[andrepd]

Well first of all they're not his rockets. The engineers and scientists did it, he supplies the money, arguably a meritless in ck prison.

Second, there are many promises he still hasn't delivered on: SpaceX targets not met, Tesla still running at a massive loss, Hyperloop being doomed to failure, etc etc. I can definitely see why people say he is mostly talk, even though admittedly he has achieved some successes.

[Strom]

> Well first of all they're not his rockets.

Am I understanding this correctly, that the criticism of Elon Musk being all talk is because he didn't personally perform all the work in achievements like Falcon 9 and Model S?

[nightski]

He is a brilliant business man and gave all of the engineers at spacex the opportunity and freedom to achieve great things. For that he should be commended - we need more business leaders like him in this world! I think at the end of the day though in idolizing Musk you are taking away from the hard work and brilliance of all the other employees at his companies. America has this iron man style obsession with one guy changing the world by himself. But at the end of the day we achieve greatness by working together as a team.

[TeMPOraL]

I think most Elon fanbois implicitly understand that each rocket SpaceX launches involves blood, sweat and tears of hundreds of skilled people.

Ultimately, focusing on a leader is a shorthand used in everything. We talk about famous generals, and not about their lieutenants. We talk about presidents and kings, omitting the low-level administrative staff that actually does the work and keeps everything from falling apart. Often it's a bad generalization leading to bad conclusions (e.g. most presidents have little influence on the direction of their countries), but I think it's fair in case of Elon Musk, since it's his strong vision that defines the direction of SpaceX and Tesla.

Consider this: if SpaceX went public and Elon decided to step down, the company would lose most of its fanbase for very simple reason - it would most likely turn into a regular company and stop being just the vehicle to get humanity to settle Mars.

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

What a ridiculous strawman. Do you want him to insert every last rivet and weld every last joint in his cars and rockets before they become 'his' cars and 'his' rockets?

Tesla I could still grant but you do him great injustice by simply ignoring how much of his personal resolve is responsible for SpaceX even existing.

Feel free to list the number of times a group of engineers have spontaneously teamed up to form a rocket company.

[salawat]

I disagree. It's not a straw man at all.

Your assume that A) big things can only ever get done by companies. B)A CEO 'owns' a company's assets.

I'll give credit to him for creating and acquiring funding for the organization. I'll give him credit for publicizing his vision. Each and every rocket/car however, was massively subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and made feasible by hundreds of people WORKING TOWARD A COMMON GOAL.

The practice of abstracting away hundreds to thousands of people's hard work and financial support, involuntary or not, is disingenuous at best and downright dishonest at worst.

Abstraction is evil. Abstraction is what turns "people" into "human resources".

And before the inevitable "That's not practical!" or "That's unreasonable!": It really isn't. Most people have just gotten so used to credit for their own work being sacrificed to someone else that nobody points out how incredibly screwed up the practice is.

[kinkrtyavimoodh]

It is a strawman because it is reliant on a literalist interpretation that no one is actually arguing for. Of course the rockets are not literally his just as Obamacare wasn't literally Obama's.

> B)A CEO 'owns' a company's assets.

Never made the claim nor does it seem relevant here. No one is talking of actual ownership. When it comes to ownership and accounting of a company, there are already well-established metrics and practices to figure that stuff out.

Yes, the rocket is designed by engineers and put together by technicians and mechanics and thousands of souls have come together to achieve this task, and no one is denying their contributions.

But none of that would have existed without Elon. And he is being praised for that vision and steely resolve while others work on their PhDs from Armchair University.

This leadership is not trivial and it is central to something like SpaceX even existing.

[mmsimanga]

You make valid criticisms. However, you have to bear in mind that nothing in this world is perfect. Not even Linux. I bet every sports person gets on the field intending to win but they don't always win. That doesn't mean that sportsperson is a failure. They just lost some matches.

I do not think that Musk should get a free pass. His companies have taken on some pretty impressive projects. One day someone will make a better electronic car but much like the Wright brothers and Henry Ford, Musk did lead the way.

[icelancer]

Neil Armstrong didn't build the rockets or the shuttle so I guess he's also a bum.

[lmm]

Armstrong made his way up meritocratically on the strength of his piloting skills, to fighter pilot then carrier pilot then test pilot then astronaut. Many reckoned they wouldn't've been able to pull Gemini 8 out of the spin he got it out of, or successfully find a landing spot for Apollo 11 in the boulder field they descended on.

Maybe Musk really is as skilled as all that. Or maybe he was lucky enough to make a lot of money once (with x.com) and hire good people. It's hard to tell since so few people ever get to try having that much money to play with.

[TeMPOraL]

> Maybe Musk really is as skilled as all that.

Whatever are his contributions to the rocket design these days (it's obviously a SpaceX secret), one can't deny that his ideas for future of humanity are the raison d'être and the driving force behind the company. He obviously hires engineers smarter than himself to do the work; his own engineering skills only add to the credibility of the company and its goals.

[kumarvvr]

It's really his push, his vision and his risk. NASA had tremendous resources for decades, with some of the best minds of 21st century working there. They didn't produce self landing rockets, and on top of that, it makes complete business and economic sense too.

[kemiller]

My understanding is that he personally learned a ton about rocket science and actively contributed to the design, as well as providing business context, which is itself no mean feat.

[nickik]

That is just false. Elon is one of the lead engineers of the Falcon 9 rocket, he knows as much about it as anybody. He also came up with the idea, he gathred the people, he gathered the investors and did about 100 other things needed for the success of SpaceX.

Elon is still in control of SpaceX, so the Falcon 9 and FH rockets are his by any reasonable definition.

> Second, there are many promises he still hasn't delivered on:

What matters is overall progress and not progress relative to elons timelines. Also, most of those were not promises but rather announcments.

> SpaceX targets not met

Yeah, he only took like 15 years to launch more rockets then China or Russia. Build the largests commercial launch buissness.

But of course what we should focus on is that he is such a failure because he said 5 years ago that the FH would fly a bit sooner.

You really need learn to evaluate things on its own terms.

> Tesla still running at a massive loss

Poor Elon, 500000 reservations that any other company would kill for. Revenue stream for 1-2 years even without new reservations. What a failure.

> Hyperloop being doomed to failure,

Whitepaper without company behind it not successful. More big news at 8pm.

> I can definitely see why people say he is mostly talk, even though admittedly he has achieved some successes.

Yeah, the guy who revolutionised space launch, landed fucking rockets and created reusable rockets is 'mostly talk, with some success'. Honstly people can't see the trees because of the forest. This is so fucking bizar.