I think people need a refresher course of the last 5 years or so. Because here’s the deal.

About 2017 to 2020, maybe 2021, the internet was a huge fucking fan of Elon. Including me. I LOVED Elon. Seemed like such a down to earth guy who genuinely wanted to help the human race and was super ambitious. Even if he was flawed. From what I remember, the general consensus was you either liked him, or you felt indifferent and just didn’t really care.

NOW that headspace has changed. Either you fucking hate him, or you do like him and get destroyed. Now, it took me about a year before I started to really dislike him the way the internet does. Because I felt like at the time the internet was doing what it always does. Blows shit outta proportion. That was, until I started seeing things change. Because starting about 2-3 years ago, there has been a massive ego fluctuation in Elon. His Twitter is not the same as it was back in 2019 for example. He was actually fairly level headed and would post the occasional meme. But it was always something amazing to do with Space X or Tesla. Okay, no harm there. NOW it’s full of nonsensical retarded tweets, dumbass memes left and right, tweets pretty much shitting on his own users…It’s a toxic fucking cesspool there. I mean this guy is at a point where he thinks rebranding a social media site that has been widely known to the public with one name, and one name only for YEARS, is a good idea. Let alone to rebrand it to a single fucking letter. Because why not? Kill your user base apparently.

What the hell happened to him? I understand why people dislike him now. As do I. But dude. How can someone fall from greatness like that? Being seen as the next Steve Jobs, flaws and all. To just a shadowy figure of himself? What made him go fucking insane and gain that huge ego?

To the people that would comment, “Well he’s always been like that he just shows it now”, I don’t believe it. When you have such massive egotistical and narcissistic traits, you could give two shits about showing it. He would’ve done so his whole career if he was like this. I’m not saying he NEVER had an ego, but it wasn’t anywhere fucking near the levels of where it is now.

“We were on the verge of greatness, we were THIS close!”

  • radix@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Musk got a lot of fans by driving the electric car revolution, but he really was always a d-bag. It just got excused or swept under the rug.

    The first public crack in the armor really came in 2019 when he inserted himself in the Thailand cave rescue effort in the worst way. Then in 2020, he basically declared himself a public health expert and spread plenty of COVID misinformation.

    But well before that, his first marriage was apparently pretty awful: https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/

    He’s always believed that population collapse is a huge problem. He comes from a big family, and has lots of kids himself.

    His management style is also pretty terrible: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-management-leadership-style-at-tesla-spacex-2022-4

    • hoodatninja@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      The first public crack in the armor really came in 2019 when he inserted himself in the Thailand cave rescue effort in the worst way.

      Let’s not gloss over the fact that he started calling people “pedos” for not liking his rescue idea.

      • weew@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, i was a fan of elon musk until that. real wtf moment. Then again, i never followed him on twitter, I only followed the news and development of Tesla and SpaceX.

    • Yendor@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Just gotta clarify here.

      A member of the Thai government request help from Elon/SpaceX. Elon responded with a viable solution in a few days by putting all his best people from SpaceX and Tesla on it, then sending them to Thailand with what they’d built. Then the cave-diver was asked about Elons proposal on national TV, and he said Elon should shove it up his arse.

      The cave-diver was the one who started slinging insults unprovoked, which is why he lost the case.

      • Kabe@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The Thai government never asked for Elon’s help - he volunteered following a tweet by a twitter user who suggested that he help.

        https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-44779998

        Also, his solution was never viable to begin with - the rescue organizers said straight away that the submersible would be useless in the cave environment.

        • TechnoBabble@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Can someone point me to an overview of why the submersible would be useless in a cave environment?

          • kobra@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Not going to go research for you, but from reading articles linked here it appears the issue with the submersible was fear that it would become trapped and really block everyone in the cave. Elon said he had an inflatable model to send first to prove it would fit but I doubt things ever got that far.

          • Perfide@reddthat.com
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            1 year ago

            Basically all of it? The Thai government didn’t ask him for help, a random user on twitter suggested he help. There’s no evidence the submersible was a viable solution, they would’ve had to run tests to ensure it wouldn’t become stuck in the cave itself and further trap the kids, which would’ve eaten up valuable rescue time even if the sub did ultimately prove capable. Vern Unsworth did not sling insults unprovoked, he called Musks PR stunt exactly what it was, a PR stunt. In any case it wasn’t why he lost the case, he lost the case because it was a jury trial between, as far as the public at the time was concerned, the “next steve jobs” and some guy who swims a lot or something.

            Even then, Musks defense was weak af, it boiled down to “It was just a joke bro, I said sorry”(which he didn’t, he hired a PI to try and prove he was right) and “In south africa everyone says pedo, it’s an insult but it doesn’t actually mean pedophile”(which A. Should’ve invalidated his first defense, as an insult is not a joke, and B. Isn’t true, at best it was a slang insult used by shitty teens in his region of SA when he was a youth, and C. Isn’t what he meant. He doubled down and called unsworth a “child rapist” in an email to a Buzzfeed reporter)

      • halferect@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The Thai government didn’t ask for help from Elon, he took it upon himself to send a team there and when experts told him his idea was stupid he got all pissy and called a guy a pedo. In fact the Thai government told him not to come and his idea was impractical and they had actual experts already working on a practical solution