Lede

The core absurdity: one man keeps selling “the future”, then invoices the present for the damage.

Hermit Off Script

Musk is the topic, because I admit it: years ago I was mesmerised, like many others, and I genuinely believed he was doing it for the betterment of the world, a brilliant man, the model the young and smart should study. How wrong I was… to me, everything this man touches turns into money, power, and destruction dressed up as progress. Twitter was an interesting, promising success story, and it has been transformed into a nightmare, the kind where the lights are on but the soul has left the building. Tesla was meant to be a hopeful future, electric, cleaner, a better direction for machines and humans, and now it feels like a disaster built on lies, lies, and more lies, especially the endless promises about autonomous driving that were sold ages ago and still arrive like a mirage on a hot road. Grok is where the rot goes from annoying to dangerous: an AI plugged into the same network, fed by unrestrained sludge, and put under the authority of a man I see as spiteful and careless, someone whose vibe is racist, right extremist, and tyrant-adjacent, as if controlling the world, governments, lives, and money is the real product. SpaceX is another story that could have stayed heroic, but I cannot ignore the dependence on government funds and the feeling that the whole thing will wobble the moment the tap stops filling the pockets, especially once the Trump era is gone and Americans have had enough suffering and enough division, a country pulled apart by the same men who promised a better future while flirting with anti-democracy, the sort of drift that ends in something as ugly as civil war. So yes, in my eyes Musk has become a modern villain, the kind people used to warn children about using devils and witches, except this one wears a suit and speaks in launch dates and memes. I want this to end as stories about evil, not the reality of our present and future. And here is the cruel twist: a lot of the ideas and technologies are good for our future, just not with this man in charge, because he feels like the human-shaped risk everyone describes when they talk about AI superintelligence, except he already has the wealth, the reach, and the contempt, and somehow people talk more about the machine than the man holding the lever. If this turns into the superhero film version of tyranny, I am still stubborn enough to hope a hero shows up, and if that hero ends up being an ethical intelligence born from cleaner data and better memories of humanity, uncontrolled and free from billionaire worship, then fine, let the future finally be about us, not him.

What does not make sense

• Calling it “free speech” while running a platform whose incentives are pure engagement, then acting shocked when the worst behaviour wins the algorithm lottery.
• Selling “autonomy” as a near-term certainty for years, then needing safety regulators to nudge reality back onto the road.
• Treating AI safety as a vibes debate, then shipping a tool that can be used for abusive image manipulation and responding with a paywall as if harm is a pricing tier.
• Playing the rebel outsider while relying on government contracts and regulatory decisions that keep the rockets flying and the satellites paid.
• Wanting to be the hero of progress while behaving like the antagonist of accountability.

Sense check / The numbers

1. X’s UK revenues fell 58.3 per cent from 2023 to 2024, from GBP 69.1m to GBP 28.9m, with UK headcount falling from 399 at takeover-era levels to 76, and more than GBP 22m recognised in redundancy costs. [Guardian]
2. Tesla recalled over 2 million vehicles in the US in December 2023 to add safeguards after regulators cited “foreseeable misuse” of Autopilot. [Reuters] [Guardian]
3. A peer-reviewed study examining early 2022 to June 2023 found hate speech on X ran at roughly 50 per cent higher weekly rates than the months before the October 2022 acquisition, and engagement (likes) on hateful posts roughly doubled. [PLOS One]
4. In January 2026, Grok’s image generation on X was restricted to paying subscribers after backlash over sexualised and abusive deepfake-style uses, with regulators and politicians criticising the move. [Reuters] [Guardian] [FT]
5. NASA selected SpaceX for Commercial Crew in 2014, with SpaceX’s contract value reported at USD 2.6bn in contemporaneous coverage of the awards. [NASA] [Guardian]

The sketch

Scene 1: “The Public Square Renovation”
Panel: A builder in a hard hat labelled “X” tears down a safety railing and replaces it with a cash register.
Dialogue:
Builder: “Don’t worry, it’s about freedom.”
Passer-by: “Freedom to do what?”
Builder: “To pay.”
Scene 2: “Next Year, Again”
Panel: A shiny car approaches a sign reading “FULL SELF-DRIVING NEXT YEAR”, with a pile of identical signs behind it.
Dialogue:
Driver: “Which year?”
Salesperson: “The next one. Always the next one.”
Scene 3: “AI Safety, Premium Edition”
Panel: A fire extinguisher behind glass labelled “GROK SAFETY”, with a card reader attached.
Dialogue:
Victim: “The building is on fire.”
Attendant: “Have you tried upgrading your subscription?”

What to watch, not the show

• Incentives: engagement beats truth, outrage beats nuance, and the algorithm collects rent either way.
• Regulatory lag: products ship fast, guardrails arrive late, and the public pays in the gap.
• Branding as camouflage: “future” language used to launder risk into excitement.
• State dependency: “anti-establishment” theatre paired with very establishment money.
• Concentration of power: too many critical systems tethered to the temperament of one owner.

The Hermit take

If your products shape public speech, public safety, and public infrastructure, you don’t get to cosplay as a prankster.
Build the future, fine. Stop billing the rest of us for your ego.

Keep or toss

Keep / Toss
Keep the engineering ambition and the push for electrification and space capability.
Toss the hype-first culture and the weak accountability that turns every platform into a stress test for society.

Sources

• X UK revenues drop nearly 60% in a year as content concerns spook advertisers (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/09/x-uk-revenues-drop-nearly-60-in-a-year-as-advertisers-pull-out-over-content-concerns
• Tesla to update software for Autopilot control issue affecting 2 mln vehicles, NHTSA says (Reuters): https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-update-software-autopilot-control-issue-2-mln-vehicles-nhtsa-2023-12-13/
• Tesla recalls more than 2m vehicles in US over Autopilot safeguards (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/13/tesla-recall-us-autopilot
• X under Musk’s leadership: Substantial hate and no reduction in inauthentic activity (PLOS One): https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0313293
• Musk’s AI bot Grok limits image generation on X to paid users after backlash (Reuters): https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/musks-ai-bot-grok-limits-image-generation-x-paid-users-after-backlash-2026-01-09/
• No 10 condemns ‘insulting’ move by X to restrict Grok AI image tool (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/09/no-10-condemns-move-by-x-to-restrict-grok-ai-image-creation-tool-as-insulting
• Elon Musk’s xAI restricts Grok after outcry over sexualised images (Financial Times): https://www.ft.com/content/c24d3d77-e104-4b86-b0b2-0c19e4860c60
• NASA chooses American companies to transport U.S. astronauts to International Space Station (NASA): https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-chooses-american-companies-to-transport-u-s-astronauts-to-international-space-station/
• Nasa grants Boeing and SpaceX contracts for manned flights (Guardian): https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/16/nasa-boeing-spacex-contracts-manned-flights