[allovernow]

>charlatan like Musk

I'm not a fanboy by any means but the guy built two companies and launched a car from his factory into space from a rocket his other business built. He's personally spearheading the early stages of commercial space exploration. I don't know that I'd describe him as a charlatan.

[eddieh]

Starting companies, even successful, relatively technical companies, does not preclude a person from being a charlatan. The charlatan part comes when he publicly dismissed the concerns of experts and claimed there wouldn't be a problem, but of course there was a problem.

[ricardobeat]

> charlatan: a person falsely claiming to have a special knowledge or skill

[eddieh]

"publicly dismissed the concerns of experts" i.e falsely claiming to have special knowledge

[ForHackernews]

Musk did not found Tesla, but would like you to believe that he did: https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-found-Tesla-1

Maybe 'charlatan' is unfair, but he's certainly more of a sales-and-hype man than a real engineering type. I don't understand why so many technical people are snowed by his razzle dazzle.

[escape_goat]

What I have observed over the years is that Musk routinely burrows into engineering considerations, for better or for worse, most especially at SpaceX but also with regards to manufacturing, specifically, at Tesla. He is an engineering enthusiast with a well documented skillset.

Regardless of how we characterize Musk, however, reducing the issue at hand to a pro/anti Musk ad hominem argument is a distraction and a waste of time. It is suddenly relatively cheap to put a huge number of small satellites in low earth orbit. This creates a conflict with astronomical interests. What remains is a policy debate worth having.

SpaceX's statement may be ignorant, erroneous, or even deceitful. I have no doubt that the astronomy community identified the problem immediately and has been trying to bring it to public attention. However, as with light pollution at both optical and radio frequencies, they are relatively powerless compared to the interests with which they are in conflict. If the FCC is the arbiter of how many satellites a company can launch into LEO, they have already lost. This was a regulatory and legislative battle that they needed to be fighting, and probably were fighting, and basically had very little chance of winning unless they were somehow able to mobilize public support for earth-based astronomy against the telecommunications industry.

[greatpatton]

And so what? founding a company is the easiest step (a little bit of money and paperwork). executing to make it the world leader in electric mobility is what really matters. So your point is really irrelevant.

[ceejayoz]

While true, the company was founded in July 2003 and Musk joined in February 2004. The first Roadster prototypes were revealed in 2006.

Acting like he hitched his flag to an already successful company is disingenuous.

[jacquesm]

And then there was paypal.

[OnlineGladiator]

It's not clear to me how active Elon was with PayPal, I really think it was much more Peter Thiel that made it successful (although I am not claiming expertise). Elon founded x.com which merged with what become PayPal, but as PayPal started to become successful it was Peter Thiel at the helm. That doesn't mean Elon wasn't instrumental to its success, only that I cannot find much evidence that he was instrumental to its success.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Early_history

> In October of that year, Musk made the decision that X.com would terminate its other Internet banking operations and focus on the PayPal money service.[25] In the same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com. The X.com company was then renamed PayPal in 2001,[26] and expanded rapidly throughout the year until company executives decided to take PayPal public in 2002.

[_ph_]

No, he wasn't a first-day founder. But he joined not to long after and it was his private money and him as a CEO which built Tesla.

[greglindahl]

"Founder" is a label decided by the company, not by outsiders. Many Silicon Valley companies have "founders" who were not there on Day 1.

[La1n]

Founder is a word that has meaning, we shouldn't let companies dictate our use of language.

[greglindahl]

It's fun to watch people up and downvote me for just relaying what Silicon Valley founders have actually been doing for decades. I totally agree that it's a surprise to most people how it works, but I don't think "they" are going to change. It just is.

[reitzensteinm]

I find the "did Musk found Tesla thing" petty and unnecessary. Without Musk it would have been a footnote in history.

But I dislike your assertion that just because SV companies feel free to rewrite their history, we should consider that canonical.

It's totally valid to point out that Musk wasn't a founder, though using it as some kind of slight is juvenile.

eBay is free to claim it was invented to sell Pez dispensers and we're free to point out that's PR spin. Neither side is in the wrong.

[greglindahl]

I didn't assert that, nor did I say it was invalid to not understand the inside-Silicon-Valley use of "founder".

I was just explaining how to not embarrass yourself.