the dude was always a toxic bullshitter. it's amazing how people were blinded to this. telsa cars are poor quality garbage, and reflect elon's personality to a T. flashy, but under the surface it's all lies and decay.
Creating companies like SpaceX and Tesla, I can see how people would turn a blind eye to his more troublesome traits because he was creating companies that pointed towards the future in the way other billionaires weren't necessarily. Wanting that to be true and good is perfectly understandable, even if it is also incredibly dangerous.
I'm the OP of the comment this thread was responding too, talking about how I dislike Musk, but I'd still say he was the driving force of Tesla in that it was a close-to-bankrupt company that is unrecognisable of the company you see today. Same with the whole idea he's only rich because his dad is - Zip2 and Paypal were huge acquisitions that dwarf his fathers net worth back then, and having wealth is in no way a guarantee you'll > 1000x that amount.
What nonsense. How many business owners in the US immigrated with basically zero and made > $1m? How many startup founders have come from disadvantaged backgrounds and exited/got acquired? How many first-gen college grads got into good schools and ended up firmly in the upper-middle class (US based, that is?). It's far easier to 1000x when you have little than when you have a good amount. Just look at the number of millionaires compared to billionaires.
He did create Tesla. He went to AC Propulsion and tried to form a company with them but they weren't interested and instead directed him to two guys who had incorporation papers and nothing else. He then funded 90% of the Series A round when there were only the two "founders". He was involved with the company from that point forward.
Do you have a source on what they were doing before Series A? I didn't start paying close attention personally until around the time the Model S started getting close to production. I've never heard anything about a "proprietary motor".
>We expect the 2022 Model 3 will have about average reliability when compared to the average new car. This prediction is based on data from 2019, 2020 and 2021 models. Select the used car model year to see reported issues with those similar past models.
“We expect”. Rather than expecting, let’s look at what CR says about Tesla.
Consumer Reports states that Tesla’s Model 3 has average reliability. The Model Y still has body hardware issues with the tailgate and door alignment, paint defects, and multiple other problems. The Model X and Model S have body hardware, climate system, and in-car electronics problems. All three models are well below average.
He's never been a toxic bullshitter. He aims big, and gives dates with lots of caveats/uncertainties attached to them (that the media never reports). In a recent interview he stated a great statement "At SpaceX we specialize in converting the impossible into the late" which is a nice truthism about all of his companies.
Tesla cars are quite reliable but their unreliability is over reported giving the perception of a higher unreliability than is actually the case.
> and gives dates with lots of caveats/uncertainties attached to them (that the media never reports)
When is FSD coming? According to Musk, he's said every year for the last seven years running that it is coming "this year" or "months away", and the only "caveat" he's ever mentioned is "subject to regulatory approval", and that is clearly factually incorrect. FSD is not, and certainly was not "complete but for legal approvals".
Unless you have some other explanation for what "You will be able to drive coast to coast, with zero driver interventions, this year".
At some point repeatedly "aiming big" becomes a caricature, and then eventually seen for the BS/hype it is.
> At some point repeatedly "aiming big" becomes a caricature, and then eventually seen for the BS/hype it is.
I disagree. There are different incentives at play. I'll list the few I see.
When does FSD come? You can't say stuff like "10 years out". That'd be a hard sell in academia and an even harder sell in business. Moreover, Tesla is trying to move as fast as possible. The other issue is that they have to give a deadline estimate. As we all know, the business world cannot operate without any deadline estimates. So Elon gives them. If it sounds vaguely familiar to software engineering that's because it's the same misaligned incentive at play here, but then at a larger scale.
Also, he aimed big, and some of those big aims actually became reality. Isn't it the case with R&D and innovation that you have to fail a lot? It isn't easy.
So now we're in a situation where there are people that demand: whatever Tesla decides to innovate on must be a success and accurately estimated time-wise. No organization in the world has ever been able to do that, so to expect that is a fool's errand, IMO.
FSD is a hard problem. Other companies, public ones, have no issue talking about it as a multi/many year project (at best).
Elon constantly says "it's months away", "it's this year", "no, really, this year". Hell he just recently pushed a date back from June to September because "we might be able to announce something".
Having seen the issues with FSD versions dropping today, no-one can seriously think that some September announcement is going to be a "solution".
I get what you're saying. And it's not about being "aspirational". It's repeatedly, to the point of eye-rolling, over-promising, and underdelivering.