Live long enough to see yourself become the villain

How I've always seen him

Yeah, always a dumbass.
What was your first impression of him that made you see him like that?
- Buying his way into Paypal and acting like he invented the thing.
- Not the person you replied to, but someone else that has always seen him as a dumbass.
  I first became aware of him from a cameo in an Iron Man movie, which was aroun the time all of his ridiculously over the top and unrealistic goals was gaining media traction. His backstory was claiming the work of others, like his brief stint with PayPal. He was an obvious hype man, who believed his own hype. His fucking boast of putting humans on Mars in a short time frame was obviously overconfident bullshitting. Didn't he end up putting a car in orbit, or some dumb shit instead?
  This was all proven accurate with the hyperloop as originally reported having massive obvious issues beyond the science, such as needing land rights. Then as it transitioned into a shitty car tunnel it was more entertaining as it went on. He acted like he founded Tesla and took credit for shit he didn't do while making sure to insert fart horns and other childish crap like trying to spell out sexy with the model numbers, but failing to get the 'E' so went with 3. Plus he insisted on keeping the auto driving camera only, like a dumbass.
  He will always do some grand thing next year even though he has made the same promise for a decade. He was always a obvious snake oil salesman whose primary success was getting government welfare to prop up his businesses. His humor has always fallen flat. Naming his kids by itself was a huge sign of how much of a dumbass he is.
- The Hyperloop shit, it was never explained to me how a proprietary system that needed sealed tubes under constant reduced preassure could ever be cheaper or safer than normal rail.
  Especially since I remember the last time this dumb concept showed it's face, Swiss Metro was the name then, and it fell on it's arse then just as the Hyperloop did now.
Yep, its been obvious to those who've been paying attention / not fanboy fellating Musk's cock every day... it's been obvious for a solid decade that he is a lying, petty, temperamental, narcissistic con artist.
Now he's just worse.

False, Thanos is far more respectable than the POS that is Muskytat

Yeah, Thanos has principles and his actions are backed by altruism. Musk is a spineless self-serving parasite with actions backed my ketamine.
- We talking movie Thanos, or comic book Thanos?

more like

Accurate in so many ways

Nah, Thanos was moderately competent.

Exactly, not only moderate but extremely. Dude completely succeeds in his goal, entire universe against him. Elon is on twitter whining on X because his boyfriend kicked him outta the house
- Problem was his goal was totally stupid. Kill half of all life and destroy the stones? So it can rebound in a few centuries if not decades?

I guess that tracks because Thanos is stupid as fuck.

Trying to solve the resource problem by killing half of the universe just doesn't help. In a couple of decades, the population would be back to the previous number.

He could just snap his fingers and make those missing resources appear. Whole empty planets for people to live with abundance etc.

It feels like he thought of the problem for like one minute and decided to take the easiest short term solution possible.

Because that was hamfisted in. Originally, he wanted to kill half the universe to impress Lady Death.
- Hm that sounds even dumber to be honest. I guess it's hard to write a plot that kills half the universe without it sounding idiotic
- This movie shit was virtuous vs what the giant walking hard-on was in the comics.
he was doing it to prevent the celestials from emerging from planets killing the population. im guessing he probably thought of that already that alreayd, adding more natural resources would accelerate the emergence. also seems the stones is not powerful enough to affect celestials, or primordial beings(death, GOD, angels,,,etc), otherwise he wouldve just used it to kill them. he is stupid in that having the 6 stones, why dint he conjure about things that can kill celestials.
I thought his threat was going to be that the universe either gets itself under control or he does it again?

Thanos, really? I'd say more like Hancock. Pathetic and most likely forgotten by everyone 20 years later.

nah, I like Hancock way more than Musk
- They were both definitely authored by someone who doesn't respect the audience
Hancock's got a lot of problems but doesn't strike me as a narcissist. He's intimately aware of his character flaws and though he runs from them for awhile he eventually tries to fix himself, "turn a new leaf". Men like musk aren't capable of that sort of reflection, they simply know that they're the shit and it's everyone else who is wrong.
Nah, Hancock took way less drugs
Hancock had superpowers, so no.

He has always been...

They were in the same room in Ironman 2.
- They filmed parts of Ironman 2 in a SpaceX factory. Interestingly the factory served as set for Hammer Industries.
- Twinsies!
Exactly.

Comparing him to Tony Stark and Thanos is giving him too much credit. He's more like

If you get into the actual comic books, you'll find out that Tony Stark is regularly portrayed as a sex pest, a substance abuser, and an outspoken fascist.
But, unlike the real Elon Musk, I don't believe he's ever been written as "full of pee". Incidentally, ketamine abuse does result in bladder ulcers that leak urine into your body until you are quite literally poisoning yourself with your own urine.
Just something to think about.
- how fast is this poisoning process because it's taking some sweet fucking time right now

Sexually harassing his employees hit the headlines in 2016; rumours before that. Inserting himself into the Thai cave rescue and the "pedo guy" slander was 2018. Hyperloop was 2013. No Lidar on Tesla. If you've been paying attention he's been outing himself for a long time.

Hindsight is 20/20. At the time i was willing to forgive a lot to get to Mars.
- That's a shame because people buying into these obvious grifts is a major part of the problem.
- Now you mention it, the Mars thing was - and continues to be - another unscientific pipedream. The examples I gave were all plainly stupid and/or disgusting at the time.

Nah, at least Thanos thought he was doing the right thing. His goals were ultimately noble but psychotic.

Elon doesn't care about doing the right thing, he only cares about money and his ego.

Wasn't there a story about him just wanting to score a date with Death in the comics?

Always saw him as the performative shit slinging monkey that he is.

How id prefer to see him

Musk was already a notoriously lying grifter 10 year ago.

It's only naive fanboys who were too immature be able to set aside the natural human tendency to look up to famous people and/or did not had the life experience to recognize and be suspicious of salesman bollocks (whether decorated with techie terms or otherwise) when they heard it that didn't suspect the guy was something else than what the adoring fans thought.

It's not by chance that Musk's fanboys were mainly young adult and teen techies.

When did his stupid submarine thing happen? I think that was the start of the public meltdown
- The actual public meltdown started there, but before that there was already a history of sales bullshit with unachievable promises with things like the hyperloop and solar tiles, which for those who were paying attention were enough to mentally classify Musk as part of the "Fishy and possible scam artist" category.
  Musk hasn't really changed his swindling strategy much in the last couple of decades, he just started going beyond the script and sharing his actual opinions (which turned out to be "I'm a member of the Fascist elite" crap), possibly because the very cult of personality around him of all the fanboys made him think people loved him for him, rather than for the highly curate tech bro image (back when tech bros were seen as Heroes rather than Villains) he projected.
I was never a fanboy, but 10 years ago I had hope that he and his companies would make the world a better place.
I never looked much into him as a person, but the promise of neat electric cars and humans living on Mars made it seem like the world was on a decent trajectory.
I was obviously naive in hindsight, but on the surface everything seemed to be fine.
- Well, a decade ago I had hope too, but also already felt the guy was fishy (because he already had a history of overpromising and under-delivering and in the areas I was an expert in, I had spotted him outright lying) and so was skeptical about his promises and his companies. Also, having been involved in Tech Startups, my expectation from people in his position and his language were already negative since the Startup World back then was already dominated by scam artists with a salesmanship or Finance backgrund for whom Tech was a vehicle for self-enrichment, not by idealists who loved challenges or the actual Tech.
  Also by that point I had already spent a good period in Investment Finance and could recognize a certain style of bollocks a mile away.
  I wasn't aware of just how much a shit person the guy was, but all my instints told me he was a sociopath who would only ever do anything better for the World if it made him more money than not doing it.
- All of his companies are complete garbage. Cars are a disgusting privilege literally destroying the planet. Colonizing space is a grift that does absolutely nothing for regular people on earth. Paypal jfc... Etc.
  Never had a chance of changing the world for a better place. Didn't even try.

I remember in the very early days not getting the full 'hype' of "MUSK IS SO SMART", but I enjoyed him as a "This is what happens when some ordinary dweeb becomes incredibly wealthy - he wants to throw money at space and technology. That's neat."

His PR guys must've done a good job at keeping the worst of his tendencies behind closed doors - or at least further than most casual observers would look. Around the time of the 'pedo guy' incident it began to unravel for me. Curious that a social media addiction undid all the work of his PR team.

I think he genuinely changed as well though. Sure, some of the stuff people believe was obviously wrong in hindsight, but his unhinged tweets just weren't a thing 10 years ago.
- Here's the Blue MAGA hindsight.
  And this gets deleted by the mods here for 'no politics'.
  As if the post itself isn't.
  Hypocrites
- Yeah, he was always an idiot, but I remember reading a super interesting article about how he accidentally radicalized himself when he changed X's algorithm. He tweaked it to be far right, and radicalized himself because he's one of the most active users on the platform. FAFO.
- The way he removed the original founders of Tesla and have himself the title of founder says otherwise, he was never a nice human being.
I enjoyed him as a “This is what happens when some ~~ordinary dweeb~~ extremely privileged racist becomes incredibly wealthy

ITT: people saying they always knew

What I am upvoting: people talking about how their perception of him changed

We. Always. Knew.
- Kay but that's honestly a pretty awesome getup. It's only cringe in retrospect knowing what we know now. If I saw someone like this on the street I'd think, "slay, dude."
I have a not-quite-physics degree (I could not mentally bring myself to do the proper physics capstone, but I basically have a physics degree.) I have had multiple conversations with astrophysicists, astronauts, and people who know their shit.
It has always been abundantly clear to me that he has been full of shit. I had to play coy a lot because I had some association with NASA, but the man does not know shit about rockets or physics and it’s always been abundantly clear to anyone who does.
I doubt he could do a simple kinematics problem.
- You could have let this be a top-level comment, but you chose to make it directly a response to mine about how I'm interested in hearing about people who didn't always know. Why did you do that.

Ten years ago, I barely knew who he was. Would've liked to have kept it that way.

He never was not a villain.

Maybe. But he was seen as a competent person. I remember when SpaceX started testing the "reusable" rockets that landed themselves. He was a lot more "popular" back then

Never fell for this BS. Fuck elmo and fuck ironman too. No platform for fascism.

I thought it was cool that he was making space ships and EVs. I like space. I like EVs. Guess I was naïve.

Same. I'd have rather space not be privatised, but was glad to see some interest in research again.

Filter didn’t work…

Well fuck. I tried...
- Needs to be in the title I believe.
- I know, and thank you for that! It’s appreciated, truly. Thank you.
- Doesn’t work if it’s in the description. Has to be the title

He has been a scumbag since forever.
From the Thai 'pedophile' incident to wanting to keep his factories open in peak Covid times under Biden.
All was OK when he served blue MAGA.
Hypocrites

The Thai incident was I think the big event for a lot of people who until then though well of him.
All was OK when he served blue MAGA.
what
- go away

Actual Elon.

A picture of his stupid mug in panel 2 would have been better

I pat the people on the back for calling him out all those years ago. I have always been indifferent to him to be honest, until five years ago he tried to interfere in the rescue of Thai school children who got stuck in underwater cave, and calling the rescue divers pedo. Some time after that, I remember telling my ex-colleague of mine who fanboys Elon that it is not necessarily I don't like Elon, but that I don't trust him after the incident. He got offended after I mentioned I distrust Elon, and I was surprised that he hasn't heard of Elon's childish spat with the rescue divers. Fast forward to now, I wonder what my former colleague thinks of Elon now.

I hate to break it to the people 10 years ago, but Musk has always been a horrible person

It's not the only option. What would you do if you could "snap" and all kids had school lunches, or houselessness went away? At least Gates is working on malaria. smh.

Just another ADHD trust-fund baby billionaire on a coke binge.

Thanos was the universe's biggest mass murderer, but at least he had a point (even if his solution was the dumbest thing imaginable}. Musk is just a PoS.

In the comics Thanos was straight up the right man hand/side hoe of the concept of death made manifest the whole point of offing half of all life was just to make mistress death happy (I think she actually ordered it). A lot of the original plot points of the infinity war and its buildup was lost in translation. Movie thanos motivations werent even half baked, he could have doubled resources and made a paradise for life with his motivations
- Interesting, I didn't know that. I don't know how the comics handle these subjects, but I think the most annoying part of basically all the marvel movies is the way they bring up an interesting moral conundrum only to completely abandon the idea once the reason for characters to fight is set up.
  Thanos has a point? Can't have that, he's the bad guy! Let's make him do the most evil thing he possibly could with that power so you never need to think about it again. What's that, Civil War has interesting points on both sides? That's nice honey, anyway, Tony and Cap are going to beat each other up now and we're never going to mention it again.

Watch Iron Man 2 again. Even Tony didn't want to deal with him.

He's not that competent, in either incarnation.

These days he looks more like this:

Fuck Phony Stark

He was always a villian but tech bros wanted to circlejerk

No on is looking at elon like that,and no one ever did

He’d look better like this

Nah, people thought he was Tony Stark but he was really Justin Hammer.

15 years ago I thought he was a dorky rich guy with a well-connected publicist.

10 years ago I thought he was a too-full-of-himself car manufacturer who bought his way into the game who overestimated his own engineering prowess.

5 years ago I thought he was an asshole and wondered why other people seemed to respect him.

Now I think he's a pathetic rich guy who got used and thrown away by Trump, the guy famous for using people and then throwing them away. Fuckin' cuck of a chump who could have his cock in the US's pussy and still wouldn't have the balls to fuck.

No way. Thanos was actually cool.

Thanks would show up to the Zuck fight.
He also didn't take nearly as much ketamine as musk.

Absolutely not.

Musky was an obvious scumbag since ever, just a money-grabbing mentality even if it means doing shitty things.

But it's easy for people with monies to just create a whatever fantasy image they wish.

Nah, he’s Ellis in Die Hard, or Burke in Aliens.

Jack Black in Tropic Thunder.
"It's not drugs! They're jelly beans!"

Was more or less aware of who he was until the cave incident where all his worse tendencies came to light with enough reach to get to me.

Then some research later, I was aware of tech bros and their ilk.

I'm man enough to admit that I thought he was the closest thing we had to Tony Stark even though I knew at the time he wasn't really that close to Tony Stark, and now I know just how wrong I was. Damn.

Round Iron Man 2 coming out and his cameo, I kinda felt that way too. Some 2-4 years later that feeling was entirely gone.

Relax, Thanos and Iron man had real power.

Elon as Thanos? Naw, Thanos was right. Elon? Not so much...

Back then he had a PR team. He probably fired them because he started buying their lies.

Musk as Lex Luthor would be a better fit, and even that might be insulting to Luthor.

At least Luthor is actually intelligent.

He transformed a car into space garbage for publicity in 2015.

Yeah I remember watching that and thinking "what kind of absolute dummy thinks this is cool?"

How times have changed

He fired the public image prople because he thougth he can do it better.

I always saw Musk as a dumbass who didn't know what he was doing.

BLUE MAGA MODS DELETE THIS FOR RULE 2!!!

LOL

Thanos is not much of a tweaker though.

Neither is musk. Ketamine is a depressant, not a stimulant.

He never looked like that.

funny thing is elons profile on twitter early in 2023 was tony starks armor, and people were calling him phoney stark

But Thanks did nothing wrong, he was the good guy in that story. Misunderstood, but he had the right idea.

let's get real, he's always been Tony.

Tony ain't no saint. he's done his fair share of fucked up shit.

however, Tony ain't a Nazi and that's where the line is drawn.

Back then, I actually said he was one of the most dangerous people alive due to the work his company was doing on computer chips in pig brains.

Turns out I was right. The man's a real-life Gendo Ikari.

If you saw him as a hero at any point, you're not brighter than a MAGAt

Yeah some of these comments are only more confirmation.
A lot of people only knew him as the EV and space guy until the last few years. In that light he seemed alright.
- He seemed alright... if you believe in grifter shit like EVs and Mars.
  That's the grift.