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by u10 2161 days ago
Betting against Elon is a fools errand not because he's right, but because he's built a personality cult around himself.
3 comments

"markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent."

TSLA proves this in spades, right now the stock is trading at more than double what Elon said was "overvalued" 10 weeks ago.

But the bubble must collapse eventually, right? Enron was "the most innovative company" for 6 years in a row too.
It does. But there's not necessarily any safe way to profit on it. Shorting can force you out at the high. Puts expire.
I think there's a missing financial product here. Something like an anti-index, where you buy "everything except X". Or better phrased, a way to get your bank to model you a dynamic index, where you can manually specify what is in and what is out.
Yeah your right. I am sure it was his personality cult that managed to bring SpaceX to fruition.
Counterpoint: Elon Musk is the only (publicly visible) CEO who is seriously talking about going to Mars and direct interfacing between machines and humans and making tangible steps toward these futuristic goals.

His rockets are [mostly] not exploding, his cars are selling to [mostly] good reviews, and neuralink seems to be doing something too.

Perhaps his cult of personality is deserved because although he (along with basically the entire industry) overpromised on self driving timelines, nonetheless he does seem to be one of the few people with the practical vision to take us into a techno future.

Consider that this guy went from a payment processing app to a bonafide private rocket company and is democratizing space flight (and satellite internet!) in what, about a decade?

People love to hate the guy, I believe because he has brash and harbors some unpopular (callous but rational) opinions. Regardless, the respect that he gets from his fanboys is arguably in deserved, if you're the type to find inspiration in great people.

I don't think that anyone is arguing that Musk hasn't done big things. The problem is, he's about 50/50 on how often the big things he does are actually good. This is completely ignored by his fanboys, who ignore the bad, and laud the good to an extent that's entirely untethered from reality.

Take your post for example: You soften the word "lied" to "overpromised" and then slowly build to more and more absurd lavishing praise. "Practical vision" is a bit of a stretch, but "democratizing" is just not reality. And "if you're the type to find inspiration in great people"--just about everyone finds inspiration in great people, so that's not even saying anything, it's just trying to indirectly say Elon Musk is a great person.

Yes they are.
Links or it didn't happen.
Unless of course you are the one who should be providing links, then they don't matter right?
I don't know. Many people who "hate" the guy tend to freely acknowledge his very real accomplishments.
No they don't.