I hate that Musk (and many other people) conflate a real condition with permission to be a jerk. You learned something about how your brain or biochemistry work and can use this information to relate better with others? Great! You learned something about how your brain or biochemistry work and take that as permission to mistreat people, defame them, etc? No good. I get PMS. It doesn’t mean I get to scream at people and verbally abuse them for a week every month.

If he had someone reading his tweets before publishing — to ensure he wasn’t, say, about to call a stranger a pedo — I’d be more accepting of the “I have Aspbergers” announcement because the announcement would have continued with “… and I understand that things I don’t consider offensive really bother people, so I’ve taken this concrete step to avoid inflicting harm on others in the future”. Similarly, considering yourself a visionary because you don’t care enough about others to think that their near certain death isn’t a big obstacle to colonizing Mars? I think that’s callousness.