I mean this honestly is true. When Elon was only being 80% Elon I used to think he was a smart, cool, rich dude. Now I see him as an free stupid absolutist.
The veneer cracked the day he got into it with the Thailand diver. He just assumed that since he was the smartest richest man in the world that he would naturally be tapped to solve the problem and save those kids. But he found out that no, there are actual professionals with actual experience that were needed for that job and it wasn’t a point where there was time to jerk him off and let him off easy. He had to be told to get fucked from the outset because he would just complicate things and his plan was stupid as shit. Turns out you can’t just money your way out of every problem.
Once he started calling the diver a pedo and losing it everyone sat up and took notice that something wasn’t right. But I’d say it hasn’t been until all the twitter shit that everyone else caught on fully.
There was also that fun bit where he promised to deliver 2000 ventilators during the height of the pandemic. You could almost hear the sigh of relief from the healthcare workers. He sent 1000 CPAP machines instead.
I still consider Falcon 9 to be a good thing that he made possible by funding its development and manufacturing. It's given small companies and scientific organizations affordable access to space, and created actual competition in the small satellite launch business. It certainly inspired other companies, like Rocket Lab and Astra, to develop low-cost orbital launch and sounding rockets.
But then, all of his other anti-society things combined with him having turned into a borderline fascist moron... the scale just doesn't level out.
But that's the thing and it's the reason why the praise for him always went way too far- he funded the Falcon 9. He didn't help design it. He's an investor, not an inventor. I wish people understood that even if they admired him.
You highlight a very important distinction my friend. Any rich asshole can fund something. It doesn't make you smart, it just makes you loaded with capital.