Thread by @KetanJ0

There's an interesting common thread running through every instance of @ElonMusk's Twitter attacks, culminating in today's paedophilia accusation, levelled at a #ThaiCaveRescue guy.

Each time this happens, Musk finds some personal or historical factoid about someone criticising him, and zeroes in on it with little care or consideration.

When @erinbiba talked about what it's like being on the receiving end of thousands of openly abusive fans, Musk's defensive was that she had once used "genitalia language"

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1001516537344225281

Then - that time @upulie pointed out how weird and sad Musk's Twitter poll about Rotten-Tomatoes-For-Information would be (what happened to that?) -> the response was this weird statement that nanotechnology is fake

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/999579712484790272

In early July, Musk attacked a journalist, on the grounds of a Facebook post and assumed some truly odd conspiracy of fabricated articles: slate.com/business/2018/…

Soon after that, Narongsak Osottanakorn, mission commander of the #ThaiCaveRescue politely said, of Musk's metal tube solution for rescuing children “It’s not practical for this mission"

Musk responds: "former Thai provincial governor (described inaccurately as “rescue chief”)"

Finally, today, Vernon Unsworth, who helped recruit and guide the first divers for #ThaiCaveRescue, criticised Musk's tube in stronger terms. Musk responds by branding him a paedophile because he's a British immigrant living in Thailand.

There are plenty who are keen to dissociate this behavioural feature from his leadership in climate, energy, space and cars. But here's the thing - much of his success in those areas is owed to strong support in trad and social media.

When he's even mildly under siege, he reverts to some unrelated proxy with whiplash speed. This has real consequences for his work as a technologist and a leader, because environments of total praise are always temporary, and he cannot physically handle criticism.

How can we accept humanitarian justifications from a person who attacks individual humans with disproportionate punishment, at the slightest provocation? How can he save humanity, but hate humans?

It won't fly, with us.

If nothing changes, it's a death spiral. As his responses grow uglier, the volume and spread of criticism increases, and he escalates, too. This will definitely impact support for his work, which relies on us accepting his empathetic, pro-human narrative.

We judge work on impact and scale and relevance. We judge people on social data points. Social media facilitates that on a massive scale. Feels like Musk's mean spirit is out of the bag, now, and there's little chance he can shove it back in.

/end