In his mom's basement, in cum-stained sweatpants, sitting hunched over in front of a cheap oversized monitor hooked up to an underpowered desktop PC with lots of LED, trolling on /b/ and /pol/ and jerking off to pokeporn.
I didn't make all that up on the spot. I already had the visual image in mind because that really is how I visualize him.
And I didn't even try to do it. When he first bought Twitter and started trolling professionally, I just found myself visualizing him doing it, and before I knew it, I had this crystal clear image of him sitting in front of a desktop PC on a rickety particle board desk in a dank basement room with white paint over concrete and green shag carpeting, lit only by the glow from a cheap monitor, wearing gross stained sweats and a hoodie, hunched over a grimey keyboard and occasionally giggling to himself.
I keep trying to visualize the more likely reality for a billionaire of some sort of extremely custom multi-monitor setup in the center of a purpose-built room, but it just won't stick.
Here. Not this very thread, but the fediverse in general.
He's very autistic, but if he weren't a billionaire the material conditions that made him a fascist wouldn't be there. (Although being from South Africa, he'd probably still be a massive Racist)
This means there's a 93.4% chance he'd be a smarmy Linux guy. Nowhere near as intelligent as he thinks he is and honestly pretty obnoxious, but harmless.
Eh. There's plenty of cis bigoted dudes in the Furry fandom (and Musk would absolutely be a furry if he'd been given unlimited internet access without also being a public figure).
And on the fediverse for that matter, you just don't run into them as often here because most major instances ban (at least the more egregious) bigoted talk, and are also defederated from all the far-right instances.
He's practically got 'clueless middle-manager' stamped on his forehead. He has he confidence to fake it through an interview and the animal cunning to blame others for his mistakes.
People who behave like he behaves without money don't go anywhere in life because no one wants them to be around. He'd be working at a packing plant somewhere. Or a fast food counter. I say that because the guy isn't actually intelligent. He isn't some engineer that designs cars or rockets. He just bought the companies with the people who actually do that. And it doesn't take a genius to have a lot of money and invest it in safe bets. Look at Donald Trump. Guy is a moron but it's pretty easy to take daddy's money and buy/sell real estate. Musk would still look like the Gollum he looked like before he got REALLY rich and paid to make himself look different. He'd be alone, poor, and sad. I mean, he's clearly sad now because no one who's happy behaves the way he behaves. He's lonely because the only people who interact with him are people that want something out of him. He ain't poor though, so he's got that going for him.
Of course, if he wasn't born wealthy he wouldn't be who he is, so this is all assuming that his personality is the same without the lifelong money, which it wouldn't be. In a way, the born rich thing was kind of a curse for him because he never got to become a real boy or a real man.
Of course, if he wasn’t born wealthy he wouldn’t be who he is,
Musk wasn't always as completely off his hinges as he is right now, and I feel like at least half of the reason he got as bad as he did, is because he is constantly, 24/7/365, surrounded by yes men who do nothing but say how great and smart he is (and he has the money and power to ensure this always remains the case)
Like he was always a bigot and kind of a dumbshit, but he didn't become unhinged until a few years back.
Which is why I think a hypothetical middle-or-lower-class Elon Musk would be just.
.... A mediocre internet user. Holds some bigoted opinions. Gets into fights on webforums and social media. Has a low-level job in tech doing something no one cares about for a company everyone hates.
While he's definitely not the genius he makes himself out to be, he would be still in the tech space, qualified in IT or at the very least basic programming. Try to make a quick buck with some crypto stuff and be that guy you hear about with all the ideas but none of the skills to do anything about it.
And depending on his luck of who he can fool he has a chance to make it and be rich still. Its just not as rich as he is now with a head start on life.
He would definitely be making millions via crypto rug pulls. The only reason he doesn't do it now is he has so much money, that it's easier to just hype a coin like Doge
(I think they are asking about what level of wealth he'd be born into in your imaginary scenario -- I wrote my post assuming 'my own', which is to say 'comfortably middle-class parents in a rapidly crumbling economy, not poor per-se, but working class nonetheless, and pretty much guaranteed to die poorer than his folks')
I think he's an exceptional person in both good and bad. There's a shit ton of people born into much more wealth than he did but they havent achieved anything even remotely close to what Elon has. Having access to recources helps but it's not the only factor.
The seed money he got from his father for his first business - split between him and his brother Kimbal, whom his father liked much better than him - was $28,000. After Elon and Kimbal had already raised some funds from other investors, too. Everyone seems to think Musk was born in a vast emerald-encrusted mansion. His family were by no means poor but he's not "old money."
Hate Elon Musk for real reasons, not made up ones.
I don't feel the need to prove musk was born into wealth. Just look up his family and his education. The advantages of being able to take risks with other people's money is insurmountable. Of the millions in America only fractions get access to the education musk had, connections he made, and contacts he most likely inherented. $28,000 doesn't sound like much compared to the billions he now hoards but that is a pipe dream for most Americans and the ability to bet that on a business without fear of losing it all is the definition of privilege. Say Zip2 failed, do you honestly think he would never recover and go on to make another bet elsewhere? That's privilage.
I agree that people tend to overstate his income due to misunderstanding his relationship with his father. And the story about him keeping emeralds in his pockets is murky at best.
But his wealth compared to the average income of any black person in South Africa in 1971, still makes him vastly better off than any 'colored' child born in the same country, making him institutionally old money by grace of being born white.
Certainly he was above average. But that's not "born into wealth." $28,000 is the price of a modest new car. There are huge numbers of people who are able to get seed money like that from friends and relatives to start a business, but clearly Elon did something more than those people to grow that to the $400 billion his current net wealth stands at.
The problem is that Musk has become such an intensely politically and culturally polarizing figure that saying even the remotely "positive" thing about him - such as "he's actually a pretty good self-made businessman" - gets interpreted as "boy howdy do I ever love Trump and misogyny!"
When 90% of your countrymen are born into a world where they cannot legally hold the same jobs as you. You are born into extreme privilege.
After reading the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors
by Edward Niedermeyer I came away with the feeling he really wasn't a pretty good self-made businessman.
If you want to judge Americans by global standards, then basically every single one of them is "born into wealth" because most of the people in the world live below the American poverty line.
After reading the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors by Edward Niedermeyer I came away with the feeling he really wasn't a pretty good self-made businessman.
Going from a $30,000 seed investment to $400 billion dollars would tend to suggest otherwise.
Call him a terrible person, sure. You can't buy a good personality. But as a businessman the numbers seem pretty clear.
I hear you but I think you're missing my point. His wealth and privilege started in South Africa. He could not have achieved what he did without the opportunity to migrate from South Africa to Canada and then to America.
As for his business prowess here's just a few key points from the book:
Musk is cuckoo taking advantage of other people's talent to elevate himself.
Musk’s funding was critical to x.com's early development, but many of the key decisions that made its merge with PayPal successful were credited to Levchin, Thiel, and others.
Tesla was co-founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk did not like his position being confined to financier so conspired to have the original founders removed and himself listed as founder instead.
Tesla has consistently faces financial instability, often operating on the brink of bankruptcy.
Both Tesla and SpaceX were rescued by massive government contracts from Federal Governmentd desperate to pull itself out of the global financial crisis or a failing oil economy. Not by Musk's talent as a business manager.
A hamster wheel of investor hype to raise capital driven by false promises is the only thing keeping Tesla afloat. Even their government loans are based on the same high hopes and false promises.
Musk’s infamous “funding secured” tweet is proof of his success being driven by lies. He was willing to break the law of it meant he could outrun the consequences of his poor management
57 Comments
Rottcodd@lemmy.world · 55 pts · 1y
In his mom's basement, in cum-stained sweatpants, sitting hunched over in front of a cheap oversized monitor hooked up to an underpowered desktop PC with lots of LED, trolling on /b/ and /pol/ and jerking off to pokeporn.
radix@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 1y
"Mooom, get me my CHEESY POOFS!"
tenchiken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1y
"Moooom! Bathroom! BATHROOM!"
sanguinepar@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y
So, no difference then?
Rottcodd@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y
As a matter of fact, yes.
I didn't make all that up on the spot. I already had the visual image in mind because that really is how I visualize him.
And I didn't even try to do it. When he first bought Twitter and started trolling professionally, I just found myself visualizing him doing it, and before I knew it, I had this crystal clear image of him sitting in front of a desktop PC on a rickety particle board desk in a dank basement room with white paint over concrete and green shag carpeting, lit only by the glow from a cheap monitor, wearing gross stained sweats and a hoodie, hunched over a grimey keyboard and occasionally giggling to himself.
I keep trying to visualize the more likely reality for a billionaire of some sort of extremely custom multi-monitor setup in the center of a purpose-built room, but it just won't stick.
sanguinepar@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
That's some vivid and disturbing imagery! :-)
Rottcodd@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
Of a vividly disturbing person.
sanguinepar@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
Indeed đź‘Ť
That_Devil_Girl@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1y
This is the correct answer.
VinesNFluff@pawb.social · 43 pts · 1y
Statistically?
Here. Not this very thread, but the fediverse in general.
He's very autistic, but if he weren't a billionaire the material conditions that made him a fascist wouldn't be there. (Although being from South Africa, he'd probably still be a massive Racist)
This means there's a 93.4% chance he'd be a smarmy Linux guy. Nowhere near as intelligent as he thinks he is and honestly pretty obnoxious, but harmless.
tacosanonymous@lemm.ee · 3 pts · 1y
He doesn’t seem like a furry trans girl though.
VinesNFluff@pawb.social · 2 pts · 1y
Eh. There's plenty of cis bigoted dudes in the Furry fandom (and Musk would absolutely be a furry if he'd been given unlimited internet access without also being a public figure).
And on the fediverse for that matter, you just don't run into them as often here because most major instances ban (at least the more egregious) bigoted talk, and are also defederated from all the far-right instances.
skrlet13@feddit.cl · 2 pts · 1y
Isn't he a furry already? Didn't he share a ratboy meme or something?
kabi@lemm.ee · 26 pts · 1y
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee · 17 pts · 1y
I DONT CARE
spittingimage@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y
He's practically got 'clueless middle-manager' stamped on his forehead. He has he confidence to fake it through an interview and the animal cunning to blame others for his mistakes.
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
I wouldn't hire him.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz · 11 pts · 1y
/r9k/
DarkFuture@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 1y
Look at the way he behaves.
People who behave like he behaves without money don't go anywhere in life because no one wants them to be around. He'd be working at a packing plant somewhere. Or a fast food counter. I say that because the guy isn't actually intelligent. He isn't some engineer that designs cars or rockets. He just bought the companies with the people who actually do that. And it doesn't take a genius to have a lot of money and invest it in safe bets. Look at Donald Trump. Guy is a moron but it's pretty easy to take daddy's money and buy/sell real estate. Musk would still look like the Gollum he looked like before he got REALLY rich and paid to make himself look different. He'd be alone, poor, and sad. I mean, he's clearly sad now because no one who's happy behaves the way he behaves. He's lonely because the only people who interact with him are people that want something out of him. He ain't poor though, so he's got that going for him.
Of course, if he wasn't born wealthy he wouldn't be who he is, so this is all assuming that his personality is the same without the lifelong money, which it wouldn't be. In a way, the born rich thing was kind of a curse for him because he never got to become a real boy or a real man.
VinesNFluff@pawb.social · 5 pts · 1y
Musk wasn't always as completely off his hinges as he is right now, and I feel like at least half of the reason he got as bad as he did, is because he is constantly, 24/7/365, surrounded by yes men who do nothing but say how great and smart he is (and he has the money and power to ensure this always remains the case)
Like he was always a bigot and kind of a dumbshit, but he didn't become unhinged until a few years back.
Which is why I think a hypothetical middle-or-lower-class Elon Musk would be just.
.... A mediocre internet user. Holds some bigoted opinions. Gets into fights on webforums and social media. Has a low-level job in tech doing something no one cares about for a company everyone hates.
FeloniousPunk@lemmy.today · 11 pts · 1y
Assistant manager at a Burger King. One day, he WILL make manager. You’ll see.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1y
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 1y
jose1324@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1y
Omg who the hell CARES
unknown1234_5@kbin.earth · 8 pts · 1y
probably south africa
StaticFalconar@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y
While he's definitely not the genius he makes himself out to be, he would be still in the tech space, qualified in IT or at the very least basic programming. Try to make a quick buck with some crypto stuff and be that guy you hear about with all the ideas but none of the skills to do anything about it.
And depending on his luck of who he can fool he has a chance to make it and be rich still. Its just not as rich as he is now with a head start on life.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 1y
I think your somewhat right.
He would definitely be making millions via crypto rug pulls. The only reason he doesn't do it now is he has so much money, that it's easier to just hype a coin like Doge
Chainweasel@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1y
Laying in a gutter in Johannesburg with a needle in his arm
Battle_Masker@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y
either apartheid militant or apartheid apologist. or someone tryna bring it back, but in too low rank a role to do anything
NineMileTower@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1y
One of those restaurateur dolts who think they are god's gift to cuisine on Kitchen Nightmares.
s38b35M5@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Ha! I don't get the connection, but I'm watching KN reruns as I type this.
NineMileTower@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1y
He's an idiot who thinks he's the pinnacle of knowledge.
SuiXi3D@fedia.io · 4 pts · 1y
Sounds like every bible thumper and MAGAt.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 1y
An incel stuck in a dead end job
NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1y
A medium ranked officer in the NSA, deeply hurt by what Snowden has achieved, and wishing death for him every day.
magnetosphere@fedia.io · 5 pts · 1y
A failing con artist.
GlassHalfHopeful@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 1y
Who?
Pherenike@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 1y
Skid row
BradleyUffner@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
Crack house. Definitely a crack house.
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1y
Posting exactly what he's posting now.
Tabooki@lemm.ee · 3 pts · 1y
What level of wealth was he born into?
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
Edit: misinterpreted
Let's assume he was born to working class family in the rust belt.
Drusas@fedia.io · 3 pts · 1y
He was born in South Africa, so he would be there still.
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
If only, sigh.
VinesNFluff@pawb.social · 3 pts · 1y
(I think they are asking about what level of wealth he'd be born into in your imaginary scenario -- I wrote my post assuming 'my own', which is to say 'comfortably middle-class parents in a rapidly crumbling economy, not poor per-se, but working class nonetheless, and pretty much guaranteed to die poorer than his folks')
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
You're right sorry.
cabron_offsets@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1y
CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1y
Free_Opinions@feddit.uk · -1 pts · 1y
I think he's an exceptional person in both good and bad. There's a shit ton of people born into much more wealth than he did but they havent achieved anything even remotely close to what Elon has. Having access to recources helps but it's not the only factor.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · -1 pts · 1y
The seed money he got from his father for his first business - split between him and his brother Kimbal, whom his father liked much better than him - was $28,000. After Elon and Kimbal had already raised some funds from other investors, too. Everyone seems to think Musk was born in a vast emerald-encrusted mansion. His family were by no means poor but he's not "old money."
Hate Elon Musk for real reasons, not made up ones.
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1y
Prove it
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 1 pts · 1y
This article on the company describes his funding sources, with citations for each claim.
Can you prove the contrary, that he was "born into wealth?"
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
I don't feel the need to prove musk was born into wealth. Just look up his family and his education. The advantages of being able to take risks with other people's money is insurmountable. Of the millions in America only fractions get access to the education musk had, connections he made, and contacts he most likely inherented. $28,000 doesn't sound like much compared to the billions he now hoards but that is a pipe dream for most Americans and the ability to bet that on a business without fear of losing it all is the definition of privilege. Say Zip2 failed, do you honestly think he would never recover and go on to make another bet elsewhere? That's privilage.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 1 pts · 1y
...
I hardly need to point out the double standard here.
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
Just read your own Wikipedia article bruh
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 1 pts · 1y
The references there talk about them having tens of thousands of dollars to spend on things. That matches with what I linked above.
Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1y
I say they're wealthy. Wiki says their wealthy. What exactly are you contesting?
CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1y
I agree that people tend to overstate his income due to misunderstanding his relationship with his father. And the story about him keeping emeralds in his pockets is murky at best.
But his wealth compared to the average income of any black person in South Africa in 1971, still makes him vastly better off than any 'colored' child born in the same country, making him institutionally old money by grace of being born white.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 1 pts · 1y
Certainly he was above average. But that's not "born into wealth." $28,000 is the price of a modest new car. There are huge numbers of people who are able to get seed money like that from friends and relatives to start a business, but clearly Elon did something more than those people to grow that to the $400 billion his current net wealth stands at.
The problem is that Musk has become such an intensely politically and culturally polarizing figure that saying even the remotely "positive" thing about him - such as "he's actually a pretty good self-made businessman" - gets interpreted as "boy howdy do I ever love Trump and misogyny!"
CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1y
When 90% of your countrymen are born into a world where they cannot legally hold the same jobs as you. You are born into extreme privilege.
After reading the book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors by Edward Niedermeyer I came away with the feeling he really wasn't a pretty good self-made businessman.
FaceDeer@fedia.io · 1 pts · 1y
Elon Musk started his companies in America.
If you want to judge Americans by global standards, then basically every single one of them is "born into wealth" because most of the people in the world live below the American poverty line.
Going from a $30,000 seed investment to $400 billion dollars would tend to suggest otherwise.
Call him a terrible person, sure. You can't buy a good personality. But as a businessman the numbers seem pretty clear.
CurlyWurlies4All@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1y
I hear you but I think you're missing my point. His wealth and privilege started in South Africa. He could not have achieved what he did without the opportunity to migrate from South Africa to Canada and then to America.
As for his business prowess here's just a few key points from the book:
Musk is cuckoo taking advantage of other people's talent to elevate himself.
Musk’s funding was critical to x.com's early development, but many of the key decisions that made its merge with PayPal successful were credited to Levchin, Thiel, and others.
Tesla was co-founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning. Musk did not like his position being confined to financier so conspired to have the original founders removed and himself listed as founder instead.
Tesla has consistently faces financial instability, often operating on the brink of bankruptcy.
Both Tesla and SpaceX were rescued by massive government contracts from Federal Governmentd desperate to pull itself out of the global financial crisis or a failing oil economy. Not by Musk's talent as a business manager.
A hamster wheel of investor hype to raise capital driven by false promises is the only thing keeping Tesla afloat. Even their government loans are based on the same high hopes and false promises.
Musk’s infamous “funding secured” tweet is proof of his success being driven by lies. He was willing to break the law of it meant he could outrun the consequences of his poor management