Tbh his starting money wasn’t huge. He took a couple of millions and through sheer power of ego and narcissism turned them into hundreds of billions. Takes some talent to pull it off. He’s hugely harmful to the rest of society but really good at what he does, at least before Twitter.
I disagree - the thing that got him his initial fortune was PayPal, and frankly that was mostly luck and good timing.
Everything we’ve heard from actual employees at the places hes owned paints a very clear picture that they succeed in spite of him, not because of him.
The two things he’s good at are
Identifying potentially successful companies early on, so he can get in early and pretend he invented it - which is admitedly a valuable talent, but only in a zero-value capitalist sort of way
Marketing himself - though it’s increasingly clear that this talent was short lived, and most have seen behind the curtain at this point. The people who like him today mostly just like him because he’s saying the shit they want to hear, even the conservatives I know no longer think he’s some tech genius
Everything else has just been luck and timing. If I go out and buy a lottery ticket tomorrow and will a billion dollars, I’m not good at buying lottery tickets
His primary genius has been in marketing himself, for a little while long ago I actually thought he might be one of the fabled ‘good billionaires’. But I think it’s hard to live as a fake self for years, he’s probably much more self-satisfied and validated now, showing his true self as a massive asshole.
It’s kinda funny to me when people paint others as people who have always hated Musk and wanted him to fail. Nah, I used to think he was cool. Then he called a dude a pedophile for checks notes trying to save some children and the mask was shattered. He’s not done a single thing since to redeem his image since then.
All you need to succeed in life is a great ego and some sticktoitness.
(Some of that apartheid emerald money doesn’t hurt either.)
Tbh his starting money wasn’t huge. He took a couple of millions and through sheer power of ego and narcissism turned them into hundreds of billions. Takes some talent to pull it off. He’s hugely harmful to the rest of society but really good at what he does, at least before Twitter.
I disagree - the thing that got him his initial fortune was PayPal, and frankly that was mostly luck and good timing.
Everything we’ve heard from actual employees at the places hes owned paints a very clear picture that they succeed in spite of him, not because of him.
The two things he’s good at are
Identifying potentially successful companies early on, so he can get in early and pretend he invented it - which is admitedly a valuable talent, but only in a zero-value capitalist sort of way
Marketing himself - though it’s increasingly clear that this talent was short lived, and most have seen behind the curtain at this point. The people who like him today mostly just like him because he’s saying the shit they want to hear, even the conservatives I know no longer think he’s some tech genius
Everything else has just been luck and timing. If I go out and buy a lottery ticket tomorrow and will a billion dollars, I’m not good at buying lottery tickets
His primary genius has been in marketing himself, for a little while long ago I actually thought he might be one of the fabled ‘good billionaires’. But I think it’s hard to live as a fake self for years, he’s probably much more self-satisfied and validated now, showing his true self as a massive asshole.
It’s kinda funny to me when people paint others as people who have always hated Musk and wanted him to fail. Nah, I used to think he was cool. Then he called a dude a pedophile for checks notes trying to save some children and the mask was shattered. He’s not done a single thing since to redeem his image since then.