I have a tangential theory to this.

Being rich != being famous. There are tons of extremely wealthy people out there that keep a very low profile. Sure they might be well known within their circle but ask the average person and they have no clue who that person is. I would say this is the case for like 90-95% of billionaires.

Musk, Andreessen, Zuck and others were all in this camp 10 years ago but they all decided that simply being rich wasn't enough, they wanted to be famous. These folks have all the resources and connections to become famous so they can get on all the podcasts, write op-eds, and are guaranteed to get the best reach on social media and thus the most eyeballs on their content and the most attention paid to them.

But when you go from making a few media appearances a year to constantly making media appearances in one way or another is that you need more "content" so to speak. Just like a comedian needs more content if they are going to do a 1hr special versus a 10min set at a comedy club.

The problem for all these guys is they have a few genuinely insightful ideas mixed in with a ton of cooky and out of touch ideas. Before they could safely stick to the genuinely insightful ideas but as they've made more and more appearances, they have to reach for some of those other ideas. They don't realize that their cooky ideas sound very different than their few insightful ideas. They think all their ideas are insightful based on the feedback they have been getting for the past decade or so.

I need to reread it but Paul Fussell makes the case that old wealth is inconspicuous and secure (and maybe inherited) versus nouveau riche which is about visible luxury, branding, and showy consumption. I don't remember if he mentions the need to promote ideas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class:_A_Guide_Through_the_Ame...

Paul Fussel’s Class was an interesting read

Meh dynastic families which are about as old money as you can get have some of the most ostentatious displays of wealth. They sit on thrones, wear crowns, and preside over public celebrations.

On official occasions.

British aristos tend to be outdoor sorts. Range Rover and a Barbour jacket.

QEII was always in wellies whenever she was off the clock.

There's also differences between fame, infamy, popularity and elite social status, which is probably not all that clear to newly-minted billionaires that are already lacking in the social skills department.

I think Musk definitely financed many of his ventures on his personal brand. The amount of capital he could raise because of his public persona as some kind of Tony Stark, made all the difference.

Same for Andreessen, a VC's success is built on his ability to raise capital and pick winners. His whole strategy, like Musk, was also on building a public persona to raise capital and get people to believe in his picks.

> Being rich != being famous.

> decided that simply being rich wasn't enough, they wanted to be famous

While these are true, the real detail is that these people were never satisfied with being rich -- they wanted to be powerful. And influence is what makes one powerful. Being rich goes a certain distance: once you have f you money, the only thing worth buying to gain more power is fame.

They also truly believe they have all the right ideas, and the validation that comes from being platformed for a financial success (often right-place-right-time type luck, but sometimes combined with genuine skill or insight in a relevant field) hardens them to all criticism.

> They also truly believe they have all the right ideas, and the validation that comes from being platformed for a financial success

Not only that, but they clearly surround themselves with sycophants who always tell them they're absolutely right. Imagine what it's like to go 10 years without anyone having the guts to tell you you're wrong or your ideas are actually stupid. What would that do to your ego?

The silent ones have also gone insane though. You don't get to see it as much, but they're the people promoting bad policies and funding delusional projects behind the scenes. Every so often one of them will make a public statement or political contribution which reveals that they have also been spending way too much time online.

I doubt that. The only thing social media removed was scruples and shame. People were ashamed to say such dumb things and now they think they have some kind of deeper knowledge.

Their thinking didn’t change.

I think they also suddenly had to deal with a bunch of people being mean to them, and telling them they were wrong, which drove them a little mad.

Sort of an oppositional defiant thing, filtered through immense wealth and power

After one becomes wealthy, social media easily becomes the only place where anyone says no to them. When everyone who surrounds you tells you "you're absolutely right, let me get that for you", you atrophy the muscle that let's you course correct when you're making a mistake, and when someone disagrees with you it feels that much stronger.

Wealth is not the only way this can happen, you see it with notoriety and power who have gotten used to " being right" (Dawkins comes to mind), and now this experience is being "democratised" by LLMs.

This. I remember many a time pmarca getting so upset and just blocking everyone who disagreed with him on Twitter. It was the weirdest thing.

Blocking people that annoy him on Twitter is the only humanizing thing about him. Deciding that someone has annoyed you enough on that platform that you don't care to ever hear from them ever again is the only thing that made that platform usable when you have any minimal audience.

"I've known you for all of 10 seconds and enjoyed not a single one of them" followed by blocking is good, actually. That doesn't make you any more correct or wrong, of course.

They can finally say "retard" openly. They have been openly gloating about this! So yes, I agree: previously they felt constrained. They no longer do.

"Retarded" is an euphemism. It was preceded by "mentally disabled", "feeble-minded", and "idiot". Renaming doesn't help.

Agnews, in Santa Clara CA, was successively called The Great Asylum for The Insane, Agnews Insane Asylum, Agnews Mental Hospital, Agnews Developmental Center, and Oracle's Santa Clara campus.

Elon was always problematic. His increasing social media use removed the natural filters that prevented people from seeing it.

I'm not defending Musk, but "problematic" used in this type of context is one of those words that says more about the speaker than it does the subject.

Taking issue with this use of "problematic" says a lot about the speaker too.

"Problematic" is just vague. It's not that much more writing to specify the actual problems.

It's a rhetorical device that dates back to the ancient Greeks (meiosis). It's absolutely a lot more writing to enumerate the ways in which Elon Musk is problematic.

In a sane world it would read that way. Unfortunately, we live in a world where such nondescript descriptors (“problematic”, “objectionable”, “unprofessional”, “toxic”, “extremist”, “far-$SIDE”, a few others depending on usage) have been used, and overused, to accuse or smear people without taking on much of a burden of proof or making any statements specific enough to be falsifiable.

They now provoke instinctive revulsion when used in culture-war-adjacent contexts even when, as here, their usage is entirely legitimate (you presuppose a vague but mutually understood allegation rather than nebulously introducing a fresh one). I think only “controversial” has escaped this fate, but it might be too weak for your purposes.

(To be clear, I am only trying to explain why your phrasing might cause your interlocutor to momentarily recoil even when—as in my case—they don’t actually have any problem with the contents of your statement. What you do with this explanation is up to you: I don’t believe these terms are short-term salvageable at this point, but neither will I begrudge others their choice of hopeless cause; I certainly have my own fair share of those.)

I think you can forgive it as a rhetorical device when speaking to a really broad audience.

IMO it's best to use fewer thought-terminating cliches in that case, not more. Unless one is simply engaging in a Reddit-style call-and-response exercise.

To me, Musk crossed from "maverick" to "problematic" around 2018, when he tried to insert himself into the Thai cave rescue operation and ended up slinging accusations of pedophilia on Twitter.

At this point, he has unlocked many more specific adjectival achievements, and those are the ones that should be invoked whenever Musk's behavior is the topic. (Which it isn't here.)

Just because you've been programmed to associate "problematic" with "liberals" and then further trained to think that people who use the word "problematic" are in fact problems, that's on you, the larger zeitgeist you don't see, and the people programming you.

I feel like taking issue with a word, even when used in a perfectly valid situation, is something worth reflection. Like fair enough if you've heard problematic used in ways you disagree with before, but maybe respond to those comments, not one where you agree with its use. Unless you actually do mean to defend Musk and don't think lying to investors, calling people pedos for saving kids, delaying public infrastructure, doing Nazi salutes, etc. etc. is problematic.

It seems to me to be saying that the person finds Elon Musk’s behavior problematic. What else are you reading into it?

He was always a nutcase. So unhinged he got booted out of PayPal. Then the shenanigans and retconing of him as a Tesla founder. His unrealistic promises he never realised over the years at Tesla. The pedo guy thing. The HyperLoop bullshit. It was not as obvious because he still had some filters but it was already visible if you were paying attention. Problematic is a good description of what he was.

You are just moving the goalposts to criticize a position without being required to provide a reason. You could pick any phrase and mark it as beneath intelligent discourse. You are choosing “problematic” because you don’t like the implication.

Musk is easy to laugh at and to criticize. Problematic encompasses his lying, pettiness, racism, sexual weirdness, ego and fraud as well as anything. Regardless of the proportions of specific traits, as a whole, he’s a problematic individual. That’s perfectly cromulent.

I honestly think there's more going on here. It seems to be primarily the vain billionaires that are going off the deep end. I experimented with stimulants when I was young and I remember being shocked at how they changed my personality. I went from pretty stoic to wanting to fight people over the slightest perceived insult. I can't help but think these billionaires with their expensive implants, hair and skin treatments, blood boys, etc. are on some life-extending or performance enhancing stimulants that are affecting their state of mind.

We know that to be the case with Musk. He's admitted it. Andreessen, don't know.

problematic is a meaningless word, be more specific

I often wonder if tech billionaire psychosis might lead to a "Great Filter" event for our species. They have entirely unchecked power, lack of empathy, and gleeful ignorance of everything our species has done that their success rests upon.

They haven't even read the scifi that positions AI as an obvious resource trap. Sure, let's devote all our resources to birthing an AI. Do we think if its smarter than us we can contain it? Do we think it will help us by default? Have we not thought through the basics of what we're attempting?