It's inefficient, but one way to support the Thai rescue effort is to defame its members and then, after extensive litigation, pay them a judgment.
— Max Kennerly (@MaxKennerly) July 15, 2018
Elon Musk should use his mini sub to launch a mission to rescue his head from deep within his own ass. https://t.co/bgLZfI7hLU
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) July 15, 2018
In our new high-speed globally-connected universe, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is no longer just for the low-IQ and ill-educated. Elon Musk apparently believes himself to be an expert at EVERYTHING, if only because his millions of busy twitter fanbois couldn’t possibly be wrong!
Per the Washington Post, because it has the most comprehensive background I’ve seen:
It has been five days since a dozen boys were rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand, and five days since Elon Musk has been wandering in a Twitter labyrinth of his own making.
The Silicon Valley engineer and billionaire was briefly seen in Thailand last week, hauling a miniature submarine to the mouth of the cave just before an international dive team rescued the boys without it.
Since then, he has been arguing with people who accuse him of shoehorning himself into the drama and imagining hypotheticals in which rescuers had not deemed his hastily built submarine unnecessary and impractical.
This has, inevitably, led Musk into a rhetorical war with people who actually participated in the rescue operation — a war that he drastically escalated on Sunday morning, when he called one of the cave explorers a “pedo.”…
It really had nothing to do with Musk — until one of his Twitter fans suggested, a week and a half into the operation, that he build an invention to help get the boys out.
As Abby Ohlheiser has already chronicled for The Washington Post, Musk accepted the challenge with “a lengthy, live brainstorming process on Twitter,” which ended when he traveled to Thailand with a miniature submarine made from rocket parts, tweeted some photos of the cave, left the device there and went home…
Then, three days after the rescue operation was completed, CNN posted an interview with a British spelunker who had helped locate the boys. That spelunker, Vernon Unsworth, called Musk’s submarine “a PR stunt.”…
In a series of tweets that Musk appears to have deleted while this article was being written, he claimed that he had been repeatedly asked by rescuers to build the sub. He wrote that he was escorted into the cave by Thai Navy SEALS — “total opposite of wanting us to leave.”
He said he had not seen Unsworth — whom he dismissed as “this British expat guy who lives in Thailand” — during his brief guided tour of the cave system and suggested that, therefore, Unsworth had not actually participated in the rescue operation. (Unsworth absolutely and crucially had, per CNN.)…
And midway through his rant, for some inexplicable reason, he accused Unsworth of sex crimes…
He didn’t just call the British rescuer in Thailand a pedophile. He called him a pedophile because he couldn’t imagine another reason for a white guy to be in Thailand. Which is a false assumption. Sometimes white guys visit Thailand to show off their useless submarines.
— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) July 15, 2018
I know we’re all hating on Elon Musk but can we not appreciate his absolute ingenuity in being able to make himself the villain in the Cave Boys story
— jump around (@JodiesJumpsuit) July 15, 2018
— Kurt Ecchi-nwald (@Captcommando) July 15, 2018
The Black Sarcophagus is Elon Musk's attempt at time travel. It contains the remains of thirty unpaid and forgotten SpaceX interns. The hieroglyphs adorning it roughly translate to 'I'm not owned. I'm not owned.'
— zeddy (@Zeddary) July 15, 2018
BREAKING: Vernon Unsworth has responded to @elonmusk slurs about him. Says he can't put into words how he feels about the guy. He hasn't ruled out taking legal action. @7NewsSydney pic.twitter.com/4oJ8HSDrSk
— Mylee Hogan (@MyleeHogan) July 16, 2018
We’re a few hours away from Elon Musk being the first billionaire to post a notes app screenshot apology
— popular comedy account “the pixelated boat” (@pixelatedboat) July 16, 2018
SiubhanDuinne
Christ, what an asshole.
Platonailedit
BJ has its share of musketeers.
SFBayAreaGal
What an asshole.
raven
hi
Bostonian
I think we won’t be at Peak Elon until he peddles a self-named cologne through infomercials.
R-Jud
@Bostonian: “Peak Elon” would be a good name for that cologne, too. Or just “Elon’s Musk”.
Baud
It’s refreshing to finally talk about an entirely different asshole.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Aimai
@R-Jud: excellent!
magurakurin
@Platonailedit: In fairness, he hasn’t always been this crazy, at least not publicly. I think he will end up being a Howard Hughes type tragic figure. Genius and madness are close companions in some people. Some should check if Elon has Ice Station Zebra loaded into the blue ray player.
Jerrt
Forget Dunning-Kruger – I want to see the Voight-Kampff test run on Musk.
Tony Jay
Show some respect, peons. Elon Musk was able to dump this outside a cave! For a bunch of scamps!
Just get back to marrying and divorcing the same English actress and building rockets, Elon. You’re in a well worn groove there. Stop trying to be a fictional character!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: It’s not like there is a shortage of them.
hueyplong
All this tells me is that it takes extraordinary effort for an asshole to stand out these days.
Bostonian
@R-Jud: Now available for the discerning shopper: Elon Musk. Bold, rich, smart. Enough to make an asshole stand out in these trying times.
MagdaInBlack
Elon is a bit of a carpet-pisser, isn’t he.
Citizen Alan
Stories like this are why I support a top marginal tax rate of 90% and an estate tax of 90% on all estates above $5 million. I don’t even care if we spend the money on anything. I just think vast sums of money make people stupid and evil and empowers them to do stupid evil things on a massive scale.
Platonailedit
We can talk about another born asshole.
trey fucking gowdy.
Platonailedit
@Citizen Alan:
Billions of dollars they spend every election cycle to buy the government should actually go to the government.
Quantumman
It is the Trump Disease. Trump is a black hole that sucks up IQ and morals. Musk has been infected. I wonder if garlic over the doors and windows will protect us from Trump Disease?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
The market for assholes is competitive, and we’re seeing the effects of that competition in the number and quality of assholes.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I was following it in real time. I’m not certain but that we wouldn’t be better off if Silicon Valley didn’t suffer a meteor strike or plague – it’s not as if most of their past 15 years’ of development and investment haven’t gone to social media platforms and apps that have made everyone’s life worse.
And it isn’t like SpaceX is a font of usefulness…
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Greater numbers, lower quality.
Jack the Second
@Bostonian: Could the perfume be for your asshole? Makes it so your shit don’t stink?
Platonailedit
The two topmost assholes in the world are apparently playing who is going to be most late for the meeting stupid game. So many stupid voters put these thugs in power.
debbie
@Platonailedit:
“Many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity.” Un.fucking.believable.
Quinerly
Anyone else watching this shit show in real time? Interesting body language.
Trump talking about “extraordinary relationship.”
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Disagree. The quality of assholes is extremely high right now. Remember, that’s not a “good” thing.
MomSense
Didn’t take Elon long to go from Anthony Edward Stark to Lex Luthir.
Baud
@Quinerly:
The U.S. being a client state of Russia is pretty extraordinary.
Platonailedit
@debbie:
mccarthy must be spinning.
So much asskissing. The thug is a coward.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Nah, we are in total agreement, we just use antonyms to describe the exact same phenomenon.
MomSense
I haven’t been able to listen to the treason summit but I walked past the tv and agent orange looked like he was sitting on the toilet at that presser. Why can’t the dude sit on a chair without looking like he’s on the toilet?
debbie
@Platonailedit:
Forget McCarthy. Reagan is spitting mad.
hueyplong
Maybe we’ll get lucky and Trump will get too big for his britches, figuring, now that he’s president of the US, he can stiff Putin as he has so many others. Because the 24/7 Putin’s Gimp we’ve seen so far isn’t going to motivate Putin to burn him.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Morning to Poco and the tribe ? ?
rikyrah
erica orden (@eorden) Tweeted:
An AP investigation found that over the past three years, more than 250 rent-stabilized apartments — 75 percent of the building — were either emptied or sold as the Kushner Cos. was converting the building to luxury condos. https://t.co/23JE8WyS7u https://twitter.com/eorden/status/1018569915949895682?s=17
R-Jud
@Bostonian: [Husky cosmetics advertising voice]: For the makers. For the geniuses. For the misunderstood. Don’t just show them who you are: smell them who you are. Musssssssk.
rikyrah
ABC News (@ABC) Tweeted:
CVS says it has begun an investigation after a white store manager called police on a black woman over the legitimacy of her coupon. https://t.co/qP5sFQ7sGp https://t.co/S8bOlgRRT9 https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1018666135619682304?s=17
Baud
Today show doesn’t think the Capitulation Summit is newsworthy. Not sure if that’s good or bad.
rikyrah
Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) Tweeted:
One of my serious policy concerns about the Helsinki performance review is that these two kleptos are going to agree to turning the entire Arctic into a gas station. https://twitter.com/CharlesPPierce/status/1018596423116513280?s=17
Mel
@Quantumman: I prefer the thought of a locking codpiece to prevent them from creating more like themselves.
Immanentize
@Baud: Probably just the odd timing. They can’t figure out which way the wind is blowing in real time.
Quinerly
@rikyrah: Tail wags back!
rikyrah
Your laugh for the day ???
chile, please. (@givefacegoldie) Tweeted:
When that baby came in naked I HOLLERED https://t.co/j524PzhfMO https://twitter.com/givefacegoldie/status/1015668640220418048?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
TPM:
Bostonian
@R-Jud: Why just smell like ass when you can smell like a rich ass? The pungent, lingering slap of Elón Müsk will linger pugnaciously, making you the topic of conversation long after you’ve left the room. Leave no doubt. Leave your mark. Müsk!
rikyrah
Uh huh??
@fawfulfan: Let’s not mince words. Calling the police on a black person who is not committing a crime is a modern form of lynching.
Eve… https://twitter.com/fawfulfan/status/1018533327022804997?s=17
OzarkHillbilly
@Mel: That horse has already left the barn.
rikyrah
New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) Tweeted:
The real estate company formerly headed by Jared Kushner exposed children to cancer-causing substances as part of a campaign to push rent-stabilized tenants out of their apartments, a lawsuit claims https://t.co/iQC3oRrg66 https://t.co/nLeHMylEZV https://twitter.com/NYDailyNews/status/1018647367891996675?s=17
rikyrah
LIE ?? ?
@NPR: GOP senators contend that at her confirmation hearing, Ruth Bader Ginsburg established a precedent for refusing to answer question… https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1018790594200694784?s=17
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Poor social skills, tries to solve ALL problems with technology, thus does Musk revel himself to be an engineer lol
What amazes me is Musk didn’t get the concept how impractical a submarine would be in a cave with the tight squeezes and all that.
Phylllis
25 minutes and counting on hold to set up garbage/recycling service in our new hometown. The upside is I’m currently excused from unpacking chores.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
If he’d ever moved a couch or box spring or mattress up a turning set of stairs, he’d have known why his rigid design and dimensions sucked (not to mention the stress on the rescue divers to manage the buoyancy, orientation and weight of the bubble).
Shit, the thing was likely to get lodged in a choke point, consigning everyone behind it to certain death.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Phylllis:
I’m sure you’ll appreciate the low, low taxes that leave your infrastructure understaffed (or outsourced).
Phylllis
@Steeplejack (phone): Much different from Tinytown, where all I had to do was call the town clerk on his direct line.
Of course my phone gave up the call right as the representative answered, so we’re on try #2.
Vidya
@R-Jud: oh my god
Vidya
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I live in the heart of Silicon Valley and I support this.
Brachiator
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you are Elon Musk, everything needs some kind of rocket.
Villago Delenda Est
Fuckhead here is now on the tumbrel manifest.
Mnemosyne
@Platonailedit:
There is a famous story of someone trying to play that game with Steve Jobs during the negotiations for Jobs to buy Pixar from Lucasfilm. Jobs showed up on time but the Lucasfilm lawyer decided to show up late to show that he was really important. But Jobs started the meeting immediately, which meant that the guy who tried to pull that walked in on a meeting in progress without him. ?
Jobs was an asshole, but he knew how to shut down someone else’s macho posturing.
Ruckus
@magurakurin:
Musk already has far more than a faint wiff of HH about him. It’s more like a stench.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
Because he’s always, always full of shit.
debg
@rikyrah: Sweet god above, that was fabulous. “That’s fine with me” kinda sums up my feelings about my own brother in childhood.
Bess
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
If you had a clue as to what you were talking about you’d know that the engineers who built the sub worked from the measurements of the passageways that had to be transversed and tested the sub underwater in a mockup of the passageways.
Here’s a guy who takes the time to develop a solution, builds it, delivers it to the site. And you assholes call him an asshole?
Bess
@Ruckus:
I’m amazed at how people who comment rationally on most topics can go batshit crazy over Elon Musk.
Musk is one of the most innovative people the world has ever seen. He’s pushed us forward at least a decade in quitting oil and removing oil’s CO2 from our climate change problem.
He’s lowered the cost of launching rockets into space which, among other things, will lead to world-wide access to the web.
He built PayPal.
He’s creating a superfast subway system which should help cut down on urban congestion.
He’s not using his money to fund right wing politics or the irrational right. He’s not doing stuff in order to get himself seen on red carpets and at the “the” clubs.
.
Is this simply a case of irrational envy over a successful individual?
scott (the other one)
@Bess:
Couldn’t agree more.
[reads the rest of comment]
…oh. That did not go where I anticipated.
Scotius
@Bess:
Elon, is that you? It’s great to see you take the time out of your busy schedule of libeling various heroes of the Thai cave rescue.
Mandalay
.
Bess
@Scotius:
Fuck you.
I made exactly zero comments about the people who got the kids out.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Bess:
Elon Musk, however, did call one of them a “pedo.”
Bess
@Steeplejack (phone): I am not Elon. I’ve had that bullshit thrown at me previously when I’ve defended Musk on this site.
Elon should have not said that. Even if he thought it highly likely. Even if the guy had admitted it to him.
It’s a small error like ‘clinging to their guns and Bibles’. Using it in an attempt to discredit someone who is doing a lot of good is pure crap.
Dman
@Bess:
He’s not using his money to fund right wing politics or the irrational right.
Ummm…….
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is downplaying his GOP donations and defending his environmental bona fides after revelations he gave nearly $39,000 to Protect the House, a group seeking to maintain the party’s imperiled House majority.
https://www.axios.com/elon-musk-new-controversy-gop-political-donations-efe3c1e0-72db-4ec2-9640-e39441d73a2c.html
Steeplejack
@Bess:
You chose to misinterpret/redirect Scotius’s pointed joke about “Elon, is that you?” with:
Nobody said you did.
If you have had shit thrown at you on this site, perhaps it’s because you come off as disingenuous at best or slightly unhinged at worst on the subject of Musk.
Great. Keep digging.
Bess
People here make unwarranted attacks on someone who is actively working to help us avoid extreme climate change and pushing back against them is seen as “you come off as disingenuous at best or slightly unhinged at worst on the subject of Musk.”.
Bess
@Dman:
Why did you not go a bit further and relate why Musk gave some money to a Republican organization? Would that have made your attack on him obviously foolish?
Steeplejack
@Bess:
Nobody here is criticizing Musk for his efforts on climate change. He is getting dragged for being a complete horse’s ass about the Thai cave rescue. You’re the only one dragging in everything else and claiming it’s really about that. Like I said, disingenous at best.
Bess
@Steeplejack:
OK, I guess I must have missed something. Can you link video of Musk playing it up for the cameras at the Thai cave?
All I’ve seen is that he offered a couple of possible solutions plus delivering another possible solution devised by another company to the site. Then he posted a few pictures/video from the site.
Show me the horse’s ass footage.
(Yes, the pedo comment should not have been made. But some people here were ripping and tearing on Musk well before that statement was made. They must have seen something I haven’t.)
Steeplejack
@Bess:
Okay, I’m gonna go with unhinged rather than disingenuous. Where did I mention any video? Rhetorical question. I’m done.
Bess
You bullshitter.
You portray an Elon Musk as using the Thai cave rescue as a way to create publicity for himself. But as far as I can see he simply delivered a couple pieces of equipment that could have been useful in the rescue, posted a few pics that someone (he?) took of the cave, and came back to the US.
Did Elon post any video of himself posing in front of the cave talking about his contributions? Did he do the rounds on the TV shows talking about how he helped?
You’re done because, as far as I can tell, you made an attack on someone based on nothing but your own bile. If I’m wrong then post the evidence.
workworkwork
@Mnemosyne: Yes, nobody out-assholes Steve Jobs. And I say this as an Apple Fanboy(tm) of many years.