this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Because people are, by and large, both forgiving to charismatic people and hopeful.

[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Sure, but Elon isn’t charismatic in the slightest.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago

I don't think Musk or Trump have any charisma, but apparently a lot of people see (inherited) wealth as charisma.

[–] rigatti@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Kind of disingenuous to say that. He has some sort of weird nerd charisma. Prior to him revealing how much of an asshole he is, he had way more people that thought he was cool, myself included.

[–] thejml@sh.itjust.works 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I think the IDEA of Elon back then was charismatic and energizing. He was seen pushing space flight and EV’s forward into the future. Watching a video stream of the first Falcon flight to land the booster back on Earth was exciting. The fact that their stream was on the internet and full of interesting detailed real time telemetry and video was something new and different and felt like the future.

But watching Elon the man talk and stumble through even early interviews and press conferences was not, and to this day, I find it painful to watch. A great orator he is not. But then neither is Trump, I suppose.

[–] Alue42@fedia.io 4 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

You pulled out the main point here - the idea of him, particularly the early idea of him. Back before he started speaking publicly, and I'm not even taking about the past 5-10 years when he's been vocal on Twitter, being political, or spreading his personal beliefs (pro-natalism, anti-trans, etc)

I mean the early early days post-paypal but when he just got involved with SpaceX and Tesla and he hadn't been paraded around the interview circuit yet. No one really knew anything about him, but because he had used his money and bullied his way into being named founder of companies, when people heard of him through these and looked him up, they assumed he was this brilliant man who must have founded these groundbreaking companies and invented incredible things. He was just going around doing his thing and these companies kept doing things that seemed great and people could create any story in their head. They were fanboy-ing about an idea they had created for themselves, about an image that has been curated and created. Investments came in, his stock went up, all he had to do was keep quiet and it would have stayed the same.

But he didn't - he started doing interviews, during which he couldn't answer simple questions that somebody how claimed to design the rocket should be able to answer. He got on Twitter and started lashing out at people. He started claiming he had amazing ideas for designs for projects that would save all sorts of things and became furious when the flaws were pointed out (eg, the soccer team stuck in the cave and the mini submarine). Then he went all in and letting the world see all of him.

A lot of us that liked the idea of Tesla (an EV for a relatively lower cost so everyone could get it, but still look super sleek, and then have tons of upgrades for the ones that could afford it) actually looked into it when we could finally see it and realized it was just junk-it was made with the cheapest parts in the cheapest way possible with an unbelievable number of flaws, there was no way someone brilliant oversaw the production of these. With SpaceX we were already horrified at the idea of putting something as important as a service to our country and people into the hands of a single CEO that could decide to simply change his mind and decide to cancel the launch of a resupply mission. Sure, even in the 60s there were contractors working for NASA, but it was contractors that NASA hired to work on a NASA led project, this is not a project we should be outsourcing.

I think too many people stuck with him beyond that though and were in a sunk-cost fallacy thinking that they've put so much time into being a fan and singing his praises that they better stick with it. I feel like they have to claim it was his charisma because what else could it have been? When really it was just their idea of him.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

In a nutshell, we all thought he was cool until we actually learned more about him.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 8 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Trump has always been a petty shithead loser. He was mocked back in the 80s for being creepy around women, running failed businesses, and not paying his contractors.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 7 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Yet he has charisma for a certain demographic.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago

It's pretty easy to grab the attention of dumb racist turds just by being a dumb racist turd with a lot of media attention. The surprising part was just how many of these termites were hidden in the woodwork.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Yeah, morons who believe anything wealthy people say. Just like Musk.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.social 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

No it isn't.

The only way for someone to think he was some awkward autistic rizz master. Was to be fooled.

At one point it was possible to not be paying attention. Getting distracted by the smoke screen etc. But even the most basic look into him and his history. No one would ever mistake him for someone with charisma or talent.

[–] rigatti@lemmy.world 3 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I would argue that the charisma is what allows him to fool people and put up that smoke screen, and you can't argue that many have not been fooled.

[–] Eldritch@piefed.social 5 points 20 hours ago

Unless you consider money charisma. I really can't agree with you or understand where you're coming from. Anyone who's ever known the man as a peer or personally pretty much universally hates him for good reason. Including his Ex-Wives, his father, even his children, and that ghoul Peter Thiel.

People liked the concept of boosted Space travel, Electric vehicles, etc. Musk was smart to invest in them. But he had no contribution of note to any of those companies other than his money. No one ever cared for musk anymore than that. And then once his erol-ness was on full display finally the people who had been fooled had to acknowledge reality.