Elon Musk’s recent feud with Robert De Niro arose after De Niro compared Donald Trump to dictators like Hitler during an MSNBC interview. Musk responded on his social media platform, X, arguing that De Niro’s comparison was “incomprehensible” and citing Trump’s diplomatic achievements as evidence against such a characterization. This exchange underscores the polarized political climate in the U.S., where celebrity opinions often spark significant public discourse. Musk’s defense of Trump against De Niro’s remarks has drawn mixed reactions, highlighting the divisive nature of contemporary political discussions.
Four years ago, Elon Musk was the coolest billionaire. Now he is hated. What happened?
Yeah, he kinda went from being Iron Man to Thanos minus the good looks, right?
People change, and a genius can become an evil genius a lot faster than four years. Our awareness of people can turn even faster as we learn more about them and what they’re up to. Plus there’s the obvious, he switched sides from Team America to Team Trump.
My guess is it’s a combination of all three, but that means that there was some change in him at the heart of it. What he did with Paypal, and then Tesla, and SpaceX is truly amazing and a gift to the world. The Boring Company, Solar City, and Neuralink, not quite as amazing but still pretty amazing. Hyperloop and X, not so much. Amber Heard, his factory workers, and all his children, pretty abysmal.
It’s been two more years years since this question appeared on Quora, and it didn’t start with Musk’s embracing the MAGA movement. Six years ago now, when Musk was still in the liberal camp, he was already known for megalomania, braggadocio, acting like a jerk, and cultivating an army of “musk bro” trolls who would join in threatening and attacking women who disagreed with him as bitches, hos, etc.
Musk has always been at the outer extreme, not a normal person. At times he’s kept it under control and devoted himself to business achievements. But the wealth, power, pressure, age, stress, life experiences, setbacks, whatever it is, he’s lost control of his urges or stopped trying to live as a normal human.
Per his then confidante and biographer, Kara Swisher, Musk was always into “dumb memes, boob jokes and penis jokes—he seemed to like them” like a 12-year-old. “But that was like a small part of his personality.” As time went by he sank farther and stopped even pretending to behave respectably, she observed, to the point where it was all penises all the time.
There’s an obvious comparison to Howard Hughes, another super-genius maverick aerospace industrialist whose personality also “curdled” — as Swisher puts it. A latent mental illness that was always there took over.
It demeans both the presidency and the acting profession. Nothing compelled deNiro to make a political speech on that occasion. It was arrogant and it cheapened the event. Is he running for something? Or is he just an actor who harangued a captive audience?
Both men showed their self-adoration and their contempt for the position they hold in the public’s attention. My estimation of Trump could hardly sink lower than it already was, but I was sorry to see deNiro engage in such self-demeaning behavior. Unlike his adversary, deNiro has earned respect by his artistic achievements. But apparently he thought he could spend that currency in schoolboy taunts. He could have stayed above it.
The difference, though, is that I will no more punish deNiro for his political nonsense than I punished Jane Fonda for hers. I like to watch excellent performers perform, if the story looks promising, so demonstrating that they’re on the goodguy team may be socially necessary for them, but it doesn’t mean they’ve lost their talent or that I should deprive myself of the pleasure of watching them. It especially doesn’t mean that they should be boycotted, depriving them of their livelihood. In this republic, disagreeing with me should not mean that I should seek their impoverishment. Nor should disagreeing with the president.
