[echelon]

I was a fan for all that Musk did with SpaceX. Single-handedly dropping costs to LEO and creating a civilian / commercial space industry -- mind blowingly impressive, and willed into existence by one man.

When he spoke against Taiwanese and Ukrainian sovereignty, he looked an awful lot like he was being controlled or having his arm twisted by foreign powers. These were hugely inflammatory remarks made back to back during a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

I have to wonder if those high up in the ranks at the DoD are looking at ways to minimize Elon's risk or influence. Especially given the fact that he now launches classified payloads. Elon has enormous vested financial interests near or within two adversarial countries.

[phire]

I get the impression that others at SpaceX moderate and "manage" him.

Let him get distracted with micro-managing whatever cool project is currently takes his fancy, while they do the more boring job of keeping the company running, and making sure the customers are happy. I bet these people are extra happy when he is focusing on projects that don't have customers yet, like Starship/BFR.

Twitter might actually be the first time were he has 100% control over a large company without someone in the background moderating his more wild impulses.

[_djo_]

Exactly.

Gwynne Shotwell is the too seldom acknowledged hero of SpaceX, who has played exactly that role of keeping the lights on, moderating Musk’s worse impulses, and managing him into less destructive directions. It’s been evident for years.

There are similar people at Tesla, who focus on the endless operational tweaking and improvement that Musk finds boring, and who slowly fixed all the most critical issues on the Model 3 line while Musk increasingly took to politics and social media.

I’m not one of those who believes Musk hasn’t done anything or played no part in SpaceX or Tesla’s success, because that’s clearly false. But he also hasn’t been the sole genius responsible for all the success or infallible. But too many people have made him believe he was and we’re now seeing the result of that hubris and ignorance.

[pencilguin]

Yet, Gwynne seems happy to lie about suborbital freight for him, and about colonizing Mars. I have not encountered anyone prominent at Tesla supporting his lies about self-driving (though that doesn't mean none do).

[bmitc]

Does he really do anything at SpaceX?

[conradfr]

He fires people, at least.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1593198409367756800

[cokeandpepsi]

The issue here is that he has idiots whispering in his ear this time, the majority of his other ventures he was partnered with decent people

it's pretty obvious there's a load of sv vultures egging him on

hard to imagine a worse direction for this to go

[kidme5]

SpaceX isn't really focused on going to Mars... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33510272#33510919

[d1sxeyes]

That “single-handedly” word is where I think the problem begins…