Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wants everyone to know that he would only call someone an “idiot” if people were mistakenly under the impression that this person is smart—oh, and he really does love most trains, subways, and London buses.
Taken out of context, Musk’s Thursday tweetstorm—which touched on all those subjects—might seem strange. But it all goes back to a fracas that erupted earlier this month after Wiredpublished comments made by the CEO at an artificial intelligence conference. Musk said that “public transport is painful. It sucks. Why do you want to get on something with a lot of other people, that doesn’t leave where you want it to leave, doesn’t start where you want it to start, doesn’t end where you want it to end?”
Musk called the Wired report “misleading and misanthropic.” But that didn’t stop critics from lashing out at the billionaire entrepreneur’s description of shared transit as an unpleasant safety risk.
And that’s when things escalated.
Jarrett Walker, a high-profile public transit advocate and consultant, jumped into the debate, describing Musk as an elitist and calling his disdain for public transit as “a luxury (or pathology) that only the rich can afford.”
Musk’s response was short—“You’re an idiot”—and it only poured more fuel on an already fiery debate.
After the initial eruption, all seemed quiet until NYT columnist and economist Paul Krugman retweeted out a story from Fortune with one comment “Elon Musk’s idea of a cogent argument, ‘You’re an idiot.'”
It took a couple of days, but Musk fired back with a string of tweets explaining his reasoning, and declaring his love for some public transit.
Idiots can be very dangerous when they seem smart, but aren’t (having “PhD” in their bio is a dead giveaway), as some policymakers may get fooled. That’s what really bothered me about that human cat meme / transit “expert”.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2017
I would only call someone an idiot if people were mistakenly under the impression that the person was smart
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2017
Later, Musk took things officially too far.
His “PhD” is in literature (really), presumably bad fiction
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2017
For the record, I actually love trains, most subways and London buses.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2017
Still, Musk says public transit doesn’t fully solve the problem “as most major cities have been in traffic hell for decades with no solution in sight.”
However, public transit is obviously not fully solving the problem, as most major cities have been in traffic hell for decades with no solution in sight. Multi-level tunnels can solve this, but we need much better tunneling technology, as it is currently super slow and expensive.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2017
The upshot? Tunnels. Multi-level tunnels. Which is what his other business, The Boring Company, just happens to be pursuing.
