[georgeg23]

His "save humanity" messaging helped attract talent, something Bezos never learned how to do. But once people get to know Elon, it's clear his idealisms about Mars are manipulations and not sincerely held. He really means Strategic Defense Initiative. Elon is super pro-military technology (a hint is naming his kid after spy planes).

He basically believes his purpose is to build what the US DoD has been asking for for decades.. a space-based defense system, powered by AI to project force across the planet ("for our own good"). People who know him closely are aware. For example Grimes leaked a lot of this.

To be fair, Elon believe he's doing what he's supposed to / what is "right". It's just not the same as what he says to get people to work for him or be his fans. Talented people often won't work on military technology if they know that's what it's for, so he bends the truth.

[irthomasthomas]

It could be that his "save humanity" schtick actually attracts the wrong type of talent. See, when I was a full time programmer, about a decade ago, I really believed in Musk. It was only later, when I had more time on my hands that I started to fact check his claims, resulting in spiraling disillusionment.

So, I think Musk companies must be recruiting people who are young, and somewhat niaeve. I can't imagine many mature engineers being attracted to the crypto-bro atmosphere, unless they, themselves, are as conceited as Musk and happy to be in on the con.

[planetsprite]

This is true. I had a friend who programmed part of one of SpaceX's satellites, basically working as an unpaid intern. He spent 80 hours a week working on it non stop, sleeping in the lab, all while finishing his undergraduate CS degree.

The same thing with Elon's Hyperloop pod competitions. A completely meritless future technology still saw millions of free man-hours poured into being the creators of the first step into the future. As smart as everyone who participated in it was, the prestige of everything Elon blinded them.

[ripe]

I agree. Musk's key talent is sales:

* Convincing investors to lend him money.

* Convincing talented people to come work on his projects.

And he lies convincingly. His methods sometimes do get results (Tesla electric cars, SpaceX), so to his fans, he's a genius. Most of his projects fail (Tesla self-driving, boring company, hyperloop, robotaxis, crypto, stonks, every single thing he's tweeted about), but his fans are happy to forgive or forget all about those.

With Twitter he may have bitten off more than he can chew.