women, and it was men who had the problems. [1] cites The Death of Christian Britain (Brown, 2009) for this, and quotes at some length. In this or another post the author asserts that this view has colored our society, even down to divorce courts and friends believing the wife rather than the husband.

Interestingly, of the four divorces of people that I am familiar with, one man beat his wife, two women were narcissists, and one women committed adultery. Small sample size, but the fault is not obviously male-dominated. One would expect a 50-50 split, since presumably both genders are equally prone to emotional unhealth. But, men's failures seem to tend towards a more visible manifestation: sex, drugs, alcohol, violence. Women seem to act out more broadly than men, or perhaps in just less visible ways, like relationaly (e.g. character assassination).

[1] https://aaronrenn.substack.com/p/newsletter-3-the-history-of...

A Fortune article https://fortune.com/2015/04/14/ceo-indiscretions-cost/ summarized an academic paper "The Consequences of Managerial Indiscretions: Sex, Lies, and Firm Value" https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1573327.

"Knee jerk reactions to the announcement of an extramarital affair or lying about qualifications would seem obvious, and an immediate damage to a company’s stock price is almost inevitable. But the damage lasts longer. Indiscretions are not just associated with short-term stock price damage. Stock prices at companies that suffered from CEO mess-ups fell in total by between 11% and 14% over the subsequent 12 months.

Firms with badly behaved CEOs also have poorer operating performance during the fiscal year in which the CEO is found out. And such companies are also far more likely to be sued by shareholders, and they are more likely to the subject of an investigation by the Department of Justice or the Securities and Exchange Commission, or both."

Elon Stats based on wikipedia, daily mail:

Married 3 times, 4 kids out of wedlock, 10 total kids with one deceased

Wilson 6 kids, 1 deceased Damian, Saxon, Kai and Nevada (deceased) Griffin, Vivian (previously Xavier)*

Grimes 2 (out of wedlock and second surrogate) X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl

Zilis 2 (out of wedlock twins unknown name)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11043971/It-Musk-lo...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk

Mistake. Musk never had a kid with Riley. The 2 kids you listed under Riley belong to Justin, and if IIRC...a pair of twins and another pair of triplets.

So, Musk has two pairs of twins and a pair of triplets...a fertile man indeed!

The chance of non-identical twins is all up to the female and fertility drugs/procedures. Dunno about identical twins.

Musk completely denies it.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1551386634741895170

My admiration for Elon Musk has really taken a nose dive. He is on complete opposite trajectory of Steve Jobs which tried to make himself less of an asshole. Elon Musk is going the opposite direction.

Maybe getting kicked out of Tesla would have been healthy for him just like getting kicked out of Apple made Jobs a better person.

Your admiration (or lack there of) for Musk is mostly manufactured by the media that wants you to engage with the article and care about it.

Just apply some critical thinking to this:

You have no idea if Sergei Brin is a good person or not in personal relationships

You have no idea if Anne Wojcicki is a good person or not in personal relationships

You have no idea what the dynamic of the relationship was. You have no idea how these people lead their personal lives. Anyone could be lying.

So most importantly, you should not care. If you want examples of personal character traits that are good or bad from which you can make decisions on in terms of who to listen to or not, you should take everything in isolation. People seem to think that just because someone does something good, he/she must also do the same level of good in EVERY aspect of their life. People don't work this way. You can have brilliant assholes, or nicest/kindest people that are completely clueless.

People are allowed to have opinions. Accusing them of being merely dupes of the media is out of line, and a tactic which seeks to reject their ability to hold an opinion rather than engage with their opinion.

If you don't have an argument to express in good faith, simply move on with your day rather than slinging mud.

Not sure how what I said means "People can't have an opinion". My overall point is that you should base your opinions on reality.

Reality = Brin might have faults but he's good at hiding them. He also founded a company that billions of people use every day , and not only that...they use all the various different flavors of Google.

Also reality = Musk has many faults and he's very bad at hiding them. But that is essentially irrelevant for people who don't have to deal with him, also there isn't a scarcity of hot girls so the animosity towards playboys like him, Leonardo Di Caprio and Dan Bilzerian is out of place.

Tough love for Musk fans = approximately 1 million people use the products/services sold by Musk companies...out of a potential audience of about 100/150 millions (those who can afford a luxury sedan).

To summarize = I'd shake Brin's hand and pat him on the shoulder for a job well done, won't try to become his friend or anything. Would not do the same for Musk because there is nothing to congratulate him (yet).

If you don't see his successes with Space X or Tesla as something worthy of congratulation, then I dunno what to tell you, we live in different realities then.

This is not politics or entertainment. The only thing that matters is a company revenue as % of GDP and number of people using your products/services.

Tesla and SpaceX are like great poker bluffs. People talk about them, nobody really uses them. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Salesforce, Facebook...are like Mohammed Ali KO punches or Michael Jordan's last jump against Utah. Already there for the world to see, commercialized globally and enjoyed by billions. Add them up and you end up with something like 2 trillions in revenue and some 80% reach globally.

There's a reason why nobody makes highlights of poker bluffs. A poker bluff can always become something real, but of course you only shake a person hand after it became real, not before.

I was responding specifically to your premise that people's opinions on Musk are shaped by reporting rather than their knowledge of Musk's actions and character. In expressing this, you were dismissing their agency and suggesting they were simply empty vessels into which opinions had been poured.

In other words, you were asserting they had no ability to form an opinion.

> People are allowed to have opinions.

Yes, they are. And making one's opinion very public makes possible for others to express some opinion of their own about one's opinion.

While aiming for a homerun, one has to accept getting hit where it hurts. That's what weak spots are for.

Besides, as mentioned, appearances rarely conform to reality. In a deluge of opinions, reality drowns. Some people do value facts over fluff.

Accusing strangers on the internet of being dupes for expressing their opinion seeks to chill their speech instead of criticizing their ideas.

If one believes their criticism is worthy, they shouldn't feel compelled to wrap it in bad faith tactics in order to express it publicly. If they feel that it can't stand on it's own without such tactics, it isn't worth expressing.

This tactic is counter to what to suggest. It seeks to attack the other person's qualifications to hold an opinion rather than allow your arguments and theirs to be subjected to equal scrutiny.

I mean, I took a quick look at your post history and it seems you engage in the exact opposite manner when an article or situation seems to be positive of Elon Musk or something that Tesla does, so it doesn't seem that you're adhering to your own argument.

Regardless, the traits that Musk exhibits (sleeping with subordinates, lack of self-control, impulsive decisions) are generally speaking not good traits for leaders to have, and it's starting to feel like it's finally catching up to him.

The positive aspects of Musk or Tesla that are highlighted on HN are solely in regards to technology, which is much easier to parse and pick apart (and a worthwhile effort to do so compared to some personal life details).

Whether or not we agree on morality of personal life choices, I think we can all agree that SpaceX/Tesla has at a minimum contributed quite a substantial amount of useful technology to humanity, even if the final products are not the best.

As for leadership traits, I think its pretty silly to attempt to fit every leader into a mold that is determined to be the most socially acceptable. Its well known that people on the spectrum can have poor social skills, yet be absolutely brilliant in other areas.

After his public attack on a hero rescue diver and his subsequent gleeful refusal to apologize, I lost all faith in the man. This is not the man we want taking us to mars. He behaves badly and doesn’t own up to it when he does.

It's my observation that even uncontroversial posts are likely to receive an initial wave of rapid downvotes, followed by a slow trickle of upvotes that may even last 2 or 3 days.

I don't pretend I can explain it, but in my mind it is better to accept it and to simply upvote if you think it has been voted down inappropriately.

If I had to guess probably because of his username, downvoted by a republican, but I'm an European living in Europe so what do I know...

Yes, let's keep piling on blame to our favorite boogeymen: conservatives, Republicans, ...

Any shred of evidence or not, it must be piled on! Surely we are not the ones fanning divisiveness.

> Mr. Brin and Ms. Shanahan are now involved in divorce mediation, with Ms. Shanahan seeking more than $1 billion, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

Not really familiar with dovorce laws.

Can anyone tell me, if one cheats on her husband, does she still claim alimony or compensation in any form?

What does the law say?

Barring a prenup (in which case, the prenup controls to the extent it conforms to the law on those), I think all US jurisdictions have no fault divorce, so there is no need, value, or effect for allegations of infidelity where division of assets, spousal support, etc., are concerned.

Community property laws differ by state in the US, but I would doubt that an affair would have any impact on the division of marital assets.

Honestly, where does he find the time for all these escapades

Between the affairs and incessant tweeting, I'm starting to doubt that he actually works 120 hours a week.

Also spending quality time with his 10 kids.

Maybe all this stuff counts as work for him...

I'm pretty sure he thinks of his tweeting as work.

Getting someone pregnant doesn’t take time, but building enduring relationships does.

He schedules his time in 5 minute increments.

5 minutes is enough.

Cocaine is a hell of a drug.

Always curious on the context of these shit shows

> Their falling out is one of a string of personal issues Mr. Musk has faced even as he juggles business challenges ..."

Sometimes I get the impression that journalists aren't really describing reality, but rather an alternate reality that would be more cosmologically fair, according to them.

He does seem to have a few personal issues and is certainly juggling business challenges. Having twins with a subordinate would count as both a business and personal issue.

He seems like a man unglued if you ask me.

Sleeping with your best friend’s wife is ethically the worst legal thing you could do

Separated or not, this is not something you do to a friend (unless your friend is okay with it).

It should come as no surprise that people who don’t know what enough is take these actions (boundaries and empathy deficiencies).

Exactly. It's opportunism.

And if you're the richest man in the world, why is it so important to scalp people close to you. Weird!!!

I think there are some business dealings some would consider way worse because they effect much more people and much more materially.

> No wonder his daughter disowned him

"disowned". Let's see if that person forgoes their share of inheritance...

What are you suggesting this would establish?

I wish you were wrong.

> and I don't care if it takes two to tango

Well, at least you are acknowledging your bias.

For this particular kind of tango, apparently there are three involved . . .

Ok, I just found this buried in the article:

> At the time of the alleged liaison in early December, Mr. Brin and his wife were separated but still liv­ing together.

It's sad how dishonest journalism has become. I have the feeling that WSJ used to be better, but it seems that now they are just like the rest of the media.

Sergey cited Dec 15th as their separation date, but the liason with Musk was two weeks prior.

I don't feel like we have the whole story.

Yeah sounds like it could be cause and effect.

Even if they were on a break, it's cheap opportunism on Musk's part, assuming he ever cared for his friend.

Maybe Elon should be the $1B she's asking for in the divorce.

Honestly, I think it says more about how distorted your worldview has become that your first instinct is to go hunting for some little factoid to use to confirm your pre-existing bias against " the mainstream media", no matter how irrelevant, incorrect, or out-of-context that fact may be.

> out-of-context that fact may be.

What's out-of-context about it? It seems very relevant to me. And it seemed relevant enough to the person who wrote the article to still put it there.

> some little factoid

> distorted your worldview has become

Of course, I don't appreciate your disdainful tone towards me.