I don't think that it is fair to criticize him for this (and I'm decidedly NOT a Tesla fanboy, for the record). Plan A was looking doubtful after a SEAL diver drowned. Musk spent a bunch of personal resources coming up with an unorthodox Plan B. Plan A ended up working after all, and Plan B wasn't needed. Musk deflected praise from fans with "Thanks, but we’ve not done anything useful yet. It is all other people."
I wasn't criticising, the article has a clickbait title, but actually details what occurred pretty well.
British cave diver considering legal action after 'pedo' attack by Elon Musk And now Elon is on twitter calling one of the divers, A pedofile because he had been critical of musks submarine plan. If it was a PR stunt, I think its backfired badly now.
I'm 100% on the diver's side on this one. Musk comes out looking like a "stable genius", and I mean that in the most negative/sarcastic way possible.
If there is any justice Musk will have done himself a massive amount of damage over this. That tweet was utterly disgraceful, beyond Trump levels of awful. In a less fragmented world, that would be his Gerald Ratner moment.
Tesla stock fell 3% in response to those tweet. 3% might not sound like a lot, but it's actually hundreds of millions of dollars. I've heard more than one person compare Elon Musk to Howard Hughes (not a charitable comparison, despite Hughes' brilliance) after this outburst, his outbursts regarding journalists and a free press, etc.
Smart people have a habit of being annoying and frustratingly dense. See: Thomas Edison. Musk is being an idiot, but before the kids were rescued he did say something along the lines of "if this doesn't work here, it might work in the future". He's trying to save kids caught in future caves, not necessarily THIS cave. A lovable idiot. What we're witnessing is frustrated smart guy. It's worth examining, like Einstein fumbling with God's "dice". He's making innuendo references to Thai sex trafficking problems, but Thai Navy Seals...not the best prop, eh? A SEAL died to save these kids, that's beyond Elon Musks's wildest nightmares, right?
Musk has since apologised, but not directly, and made himself look pretty bad in the process, Musk apology to diver for Twitter attack. I imagine he needs the threat of being sued, to settle properly out of court. At a bare minimum a large donation to a child charity in Thailand seems to be in order.
"I'm sorry I lost my head when you were a truly terrible person and you said awful things to me that provoked me so much" is not a real apology, Mr. Musk.
I found this a good read: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-ful...hai-cave-rescue-effort/answer/Jeremy-Arnold-4
Whilst that makes some very good points, it claims that the water wasn't that a high, which is contradicted by the death of a diver earlier on, and it seems very keen to say the diver probobly "isn't a pedo," which seems quite an unfair way to describe an innocent man, also trying to hop on the #fakenews bandwagon doesn't help either. So we see two different underhand debate tactics used, damning with faint praise, and muddying the water. Which is a pity as its a well written defense otherwise.
Can you point me to where the author claims the water wasn't that high? I missed it on a quick re-scan. (And searching for 'water', 'level', and 'high' didn't turn up anything relevant.) (Was it embedded in one of the images?) My reading of how the author addressed the pedo comment was not 'the diver probably isn't a pedo', it was 'while clearly uncalled for, it wasn't completely random as Thailand has a lot of child sex rings, which of course doesn't mean the diver is a pedo and Musk shouldn't have said that but was frustrated and lashing out'. I agree this isn't really relevant. The main gist I got from the author was 'Musk lashed out in frustration and shouldn't have said that, and here is why he was frustrated and here is a possible explanation of where the 'pedo' insult came from instead of using some other insult'. (Maybe I'm reading too charitably.)
I actually think you might be too nice here. So Thailand has too many child sex rings; not a good thing at all and there need something done about it no question - but lashing out in that way, calling someone a pedo, because he lives in Thailand is a no go anyway (for me). Ooh, John Doe moved to Thailand, he must be a pedo. That's a serious "no" for me. What is the next step? Ooh, Thailand has child sex rings, all Thais must be into children? Nope, not convincing for me. It's also not an explanation for me. The insult was, because Musk got... let's call it frustrated, because the other English words that jump into my mind, aren't so nice. As Mitch said: "Petulant child". He didn't got his way, so he was cranky and put the blame on others - in one of the lamest ways.
I think my position is not what I'm apparently projecting via my posts. Calling the diver guy a pedo is not ok. It is irrelevant that the insult is tied to a commonplace crime in Thailand, other than as an explanation for why he may have chosen that particular insult vs another insult. It doesn't matter to me what insult he used; I think he would have used any insult that was around that level of insulting. If this situation happened somewhere with a lot of drugs being sold to kids, maybe he would have called him a kiddy heroin dealer. Or maybe he would have called him a racial slur if his race had been different. None of that is ok. BUT, the situation isn't a clear cut "Musk was out for PR, was being obnoxious inserting himself into the operation, and his solution was completely useless & he should have butted out, and then on top of that he freaked out on the diver guy". He did freak out on the diver guy. I found the background makes me think him less "wow that is crazy/what?" and more "he isn't dealing with his frustration very well at all here, and went way over the line". I.e., if I just start randomly insulting people, that says something different about me than if I lash out with insults when I'm very frustrated. Neither is a good thing, but there is a difference. One paints someone as a bit (or a lot) crazy, the other paints them more as, to also jump on the Mitch quoting bandwagon, a petulant/frustrated child.
Might have been my fault due to language - no, I didn't thought for a minute, that you thought that behavior was okay! I was referring to the "(Maybe I'm reading too charitably.)" and that I thought yes, you do read it too charitably. Might be an explanation, not sure, but it's certainly not an apology. Not even close. (Again, I know you didn't say it). I think, there just isn't a good excuse for that. It just being like being annoyed that he didn't became the hero he might wanted to be (whether or not the reason was pure good or PR; I don't care much as long as it gets the work like this done; once people are saved, one can start to debate about the reason behind it. It's priorities for me), so starting to call people not just Aholes, which wouldn't be nice, but mostly ignored; but drawing the pedo-card I think is not excusable; it's just not something you call people, because you are ****ed. There are ways to handle ones frustration, without calling people pedophiles. I might be wrong here (as soon as I remember the correct term I actually wanted to use, I might edit it), but I think there are insults (which you shrug away) and there are *insults* (which made me want to sue people). Being a pedophile or rapist would be part of the latter.
As I understand it, it was the massive water pumping operation, and lapse in monsoon rains, over days that allowed the water level to drop to the point a rescue was possible without major casualties. In other words, prior to the actual rescue days the preceding days were much worse conditions. They were planning on keeping the kids in there for months, which would probably have led to at least a couple deaths. It so happens the combination of good weather and massive resources allowed what was considered a treacherous operation (dive out) possible. A miracle, really. I think Elon Musk's comments were mostly hindsight. Which is fine, he can turn hindsight into things nobody else has. But I also think he's got that sort of hyperactive side to him where he jumps from topic to topic...spelunking submersibles straight to Thailand's sex trafficking problems in milliseconds. Stay off Twitter, Elon for everyone's sake. Keep drawring stuff, you might save the species.
British diver sues Elon Musk for $75,000 over 'pedo' claim So musk has yet again repeated the claim, and is now getting sued......
