Summary
Bill Gates criticized Elon Musk for his support of far-right politicians, including the UK’s Tommy Robinson and Germany’s AfD party, calling it “insane shit” and accusing Musk of destabilizing political systems.
Gates questioned Musk’s focus on divisive politics while managing global businesses like Tesla and SpaceX.
Gates also expressed concern about wealthy individuals influencing foreign elections.
Musk has faced backlash for controversial actions, including a Nazi salute.
I have to question the judgement of Bill Gates when he calls Musk “super-smart”. Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense. I think he was just lucky and unencumbered by ethics or self-doubt.
Maybe if Musk started out with no money, that would be fair in some sense.
Why is this american obsession on weighting the value of men with the money they made? Musk is an idiot regardless of his money or how he made it.
I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not American, and I don’t place much value on enormous wealth accumulation. I’m just acknowledging that there is a difference between gaining enormous wealth with a hefty leg up from family wealth versus doing it from scratch, like growing up in poverty for example.
You can’t get that amount of money without exploitation. If you start from 0 it just means you have to actually work for it but end result is still the same.
Americans equal money with power, the more power you have, the more value, etc. That is basically it.
Its not just power, its ego and success. If McDonalds started paying 30$ an hour it would suddenly be a job that signaled success, despite nothing changing about the job duties.
Thats what’s happening here, elon is rich so he must be smart, and now people are jealous and emulate him. The OP is right though, money or not he’s an idiot.
Quite a lot of americans equate money with success and ability. Elon musk must be the smartest guy because dumb people dont make money like that.
I think its reverse engineering though, americans see his worth, and work backwards claiming all his choices are genius and well thought out.
It’s absolutely reverse engineering. People want to believe that the world is a meritocracy, and that means believing that those who have succeeded at meritful.
People avoid internalizing that the world is a kleptocracy, because that would mean having to confront that if they want to get ahead, they’ll have to actively amd knowingly fuck other people over, and most of us are not psychopaths
You can’t become the richest man in the world and the most powerful billionaire in the world by accident, even if you start with a golden spoon. Most millionaire child will just spend the rest of their life being spoiled and unconcerned with the world, very very few spend their money helping others and building society, but him? He spend his time and money resurrecting nazi and making those dystopian scifi real. That’s some insane dedication right there. Smart or not, dude is dangerous.
I think he is dedicated, dangerous and awful. I just don’t think he is smart. I’ve known people who achieved wealth, started successful businesses etc. They had domain expertise and ambition. But they also neglected and fucked up other critical aspects of their lives (like their relationships with partners and kids). I didn’t consider them to be smart. In my mind, smart implies a well roundedness, and the capacity for self reflection, and empathy. Musk just has the personality traits, and family wealth, to enable him to “succeed” in our current society.
not by accident, but certainly by luck, and then you can argue whether someone makes their own luck or not, musk hit the jackpot of being at the right moment at the right time and having the right skillset.
There are plenty of alternate universes out there where he became a nobody after paypal.
Bill Gates has also been riding an unearned “genius” appellation for decades. He didn’t make DOS. (His charitable work on vaccination is also questionable - iirc there were concerns over intellectual property rights)
The tide is turning against billionaires, and he’s just recognizing that Musk is making them all look bad.
Gates had two lawyers for parents, one of whom served on a board of directors with the CEO of IBM. IBM had been continually fighting an antitrust suit with the government for years, so they knew they had to tread carefully with the operating system for their first personal computers. It’s no surprise they hired Gates to do that work. Also, because of the antitrust case, they directed Gates to buy QDOS instead of buying it themselves. As for the contract that gave Gates a very sweet deal when it came to selling DOS to for non-IBM computers… I wonder if his two lawyer parents might have been involved in that contract.
It’s a compliment sandwich. You have to include the two pieces of compliment bread even if it’s bullshit or else you’ll be accused of not offering constructive criticism.
To be fair there are plenty of ruthless greedy people with zero morals out there but Musk is far more successful than any of them so something has to differentiate him. He might not be intelligent enough to recognise what a crigerworthy loser he is but let’s not pretend he isn’t smart.
Mate, he is on a very self destructive spiral doing those nazi salutes at the inauguration. That’s not a smart move. He’s let his fantasies get the better of him. If he was really smart he would shut the fuck up about politics. He has everything, And consequently he values nothing.
Smart can mean many things. My dentist is smart, but he is not well rounded. Most people aren’t well rounded smart.
Musk is a good investor, and expert con artist. He is smart in those ways.
