When you really think about it, Elon Musk is a pathetic figure… and he would be worthy of our pity if he were just another lost man looking for approval in all the wrong places.
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The other day, I was perusing Xwitter and came across something Elon Musk reposted. It was a post from the account “ELON CLIPS,” which has 165,700 followers and only posts clips of Musk (more than 6,000 of them so far), so at least it is aptly named.
The account itself follows only one other user, and you can probably guess which one.
By the way, Musk now calls himself “gorklon rust” on his site, presumably because he spelled the name of his AI wrong a couple of days earlier (he wrote “Gork” and not “Grok”) and, instead of just acknowledging that he made a mistake, he had to turn it into some big thing because he is a deeply insecure manbaby.
Don’t worry, this will all be relevant.
In any case, the post in question was nothing noteworthy, just Musk musing about rockets.
And yet, it made me deeply sad, and I almost felt sorry for him.
Here is one of the richest people in the world, retweeting a clip of himself posted by a fan account that may or may not be operated by somebody he pays to do so, if not directly, then as a “content producer.” And he does this on a website he owns.
All just so that he can feel admired and relevant.
How sad is that?
Musk could be doing anything. While we don’t think billionaires should even exist, he could be involved in some philanthropic endeavors, for example, eliminating world hunger or vaccinating kids, instead of killing them with his DOGE cuts.
He could simply play with his spaceships and plan life on Mars.
Or he could move his harem (i.e., the women he pays to have his babies) to a private island and rule as king in a world without any rules that constrain him. There, he could father all of the children he wants and do his part to fight the decline of Western civilization.
Speaking of his kids…
He could do none of those extravagant things, live in complete luxury, and simply be a good dad to the dozen or so children he already has — and not just the one he actually seems to care about. Of course, “care” to Musk seems to mean “carry his son around everywhere in spite of facing assassination attempts and threats.”
Or he could try to reestablish a relationship with his estranged transgender daughter — you know, the one Musk says is “dead.”
But caring and empathy don’t rank all that high in the tech bro universe, which seems to have a very twisted view of masculinity… as does all of MAGA, where bullies are celebrated and compassion is viewed as weakness.
And that is why he is trying to get his affirmation not from a loving partner or an adoring child but rather from faceless users of a social media site he owns and prolifically uses.
Musk is routinely tweeting and retweeting at all hours of the day, often reposting things glorifying himself and his companies, and always in search of validation and admiration.
He often seems to find it, at least superficially, in a legion of hangers-on. ELON CLIPS is not the only account of its kind. There is also ELON FACTS (83,000 followers, 2,050 posts, only follows “gorklon rust”) and then a bunch of others, like “DogeDesigner” and “Tesla Owners Silicon Valley” and “Mario Nawfal,” whose primary purpose seems to be to make Musk happy.
Of course, all of them probably get some kind of financial benefit out of praising Musk and getting him to retweet the fawning things they say about him. In other words, it’s an entire cottage industry of sycophancy.
Another example of Musk paying somebody else to make him look good was revealed earlier this year, when he was forced to admit that he paid other players to level up his video game characters.
In gaming circles, it is the equivalent of stolen valor: Instead of playing for the fun of it, he used his wealth to make himself appear to be a better gamer than he is.
Of course, on a gigantic scale, there is no better example of this than Musk’s purchase of Twitter for $44 billion to then make his own posts more visible.
It’s all just so pathetic. Or at least it would be if Musk’s desperate need to matter would not impact so many other people.
But it does.
For one, he is using his immense wealth to force his right-wing ideology down the throats of Xwitter users.
At this point, there is little doubt that he is a white supremacist at heart, based on the comments he makes and the people/parties he supports. However, since that segment of the population is one of the few that likes him, he’d probably embrace that ideology regardless.
But, even more importantly, as the kind of unelected bureaucrat he claims to despise, he is causing untold grief across the globe.
When it’s all said and done, experts believe that the steep cuts to various government programs that DOGE is responsible for will be responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, many of them children.
That seems very much at odds with Musk’s stated concern about a declining world population. Then again, he only seems to worry about white kids being born.
For all of these reasons, even though he is ultimately just a pathetic human being who wants to be revered (and rule the world), it is impossible to feel truly sorry for him.
But I do pity all of us for being in a situation where somebody like Musk has so much influence over our lives.
