You aren't far off. https://www.educator.com/news/why-elon-musk-fired-his-long-term-assistant-who-asked-for-a-raise/

Worse. He believed them.

I'm pretty sure he was like that the whole time, it just wasn't generally known. It was bound to come out sooner or later.

if he was the person to do that he probably wouldn't have been the person to put himself in the position he was in. The ruthlessness and amorality is what floated him to the top.

Oh i had almost forgotten the submarine lash out, but you are right that it all started there more or less.

What a downward spiral.

Elon is very skilled. Some of his great skills, just off the top of my head; riding the shit out of every coat tail, failing upwards, shooting himself in his bulletproof foot, looking like a complete dweeb/asshat to most of the world almost as much as the potus, and so much more! He's truly remarkable... -ly foolish.

McAfee was a perfectly competent programmer in the 80s and 90s. I think by the time most people heard of him he had already fried the part of his brain responsible for programming with copious amounts of every drug.

I'd still take him over Musk any day.

I think he's more like Notch and Rowling, they had a fuck ton of money, the ability to never be told no, some pre existing regressive ideas, and got addicted to the internet as it became a hellscape. These people were each just as isolated as the friendless 4channer in their mom's basement, just in a different way, and they were just as in need of therapy.

What we know from Vivian Wilson and her mom is that both paint a believable picture of Musk pre extreme wealth. A tenacious man who always wanted more and was wracked by insecurity. He insisted on sex selective ivf to ensure he only had sons and he punished his daughter when she failed to be sufficiently masculine. He relentlessly pursued and wooed his first wife, but dumped her basically immediately upon striking it rich. When combined with his childhood abuse, current behavior, and emotional neediness in everything he does, I'm comfortable using a framework of NPD to understand him (yeah it's an armchair diagnosis so take it as a proposed model, not a diagnosis). Within that framework the worst thing for his mental health was to become rich, famous, and terminally online. His inability to take criticism and his response to lash out at it publicly and permanently is one of his big reasons for his rightward shift as it came while he was being criticized by the left for his treatment of workers.