None of them are geniuses, it’s just really hard to lose at capitalism when you have capital.
Bait or r*ta*d*ti*n. Call it.
Submitted 20 hours ago by nzmaa@lemy.lol to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://lemy.lol/pictrs/image/9326a4e5-ad6f-4a4b-8e44-291706a0b9f2.webp
Comments
solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Its a human blind spot. A lot of people confuse wealth for intelligence. In lower socio-economic levels, succeeding involves a lot of intelligence. Its a fucking struggle. Lots of fish trying to eat each other and take what little resources we have. Those values are used to evaluate the people at the top which are swimming in a whole different pond.
pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 hours ago
honestly wealth at any level requires luck… intelligence barely factors into it
Glide@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
A lot of people confuse wealth for intelligence.
Smart people who make good products that people want will have the invisible hand distribute them wealth. Dumb people who make bad products that no one wants will go backrupt. This is the core philosophy behind why capitalism “works.” It is a system that conflates wealth with virtue, by design.
You’re right to point out that it is incorrect logic, but no one is confusing anything. The entirety of our Western world is build around this idea and reinforces it to its people at every single opportunity. They’re making the judgements that they have been told are correct. Can we really say people are confused when they’re confidently acting exactly as they’ve been taught from birth?
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
But Musk wants to be a trailblazer and prove that you can lose at anything.
LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Look I don’t like Musk either but even starting off wealthy becoming the richest man in the world takes some doing. He was way ahead of the curve on reusable rockets and EVs and succeed there where a bunch of people failed. I think where he fails is when it comes to protecting his image and maintaining relationships. He’s a thin-skinned narcissist who thinks he’s humanity’s savoir and eventually that got to him.
SchwertImStein@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 hours ago
I like the way you put it
fadhl3y@feddit.uk 3 hours ago
Next stop: Build an underwater city.
hakunawazo@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
hypeerror@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
I’ll donate my Playstation controllers for his scouting sub.
SPRUNT@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Would you kindly…?
Melvin_Ferd@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
5d chess or not, hear me out.
He may be autistic enough to burn it all down from the inside.
Taleya@aussie.zone 1 hour ago
It’s not fucking autism it’s the fact he’s a perpetually kholed dickhead
mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 1 hour ago
k-hole’d
For any confused readers.
AllHailTheSheep@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
why are we still using autistic as an insult in 2025?
he may be moronic enough to burn it all down from the inside, but autism doesn’t have shit to do with it. I’m tired of people trying to use autism as an get out of jail free card for utter stupidity. autism has very little to do with intelligence levels, and even if it does, it’s the other way around according to most studies.
nednobbins@lemm.ee 3 hours ago
Have you looked up the history of the word “moron”?
ceenote@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Nobody has done more to disprove the “Rich people are smarter than everyone else” idea.
9point6@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Remember a decade ago when he was being lauded as our time’s Einstein?
… Hahahahahahaha
alekwithak@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Yeah by his own PR team, mostly, but it was a pretty easy fascade to see through when you actually listened to the man speak. Still don’t forgive Dan Harmon for letting him shit on R&M with the eLoN tUsK bullshit. Or Star Trek Discovery for that matter, which happened much later after he had already shown his true face to the world. I know Harmon got paid because he’s talked about it, but I would really like to know how much he spent on getting a passing reference in the least popular ST show of all time.
QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
And I am proud to have called bullshit on it from day one.
Whoever leads us to the promised land isn’t going to have a for profit LLC
Takios@discuss.tchncs.de 18 hours ago
I still cringe at him being mentioned in Star Trek Discovery…
stebo02@sopuli.xyz 10 hours ago
I’ve heard Tony Stark but not Einstein. I’d be insulted for Einstein.
GeeDubHayduke@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 hours ago
Literally had someone saying that earlier today. Something along the lines of “you don’t become the richest person in the world without some competency.” Just ignore the fact he started on third base…
QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Not even. He started on home, he just claimed he ran there and for some reason people believed him even though he still had a bat in his hand.
Elon has had “Penisdick” written all over him since day one
jacksilver@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
I mean, yeah he had a lot of advantage, but he did have to do something right to become the richest man. But making some good gambles doesn’t make you a good person nor does it mean you’re great at everything.
Maybe he was good at finding companies at the right time to invest, but that means jack about any economic or political acumen. Same reason why we don’t want businessmen in politics, being good at one thing does not mean you’re good at everything.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 16 hours ago
I don’t know exactly how much his parents were worth, but his net worth has increased by many thousands of times. That’s not “third base”, saying he got where he is by luck and nepotism is just wilfully ignorant.
Trump, on the other hand, would have done better if he just left his money in a savings account.
Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 19 hours ago
I genuinely think he’s had some sort of cognitive decline.
He went from being merely wealthy to the richest man in the world, and nearly everyone thinking he’s a genius, to being hated by nearly everyone and losing money fast.
naeap@sopuli.xyz 19 hours ago
Think is, he never was a genius - actually quite far off from it
He is just a spoiled boy having luck with gambling the money he got
HackerJoe@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Looks more like too much Ketamine to me.
kautau@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Generally the truly smartest people (the ones who actually figure out spaceflight, electric vehicles, satellite internet) aren’t the wealthiest. Sure many of them end up pretty wealthy due to stock options, high salaries, companies competing for them and the like. But often at the end of the day they just retire into their wealth and spend their days traveling or living in their huge houses or whatever.
But the CEOs, the politicians, the investors, the self-labelled “Founders,” those approaching or in the 1%; For those it’s not about making something, doing their jobs, changing the world, etc. It’s about winning. They need to feel better than others. And for most of them that feeling never goes away. They rarely retire, and often even when they do they still pull strings from the background (see Bill Gates). Some psychopathic part of their brain makes it so their most important and purest drive is to constantly get to that next target, that next exponential stock valuation, that next acquisition, that next news broadcast they can jerk off to about how they beat someone else in a campaign or about how line go up or whatever.
So when these people are in the middle of their career, their relatively unnoticeable by most. They’re “founding” companies by employing those smarter than them with money they have. They’re selling said companies, moving on. They’re making shady deals, laundering money, because they are smart enough to beat the system and the system is against them because they’re so smart.
But for those that amass enough wealth like Elon, the drive never goes away. But what do you do after you’re the richest person in the world? Well, try to become the most powerful person in the world. But you can’t just run for office, the ketamine has told you that it’s faster to latch onto the recent rapid rise in fascism so you join up with Trump. Who gives a shit what kind of person he is, especially because eventually you’ll beat him. He’s a stepping stone for now, a boost pad to get you speaking with those who can get you real power, and more money because it’s never enough.
But thinking that everything in the world works like a startup, and if you just hire more college grads, crack the whip, take stimulants to stay up to ship the product in a completely inconceivable world (government and social policy) to what you’re used to (technology and product development), it all falls apart. And then when you’ve always had success with the investors siding with you because “line go up,” you suddenly don’t have success because “line don’t go up” in the white house and Trump is getting pressure to find something to cover up giving 2 trillion dollars to the rich and there’s no quick fix.
So you do more ketamine, lash out. You always knew trump was a pedo, a garbage human, but it didn’t matter because he was a stepping stone, so now, probably earlier than you’d like, you pull out your cards of putting him down in the hopes that you can get that power that you need because the money doesn’t matter now, feeling that you beat him is what’s most important.
stebo02@sopuli.xyz 10 hours ago
yeah that much power and money certainly does something to your brain, the guy can’t think straight anymore
k0e3@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
Seriously? I thought Edison at best, but Einstein? What did this shithead discover, exactly?
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 19 hours ago
So he’s a hero after all?
stebo02@sopuli.xyz 10 hours ago
the one we didn’t need but deserve
Underwaterbob@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
The thing is, this turd burgler could lose millions a day for the rest of his life and still retire more well-off than just about anybody. When’s the last time a truly filthy rich person ended up in the gutter?
snd@discuss.tchncs.de 4 hours ago
pupbiru@aussie.zone 3 hours ago
filthy rich person ended up in the gutter?
there’s not much that i like about the american healthcare system but the idea of fElon eventually ending up bankrupt because of that fucking black eye really had me thinking “maybe there’s something to this”
krashmo@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
He collected data on all Americans from multiple government agencies, successfully killed multiple investigations into several of his companies, and secured additional government contracts for those companies. Is that what we’re calling nothing these days?
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 16 hours ago
And Trump is now threatening to cancel those government contracts. So he’s blown everything he’s gained (and then some) from his little fling with Trump.
pi3r8@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
That’s what trump does. He threatens. Then in the majority of times he gets distracted or backs down. Those contracts aren’t cancelled until they are cancelled.
Zabjam@lemm.ee 8 hours ago
TACO
krashmo@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Even if we assume those contracts get canceled, unless they force him to destroy that data (which probably isn’t possible at this point) and reopen all those investigations then that’s not really true, is it?
katze@lemmy.cafe 10 hours ago
He collected data on all Americans from multiple government agencies, successfully killed multiple investigations into several of his companies, and secured additional government contracts for those companies. Is that what we’re calling nothing these days?
But he also inflicted a lot of long-term damage upon himself and his businesses. So the question in the post still stands.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
How will he benefit from the data he collected? He’s not in advertising and even if he were a snapshot isn’t worth much - you’d need an ongoing stream. Location data from teslas would be more valuable than the data could’ve stolen with doge.
rumba@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
Hard crash on the businesses, he sells whatever he has that’s worth good money (other, not his, companies stock) and buys a bunch of the destroyed stock. Promises to cede control, but continue funding. Tesla rebrands, becomes affordable and consumer friendly.
I mean, there’s no way he would let all that happen. But he’s still sitting on an absolutely massive pile of money. If he had the balls to pull the rip cord he could sit right where he is for the rest of his life. He just doesn’t have it in him.
EchoSnail@lemmy.zip 1 hour ago
If I had fuck you money I’d buy Mount Everest, use my boring company to build a fucking subway railcar tunnel escalator thing. And then build an evil lair on top of my Everest. Fill a note with lava or some shit, and then never see people again.
Id hollow out the mountain enough for artificial farms and then pay the local community filthy amounts of money to produce my food for me.
Oh. And also, 20 million to whoever can make proton work 100% on ARM64 or create a compatibility layer for x86/64 for ARM.
RadioFreeArabia@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
He is secretly a shareholder in BYD and shorting Tesla. Nothing else makes sense.
Etterra@discuss.online 10 hours ago
I had to look it up. Pajeet is a racial slur in SE Asia, apparently.
tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
Leave it to 4chan to import all the slurs from around the world
Wolf@lemmy.today 10 hours ago
Perhaps even less surprising, this particular racial slur apparently came from 4chan.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 4 hours ago
Is it actually a slur, or just a stereotypical sounding name? Because if its the second isn’t it just like Barry eating his 3rd pie and chips of the afternoon with a pint of wife beater?
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 hours ago
You mean S Asia? India isn’t exactly east…
GratefullyGodless@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Musk learned the hard way why other billionaires don’t get directly involved in politics, and buy politicians instead. That way they get what they want, but let the politicians take the heat for pushing through the billionaires agendas.
The problem for Musk is that his ego wouldn’t allow him to sit quietly on the sidelines calling the shots. He had to prove how smart he was, and how he was the only one who could fix the government. Now, he’s pissed off almost everyone, has lost various large foreign contracts for his companies, drove sales of Tesla into the ground, and is watching Trump undo the “brilliant” governmental cost cutting that he did.
And, his ego still won’t let it go, as now he’s suggested he’ll start his own political party. You just know the other billionaires are looking at him and going “What a dumbass!”
Taalnazi@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
And still some dumb Americans will think:
“Billionnaires got a lot of wealth, so they must know what they’re doing. Let them fix it.”
When the actual answer is:
“Billionnaires never once worked as much as we did. They got born with a fuckton of money. Let them eat cake.”
Stern@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Ket is magic
MrsDoyle@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
That was my thought. I’ve never tried ketamine, but watching this clown dance through crises that would destroy a normal person makes me tempted to experiment.
plyth@feddit.org 5 hours ago
Are people that stupid to overvalue Tesla that much for years or is somebody stabilizing the market rate?
ansiz@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
It’s because so many institutional investors own Tesla stock. Most of the big hedge funds and that kind of thing. At least that’s what I’ve heard, but it makes sense to me.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Even if he loses hundreds of billions of dollars he’s still richer than like 99% of individual people worldwide will ever be.
echodot@feddit.uk 12 hours ago
He won’t though because although what he did is immoral it wasn’t illegal. After all the president of the United States authorised these actions they must be legal.
Financially he’s going to suffer but there’s nothing in law that can be done to him.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
We’ve both seen how quickly the legislative landscape can change, let’s not write this loss off just yet.
Railcar8095@lemm.ee 6 hours ago
He’s not stupid, only suffers from drug induced dementia
pyre@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
but also he’s stupid
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I always assumed he was a moderately intelligent tech CEO until I saw a clip a few years ago where he was showing off the evolution of Starlink rockets and he referred to the piping and whatnot on the outside of the rockets as “the fiddly bits”.
Unrelated, but he was also wearing a t-shirt that highlighted his noodle arms and his man boobs. You would think that somebody vain enough to get hair implants and plastic surgery would have enough sense to at least dress in a flattering manner.
HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
He used to be stupid. He still is, but he used to be, too.
Deflated0ne@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
“He was also stupid” - Ron Howard.
Nomad@infosec.pub 12 hours ago
Somehow nobody has mentioned the drugs? And obvious signs of mental illness? Obviously high functioning, but that does not make the decisions less nuts.
Has anybody seen the Johnny Harris video on musk? It was all fun and games until the drugs came out to play.
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
Peter Thiel also does a shit ton of drugs and you don’t see him spiralling this hard
Lemminary@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
It’s 5D Narcissism :D
Tilgare@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Yes, this. It may be drugs, it may be mental disorder, but what it CERTAINLY is is narcissism and megalomania.
Just like every Trump voter who never thought it would happen to THEM when tornado relief was denied or they were deported or their farm was on the brink of financial collapse thanks to tariffs, Musk seems to have thought he was safe? That HE could control Trump? I knew getting these two megalomaniacs together like this would go badly, I’m just impressed it lasted so long honestly.
LaserTurboShark69@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
Do I even want to know what a pajeet is?
CubitOom@infosec.pub 20 hours ago
You probably don’t.
I looked it up after not hearing the term before.
Tap for spoiler
It’s a slur for South Asians. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pajeet
BeNotAfraid@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
It’s actually a name. Pajeet is a genuine Hindu name. It’s a pejorative, in the same way “Paddy” is both an Irish name and used as a slur for Irish people.
LaserTurboShark69@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
Sadly I assumed correctly
ikidd@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
So is the implication that all Indians think Mush is a hero?
5714@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
Anti-South Asian/antisemitic ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory term
Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 10 hours ago
Antisemitic…? It’s just a general racist term towards Indians
Kbobabob@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
i don’t understand these figures
Lost $300,000,000 with Trump Losing billions more by the day
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Fuck you. Pajeet is a slur. You’re just as bad a racist as Elon.
segabased@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
*conservatives can’t afford his cars
Had to correct it
wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 19 hours ago
Just say “retard” if you’re gonna say it. Lazily censoring it seems worse, because implications.
DarkFuture@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
Generational wealth leads to people who are both extremely rich and extremely stupid.
And Elon Musk is the best example of that in the history of mankind.
Emergency3030@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Centrist democrats are already warming to him. Then again, they have been waiting for this moment ever since he performed his nazi salute.
wanderwisley@lemm.ee 15 hours ago
Off to Russia?
Disaster@sh.itjust.works 18 hours ago
Well… there is that bit where his companies now have all of the data they were able to loot from the Federal departments he ruined.
Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de 17 hours ago
Has absolutely nothing to show for it
But is still the richest person in the world
endeavor@sopuli.xyz 10 hours ago
5d chess. In the same way as putin plays it.
LMurch@thelemmy.club 19 hours ago
It’s hilarious that 4D chess is now for dummies and we’re on to 5D chess.
Iambus@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
He already has fuck you money so he doesn’t give any fucks.