[nixarn]

There can't be any objective discussions about Elon any more =) John Carmack finds Elon to be smart and really knowledgeable (listen to the latest podcast from Lex Fridman). And you would think HN trusts the words from Carmack? But most think Carmack, who knows Elon personally is wrong, and their opinion based on some random internet articles, is right.

[addicted]

Elon is super smart. He’s also a snake oil salesman.

These are not contradictory statements.

Unfortunately he chose his intelligence to enrich himself by fooling others. He could have chosen other options. It looked like that was the direction he was going in. By trying to help people. But it’s clear at some point he realized he can make far more money claiming to do something than by actually doing something and decided to focus on that.

[martindbp]

> Unfortunately he chose his intelligence to enrich himself by fooling others.

You make it sound like he's selling ads online or something, not building rockets and electric cars, self-driving software and now robots? Like, if you wanted to make as much money as possible and "fool" people as you say, doing a rocket company and a new car company at the same time, pouring all the $100m you earned from selling your previous company, being months from bankruptcy in both ventures seem like a very roundabout and stressful way of becoming a billionaire.

I don't understand where you people get your world view from, are you exclusively reading click-bait news headlines and coming to the conclusion that Elon=Bad? How about reading some actual accounts of the early days at SpaceX for example? I can recommend "Liftoff", it's very balanced, focuses mostly on the employees of SpaceX and doesn't try to paint Elon as some kind of heroic figure, but gives credit where it's due. He comes off as a highly technical, maniacal, single-minded founder, inspiring but working his staff to the bones, and sure, also has some darker sides to his personality. It's the kind of personality that's required to pull these things off.

[tim333]

I see no snake oil and a lot of cars, rockets and satellites which all seem to work quite well.