Some thoughts on Elon Musk and recent events on X:
It isn't easy to figure out another person at a distance and only based on public words and actions. It's like trying to reconstruct ancient history. But, as Bible scholar Adam Winn has pointed out, the inherent uncertainty of historical analysis should not prevent us from attempting such analysis and seeking plausible interpretations and reconstructions utilizing the available historical data.
With that as my guiding principle, what do I see in Elon Musk?
Well, his behavior of the last week or so has provided something of a key. Elon is apparently someone who can't tolerate a lot of stress. Sometime ago a friend who is in the know told me about Elon's regular use of ketamine. That was rather shocking to me. Elon is so 'clean-cut' looking someone of my generation would never think of him as a drug user. But, I later found that Elon admitted this drug use freely. He said he found that small doses helped with his depression or anxiety or whatever. Basically, ketamine helps one dissociate from reality, helps one live in an illusion or delusion.
So, I think due to his anxiety/depression issues, we can dispense with any idea that Elon is a psychopath or sociopath as quite a number of people have suggested without much to go on. But, anxiety and depression can be very acute in certain types of narcissism, particularly the type that is woven in a child's psyche by an over-indulgent mother which is a completely different thing from NPD.
So, I suggest that Elon may be this type of narcissist. A narcissist of this type is, essentially, something like Peter Pan - someone who never wants to grow up.
Narcissists can be very good parents to small children who worship them - it's a symbiotic dance made in heaven. But lord help the child the day they stop hero-worshiping the parent and turn their gaze to admire something or someone else.
This dynamic is what makes me wonder about Elon's repeated claims that the Woke Mind Virus killed his son. What responsibility does Elon carry in that tragedy? Was he so sensitive to approval/disapproval from his peers that he succumbed to the Virus himself, first? It does seem to me that most Woke types are, at the very least, narcissist of this kind, though the real purveyors of Wokism are not sensitive at all; they are generally cold and evil psychopaths who use their special abilities to Spellbind weaker humans. And Elon does appear to be a weak human who imagines himself to be a lion. Let me just say: Those who have the will of a lion do not suffer the fate of a mouse. Elon's behavior in the past couple of days shows him to be quite a small mouse even if he roars from time to time.
This brings us to Elon's apparent inability to endure being criticized and reviled without breaking.
An egotist measures other people by his own yardstick, treating his concepts and experiential manner as objective criteria. Becoming an adult includes de-egotization. Truly exceptional people with well-integrated personalities can be almost totally devoid of egotism and this allows them to understand others very easily.
The kind of excessive egotism that Elon has displayed for a very long time, and most overtly in the past couple of weeks, is the chief of human faults because it hampers the development of the self (needs to use ketamine to escape reality), and leads to misjudgment and terrorization of others. Difficulties, disputes, serious problems, and neurotic reactions sprout up around such an egotist like mushrooms after a rainfall. Such a person can spend a lot of money, time, effort to achieve goals that are born in the boiling cauldron of their erroneous reasoning and overly emotional reactions. Elon's inability to recognize the value of dissimilarity (despite his claims to the contrary), can and does and will lead to ever greater conflict. Such a person can exhibit an attitude of aggression and social noxiousness. (Yes, we've seen it.)
Now, here's the thing: Excessive egotism is a fundamental property of a hysterical personality. For such people, forcing others in their environment, whole social groups, and, if possible, entire nations to feel and think like themselves becomes an internal necessity, a ruling concept. Some game a normal person would not take seriously becomes an often lifelong goal for them, the object of effort, sacrifices, and cunning psychological strategy. Pathological egotism derives from repressing from one’s field of consciousness any objectionable, self-critical associations referring to one’s own nature or normality. The question: “who is abnormal here, me or this world of people who feel and think differently?” are answered in the world’s disfavor. Such egotism is always linked to a dissimulative attitude, i.e. wearing a mask.
Pathological egotism is a constant component of variegated states wherein someone who appears to be normal (although he is in fact not quite so) is driven by motivations or battles for goals a normal person considers unrealistic or unlikely. The average person asks: “What could he expect to gain by that?”. We should thus always remember that the principle of law cui prodest becomes moot when dealing with pathological egotism.
This brings me to what is going on now on X: it seems to me that Elon has realized that he really can't handle true Free Speech. It is too wild, to unpredictable, too dangerous to his own weakened psyche, a psyche weakened by his own inherent narcissism, compounded by drugs, and un-ameliorated by any type of real work on the self that might have helped him to grow a will and even a soul. Perhaps he has a therapist who has urged him to create an environment that he can tolerate without melting down and needing a big dose of ketamine or benzos. Humorously, perhaps Elon's changes to X are at his doctor's orders.
I could, of course, suggest a course of reading for Elon that might greatly benefit both his mind and his soul, but I think it would be a waste of my time. Elon is too inculcated into the Woke Matrix to ever really get out of it. He almost did: his anger and hurt about the loss of his son could have been his redemption, but he squandered that capital on H1B immigrants and his financial bottom line, which only tells us that this anger and hurt was about as deep as a thimble.
I would suggest a carnivore diet, testosterone supplements, and a regimented program of physical development if he wants to feel better without drugs. Who knows, the will required to follow such a regimen might seed something more within him.
But I guess we'll never know because narcissists don't take advice from anyone except their mothers.