four years ago if you publicly called musk a bullshit artist tech media folks who spent decades propping up his mythology would give you a weird, constipated look as if you were claiming fire trucks were sentient
then about six months ago they all pivoted on a dime once public opinion finally shifted and it was no longer beneficial to their careers to prop up his performative bullshit
now they all pretend they saw him for what he was the entire time
but he was always the same guy, a rich, racist brat cosplaying as a supergenius engineer, buying a spot on the coattails of actual innovators and engineers.
like most rich racist brats he just felt emboldened by trumpism and surging authoritarianism
still doesn't excuse the tech press from not seeing him for what he was much earlier, though
he's not "flirting with the far right." he didn't suddenly get brain poison from memes. He was always this guy.
a lot of them (like swisher) still get to inhabit this weird, nebulous betweenland where they one day will continue propping up the now-obviously false mythology, and on the very next day get to pretend they are sage skeptics who saw him for what he was the entire time
it's highly performative, and I have doubts that any real, actual lessons were learned
it was literally less than six months ago when swisher was claiming that musk was cleverly building a "new kind of media company." When I suggested that was a violent misread of his ambien-fueled incoherence, I got called a "lecture dad."
I just don't see any meaningful tech press introspection going on. which means we'll 100% repeat this cycle again with the next bullshit artist.
Karl Bode
Dreaming of dad jazz.