I can't take my eyes off of you.
But if you feel like I feel
Please let me know that it's real.
You're just too good to be true
I can't take my eyes off you.
Frankie Valli, 1967
Elon Musk is a star. He is acting out. He has center stage and he is hanging onto it by being outrageous.
Musk is in a manic high.
Ron DeSantis has not displaced Trump on center stage. Elon Musk has. Musk dominates big-gesture narcissism the same way Trump did it, by being in the news cycle multiple times a day saying provocative things, poking his opponents in the eye with a stick. Screw the woke left. Screw Biden. Screw Democrats. Screw moderation weenies, and don't just fire them; accuse them of supporting child abuse. Screw the media and accuse them of hiding the truth. Twitter is the real media. Screw the supposed protectors of public health: "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci."
Musk has adopted the Master of the Universe model of behavior that became famous--then infamous--on Wall Street with big dealmakers making big money treading like Godzilla, buying up and smashing companies. Bravado and hubris were strengths, not weaknesses. They exemplified testosterone Alpha Male can-do empowerment. The Master of the Universe is not constrained by laws or custom. The character is bigger than life. The character is an alternative to the little girl truth-teller in the "emperor has no clothes" fable. That girl is empowered by her innocence and naïveté. The Godzilla titan can flout the rules because he knows the rules won't constrain him.
Musk, like Trump, appeals to the populist political right's resentments of elite opinion and social norms. They feel White Christian heterosexuals are picked on by the nannie/tyrants of the establishment. The Master of the Universe is Atlas, working on behalf of the everyday oppressed silent majority. Atlas shrugs. He is too rich to be called "deplorable."
There is an irony here. The richest man in the world is telling people to fear the power of elites. It works for Musk like it worked for Trump. People trust a traitor. It takes one to know one.
Musk is communicating with big, bold strokes. He showed he could make an offer to buy Twitter on a whim and as a joke. Then he realized he vastly overpaid. He was flamboyant in his rule-breaking to get out of the purchase. He ended up buying Twitter at the price he offered because his bluff offer was so well crafted. It was ironclad. The only person who could constrain Musk was Musk.
Upon owning Twitter, Musk announced an ultimatum. He told employees, "This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.“ They needed him. He was the boss. Like Trump said of America, "Only I can fix it." He could tease employees on their way out. “I would like to apologize for firing these geniuses. Their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.”
This weekend, on the stage with Dave Chappelle, amid boos from the crowd, Musk shouted, "I'm rich, Bitch!"
Manic. Hubris.
My own impressions of this era are colored by my experience. Magic beans aren't real. The emperor has no clothes. Internet stocks get to crazy highs. Mortgages given to the unemployed are a house of cards. Bernie Madoff was a Ponzi scheme. Beanie Babies were worthless. Junk bonds fail. Enthusiasm for CBD was a flash in the pan.
On the way up, things are so good and so easy that the people involved in them go crazy. People on a manic high of success and power and entitlement are fascinating to watch. They are stars. As Trump observed, "when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em -- --- -----. You can do anything."
It works for them until it doesn't. Then the unraveling.
"And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
It needed to be said and I couldn’t have said it any better!
These men need to toot their own horn because their’s must be bigger than the other guys!