Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[OttoVonBismarck]

A wise man once said, I think, we need "50 more guys like him" in reference to Dear Elon.

[Grey Fox]

Was that man Vladimir Putin?

[The Minsky Moment]

A wise man once said, I think, we need "50 more guys like him" in reference to Dear Elon.

Meh, SpaceX, Tesla, "x" - 2 out of 3 ain't bad.
This really nothing fundamentally wrong with Elon that a little nationalization of Starlink can't fix.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Was that man Vladimir Putin?

I won't slur Berky like that, I do like the guy despite us arguing at times.

[DGuller]

For all his faults, the impact of which may yet grow catastrophically, it does feel very off when his accomplishments are dismissed.  With both Tesla and SpaceX, you can make an argument that one man made a big difference to the world.  Yes, some people say that Musk didn't do anything himself, but that sounds like an unserious selective critique.

[Jacob]

At the very least, he was good at identifying a winner and swooping in to take the credit.

A more generous interpretation is that he brought something to the table that turned potential winners into de-facto winners.

[Admiral Yi]

At the very least, he was good at identifying a winner and swooping in to take the credit.

Blind luck that he chose Tesla

[HVC]

He's a great pitch man. He can get investors to hand over money. Which is a great skill in and of itself.  But then again so is trump.

[Jacob]

Blind luck that he chose Tesla

I have no clue, and don't really care either way. Being consistently lucky is not bad either.

[OttoVonBismarck]

For all his faults, the impact of which may yet grow catastrophically, it does feel very off when his accomplishments are dismissed.  With both Tesla and SpaceX, you can make an argument that one man made a big difference to the world.  Yes, some people say that Musk didn't do anything himself, but that sounds like an unserious selective critique.

My take was always Musk's killer talent is as a pitch man. I think some people view that as a derogatory claim--it isn't. If everyone could attract massive investor capital to businesses which, at the time, were losers in every meaningful respect (SpaceX and Tesla) and continue to maintain investor enthusiasm until both became viable businesses--then there would be a lot fewer businesses of this type going tits up after a few years. It is a genuine skill, and one that is rewarded lucratively.

What I have always objected to is the portrayals of him as a modern day Edison or Tesla (and yes, I know Edison himself has an exaggerated reputation.) Musk largely is not a technical person, lied about how much of technical education he even had, has apparently not worked on any actual technical work since doing some PHP programming in the mid-90s in his small startup that later got acquired--and fell ass backwards into a few billion due to being acquired by the company that became PayPal.

He was not responsible for PayPal's success--in fact he was fired from there due to being bad at his job.

But he deserves meaningful credit in being able to hold investors together to fund two companies in fields that historically have not been able to attract capital or sustain much investment as startups--a car company and a rocket company.

However, he wants to claim full credit for the tech work, which he didn't do. Tesla was started by two smart automotive engineers, and all of its technical successes have been because of its engineering teams, not Musk's personal tech savvy. SpaceX was always largely staffed by rocketry experts from other aerospace firms.

Musk just literally does not have the education or the occupational history to design rockets or cars. He has, factually, not designed rockets or cars. He pays people to do so.

That isn't a neg, it is a statement of fact. The reason it comes off as a neg is because Musk wants to be known as an inventor, not a really successful capital raiser, but that is what he is.

[Valmy]

Musk was incredibly effective as a pitch man. I love him, he was just what the EV market needed. EVs had to be cool to succeed and he made them cool.

So it is really frustrating he is destroying himself as an asset with all this insanity. Yet another thing twitter/X ruined.

[Barrister]

Musk made a lot of money in the late 90s from Paypal.  I mean there was the whole dotcom bubble, lots of people made money.  Musk made out with $175 million when Paypal was acquired by eBay.  Obviously a lot of money, but nothing completely crazy in the world of silicon valley.

He could have done a bunch of things with his money.  He could go retire on a tropical island somewhere.  He could go form yet another venture capitalist firm.

But no - he goes out and invests $100 million to found SpaceX, and then goes on to buy a majority stake in start-up Tesla.  Both of which promised technologies that could revolutionize their respective industries by having reusable rockets and electric cars.  But both of which were highly risky endeavours, and well outside the typical world of software startups.

Not a technical genius, although he'd like you to think he is.  He has many personal flaws, and definitely in a story as old as time his considerable success has gone to his head making him think he can do no wrong.

[garbon]

So good of us to recreate the content of my dead thread.

[Barrister]

So good of us to recreate the content of my dead thread.

We won't let Elon win!

[HVC]

So good of us to recreate the content of my dead thread.

It belonged to the people