Last July, when I was still a regular user of X, I warned, not entirely in jest, that Elon Musk was taking a flamethrower to his own reputation. In another tweet the same day, I warned that Musk “could wind up the Howard Hughes of his time, if he continues to shelter himself from opposing views.”
His reputation is finally starting to plummet. Two things I noted today illustrate this well:
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Even as recently as a year or so ago, reasonable people might have disagreed about Elon Musk’s net contribution to the world. He had spread a great deal of misinformation, and occasionally acted childishly, but also immensely advanced the cause of electric cars (even if he didn’t actually found Tesla) and reduced the cost space launches. For a while, environmentalists saluted him; Teslas were an icon.
He has done so much harm in recent weeks, though, ranging from violent cuts on science research to, in a deeply Orwellian move, preparing to feed massive amounts of private information into unreliable generative AI for the purposes of making employment decisions that I no longer find him remotely reasonable. And I know that I am far from alone.
Just in the last few days, over a quarter million people signed a petition asking Canada to revoke his citizenship:
In Europe, Tesla sales are down 45%, even though EV’s are up 37%.
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Many once-proud Tesla owners now feel disgusted:
It’s not just the left either. A French far right leader denounced Bannon for making the same heil-like gesture Musk had made a few weeks earlier.
Yesterday, multiple Trump administrators, even Trump loyalists like Gabbard and Patel, pushed back against Musk, directly countermanding his recent email to government staff:
And, today, 21 technology staffers quit the DOGE organization, writing “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services.”
A lot of people, across the spectrum, think Musk is out of control. “Elon Musk is a weird loser” memes are making the rounds:
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What’s up with Musk, exactly, aside from economic self-interest?
Some say the root cause is large doses of ketamine, perhaps in conjunction with other drugs.
Others say the root cause is an insatiable need for attention, potentiated by Twitter, that Jaron Lanier has called “Twitter poisoning.”
Elon Musk used to be a serious person more concerned with engineering and building businesses than with petty name-calling. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to amplify a preposterous, sordid story about Paul Pelosi …
Twitter poisoning is a little like alcoholism or gambling addiction, in that the afflicted lose all sense of proportion about their own powers. They can come to believe they have almost supernatural abilities. Little boys fantasize about energy beams shooting from their fingertips.
The degree of narcissism becomes almost absolute.
Another possibility, not mutually exclusive with the others, is that Musk has stopped listening to – and even excommunicated – anyone who disagrees with him, forcing him into an echo chamber of his own making, unfollowing people ranging from Taylor Swift and Sam Altman to Bari Weiss (who he eventually refollowed).
I personally noticed Musk’s shutting out of opposing views when he stopped answering my emails when I warned him in July – correctly - that throwing in with Trump would undermine the cause of AI safety (which for a decade, until a few weeks ago, seemed extremely important to Musk). He never replied to that, or any subsequent email.
I was reminded of the closing of his mind this morning, while texting with a mutual friend who had tried to get Musk to listen to reason about one of the many political issues he Musk recently immersed himself in. The friend plead with Musk to seek more information, to try to understand the other side.
Musk responded savagely, dismissing the friend, insulting the friend’s intelligence and refusing to listen to an alternative perspective. The friend, heretofore a bit more sympathetic to Musk than most people I know, was taken aback, handed “point after point... of pure propaganda wrapped in an air of superiority” — by a mind no longer open.
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Whatever the underlying cause, nothing good can come of the new Musk, not for himself, not for his companies, and certainly not for the world at large.
By August things had already escalated:
By September, I was so concerned I posted this.
Many people took this as a hostile remark, but I still think it would be an awfully good idea, for all concerned.
As much as I disagree with Gary Marcus about AI, I strangely find myself agreeing with him in all the other matters. Thank you for this article.
The speed of growth of the size of his head has exceeded escape velocity