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non_radical_centrist  8mo ago (astralcodexten.com)   2073 thread views

Book Review: Elon Musk[Scott Alexander]

astralcodexten.com

Scott Alexander’s review of a 2015 biography of Elon Musk. Elon Musk, to me, is one of the world’s most confusing people. He’s simultaneously both one of the smartest people in the world, creating billions of dollars of value in companies like Tesla and SpaceX, and one of the dumbest, in burning billions on Twitter. Scott’s review I think is a good explanation of what’s up with Musk.

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I don't think Twitter was a mistake. Converting money into influence is very expensive. His timing was awful, and he probably could have gotten a better deal if he'd waited a few months, but I expect (at least when you consider the influence gained) that that purchase will turn out profitable in the end.

I’m skeptical of how useful the influence will actually be to him. If he was the Chinese government, Twitter servers would be worth their weight in gold. But I don’t see how he’d actually turn that influence into utility for himself, at least not given the way he’s currently running twitter

I’m skeptical of how useful the influence will actually be to him.

Being the only American citizen that the First Amendment meaningfully applies to is useful for the same reason freedom of speech was one of the original rights: if you don't have it, you can't effect political change, and nobody these days does.

He's also the only American citizen that the Second Amendment meaningfully applies to (private ICBMs) and the same is true for the Fourth (Starlink could trivially be used as an utterly uncensorable communications network; ensuring it's widely used throughout the West means Western powers can't turn around and jam it without financial or political consequences and the fact it's its own ISP means "just build your own Internet" is already done).

I think there's a solid argument to be made that Musk is well-positioned to, if not to actually be Caesar himself (he is certainly rich enough for this to be true!), at least be the key to power behind a Caesar it might serve Musk's aims to elevate.

I think you overestimate the power of Musk’s businesses.

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