this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Attorney, journalist, and Elon Musk biographer Seth Abramson eviscerated both Elon Musk and his “fanboys” who have attempted to use the billionaire’s IQ as an indication of his intellectual prowess in a series of messages shared on X Thursday evening and into Friday.

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[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 48 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

I feel like Musk was a symptom of Americans really wanting a genius billionaire to be a real thing as it reinforces this American dream everyone's dreaming about.

Reading the CPAC transcript clearly shows that he's currently below average intelligence if anything.

[–] faythofdragons@slrpnk.net 18 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Well yeah, that's the American Dream right? That if you're smart and work hard, you'll be rich?

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 18 points 11 hours ago

Yeah and you need to be asleep to believe it

[–] JaymesRS 16 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

My feelings are that Steve Jobs was the quintessential cultural personality CEO and his early death sent a lot of people desperately looking for the next one, who ended up being Elon.

The difference was that Jobs actually had taste and a good vision for the future. He could build a smart team and let them drive progress then motivate to go further without making things up like Elon. So the media papered over Elon's wild confabulation, instead of showing him in a true light.

[–] halowpeano@lemmy.world 29 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Most of that's false though. He couldn't build a good smart team, Wozniak could. He was very good at screwing others out of ownership in the company they helped build though. He was also very good at one thing, envisioning a computer in every home, and a computer in every pocket. That was his one true talent.

But he was not "smart". He died to cancer detected early enough to heal with modern medicine, but chose quack treatments instead. There really isn't any such thing as general intelligence. Everyone's got very specialized knowledge in some topic, and are idiots in everything else.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 3 points 32 minutes ago

He was quite good at marketing. He wasn't a technical guy and apparently wasn't terribly good at driving technical people either. But he was great at selling whatever the tech people came up with.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

some, like me, are idiots in everything ~~else~~

[–] CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.ee 4 points 10 hours ago

I doubt that.

[–] yarr@feddit.nl 29 points 13 hours ago (2 children)

Time has been kind to Mr. Jobs. Read about his early years at Apple... he was famous for skewering anyone that disagreed with him. He also had lovely habits like parking his sports car in handicapped spots so he didn't have to walk as far. You can't disagree with his talent for running a company that did an awful lot of innovation, but he wasn't a nice guy. He named one of his first products, the Lisa after his daughter, but didn't treat the actual daughter that well.

[–] throwback3090@lemmy.nz 2 points 5 hours ago

He also told the daughter it wasn't named after her for most of her life.

I may be misremembering but I think she wasn't a child anymore by the time he acknowledged that he was her dad.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 12 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

For a "smart" person, his death was quite possibly a very unintelligent way to go. He basically decided to give all kinds of "holistic" crap a chance to treat his cancer and avoided medical intervention for almost a year. If he had gone with the medical path from the onset, he might still be alive today.

But he did have his moments. Like how he basically told the music industry to cut out the DRM, because it just made the ecosystem impossible. Or one time when someone was picking at him over abandoning OpenDoc in favor of Java (Java didn't work out either, but his response was on point, without being dismissive of the person).

[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago

Cancer sucks. It's hard to judge someone from dying when everyone dies. I do agree with you that treatment would be better. However finding out you are going to die has a grieving process. He took too long. But I kind of get it.

[–] burgerpocalyse@lemmy.world 3 points 10 hours ago

steve didnt take SHOWERS. he stunk up the office and his employees had to beg him to clean himself before meetings with potential investors and customers

[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 64 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

And the Understatement of the Year award goes to…

Seriously, when I first heard of this guy, I thought he must be smart. Then he started talking about things in my career field, and thought wow, that’s a stupid thing to say. The more he talked, the more I realised he’s a moron about nearly everything. Now I’m not convinced he can actually get dressed unassisted.

[–] jj4211@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago

And yet executives in your career field probably would have nodded sagely, assuming that affinity to Musk would confer an appearance of intelligence to them, because they have no idea about the field either.

After spending some time in that circle, it drives me insane that the biggest idiots in various fields are the ones ostensibly in charge of them. They toss buzz words with confidence each other in a great circle jerk of money while their results are frequently no better than luck.

About the only consistent ability they have is to be complete sociopaths to screw over customers, employees, and shareholders alike. Which admittedly is a pretty powerful ability...

[–] telllos@lemmy.world 10 points 16 hours ago

He definitely dresses himself !

[–] mstrk@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago

My thoughts exactly! After that it was like a domino effect... I realized that probably everything this guy ever said and done was pure BS. Fake it until you make it.

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[–] TokenBoomer@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

A failson that failed upwards

[–] Rhoeri@lemmy.world 11 points 14 hours ago

I’m pretty sure there’s no evidence that the soup between his ears qualifies as a human brain, but yet- here we are, allowing him and his term of incel lackeys full and unfettered access to all of America’s finances.

I always knew America would somehow end embarrassingly. I just had no idea it would be this shameful.

[–] demizerone@lemmy.world 44 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

Elonis a highly productive con man. He fooled me when I bought the FSD option on my Tesla in 2019 for $8k. When I sold it, the market only was willing to pay $1500.

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 5 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (1 children)

Congrats on getting out of the abusive relationship, but may I ask why you believed him in 2019 when it was clear he had been lying and promising FSD for nearly a decade at that point? Were you just not following the news all that closely and took his word at face value? Or was the promise, if it came true, just so tantalizing that you turned a blind eye to the turmoil surrounding Musk? Thanks in advance, I love learning about peoples’ thought processes after they have realized they made a mistake.

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 10 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Personally, I don't blame anyone being fooled. He has an army of social media cultists obfuscating reality for him without him even asking. It's hard to see the truth when it's drowned out by religious doctrine.

[–] CarbonBasedNPU@lemm.ee 3 points 10 hours ago

also his PR team was really good for a long time. If he hadn't called that one diver a pedo I think it would have taken much longer for his facade to break.

[–] mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Ahh, i loved reading this. like blam on a sunburn. cold water on a hot day.

I think i discovered i have a kink for people shit-talking about tech CEOs.

[–] Chip_Rat@lemmy.world 9 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world 84 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Didn't one of Trump's professors call him one of the dumbest students he ever had?

In that light, these two are perfect for each other.

[–] Artyom@lemm.ee 22 points 19 hours ago

I've met a couple people who've met Trump, and let's just say "He's the dumbest person I've ever met" is the default opinion of him.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 52 points 21 hours ago (11 children)
[–] RandAlThor@lemmy.ca 102 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This is such a burn! "Abramson noted, “It is also a particularly American disease to confuse wealth with intelligence and corporations with those who own them."

[–] straightjorkin@lemmy.world 33 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

For many evangelicals, they also associate wealth with divine blessing.

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[–] newthrowaway20@lemmy.world 138 points 1 day ago (35 children)

Seth Abramson eviscerated both Elon Musk and his “fanboys” who have attempted to use the billionaire’s IQ as an indication of his intellectual prowess

I guarantee his IQ is made up too. Not that an IQ test actually means shit.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

he abandonded his schooling once he got his visa, and did some shady sht to get his BROTHER one too. hes more or less just a richer version of trump, just slightly"smarter".

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[–] HexadecimalSky@lemmy.world 109 points 1 day ago (9 children)

I don't remember the quote exactly but.

"It's just so dumb" "So dumb it's genius" "No it's just dumb"

perfectly encapsulates musk.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 11 points 17 hours ago

That is because everything Elmo says and has said is a lie.

[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 20 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

While I agree with the premise of the book, everyone who has met/worked with/knows Seth Abramson all day what a piece of shit grifter hack he is, so I don’t know how much confidence I have in the book overall.

I do not doubt that evidence to support this assertion exists, but Abramson is always chasing the next big thing and bitches about how no one likes him on bsky like an angsty teenager. He’s just cringe.

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[–] morrowind@lemmy.ml 35 points 23 hours ago

Man this book will probably be banned before it comes out

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