Elon Musk and the Cult of Mediocrity.

Buying Twitter was an evil thing to do. Making fun of Liberals is even worse. No wonder Putin praises Musk in his autobiography.

I was exposed to different world views!

Did you know that Elon Musk pays his employees very well? It’s true. He believes a high salary makes them less inclined to apply for jobs at rival companies. He has also established a Sociological Department at Tesla. The departement inspects the homes of all Tesla employees to make sure they lead decent lives. If the fail to participate in the inspections they are fired. If the inspectors find that wives of male employees work outside the home, if their homes are filthy, if they drink too much, gamble, play Candy Crush or watch online porn they receive a warning and if they fail to comply with company guidelines: a severe pay cut. Musk is also the only American citizen mentioned – in a positive way – in Vladimir Putin’s 2014 autobiography The Moral Deformity of the West.

Wait. Sorry.

It was Henry Ford who implemented a similar program for his employees at the beginning of the 20th century; Musk's mythical predecessor, the man who invented the assembly line and helped free the American working class from the throes of poverty. By paying decent salaries Ford transformed them into a selfish, materialistic middle class and just like Musk he was an innovative trailblazer. And a bit of a nut. Perhaps it is not so strange that I got them mixed up. Elon Musk is the Henry Ford of our time. An eclectic super-entrepreneur who is not content designing electric cars and space ships but also has political ambitions. Ford slandered Jews via his own newspaper The Dearborn Independent, (a.k.a The Ford International Weekly) – Musk makes fun of liberals and humourless people. Doing so is the same thing, according to some.

Musk, however, is not mentioned in Putin's (non-existing) autobiography, although Adolf Hitler speaks fondly of Ford in Mein Kampf. During the Nuremberg trials, other leading Nazis testified about how they too were inspired by Ford and his anti-Jewish sentiments. One can only imagine what it would have been like had Twitter existed a hundred years ago. Ford would have tweeted around the clock – likely about the global Jewish conspiracy. He would have offered Kanye West a huge sponsorship deal and like Musk he would have railed against affected wokesters like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Beto O'Rourke. Perhaps. We don't know for sure. But we can assume.

The point is that nothing is new. Successful builders and industrialists – over time and as their economical influence grows – often want to expand their influence. They demand new challenges. They want new mountains to climb. Why? Because they get bored. D’uh. So what remains after one has conquered space? Why, the conquering of cyberspace of course. And that is, essentially, what Elon Musk has done, tongue-in-cheek. Much to the chagrin of those who think that having a sense of humor is an unacceptable character flaw.

On the one hand the apoplectic reactions to Musk’s hostile takeover of Twitter and his threat to unleash more diversity on the global digital town square are amusing. On the other hand they’re deeply unsettling. It is pretty scary to watch these blue-haired banshees shrieking their guts out, literally, to ”protest” against… well, take your pick: the patriarchy, white privilege, corporatism, capitalism, misgendering… Trump also, probably, still… and a number of other moral transgressions that can be loosely attached to someone like Musk; a rich person. That once Great Guy who gave the preening bourgeois a brand new, electric toy to play with –The Tesla– and then turned around and destroyed Freedom of Approved Speech. Violence is the next logical step for them. They are “anti-fascists”.

And the Kenosha riots were “mostly peaceful”.

So now we have fostered a generation of young people who sincerely believe that someone like Elon Musk is a ”fascist”. And that the world is a pillow play room, or perhaps more appropriately put: a padded cell. Many of them are also very mediocre at what they do and I guess that’s the real heart of the matter. In the end social media with all its nifty apps and innovative programs –to a large extent– turned out to be nothing but a big, dumb Xerox-machine churning out, well… dumb copies.

For every mediocre young boy or girl wailing their way, cluelessly, self-absorbedly, through I Will Always Love You or Let it Go on TikTok there are a thousand more – mediocre, blue-haired Johnny-come-latelies. For a long time we were taught that the ”freedom” social media and cell phones provide is a good thing. These days, everyone can shoot and edit a movie with their iPhone. Yay! Great! Everyone can create music, art or an internet channel that attracts millions of subscribers. Everyone can be a star. Only that they can’t. Because they’re not good enough. Most of us aren’t. We lack patience. We lack humility. It took Tolkien seventeen years to write The Lord of the Rings and you should ponder that for a minute. Or two. (No, really. You should.)

Teslas in the company parking lot outside Sveriges Television (The Swedish State Television) in Stockholm.

Even worse: those who actually are good at something, brilliant or original for real, are not allowed to point out the fact that most people that become famous these days are witless bores. Pointing out averageness, like Elon Musk sometimes does; exposing conceit and arrogance, is considered nasty. Evil, even. When –in the long run– it is a good thing. We should do it more often. If we allow this petulant, thin-skinned generation to go unchecked; if we put up with their privileged neurosis, their tedious pretensions, their pathological self-aggrandizement they will in their turn, inevitably, create a future generation that despises all sorts of social sensitivity, all kinds of mannerisms and self-consciousness and then by extension: human weakness.

And that’s a bad thing.

The pendulum will swing back, with full force, and it won't be Elon Musk's fault. He saw it coming. He tried to do something about it. He poked fun at all those pompous morons who think their shit don’t stink. Fascists generally despise humor. They fear spontaneous laughter and no – you don't have to think that Musk's retorts on social media are particularly funny but at least he puts up an effort. He is trying to “be that guy” – you know the one in the picture who didn’t raise his arm in a woke, brain-washed Nazi salute.

You should follow his example.

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