Elon Just Couldn't Stop Posting About Trump — And Experts Say It's Very Revealing
Stanford University psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke said she doesn't know what is going through Musk's head, but frequent posters in general typically do so out of a desire for social validation, which can be even more potent to receive from people you don't know.
Lembke said social validation from millions of strangers online can be 'much more potent and therefore more reinforcing than the social validation we might get from people in our real life, because of the emotional complexity of real-life relationships where there's much more give and take, and we have listen.'
'And that's not necessarily true on social media, where we can just delete or block somebody or go somewhere else to get the reinforcement we're looking for,' she continued.
Experts say one other reason for posting so much could be to control narratives against you. A New York Times report alleges that tensions between Trump and Musk had been simmering for months, but the breakup got accelerated after Musk felt ' humiliated ' when Trump got rid of Musk's preferred pick for head of NASA.
'[Musk] wants to be validated. This was not the way it was supposed to go. He was supposed to save the country from all kinds of things. And he was the only guy who could do it,' suggested Tracy Ross, a couples therapist, about what Musk might be seeking with his frequent posts. 'Think of the specialness of that, and then to lose that, he's got to feel gutted.'
Ross said in her practice it can be typical for couples to engage in a blame game after a breakup. Instead of reflecting on 'How am I responsible for this blow up?' people can discharge those feelings by seeking constant validation online so they 'don't have to feel those things and [they] don't have to look at [their] own contribution' in the breakup, Ross said.
And one way to control a narrative about your reputation is to share nonstop posts about it.
'Whoever can post the most and get the most reposts, the most followers and likes, then they at least have the feeling that they're shaping and dominating the historical narrative around what happened,' Lembke said about why people might post so much.
To be clear though, posting a lot is not a wholly negative behavior and can sometimes be out of 'a desire for social connection and the possibilities of career enhancement,' Gerrard said.
It's also a behavior that social media platforms encourage, Gerrard said.
'X has historically cultivated a following of frequent posters, which isn't an accident as it's precisely what the platform was intended for,' Gerrard said. 'Whereas those posting through it on other platforms may face more criticism. Instagram, for example, is largely viewed as a space for highly curated, aestheticized, and potentially inauthentic content, hence the phrase 'highlight reel.''
But even big-time posters can reach a limit with how much they should share online.
Musk appears to have deleted his most inflammatory insults against Trump, including his claims that Trump appears in unreleased files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his support for the president's impeachment.
Ross said that deleting certain insults could potentially be an 'admission that maybe he thinks he went too far, and that ... could backfire because Trump is known to be pretty vengeful.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
I'm A Gender Researcher & This Is The Real Reason Women Are Stepping Away From Dating & Relationships
Ava, 27, seemed unbothered by her partner's inability to communicate his emotions. 'We have enough to think about,' she told me as she slid her laptop out of her tote bag, still dressed in her tweed blazer from work. It wasn't serious, anyway. She'd been dating Max for a few months when it struck her — mid-conversation with a friend — that she had no idea what he felt about her or their future. So she stopped asking. There was a time, she said, when she would've tried harder. Sara, 21, recalled sitting on her bed while her boyfriend begged her to hear him out. He wasn't remorseful for cheating, he just no longer wanted to sit with his shame. 'I was done,' she said. And yet, he expected her to comfort him. 'I had to help him find the words for his feelings, not his actions,' — long silences, teasing through shame and self-hatred. 'He didn't know what he wanted to say,' she said. 'And then I made him feel OK about it'. These stories reflect a shift among young women in which more and more of them are 'quiet-quitting' these relationships. Women are now 23% less likely to want to date than men, not because they don't care, but because they feel they've invested too much emotional labor without support in return. In intimate relationships, young women are taking on a disproportionate load of invisible emotional labor, often supporting men through intense feelings of failure and isolation from friends. Many men described feeling 'weird or like a waste of time' when opening up to male friends, instead reserving vulnerability for their relationships with women. While men consider this unburdening to women a 'natural part' of their relationships, those same women describe it as work— what researchers at Stanford University call 'mankeeping.' Over the past two years, I've interviewed dozens of young men and women about their relationships. What's emerged is a sense that women are absorbing the emotional fallout of a crisis they didn't create. The anxieties surrounding what it means to be a man in 2025 should matter to everyone. They're reshaping not just our politics, but the very fabric of how women and men interact — shaping how we love, how we vote, and whether we can build a future together at all. Telling the other side of the 'masculinity crisis' is key to solving it. The crisis is especially acute for younger men — with two-thirds reporting that 'no one really knows them.' Christopher Pepper, co-author of Talk To Your Boys, notes that Gen Z is the first generation to rely mostly on their phones to communicate. 'There's no responsibility for what's on the receiving end [of online communication],' he said, with online spaces often devolving into slurs and death threats 'that wouldn't be acceptable in other situations.' For the 60% of men who engage with masculinity influencers, friendship itself is evolving: ambition, wealth and popularity are prioritized over trust. In individualist countries like the U.K. and U.S., this shift is more pronounced — perhaps owed to the glamorization of lone-wolf masculinity, in which vulnerability is discouraged. Meanwhile, young women are rejecting patriarchal expectations that previous generations internalized. Once expected to shoulder emotional labor as a normal part of relationships, they are now more aware of the 'costs of caring,' including suppressing their own needs. They're less inclined to date, with 56% saying 'it's hard to find someone who meets their expectations,' compared to 35% of men. From 'I'm Not Your Therapist' to 'I'm literally Joan Baez,' Gen Z women are resisting the notion of offering up too much to men. While some women told me that men without emotional fluency are unattractive, others hesitate to expect it, fearing they'll be labelled 'controlling'. Several women I spoke with expressed concern over how dating men affects their economic futures. The role of women as invisible drivers of men's success isn't new, but with young people struggling to find jobs at unprecedented rates, it's taken a new form. From job hunting to burnout, 'women tend to provide increased emotional support to men who do not have it elsewhere.' Mankeeping is typically tied to thinner social networks, but for Gen Z, it's more about men's inability to share their struggles with other men. All men I spoke with felt they couldn't be as honest about their jobs with their male friends. In contrast, most young women I interviewed described how stepping in during'unsettled times' negatively impacted their work and well-being. This labor has become an invisible workplace obstacle, as instant communication has erased the natural boundaries that once separated work and emotional caregiving. COVID-19 only exacerbated these dynamics, with many surprised by how quickly they 'played house' during lockdown — over-focusing on their partner's needs instead of their own. A default response learned in their teens and early 20s, it's been challenging to unlearn. Some have gone further: writing partner's college essays, preparing scholarship presentations, coaching them on job interviews. In some cases, their partners actively diminished their career success. 'When he heard where I worked, he looked at me predatorily,' one woman said. He later pressured her to refer him to her company, convincing her it would be best for their relationship. Some men seek proximity to success without realizing the toll it takes on their self-esteem. Broader beliefs about gender equity are shaping how much support partners expect — and feel entitled to — from each other. Women feel as though men aren't doing enough to support gender equality, whereas 60% of men believe they're expected to do too much. The stereotype suggests that women require more support in relationships, but Gen Z's 'emotion work' — the labor required to bridge the gap between expectations and reality — is especially stark in a generation that expects so much of young men while providing them limited support. Across hundreds of hours of interviews, distinct forms of emotional labor have emerged — confirming what researchers have long observed: Women are more often expected to carry this emotional load in relationships. Like Ava, many women are stepping back from this distinct form of work, from dating, and from committed relationships. They report that dating is harder than 10 years ago, and are twice as likely as men to cite physical and emotional risk as reasons why dating has become more challenging — 62% of single women report they're not looking to date at all, compared to 37% of men. Even before entering relationships, a young woman is likely to have experienced emotional and physical abuse. Among teenage girls, 80% report that sexual assault is 'normal and common' in their friendship groups — before they even finish high school. About half of Gen Z women report feeling disrespected by men, compared to 18% of men; 42% of women report being pressured into sex on a date, and intimate partner abuse has now been cited as an indicator of attitudes that underpin extreme violence. Both these realities might partially explain why young men are dating less than previous generations. Gen Z men are more than twice as likely as Boomers to report that they didn't have a significant other as teenagers, and women are increasingly opting to date older men to avoid having to 'mother' their significant other. 'Unless you're really in love,' one Gen Z woman told me, 'then it's not your problem if they're not emotionally available.' Millennials have a different lens: 'It's a feminism thing,' Becca, 31, told me. 'But also a way of processing the outsized support we gave them' — a kind of paying it forward to another woman's future boyfriend. The more women are left to shoulder the burden of the masculinity crisis, the more likely they are to withdraw. But the more they do, the more boys feel rejected. Loneliness leaves boys vulnerable to voices that reframe their abandonment. One in six boys aged 6-15 have a positive impression of Andrew Tate, and across 30 countries, Gen Z men are 30% more conservative than other generation has a gender divergence — social and political — at this scale. If we want to interrupt this spiral, we must stop asking women to keep absorbing the damage. We need to offer boys a healthier model of masculinity that speaks to their needs — but doesn't come at girls' expense. That means listening to why women are pulling away and creating pathways for boys to grow without leaning on women. A recent survey exploring young men's health in a digital world, 55% of the young men who watch masculinity influencers believe that women don't care about men. My research shows that women do care. They just want relationships that don't lean on traditional gender roles. Meanwhile, boys deserve better than a culture that mocks their confusion without showing them a path through it. That path begins with both sides recognizing what the other is carrying — and letting go of narratives that cast boys as aggressors before they even reach adolescence. Instead, as Pepper puts it, it's 'fine to give boys and men some homework.' This homework begins with fostering self-awareness, emotional literacy and responsibility for your actions. Men often lack these emotional skills precisely because they've rarely been expected — or permitted — to develop them. Instead, young women have been tasked with practicing and perfecting emotional labor. Traditional masculine norms like pride often keep men from extending their expressions of vulnerability beyond the comfort of romantic relationships. Many fear that admitting they're overwhelmed will diminish their self-worth. Emotional fluency will take practice. And because expectations of manhood haven't evolved as quickly as those for women, that practice must be met with patience. Our understanding of masculinity must also shift to make space for emotional connection between men. Vulnerability is often taught by women and associated with intimacy — leaving little room to express it in male friendships. But men need friendships grounded in trust, mutual honesty and shared vulnerability. Nearly every man I spoke to said his male friendships left him feeling worse about himself. This not only deprives men of the full range of support they need in tough times, but limits nuance in emotionally complex situations. As several male interviewees pointed out, their friends were often quick to 'hate' or 'blame' women after breakups. Instead of emotional language that deepens the gender divide, it can instead be used to bridge it, helping men move through hurt with reflection and toward growth. Finally, we need to redefine what it means for men to be a 'provider.' Caring for others should be central to what masculinity can mean. We must also rethink what it means to 'protect,' as many men I spoke to believed withholding their emotions was a form of care. Dating teaches us many things: how to take emotional risks, how to fail, how to communicate. Above all, relationships teach us how to be vulnerable. But with 29% more men than women in Gen Z currently single, a gender skills gap will only continue to widen. As more women step back from relationships, many men may never get the chance to learn. Those who took on this homework — who shared their burdens with friends, practiced self-awareness and showed up with emotional fluency — weren't just more attractive to the women they dated. They also became better partners. If we are to love each other, masculinity has to evolve to hold that vulnerability, for everyone's sake. Men Are Trimming Their Eyelashes To Be Shorter, And The Reason Is Baffling Opinion: Jerry Seinfeld And Conservatives Want To Make America Masculine Again — And It's Destroying Men My Family Needs Me For Everything — And I Never Saw The Emotional Fatigue From That Coming Why Men Are Bad At Friendship (And What To Do About It)
E&E News
3 hours ago
- E&E News
NOAA to distribute $210M for Gulf of Mexico restoration
NOAA Fisheries is set to spend more than $210 million on restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico to continue cleanup of the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The plans, which are slated to be published Thursday in the Federal Register, award money to 10 different initiatives associated with a range of conservation goals, from reducing turtle strikes from boats to habitat protections to fishing education programs. The money for the programs in the 4th Open Ocean Restoration Plan comes from a federal consent decree with oil company BP, with restoration projects expected to receive up to $8.8 billion. BP was the operator of the Macondo well at the center of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which was named after a floating drilling rig contracted to work on the project. Advertisement In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico — which Trump renamed the Gulf of America via executive order earlier this year — was engulfed by an explosion that killed 11 workers. That incident stemmed from a gas leak and caused some 4 million barrels of oil to spill into the Gulf over three months. It was the largest marine oil spill in U.S. history and resulted in the nation's largest ever environmental damage penalties and settlements.
Newsweek
6 hours ago
- Newsweek
Adoptive Mom of Five Thinks Her Family Is Complete, Then She Gets a Call
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. After more than a decade of foster parenting, a New Jersey mom thought her family's journey was coming to a close. With two biological children and three adopted through foster care, Jamie Finn and her husband, Alan, had spent years opening their hearts and home to over 30 children in need. "Foster parenting brings a lot of beauty and joy, but it also brings a lot of heartache and loss and stress," Jamie told Newsweek. "We had our hands full." Split view of baby Ryan being cradled viewed from above; and sitting in a high chair. Split view of baby Ryan being cradled viewed from above; and sitting in a high chair. @fosterthefamilyblog But then came a phone call about a baby boy in foster care who needed a loving home. In a reel on Instagram (@fosterthefamilyblog), the 40-year-old captured the emotional turning point when she thought her family was "complete." The clip features footage of how little Ryan settled into their growing family and eventually became their son. Jamie said that their journey to foster care began after the birth of their two biological children, Liv and Wes. "We wanted our family to make a difference," she said. "We wanted our home to become a place of healing and belonging for kids who needed us. We became a family on a mission, and we're still going strong after 11 years." And yet, even the most-committed foster families wrestle with limits. The decision to step back from fostering wasn't easy, but it felt right—until that call. "There is a huge difference between the theoretical idea of being done with foster care and the actual call that there's a living, breathing child who needs a home and a family," Jamie told Newsweek. "All of the beds in our home were full, but we had room for a baby in our bedroom with us, so we said yes." Jamie's post has since gone viral, amassing more than 800,000 views. The hundreds of viewers who commented were moved by the family's generosity. "Bless you and your family!! All babies need this kind of love," one user wrote. "Oh, that heartbroken baby in the beginning. And then his little face turns to joy as time passes by," added another. But the surprises didn't stop there. On the very day they agreed to adopt Ryan, Jamie received another call: a little boy they had once welcomed home from the hospital—and again several times over the years—was reentering foster care. In addition to Liv and Wes, the family now includes Bella, Em, their foster son who remains anonymous, Jax and Ryan. "Being a foster parent is full of beauty and brokenness," Jamie said. "We get to be the landing place for kids who need love and safety, which is such a joy and privilege. But each of the kids who enter our home have experienced loss and trauma. We are so happy that we get to be their families for as long as they need us, but we also wish that we didn't have to be."
