The loss of trust is real. I was a phd student doing computer science until this year; my school kowtowing to fascists was the last straw for me. I will have nothing to do with these fucking government contractors who get cheap labor by pretending to also be places of education, as if working a dhs grant for 4 years on a $29k stipend is anything other than illegal sub-minimum wage labor. I’ve come to the realization that getting a phd is nothing more than a measure of how much you will prostrate yourself to an abusive system; it has little to do with intelligence or expertise.

Because investor sentiment is the reason your claims are wrong. Of course you haven’t been talking about it; it dismantles your argument, and you’re here to win a debate rather than to have a conversation. I wouldn’t talk about either if I were in your position and trying to feel right on the internet.

“How he feels doesn’t matter. What matters is what he does” is flatly incorrect; how people feel plays a significant role in determining how they act and how they present themselves/their brand in public. These things go on to affect things like investor confidence, which goes on to effect stock market prices. These variables are all far too coupled to claim that any one matters but any other does not.

“A portfolio is just a stack of paper until you convert it back into cash”. Yeah, that’s kinda how all currency works. It’s just a stack of paper until you convert it into goods. Given the propensity of the rich to borrow against their net worth whenever they need liquid cash to acquire goods, losing net worth on the stock market is a very real financial loss in his case.

“Whether Elon understands this or not is irrelevant. The stock market’s mechanics don’t change based on his emotional reactions”

You may recognize those as your own words from the comment that I was responding to. I’m not moving goalposts or making strawman arguments, you are either choosing not to or failing to follow the thread of your own statements.

I’ll explain the link then. Investor sentiment often turns sour when there are scandals with the c-suite of companies. It’s also affected by the public statements and confidence of said c-suite. Currently elon is embroiled on one of the largest and most brand image damaging scandals in recent memory. Further, in his recent appearances he’s both looked and sounded like a slowly deflating basketball. This has both visibly affected investor confidence in his companies, and is evidence supporting my claim that he can’t handle seeing number go down. This is why your claim that “the stock markets don’t change based on his emotional reaction” is equivalent to saying that markets don’t respond to investor sentiment

So you’re telling me that stock markets don’t respond to investor sentiment, they respond to “basic facts”? Am I being trolled right now?

I don’t think that’s relevant in this case because I don’t think elon has the capacity to understand that. He’s a man that pays to cheat in online gacha games for clout; he is not emotionally built to handle seeing number get smaller and reacting rationally to that