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Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

Recession or not, Musk's emails (the stoppage of remote work 2 days ago, and then yesterday's "super bad feeling") seem like reactionary outbursts than wise management. What was the point of pissing people off with the abrupt change to the remote work policy, only for the next day to announce imminent layoffs?

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People have pointed out that he’s likely going through mental health issues and Im inclined to agree with them.

He went a bit too far with the Twitter buyout stunt.

Honestly, he should just get off social media and take a vacation or something. But of course he’s too egotistical to do that and will try to muddle his way through it. Its amusing to watch as an outsider but I can’t imagine its a lot of fun for people at Musk companies (+ Twitter).

It's sad really. I used to idolize him so much. I read through all of WaitButWhy's [0] blog post series on Musk back in '15/'16 and loved every bit of it. He literally became my demigod during my undergrad days.

And from all that... to this?

From a much admired and respected 'inventor' to a cringeworthy Twitter 'edgelord.' Just been a crazy ride.

[0] https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/03/elon-musk-post-series.html

You've gotta ask yourself: has there really be a fall from grace? Because there are those of us who saw him as a cringeworthy Twitter 'edgelord' in 2015, and we don't notice much of a difference at all today. It's probably just that he's being more consistently overt about it, and his PR machine can't compensate.

What did you think of his public behaviour over the past few years? It's one thing to be enthralled by a praise-heavy series of blog posts, but it's not like you couldn't get first-hand impressions from the man's own very public persona.

I was a lot more vulnerable to manipulation via propaganda and good PR back when I was a college student, I suppose. Aside from the naïvety of late teens/early 20s.

> People have pointed out that he’s likely going through mental health issues and Im inclined to agree with them.

There could be all kinds of other factors, but I have been a Musk watcher for a decade and I have a theory on the timing.

There was a major shift in Musk’s public behavior, and his state residency, around the time he was about to have to pay a lot of CA state income tax.

Having to write a ten digit check to the government appears to make most people lose some of their rational thinking abilities.

They seem to go into a siege mentality for one thing.

It appears to me that humans are just not evolved to handle his level of wealth/resource disparity.

The timing is precisely what tells me that Musk's actions are his alone. There is no right-hand person advising him from the shadows. Such a person would have told him that going on public rants about Democrats and switching his vote to Republican might have been convincing if it wasn't public knowledge that his political donations already favoured the GOP.

His Twitter meltdown on Memorial Day was one of the biggest signs of mental illness I've seen yet.

It's an issue when you have to specify the date of the meltdown.

Just because he did so doesn't mean he had to. People like me, who don't follow his Twitter news unless it's thrown in our face, actually appreciate that kind of specificity.

Isn't his boldness one of the traits that his fans cheer on?

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