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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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

like kim dotcom. same guy to me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 43 minutes ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

There's this website that listed bunch of stuff about Kim Dotcom and his ventures. (the list barely scratches the surface. But the important thing is that people thought he was hack decades ago.)

When I visited the site last time, I was like "ohhhhh, they've found a picture of Kim wearing an SS helmet. I really didn't know what else I was expecting."

[–] [email protected] 67 points 16 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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 41 minutes ago

And like most dreams, it just won't happen in real life.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 14 hours ago

Yeah and you need to be asleep to believe it

[–] [email protected] 19 points 16 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Steve Jobs tried to cure his cancer with essential oil. If that doesn't scream dumbass I don't know what is

[–] [email protected] 33 points 15 hours ago (3 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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Na, that is just historically inaccurate. The original Macintosh team collected their stories/memoires at folklore.org, which give you a pretty good overview of his talents. He was really mercurial and Woz was the better engineer, but played a really important role in the vision/design of computers as we know them today. In the original Mac team others did the engineering and Jobs never claimed to be and engineering type of person, but he had a good feel on the importance of design, clear visual metaphors and good interaction design and pushed the team relentlessly into that direction.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

His only smart trick was to sell things super expensive to flatter the ego of the buyer. It's not rocket science.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 13 hours ago

I doubt that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 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

[–] [email protected] 71 points 19 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 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...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 19 hours ago

He definitely dresses himself !

[–] [email protected] 3 points 15 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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[–] [email protected] 11 points 16 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.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (4 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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Yeah that bitch still own me 20 bucks when he closed my paypal account. What a cunt

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[–] [email protected] 86 points 1 day 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.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 22 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.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 day ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago

I know you have but what did I do?

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 20 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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 19 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 106 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."

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 143 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.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 day ago (2 children)

IQ tests are combo test of how white and how autistic are you. All tests are biased, and what do you bet when he got his super special smart boy IQ label he was in South Africa and the test administrator was another white dude.

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[–] [email protected] 115 points 1 day ago (6 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.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 59 points 1 day ago (3 children)

From glass onion lol. Great movie, btw.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 20 hours ago

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

[–] PrincessLeiasCat 20 points 23 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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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 day ago

Man this book will probably be banned before it comes out

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