this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 56 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I feel like Twitter (I will always deadname it) was the beginning of the end for him. Unfortunately, things like this can take years or decades to resolve, but whereas 5 years ago he had the midas touch and could do no wrong now there seems to be nothing but a stream of negative news about him.

Time will tell

[–] [email protected] 38 points 8 months ago (3 children)

beginning of the end for him.

Naw, imho it was the Thai kiddy-submarine incident. He seemed at least semi-plausibly not horrible up until then; but then firmly established himself as just another piece of shit billionaire when he couldn't handle some diver stealing the spotlight from him.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Good point, I had forgotten about that nugget in the sea of shit nuggets around that man.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Yeah, that's when I started to call him "The pedo guy" (using his own words).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

At that point he'd outed himself as an asshole to the general public, but he still got big results with SpaceX and Tesla. That incident could have been lost to time and a legacy of undeniable successes.

Hyperloop is where things went cuckoo-bananas business-wise IMO. The delays and broken promises at Tesla were weird, but anyone who'd heard of subways could tell the whole hyperloop thing was doomed to fail, and it became increasingly obvious to anyone who read tech headlines that he wasn't just any asshole, but a clueless asshole.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The "midas touch" is basically just securities fraud. Something he can't get away with forever.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

In what sense? Lying about the actual capabilities of the business? Full autonomous drive next year and Mars at 2022?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

All of those statements existed to either drum up investment money or get people to buy non-existent products. So those things are examples of securities fraud too.