I understand why he is unpopular with many people and to be frank I have quite the distaste for all billionaires, but he is not stupid which is something that is often claimed.
No-one becomes a multi-billionaire due to a lack of intelligence or common sense.
Musk knows exactly what he is doing, he didn’t buy Twitter to make a quick buck, he bought it derail it and he’s done that quite thoroughly. $35bn to Musk is pocket change.
I mean I get it, if I was a big Twitter user and a new CEO made it something that I now hated, I’d think the bloke was an idiot, but that is actually just a difference of opinion and has nothing to do with intelligence.
In short, whilst Musk is clearly very unpopular with some people and I can understand why, the man clearly is not an idiot. Some people really don’t like it when you tell them that.
Edit: 14 downvotes in 30 minutes lol, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting this but judging by the replies so far, I think it just proves that it’s an unpopular opinion!
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He has no technical aptitude, he just had the right money at the right time, born in the right place.
I’m not claiming he’s a genius. Just saying he’s not stupid.
The image you shared doesn’t actually prove anything, it’s a difference of opinion unless you can source what he actually said. And at the end of the day, you don’t need to be a bean expert to run a successful baked bean company, you just need to know how to hire bean experts.
He said “please print out the last 50 pages of code you’ve in the last 30 days” to his engineers.
Any idiot with a bag of money can get those bean experts and just let them do their thing.
If you’re referring to Twitter, I’ve already stated that I think he intentionally wanted to derail it.
He’s stupid for what he’s trying to be.
Once again this is an opinion and you’re fully entitled to that. But I think what you really mean is “I think he’s stupid for what he’s trying to be”.
Everyone except you thinks he’s stupid for what he’s trying to be.
I think a lot of people hate Musk (understandably) so they call him stupid to make themselves feel better with disregard to the meaning of the word.
I think you’re also missing the caveat of different levels or types of stupidity. Musk bares the resemblance of the “Emperor with No Clothes” type. Even if he’s aware, he’s still parading around like he’s the greatest while everyone thinks he’s a fool for his actions. It’s definitely a certain level of stupidity to pull that off without self reflection.
Money ≠ Intelligence and your entire argument seems to be based on this erroneous assumption.
No-one becomes a multi-billionaire due to a lack of intelligence or common sense.
Not “due to”, but people all thoroughout history have amassed great wealth despite a lack of intelligence. Especially when they are born into privilege.
I’m getting tired of the comments that imply not stupid = smart.
I understand that intelligence is on a scale and that is not a black and white issue. I also understand that wealth ≠ intelligence, however in this case I do believe that he has at least average intelligence.
This is the last “Elon Musk is not a genius” type comment that I’m replying too, I’ve said all I have to say on the matter.
At no point did I say “smart”, “genius”, or “stupid”. I said “intelligence”, which was your choice of wording, in my rebuttal.
I also made no claim regarding Musk directly. I just pointed out the flaw in your argument that there is a correlation between a person’s wealth and their intelligence.
I read that whole post in Elon’s voice. And also this…
People don’t call Musk an idiot because he’s a blithering imbecile who is incapable of anything. We call him an idiot because he’s not particularly smart like others make him out to be. He’s an idiot like the average guy.
He’s made some good choices and some bad choices. Not especially dumb, not especially smart.
Not a genius.
So… people call him an idiot in an attempt to offset the genius talk.
Instead of buying Twitter, he could have started his own network. Would have been much cheaper, even if he would have done crazy marketing around it. And he wouldn’t have to deal with all the legacy code and social media legislations.
I agree that he was smart. But people change, especially when they get stupid rich. He lost his marbles.
I see what you’re saying and I’ll offer an alternative. Elon is a businessman. He is not a genius, he is not technical, he is not an engineer. Him being interested in those subjects does not an expert make. At his core though, he is a businessman, and runs businesses. At the beginning of his career we can agree that with Paypal and Tesla he did well in making those businesses successful.
I do think he has an ulterior motive with Twitter. It just flopped too quickly to be coincidence. Any decent merger/takeover has a strategy, and usually the first several months of that strategy is “Keep things running normally, watch what happens, and then start making adjustments”. He came in and turned everything upside down, cutting departments left and right without any cares. Even he knows that torpedoes a company. Even if you do think the departments are redundant, cutting them randomly only sews chaos. I think that chaos was intentional.
I agree. Most of the replies here imply that I must think he’s a genius, as if people can only either be stupid or a genius.
I do not think he’s a genius, I do think that he knows what he’s doing.
Eh, you can’t rely on votes made, unfortunately. Too many people use it to disagree for it to be a sign of an opinion being deemed not unpopular, or vice versa.
Fwiw, I agree that this is currently unpopular, though I disagree with it and my vote was up.
My disagreement is in the colloquial usage of idiot vs a stricter usage. Old school, idiot was a term to indicate functional intelligence, or rather the lack thereof. Now, it has come to mean someone either making poor choices via bad thinking, or someone that’s ignoring any thought at all
Musk -definitely- fits the looser usage. Not specifically because of twitter, it is reflected in all his business decisions of the last decade. Twitter, he isn’t making decisions, he’s following someone else’s plan, and that’s the decision he made.
I don’t think his actual iq is relevant tbh. You can be a genius (and he isn’t) and still fail to use that. He makes poor use of what brains he does have, which makes him an idiot overall.
I agree that it could just be a poor choice of words and it could just be an insult, if you think he’s evil, a cunt or whatever else say that instead though.
If he’s not stupid what do you propose he is?
I’d suggest that he’s at least average intelligence.
I think people are struggling to accept that I can dislike someone, or disagree with their choices without thinking they’re stupid.
I watched a clip from an interview Jordan Peterson gave Musk. I’m no fan of Peterson, but it was clear from even a short watch that Musk was just not on Peterson’s level.
And I’m not sure Twitter is a failure. It’s well known that Musk can’t make a dollar without a protective and generous government. And we don’t know how much Chinese and Russian intelligence are paying for twitter.
I’ve already said elsewhere in the thread that I’m not claiming that he’s some sort of 200 level IQ genius. I’m saying he’s not stupid.
