Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[viper37]

Tesla's build quality is what would keep me away. 20k car QA on a 65+k car. Now that the competition is truly ramping up I think Tesla is in for a world of hurt.  And as much as I loath him as a person his companies home battery/solar tech is intriguing and way ahead of the game.  samhe cye with satellite internet.

Tbf, that is the cycle of any new tech product.  Nvidia has been selling overpriced video card for a while now. 3x the prix for 10% more fps in game.

[HVC]

Tesla's build quality is what would keep me away. 20k car QA on a 65+k car. Now that the competition is truly ramping up I think Tesla is in for a world of hurt.  And as much as I loath him as a person his companies home battery/solar tech is intriguing and way ahead of the game.  samhe cye with satellite internet.

Tbf, that is the cycle of any new tech product.  Nvidia has been selling overpriced video card for a while now. 3x the prix for 10% more fps in game.

Yeah, but Nvidia doesn't have capacitors soldiered in the wrong places .  Tesla isn't a overnight company, they've been around for a bit. It's first production car went out in 2008 and they still have shoddy manufacturing. Nothing that will blow up your car (except when it does lol ), but way below the expectations of the price point.  When they were the only game it could fly, but other manufactures are catching up. As has been mentioned they have same advantages still, like charging networks, but electrify America and electrify Canada will catch up. If they don't get their shit in order sooner or later it will bite them. I just hope it won't take down the areas where they do genuinely exceed.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised most of the whining would not have existed if musk followed a certain orthodoxy.

I've said before - the thing that worries me about Musk owning Twitter: massive interests in China and his main financial backer is Saudi. Both seem a little concerning for a social media platform. And of course an ironic position for a man proclaiming his intent to buy this platform for the good of the public square and free speech - let's see how that lasts for Chinese, Hong Kong, Saudi etc activists.

China is an issue, as always, but even Schultz is still sucking up to the ccp. The Saudis were already invested in twitter...

[Berkut]

I am entirely certain that if Musk was not such an asshole, and was a properly progressive, liberal nice guy, 95% of the people in this thread dismissing SpaceX/Tesla would be perfectly happy talking about what a brilliant business man he is, and how great SpaceX is, and what amazing things he has done for climate change awareness and EVs.

[garbon]

I am entirely certain it is easy to make assertions that can't be tested.

[viper37]

Tesla's build quality is what would keep me away. 20k car QA on a 65+k car. Now that the competition is truly ramping up I think Tesla is in for a world of hurt.  And as much as I loath him as a person his companies home battery/solar tech is intriguing and way ahead of the game.  samhe cye with satellite internet.

Tbf, that is the cycle of any new tech product.  Nvidia has been selling overpriced video card for a while now. 3x the prix for 10% more fps in game.

Yeah, but Nvidia doesn't have capacitors soldiered in the wrong places .  Tesla isn't a overnight company, they've been around for a bit. It's first production car went out in 2008 and they still have shoddy manufacturing. Nothing that will blow up your car (except when it does lol ), but way below the expectations of the price point.  When they were the only game it could fly, but other manufactures are catching up. As has been mentioned they have same advantages still, like charging networks, but electrify America and electrify Canada will catch up. If they don't get their shit in order sooner or later it will bite them. I just hope it won't take down the areas where they do genuinely exceed.

Well, right now, I'm reading reports of top of the line Nvidia cards that are melting down their motherboards PCI-E ports...  But they only make the chips and provide specs for the card manufacturers, so they'll wash their hands of it, even if it's their faulty specs the problem.

Anyway, I digress.  I agree with you about Tesla.  They're way overpriced cars and they have shitty resale value since the manufacturer blocks certain features once it is resold; you buy it for the hype.

[viper37]

I am entirely certain that if Musk was not such an asshole

That is the point we are making here, really: he is an asshole.

, and was a properly progressive, liberal nice guy, 95% of the people in this thread dismissing SpaceX/Tesla would be perfectly happy talking about what a brilliant business man he is, and how great SpaceX is, and what amazing things he has done for climate change awareness and EVs.

If he was a nice guy, we wouldn't be talking about how an asshole he is, that's a given.  But he is an asshole, so we're talking about his assholish behavior, duh.

He is a great lobbyist, that's a given.  He seems great at taking credit for the work of others too.  He is great at hype too.  Hyperloop has gone nowhere.  SpaceX answered a need, he got there first, sure.  If it wasn't him, it would have been someone else.  Electric cars were coming around, what was needed was govt support to stimulate adoption; that's where he shone.  This, I'm not sure someone else could have done it.  Engineering wise, lots of companies are doing better than Tesla. 

There were precursors to Tesla too, but they went nowhere because they were too costly without govt incentives to buy the cars and to build the recharge stations.  Even if I could afford it, I would not have bought a 100k$ car that I could not recharge anywhere in town.  And no business would have built a recharge station just to please me.  And govt didn't seem that interested in building them, despite all their talks about climate change.

But Elon and his team were great at lobbying for government funds for that, and later, other car manufacturers too, like GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc.  Something other car manufacturers couldn't do, and went tits up, or were bought/had their patents bought.

[Berkut]

Nobody is arguing that he is NOT an asshole though.

I just find it funny that because you all don't like him, you have to then turn around and claim he is just lucky, or didn't actually do anything in business that really is impressive.

That's all - I am certain that the average person bad mouthing his business accomplishments is 100% driven by their desire to not see him as accomplished BECAUSE he is an asshole. And if he were not an asshole, and in fact was a god liberal progressive, the exact same people would be gushing about what a brilliant business man he is and what amazing things he has accomplished. None of this "oh, he is so great at taking credit for what others have done!" or "If he wasn't him, surely it would have been someone else!"

It's funny to watch humans just be almost incapable of separating their emotional response to something from their ability to analyze it.

[PJL]

Nobody is arguing that he is an asshole though.

I just find it funny that because you all don't like him, you have to then turn around and claim he is just lucky, or didn't actually do anything in business that really is impressive.

That's all - I am certain that the average person bad mouthing his business accomplishments is 100% driven by their desire to not see him as accomplished BECAUSE he is an asshole. And if he were not an asshole, and in fact was a god liberal progressive, the exact same people would be gushing about what a brilliant business man he is and what amazing things he has accomplished. None of this "oh, he is so great at taking credit for what others have done!" or "If he wasn't him, surely it would have been someone else!"

It's funny to watch humans just be almost incapable of separating their emotional response to something from their ability to analyze it.

It's posts like these which gives me an understanding of the average Trump supporter. Swap Musk for him and they will act the same. For them he can do no wrong and will always make excuses. Fact is you are a Musk fanantic IMO. The last sentence applies as much to you as anyone else.

[viper37]

Nobody is arguing that he is an asshole though.

I am.  I have been since I've started discussing in this thread.

I just find it funny that because you all don't like him, you have to then turn around and claim he is just lucky, or didn't actually do anything in business that really is impressive.

I haven't read all posts in this thread, so I don't know anything about luck.  He was very talented at convincing people to invest in his businesses, and he is a very talented lobbyist.  I have read a lot of claims that engineering-wise, he takes credit for most of other people's work.  2 years ago, I migth have thought that false, now I'm 50-50 on this.

That's all - I am certain that the average person bad mouthing his business accomplishments is 100% driven by their desire to not see him as accomplished BECAUSE he is an asshole. And if he were not an asshole, and in fact was a god liberal progressive, the exact same people would be gushing about what a brilliant business man he is and what amazing things he has accomplished. None of this "oh, he is so great at taking credit for what others have done!" or "If he wasn't him, surely it would have been someone else!"

It's funny to watch humans just be almost incapable of separating their emotional response to something from their ability to analyze it.

Progressive or conservative, I don't care.  Being a general asshole and treating people like shit does bother me, yes, from a consumer standpoint as well as an investor standpoint, because it creates unnessecary volatility.  And it seems he enganges in pump & dump schemes that is detrimental to other shareholders.

His accomplishments, it still remains to be seen.  

Hyperloop is vaporware. 

Engineering-wise, Tesla brought nothing new to the market and the competition is already better for a similar or lower price. 

SpaceX, still not sure I'd call that a success.  I need to see people on Mars before I call that a success.  He didn't gather financing because he promised people he would reduce the costs of orbital shipping, anyone can do that.  Blue Origin has had has much success has SpaceX and Bezos seems just as much dickish toward his employees as he is.  SpaceX was very successful in getting funds because it promised a crazy dream: getting people to Mars.  So far, it's way behind schedule. Until it's done, I can't rule it as a success.

[Berkut]

It's posts like these which gives me an understanding of the average Trump supporter. Swap Musk for him and they will act the same. For them he can do no wrong and will always make excuses. Fact is you are a Musk fanantic IMO. The last sentence applies as much to you as anyone else.

Except that I am not a Musk supporter at all. He is an asshole.

If he wants to run for President, I will vote against him because he would be terrible at it.

It's funny that unless you say something that is just obviously not true - that he is has not accomplished anything, you must be some kind of "fanatic". This is exactly my point.

I think I have a very balanced, rational view of Musk. He is clearly a fucking terrible human being, who has accomplished some amazing things.

But so many people cannot accept that a terrible human CAN accomplish something amazing, even when the evidence is right in front of them. This is such a perfect example of pure cognitive dissonance.

Comparing him to Trump makes no sense. Trump didn't accomplish anything other then be terrible and convince dumb asses to vote for him.  I sure as hell would not vote for Trump or Musk for dog catcher. 

But if I wanted someone to get a rocket company off and running, I think I would sure as hell pick Musk.

[Berkut]

Nobody is arguing that he is an asshole though.

I am.  I have been since I've started discussing in this thread.

Sorry, that was a typo, fixed it.

I meant to say nobody is arguing that he isn't an asshole.

[Valmy]

Nobody is arguing that he is NOT an asshole though.

I have no problem at all with him being an asshole. I have a problem with him being reckless and irrational and damaging himself and his business interests at a time that I really want him and his business interests to be successful. All in the name of principles and causes that make no sense to me. Free speech doesn't involve the ability to say whatever you want on twitter. If you want to say whatever you want on the internet, make your own website and say stuff on it. But he seems to feel so strongly that twitter itself is somehow all the discourse in the world that he is going to waste billions that could be spent on Tesla and SpaceX...you know...doing some good.

And on a company that is already shitty and already loses money.

Now as for whether or not Musk is some genius, I doubt he is a genius at making cars or launching rockets or designing internet banking platforms or whatever. But it doesn't really matter. He succeeded in those areas, areas where I want to see more success (well...except internet banking platforms, I think we are good with those).

[grumbler]

It's posts like these which gives me an understanding of the average Trump supporter. Swap Musk for him and they will act the same. For them he can do no wrong and will always make excuses. Fact is you are a Musk fanantic IMO. The last sentence applies as much to you as anyone else.

It's posts like these which gives me an understanding of the average Trump supporter.  Everything must be black and white.  Facts don't matter - "alternative facts" are just as good.  Fact is you are a Musk-hating fanatic IMO, lashing out against anyone who says anything positive about him.

The lamest argument of them all is "if Musk hadn't done it, someone else would have."  That's a mere truism.  The same truism applies to anything done by anyone outside of the arts. 

[Valmy]

It's not exactly wrong is it?

One is a real product and the other is some digital micro-transaction BS? It isn't even a program I can use, just an icon that is pointless without the shitty platform.

Anyway, I wouldn't be surprised most of the whining would not have existed if musk followed a certain orthodoxy.

I fucking hate leftwing discourse on twitter. It is toxic as fuck, it makes me hate people I agree with.

So no. My whining would be identical if he decided to forsake space exploration and EVs because of some stupid twitter crusade regardless of what his followed orthodoxy might be.