- Sep 28, 2008
- 41,238
- 246,638
- 4,281
- MBTI
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 954 so/sx
My point is, he's rich no matter what happens to his current ventures, so he's already succeeded
What is Elon Musks temperament?
- Thread starter wolly.green
- Start date
My point is, he's rich no matter what happens to his current ventures, so he's already succeeded
My original point wasn't about his financial wealth, it was about his ideas. If his Mars missions and self-driving electric everything etc. end up bombing and flaming out and he loses his financial backing, that will suck because they are intriguing ideas with enormous possibilities.
That would personally be a bummer for Musk too, irrespective of everything his wealth has provided him. This guy lives and breathes his vision. He doesn't seem particularly driven by money to me.
- Sep 28, 2008
- 41,238
- 246,638
- 4,281
- MBTI
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 954 so/sx
It is always the creative drive and vision that propels people to greatness. He has it. He's not going to lose it until he's super old, gets a brain tumor or dies.
It will always provide him an ability to obtain wealth in some capacity. There will always be new backers. It could all go down in flames and he'd simply start over.
He'd probably love that. Being hungry for the climb is what it's about. A lot of his businesses have already failed. He's full of failure, that's why he's successful.
- Aug 21, 2015
- 9,499
- 89,391
- 2,590
- MBTI
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 5w4
The Tesla cars that aren't floating through space are pretty sweet, though!
He has a huge team of people running the show. He had his ideas and money. He's entrepreneurial and hires people to "get it done".
Some of his behaviors seem more like the stereotype of a perceiver to me. All those behaviors are atypical of healthy INTJs.
- Some of his products seem well thought out, logical and future-oriented (the cars, the batteries), but other stuff he does (that stupid car in space, flamethrowers) seem to have an indulgent, "This is fun and I can do it, so weeeeee!" approach. So, we need to get to the route of why he is really making this stuff and doing this stuff. If he's just dancing around in his imagination and throwing money at people who can make it happen, that isn't an INTJ way of doing things. That's more the stereotype of an IXFP.
- It's unfair to sensors to assume that they don't have big ideas, aren't deep, aren't creative, etc. ISFPs are "the artists" of MBTI, after all. (I do not think Musk is an ISFP, but he has some XSXP stereotypical behaviors.)
- Dude is awkward as awkward awkwards in interviews, so he is either a shy and poorly socialized extrovert, or an introvert. So, I will give the people who say he is an introvert points here.
- He is an entrepreneur, not an inventor. INTJs are more "behind the scenes, inventing the things" types and are most successful when they have another person promoting what they do. INTJ like to do the things, and they're hands-on perfectionists about doing the things. They're not usually at the head of the company running the show (without doing) or talking about the things.
I'm biased. My INTJ-dar isn't going off. I just don't dig him as a person at all. I know this counts for nothing, and personal experience has zip to do with typing, but if the man told me in person that he was an INTJ I would not believe him.
Last edited:
- Sep 28, 2008
- 41,238
- 246,638
- 4,281
- MBTI
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 954 so/sx
True, so it'd be awesome if they would actually hit the mainstream. It's interesting because they already sell a lot of engines to other car manufacturers, but still haven't quite gotten the hang of efficiently mass-producing Musk's ideal vision of the electric vehicle just yet.
Yet he's also a self-professed workaholic who remains very hands-on in how he runs his enterprises.
Couldn't it also be the inferior Se of an Ni-dom with a huge amount of resources at his disposal? Seems possible.
The story of how he came up with the idea of The Boring Company is pretty interesting:
On December 17, 2016, while stuck in traffic, Musk tweeted "Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging..."
My theory - frustrated INTJ gets a wild idea out of nowhere (Ni) and turns a frivolous whim (low-end Fi/Se) into a business concept (Te).
Also, purely my opinion but "The Boring Company" seems very much an INTJ-level joke/not joke.
Agree completely on the first part (as I've said many times, some of the smartest and most creative people I know are 'Sensors'). I still attribute the evident Se-use to a dude with big ideas and money to burn.
Except he is a perfectionist and is extremely hands-on.
I understand. My INTJ-dar IS going off but it's likely due to our differing experiences with the type. We're all just spitballing here.
Last edited:
I'd say so. And he probably made lots of calculations in his mind about those things as well. He seems to make internal calculations about the percentages of likelihood of success about just every decision he makes throughout the day. I mean, he says so himself, so unless he's lying to us...
- Aug 21, 2015
- 9,499
- 89,391
- 2,590
- MBTI
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 5w4
I can't argue the type of someone I've never met any further without reducing it to personal experience, and personal experience is very iffy because there is always the chance someone is mistyped. (I really don't appreciate those conversations that go, "OMG, I do that, too, so you must be MBTI type blahty blah, too! Samies! Teehee.")
But I'm still going to say it doesn't add up.
You can be driven by intellectual curiosity outside of money. I think he's more of a thinker than a feeler. For instance he was born in South Africa and doesn't seem to care about the social climate. He does care about transforming mars because he knows earth is reaching carrying capacity. He loves the human race with his mind not his heart. I would say he thinks more about the collective well being not the individual.
Also he has an awesome sense of humor which is very thinking driven. For instance his Boring company manufactures flame throwers which they decided to name "not a flame thrower". They did this in a bid to thwart the authorities so they could sell them in certain jurisdictions. The lawls people the lawls.
Most nurses are ENFJ.
"the Silent Fixers" Perhaps because South Africa is so crowded he would like to colonize Mars for the collective good? Too give everyone a little more space so to speak?
Ever hear of an Idea Monkey? They are the type that come up with millions of ideas, yet, they need the assistance of others to get the ideas off the ground...ENFJ.
Most nurses are ENFJ.
Perhaps because South Africa is so crowded he would like to colonize Mars for the collective good? Too give everyone a little more space so to speak?
Ever hear of an Idea Monkey? They are the type that come up with millions of ideas, yet, they need the assistance of others to get the ideas off the ground...ENFJ.
Oh for sure could be I just don't personally think so.
Wow, that's really fascinating.
I dunno, he just seems very INTJ. His Te strikes me as too strong to be INFJ, though again I deeply relate to (what I think is) his Ni.
Heres a quote
“Well first of all id say I actually think I feel it quite strongly. Um, its not as though I have the absence of fear. There are times when something is important enough, you believe in it enough that you do it in spite of fear. People shouldn’t think, um. That I. Um think well I feel fear about this and therefore I shouldn’t do it. Um its normal to be. To feel fear. Like there would have to be something mentally wrong with you if you don’t feel fear. Um.”
This is a very NF monologue! Hes talking about values and priorities in the abstract. But notice all the um's and ah's., and how much difficulty he has expressing his NF thoughts. Yes Elon Musk stutters a lot, but consider the following quote. This was taken after Joe Rogan asked him how he got permission to build his underground road.
“Steve was like, “id like to help make this happen”. I was like cool. SO we started off by digging a hole in the ground. We just got, like, a permit for a pit. A big pit and just dug a big pit. We just had to fill out this form. We just started off with the pit. A big pit. And um.. Theres not, um, you know. You don’t really care about the existential nature of a pit. You just say “I want a pit.” And, uh. It’s a hole in the ground. So then, we had the permit for the pit. We dug the pit.”
You can find example of this pattern over and over again in his interviews. Notice how when hes talking about the literal ST facts, there's no um's and ah's. He just states the facts as they are. He even doubles down on the ST facts to make it as clear as possible that there's nothing to read into here. He starts um's and ah's the moment he moves into N abstract land. His stuttering starts the moment he begins to entertain the N abstract possibilities. He even explains "you don't really care about the existential nature of the pit". Referring to himself.
You can find these patters everywhere in all his interviews. His stuttering starts AS SOON as he enters NF land. Then disappears the moment he goes back to ST land! ST is the world hes comfortable with. Not NF.
Whatever’s in the core it’s smothered in a Bruce Wayne persona. Sometimes the character tries to steal the actor’s soul particularly for a public figure saturated in reinforcing feedback.
It's interesting that you're seeing things that way. I'm seeing them from a very different perspective. His stuttering and struggling to find words when speaking in the abstract seems to me typical of an Ni user. As an introverted intuitive you need to translate content that is by nature very difficult to convey to a non-Ni audience. It also happens to me very often when I find myself in these situations (at my own modest level, of course).
He has that thing where he hesitates and stutters a bit, and then suddenly unpacks a lot of dense information in a few seconds. That is very familiar to me as an Ni-dom. Even the sort of weird nodding he does sometimes once he has expressed what he wanted to express hits home for me.
And if anything, he probably stutters more because his brain goes too fast for him to easily vocalize what he's thinking.
That’s my own experience too. It’s easier to see it when I’m writing - I may have this large clear insight that is well developed. But it’s a ‘solid object’ presented to me in 3D not in a linear form. I usually need to have several trial goes at it to make it linear and verbal - it might take me hours or days with one of the big ones. A good analogy is to imagine I’m standing on a mountain overlooking a wide inspiring landscape full of features - hills, valleys, towns, isolated farms, lakes, rivers, sheep, a flock of geese, a hawk, a badger disappearing behind a wall. It’s a lovely sunny day, there’s a strong breeze, and small clouds are moving quickly over the sky. The moon is still out but setting behind a hill. I’m feeling curious, exhilarated, a bit worried that the forecast is poor for later in the day, a little out of breath from the climb, and I’m feeling at one with everything as though I’m embedded in it all myself - etc, etc. I have all these impressions and many many more in an instant’s perception and I don’t put them into these words for myself. But now I’m on the phone describing it to someone who’s never been there, and is only partially sighted, and is not so romantically attached to wild places as I am. I’m not sure where to start, how to structure my impressions, what sort of language to use, what can be taken for granted and what can’t. I don’t consider these things for myself - I don’t need to. So the first time I do consider them is when I’m stuttering in front of someone, trying to translate on the fly, and not doing very well at it.