I don't understand the adulation or the contempt.

He's done good things with SpaceX and Tesla. He's flawed. Shrug.

As far as billionaires go he’s way more amusing than Bezos and Gates and Buffet all put together. Only Bankman-Fried has been close on the entertainment front.

That is a good thing?

In terms of fandom, those who put on a more entertaining performance will attract more fans.

I mean if we have to have billionaires they might as well perform for my amusement.

Right up to the point where you become the focal point of their power and end up the victim. This isn't amusing unless you find train wrecks amusing.

A king is only as powerful as his subjects are loyal. If someone transitions from being amusing to being a train wreck, what is offered in return for the people to continue to recognize such power?

He had an ex-employee SWATted, that alone is contemptible enough for me.

Also doxed a Tesla short seller on Twitter and tried to get him fired. Also lied about some other person looking into Tesla and claimed he ran over employees in the parking lot, taking him to court.

Elon has an extensive history of vindictiveness.

When did he have him swatted? Like he gave away the persons address or called the swat team on him?

Vern Unsworth is a cave diver who assisted with the Thai cave rescue a few years ago.

He was derisive of Musk, who wanted Tesla engineers to help rescue the trapped children.

Musk responded to this criticism by calling Unsworth a "pedo" and "child rapist". After Unsworth sued him for defamation, Musk hired a private detective to investigate Unsworth, presumably hoping to intimidate him.

Flawed is liking pineapple on pizza, not using your platform of millions of followers to call someone a child rapist. That's worthy of contempt to me.

Just a point of clarification, he hired the private detective before he was sued.

D'oh, thanks, I've fixed that mistake in my comment.

You can admit Elon is extremely petty and short-sighted in private personal matters but admit he still attempts to do good in the greater scheme. That's where I'm at personally. I despise his lack of consistency and restraint in his position of power, but still respect his wider goals in reducing censorship and making bold investments in technological moon shots.

I'm cynical though, I only see lesser evils as all you can wish for in politics and culture. Trusting in politicized public figures = pure disappointment

The most sympathetic scenario re: twitter (ignoring the other Musk issues around FSD/pre-Twitter stuff): a few very public examples of him censoring people for petty reasons VS pre-Musk twitter banning (or silently shadowbanning) many thousands who happened to fall outside the current-thing Overton Window, using equally or worse biased/misguided reasons (ie, 'misinformation') and quietly taking requests from gov/intel agencies... still a net gain over all. But tons of work to be done.

This kind of "flawed" seems like a perfect reason to strongly distance oneself from any past suggestions of "being a fan" (everyone makes mistakes after all), but to each their own.

I don't know anyone these days who is the model of morality. People are pretty messed up in general. I think at least Elon puts most of his energy into doing things that are good for the planet and people.

There's a very long way between being the model of morality and being someone like Musk.

Everyone has issues, and does bad things from time to time. But I respect that he's been able to build the companies he has while enduring almost constant hate from the beginning. He had some supporters but CNBC and the like were constantly talking about how Tesla would go bankrupt and how it was a total waste of money.

And I think Elon does some really dumb things but in general I want him to succeed on what he is doing.