Comment by WalterBright

One of these people use their money to spread hate and promote themselves, the other does not.

This is legitimately the stupidest comment I've seen on HN all year. One of these people have devoted billions of dollars to eradicating disease, providing education, developing living conditions and essential infrastructure, and improving quality of life and life expectancy for the worlds poorest, globally, for decades. The other has cozied up to corrupt kleptocrats and every other manner of scum to benefit himself while enriching himself at the expense of everyone else, particularly in his recent quest to become the worlds first trillionaire.

The temptation to succumb to Godwin's Law is so, so, so strong. How shitty and horrible of a person does one have to be for someone on HN to admit that they are a shitty and bad person? At some point the Big Bang sterotype of "nerd" who jerks off to the idea of a rich guy who "computers" and "businesses" and "engineers" outgrows tiresome and becomes despicable once said rich guy facilitates/encourages/actualizes concentration camps. Grow up.

It's not politics to dislike a guy who fired thousands of Americans from their jobs for fun, disproportionately veterans. Failed to even do the thing he set out to do which is save the country money, and then quit. That's just incompetence with material negative effect on people's lives

I'd see it as totally fair.

We also weren't discussing GoDaddy as a registrar without mentioning it's CEO killing elephants and being an all around douchebag. Or Oracle without the lawnmower.

It's tough to ask people to dissociate the CEO from the company, especially when he's doing all the PR by himself.

> disagree with his politics

Its the character. Buying a global media platform to "promote free speech" and then shunt the entire thing and himself behind a particular political party. This guy uses his money and his twitter account to support neo-nazi hate groups in my country (Britain First, Patriotic Alternative, Hundred Handers, Tommy Tennames). He has no self-restraint. Its abhorrent. Its not "about politics" when the politics is about racial superiority and ethnic cleansing.

> Imagine if you couldn't post a thread about Microsoft products on HN without republicans feeling the need to jump in to talk about how much they hate Bill Gates for his donations to Kamala Harris's campaign in 2024. It's really tiresome.

and if Bill Gate was literally campaigning for the Dems, getting up on stage, handing voters cheques and THEN being employed by the government to run a department then you'd have a point.

He repeatedly crosses the line of what is appropriate. People with that level of wealth should stay the fuck away from politics and respect democracy instead of using their money and business to have excessive influence on democratic outcomes. Its unseemly and disrespects the idea of everyone getting the same amount of votes. I respect that donations have similarities but there's a difference between making a donation and being excessively public.

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Where is the hyperloop? Where are the tunnels? Where is the mars program? Where are self driving cars?

He's a bloviating conman and no rational person should believe that this demo will ever see the light of day, if it wasn't faked.

This is completely outside of politics.

Which math, please elaborate.

100% of the people I know that got DOGE’d were amazing people drastically underpaid for their efforts already…

3 or 4 data points isn’t a whole lot more than an anecdote, but it’s still more data than baseless claims line you’re throwing around here

They might choose to do that after gaining a cursory understanding of the actual inner workings of the organisation. Especially if that organisation functions differently than corporations.

So things are better now after firing all those ppl, right?

Do you care about food safety, disease prevention, consumer protection or the ability for the government to investigate blatant corruption?

Do you think this has gotten better or worse?

I hope you get fired, too.

Yeah, and even with all the qualifications here, the man is still an absolute asshole.

All you need to do is see how frequently he posts on Twitter to know he's broken and trying to fill the hole with money and attention.

> it is illegal for him, as a private businessman, to be a combatant, but he seems thrust into that position.

Just doing his job and following orders?

Have a read about his actions on Ukraine, even just this last week. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...

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Reporting literally just came out that throttling starlink for ukraine was his idea…but sure he is just a helpless innocent billionaire with no control whatsoever

> Only the President and Congress were elected. The rest are all appointed.

So an unelected official would be correct, right?

> He did at the direction of the President, who was elected.

Where is your evidence? Reporting contradicts what you say - https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/06/trump-cabinet-musk-...

> speculation

Not really. Multiple independent sources and reports have confirmed the damage done by Musk during his time at DOGE.

> Decisions about Ukraine go through Trump. Musk is in a delicate position - it is illegal for him, as a private businessman, to be a combatant, but he seems thrust into that position.

He is as "thrust" into that position as he was "thrust" into the DOGE role.

What are your thoughts on his illegal state-sanctioned intimidation of ex-FEMA CFO?

How does that absolve Musk?

I am, yes. Are you? Or is this just a cute response because you thought I wasn't?

he directed government money from strategic projects that makes the world more stable to ensure the US could waste it all fighting another dumb war. Its hard to justify, easy to criticise.

Ah indeed, a new and unheard of piece of cutting edge engineering that is at the same time a completely useless and extravagant waste of resources? My analogy was more on point than I thought :)

Both made by nazis too.