Thanks Mrs B. Honestly, Isacsson’s book is brilliant. I liked it so much I went on to read his biography of Steve Jobs. Also highly recommended. I’ll def read more from him.
He did a good podcast on Honestly before this book came out. It’s worth a listen for anyone who hasn’t time to read the whole biography.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck.”
Thank you LSO; you have reminded me of an MD (Managing Director before we were inflicted with 'CEOs') I worked for back in the day. I was part of the senior management team of this national company and it was going through a rough patch due to the continuing internecine warfare amongst the three directors who could hardly bear to be in each others' presence. In the end, we senior managers were asked to vote for which director should leave the company in order for it to survive. The MD was the least popular - abrasive, no tolerance for fools but single-minded and tireless in the pursuit of prosperity for the company - and the other managers were unanimous that he was the one to go. We had all fallen foul of his temper at some point and I had had some stand up rows with him in the past - but we always had a pint afterwards and shook hands before he trundled home in his beaten up Range Rover Vogue. At the final meeting of the managers I argued strongly that we should keep the MD if the company was to survive because - and this was the thing - He Got It Right More Often Than He Got It Wrong. He wasn't perfect, but we could trust him to guide the company safely through the waters ahead. Needless to say, I was outvoted. The company was sold to a competitor two years later.
Elon Musk is certainly not a perfect human being - who amongst us is? (apart from Joanna Lumley, obviously) - but he gets it right more often than he gets it wrong. That'll do for me.
Wonderful article LSO. I too remember the powerhouse that was Chris Evans, and said so at the time. I have been watching Musk do what he does with growing admiration and approbation - but it took you (of course) to really itemise his mind-blowing achievements. He's a Giant in a world of Pygmies, warts and all. Thank you.
Musk is a remarkable man. PayPal was amazing (I have friends who worked there at the beginning and they are all rich). Tesla is amazing (several of my friends have Teslas — I am impressed to the point of shocked every time I ride in one). SpaceX… amazing. ChatGPT amazing. Robot company amazing (why _do_ robots walk funny though?). I am filled with admiration for the man.
I have been shocked by the progress of events since Twitter happened though. Twitter has always been horrible but the infection by the woke virus was like a symbol of the end of normal society. I cheered Musk’s takeover as much as you did.
Twitter before Musk was like the common room in Brown University but Twitter since Musk is like walking The Streets of Mogadishu. There is no polite discussion (you have to come to Substack for that). It’s a cesspit and around every sensible post is a big pile of cess. I’m a big fan of free speech (it’s what I miss most from America’s Constitution) but Twitter is not free speech. It is maniacs shouting each other down with vile insults. Would America with Musk in charge be like Twitter?
As for politics… Musk has the spirit of Trump and Farage and all the qualities that Trump and Farage lack. He is brim-full with competence for a start. He could change the world.
He could easily be president once Trump is done if it weren’t for that pesky constitution - though perhaps he could get that changed. I wouldn’t put it beyond him. Or maybe he’ll find a loophole where he puts a minion in the Whitehouse while he pull the strings - like Putin when the Russian constitution kept him out of the Kremlin.
When I imagine Musk as world leader though, I fear what would come of a brilliant, powerful, control-freak in charge of everything — and it would be everything. I imagine an Ayn Rand hero who destroyed his masterpiece rather than have it criticised. I imagine an Italian leader who brought prosperity but had his supporters dress in black and crushed his opposition with violence. I am afraid. The Woke won’t be the last to endure his wrath.
I am filled with admiration for Musk’s successes but I fear what comes next.
So much here Ragged. But I’ll have to be brief. I agreed with pretty much all of it. I don’t/hardly go on Twitter for just the reasons you mention. It’s always been nasty and venal to me. But these days it’s a good source of news, since there is so much the MSM doesn’t cover, or spins in such a way you have no idea what really happened.
I’ll stick to Substack, although this platform too is becoming a little less civil I notice. It’s sad. We need to preserve what we have built here. But the barbarians are at the gate.
I would hope Musk doesn’t go into politics. It’s like a quagmire which drags everyone down. And though I’m not sure I’d project him turning into a Mussolini or Putin I agree that he definitely doesn’t have the personality for it, and he’s not someone who would take well to unfettered power.
Was just reading the excellent Stephen Fry (best Substack essay of the year) and Fry compares Musk to Napoleon instead of Mussolini. Maybe that's a fairer comparison.
I wanted to say more but I had already said too much.
I know that you are more sympathetic to Trump and Farage than I am but I take comfort that neither of them has an excess of competence. But I see what Musk has done with Twitter and I imagine a Trump-alike with a massive excess of competence. I think it could go badly.
> I’m a big fan of free speech (it’s what I miss most from America’s Constitution) but Twitter is not free speech. It is maniacs shouting each other down with vile insults. Would America with Musk in charge be like Twitter?
Non sequitur Ragged. What one expects or grants or permits in a Fight Club brawl and what one expects or grants or permits in a well run government are not comparable. Free speech as it should apply to Twitter and free speech as it should apply in Parliament are not comparable either. Twitter is the very lowest rung in the world of free speech, where the most noise and the least signal occur, yet every ladder has -- and must have -- a lowest rung. From the Twittersphere certain thoughts, worth keeping, will float up to higher rungs just as, in a meritocracy, Dick Whittington, might become Lord Mayor of London. If you want a better idea of what an Elon lead government might look like, don't turn to Twitter, turn to SpaceX.
I was going for 'analogy' rather than 'sequitur', Ray.
Musk had this idea that Twitter needed fixing and he did it by changing how it works. He had good intentions but he made everything worse. What would happen if a powerful, determined man with good intentions tried to change the government and the way the country is run?
I don't doubt that if Elon got it wrong he'd get it wrong in a big way, I just don't think the analogy with Twitter is apt. Besides, it's debatable if he did make it worse. It depends on one's intentions. He made a stand for FOS and if that means an unsavory mob get to yell and scream their moronic thoughts, that's what FOS is. Or I should say it's the price to be paid. IOW, if Elon were to 'fix' Twitter, he'd undo the very thing he's attempting to achieve. The cure would be the disease. It seems to me that defenders of FOS have understood since Pericles that FOS means that there will be a whole lot of nasty noise OTOH there will be signal too.
> Free speech as a principle is extremely hard to apply to private institutions like Amazon because you have no principled reason to not let things be overrun with porn, which most people don’t want.
I think this applies to public life too. We all want free speech (OK. Most of us.) but we don't want everything that comes with it. The First Amendment is the bit of American government that I miss the most but they sure have done a lot of fudges to make it ban the things they don't like.
Ray makes a good point I think. Every ‘fix’ for FOS excesses on the internet, at least at a government or institutional level seems to be the same. You get to shut TF up. We get to say what we like.
Having said that. I would prefer a more civilised Twitter. I wonder if there is a self policing, community notes, style solution. Or if not solution then at least partial solution. Although when I think about it I end up imaging the same old bully and loudmouth groups.
I think ultimately I’m with Ray. I’d rather the current chaos than the previous censorship. But its definitely not ideal.
... but here we are on Substack enjoying a very civilized conversation! Twitter can be ignored. I myself ignore it unless there's some link directing me there for some specific item. Panem et circenses ... et Twitterii. Ignore Twitter and find a venue where intelligent people can engage on a rational level ... like here.
I think Substack is pretty good so far and — as far as I know — quite free. I don't know of them banning anything. They even had that thing earlier in the year where some journalist gave them grief about a far-right racist and Substack just told him to bugger off.
I don't know how it will hold up when it becomes more popular.
It must be faced squarely that FOS is the most fundamental of freedoms but also the most troublesome. Everybody knows that a line must be drawn somewhere, the question is where. I cheerfully face the fact that it's a Kobayashi Maru problem -- there is no solution, only a least worst compromise. But some of our best minds have grappled with the issue and I think we could do worse than stick with their thinking. Orwell. Holmes. They are my guides. But it always has and always will be a bloody mess.
The hallelujah comments about Musk is shocking. People don’t realize that he is developing monopolies in key sectors of society. Without any control or oversight, this world will wake up realizing there is one person controlling everything. He is now into the next key industry by attacking Apple and the iPhone. If world leaders don’t realize what Musk’s masterplan is, they are too late to stop him. He will be the ultimate narcissistic dictator of the USA with his finger on the knobs controlling society. Illusion? Wait and see.
Thanks for your comment. I am not a world leader and I don’t feel threatened. History showed that too much power controlled by one person brings mayhem. Musk isn’t the stable “genius” everyone credits him for. He demonstrated lately that he is developing the “enlightened personality” character traits. The next phase is a superiority syndrome linked to his narcissistic character traits. Doomsday thinking? Maybe you’ll remember our exchange in the future. I am too old to witness it. I fear for my offspring’s however. Have a nice day.
Perhaps Carlos. And there is certainly a danger of the concentration of power. But it feels a bit like saying, ‘I wish Caxton hand not invented the printing press because it gave him the monopoly of the dissemination of information’.
The trouble is that everyone providing ‘oversight’ is a dunderhead or wrecker. Look how the EU is treating AI. They want to stop it in its tracks. The same with self driving cars and Bitcoin. All of these technologies have upsides and downsides. We seem to be controlled by ‘world leaders’ whose concern is not, will they ultimately be to the benefit of mankind? Instead they see them exclusively as a threat to their power. Which they are. (And that I believe is a good thing-maybe you disagree. Fair enough. )
Musk is not all good or all bad. But in one hundred years I think we will be grateful that the world had him in it. Thanks for your comment.
I notice that Musk's harshest critics are folks who prefer marshmallow metrics that lead to everyone getting a trophy and ice cream after a trouncing on the field.
Truly, elegant solutions can only result from hyper-focus on root cause and avoiding distraction created by adding soft (vaguely defined and arbitrary) metrics unrelated to desired results. Musk and his crew have elegance at hand repeatedly.
I assume for Musk, it's not about popularity, it's about solutions. It appears the approach is deploying specific skills of team members on appropriate tasks for maximum effect. This builds strong teams as focus > success is addictive.
This confounds his detractors, as they theorize everyone is the same, and has equal effect on ALL parts of a solution. Reality is this theory so utterly dilutes focus and enthusiasm that a clear target can't be made. With no target, results are likely disappointing.
Agreed Bruce. One thing that comes across from the book is Musk’s clear eyed determination. For most organisations, especially government or government funded ones, their supposed purpose is just a distraction, the real purpose is to grow the bureaucracy that created them. I don’t think that happens in a conspiratorial way, that’s just how the incentives have been set up. Musk sets himself a goal, and as you say, focuses on it. Thanks so much for your comment.
Sorry for the late response! I have no excuse. Those of us who embrace process to logical, omptimized end are rarely understood. Distraction often supplants forethought (my late response comes to mind...)
Thanks for your comment, glad to be in your company.
"I think the ruling classes really hate Musk because he’s shown them up for the useless lead swingers, make-weights, grifters, also rans and space wasters they truly are." - I think this hits the nail on the head. We do, after all, live in a highly technical world. These clowns don't have a clue.
Most of the dead-beat elites, like the aristocrats of old, don't have an enlightened mindset and flunked basic physics. And they're proud of that - they display their ignorance of matters technical like a badge of honour.
It's only when our society becomes able to allow rational discourse back into public life that all this nonsense will end. I'm always hopeful - after all, fusion power is only 30 years away!
Mr. Musk, by virtue of his 'technological' expertise, will doubtless have all sorts of info about the nefarious goings-on of our illustrious elite than is comfortable for their continued easy existence. This makes him both very powerful - and at the same time rather vulnerable to the spiteful wet-job so enamoured of the trough-feeders in today's parallel universe. I wish him well in his endeavours.
Demi-commie that I am, if I was the Beloved Leader Elon would get a free pass. Yup, complete immunity from governmental oversight. Whereas most entities in any state really do need a bit of minding -- and tho, in an absolutely perfect world Elon could use a bit of minding too -- in practice the minders would have to be better, faster and smarter than Elon, which they could never be, thus I give Elon immunity. When the student know more than the teacher, they should trade places, no?
Bit of a relief that he's backing Trump then. Both are people you don't need to like, you just need to like what they do.
Yes Bettina agreed. Or like the fact that they aren’t the other guy(s).
Sensational essay, stunning research.
Thanks Mrs B. Honestly, Isacsson’s book is brilliant. I liked it so much I went on to read his biography of Steve Jobs. Also highly recommended. I’ll def read more from him.
He did a good podcast on Honestly before this book came out. It’s worth a listen for anyone who hasn’t time to read the whole biography.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck.”
- Robert Heinlin.
Love a bit of Heinlin JD. Read loads of his books when I was a kid. Might be time to dip back in.
Thank you LSO; you have reminded me of an MD (Managing Director before we were inflicted with 'CEOs') I worked for back in the day. I was part of the senior management team of this national company and it was going through a rough patch due to the continuing internecine warfare amongst the three directors who could hardly bear to be in each others' presence. In the end, we senior managers were asked to vote for which director should leave the company in order for it to survive. The MD was the least popular - abrasive, no tolerance for fools but single-minded and tireless in the pursuit of prosperity for the company - and the other managers were unanimous that he was the one to go. We had all fallen foul of his temper at some point and I had had some stand up rows with him in the past - but we always had a pint afterwards and shook hands before he trundled home in his beaten up Range Rover Vogue. At the final meeting of the managers I argued strongly that we should keep the MD if the company was to survive because - and this was the thing - He Got It Right More Often Than He Got It Wrong. He wasn't perfect, but we could trust him to guide the company safely through the waters ahead. Needless to say, I was outvoted. The company was sold to a competitor two years later.
Elon Musk is certainly not a perfect human being - who amongst us is? (apart from Joanna Lumley, obviously) - but he gets it right more often than he gets it wrong. That'll do for me.
Throroughly enjoyable, albeit brief, read. Musk needs some serious bodyguards before some left-wing nut tries to shoot him.
Ha ‘brief’! Thanks Eric. Very good to hear. I recommend the Isaacsson book for the real story. ATB
Brief in that I enjoy your writing and the posts go by too quickly when I start.
Such a kind thing to say Eric. Thank you!
Too right!!!
Wonderful article LSO. I too remember the powerhouse that was Chris Evans, and said so at the time. I have been watching Musk do what he does with growing admiration and approbation - but it took you (of course) to really itemise his mind-blowing achievements. He's a Giant in a world of Pygmies, warts and all. Thank you.
Thanks Giulia! We need a few more like him I think.
Terrific piece LSO, one of your best.
Very kind Bill. Thanks.
Let’s get the agreements out of the way first.
Musk is a remarkable man. PayPal was amazing (I have friends who worked there at the beginning and they are all rich). Tesla is amazing (several of my friends have Teslas — I am impressed to the point of shocked every time I ride in one). SpaceX… amazing. ChatGPT amazing. Robot company amazing (why _do_ robots walk funny though?). I am filled with admiration for the man.
I have been shocked by the progress of events since Twitter happened though. Twitter has always been horrible but the infection by the woke virus was like a symbol of the end of normal society. I cheered Musk’s takeover as much as you did.
Twitter before Musk was like the common room in Brown University but Twitter since Musk is like walking The Streets of Mogadishu. There is no polite discussion (you have to come to Substack for that). It’s a cesspit and around every sensible post is a big pile of cess. I’m a big fan of free speech (it’s what I miss most from America’s Constitution) but Twitter is not free speech. It is maniacs shouting each other down with vile insults. Would America with Musk in charge be like Twitter?
As for politics… Musk has the spirit of Trump and Farage and all the qualities that Trump and Farage lack. He is brim-full with competence for a start. He could change the world.
He could easily be president once Trump is done if it weren’t for that pesky constitution - though perhaps he could get that changed. I wouldn’t put it beyond him. Or maybe he’ll find a loophole where he puts a minion in the Whitehouse while he pull the strings - like Putin when the Russian constitution kept him out of the Kremlin.
When I imagine Musk as world leader though, I fear what would come of a brilliant, powerful, control-freak in charge of everything — and it would be everything. I imagine an Ayn Rand hero who destroyed his masterpiece rather than have it criticised. I imagine an Italian leader who brought prosperity but had his supporters dress in black and crushed his opposition with violence. I am afraid. The Woke won’t be the last to endure his wrath.
I am filled with admiration for Musk’s successes but I fear what comes next.
So much here Ragged. But I’ll have to be brief. I agreed with pretty much all of it. I don’t/hardly go on Twitter for just the reasons you mention. It’s always been nasty and venal to me. But these days it’s a good source of news, since there is so much the MSM doesn’t cover, or spins in such a way you have no idea what really happened.
I’ll stick to Substack, although this platform too is becoming a little less civil I notice. It’s sad. We need to preserve what we have built here. But the barbarians are at the gate.
I would hope Musk doesn’t go into politics. It’s like a quagmire which drags everyone down. And though I’m not sure I’d project him turning into a Mussolini or Putin I agree that he definitely doesn’t have the personality for it, and he’s not someone who would take well to unfettered power.
Great to hear from you.
Was just reading the excellent Stephen Fry (best Substack essay of the year) and Fry compares Musk to Napoleon instead of Mussolini. Maybe that's a fairer comparison.
https://stephenfry.substack.com/p/ai-a-means-to-an-end-or-a-means-to
Thanks. I’ll have a look.
I wanted to say more but I had already said too much.
I know that you are more sympathetic to Trump and Farage than I am but I take comfort that neither of them has an excess of competence. But I see what Musk has done with Twitter and I imagine a Trump-alike with a massive excess of competence. I think it could go badly.
> I’m a big fan of free speech (it’s what I miss most from America’s Constitution) but Twitter is not free speech. It is maniacs shouting each other down with vile insults. Would America with Musk in charge be like Twitter?
Non sequitur Ragged. What one expects or grants or permits in a Fight Club brawl and what one expects or grants or permits in a well run government are not comparable. Free speech as it should apply to Twitter and free speech as it should apply in Parliament are not comparable either. Twitter is the very lowest rung in the world of free speech, where the most noise and the least signal occur, yet every ladder has -- and must have -- a lowest rung. From the Twittersphere certain thoughts, worth keeping, will float up to higher rungs just as, in a meritocracy, Dick Whittington, might become Lord Mayor of London. If you want a better idea of what an Elon lead government might look like, don't turn to Twitter, turn to SpaceX.
I was going for 'analogy' rather than 'sequitur', Ray.
Musk had this idea that Twitter needed fixing and he did it by changing how it works. He had good intentions but he made everything worse. What would happen if a powerful, determined man with good intentions tried to change the government and the way the country is run?
I don't doubt that if Elon got it wrong he'd get it wrong in a big way, I just don't think the analogy with Twitter is apt. Besides, it's debatable if he did make it worse. It depends on one's intentions. He made a stand for FOS and if that means an unsavory mob get to yell and scream their moronic thoughts, that's what FOS is. Or I should say it's the price to be paid. IOW, if Elon were to 'fix' Twitter, he'd undo the very thing he's attempting to achieve. The cure would be the disease. It seems to me that defenders of FOS have understood since Pericles that FOS means that there will be a whole lot of nasty noise OTOH there will be signal too.
Richard Hanania has a good point today:
> Free speech as a principle is extremely hard to apply to private institutions like Amazon because you have no principled reason to not let things be overrun with porn, which most people don’t want.
I think this applies to public life too. We all want free speech (OK. Most of us.) but we don't want everything that comes with it. The First Amendment is the bit of American government that I miss the most but they sure have done a lot of fudges to make it ban the things they don't like.
Ray makes a good point I think. Every ‘fix’ for FOS excesses on the internet, at least at a government or institutional level seems to be the same. You get to shut TF up. We get to say what we like.
Having said that. I would prefer a more civilised Twitter. I wonder if there is a self policing, community notes, style solution. Or if not solution then at least partial solution. Although when I think about it I end up imaging the same old bully and loudmouth groups.
I think ultimately I’m with Ray. I’d rather the current chaos than the previous censorship. But its definitely not ideal.
... but here we are on Substack enjoying a very civilized conversation! Twitter can be ignored. I myself ignore it unless there's some link directing me there for some specific item. Panem et circenses ... et Twitterii. Ignore Twitter and find a venue where intelligent people can engage on a rational level ... like here.
I think Substack is pretty good so far and — as far as I know — quite free. I don't know of them banning anything. They even had that thing earlier in the year where some journalist gave them grief about a far-right racist and Substack just told him to bugger off.
I don't know how it will hold up when it becomes more popular.
It must be faced squarely that FOS is the most fundamental of freedoms but also the most troublesome. Everybody knows that a line must be drawn somewhere, the question is where. I cheerfully face the fact that it's a Kobayashi Maru problem -- there is no solution, only a least worst compromise. But some of our best minds have grappled with the issue and I think we could do worse than stick with their thinking. Orwell. Holmes. They are my guides. But it always has and always will be a bloody mess.
I agree entirely.
It depends on what you consider worse.
The hallelujah comments about Musk is shocking. People don’t realize that he is developing monopolies in key sectors of society. Without any control or oversight, this world will wake up realizing there is one person controlling everything. He is now into the next key industry by attacking Apple and the iPhone. If world leaders don’t realize what Musk’s masterplan is, they are too late to stop him. He will be the ultimate narcissistic dictator of the USA with his finger on the knobs controlling society. Illusion? Wait and see.
Thanks for your comment. I am not a world leader and I don’t feel threatened. History showed that too much power controlled by one person brings mayhem. Musk isn’t the stable “genius” everyone credits him for. He demonstrated lately that he is developing the “enlightened personality” character traits. The next phase is a superiority syndrome linked to his narcissistic character traits. Doomsday thinking? Maybe you’ll remember our exchange in the future. I am too old to witness it. I fear for my offspring’s however. Have a nice day.
Maybe. Many thanks Carlos. All the best.
Perhaps Carlos. And there is certainly a danger of the concentration of power. But it feels a bit like saying, ‘I wish Caxton hand not invented the printing press because it gave him the monopoly of the dissemination of information’.
The trouble is that everyone providing ‘oversight’ is a dunderhead or wrecker. Look how the EU is treating AI. They want to stop it in its tracks. The same with self driving cars and Bitcoin. All of these technologies have upsides and downsides. We seem to be controlled by ‘world leaders’ whose concern is not, will they ultimately be to the benefit of mankind? Instead they see them exclusively as a threat to their power. Which they are. (And that I believe is a good thing-maybe you disagree. Fair enough. )
Musk is not all good or all bad. But in one hundred years I think we will be grateful that the world had him in it. Thanks for your comment.
Fantastic piece. Brilliantly written, as always.
Thanks Sharon!
Jealousy is a green-eyed monster, indeed.
I notice that Musk's harshest critics are folks who prefer marshmallow metrics that lead to everyone getting a trophy and ice cream after a trouncing on the field.
Truly, elegant solutions can only result from hyper-focus on root cause and avoiding distraction created by adding soft (vaguely defined and arbitrary) metrics unrelated to desired results. Musk and his crew have elegance at hand repeatedly.
I assume for Musk, it's not about popularity, it's about solutions. It appears the approach is deploying specific skills of team members on appropriate tasks for maximum effect. This builds strong teams as focus > success is addictive.
This confounds his detractors, as they theorize everyone is the same, and has equal effect on ALL parts of a solution. Reality is this theory so utterly dilutes focus and enthusiasm that a clear target can't be made. With no target, results are likely disappointing.
Agreed Bruce. One thing that comes across from the book is Musk’s clear eyed determination. For most organisations, especially government or government funded ones, their supposed purpose is just a distraction, the real purpose is to grow the bureaucracy that created them. I don’t think that happens in a conspiratorial way, that’s just how the incentives have been set up. Musk sets himself a goal, and as you say, focuses on it. Thanks so much for your comment.
Sorry for the late response! I have no excuse. Those of us who embrace process to logical, omptimized end are rarely understood. Distraction often supplants forethought (my late response comes to mind...)
Thanks for your comment, glad to be in your company.
And yours Bruce.
Did Chris Evans take over from Kukla, Fran and Ollie?
I had to look that up Vonu. A little before my time.
It was one of the first things I saw on television.
"I think the ruling classes really hate Musk because he’s shown them up for the useless lead swingers, make-weights, grifters, also rans and space wasters they truly are." - I think this hits the nail on the head. We do, after all, live in a highly technical world. These clowns don't have a clue.
Most of the dead-beat elites, like the aristocrats of old, don't have an enlightened mindset and flunked basic physics. And they're proud of that - they display their ignorance of matters technical like a badge of honour.
It's only when our society becomes able to allow rational discourse back into public life that all this nonsense will end. I'm always hopeful - after all, fusion power is only 30 years away!
Mr. Musk, by virtue of his 'technological' expertise, will doubtless have all sorts of info about the nefarious goings-on of our illustrious elite than is comfortable for their continued easy existence. This makes him both very powerful - and at the same time rather vulnerable to the spiteful wet-job so enamoured of the trough-feeders in today's parallel universe. I wish him well in his endeavours.
Demi-commie that I am, if I was the Beloved Leader Elon would get a free pass. Yup, complete immunity from governmental oversight. Whereas most entities in any state really do need a bit of minding -- and tho, in an absolutely perfect world Elon could use a bit of minding too -- in practice the minders would have to be better, faster and smarter than Elon, which they could never be, thus I give Elon immunity. When the student know more than the teacher, they should trade places, no?