[nnamtr]

Those rockets impress me, but Elon Musk did not construct them. The NASA (and also the soviet union) managed to do equally great things without someone like him in past.

> Tesla cars -- truly helping humanity move from fossil fuels

It would be much more effective to use bicycle and trains wherever possible, and drive small cars otherwise. But wait ... that's not luxurious enough. Saving the world is just an excuse for cool cars.

> and now StarLink

... to make the last corner of the world addicted to the internet and pay money to Musk.

[Gwypaas]

The true achievement is not the capability of the rockets, it is the huge reduction in cost compared to government contracts. This is even excluding the reusability.

The development costs for Falcon 9 v1.0 were approximately US$300 million, and NASA verified those costs. If some of the Falcon 1 development costs were included, since F1 development did contribute to Falcon 9 to some extent, then the total might be considered as high as US$390 million.[14][2]

NASA also evaluated Falcon 9 development costs using the NASA‐Air Force Cost Model (NAFCOM)—a traditional cost-plus contract approach for US civilian and military space procurement—at US$$3.6 billion based on a NASA environment/culture, or US$$1.6 billion using a more commercial approach.[15][14]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_v1.0

Cited from https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/files/Section403(b)...

[nnamtr]

We were never talking about costs, we were talking about how visionary Elon Musk is. However, while it's great if money is saved, again: is it really the achievement of Elon Musk, or would any private company be able to hold down costs?

[inglor_cz]

"would any private company be able to hold down costs?"

Most space startups died without ever reaching orbit. One of the reasons why SpaceX has such a reputation is precisely that it stands so far apart from its competition.

[doggosphere]

Nobody was working on self landing rockets. Nobody was working on electric cars.

We'd be waiting another 10 years for what we have today.

[andy_jensen]

"Nobody was working on self landing rockets"

Thats just plain wrong

https://youtu.be/39cjZTCay24

[grey-area]

Musk bought Tesla from someone else, he didn't found it (though he now calls himself founder).

[marvin]

You figure Tesla would be the in the world's top 10 companies by market cap today if Musk hadn't invested and run it, and the company was still run my Marc Tarpenning and Martin Eberhard?

I mean...it's hard to prove a negative, but just to mention one of the tens of critical moments along the way, I have a hard time seeing how someone less ruthless than Musk would have saved them from bankruptcy in 2008.

Another obvious juncture was the whole thing about building a battery factory costing more than the company's market cap a few years prior, doubling the world's battery production capacity...

[grey-area]

No, I don’t, but I also don’t really consider him a founder, nor was he the first to have any interest in electric cars (as the OP intimated).

[Gwypaas]

This is simply a myth being propagated to detract Musk's early involvement in Tesla. It simply would not be the Tesla we know today without his involvement.

Musk simply led all funding rounds up to series C, was employee number 4, chairman of the board and took an extremely active role in the company before becoming the CEO. He and the first five employees are "co-founders" agreed to in court by Eberhard which is the one of the guys you are talking about.

A lawsuit settlement agreed to by Eberhard and Tesla in September 2009 allows all five (Eberhard, Tarpenning, Wright, Musk and Straubel) to call themselves co-founders.[11]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Tesla,_Inc.#The_beg...

[grey-area]

Thanks for pointing out he had to go to court and buy out the original founders to be called a co-founder.

I absolutely agree he has been instrumental to Tesla’s success since he joined as employee number 4 and then took over, but he didn’t start the company and the statement that nobody was interested in or working on electric cars is factually untrue though nobody else managed to bring them to the mass market before Musk.

[hooande]

"nobody was working on electric cars"?

[doggosphere]

Where was Ford, Toyota, GM's progress on electric cars? Where are all the other startups that started at the same time as Tesla?

Do you think Tesla would be where it's at today if Musk didn't get involved? How many times did Tesla almost die?

[hooande]

over 100,000 Toyota Prius were sold in 2016. Tesla is likely to be the top company in the electric vehicle space for quite some time. but to act like they invented the market and no one else was working on it is just silly. it's like saying that Bill Gates invented computers

[brianwawok]

Well, what other private company is launching rockets at the pace and cost of SpaceX? Some are trying!

[ericd]

I love trains, and would love to see proper high speed rail in the US, but let's be honest, that's primarily a political problem, and I don't expect to see it within the next 30 years.

[nnamtr]

I'm living in Europe, and the situation seems better over here. While going by car is cheaper and faster in most cases, train is not much worse.

At least Biden seems to be a supporter of the railway. But it could go faster if you'd build tracks instead of tunnels with Teslas.