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I simply had a protracted chat with a very good buddy who was principally an OG in Tesla world. We talked about every kind of Tesla subjects attempting to grasp the place Tesla could be stepping into 2025 and past. We coated a wide range of subjects, execs and cons, alternatives and dangers. It was an attention-grabbing dialog. One factor that got here up was “betting on the jockey” versus “betting on the horse.” Certainly, lots of people imagine in Tesla virtually fully as a result of they imagine in Elon Musk, partly due to earlier successes and partly due to how issues have gone at Tesla. By the way, I used to be additionally on the verge of scripting this story, due to how odd — and attention-grabbing — Elon Musk has been these days. So, let’s get into just a little have a look at the jockey.
I’m going to deliver it round to Tesla issues in a short time, however now we have to begin with different issues. To get rolling, we’ve acquired the online game story, which really goes from bizarre to weirder.
An Extraordinarily Odd Video Sport Saga
It was revealed a number of weeks in the past that Elon Musk was a top-level participant globally of the online game Path of Exile 2 (PoE 2), a free-to-play motion role-playing sport (RPG) that was lately launched. It was stunning and complicated. With all the things else Musk has happening, how does he have time to log tons of of hours enjoying a brand new online game? Or if he’s spending tons of of hours enjoying movies video games, how a lot time is he placing into a number of firms he runs (to not point out political campaigns)?
Within the video, he discusses some oddities in Musk’s livestreaming of himself enjoying the sport, together with clipping snippets of different high players commenting on these oddities. Let’s simply say it up entrance: it’s all bizarre. I don’t need to spend an excessive amount of time on the online game a part of this itself, even thought that’s what the story is about, however listed below are a number of key notes:
Musk would have needed to put in an unlimited variety of hours enjoying this new sport to get to the extent he’s at.
Livestreams of him enjoying the sport present him performing some issues in bizarre and generally tremendous fundamental methods, or probably not understanding generally the values of issues he has or might decide up whereas enjoying.
Nonetheless, he’s adamant that he’s a grasp of the sport, he signifies that he performs it quite a bit, and he’s apparently not been prepared to say he pays different individuals to play it for him with a view to jack up his rating.
It appears obvious that, even when he does play the sport quite a bit, he has been paying others to grasp the sport for him. This is without doubt one of the most baffling issues of the entire story for me. Why is he so involved with mastering the sport that he pays others to do it for him? And even when he has a motive for that, why doesn’t he simply admit he’s accomplished that? Lastly on this story, why is Musk so anticipating individuals to imagine that he spends hours upon hours enjoying video video games? I don’t have many good concepts for the reply this final query, however I’ll suggest some solutions on the finish of the article. I’m marking this down as Q1 and can return to it on the finish.
Oh, wait, earlier than we transfer onto one other story, word that this story did get even bizarre. Musk acquired right into a DM chat with this online game streamer, Asmongold, sooner or later. After Asmongold made the video above, Musk was not glad about how issues had gone, and he tweeted out a screenshot of the chat:
There are a number of attention-grabbing — and, once more, odd — issues so as to add right here:
Musk violated X phrases of service by tweeting this out.
Musk in some way took this to imply Asmongold was beneath the editors in rank … apparently so locked right into a mindset based mostly on conventional media methods that he doesn’t perceive the editors work for Asmongold. Don’t imagine me? Musk stated, “Asmon behaves like a maverick ‘independent’, but in reality has to ask his boss for permission before he can do anything. He is not his own man.” Critically.
Going additional, Musk apparently eliminated his verification badge on X.
To Asmongold, the entire saga reminded him of the habits of “an angry ex-girlfriend.”
For sure, lots of people within the gaming world see Musk as nuts, ignorant, and a particular type of bizarre in spite of everything of this. There are lots of extra movies about it, however I’m doing my greatest to not get sucked in and browse one other one.
Oh, additionally, this apparently isn’t the primary sport that Musk has pretended to grasp regardless of clearly not having mastered it:
There are simply actually odd issues in there.
An Odd & Embarrassing COVID-19 Saga with a Pal
I had really completely forgotten about one of the crucial notorious public claims about COVID-19 from the early days of the pandemic. It was one of many first actually baffling issues I noticed Musk tweet or say. However there’s even way more alongside the identical traces that occurred behind the scenes.
Concerning that first reference, as a refresher, in March of 2020, Musk tweeted, “Based on current trends, probably close to zero new cases in US too by end of April.” As everyone knows, there have been way more new instances on the finish of April than on March 19, and undoubtedly not “close to zero.”
One might say that, properly, nobody actually knew in March what would occur with the virus. Besides that’s not true. It was apparent what was occurring and what was going to occur. It was Spring Break right here in Florida, and it was apparent COVID-19 was spreading quickly and we have been in for a protracted, difficult pandemic. I didn’t perceive on the time how Elon Musk couldn’t perceive that. I didn’t perceive how somebody with a lot wealth didn’t have an knowledgeable staff of advisors ensuring he understood what was happening. I didn’t perceive how he didn’t register the mathematics and the science of this all.
However it wasn’t only one random public tweet.
Apparently, longtime buddy Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, thinker, writer, and podcast host, had a disagreement with him on COVID-19 predictions. Chances are you’ll recall that Musk tweeted “The coronavirus panic is dumb.” On the time, the query was, was his level that panic is dumb? Or was his level that the coronavirus was nothing? Effectively, Harris reached out in personal and stated, “You have an enormous platform, and much of the world looks to you as an authority on all things technical,” and famous that he thought the tweet was irresponsible and risked damaging his status.
“Elon’s response was jarring: ‘Sam, you of all people should not be concerned with this.’ The billionaire linked to a page on the CDC website indicating that COVID was not among the top 100 causes of death in the US,” Futurism studies
“‘This was a patently silly point to make in the first days of a pandemic,’ Harris wrote on his Substack.
“After hours of texting, neither noticed eye to eye. However they did agree on a wager. Musk wager donating $1 million to charity towards a $1,000 bottle of tequila that COVID instances within the US wouldn’t exceed 35,000.
“‘The terms of the bet reflected what was, in his estimation, the near certainty (1000 to 1) that he was right,’ Harris said.”
So, yeah, Musk had no understanding of the coronavirus development, scientifically or medically, and genuinely thought it was going nowhere.
The abstract level from Sam Harris on his Substack was that “his engagement with Twitter/X transformed him.” There’s “something seriously wrong with his moral compass, if not his perception of reality,” and Harris thinks a lot of that stems from being obsessively on-line and primarily getting tricked by the huge misinformation tsunamis that swirl round on social media consistently.
Ultimately, Harris texted Musk “Is (35,000 deaths + 600,000 cases) > 35,000 cases?” a number of weeks later when the CDC reported 35,000 COVID-19 associated deaths and 600,000 instances.
Huge query #2 (Q2) that I’ll come again to: what does this story have in comparable with the gaming story above?
An Axe Assassin Terrorizing Twitter HQ?
Whereas studying a type of tales on Futurism, I noticed a beneficial associated story: “Elon Musk Claims Axe Murderer Targeted His Employees, Cops Say They Have No Idea What He’s Talking About.”
WHAT?!
Nothing ought to shock me at this level, however this one did once more nonetheless.
“Powerful-on-crime crusader Elon Musk claims that there was an axe assassin on the free within the metropolis of San Francisco who tried to kill a number of of his staff, with the authorities doing nothing to catch the assailant. The important thing phrase in all of this being ‘claims.’
“‘About a year ago, a guy tried to kill three X employees with an axe outside the former Twitter HQ in SF. They reported it to the police, but nothing was done,’ Musk tweeted, responding to the account Finish Wokeness (a favourite of his). ‘He later killed someone with that axe.’
“If that is true, town has turn out to be so completely lawless that the cops by no means acquired wind of the grisly homicide. On Monday, native police stated they may discover no data supporting Musk’s story, the San Francisco Chronicle studies — proof that, as soon as once more, Musk could also be merely be fibbing or falling sufferer to preposterous rumors.
“‘Based on the information provided, we cannot find any incident that matches this description in that location in 2023 or 2024,’ Evan Sernoffsky, a San Francisco police spokesperson, told the Chronicle.”
Even additional, Musk has apparently advised this story a number of instances now with totally different particulars — totally different weapons (a machete in at the very least one case), variations on whether or not Twitter staff reported it, variations on how many individuals this assassin reportedly went on to kill.
It’s all simply … bizarre. The cops don’t know what he’s referring to.
What’s going on right here?
Tesla Stuff
Okay, now let’s get to one thing that really issues within the cleantech scene. What does all of this imply in terms of Tesla?
Musk has made quite a few claims relating to Tesla Full Self Driving (FSD) and robotaxis which have confirmed improper over the previous decade. He has additionally made a lot of projections based mostly on basic math and development traces, a few of which have confirmed improper, and a few of that are concerning the future and thus can’t be decided proper or improper but. For instance, the corporate’s gross sales have been alleged to be rising 50% a yr by way of 2030, reaching 20 million gross sales within the yr 2030. That’s now 5 years away and the corporate’s gross sales would wish to extend greater than 10 instances over.
Frankly, if Musk has a behavior of constructing large uninformed selections in different fields and doubling down on them, why ought to we assume he doesn’t additionally do that at Tesla on vital Tesla issues? Why ought to we assume this isn’t what he’s been doing with relating to to Autopilot and Full Self Driving for 10 years? Sure, the expertise has improved, however if you happen to spend billions of {dollars} on bettering it and have 1000’s of individuals engaged on bettering it, you might be positive it’ll enhance. The query is whether or not the bottom assumption and long-term forecast is mostly a good factor to wager on.
Is the jockey as nice as he’s been made out to be? On a facet word, has Musk all the time actually been the jockey, or was JB Straubel the actual jockey within the firm’s essential years?
Returning to the online game story, it appears apparent that Musk is keen to be the jockey publicly even when he’s not the one doing the work. I don’t see some other option to clarify that story. He’s glad to take the credit score and status increase from another person doing a ton of labor (or, properly, gaming), and can even double down on the concept he was the one doing all of it alongside. Concerning Q1, “why is Musk so eager for people to believe that he spends hours upon hours playing video games?,” the one factor I can give you is that he needs individuals within the gaming world to respect him and suppose he’s a fantastic gamer. I can’t discover some other motive for this. And if he’s so determined to assert the credit score of mastering this sport, how determined has he been to assert the credit score for different successes adjoining to him or achieved beneath him that basically aren’t concerning the work he’s accomplished or how good he’s? Once more, was he the super-jockey he introduced Tesla’s large successes, or was that another person — or a number of different individuals — not engaged in essential operations on the firm?
Concerning Q2, what that gaming story has to do with the COVID-19 story, the purpose is that he needs individuals to suppose extremely of him. He needs individuals to suppose he’s proper even when he’s not. He has apparently by no means acknowledged to Harris or others that he acquired this story improper. As an alternative, he has gone into some fairly excessive instructions on COVID-19. He’s been extra targeted on getting individuals to suppose he’s proper than on being proper. From my perspective, that’s a priority. With regards to Tesla management, it worries me. Others disagree, clearly, however every passing week brings one other stunning story that makes it very laborious to belief this jockey.
What do you suppose?
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Author : tech365
Publish date : 2025-01-20 01:06:26
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