The New York Times reports that Elon Musk is now accompanied at all times by a private army of security professionals far beyond what other billionaires employ [New York Times; archive.org]. He leads a paranoid half-life and tweeted 159 times yesterday.
Mr. Musk, 53, has long cultivated a devil-may-care persona, traveling the world, hanging out with moguls, world leaders and celebrities, and smoking weed in public. But in private, he has increasingly barricaded himself behind a growing phalanx of armed bodyguards as he has become more wealthy, more famous and more outspoken — and as the threats against him have evolved.
The world's richest man, with a net worth of more than $240 billion, he once fielded largely harmless calls and messages from ardent fans but now regularly deals with stalkers and death threats, according to police documents and internal Tesla records. While many high-profile people face threats, Mr. Musk has transformed his own protection in recent years to deal with the change, expanding an already robust personal security beyond that of other billionaires.
Billionaires' personalities tend to slowly deform to the needs of the capital as the years glide by—eccentricities are coping skills. But this one got hopelessly addicted to social media and dissociative anesthetics, so his brain transformed into a reactionary cum dumpster as soon as he lost control.
"Elon stayed up all night posting. He's posted 159 times in the last 24 hours. All culminating in an objectively awful poem a sixth grader could write about how religion is good even though he's an atheist. At this point I can't tell if he's taking too much or not enough ketamine"
I know what you're thinking. If anyone on Earth would write poetry in the bland, unmetered, keyworded style of the AI, it would be him.
