This was also around the time when the public perception about Musk was different. Reddit thought of him as a “real-life Tony Stark”, who put a car in space and is a little eccentric. That perception about him peaked on August 2018 when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Around 2020 he started to go deeper into QAnon-esque rabbit-hole, turning into the despised far-right wacko he is today. Of course he has been always an opportunistic hack.
He genuinely did not ever appear (publicly) to be a shit bag narcissist, though. I say this as someone who kept an eye on musk from around 2000, and invested early (as well as exiting early due to his narcissism). In every interview he just came across as neurodivergent, but never as though he didn’t care about the planet, the environment, or the climate crisis. He was one of the only wealthy people promoting electric cars 20 years ago, well before it was considered profitable. He was also the only wealthy person advocating for risk mitigation as a species (a mars colony).
Regardless of recent events, I’m not dumb enough to believe he was always a sociopath who simply managed to act like an empathetic human, flawlessly, for well over a decade. If he were always the narcissist he is today, and has been the last 5-10 years, the cracks would have been apparent long ago. Musk is not, and has never been, a great actor. In fact he’s always been extremely awkward; what you see, is what you get. That was legitimately refreshing before the narcissism! Instead I came to the conclusion — like many people before me — that absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Narcissists are not born; they are created. It’s no different to Bezos. In this interview from 27 years ago he’s just a regular nerd; not the corporate “let them piss in jars” sociopath he is today. The evidence is clear. The evidence is abundant, going back long before antiquity. Extreme wealth and power create narcissism; an anti-social, destructive mental illness. For the sake of all life on Earth, Billionaires should not exist.
This was also around the time when the public perception about Musk was different. Reddit thought of him as a “real-life Tony Stark”, who put a car in space and is a little eccentric. That perception about him peaked on August 2018 when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Around 2020 he started to go deeper into QAnon-esque rabbit-hole, turning into the despised far-right wacko he is today. Of course he has been always an opportunistic hack.
He genuinely did not ever appear (publicly) to be a shit bag narcissist, though. I say this as someone who kept an eye on musk from around 2000, and invested early (as well as exiting early due to his narcissism). In every interview he just came across as neurodivergent, but never as though he didn’t care about the planet, the environment, or the climate crisis. He was one of the only wealthy people promoting electric cars 20 years ago, well before it was considered profitable. He was also the only wealthy person advocating for risk mitigation as a species (a mars colony).
Regardless of recent events, I’m not dumb enough to believe he was always a sociopath who simply managed to act like an empathetic human, flawlessly, for well over a decade. If he were always the narcissist he is today, and has been the last 5-10 years, the cracks would have been apparent long ago. Musk is not, and has never been, a great actor. In fact he’s always been extremely awkward; what you see, is what you get. That was legitimately refreshing before the narcissism! Instead I came to the conclusion — like many people before me — that absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Narcissists are not born; they are created. It’s no different to Bezos. In this interview from 27 years ago he’s just a regular nerd; not the corporate “let them piss in jars” sociopath he is today. The evidence is clear. The evidence is abundant, going back long before antiquity. Extreme wealth and power create narcissism; an anti-social, destructive mental illness. For the sake of all life on Earth, Billionaires should not exist.
Thanks for posting the Besos interview!
Super interesting that they were already hoovering up user data as fast as they could in '97 - half a gigabyte per day.
pretty sure still thinks about him that way