I've read two books about Elon Musk and two books about Vladimir Putin. Both of them started off as cagey nobodies. Both of them wound more and more powerful people around them that they kept in line through wheedling and emotional blackmail. Putin? Putin committed a lot more murder.

But Putin thinking he can take Ukraine overnight is the same thing as Elon Musk thinking he can alter the speech patterns of the entire political class. Enough people lied to him, knowingly or unknowingly, to convince him he was invincible.

I mean, look. Adam Neumann went from "a lot of money" to "a fuckton of money" to "the world's biggest fuckup with a fuckton of money" to "for some reason A16Z has given this fuckup even more money." Jack Welch fucked GE up for fifteen years before the level of fuckupitude showed - he didn't even live to see GE get dislisted.

The cost of failure for Elon Musk is so much vastly lower than the cost of failure for thee and me? Might as well reach for the brass ring, what's the worst that could happen, you're pared back to three mansions and a jet?