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Comment by malablaster | Hacker News Reader

I don’t see Musk as a nefarious actor; more of a nerd — albeit a visionary one — who is socially awkward but got unfathomably rich and powerful.

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I don't think any 'evil' person sees themselves as 'evil'.

But pushing himself onto the President, manipulating democracy and being responsible for killing kids as a billionair makes his actions nefarious.

> a nerd — albeit a visionary one — who is socially awkward but got unfathomably rich and powerful

That part is true.

> manipulating democracy and being responsible for killing kids as a billionair makes his actions nefarious.

Indeed.

I think the admirable + despicable combination creates unprocessable dissonance for some people. People then take one side or another.

His antics vis-à-vis propping up the far-right in Europe or calling people he doesn't like NPCs don't persuade you otherwise?

Fair pushback in this thread. Watching the Roadster reveal I saw his boyish enthusiasm and gave it too much weight in judging his character; a heavy dose of recency bias thrown in. I’m not well versed on his actions but those should be how we judge him.

Ok, he outright supports the AfD in Germany. A party that has literal known Nazis in it. And no this isn't debatable, its outright facts.

He is ultra far right wing and he did the salute as a 'joke', but even if you want to ignore that, his support of AfD is 1000X worse.

He also associated and support far-right wing skinheads in Britain and moved from the far-right reform to the even further far ultra right 'Restore' party in Britain.

I don't know how anybody can justify unless they themselves are a far right extremist.

Stop anthropomorphizing billionaires.

His Nazi salute doesn't bother you in the least? That's not "socially awkward".

no, not at all. Seeing that it was not a nazi salute, but I guess, people see what they want to see.

Ok, he outright supports the AfD in Germany. A party that has literal known Nazis in it. And no this isn't debatable, its outright facts.

He is ultra far right wing and he did the salute as a 'joke', but even if you want to ignore that, his support of AfD is 1000X worse.

He also associated and support far-right wing skinheads in Britain and moved from the far-right reform to the even further far ultra right 'Restore' party in Britain.

I don't know how anybody can justify unless they themselves are a far right extremist.

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Those are not at all mutually exclusive. In fact, both of those characteristics make up most of the Silicon Valley oligarchy.

Are you not aware of his blatant Nazi salutes or his DOGE attempt to dismantle oversight/regulation of his business concerns or him cancelling USAID (700,000 deaths and counting) or his interference in UK/European politics to promote far right violence and riots?

If you had that amount of money and power, you could be anyone you wanted, so why on earth does Musk choose to be as he is?

Or the vote buying

He recently shut down Starlink for Ukrainians, thus contributing to Putin's genocide. Have you not been reading the news? Calling Musk a "nerd" is the wrong term here. That is deliberate support of a genocide.

But he didn’t. Starshield is used for military operations and it is controlled by the US government, not Musk.[1] Starlink cannot be used for offensive military applications. Those that try are shut off entirely. If Ukraine is illegally using consumer Starlink in drones (which would not work particularly well), SpaceX wouldn’t even know which receivers to turn off. If they did, they’d turn them off entirely, not slow them as is alleged.

[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/15/what-is-starshield...

The Musk invective in HN is just wild to me. No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute (unless Biden, and Hillary and Obama are all Nazis too having made the same motion). No, he hasn’t cut Ukraine’s internet. All of these are lies, repeated over and over and over. He’s just a Republican accelerationist and unapologetic about his race. His companies create legitimately awesome products that millions use daily. Shocking that today that’s enough to breed such extraordinary hate from the left.

Elon Musk is a virulent racist and with DOGE will be directly responsible for the deaths of millions.

LOL - and how many were we killing by not funding USAID twice as much? How many are you personally killing by not mortgaging your house and sending the money to African NGOs? The entire angle is so childish.

Suddenly destroying a massive system of aid, upon which millions had already depended, is very different than not donating to NGO’s. There was even a responsible way to cut that funding, with planning, with forewarning, with cooperation from other nations. This was completely reckless, and will kill millions.

Yes, I am certain you would’ve been satisfied had they only reduced the funding more slowly.

“Yea, sure, like those plane crash victims would’ve survived if the plane had just slowed less rapidly! Libtard!”

My man. Maybe engage with what people are saying instead of the cartoon version you’ve crafted in your mind.

And China could have replaced that funding just as rapidly. Or Britain or France. All they needed were the wire instructions. Yet I see no finger wagging their direction. Please stop pretending it’s the pace of defunding that offends you.

It takes a special kind of intellectual laziness to believe that comparing a national budget to a personal mortgage is a clever substitute for a logical argument- it's a "choice" to call a position "childish" while relying on a rhetorical strategy that wouldn't pass muster in a middle-school debate.

it's sad, that on hackernews people cannot think logically.

Go ‘head big dog. Share a single source of Obama, Clinton, or Biden making “the same gesture”. A video, please. No cheap photos of waving hands at just the right moment.

> No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute (unless Biden, and Hillary and Obama are all Nazis too having made the same motion)

Yeah just like this car's motion is the same as that of an aeroplane.

It really is pretty embarrassing that the forum of a venture capital accelerator is debatably the most anti-tech, anti-capitalist tech forum on the internet. Now I remember why I stopped coming here. Just goes to show how these types of forums always get infiltrated and taken over by tankies... see reddit/wikipedia/etc

Agreed. They swarm.

Those types don't have to work usually, so they have all the time to waste on the Internet.

Yes pro-tech and pro-capitalist means that you have to outright support the AfD in Germany, Trump in the US and Restore in Britain right?

Because those ultra far right wing parties really care about science and long term technology development. They also super love capitalism. I mean ignore that they want to destroy free trade, destroy the international order, dismantle equality before the law that is the bases of capitalist labor markets, that they are incredibly and openly corrupt and make it clear that contracts are given out based on loyalty rather then any serious evaluation of technical quality.

The far right wants a old school hierarchical society, based on loyalty and traditional values, not capitalism. Capitalism is literally what has opposed this world view for 100s of years.

The list goes on, if you actually believe that these people are pro-tech, pro-capitalism you are fucking delusional.

> No, it wasn’t a Nazi salute

Talk all you want, but video is available for you to make up your own mind. Imo, it was very obviously a Nazi salute coupled with an angry face reminiscent of Hitler, and then repeated to make sure it was seen.

exactly this! But people seem to only see things they want to see. Oh well. Personally I find that Musk have done more good for the US, than most other americans.

Ok, he outright supports the AfD in Germany. A party that has literal known Nazis in it. And no this isn't debatable, its outright facts.

He is ultra far right wing and he did the salute as a 'joke', but even if you want to ignore that and argue it away, his support of AfD is 1000X worse. He actually supports a party that literally wants to overthrow German democracy like the actual Nazi party did historically.

He also associated and support far-right wing skinheads in Britain and moved from the far-right reform to the even further far ultra right 'Restore' party in Britain.

I don't know how anybody can justify unless they themselves are a far right extremist.

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