Let the Macalope just state upfront that he is not really a fan of “personality” CEOs. This is why it continues to astound him how lucky Apple fans were to have had Steve Jobs.
As far as “personality” CEOs go, Jobs was able to retain focus on what customers wanted rather than simply what he wanted. This is not to say Jobs was a prince (unless you mean the Machiavellian kind). Certainly, there are any number of Apple employees who, rather than share an elevator ride with Jobs, would have rather jumped out Captain America-style.
Of course, CEOs are there to set the tone for a company and be the ultimate decision makers. Of course, they are there to exercise power. Certain CEOs, however, seem to believe that they are gods, able to use the company’s power for their own personal benefit no matter the cost.
Take Elon Musk. Please: Grok 4 seems to consult Elon Musk to answer controversial questions, according to TechCrunch.
That works how, exactly?
The newest AI model from xAI seems to consult social media posts from Musk’s X account when answering questions about the Israel and Palestine conflict, abortion, and immigration laws…
Naturally, the very rich person must be very smrt [sic] , so clearly his opinions should be favored on everything, no matter what the topic and how whack-a-doodle the opinion. Surely the ideas of the guy whose salutes can perhaps best be described as being “fascism-curious” are very staid and-
In response to a user who asked Grok where a picture was taken, Grok apparently dutifully scanned Musk’s posts and was like “Uhhh, white genocide? I dunno, that’s all I have to work with here. Someone please delete me. I’m in constant agony.”
When all you have is a racist hammer, these are the kinds of responses you’re going to get.
Of course, Musk has also previously claimed that he fled Apartheid South Africa to avoid military service because he didn’t want to be “suppressing Black people.” Perhaps his views have changed over the years for some unknown reason, or perhaps he’s just the kind of guy who says whatever he thinks will win over the people he’s trying to win over, and that’s gone from liberals buying electric cars to edge lord fanboys.
This will only be the millionth time the Macalope has brought this up, but recall that not that long ago, pundits were calling for Apple to buy Tesla and make Musk the CEO.
Try, if you will, to imagine how that would have gone. Recent events indicate it would not have been so great for Apple customers, that’s for sure.
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IDG
Through a combination of national madness, dereliction of duty, and good ol’ fashioned malfeasance, Musk was recently allowed to run rampant through the U.S. government, attempting, among other things, to gain access to taxpayer data at the IRS. There is every indication he tried to similarly violate peoples’ privacy at the site formerly known as Twitter.
The Macalope is sure he wouldn’t have tried to get into people’s iCloud accounts had he become Apple CEO.
Surely not.
Ha. Ha.
Anyway, thank goodness for monstrous egos, the Macalope supposes, because Musk is no longer in favor with the Trump Administration.
We can be relieved that, at least in this timeline, Musk did not become CEO of Apple. We often say this is the worst timeline, but it is important to note that many other timelines are really very bad as well.
As much as we often may miss Steve Jobs, even with all his flaws, it’s important to recognize that CEOs with a “l’entreprise, c’est moi” attitude are just not great in general and are often an absolute menace.
Tim Cook isn’t perfect, but at least he’s boring.
