It's not easy, and it's probably not good, to sympathise with Elon Musk. Especially after a week in which he literally jumped around Donald Trump and continues to use the social media site he bought and then largely destroyed to turn into a broadcast platform to highlight and occasionally write misleading propaganda. But just give it a try.
He is – perhaps above all else – a person who is very clearly desperate to be liked. He has spent years attempting to craft a persona that seems borrowed largely from internet forums in the 2000s, full of "if you laugh at this then you are smart" type jokes and attempts to ride the edge of humour. And for years it seemed to work – even if people weren't a fan of that persona, it was hard to disagree with his capability for running companies that make rockets and cars.
But then the need to be like seemed simply to get too much, and he offered to buy Twitter. Perhaps nobody will know exactly why he tweeted that offer – one that he himself at least later didn't want to be taken up – but it feels safe to bet that it had something to do with running the platform that he desperately wanted to win. Stories about pushing engineers to lean on the algorithm and boost the visibility of his tweets seem to confirm it.
Since then, Musk has gone through an unfortunate and very public unravelling. It seems particularly energetic because of what tech people like to call the flywheel effect, although this flywheel is spinning the whole world around with it: as he, his posts and his positions get more unhinged, so does the platform from which he takes them, and it all feeds together.
At the same time, many of his competitors have managed to actually become more likeable, even as the general trend has moved towards a suspicion of technology products and the people who make them. Mark Zuckerberg has seemingly backed away from politics and apologising, his previous two characteristic interests, and has instead grown out his hair and become something like cool. Jeff Bezos has sailed off into the sunset on his astonishingly expensive boat. Tim Cook has tended to make his way through any controversy with a kind of serene transcendence and studied non-partisanship.
Many of today's tech moguls miss the importance that was played by their predecessors products; Zuckerberg, Bezos and Cook each might make products that are occasionally controversial, but people do actually happily use them in vast numbers. Steve Jobs, for instance, would probably have been forgotten as a grumpy and demanding manager had Apple not put out so many delightful products under his stewardship; his characteristics no doubt helped ensure those products were so compelling, but they have no particular value in themselves.
That of course is some of the reason why the view of Elizabeth Holmes flipped so dramatically when Theranos fell. She had previously been hailed as a charming if eccentric genius – but when the genius fell away, so did the charm.
Musk would do well to heed the warning of that history. Rockets are great products, especially when they are taking people to space, and Teslas are largely impressive pieces of kit too. The success of those led to the success of Musk. But now most people's first and most overwhelming experience of his products is X, a platform that feels rickety even before you get into the politics of it.
Fewer people than predicted might be outright leaving X (though many people have likely just left quietly, or stopped posting, even if they don't actually quit), and Musk is right that the site still occupies a unique and often powerful place in the culture. But more and more it feels like a not very nice place to be. Even if you are the kind of person who is into their primary offering – arguments with strangers – they have become less interesting and more artificial feeling as people post increasingly wild takes in the hope of boosting engagements and payouts. It just isn't very fun.
For a long time that was Musk's central offering: he was the fun billionaire. You still see people attempting to keep that feeling going, as they force laughs in the replies to his comments. Nobody there, including Musk, seems to be particularly enjoying themselves.
The billionaire seemingly bought the platform at least in part as a way of forcing people to hang out with him, and enjoy his company. Whatever else happens, that mission has surely failed. You don't need to feel sad for Musk, but it is unfortunate for all of us.
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