Showing posts with label X Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label X Twitter. Show all posts

September 9, 2023

What to make of Musk?

 

Click to enlarge
Above from Musk on X: Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter! and If this continues, we will have no choice but to file a defamation suit against, ironically, the “Anti-Defamation” League. If they lose the defamation suit, we will insist that they drop the the “anti” part of their name, since obviously … 😂

By Hal Brown

If you follow the exploits of Elon Musk, you know, the X-Man, you are aware of the two stories above. Here's a story from HUFFPOST about Ukraine and Musk:

Elon Musk 'Committing Evil' By Blocking Internet Access, Top Ukrainian Advisor Says

There are two Americans who exemplify what happens when power and grandiose egomania are combined with a heaping helping of sadism.

By now anybody following this blog and reading about Trump here and on other websites like Salon knows the defintion of malignant narcissism is that it is a psychological syndrome comprising an extreme mix of narcissismantisocial behavioraggressionsadism and grandiosity. They know that these people are quick to raise hostility levels. They know that the malignant narcissist undermines families and organizations in which they are involved, and that they dehumanize the people with whom they associate.

Those old enough to remember the early videos about what happens in a nuclear reaction know about the ping-pong balls and mousetraps demonstration:

Click to watch video

This is akin to wha happens when power is combined with a pathological need for attention, for being right all the time, for being intolerant of being challenged, combined with sadism. The result when feeling undermined is a nuclear explosion of destructive rage. Would this merely be ping-pong balls. In Ukraine it is claimed that because of Musk people actually died (reference). It seem to be a taboo topic to note that Trump's underplaying the danger of Covid caused uncountable lives and his cruelty led to deaths on the Mexican border.

Trump and Musk both got used to getting their way. Trump is now cornered and hence has become explosive, and if he is reelected will be a danger to democracy. Musk has far less potential power but nonetheless he is cornered because of a disaster of his own making. He bought Twitter for far more than it was worth and proceeeded to make it over in his own image.

His reasoning behind this probably was that Muskifying it would magnify its monetary value making it as magnificent as he believes himself to be.

In doing so he ruined it. His changing its name to X was an attempt to brand it as belonging to him. Consider this from Time:

Click to read

Now Musk is having a hissy fit blaming X's troubles on the ADL:

Elon Musk blames the ADL for 60% ad sales decline at X, threatens to sue - CNN

Loath that he would blame himself... this would take the ability to be self-critical, the total lack of which he shares with Donald Trump.

Being aware of one's ability in any area or endeavor, even with someone who is among the very best at what they do, can also come with humility, self-awarenss, and self-doubt. A current example is Simone Biles who has made a triumphant return to competition after taking two years off to work on her mental health. 

There's also mega-mega (not MAGA as this article shows) pop star Taylor Swift who has every reason she could be behave like a diva or prima donna but is self-effacing from all I can tell  and is just a normal young woman who happens to be one of the most prominent cultural figures of the 21st century. She demonstrates her self-awareness in interviews.  Watch an interview with her here to see what you think.

An older example is Barbra Streisand who has only recently been able to overcome most of her stage fright (reference).

Returning to Elon Musk: 


Elon Musk is hard to love. Elon Musk is hard to like. On his way to becoming the world’s wealthiest person, Musk has emitted so many metric tons of self-indulgent puerility he might have violated the Paris Accords.

Musk’s short fuse is legend. If something’s wrong and it’s important to Musk, employees have learned to avoid his presence if possible.

What to make of this man?

While for me to make a more informed assessment of him I'd have to examine him in person and since as a clinicaL social worker I can diagnose but I can't do psychological tests I would probably refer him to a clincial psychologist who would conduct a baterry of tests including the true/false MMPI and projective tests like the Rorschach and Thermatic Apperception Test( TAT).

Judging him just by behavior the way we can assess Trump's mental status it seems likely he fits every criteria for being a malignant narcissist. See what you think here.

What can be done to remedy his problem? First off, he doesn't think he has a problem. However, say he did. This is what Wikipedia says about therapy for these people:

Typically in the analysis of the malignant narcissist, "the patient attempts to triumph over the analyst by destroying the analysis and himself or herself";[19] an extreme version of what Jacques Lacan described as "that resistance of the amour-propre... which is often expressed thus: 'I can't bear the thought of being freed by anyone other than myself'".[20]

Since Malignant Narcissism is a severe personality disorder that has far-reaching societal and familial effects, it requires attention from both the psychiatric community and the social science community. Treatment is recommended in a therapeutic community, as well as a psychoeducational preventative program aimed at both mental health professionals and the general public.


In this world to achieve great success one can be either kind and competent or cruel and competent. One can have empathy or no empathy. One can be reasonable or ruthless. One can be rational or reactive.

One can be Bill Gates or Elon Musk.

For that matter, one can be Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

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