
Benoit - 9 Novembre 2024
A few years ago, I saw Elon Musk as a beacon of innovation and a force for good—a brilliant engineer and entrepreneur who was genuinely pushing boundaries to combat climate change. I admired his boldness, his resilience, and his apparent commitment to a sustainable future. But over time, my admiration turned to disappointment and then disillusionment, as Musk’s focus shifted from visionary solutions to political controversy, conspiracy theories, and public feuds. In this reflection, I explore my journey from respect to regret, as I watch someone I once looked up to leverage his immense power for divisive ends, leaving behind the ideals that first inspired me.
So a few years back, I was quite admirative of Elon Musk and his company Tesla. He had, against all odds, built a company that was offering one part of the solution to climate change. It was a massive achievement, especially considering all the headwinds he was facing. His engineering skills were those of a genius, his business acumen was mind blowing. Tesla was producing amazing cars, so much that I was amongst the very first ones to drive one in Wellington. Its foray in solar panels was promising, and I often mentioned the presentation Elon Musk did on the "missing link" as an holistic proposition to solve the climate crisis.
That was back in 2018. That was before Elon Musk started to do politics. Of course, everybody is entitled to their opinions, but his were overamplified by his status of planetary icon, and then later, Twitter, the social platform he compulsively bought, suddenly inhabited by missionary duties. This could have been fine, but it became clear very soon his views were quite controversial and polarising. It's unclear what pushed him in the hands of the conspiracy theories, or in the arms of the far-right (although they often go hands in hands). I am guessing this had to do with how the Biden administration dealt with him: he was a billionaire, so a sin, and was villipended for that. He could have brushed these critics with ease, proud of his undeniable achievements, but his over-sensitive ego was bruised, so he jumped to the other extreme in a pinch. He would make them pay.
And he did. Using his unbeliveable wealth and the absurd powers of his ventures (SpaceX and Twitter in particular), he didn't have any problem spreading misinformation, lighting every fire he could, at times in vulgar, belittleling ways. If only for the ever-increasing polarisation he consciously contributed to, I lost my ability to contextualise his brain farts: he had obviously given up on being a good human, and was more interested in destruction over contruction. It was his way or no way. He became more and more virulent against what he called the "woke" virus. The woke movement, if not perfect, was an attempt to create a more inclusive society, to put behind the hate and bullying women, non-white, non hetero-aligned communities. Yes, some over-zealous people had taken the concept in un-constructive directions, but it was a welcome change and a promise of hope for the likes of my family. His attacks, even relayed by close friends, were deeply hurtful, and offered no alternative solutions to address the real hate we were the target of.
All this found its logical conclusion when he openly endorsed Trump, after stating, multiple times, he wouldn't endorse any candidate. For me, this was the last straw, even if my admiration for him had long faded. This sort of sealed the deal. It provided me, in a few words, a reason to explain why I didn't want to hear about him any more. It gave me the arguments to easily enter a debate about his dangerosity, and why he had became a monstruous beast that would need to be taken care of at some point: along his opinion drift, he started to unshamely use his wealth and tools at hand to promote his opinion. He, who had wanted a more equitable platform to debate, was now using it to push rancid ideas, using rancid methods. The irony of it ....
As a Tesla CEO, his actions became equally questionable. One of the big disappointment for me was when he threatened to develop AI outside of Tesla. He had claimed, for many years, openly, that Tesla was an AI company. Yet, after selling a big chunk of his shares to buy Twitter, his position in Tesla had diminished, and he wanted it back. If not, he said, he would continue to push his AI efforts, but through another company of his, xAI. So here we had a CEO, director of the board of a listed company, threatening every other shareholders who had trusted him with their money. Once again, my way or no way. This was completely unacceptable.
The direction he gave to the company was also drifting away from its historic mission: to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable future (which, according to his new ideology, wasn't that urgent any more, despite all the scientific evidence). After years promissing a cheap electric car, something only Tesla seemed capable of, the project was simply postponed (cancelled some would say) until further notice, to allow Tesla to develop a robotaxi. While exciting, this seemed truly secondary, and not accelerating the transition the world definitively needed. I could see how a robotaxi was perhaps a better solution than a cheaper electric car, on paper, but I also knew the resistance it would face. And so it felt more like another toy, another caprice from the CEO, to keep him entertained. Meanwhile, China was flooding the world with their cheap electric cars and overtook Tesla.
Finally, as a Tesla customer myself, one who had commited a significant amount of money to the Full Self Driving promise, how to not be deeply disappointed, and frustrated, after the countless unfullfilled promises he would spew, years after years, that "FSD was just around the corner"? The delivery of the feature, in New Zealand, had no timeline. It wasn't on any roadmap, and I had bought it four years earlier, at a time he said its price would only go up. But it had gone down since, and my car was nowhere near driving itself without intervention. I was bitter, and had given up. I asked for a refund, but was declined, adding insult to injury.
In conclusion, there is no coming back for me with Elon Musk. After Trump's election, things are only going to get worse. I have sold all my shares the day following Trump's election, and next week, I will lodge a complaint in court to get that refund. When Elon was right, he was super right. But now he's wrong, and he's badly wrong. His past contributions to electric mobility, energy and space cannot be undone, they're undeniable, they're tremendous. But it is deeply saddening to see the person he has become, a puppet of himself.
Benoit, le 9 Novembre 2024