Elon Musk: Always A Douche

[DGuller]

I'm still not onboard with mocking Musk's credentials as a business executive, which conveniently everyone started doing only after he lifted his mask on his political views.  To be honest, when people mock Berkut's 50 Musks line, in my mind they mock themselves, not Berkut.  Henry Ford didn't become a much worse businessman, prospectively and retrospectively, after he started publishing antisemitic screeds.

[Valmy]

I'm still not onboard with mocking Musk's credentials as a business executive, which conveniently everyone started doing only after he lifted his mask on his political views.  To be honest, when people mock Berkut's 50 Musks line, in my mind they mock themselves, not Berkut.  Henry Ford didn't become a much worse businessman, prospectively and retrospectively, after he started publishing antisemitic screeds.

I am not mocking his lack of business sense. Rather I am finding it rather unnerving since it is hurting enterprises I want to see succeed. His main role was as a pitch guy, in building up hype for his products. And he did a great job, he made space exploration and EVs cool. Now he seems to be doing exactly the opposite. Henry Ford was a hands on sort of manager, they do not seem comparable. Not to mention the Model T and a Tesla seem like complete opposite kinds of products. One is a cheap auto the common man can afford, the other is a tech gizmo toy for the wealthy.

[celedhring]

I'm still not onboard with mocking Musk's credentials as a business executive, which conveniently everyone started doing only after he lifted his mask on his political views.  To be honest, when people mock Berkut's 50 Musks line, in my mind they mock themselves, not Berkut.  Henry Ford didn't become a much worse businessman, prospectively and retrospectively, after he started publishing antisemitic screeds.

Heh, I think the way he's stewarded twitter is what has made him a worse businessman. And it's not his first failed business.

He always applies the same formula for every single of his business: hype machine, keep teams lean and small and crunch them, try not to rely on external partners to retain control of the product. This worked for Tesla (up to a point, as a mature company they are struggling mightily with bringing new stuff to market), but not for twitter, SolarCity, Boring Company.. It's not like his resumé is all wins. And he does have a penchant to use these companies as his personal piggy banks - like how he used Tesla to bail out SolarCity. That's fine and dandy as long as shareholders don't wisen up to the fact you're not a miracle worker.

[Admiral Yi]

I've read that venture capitalists look for one monster hidden next to six duds.  By that metric he made some people a lot of money.

[DGuller]

Not every venture of his was a win, sure, but it appears that on aggregate he has done rather well.

[celedhring]

I've read that venture capitalists look for one monster hidden next to six duds.  By that metric he made some people a lot of money.

Yeah, his business philosophy works for startups - which is what made Tesla a success, but not so much for mature companies.

[garbon]

I'm still not onboard with mocking Musk's credentials as a business executive, which conveniently everyone started doing only after he lifted his mask on his political views.  To be honest, when people mock Berkut's 50 Musks line, in my mind they mock themselves, not Berkut.  Henry Ford didn't become a much worse businessman, prospectively and retrospectively, after he started publishing antisemitic screeds.

When would you say that is? Per the early pages of this thread in 2018, it looks like we had views all over the place with relation to his credentials and Berkut's 50 Musks line.

[crazy canuck]

I'm still not onboard with mocking Musk's credentials as a business executive, which conveniently everyone started doing only after he lifted his mask on his political views.  To be honest, when people mock Berkut's 50 Musks line, in my mind they mock themselves, not Berkut.  Henry Ford didn't become a much worse businessman, prospectively and retrospectively, after he started publishing antisemitic screeds.

I'm still not onboard with mocking Musk's credentials as a business executive, which conveniently everyone started doing only after he lifted his mask on his political views.  To be honest, when people mock Berkut's 50 Musks line, in my mind they mock themselves, not Berkut.  Henry Ford didn't become a much worse businessman, prospectively and retrospectively, after he started publishing antisemitic screeds.

Ah no, a few of us disagreed with Berkut's claim long before Musk went full Musk.

[Josquius]

I've read that venture capitalists look for one monster hidden next to six duds.  By that metric he made some people a lot of money.

Yeah, his business philosophy works for startups - which is what made Tesla a success, but not so much for mature companies.

Yeah, I think that's it with the "Musk the business genius" stuff.
With start ups it's all about growth. And buzz and attention is a key way to get that.

With 50 musks though, musks existence as a unique attention grabber would be gone. Then it'd all be down to his actual business skills... Which many outside languish, wiser than me in such matters, have laid into over the years.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I'm still not onboard with mocking Musk's credentials as a business executive, which conveniently everyone started doing only after he lifted his mask on his political views.  To be honest, when people mock Berkut's 50 Musks line, in my mind they mock themselves, not Berkut.  Henry Ford didn't become a much worse businessman, prospectively and retrospectively, after he started publishing antisemitic screeds.

Nah, I was mocking him in like 2018. He is a hype man, and I recognized him as such long before he came out as a Nazi. Most of his success at Tesla and SpaceX (his only actual, profitable ventures he can claim reasonable credit for) are based primarily on his ability to raise capital. I said long ago when Berkut was still posting that "ability to raise capital" isn't a bad skill to have--for someone starting companies it is one of the most important skills.

But a big part of that process was serially lying about what his companies could and would do to generate maximum investments.

On the operations / management side, he has, to his credit, "delivered enough" to keep the investors happy, and to lend enough credibility to his iterative rounds of hype capital raising to continue to bear fruit. He deserves some level of credit for that.

But whether he can operate a company long term that actually runs on its own core business merits, instead of regular and massive infusions of investment capital, has still yet to be seen.

It is generally not unusual that executives who are good at founding companies and raising investor capital end up not being the best guys to run those companies long term--and there is good evidence that both Tesla and SpaceX largely are ran by people who aren't Elon Musk, while he retains the CEO title and appears to spend a lot of his time faffing around with nonsense.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My main beef with Musk pre-Nazism was just that he represented himself like a Tony Stark style figure, or some mythological super-inventor. I took much less issue with the idea he was a "good businessman", just that the type of good businessman he was, was one who was really good at raising capital, with a more mixed reputation at actually running his companies (and lots of evidence the real running of his companies is largely delegated--which in and of itself isn't terrible, if you know that isn't your core competency you should delegate a lot of management to figures like your COO and etc, there isn't a one size fits all approach to being the CEO.)

[Josquius]

Back in the early days there did seem to be good stuff about Musk- he was actually pushing space forward, maybe a billionaire with money to burn was what we needed there, and then there was the whole thing about Tesla being open source and its technology open to imitators or...something?

[Syt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/business/gina-carano-disney-lucasfilm-lawsuit.html

Elon Musk Is Funding Ex-'Mandalorian' Actress's Suit Against Disney

Gina Carano accused Disney and Lucasfilm of discrimination when they dropped her after she posted baseless conspiracy theories and right-wing views on social media.

Elon Musk poked the Walt Disney Company anew on Tuesday by agreeing to fund a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by the "Mandalorian" actress Gina Carano.

"Please let us know if you would like to join the lawsuit against Disney," Mr. Musk, seemingly trawling for other plaintiffs, wrote in a post on X, which he bought in 2022.

Disney dropped Ms. Carano, a former mixed-martial artist, from "The Mandalorian" in 2021 after she espoused baseless conspiracy theories and right-wing positions, some of which were seen as homophobic and antisemitic, in a series of social media posts. Her character was written out of the series. Lucasfilm, the Disney division that makes "The Mandalorian," said in a statement at the time that Ms. Carano's "social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable."

United Talent Agency also dropped Ms. Carano.

Ms. Carano's suit, filed on Tuesday in federal court in California, seeks a court order forcing Disney and Lucasfilm to weave her "Mandalorian" character back into episodes and recast her for the part. (Employed as a "guest actor," she was paid $25,000 for each episode in which she appeared.) She is also suing for punitive damages.

Mr. Musk has been throwing elbows at Disney and its chief executive, Robert A. Iger, since Disney and X's other major advertisers, including Apple, paused spending on the platform in mid-November. The advertisers took action after Mr. Musk's endorsement of an antisemitic conspiracy theory. He seemed especially angry about Disney's decision to pull ads; other Hollywood companies, in particular, followed Disney's lead.

In internal documents at X, which were seen by The New York Times, sales employees have been notified that Disney has continued to pause advertising on the platform "globally" and "indefinitely."

Spokesmen for Disney did not respond to requests for comment for this article on Tuesday.

In late November, Mr. Musk verbally attacked Mr. Iger from the stage of The New York Times's DealBook Summit. (Citing Disney's pulling of ads, which Mr. Musk called "blackmail," the billionaire used an expletive to tell Mr. Iger to go away.) In December, after Disney stood firm, Mr. Musk wrote on X that Mr. Iger "should be fired," adding that "Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company."

More recently, Mr. Musk has cheered on Nelson Peltz, an activist investor who, with the disgruntled former chairman of Marvel Entertainment, is waging a proxy battle to gain two seats on the Disney board.

"Brutal track record," Mr. Musk wrote on X on Jan. 18, amplifying a post by Mr. Peltz's Trian Partners that highlighted Disney's underperforming stock. "Shareholders have been incredibly poorly served by the @Disney board!"

Disney has vigorously defended its board, along with Mr. Iger's track record. Mr. Iger, who came out of retirement in 2022 to retake Disney's reins, has cut costs drastically, moved to turbocharge growth at Disney parks and reorganized the company to improve movie quality, among other efforts.

Asked about the extent of Mr. Peltz's relationship with Mr. Musk, a spokesman for Trian had no immediate comment. Mr. Peltz and Mr. Musk were photographed together on Saturday at the Los Angeles premiere of "Lola," an independent film that one of Mr. Peltz's daughters wrote, directed and starred in.

X's head of business operations, Joe Benarroch, said in a statement that Mr. Musk's company was "proud to provide financial support for Gina Carano's lawsuit, empowering her to seek vindication of her free speech rights on X and the ability to work without bullying, harassment or discrimination."

Last year, Mr. Musk vowed to fund legal action for X users who said they had been discriminated against at work because of their posts on the platform. At the time, he said he would "go after the boards of directors of the companies too."

Ms. Carano's lawsuit stated: "A short time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, defendants made it clear that only one orthodoxy in thought, speech or action was acceptable in their empire, and that those who dared to question or failed to fully comply would not be tolerated. And so it was with Carano."

Court filing: https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/gina-carano-disney-suit-feb-6-2024.pdf

[Syt]

Would be nice if Musk would also act on behalf of other people suffering for what they wrote on Twitter. But I guess some victims are more equal than others.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/29/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-tweets

[Josquius]

Would be nice if Musk would also act on behalf of other people suffering for what they wrote on Twitter. But I guess some victims are more equal than others.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/29/saudi-arabia-man-sentenced-death-tweets

So the Saudis are learning from the Norks then.