[eric4smith]

Yeah it’s sucks how he was let go. But he will get paid.

But for the first time I’m using Twitter more than HN , which has jumped the shark.

Elon’s accomplishments? - helped start openai

- runs the biggest rocket company that makes a new raptor engine every day.

- runs one of the biggest car companies.

- just eliminated rare earth metals for new generation of motors.

- runs Twitter which is undeniably more active and popular than ever.

No matter what you think about the dude, doing all that stuff is going to make you a dick.

But then again, it’s the dicks that make the world we live in.

[Anechoic]

runs the biggest rocket company

That would be Boeing Defense, Space & Security (50,000 employees and $23.3 billion in revenue vs 12,000 employees and $2 billion revenue)

runs one of the biggest car companies.

Tesla, with it's $81 billion in revenue, doesn't even crack the the top ten.

just eliminated rare earth metals for new generation of motor

Just announced it would eliminate rare earth metals. This will be a great thing if/when it happens, but it hasn't happened yet.

runs Twitter which is undeniably more active and popular than ever.

Annual users appears to be up, but down in the US [0]. But if we use annual users as a proxy for "active and popular" then I'll give this to you.

So, 1 for 4.

[0] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/

Edit: taking chroma’s post at face value, you’re at 50%.

[chroma]

SpaceX is a private company so they don't publish revenue numbers. Also your revenue estimate is from 2018. Current estimations put their 2022 revenue at $3.2B. And BDS does much more than orbital rocket launches. They are the third largest defense contractor in the world. Most of their revenue comes from manufacturing aircraft. Except for ICBMs, BDS's orbital launches are conducted by ULA, which has less revenue and fewer employees than SpaceX.

But employee count and revenue aren't the most accurate way to compare the two companies. The best metric is, "How much payload did you launch to orbit?" Last year SpaceX sent twice as much mass to orbit as the rest of the world combined. They have landed more rockets than ULA has launched. SpaceX also holds the record for most consecutive orbital launches without a partial or complete mission failure. This year they have averaged one orbital launch every 4.5 days. ULA has not launched a single time this year.

There are many good criticisms of Elon's companies, but it's silly to claim that SpaceX isn't the biggest rocket company.

[mustacheemperor]

Plenty of people that make the world we live in are not dicks. This take is very reductive towards all those people while overmagnifying Elon’s personal role in his companies’ successes.

As an example, Iceland’s 2022 person of the year also founded an agency that was hugely influential for tech messaging and branding over the last few years, and he has a reputation as being a really great guy.

[ROTMetro]

Old boy's company was acquired by Twitter, with a contract where he was retained. If it's the standard deal, he only gets paid out if he stays the term in the contract (because old boy was a huge part of the 'assets' that were acquired). Now, instead of explicitly firing old boy (which would then require Musk fulfill the acquisition contract and pay dude) Musk/HR get super squishy. Real men keep their promises and fulfill contracts that they have made. It's not just that Musk is a dick, it's that we're seeing he's not a man of his word but a creature of convenience to himself.

The fact the he's screwing someone who instead of letting the fact they were dealt a bad hand stop them but instead pushed to be the top and what they could do (so like the highest idea of a man and what is impressive in a person) makes the contrast even sharper.

[kentm]

> Yeah it’s sucks how he was let go. But he will get paid.

Will he? Musk is currently stiffing Twitter's contractors and vendors, as he has done in the past at Tesla.