Elon’s father was not keen on him leaving South Africa from what I recall. There was an element of daddy doesn’t believe in me. He left against his fathers wishes.

https://people.com/human-interest/elon-musk-errol-musk-relat...

’“He was such a terrible human being,” Elon, 46, told the magazine. “You have no idea.”’

Daddy issues out the ass. This is actually the simplest answer, because people that pursue external validation (in Elon’s case it is very extreme, nothing is ever enough) are a genuine product of child abuse (it’s obvious emotional abuse is a major factor here).

I’m not absolving Elon, just trying to understand the initial state.

Edit:

When Elon finally came home from the hospital, his father berated him. "I had to stand for an hour as he yelled at me and called me an idiot and told me that I was just worthless," Elon recalls. Kimbal, who had to watch the tirade, says it was the worst memory of his life. "My father just lost it, went ballistic, as he often did. He had zero compassion."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/book-excerpt-elon-musk-by-walte...

Remember, this is a guy that showed up with a toilet to the Twitter offices and fired everyone, got on everyone’s case to sleep in the offices. He is a literal product of child abuse, and while he may not be continuing the cycle with his kids (which is hard to say because he disowned his Trans kid), he is absolutely unleashing the cycle of abuse onto others wherever he goes.

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rurp 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

He didn't just disown the Trans kid, he's disowned most of his kids. He literally has the mom's sign a contract that says the kid will have no legal claim as his child.

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barbazoo 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sucks, dads, please show your children that you love them unconditionally.

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simianwords 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is the most shallow take on Elon I have read.

	▲	ivape 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		No it’s not. People who don’t take child abuse seriously say stuff like that. Michael Jackson is another case of a man who regularly brought up his father’s abuse. These are lifelong scars that show up in everything you do in your life if you don’t face it. Both Elon and MJ engage in drug abuse very late into life. If you stop looking at them as extraordinary humans, and just look at them as ordinary humans, you’ll see that they track the path of many with dark upbringings (they become dysfunctional in some form or another if they don’t face the reality of their journey). They have a veeeery fucked up concept of what human worth is because their caretakers disrespected them. https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/nearly-400-million-you... This is a common thing, not a hot take.