Writes Jennifer Szalai, in "Elon Musk Wants to Save Humanity. The Only Problem: People. Walter Isaacson’s biography of the billionaire entrepreneur depicts a mercurial 'man-child' with grandiose ambitions and an ego to match" (NYT).
[Musk] expects his staff to abide by “the algorithm,” his workplace creed, which commands them to “question every requirement” from a department, including “the legal department” and “the safety department”; and to “delete any part or process” they can. “Comradery is dangerous,” is one of the corollaries.
So is this: “The only rules are the ones dictated by the laws of physics. Everything else is a recommendation.”...
[T]he overall sense you get from this biography is that for all of Musk’s talk about the world-changing magic of “the algorithm,” he ultimately does what he wants....
Isaacson believes that Musk wanted to buy Twitter because he had been so bullied as a kid and “now he could own the playground.”...
Posts
103 comments:
What's a woman to do?
"mercurial 'man-child' with grandiose ambitions and an ego to match"
Well-behaved men seldom make history.
Musk could have dialed it up even higher and still been correct.
we can CERTAINLY Trust the NYT to give us actual news.. Can't we?
Why are we judging this man's mental state and motivations instead of his accomplishments?
Because it's an appeal to emotions rather than reason.
What on earth does any of it even mean?
'Unless the [NewAge movement], which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit and anti-human in general, is stopped, civilization will never become multiplanetary.'
At one point, Isaacson asks why Musk is so offended by anything he deems politically correct, and Musk, as usual...
My reply would be that political correctness is a weapon invented by the Marxists and used by the woke to be offended by any and everything. It assumes that there is a "correct" form of political belief, and that all others are incorrect.
Unless the woke-mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit and anti-human in general, is stopped,' he declares, 'civilization will never become multiplanetary.
Dialed up to 11?
Isaacson needs to get out more.
[T]he overall sense you get from this biography is that for all of Musk’s talk about the world-changing magic of “the algorithm,” he ultimately does what he wants....
The overall sense I get from these pull quotes is that both Isaacson and the NYT can only conceptualize the world as a struggle between the bullies and the bullied. Not surprising if you believe those who claim that Woke, PC, and critical theory are all the children of Marxism and share its goals - everything is always about taking control of a limited reservoir of power and all social activity should properly be aimed at ensuring that the formerly powerless become the powerful.
But the last pull quote, about Twitter, then draws in pop psychology: the abused child who grows up to be the abuser. Note the distinct lack of hagiographic tone...
The biographer could have tried taking him at his word and exploring what it would mean for human beings not to be limited to a single planet. He could have dug deeper into how "the algorithm" has played out in actual product development, since it actually has changed the world. Instead of raising his eyebrows to his hairline at the idea that requirements from the legal department should be questioned before blindly complying (oh no! Not the legal department!), he could have examined how often some of those requirements are found to be dross that can safely and appropriately be cast aside. But apparently he didn't. Apparently he went with the simplistic "man-child" thing.
And this NYT person is using it as support for the already-circulating "Musk is a childish authoritarian who must be reined in" narrative. The only question I have about that is whether the NYT is all-in on said narrative on its own, or is still doing the bidding of the Biden (/Obama?) administration.
Musk is a deeply strange man, but also so self-evidently a very highly functional (if not entirely stable) genius that normies attempt to interpret his motivations at their peril.
I can already feel the outraged commentators here angry that someone questioned their ubermensch.
grandiose ambitions and an ego to match
Isn’t that redundant?
Musk is objectively one of the great men of our time. I’m not thrilled to see him get into tussles on X (nor am I thrilled about the name change) as I’d like to think he’s too busy for such nonsense. But then again, I have little notion of how he spends his days. I’ve just heard rumours that he works 120-hour weeks and his time is divided into 5-min increments. But that seems impossible and I can’t imagine his assistant pencils in time to rant of social media.
"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 A. Heinlein
I think we all recall Jennifer Szalai's many columns on how much the woke also dislike pushback and have pathological reasons for criticising it.
Walter and his friends in Aspen are partisan hacks. He has an agenda and now that they Musk as an impediment they try to cover their political campaign with a veneer of intellectual bullshit…
Its the same shellac he always spread on CNBC…
"Why are we judging this man's mental state and motivations instead of his accomplishments?"
Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments? What makes him tick? Sounds like you're just interested in reading his resume, not a biography.
What on earth does any of it even mean?
That’s funny. I think I understood everything Musk said perfectly well. Must be due to my while skin and testosterone.
Everything I read in that post about Musk appealed to me. I get it all. So...what does that mean about me? Nothing.
It's not easy for him to drag humanity kicking and screaming into the future, but he's trying to do it the only way he can. And that is not by kissing the ring of faux gatekeepers.
A little thing that I cannot slip. "Elon Musk Wants to Save Humanity. The Only Problem: People." The entirety of Barack Obama's time in office we were served up dozens (hundreds?) of articles about how we were simply not good enough for him. His failings were our failings, our inability to appreciate just how great and almost Godlike he was. His problem was the people he served.
So, we've heard this before, but from the other side.
My question to Isaacson would be, why isn't he so offended by political correctness?
Musk bought Twitter to restore Free Speech to America. See, e.g., Missouri v. Biden.
Sounds like Musk’s algorithm hasn’t been successful in his relationships.
What garbage. What Walter is observing is not different than what we see in many hard driving innovators with billions and the future of their vision at stake- you tends to ruffle a few feathers of your subordinates. Walter chooses to ignore this context to publicly flay Musk because lefties are butthurt they’ve list their propaganda platform…
Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments? What makes him tick? Sounds like you're just interested in reading his resume, not a biography.
I know his biography, better than most. This isn't a biography, it's an attack. He has told us his motivations: saving the Earth and making man multiplanetary. We know his mental state, it's high functioning autistic.
How about: Poor autistic immigrant from Africa sacrifices, works his ass off, changes the world for the better and becomes the richest man alive?
Having met all kinds it seems to me that the rich, middle, and poor are equally populated with the decent, the ordinary, and the nasty. Affluence varies, people don’t.
Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded and created Tesla, not Musk. Let’s give credit where credit is due and end this myth.
We associate wealth with brilliance in our society. I have no doubt Musk is a reasonably intelligent man, but I suspect less clever than the many engineers whose work he often takes credit for. Let's not let ourselves be tricked -- Elon Musk wants us to think he's a modern-day Nikola Tesla, but he's more like a techy oil baron.
There has been:
1. The DOJ employ undocumented migrants at SpaceX lawsuit.
2. The Glass House.
3. The California Twitter bill.
4. The Musk is insane biography.
The third time is enemy action. There will be many other instances to come. This is about the desire to censor information by our current executive government branch. It seems that battle will be fought in Federal court now after the 5 th circuit case.
Thomas Edison was kind of weird too, but hit pieces were not applied to leading figures so much then.
Socialism wants to save humanity. The only problem: people.
Fixed
For a long time I have felt that the brilliance of Donald Trump is that he creates a chaotic environment that forces progress. It is interesting that Elon Musk according to the mother of 3 of his children, has a similar propensity. Most of us have a strong aversion to chaos and take great effort to minimize it in our lives. These two people who have made a substantial contribution to the current world do the reverse, they create and revel in chaos. It is my belief that this tendency may be the reason why Donald Trump lost the last presidential election and is the only reason he may lose the next one. People hate the chaos he constantly creates to the point where they won't vote for him even though he offers the best chance for improvements in the country and world precisely because he creates chaos.
Musk is an ENTJ trying to pass himself off as a INTJ. The human race will never make sense Elon. YMMV.
One suspects that Isaacson was bullied as a kid and now sees all others through that lens.
Also, we've long known that Mush hates wokeness because he believes that the ideology turned one of his children against him.
'Unless the woke-mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit and anti-human in general, is stopped,' he declares, 'civilization will never become multiplanetary.'
If the author of the article can't comprehend this sentence, she isn't likely to understand Isaacson's biography of Musk.
Szalai seems to want Elon Musk to be closer to a normal person. As the world's richest person and a person who makes it seem like we are living in the future, he isn't likely to be relatable to most of us.
Isaacson writes biographies about extraordinary people. Expect them to be outliers. I've only read Walter Isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin, and found it to be fascinating. His book on Musk is bound to be worth my time.
'Unless the woke-mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit and anti-human in general, is stopped,' he declares, 'civilization will never become multiplanetary.'
If the author of the article can't comprehend this sentence, she isn't likely to understand Isaacson's biography of Musk.
Szalai seems to want Elon Musk to be closer to a normal person. As the world's richest person and a person who makes it seem like we are living in the future, he isn't likely to be relatable to most of us.
Isaacson writes biographies about extraordinary people. Expect them to be outliers. I've only read Walter Isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin, and found it to be fascinating. His book on Musk is bound to be worth my time.
The part below the fold are initiatives being done by my employer. They are quite common among companies trying to innovate, although it is probably not as heartfelt as Musk’s request. But then Musk looks for questioning traits when hiring. Listening to reason is listening to the excuses for maintaining the status quo for the benefit of the few.
I don’t think Jennifer Szalai has any qualifications to judge Musk’s mental state. Her undergraduate study was political science and peace and conflict then mastered in international relations. What is her training in psychology to understand Musk’s mental state by reading a biography from a third person?
Why do we always see negative interpretations of someone not on the woke plantation but glorifications of wokesters. Case in point: Obama who accomplished so little of value to society or Soros who actively seeks the end of the U.S. as it was founded and Musk who has made the single largest contribution to carbon reduction, space exploration, and communication (through his SpaceLink satellites actually used by the Ukrainians rhat are favorites of the Left)? If Musk towed the woke baggage, he would be lionized with his face everywhere the Left goes for news and information.
With regard to Musk’s motivations, aren’t his actions the best indication? Surely not Isaacson, whoever he is and whatever his motivations are. I think Musk is toying with Isaacson.
Scott Adams posted a good question to my X.
Are the Democrats trying to jail Musk?
I don’t know. I thought for contrarians like Musk to be so near unanimously reviled the world first needed to be a shangri-la, slumber, utopia, cloud cuckoo land, land of nod, a never-never land?
Listen to the people who are hated and maybe we can find out what the real agenda is.
He's got a vision and along with that is the direction he wants to go to accomplish that vision. Anything that detracts from that vision isn't important. Anything that adds to that vision is vital.
People who start businesses are like that. Get it done or get out of my way.
"mercurial 'man-child' with grandiose ambitions and an ego to match"
Well, plus a few little actual achievements to his credit. I haven't read the bio (to be fair) but if this is a representative quote, I would hope the biographer decides to temper her tantrum by admitting that Musk has moved the needle on a grand scale in a number of different endeavors, and perhaps acknowledging that these endeavors have resulted in the betterment of living standards for many.
People of vision do not conform, and conformance to authority - in particular nameless, faceless, arbitrary authority - seems to be a recurring theme in our modern age. You will conform, or face the wrath of the borg. Musk will not - a good lesson of the purpose-driven life.
Wow she tries really really hard to not understand the plain language Musk employed immediately after the trigger words “woke mind virus.” Astounding display of modern journalisming.
Musk vs Gates is a lunatic faceoff between two borderline autistics, each blessed with more money than he knows what to do with, and imbued with a savior obsession.
For his part, Gates has supported at least as many bizarro schemes as Musk, such as the plan to modify solar output.
It's on balance a good thing to have significant economic power that's in private hands, relatively independent from politics. BTW,
I've ordered the Isaacson book, after seeing that I was 497th in line to borrow it from my local library.
"....let’s disconnect these cables
Overturn these tables"
Yes. Well, he was born into our times, wasn’t he? He wasn’t the one suppressing free speech on social media platforms at the direction of the state security apparatus, was he? That was and is Team Twitter, Team Amazon, Team Facebook, etc. What ever happened to Parler? Oh, yeah…
Musk is an original. Someday the authorities are going to prosecute him and try to take everything he has. How is Jack Ma doing? And whatever happened to Donald Trump?
I suspect it's safe to classify the "biography" as fiction. The author was the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, funded by the usual group of far-left foundations.
The NYT is one of the primary vectors of the woke mind virus.
Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments?
I am thoroughly disinterested in Isaacson’s opinions about Musk’s mental state or motivations. Like others he has a long history of overlooking Musk’s own stated reasons for doing things. This person reviewing the biography herself glosses over the plain meaning “anti-human” to pretend that she can’t understand “woke virus” because she doesn’t want to deal with the consequences Musk raised. If Walt suddenly reverted to his mid-1990s form of reporting on tech and its interactions with the public and politics I might be interested in this biography. But Isaacson has “moved on” to the fashionable form of journo-politico-tainment that his DC-San Fran-Manhattan crowd prefers to read. Stories that please the bebubbled Uniparty and its financiers. This review is, judging by the ludicrous excerpt, not worthy of serious discussion. She deserves the mockery my fellow Althouse commenters. I’m proud of the tone I see in the first six comments.
Correction: first seven comments!
Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments?
Such things can be entertaining, but if you are working to accomplish something, you often need to deal with difficult people because they may also have unusual competence. I've also found that peoples attempts to suss out the internal mechanisms of personality are often wrong or irrelevant. And that includes my own. We all do it anyway, but it is dangerous to take it too seriously.
"'Unless the woke-mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit and anti-human in general, is stopped,' he declares, 'civilization will never become multiplanetary.'"
One can dispute his claim, but there's nothing in it which is hard to understand. Which kind of proves Musk's point: Supposedly smart people can declaim it as meaningless and then fall back on trying to psychoanalyze Musk, rather than even entertaining his claim. If such people are left in charge, is it even imaginable that we will colonize Mars?
"'Unless the woke-mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit and anti-human in general, is stopped' . . . What on earth does any of it even mean?"
Hey, Jenny, here's what it means: he's not into you.
In fact he actively dislikes you and all you stand for, and wants you to get out of the way.
Musk may not be reliably deplorable, but he is anti-prog.
Althouse writes: "Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments? What makes him tick? Sounds like you're just interested in reading his resume, not a biography."
You sound like you're under the impression such deep information is readily available through the means of a journalist's interview. I find the use of the phrase "makes him tick" troubling; it suggests a simple-minded concept of psychology at work. Let's be clear. Humans don't "tick". Personalities and intellects are not clockwork mechanisms. This is why biography is a branch of literature and not of science. Motivation isn't Newtonian, it's quantum.
"we can CERTAINLY Trust the NYT to give us actual news.. Can't we?"
Noted, Gilbar.
I wait with baited breath for you to say the same thing when they say something you agree with.
Given past posts, you are quite the hypocrite about this.
So an autistic, triply divorced son of an emerald miner proclaims expertise over what is “anti-merit” and “anti-human.” Projection, much?
“The existence of the third (of Musk’s children), Techno Mechanicus…”
I rest my case.
By all means, feel free to put your political faith into this robotic social defective. For sh*ts and giggles I highly recommend checking out the “personal life” section of this megalomaniac’s bio, and all the estrangements described within it. It’s no wonder that the business he had the least aptitude for running was a social media company, with all the contempt he had for his most talented employees’ quality of life and all the love he had for the fascist bigots who completely overtook its clientele.
This guy has intractable psychological-social deficiencies. Not a problem if he learns to compensate for them productively, but as you can see with what he did to Twitter and in his family “life” he has no clue.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"Why are we judging this man's mental state and motivations instead of his accomplishments?"
Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments? What makes him tick? Sounds like you're just interested in reading his resume, not a biography.
I suspect that individual achievers like Musk have biographies that are very similar, r.e. their personality and 'what makes them tick'. Narcissism, ego, a multitude of traits which are 'not normal', including some which could be considered obnoxious in polite (sic) society.
A reading or dissertation of such a biography, in todays world, is designed to produce ammunition to deny any achievement, rather than get an understanding of an individual, or in the very least titillate our emotions.
we can CERTAINLY Trust the NYT to give us actual news.. Can't we?
This guy’s inability to function as an adult human is well-known, hardly breaking news. If you’re not sure about that feel free to get as close to him as I’m sure Isaacson did. I bet his embrace is as warm as a scaly eel’s.
Why are we judging this man's mental state and motivations instead of his accomplishments?
Because it's an appeal to emotions rather than reason.
His inability to manage his own emotions is what deranges his reasoning, as is often the case.
Well-behaved men seldom make history.
Henry Ford had some interesting European correspondences and sympathies 85 years ago. Parallels with Musk. At least Musk is promoting a car model that doesn’t keep running planetary weather systems into the gutter but Twitter really has become his own version of “The Dearborn Independent.” LOL.
"Isaacson believes that Musk wanted to buy Twitter because he had been so bullied as a kid and “now he could own the playground.”..."
…and strike back at the bullies. Bullies is the perfect description of the Twitter/Facebook/Government cabal.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
"Why are we judging this man's mental state and motivations instead of his accomplishments?"
Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments? What makes him tick? Sounds like you're just interested in reading his resume, not a biography.
I read a biography and, as usual, don't believe anything I read in the NY Times.
Anyone over the age of 5 is old enough to remember a time when Elon Musk was the toast of Lefty Town.
"Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments? What makes him tick? Sounds like you're just interested in reading his resume, not a biography."
Why even read a biography- just imagine what you want to believe his mental state and motivations are, like Szalai does?
RhHardin nails it with the very first comment, too.
I have no doubt that he can be difficult, obstinate and unpleasant. People that accomplish a lot often are. Steve Jobs was that way. As Grimes said, "it allows him to get stuff done."
Musk has had a vast amount of success at an early age, and has continued to be wildly successful. It is not particularly surprising that he regards himself as a better judge than others of just about everything. That doesn't mean he's right, but you'll have a hard time convincing him he's wrong. What's your evidence?
Bill Gates is kind of the same way. Most really smart people run into difficulties at some point, that instill a degree of humility. But when everything you do turns out to have been a good idea ...
'Unless the woke-mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit and anti-human in general, is stopped,'
100% true, to that point. Lots of correct ways to finish that sentence. Very astute.
Isaacson believes that Musk wanted to buy Twitter because he had been so bullied as a kid and “now he could own the playground.”
...if true, what a fucking intellectual lightweight he is. That's the belief he arrives at? It never occurs to him Musk may object to the largest online social platform coordinating political censorship and propaganda with corrupt government actors at the highest levels of government?
calls his roiling anger 'demon mode' — a mind-set that 'causes a lot of chaos.' She also insists that it allows him to get stuff done...."
Ted turner was another revolutionary, visionary, genius. This reminded me of him.
He had pretty severe bipolar depressipm and took heavy doses of lithium to cope with it.
Whenever he would start a new project or negotiation he would stop taking it. He said that he found being a bit crazy contributed to his successes.
John Henry
It had not occurred to me before but the importance of lithium is something both turner and Musk have in common
John Henry
I enjoyed isaacsons bio of jobs.
Going to have to read this one. Just as soon as I finish my doorstop on design and engineering of steam locomotives.
I think that accomplishments are the only really important thing to know about someone like Musk. But I agree with Ann that understanding motivations is interesting and I do like to read about it.
John Henry
Most of the people who have changed the world like Musk (watt, Boulton, jobs, Ford, gates, the Google guys etc) have had one big idea and stuck with it. In broad terms at least.
Musk is the only one I can think of offhand who has been both revolutionary and successful in such disparate fields. Perhaps Edison.
Musk is in autos, batteries, rockets, satellites and communications, boring machines.
Henry Ford was in a lot of different businesses but they all revolved around motors (engines) and putting "motors in motion" (in cars, tractors, boats, airplanes etc)
I think I see a common thread in Musk's endeavors (people on Mars, asteroid mining) but they are far more different than most.
John Henry
He was doing so well until he got to the "...multiplanetary" part. What the ...?
Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded and created Tesla, not Musk. Let’s give credit where credit is due and end this myth.
Yeah,true but so what?
Watt invented the steam engine, as we know it today.
Various others invented the ice and automobile
Gary kildall invented cpm (which bec ms-dos)
And I could give another dozen examples off the top of my head.
Yes, we absolutely need to give them credit.
But without Boulton, Ford and Gates who turned these into actual businesses, would we have gotten steam engines, motocars and personal computers?
The visionaries/ entrepreneurs like them and Musk are every bit as important as the inventors. One cannot exist without the other.
John Henry
"People hate the chaos he [Trump] constantly creates...
What's chaotic about creating a strong economy with rising middle-class wages and high employment rate, including blacks? Or making energy independence possible? Or not starting any wars?
Trump doesn't create chaos, TDS afflicted people do. "Look what you made me do!", they whine as they attempt to tear down what the productive segment of society is building with Trump's support. And that's Trumps fault? Only an idiot (or maybe a progressive) would think that.
Is it really that hard to understand? Elon Musk is simply not like the rest of us.
So far, this biography is sounding like a real hit piece instead of an objective biography.
The Lefty Little Brains are spinning furiously today!
Like Lilliputians trying to tie down Gulliver.
And recall the Lilliputians were vicious little greedy lying losers with no redeeming value of any sort in the slightest.
How perfectly analogous.
But only perfectly.
Show us on the doll, puddin', where Musk touched you.
I think it's safe to say that in your life, puddin, you won't accomplish a tenth as much as he has.
He has made the world a better place. What have you done.?
Puddinghead is an expert on Musk.
This guy’s inability to function as an adult human is well-known, hardly breaking news. If you’re not sure about that feel free to get as close to him as I’m sure Isaacson did. I bet his embrace is as warm as a scaly eel’s.
So when did you meet him? Do you know any other exceptionally talented people ?
I consider take SpaceX to success while the NASA nerds fumble away billions is pretty adult functioning.
Rich proving he knows almost nothing about Tesla:
"Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning founded and created Tesla, not Musk. Let’s give credit where credit is due and end this myth."
Yes, they incorporated the company, but Musk is the one who did 80% of the initial funding, oversaw the development of its first product (the Roadster), has been the chairman from almost the start, and has been the CEO since 2008, overseeing basically all of its development as an actual firm selling products. Without Musk, Tesla would pretty much be nothing today. Without Eberhard and Tarpenning, it is quite likely Musk would have funded some other electric car company and that would be called something else, probably, but would be pretty much the exact same company today.
What you are doing, Rich, is the equivalent of saying Henry Ford accomplished nothing because he didn't invent the internal combustion engine. Par for the course for you, an intellectual midget.
The really funny thing is this- I am quite certain, Lefty Mark, Rich, and Inga were big Musk supporters not more than three years ago. All it took was for Musk to buy Twitter and reinstate Donald Trump's account for them to think he is evil.
Elon Musk wants us to think he's a modern-day Nikola Tesla, but he's more like a techy oil baron.
I doubt, from what I've heard of him, that Musk gives a good g*ddamn what we think of him.
But if you want to liken him to a techy oil baron, then I think maybe you don't have much idea what goes into being an oil baron in the Musk sense: he didn't metaphorically inherit a bunch of land with oil on it and sit on that, maintaining or even growing his fortune on that basis (if so, he'd be running that emerald mine now). Instead, he inherited some good money from metaphorical oil and turned it into a far greater fortune built on wildly different and disparate commodities.
You don't know, much less have, what it takes to get that rich, do you, Rich? Don't worry; almost none of us does, or has.
Were I the richest (or maybe only second) richest man on earth, I'd be sorely tempted to go full John Galt on the Lilliputians.
I'd buy a couple of million acres somewhere (or a huge island), take my toys, and tell the world, "Good luck and fuck off."
Let's tear down one of the most productive men in history.
Sure, that's the ticket.
A "nonfiction critic".
I should give any kind of shit about what a nonfiction critic I'd never heard a thing about before has to say about Musk? Or believe a friggin' word of it?
Gahrie said...
"Because it's an appeal to emotions rather than reason."
Specifically, those of women.
Ann Althouse said...
"Why would you read a long biography of him unless you were interested in his mental state and motivations along with his accomplishments?"
Because an accomplishment list is verifiable. A supposed report on his mental state and motivations can be pulled out of any ass handy, usually thereafter referred to as "a source".
"This guy’s inability to function as an adult human is well-known, hardly breaking news."
How is he not functional? He seems to be more productive than 99.99% of all humans who have ever lived.
"Henry Ford had some interesting European correspondences and sympathies 85 years ago. Parallels with Musk."
You are calling him a Nazi sympathizer. Just have the balls to come out and say it. I have seen nothing, and I mean nothing, to believe that Must has any such proclivities.
"...but Twitter really has become his own version of “The Dearborn Independent.” LOL."
Last I checked he was the majority shareholder in a private company. Do you have a problem with private citizens owning businesses?
You're just a slob in the stands urging on Caesar to give the thumbs down. Musk at least has the balls to be the man in the arena.
Grow up and do something productive.
Musk envisions a future of freedom, abundance and exploration. Our current Ivy League class envisions a future of control, scarcity and conformity of opinion. We've made a big mistake accepting the current Ivy League class as our leaders.
Pygmies always focus on the grandiosity and egos of stellar achievers because, well, pygmies will be pygmies.
rehajm believes Walter criticizes Musk because Walter’s mommy took his blankie away from him in middle school and told him he can’t suck his thumb anymore.
Sure, I would like to k ow what makes Elon Musk tick. Is this article about that or is it about the author and what the author imagines makes Elon Musk tick? Too many articles seem to start with the conclusion working back to find things that support that.
Blogger Mark said...
I can already feel the outraged commentators here angry that someone questioned their ubermensch.
Lefty Mark has never encountered genius. Never even been close to it. Lefty Mark knows only what he reads in the NY Times and WaPoo. He thinks that is the truth. And so the sheep are driven by the shepherds. Lefty Mark has no ideas of his own.
The left will never forgive Musk for exposing their thuggery. Whereas I cannot thank him enough.
I agree that this bio is a hit piece. If you want to read a neutral bio, read "Musk" by Ashlee Vance. I wasn't that interested in the Tesla chapters because I think the ecar thing is a fad but his childhood, family and brother are pretty interesting.
Blogger Mark said...
"I can already feel the outraged commentators here angry that someone questioned their ubermensch."
That statement says a lot more about you ,Mark, than anybody else here.
You're just a slob in the stands urging on Caesar to give the thumbs down. Musk at least has the balls to be the man in the arena.
Just for the record, in ancient Rome, thumbs up meant death and thumbs down meant life.
I'm getting strong T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII vibes from Isaacson.
I did enjoy his Jobs biography though.
Yancey, show me where I have been a Musk supporter, ever.
I wait with baited breath. Until then, perhaps you shouldn't speculate in error.
Or are you just trying to distract us from when Epstein and you raped that underage girl.
Yeah, I can make up bullshit too, you child rapist.
How is he not functional? He seems to be more productive than 99.99% of all humans who have ever lived.
Well if by productive you mean divorcing three women and being estranged by his eldest child, I agree. He’s produced a lot of familial dysfunction. Not surprising seeing as how he sees humanity as just an assembly line. And if you mean productive management of a company, there’s a case you could make for Space X and Tesla. PayPal kicked him to the curb though once he started pushing through his harebrained vanity project of needing to change that company’s name to “X.” A guy that fixated with random, mysterious letter abbreviations obviously doesn’t know his limitations.
And that’s the first sign of a stupid man. Some things he’s pretty smart at. He had a talent for picking Tesla as the company that he could buy out and do something arguably productive with. Same with the beginnings of PayPal.
But with Twitter it’s obvious that this social defective let his megalomania get the better of him as he pummeled 90% of its value (by his own accounting) into the ground. A smart leader understands his limitations and when to seek counsel or sell off an asset in an industry he doesn’t understand. Just watch Shark Tank for details. Musk lacked the basic executive intelligence for that, though. And by all indications, he’s not learned his lesson.
He’s proving that executive leadership might well be better run by an AI. An assembly line is productive. A machine is productive. But Musk lost in his own game of corporate advancement. He did it because he can’t see through his own ego and need to treat others like the anti-humanity robot that he is.
"Henry Ford had some interesting European correspondences and sympathies 85 years ago. Parallels with Musk."
You are calling him a Nazi sympathizer. Just have the balls to come out and say it.
It’s not clear that he’s a Nazi sympathizer because it’s not clear that he even has the brains to understand what a Nazi is.
But what is clear is that he believes Nazis have an equally valuable or under-appreciated contribution to make in the marketplace of ideas that he believes he’s now “running.”
That is the sign of a stupid man. Free speech means what a government can’t censor, not what a company should promote.
And clearly he wishes he could be in the business of promoting Nazi discourse, because he still does it even after it’s contributed to that 90% loss in the company’s value.
Nazism is not good for business, but Musk is either too stupid or interested in their ideology to see that.
hombre (3:31pm):
Hegel said much the same before you. Some French nobleman had said "No man is a hero to his valet" and Hegel responded "No man is a hero to his valet. This is not because the hero is not a hero, but because the valet is a valet."
The same goes for the pygmies and valets inside and outside this comment section who sneer at a man who, among other things, has done more to explore space in a few years with his private fortune than NASA has done with all its billions of tax dollars and decades of effort. Just for that, he's a technological hero.
Isaacson has ably conveyed that Musk doesn’t truly like pushback. Some of his lieutenants insist that he will eventually listen to reason, but Isaacson sees firsthand Musk’s habit of deriding as a saboteur or an idiot anyone who resists him.
As I write this there are 93 comments, and only a handful seem to grasp the idea that Isaacson has to be at least incomplete in his characterization if not outrightly wrong. In my experience a technical leader who cannot or does not accept honest pushback on aspects of his plans might be successful once or twice by sheer luck, but not success after success after success. Technology projects don’t work that way. In fact, if you’re a direct report to a technical leader, and the leader is any good at all, then you should feel encouraged to raise any issues you see, so that the project can develop mitigation strategies.
But! Against that there are reports of high turnover in Tesla and SpaceX among people who are direct reports to Musk. Working directly for him seems to be bad for burnout (and he seems especially hard on lawyers). He can’t be an easy man to work for.
hpuddin'backpedals furiously. The nonsense salad proceeds.
Reposted again from above because the Lefty Little Brains remain hard at work exposing their Lilliputian-like mental midget Dunning-Kruger ignorance:
"The Lefty Little Brains are spinning furiously today!
Like Lilliputians trying to tie down Gulliver.
And recall the Lilliputians were vicious little greedy lying losers with no redeeming value of any sort in the slightest.
How perfectly analogous.
But only perfectly."
hpuddin'backpedals furiously. The nonsense salad proceeds.
When reality cant be wished away by the Dumb Lefty Little Brains, their post word counts increase and always are inversely correlated to coherence and objective truth.
But only every single time.
Mark,
Tell me your real name and the monikers you use on other sites and I will get right on it. However, my point stands- Musk was the toast of all the public Democrats right up until he pushed back on the COVID lockdowns in 2020. They forgave him for that since he was still the public face of electric vehicles, but the Twitter purchase and release of the Twitter files was the turning point. I am 99.99% sure you had positive thoughts about Musk right up until he offered to buy Twitter- so my challenge to you is this- prove me wrong.
What say you, Mark? Want to link to comments where you were critical at all of Musk before 2020?
Yancey, just admit you are making incorrect assumptions.
Yeah, I will dox myself so that I can 'prove my innocence', because in your America one must prove innocence and not guilt.
Typical Althouse blowhard, unable to back up your lies.
"Just for the record, in ancient Rome, thumbs up meant death and thumbs down meant life."
Thank you for the clarification...I wasn't there.
Perhaps I should have consulted Diane Feinstein before I posted.
It is an incorrect assumption only if it is incorrect. I don't expect you understand why since you appear to be as dumb as Joe Biden.
Again, prove my assumption wrong. It should be very easy for you prove me wrong, right?
However, again, give me your real name and the monikers you use and I will give it a try to prove my "assumption" correct. What say you, dumbass?
Again, you don't have to dox yourself- you can prove me wrong yourself, right? That you don't suggests that I was right- you were a Musk fan until he bought Twitter and released the Twitter files, just like 99.9% of the lefties I see online.
You want me to prove I didn't say something that you provide no evidence I said, and you call me an idiot?
Good luck with that, Sherlock.
You are more full of shit than an overflowing outhouse.
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