What Is Really Going On With Elon Musk?

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I simply had a protracted chat with a very good good friend who was mainly an OG in Tesla world. We talked about all types of Tesla matters making an attempt to know the place Tesla could be moving into 2025 and past. We lined a wide range of matters, execs and cons, alternatives and dangers. It was an fascinating dialog. One factor that got here up was “betting on the jockey” versus “betting on the horse.” Definitely, lots of people imagine in Tesla virtually completely as a result of they imagine in Elon Musk, partially due to earlier successes and partially due to how issues have gone at Tesla. By the way, I used to be additionally on the verge of penning this story, due to how odd — and fascinating — Elon Musk has been these days. So, let’s get into a bit of have a look at the jockey.

I’m going to deliver it round to Tesla issues in a short while, however now we have to start out with different issues. To get rolling, we’ve received the online game story, which really goes from bizarre to weirder.

An Extraordinarily Odd Video Recreation Saga

It was revealed a couple of weeks in the past that Elon Musk was a top-level participant globally of the online game Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2), a free-to-play motion role-playing recreation (RPG) that was lately launched. It was surprising and complicated. With all the things else Musk has happening, how does he have time to log tons of of hours enjoying a brand new online game? Or if he’s spending tons of of hours enjoying movies video games, how a lot time is he placing into a number of corporations he runs (to not point out political campaigns)?

I didn’t spend a lot time studying about this recreation or Musk’s connection to it, however then I noticed a headline pop onto Google Information, “Elon Musk Throws Tantrum After Being Uncovered by Avid gamers, Leaks YouTuber’s DMs and Seemingly Takes Away His Checkmark,” and it received me to click on. What the heck was happening? My goodness — issues received bizarre. The article received me to click on a video from a YouTuber who I’ve by no means heard of however who has 3.29 million subscribers on YouTube. I believed I’d watch a couple of moments of the video, however I realized one purpose this man has so many subscribers, he pulls you in a bit and the enhancing is nice (I’ll come again to that). Right here’s the video if you wish to test it out:

Within the video, he discusses some oddities in Musk’s livestreaming of himself enjoying the sport, together with clipping snippets of different prime players commenting on these oddities. Let’s simply say it up entrance: it’s all bizarre. I don’t wish to spend an excessive amount of time on the online game a part of this itself, even thought that’s what the story is about, however listed here are a couple of key notes:

• Musk would have needed to put in an unlimited variety of hours enjoying this new recreation to get to the extent he’s at.
• Livestreams of him enjoying the sport present him performing some issues in bizarre and typically tremendous fundamental methods, or not likely understanding typically the values of issues he has or may choose up whereas enjoying.
• Nonetheless, he’s adamant that he’s a grasp of the sport, he signifies that he performs it rather a lot, and he’s apparently not been keen to say he pays different individuals to play it for him with a view to jack up his rating.

It appears obvious that, even when he does play the sport rather a lot, he has been paying others to grasp the sport for him. This is likely one of the most baffling issues of the entire story for me. Why is he so involved with mastering the sport that he pays others to do it for him? And even when he has a purpose for that, why doesn’t he simply admit he’s achieved that? Lastly on this story, why is Musk so looking forward to individuals to imagine that he spends hours upon hours enjoying video video games? I don’t have many good concepts for the reply this final query, however I’ll suggest some solutions on the finish of the article. I’m marking this down as Q1 and can return to it on the finish.

Oh, wait, earlier than we transfer onto one other story, word that this story did get even bizarre. Musk received right into a DM chat with this online game streamer, Asmongold, in some unspecified time in the future. After Asmongold made the video above, Musk was not blissful about how issues had gone, and he tweeted out a screenshot of the chat:

There are a couple of fascinating — and, once more, odd — issues so as to add right here:

• Musk violated X phrases of service by tweeting this out.
• Musk in some way took this to imply Asmongold was beneath the editors in rank … apparently so locked right into a mindset based mostly on conventional media techniques that he doesn’t perceive the editors work for Asmongold. Don’t imagine me? Musk mentioned, “Asmon behaves like a maverick ‘unbiased’, however in actuality has to ask his boss for permission earlier than he can do something. He isn’t his personal man.” Significantly.
• Going additional, Musk apparently eliminated his verification badge on X.
• To Asmongold, the entire saga reminded him of the conduct of “an offended ex-girlfriend.”

For sure, lots of people within the gaming world see Musk as nuts, ignorant, and a particular form of bizarre in any case of this. There are a lot of extra movies about it, however I’m doing my finest to not get sucked in and browse one other one.

Oh, additionally, this apparently isn’t the primary recreation that Musk has pretended to grasp regardless of clearly not having mastered it:

There are simply actually odd issues in there.

An Odd & Embarrassing COVID-19 Saga with a Pal

I had really completely forgotten about some of the notorious public claims about COVID-19 from the early days of the pandemic. It was one of many first actually baffling issues I noticed Musk tweet or say. However there’s even rather more alongside the identical traces that occurred behind the scenes.

Relating to that first reference, as a refresher, in March of 2020, Musk tweeted, “Primarily based on present traits, most likely near zero new circumstances in US too by finish of April.” As everyone knows, there have been much more new circumstances on the finish of April than on March 19, and undoubtedly not “near zero.”

One may say that, properly, nobody actually knew in March what would occur with the virus. Besides that’s not true. It was apparent what was taking place and what was going to occur. It was Spring Break right here in Florida, and it was apparent COVID-19 was spreading quickly and we have been in for a protracted, difficult pandemic. I didn’t perceive on the time how Elon Musk couldn’t perceive that. I didn’t perceive how somebody with a lot wealth didn’t have an knowledgeable group of advisors ensuring he understood what was happening. I didn’t perceive how he didn’t register the maths and the science of this all.

But it surely wasn’t only one random public tweet.

Apparently, longtime good friend Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, thinker, creator, and podcast host, had a disagreement with him on COVID-19 predictions. You could recall that Musk tweeted “The coronavirus panic is dumb.” On the time, the query was, was his level that panic is dumb? Or was his level that the coronavirus was nothing? Nicely, Harris reached out in personal and mentioned, “You’ve gotten an unlimited platform, and far of the world appears to you as an authority on all issues technical,” and famous that he thought the tweet was irresponsible and risked damaging his repute.

“Elon’s response was jarring: ‘Sam, you of all individuals shouldn’t be involved with this.’ The billionaire linked to a web page on the CDC web site indicating that COVID was not among the many prime 100 causes of demise within the US,” Futurism experiences

“‘This was a patently foolish level to make within the first days of a pandemic,’ Harris wrote on his Substack.

“After hours of texting, neither noticed eye to eye. However they did agree on a guess. Musk guess donating $1 million to charity towards a $1,000 bottle of tequila that COVID circumstances within the US wouldn’t exceed 35,000.

“‘The phrases of the guess mirrored what was, in his estimation, the close to certainty (1000 to 1) that he was proper,’ Harris mentioned.”

So, yeah, Musk had no understanding of the coronavirus development, scientifically or medically, and genuinely thought it was going nowhere.

The abstract level from Sam Harris on his Substack was that “his engagement with Twitter/X remodeled him.” There’s “one thing significantly flawed along with his ethical compass, if not his notion of actuality,” and Harris thinks a lot of that stems from being obsessively on-line and primarily getting tricked by the large misinformation tsunamis that swirl round on social media always.

In the long run, Harris texted Musk “Is (35,000 deaths + 600,000 circumstances) > 35,000 circumstances?” a couple of weeks later when the CDC reported 35,000 COVID-19 associated deaths and 600,000 circumstances.

Huge query #2 (Q2) that I’ll come again to: what does this story have in comparable with the gaming story above?

An Axe Assassin Terrorizing Twitter HQ?

Whereas studying a type of tales on Futurism, I noticed a beneficial associated story: “Elon Musk Claims Axe Assassin Focused His Staff, Cops Say They Have No Thought What He’s Speaking About.”

WHAT?!

Nothing ought to shock me at this level, however this one did once more nonetheless.

“Powerful-on-crime crusader Elon Musk claims that there was an axe assassin on the unfastened within the metropolis of San Francisco who tried to kill a number of of his workers, with the authorities doing nothing to catch the assailant. The important thing phrase in all of this being ‘claims.’

“‘A few 12 months in the past, a man tried to kill three X workers with an axe outdoors the previous Twitter HQ in SF. They reported it to the police, however nothing was achieved,’ Musk tweeted, responding to the account Finish Wokeness (a favourite of his). ‘He later killed somebody with that axe.’

“If that is true, town has turn into so totally lawless that the cops by no means received wind of the grisly homicide. On Monday, native police mentioned they may discover no information supporting Musk’s story, the San Francisco Chronicle experiences — proof that, as soon as once more, Musk could also be merely be fibbing or falling sufferer to preposterous rumors.

“‘Primarily based on the data offered, we can’t discover any incident that matches this description in that location in 2023 or 2024,’ Evan Sernoffsky, a San Francisco police spokesperson, instructed the Chronicle.”

Even additional, Musk has apparently instructed this story a couple of instances now with totally different particulars — totally different weapons (a machete in at the very least one case), variations on whether or not Twitter workers reported it, variations on how many individuals this assassin reportedly went on to kill.

It’s all simply … bizarre. The cops don’t know what he’s referring to.

What’s going on right here?

Tesla Stuff

Okay, now let’s get to one thing that really issues within the cleantech scene. What does all of this imply in relation to Tesla?

Musk has made quite a few claims relating to Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD) and robotaxis which have confirmed flawed over the previous decade. He has additionally made plenty of projections based mostly on basic math and development traces, a few of which have confirmed flawed, and a few of that are concerning the future and thus can’t be decided proper or flawed but. For instance, the corporate’s gross sales have been alleged to be rising 50% a 12 months by 2030, reaching 20 million gross sales within the 12 months 2030. That’s now 5 years away and the corporate’s gross sales would wish to extend greater than 10 instances over.

Frankly, if Musk has a behavior of creating massive uninformed selections in different fields and doubling down on them, why ought to we assume he doesn’t additionally do that at Tesla on essential Tesla issues? Why ought to we assume this isn’t what he’s been doing with relating to to Autopilot and Full Self Driving for 10 years? Sure, the expertise has improved, however when you spend billions of {dollars} on enhancing it and have hundreds of individuals engaged on enhancing it, you will be positive it’ll enhance. The query is whether or not the bottom assumption and long-term forecast can be a sensible factor to guess on.

Is the jockey as nice as he’s been made out to be? On a aspect word, has Musk at all times actually been the jockey, or was JB Straubel the true jockey within the firm’s vital years?

Returning to the online game story, it appears apparent that Musk is keen to be the jockey publicly even when he’s not the one doing the work. I don’t see every other approach to clarify that story. He’s blissful to take the credit score and repute enhance from another person doing a ton of labor (or, properly, gaming), and can even double down on the concept that he was the one doing all of it alongside. Relating to Q1, “why is Musk so looking forward to individuals to imagine that he spends hours upon hours enjoying video video games?,” the one factor I can provide you with is that he desires individuals within the gaming world to respect him and suppose he’s an ideal gamer. I can’t discover every other purpose for this. And if he’s so determined to say the credit score of mastering this recreation, how determined has he been to say the credit score for different successes adjoining to him or achieved beneath him that actually aren’t concerning the work he’s achieved or how sensible he’s? Once more, was he the super-jockey he introduced Tesla’s massive successes, or was that another person — or a number of different individuals — now not engaged in vital operations on the firm?

Relating to Q2, what that gaming story has to do with the COVID-19 story, the purpose is that he desires individuals to suppose extremely of him. He desires individuals to suppose he’s proper even when he’s not. He has apparently by no means acknowledged to Harris or others that he received this story flawed. As an alternative, he has gone into some fairly excessive instructions on COVID-19. He’s been extra targeted on getting individuals to suppose he’s proper than on being proper. From my perspective, that’s a priority. On the subject of Tesla management, it worries me. Others disagree, clearly, however every passing week brings one other surprising story that makes it very onerous to belief this jockey.

What do you suppose?