Very broadly speaking, HN is the forum of choice for the 'Web 2.0' and VC backed startup culture that went along with it, i.e. what is commonly perceived now as Silicon Valley culture. This culture is becoming increasingly reactionary now that their power is threatened/fading. Musk, while part of the early rise of that culture in the late 90s is now well outside it (represented by his move from California to Texas) and is a favourite target of the cohort described above. See also HN's noted long-term antipathy towards Bitcoin.
As someone well outside that circle, has it ever occurred to you that some people just don't like Elon "Pedo Guy" Musk?
And same people double down on the dislike because his supporters are the kind of people to paint not liking him must actually be a sign that you're just upset that you're losing your non-existent grip on non-existent power?
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Elon went from cool eccentric paypal/electric car/taking us to mars genius to arrogant "Great Value Joe Rogan without the social skills" very quickly with the general public.
Why are you assuming I am an Elon Musk supporter, or that I even like him? And it's fine if you don't like him; it's fine for anyone to not like him.
What I am commenting on is the reactionary attacks frequently made in this forum against Musk's business efforts, in this case his taking over of Twitter, with many ppl forecasting doom, despite his business success already across a wide range of domains. An objective observer would say that given his track record (truly extraordinary and historic in the case of SpaceX), he's probably got a decent chance of making a success of this twitter acquisition too. A decent chance, note, I'm not saying his success is guaranteed. (And obviously the way he pursued the acquisition of twitter showed impulsivity and some lack of strategic planning; that criticism is fine.)
There's a number of comments in this thread suggesting that Musk only surrounds himself with 'yes men'. I, like others, have noticed how he does favour a cohort of sycophants on twitter, so perhaps there is some truth in this direction. But it's a nonsense to think he would fully do this in business and succeed with extraordinarily difficult technological challenges like developing a re-usable rocket. This point was made in one of the few rebuttals to this nonsense in this thread:
> I guarantee Elon is surrounded by yes-men.
>> That's not how you build a spaceship.
So, to repeat, intelligent criticism of Musk's business decisions is fine; personal dislike towards him is fine (although I would suggest that people take care of how much they are being influenced by the highly hostile presentation of him in the corporate press). What is not fine is reactionary, frankly idiotic attacks on him, which is what we frequently and not at all usefully see in so many HN threads. And why these attacks? Again, I would suggest that it's because Elon has quite frequently stood up to Silicon Valley power or more specifically its celebrated causes (deplatforming for 'hate speech', work from home, lockdowns, 'pronouns', etc) and that is greatly resented.
I'm not assuming you're a supporter, you're actively being a supporter of his right now.
You made the logical leap that people only dislike him because they're part of some landed gentry that feels their power is waning, then you followed up with a one page treatise on how people dislike him for the wrong reasons and clearly he's quite brilliant and also yeah they're just upset because he's getting so powerful.
You may be in denial about it, but you're supporting him.
And therefore it might be hard to see how easy it is to dislike the billionaire trying to play UN security council on twitter is disliked.
(and case you still didn't make the connection, the attacks on his business acumen stem from the same dislike. You're calling them idiotic for not thinking he's as brilliant as you think he is. You can't pay for supporters that loyal (or well, you can but it costs approx. 54 dollars a share)
