I was again listening to the Accidental Tech Podcast as they were discussing that rich jerk’s takeover of Twitter. They seem to finally be a bit more realistic in their assessment than they were last week, but I think they’re still a little bit too optimistic that he’ll be able to turn things around. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on their part as they still find Twitter useful.

Remember Twitter was losing money before he bought it. And most advertisers have now left it because they don’t trust this stupid rich guy. And his main source of wealth, Tesla, has lost half of its value in the past year.

But it did get me to wondering how I was able to see through Musk years ago when everyone else (or almost everyone else) thought he was brilliant. And I think it’s because most people automatically assume that if somebody is rich, he’s also smart.

Well, I don’t. In fact, I pretty much assume just the opposite. Because I assume that anybody who is rich probably is surrounded with yes-people, because anybody who doesn’t tell rich person what rich person wants to hear won’t be around very long. And pretty soon, even if that rich person started out with reasonably high intelligence, they lose any ability to think in any way critically. And this goes double for anyone like Musk or Trump who came from a wealthy family.

So yes, I just assume that anybody who is rich is stupid.

And while I know there are some exceptions to that rule, I think it holds up pretty well.