It’s so wild to me that Musk had probably the best PR campaign a billionaire has ever had, and he managed to fuck up any goodwill he generated from it, just by opening his mouth on twitter.
Double-edged sword thing I think. His egotistical way of being is something the system he lives within rewards, but it also rewards it in a fickle way. Many a celebrity has risen to the top of fame only to fall because of something they did/said that was considered wrong/unpopular. Musk’s seems to be a slower fall because he built such a cult of personality around the idea of him being “uniquely” (not) interested in sustainable transportation and going to mars and all that, and also because of his ability to swing around ungodly amounts of capital to keep blundering his way through the system. And he’s just been slowly testing (probably accidentally, not with intention) how far that can get you in the fucked up US system before you hit the ground. Similar with Trump and his cult of personality stuff. I think we’re seeing the limits of it for Musk now that his actions are directly impacting lots of people’s jobs in the US. With Trump, it’s less clear to me because he’s already been widely hated for a while and keeps going.
It’s so wild to me that Musk had probably the best PR campaign a billionaire has ever had, and he managed to fuck up any goodwill he generated from it, just by opening his mouth on twitter.
Double-edged sword thing I think. His egotistical way of being is something the system he lives within rewards, but it also rewards it in a fickle way. Many a celebrity has risen to the top of fame only to fall because of something they did/said that was considered wrong/unpopular. Musk’s seems to be a slower fall because he built such a cult of personality around the idea of him being “uniquely” (not) interested in sustainable transportation and going to mars and all that, and also because of his ability to swing around ungodly amounts of capital to keep blundering his way through the system. And he’s just been slowly testing (probably accidentally, not with intention) how far that can get you in the fucked up US system before you hit the ground. Similar with Trump and his cult of personality stuff. I think we’re seeing the limits of it for Musk now that his actions are directly impacting lots of people’s jobs in the US. With Trump, it’s less clear to me because he’s already been widely hated for a while and keeps going.