Comment by malablaster
17 hours ago
I don’t see Musk as a nefarious actor; more of a nerd — albeit a visionary one — who is socially awkward but got unfathomably rich and powerful.
17 hours ago
I don’t see Musk as a nefarious actor; more of a nerd — albeit a visionary one — who is socially awkward but got unfathomably rich and powerful.
I don't think any 'evil' person sees themselves as 'evil'.
But pushing himself onto the President, manipulating democracy and being responsible for killing kids as a billionair makes his actions nefarious.
> a nerd — albeit a visionary one — who is socially awkward but got unfathomably rich and powerful
That part is true.
> manipulating democracy and being responsible for killing kids as a billionair makes his actions nefarious.
Indeed.
I think the admirable + despicable combination creates unprocessable dissonance for some people. People then take one side or another.
His antics vis-à-vis propping up the far-right in Europe or calling people he doesn't like NPCs don't persuade you otherwise?
His Nazi salute doesn't bother you in the least? That's not "socially awkward".
Stop anthropomorphizing billionaires.
Those are not at all mutually exclusive. In fact, both of those characteristics make up most of the Silicon Valley oligarchy.
Then you haven't been paying attention.
Are you not aware of his blatant Nazi salutes or his DOGE attempt to dismantle oversight/regulation of his business concerns or him cancelling USAID (700,000 deaths and counting) or his interference in UK/European politics to promote far right violence and riots?
If you had that amount of money and power, you could be anyone you wanted, so why on earth does Musk choose to be as he is?
Or the vote buying
He recently shut down Starlink for Ukrainians, thus contributing to Putin's genocide. Have you not been reading the news? Calling Musk a "nerd" is the wrong term here. That is deliberate support of a genocide.
But he didn’t. Starshield is used for military operations and it is controlled by the US government, not Musk.[1] Starlink cannot be used for offensive military applications. Those that try are shut off entirely. If Ukraine is illegally using consumer Starlink in drones (which would not work particularly well), SpaceX wouldn’t even know which receivers to turn off. If they did, they’d turn them off entirely, not slow them as is alleged.
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/15/what-is-starshield...
The Musk invective in HN is just wild to me. No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute (unless Biden, and Hillary and Obama are all Nazis too having made the same motion). No, he hasn’t cut Ukraine’s internet. All of these are lies, repeated over and over and over. He’s just a Republican accelerationist and unapologetic about his race. His companies create legitimately awesome products that millions use daily. Shocking that today that’s enough to breed such extraordinary hate from the left.
> No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute
Talk all you want, but video is available for you to make up your own mind. Imo, it was very obviously a Nazi salute coupled with an angry face reminiscent of Hitler, and then repeated to make sure it was seen.
It really is pretty embarrassing that the forum of a venture capital accelerator is debatably the most anti-tech, anti-capitalist tech forum on the internet. Now I remember why I stopped coming here. Just goes to show how these types of forums always get infiltrated and taken over by tankies... see reddit/wikipedia/etc
Those types don't have to work usually, so they have all the time to waste on the Internet.
Agreed. They swarm.
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> No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute (unless Biden, and Hillary and Obama are all Nazis too having made the same motion)
Yeah just like this car's motion is the same as that of an aeroplane.
Go ‘head big dog. Share a single source of Obama, Clinton, or Biden making “the same gesture”. A video, please. No cheap photos of waving hands at just the right moment.
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Elon Musk is a virulent racist and with DOGE will be directly responsible for the deaths of millions.
LOL - and how many were we killing by not funding USAID twice as much? How many are you personally killing by not mortgaging your house and sending the money to African NGOs? The entire angle is so childish.
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