What do you think about Vivian Jenna Wilson's decision to speak out against her father, Elon Musk, in a public interview with NBC News?

I was taken in for some time by Elon. I used to rationalise, with thoughts like “Perhaps there is no such thing as bad publicity. Elon keeps people interested in technology by constantly being in the limelight—but if he wants to do things like normalise EVs and make humans a transplanetary species, surely we can forgive him some clumsy and somewhat boorish behaviour from time to time?”

Jesus, was I ever wrong! Looking at his recent pronouncements, as another former South African, I can only say:

But putting this all aside…

Is it ok if I wear a bonnet as a person with straight hair? I used to have curly hair, but later on in life I got it treated, I’m not black, but my hair keeps getting frizzy every morning so I am considering it. Is it cultural appropriation?

^† As Terry Pratchett points out, a ho-ho is deeper than a ha-ha. And Elon seems to have dug himself into one :)

I must confess

Top image is from NBC News. Bottom image is from The Big Picture on Substack.

If a guy is attracting a bunch of what he believes to be "ugly" women, is he crushing the dating game?

What strikes me about couch-dwellers like JD Vance and increasingly, his new bestie Elon Musk, is, well, simply a word. A word that naturally springs to mind when I think of them. It’s this …

I would mention the birth rate stuff, but I am not touching that weird 14-words breeder shit with a ten foot pole. You single-handedly disillusioned me with how gullible we are as a species because somehow people keep believing you for reasons that continue to evade me.”

Branding. Yep. Serial adulterer? Maybe not entirely distant from the truth. Nicole Shanahan? Seems very likely—ask Sergey Brin. And test-tube adultery (Zilis)? Is this a thing? Eugh. Wipes hands.

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Elon a Christian? Hehe. Ha-ha. Ho-ho.^†

Here she is on Instagram recently:

It seems increasingly clear that it was always, only about Elon. Everything. Let’s check out those grievances, then:

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You are not a family man, you are a serial adulterer who won’t stop fucking lying about your own children. You are not a Christian, as far as I’m aware you’ve never stepped foot in a church. You are not some “bastion for equality/progress”. You called Arabic the “language of the enemy” when I was 6, have been sued for discrimination multiple times, and are from Apartheid South Africa.

But perhaps I’m now being unfair. What do you think?

You are not “saving the planet”, you do not give a fuck about climate change and you’re lying about multi-planetary civilization as both an excuse, and because you want to seem like the CEO from Ready Player One.

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Discrimination (and perhaps even worse, not listening to concerns being raised about sex discrimination)? Well, he’s currently being sued about this. Multiply. Tesla recently coughed up $3m to settle a lawsuit against a black man who was subject to racial slurs and swastikas on a daily basis. And so on. The buck stops with you, Elon.

His current affiliation is prima facie evidence that he does not, indeed, “give a fuck about climate change”.

Look, I don’t know if you genuinely believe this or if you live in your own delusional fantasy land and frankly, I don’t care. It seems to me like you’re trying to rebuild your brand image as the “caring paternal father” which I will not let go unchallenged. If I’m going to be honest, this is absolutely pathetic…

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I’m not going to touch his Dutch activist breeder shit either. Aagh.

First, why not let the lady speak for herself?

^§ This would be side-splittingly funny—were Apartheid not so tragic—once you realise that Afrikaans speakers are likely the most genetically diverse humans on the planet. I wrote a bit about this previously on Quora:

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creepy

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/vance-broligarchs-musk-thiel-2024

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665

Why do my friends always say "yeah, we've heard this before" when I talk about something I'm passionate about?

Anger, surely. But where’s the truth?

My 2c, Dr Jo

^‡ An interesting factoid: some of the earliest transcriptions of Afrikaans were written in the 1830s in the madrasah in Cape Town—in Arabic! لسانِ افرکانس This is in start contrast to the subsequent Afrikaner emphasis, on, well, let’s not beat about the bush—”white racial purity”.^§ I wonder where Musk got his 14 word ideas from? Let me think…

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Elon, ek ken kak as ek kak sien.^*

^* If you’re struggling with the translation, then Google Translate is your friend here—and will even read to you. It’s more emphatic in the original Afrikaans. I find it strange that a language seemingly designed for swearing at manual labourers should have some of the most heartfelt poetry too.^‡ This however is not one of those sentences.