Whatever you might think abut his stupid car tunnel, or his baby’s ridiculous name, or even his unwelcome attempts to insert himself into the rescue of a group of Thai soccer players trapped in a cave, you’ve got to give Elon Musk credit for one thing: he’s also a huge jackass on Twitter, perpetually tweeting “politically incorrect” quips like the aging edgelord he apparently thinks he is.
Musk’s highly improbable gender-neutral-friend — the musician Grimes –gets fed up with his Twitter nonsense like the rest of us. The style icon took him to the virtual woodshed some months back for an confusingly unfunny tweet mocking trans folks for having the temerity to want to be addressed with the pronouns that are most appropriate for their gender identity.
And then there was the whole red pill fiasco, in which Musk ended up being told to fuck off by none other than one of the inventors of the now sadly ruined metaphor.
You might wonder why or how Grimes manages to put up with what I imagine must be unending bullshit from that guy. But for whatever reasons they not only remain together; Grimes is willing to defend him on social media.
Last night Grimes posted a video of “sword dancing” on TikTok, but some of the commenters weren’t interested in discussing the artistry. Nope.
“GRIMESSS. HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS AND ACTIVELY SLEEPING WITH THE MAN WHO [IS LITERALLY DESTROYING] THE PLANET AND HUMANITY,” one commenter demanded,.
Grimes replied by singing his praises. Dear sweet Elon isn’t destroying the world; he’s trying to save it. “His whole career is about making travel/house power etc. sustainable and green,” Grimes wrote. “It’s worth a deep dive.”
(Though preferably not in the tiny submarine Musk wanted to use to rescue those soccer players in the cave.)
Another commenter asked a question that you never want to hear asked of someone you love: “Bestie, can you confirm he’s not a men’s rights activist? Some people online have been saying that & I’m concerned.”
“He’s not,” Grimes replied, “Def he’s been very immature at points on Twitter but for ex the president of spaceX is a woman, as is his right hand at Neuralink etc.”
I’ve been thinking about that response and I have to say that “he’s been very immature” is probably the best defense one could possibly give for someone who’s started to sound like an MRA. That at least suggests he’s not some unreconsructed misogynist but rather a dickhead going through a phase. A phase that, like all phases, has a possible ending date.
That is, if he’s capable of changing, If it turns out to be more than a phase and more like a deeply entrenched personality defect the only advice I have for Grimes is to GET OUT and take your swords and your weirdly named baby with you.
H/T — TakedownMRAs
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Kinda funny the post after the last one is about Elon Musk! I had been thinking the last guy had read too much of Musk’s autobio wherein he laments that smart women aren’t having enough babies so the dummies are taking over the world. I didn’t comment it because I couldn’t connect the logic chain which made me think it exactly, but I’m really sure sperm swelling guy was thinking that too.
I keep waiting for Musk to fix this problem in his own sphere by having the most sought-after maternal leave, paternal leave, family time off, childcare facilities, reasonable flexible hours, etc etc at his companies. Instead all I hear is “smart people get worked to death, 90 hours a week minimum! 100 if you want a chance of getting ahead!” Guess what it’s really hard to have when you work 90 hours a week as a professional smart woman? Kids! Guess he really didn’t think it through.
A distinction without a difference?
@Big titty
Well that certainly doesn’t scream eugenic dog whistling.
Hopefully a boatload of Musk fanboys aren’t about to show up here.
I hope he does come out as an MRA so that all the misogynists go sign up to become a serf on Mars and finally, finally go their own way away from us
Weirwood, that is a really really good suggestion.
So “He’s not
the Messiahan MRA, he’s a very naughty boy!” ?Do they tend to do that too? Ugh. I know that’s long been a JP-fans thing (I don’t want to write his name in full in case it summons them, lol).
I don’t think there is anything salveagable in Elon Musk. I don’t quite think he is actively hateful, but nothing lead me to think he can be made to have even a shred of empathy for people he is not acquainted with. Following that and the fact he isn’t good at engineering or planning or anything, what use could there be for him ?
It’s in his family culture, after all. Theses mines didn’t mine themselves, even if the whole family seem convinced they did.
Elon Musk thinks he’s Tony Stark, when in fact he is Justin Hammer.
Isn’t he a little old to have “he’s immature” as an excuse for shitty behaviour?
Elizabeth,
Didn’t you know? Rich white men are always too young to know better until they become too old to know better.
@WWTH : similarly, a ten year african american is a man, worthy of prison and needing several officers with gun loaded to deal with him, but a white 30 year old with a katana and an AR-15 attacking the capitol is a child who didn’t get the consequence of his action.
O/T, but for this earlier comment of mine:
I blame only myself: https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/2021/04/06/quillette-delivers-a-wet-sloppy-kiss-on-the-butt-to-jordan-petersons-new-book-beyond-order-12-more-rules-for-life/comment-page-2/#comment-3661872
I apologize! ?
It really sucks that while SpaceX is making huge contributions to getting us off this rock but the man behind it is a ass .
@Fabe
Not really. They still haven’t put together anything with the lift capacity of a Saturn V, nor does Musk appear to understand the concept of infrastructure, both orbital and ground (and on both ends) that would be absolutely essential in shipping any significant number of tinned apes to other planets.
If we’re doing rockets, here’s my favourite.
Cuz “really immature” is the #1 quality you should look for in a co-parent?
@Dalillama: eh, SpaceX seems good enough to replace Soyuz, and that’s all we need at the moment.
SpaceX have also won the bid for the next Moon mission. You’d think Blue Origin might have got it, what with them including the only companies that have successfully built a lunar lander. But SpaceX offered better credit terms.
@GSS ex-noob
Need for what? To keep sending people to the ISS, sure, but that’s a strictly small-scale, limited duration thing. It’s never going to get anyone to, say, Mars.
@DL: Like I said, “at the moment”. I agree it’s not enough for Mars.
Or even the Moon, like Alan said. We got men to the Moon and back with computers that weren’t as powerful as an old Apple II, and materials science of the 1960’s*. You’d think a genius could figure out something at least that good, yet he hasn’t.
*And the ground crew and engineers were all smoking Marlboros and drinking Scotch and everything, which didn’t help their efficiency. While wearing ties every day!
@ GSS Ex Noob
I’m a bit of an Apollo geek. The original proposal documents are amazing. And, to get back to your point, they’re full of quotes like:
“...to be made of a material (that will need to be invented)…“
Not everyone wore a tie of course; although judging by the number of ashtrays they did all smoke.
@Alan Robertshaw: John Glenn? I could have sworn that it was Steve Buscemi.
As for the all that smoking, wouldn’t the fine particulates have played merry hob with all of those electronics banks? On the other hand, those were built by the same people who built other electronics capable of putting up with lunar regolith. Which gets everywhere and into everything. And likes to carry around static charges.
Maybe they used cigarette smoke as part of their testing regime. Anything that couldn’t survive that was written off and would not be going anywhere near the moon.
It’s really hard for me to keep my mouth shut on the SpaceX thing but in the interests of ever being hired in my domain if I get background checked really thoroughly, I’ll only say I, uh, have some doubts about the caliber of software research people hired at SpaceX. Extreme doubts of the “faked results” type. Wonder how it’s going to impact the embedded systems on mission-critical type software. Not encouraged for them, really.