UKC

He seems to have repeated his cave diver "paedo" claim. At least by implication.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/29/elon-musk-doubles-down-o...

He's from the future. Nobody sues someone from the future. And he has so much cash that even if he wasnt from the future he wouldn't care one bit. He is that rich that he has built a spaceship with his own money. Or is planning to. 

Do you think he'll call it 'The Musket'?

He's a rich little brat who appears to be endowed with great intelligence but is socially and emotionally retarded. I used to be quite intrigued by him, now I think he's an absolute tool.

Not just a tool but a crook, too.

No doubt he will never be called to account for his blatant manipulation of his own stock prices in the last few weeks. Wall Street loves a crook who makes them money.

Not defending the bloke, but in fairness the stock market is rife with fraud, manipulations and crooks, Musk just chooses not to hide it. 

You know, in 100 years time history will note that Elon Musk was the driving force behind the development of the electric car that did so much to combat global warming. He'll be mentioned in the same great as Eddison and Brunel and quite rightly so.

If I'd been working the hours he has lately, under the pressure he has been subjected to, I think I might write a few flakey tweets.

If he developed the Hydrogen car I might be tempted to agree. I'm not that convinced that moving the emissions to the other end of a wire and raping the world for rare minerals for the batteries is really combating global warming...

Hydrogen is much worse for global warming than batteries as it’s less efficient round trip as a storage medium.  

Battery minerals are going to be conserved and recycled so their lifetime cost will become increasingly negligible.  Emerging/future battery tech needs them less and won’t be developed without BEV sales driving the tech.  It’s not like the world isn’t “raped” for oil for current vehicles, and that isn’t reused and recycled unlike battery minerals.

Tesla have done a lot to prove the viability of rare earth free motors - although the model 3 is a regression there sadly.

Hydrogen really is a crap shot.  I think an LNG vehicle using a combustion engine and renewable generated (solar electric Sabatier or waste biomass) methane would be less improbable.

Will they?  Nissan have quietly achieved an awful lot with the LEAF in parallel to Tesla, and with the 2019 model comparing in range, cost and semi-autonomy with the Model 3, I’d not bet on the history books just yet.

That’s a little worrying, does Musk now know something? If he does then he should make a formal allegation, if not then the recipient of this libel does need to do something to halt Musk making these statements.

His recent “funding secured” debacle shows how far he’ll go publicly on tw*trer without a solid grounding so I’m not leaning much towards this possibility.  

His “the guy didn’t sue me” line doesn’t count for much - would I sue someone with a vast fortune and access to a lot of lawyers over libel?  No, no I wouldn’t.  It would be a lot of stress, a lot of time, likely to loose and would just keep my media profile up on something I’d want to go away.

Quite; if he had evidence and did not submit it that is about as awful as making false allegations. I can’t see any circumstances in which these outbursts are justified or his behaviour is appropriate.  Especially so given the documented behaviour of some of his more unhinged tw*tter followers after previous far-less-unjustified public spats.  The ugly reality is it’s asymmetric waterfare via social media when a famous person gets into a social media spat with a random person; with a great following comes a great responsibility.

Did Edison and Brunel publish letters in national newspapers calling people they didn’t like child rapists? 

I must have missed that.

He's inferred the guy is a paedophile. In our culture, there's probably no greater accusation. It comes in ahead of murderer, terrorist, rapist...

An old climbing partner was wont to opine, "The law, like the Ritz, is open to everyone." An ordinary guy going to law with a billionaire? A bit like me telling Mike Tyson where to go. (Irrespective of who's right.)

There was a climb down. But now he's resurrected it. FFS.

Seems to me that, in the court of world opinion, he's already damned forever.

Mick

You might be right but history has a habit of remembering colourful characters and not hard working diligent ones.

Who's damned? 

Eddison did electrocute someone to death - badly -  for eight minutes - to the point their flesh was apparently cooking in front of the audience whilst they were still alive.  He did this as a PR stunt to try and win an argument he had firmly lost on technical grounds alone.

In reply to Eric9Points:

Eddison is no longer simply looked at as an inventive hero, and hasn’t been for some time.  

He and Elon Musk do seem to share an inability to let something go when they should - critically important to making difficult technical breakthroughs and proving large engineering works, appallingly bad for arguments and spats in the public domain.

Edison was a nasty piece of work, and that is well known.  So if you think he was simply a brilliant inventor who didn't have a few character flaws (to say the least), you have indeed missed something.

Well, if the global warming crisis is averted, maybe.

But that currently seems about as likely as one man stopping the tide from coming in.  So if he tries and fails, I think it's more likely he will be remembered a kind of massive 21st century Cnut.

I'm always surprised when people are surprised that someone who shows a particular talent for one thing is discovered to be a flawed individual in other things.

My all time engineering hero is Frank Whittle but I get the impression he was a bit of a jerk as well.

EM.

Mick

I think he's burned out and is creating distractions for himself from the problems with Tesla manufacturing as a coping mechanism.  He says himself he's been taking Ambien because he can't sleep and that could explain some of his recent irrational behaviour.   I saw a recent video of him giving a blogger a tour round the Tesla factory and he looked really unhealthy compared to a year ago.

The board need to shunt him into a non-executive position or tell him to take a few months off.

Thanks.

If he does he might get sued by someone else ( in the states) for copyright.

It's the name of a beefed-up Royal Enfield Bullet, basically a standard one but with two cylinders, making it a 1000cc version.

Hope he does, then the bike engineer will have loads of money and the price of the bikes might go down.

he's pushing it yet again. his private investigators must have come up with something?

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-ac...

I was very careful in what I said on the previous thread.

I noted that Elon Musk has private security and that I think they vet everyone he meets.

Since then my confidence in his judgment on information presented to him has gone down not up.  He seems prone to making wild leaps to conclusions lately.

I also said - and I still think - that there are almost no circumstances under which his behaviour is acceptable.  I’m not sure which is worse - making public, non credible accusations of pedophilia or not doing the proper thing when in possession of credible evidence.  

Exit: Some more information on the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45418245 - looks like the kind of business where only the lawyers can win.

Clearly.  Isn't it also rather bizarre?  Echoes of Trump - impetuous, vindictive and detached from reality and rationality

Indeed. The difference is I can understand where Musk is coming from in this case and at the very beginning of it I have a lot of sympathy, which evaporates by the time of his allegation on tw*trer.  What I can’t understand is his inability to let it go before making a massive tit out of himself publicly and putting the life of another at risk.

drug-enhanced paranoia?

Egomania, I think. And a fragile ego that doesn't like being mildly ridiculed.

Plus access to enough funds to know you can easily bankrupt the other guy if he were foolish enough to try and sue you, regardless of the truth.

It never fails to amaze me that high profile people go anywhere near, and post, on Twitter etc.  They invariably make fools of themselves and invite ridicule etc.

If I was someone like that, I'd hire a 24 hour meat mountain to keep me away.

Thinking differently, this could be a way for Musk to make a donation to the diver without it being taxed at the border or as income? 

I don't know enough about us/Thai tax laws but it is daft enough to be true. 

And the latest, bizarre, update...

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/elon-musk-thai-cave-rescuer-ac...

A fair few tech journalists are getting drawn ever further and wider into background research and fact-checking.  Which by pure coincidence means they are not busy looking at Model 3 production rates.

Well presumably he either has, or hasn't, married a 12 year old.

That surely must be a matter of public record and fact.

Well according to him, his girlfriend, the Thai authorities and the British authorities there is no record or evidence that he has, so I think w can assume he hasn't.

With apologies to Elon Musk if we are all wrong.

As you are being slightly facetious.....

Sticking to the facts 'him, his girlfriend' don't count.

The Thai and British authorities do.

I can't help feeling that if I were married to a 12 year old, my girlfriends opinion really would count...

When the legal age for marriage would be 17 unless they have a court order.

http://www.thaiembassy.com/marriage/marriage.php

Also there's a 40 year old Thai girlfriend.

I think it is as simple as Musk is on the verge of a breakdown and taking too many pills.

Yes, I agree. I'm just trying to point out that it should be pretty easy to prove one way or the other.

Yeah, somewhat facetious.

For followers of the Joe Rogan podcast - Elon is going to be on sometime on Thursday (so presumably overnight tonight for UK?).

Measured in corporate terms, it doesn't seem to have gone too well...

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/sep/07/tesla-chief-elon-musk-sm...

It looks like he just draws a bit and then blows it out. Come on Elon, at least try and inhale !

Its looks like hes losing the plot. Time for the execs to step in.

Almost as bonkers as Tesla was.