[next_xibalba]

Why does it matter to you? I am fascinated by people who have such strong opinions about Musk, particularly on the negative side. The vast majority have never met him and, if they were honest, have probably been positively impacted by him (or not at all).

Personally, I hope it’s true. Starlink is good for the world.

[rootusrootus]

Equally, I'm fascinated by people who white knight for him. I assume to some extent it must just be ideology. Objectively, he has a history of making bold claims about his products that either never come to fruition, or are delayed for years. Being skeptical of what he says is the rational choice.

> have probably been positively impacted by him

Well, every time my Model 3's wipers go batshit insane, I get a little irritated with his decision to forego a known good solution that the rest of the world has been using for decades. Not feeling positively impacted at that moment ;-)

[Dig1t]

I have good internet because of Starlink. Before I had absolutely terrible options and there was no hope on the horizon. Starlink specifically is very good for the world, it's giving rural people access to the full experience of the internet, which people in cities have taken for granted for a long time.

Developing reusable rockets was thought to be impossible and there was no hope for lowering the cost to orbit on the horizon _at all_ by anyone in the world, country or company. Rocket technology developed by governments is laughably bad compared to what SpaceX has built. Now, Starship promises to lower the cost to orbit to an incredibly low number and open up access to space to normal people. This is not a pie in the sky plan, the rocket is literally sitting on the pad in south Texas, waiting for bureaucratic rubber stamping so that it can launch.

I am not white knighting, I don't care about the personal foibles of the man running the thing, I am cheering on science, technology, and the progress of the human species.

[JumpCrisscross]

> he has a history of making bold claims about his products that either never come to fruition

To my knowledge, he has never lied about the present financial state of his companies. That gives him credibility in a way e.g. Yaccarino bullshitting about what fraction of Twitter’s advertisers have returned does not.

[Atreiden]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/elon-musk-funding-secur...

[theultdev]

Then a jury ruled in Musk's favor, right?

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/03/cars/musk-tesla-tweet-lawsuit...

The end result is left out every time the "court finds" articles are linked. The jury found the opposite, which is what actually matters.

[Atreiden]

The jury finding was that he was not personally liable for investor losses, not that his tweet was in fact accurate.

The facts are not in dispute here. He tweeted "funding secured" and funding was not secured. He announced intentions to take it private at a given price, which did not happen.

He misrepresented the financial state of his company.

[theultdev]

Musk was railroaded by the judge and the Saudis on that one.

Luckily the jury had sense that the tweet was harmless in the end.

The judge ignored his stake in SpaceX he could have leveraged and mainly the Saudi Arabia firm that he was in talks with in taking Tesla private would not testify and then said the exact opposite:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/25/23040961/elon-musk-saudi-...

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/1/23/musk-on-trial-sa...

So in the end it's do you believe Elon or the Saudis?

The judge sided with the Saudis.

[rootusrootus]

Well, a jury also ruled that his pedo comments were totally okay, so I don't know if I'd use that as a metric for what constitutes truth.

[theultdev]

Well, courts have also persecuted and jailed innocent people so if you don't trust what a jury of your peers say you should also have a hard time trusting what a "court finds".

Do you agree with that logic or do you trust the courts over your peers?

(ie. what "metric" would you use "for what constitutes truth"?)

[TheLoafOfBread]

I mean its jury - https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/sep/23

[theultdev]

Timely! Now do the courts (or have those been perfect over the decades?)

Under that logic, maybe Musk is just another African American being persecuted by the US government.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I'm mostly neutral in all things Musk. I can make arguments without appealing to his virtue or criticizing his flaws.

I've been reading about low-orbit satellite since at least the late 1990s when it must have been Slashdot articles then. There have been several plans, but the one whose name I remember was Iridium. I believe it became operational, but only ever managed to be used for voice telephony. It's been bankrupted and bought by other companies since then.

This is an absurdly difficult market to break into, and everyone has failed to one degree or another, with the degrees of failure all clustering around the really extreme end of that spectrum. This is ignoring any technological challenge (of which there are apparently more than a few).

He is claiming to have done a (business) thing that has been demonstrated to be nearly impossible. A thing which, if he hasn't done it and is merely lying about, we might not know for months or years.

It is perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of this, and no one owes him the benefit of doubt on this issue or any other. It is perfectly reasonable to remain skeptical even if you do not believe the man a liar. It is an extraordinary claim, and requires extraordinary evidence.

[benzible]

See: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...

Capital Raise

4,281 days since Elon Musk said Tesla will never need to raise capital again. (2/12/2012)

"Tesla does not need to ever raise another funding round." Elon Musk, quoted by John Voelcker in Green Car Reports

4,052 days since Elon Musk raised $195.7M in common stock. (9/28/2012)

3,822 days since Elon Musk raised $313M in common stock. (5/16/2013) 3,822 days since Elon Musk raised $600M in convertible notes. (5/16/2013)

[...]

1,157 days since Elon Musk raised $5B in common stock. (9/1/2020)

1,059 days since Elon Musk raised $5B in common stock. (12/8/2020)

[e63f67dd-065b]

With Tesla stock as overvalued as it is, he'll be really dumb to not sell issue more. Tesla is the original meme stock: if people are willing to pay much more for AMC/BBBY/whatever meme stock than it would otherwise be worth, you should get in front of the money printing machine and issue more stock. Good for him.

[mrangle]

In fairness, and while Musk cerainly has a fan club, the "white knighting" tends to be in response to the aforementioned hating. Not the inverse.

There are few such men, and arguably fewer who have the enthusiastic haters that Musk does.

I understand criticism. However, a (multiple) path of innovation is always going to be riddled with mistakes and failures. Within this context, the specific enthusiasm for hating Musk, by some, seems petty to others.

[good8675309]

So if we don't dog-pile on a specific tech CEO and give the rest a pass we are white knights? I like to push back against the crowd when I see irrational dog-piling. Why is it that when Facebook is mentioned, the comments aren't trashing Zuckerberg in every other comment like when Musk is mentioned? Like he gets a free pass. That actually seems more ideologically driven, especially when you compare what Musk has done for humanity versus the destruction that Zuckerberg has brought. And I have deep concerns about Musk but I'm not irrational about it and I'm not constantly outraged and triggered when I see his name or companies mentioned.

Edit: Lol, bring on the downvotes, it only serves to prove my point.

[coding123]

The funny thing about Zuckerberg is that he's also shifting to the right if you watched some videos about the FBI discussing covid. I mean come on, Zuck showed up on Joe Rogan!

[rootusrootus]

> So if we don't dog-pile on a specific tech CEO and give the rest a pass we are white knights?

No, white knighting is accusing skeptics of being emotional haters who just don't appreciate all the good that Musk brings to the world. Accusing them of being short sellers, etc. Jumping to the defense of someone who is more than capable of defending himself.

[badlucklottery]

> So if we don't dog-pile on a specific tech CEO and give the rest a pass we are white knights?

The problem with bringing up those other tech CEOs vs. actually defending Musk is it starts looking like whataboutism.

I personally think there's enough hate for tech CEOs to go around and we don't need to ration it out.

[good8675309]

Sure, but it's just when I see Facebook, Google, etc mentioned in a headline, I see rational conversation about the topic, but when I see a Musk company mentioned in a headline, I already know what the comments are going to look like.

[rootusrootus]

Do you assign any responsibility for that to Elon? Compared to the CEOs of Facebook, Google, etc, Elon engages in far more incendiary rhetoric every day. He's chosen to become an outspoken public figure, criticism comes with the territory. Especially when it is tribal politics.

[good8675309]

Sure, he has full responsibility for it and he seems to have embraced it but while Elon is outspoken, the other big tech CEOs are just as engaged in politics, they are just more effective and quiet about it which to me is much more insidious. I'm sure they love watching Elon get all the attention, it takes the pressure off of them. As they influence policy, have armies of attorneys and lobbyists, buy senators, etc. At this point they are more powerful than our own government and our representatives are useless except for the rare virtue signal about keeping big tech accountable. I don't put Elon or any of his companies in that category when it comes to power, so he is less of a threat in my opinion. But I get it, HN is definitely a place where the tribal outrage comes out of the woodwork, it's likely because of the demographic here is of people that mostly benefit from the technocratic system so they see Elon as a threat to that or something.

[theultdev]

You missed his point. He's saying not picking up a mob pitchfork and challenging irrational statements does not mean you are white-knighting.

He's not saying "look over at that other CEO".

Even still, it's not whataboutism to put things in perspective as you may see that you're blowing one thing out of proportion due to bias if those same values are being violated by another entity but you are okay with it because of the entity itself.

It's always a good exercise to check for contradictions in your values.

[solumunus]

What a ridiculous standard for deciding whether you respect someone or not. Public figures can give you plenty of valid reasons for disliking them without having met them. I could list endless public figures from past and present which you almost certainly don’t like because of their words and actions.

[webkike]

I haven’t met him, but he has bought out my favorite social media website solely so he can insert his insipid opinions and comments, so I think the negative reactions are warranted.

Why do people always talk about needing to meet a guy to have an opinion on them? I haven’t met Dick Cheney either

[next_xibalba]

> he has bought out my favorite social media websites solely so he can insert his insipid opinions and comments

Can you share a link that documents him saying this? Every statement I've heard is something to the effect of "to preserve a space for free speech." If you can't produce evidence, you're assuming intent. That's your bias, and it isn't rooted in reality.

> Why do people always talk about needing to meet a guy to have an opinion on them?

I think its more a question of the degree to which people care. Dick Cheney was integral in launching wars that spent trillions and killed millions. Compare that to Musk who is probably more responsible than any other single person for reviving both the electrification of transport and the reviving of space exploration. All via companies that you're perfectly able to completely ignore. Meanwhile, Cheney used public treasure to mire the U.S. in foreverwars. Do these two people seem even remotely equivalent to you? Do both seem worthy of your very strong opinions?

[muglug]

> Can you share a link that documents him saying this?

His actions speak louder than words: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/14/23600358/elon-musk-tweets...

[maplant]

When I say insert his insipid comments, I literally mean _his_ comments. His tweets. His stupid fucking tweets.

Are Dick Cheney and Elon Musk equally as evil? No. It’s an analogy.

[snapplebobapple]

I don't think that's the main reason he bought it. It looks to me like he's trying to create a knockoff of the baidu app for the non chinese language sphere where one can conduct their whole life through the app (think twitter + whatsapp/telegram/signal/teams + your banking + online purchases + delivery). If he pulls it off he's going to be a lot richer regardless of the up front pain point of far leftie aversion to freedom of speech kneecapping legacy revenue streams in the short to medium term.

As with everything Elon does, one should wait and see because he has had decent success turning things that seemed stupid money pits at the time (i.e. electric cars and rockets) into legitimate companies disrupting what was thought to be entrenched markets. Also, to my knowledge he has never pulled share structure Bullshit in his companies which makes it possible for his shareholders to fire him if enough don't like what he is doing, something I can't say about the other big tech CEOs, and something that deserves respect in its own right regardless of your opinions of anything else the guy has done.

[TaylorAlexander]

> regardless of the up front pain point of far leftie aversion to freedom of speech kneecapping legacy revenue streams

Musk is not in favor of free speech, he is in favor of allowing speech he likes to get a free pass while limiting the speech of people and groups he disagrees with. The left does not like what he is doing because they disagree with which speech he is allowing and which speech he is blocking. What I have seen lately is users reporting trouble for accounts which support Palestine (which are not making any posts which violate twitter rules). And of course Musk is supportive of accounts which primarily exist to harass trans people, which is justifiably upsetting for people who just want trans people to be able to exist without harassment. But it's not about "free speech" it's about who gets to control the speech. The "free speech" line is just a convenient narrative.

[snapplebobapple]

I don't think you are correct about free speech being a means to a different end rather than an end in itself for him. He has stated he is in favor of free speech and has converted the rules and enforcement to focus on things breaking the law, which is a reasonable thing to do if your position is supporting freedom of speech because the refining system for the law is based around constitutional ideas of free speech (among other things). I agree that that would make him supportive of accounts that violate far left ideas of what should be allowed to be said to anyone because freedom of speech necessitates putting up with a bunch of ugly things being said that fall short of illegal speech rather than just irrationally and incorrectly claiming words are violence and banning all ugly from the conversation.

[TaylorAlexander]

It's not just permitting speech the left doesn't like. I don't care enough to follow this closely and have a bunch of sources at the ready, but it seems that left leaning accounts which do not violate the rules are being targeted by twitter in various ways. There was a pro-palestine account which people said they would follow and then go back and somehow see they were not following it. And some words can imply violence - for example doxxing is "just words" but presents real world risks to people, and there are other forms of harassment which are seemingly against twitter rules which is being permitted. Famously the libsoftiktok account posts a lot of harassment of trans people, and internal leakers at twitter show that this account has been flagged to prevent it from being banned even when it violates community standards.

So actual rule violating accounts are purportedly being protected, while left leaning accounts which do not violate rules are being manipulated behind the scenes, if the reports are to be believed.

Again I recognize that I have not provided sources and I don't expect you to just take me at my word, but I wanted to correct what you think I am saying. I am not just concerned with uncomfortable speech, but outright harassment and the apparent suppression of certain left leaning accounts. That is why I say it is about controlling the narrative.

EDIT: Did a couple of quick searches. Banning journalists for being critical of Musk/Twitter isn't very free speech oriented!

December 2022

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/journalists-who-wrote-ab...

April 2023

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/04/elon-musk-twitter-st...

[nradov]

I don't care about Musk one way or another, but let's not forget how the previous Twitter management frequently used their position of power to censor and suppress messages they didn't like.

https://nypost.com/2022/12/02/twitter-invented-a-reason-to-h...

https://reason.com/2023/01/02/under-government-pressure-twit...

[JauntyHatAngle]

I don't really see why it would be surprising. He is an influential figure that is greatly impacting tech, culture and politics.

For better or worse is up to the individual opinion, but its not really weird to have a strong view on a polarising figure, especially one with the influence of musk.

[failbuffer]

Truth in tech matters to this audience, at least to the engineers. Musk had repeatedly overpromised and undelivered ("full self-driving"), made preposterous claims (2019: Tesla Semi convoy FSD is "something we can do today"), and engaged in fraudulent behavior (SolarCity or the "funding secured" tweet).

You can love him because rockets, EVs, and enormous satellite constellations are pretty cool, but you'd be a fool to trust him.

[andrewmutz]

Many people have strong opinions about Musk because he is intentionally inflammatory. He works hard for those negative opinions. To choose just one example of him clearly trying to generate engagement/outrage:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1601894132573605888

[matthewdgreen]

I don’t think you have to hate Musk or Starlink to be skeptical about any claim he makes about the cash flow of his non-public businesses. He’s spent the past year saying ridiculous things and making promises about Twitter that didn’t check out. Credibility is a non-renewable resource. With that said, you don’t have to have strong feelings about this particular issue. But if you’re commenting on this article it’s a very reasonable sentiment.

[jacquesm]

Musk has gone to substantial lengths to undermine his own credibility and you wonder why people question his statements? It's not even a 'strong opinion' at this point, it's just reality: Musk can be trusted for what he says. It may be true, it may not be true. It may be technically true. But you'll never know until you've seen the evidence with your own eyes.

[TaylorAlexander]

Having met Musk is irrelevant when deciding whether to trust the public statements of someone who has a long and well documented history of lying in public statements. In particular he has repeatedly lied about business related details, most notably claims of self driving readiness.

It doesn’t require strong opinions about Musk to understand the value in taking what he says with skepticism.

[mckirk]

People value trustworthiness, and Musk's track record with public statements about his businesses definitely isn't the best in that regard -- though that largely concerns the utopian predictions/promises he likes to make, I suppose. Maybe statements of his about the current state of affairs are more reliable.

[johnnyworker]

Here's him not knowing what he is talking about, very confidently and to the detriment of those who actually do know, about something really basic.

https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/14/musk_twitter_rpc_spat...

[benzible]

Do you actually limit your opinions to people you've met, based on your personal interactions with them? Do you consider your personal impressions of someone to be a better way of evaluating their truthfulness than the public record of their past statements?

Musk's record is quite clear at this point: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https:...

[wg0]

OP has only expressed lack of confidence in the statements Elon makes. Objectively speaking, there are plenty of examples where it has been the case that let's say, there were "alternate facts" involved.

And no, it is not about predictions of this being done by that year alone.

[zachrip]

You do not need to meet someone to form an opinion of them.

[capableweb]

> The vast majority have never met him and, if they were honest, have probably been positively impacted by him (or not at all).

Why would people most probably been positively impacted by him? He seems to constantly have knee-jerk reactions to things happening around him, and his companies seems to frequently have issues with overworking employees.

[Tepix]

2 examples:

He's accelerated the switch to electric cars.

He's made transport to space a lot cheaper, saving a lot of taxpayer's money.

[rootusrootus]

He didn't create Tesla, though I'll grant him some credit for creating a combination of product and hype that made for a popular EV.

Gwynne gets all the credit for SpaceX IMO. Elon gets credit for letting her succeed.

[adventured]

> Gwynne gets all the credit for SpaceX IMO

It was nice of her to have the idea, pursue that idea through financial hell across many years, bankroll the start of the business top to bottom, use all of her connections to get it outside funded, and sustain it financially personally to the direct threat of personal bankruptcy.

Good thing she did all that and gets all the credit.

[suoduandao3]

Do you think she could have done it without him?

Everyone loves the Teslas and hates the Edisons, but the world does need Edisons.

[inemesitaffia]

Tesla was an idea. The Tesla you see today is his doing. Eberhard would have ended up like Wework without the Newmann payout.

Remember the Tesla deathwatch blog?

[capableweb]

> He's accelerated the switch to electric cars.

Which, in today's industry and world might have been too early as we still haven't figured out if mining all that lithium is better for the world or not, right now.

> He's made transport to space a lot cheaper, saving a lot of taxpayer's money.

Yeah, for ~4% of the world's taxpayers. We'll still see if SpaceX is a net-win for humanity, too early to tell.

[Tepix]

Even ESA member countries are saving money these days.

[ahahahahah]

> He's accelerated the switch to electric cars.

There's not evidence for that. In fact, by being willing to lose so much money on each car Tesla likely discouraged the broader industry from investing in electric cars for many years. Tesla may have, in fact, made the switch to electric cars slower than it otherwise would have been.

[steve_adams_86]

Overworking is subjective. In his opinion that’s just how hard people should work on things that matter and that they care about.

I agree with you. I don’t think it’s worth working that hard for someone else. No one will remember someone who works for Musk. They won’t earn more than they could somewhere else. To each their own, though. I worked incredibly hard on much stupider things in my past.

[lemper]

not him. but I just can't trust any words of him since many years ago without any hard proof. as for his impacts, I spent the last 20 minutes thinking what has he done that positively impact me and found nothing.

[chung8123]

I don't think starlink's private ownership is good for the world. I don't know enough about space but I hope there is room up there for a publicly owned satellite internet system.

[geepytee]

Musk has and is changing the world, change always makes people nervous.

[not_wyoming]

It's possible to admire the impact of Musk's products while also scrutinizing the things he says on Twitter

[Waterluvian]

I think Starlink has colossal potential to do tremendous good in the world. That's exactly why I care so much about how much control and impact a character like Musk has. Would suck if my ISP suddenly just started sending me dank memes and poop emojis one day because the CEO got broken up with.

[beepbooptheory]

The fact that, at this point, this is not a totally ridiculous thing to be concerned about is very surreal but also pretty funny honestly.

[Waterluvian]

It’s absolutely hilarious when it’s something like Twitter. When it’s an ISP or a rocket or an autonomous car, I laugh a wee bit less. XD

[llbeansandrice]

Isn't he in trouble with the SEC for things he's said on twitter about his companies? I think it's entirely reasonable to be skeptical of the things he says, particularly ones that make himself look good, with no evidence, and is unverifiable since Starlink isn't public.

[footlose_3815]

Conversely, I am fascinated by people who have such strong opinions about Musk in the other direction. Those who jump to defend him. Those who put all his lies, deception, xenophobia, and record of publicly humiliating himself.

I'll never take anything he says at face value because anything that's ever come out of his mouth is posturing.

I'm frankly tired of billionaire windbags like him. I have no idea how someone could be a fan of his.

[NelsonMinar]

Well here we are talking about his latest statement. I think it bears examination whether what he says is trustworthy.

[alienicecream]

It doesn't bother you to see someone take advantage of people's naivety with false promises?

[slibhb]

People are just making a friend-enemy distinction. If they judge Elon positively (friend), they minimize his flaws; if they judge him negatively (enemy), they minimize his contributions.

[fredgrott]

honestly it is from Elon's own history....

1. His only software contribution at PayPal was torn out and discarded 2. After his software at paypal was rejected he was fired by the board at paypal.

It is not that he does not have business skills to market. It is that he presents himself as someone that does quality engineering..which in fact is somewhat false.

[shafyy]

After the shit he has said and pulled in the past few years, you are "fascinated" that many people don't like Musk? Really?

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

> Starlink is good for the world.

It wasn't good for Ukraine when Musk pulled the plug on them.

[adventured]

Which is overshadowed drastically - 1,000 to 1 at least - by the good Starlink has done for Ukraine. That's about the weakest straw argument I've seen against Starlink.

Musk's SpaceX is the only reason Ukraine has been able to maintain its Internet infrastructure throughout the war. It would have been a communications disaster otherwise, particularly for all non-military (NATO would have done its best to provide patch-work communications for the military).

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Maybe, but he also interfered in a rather large Ukrainian operation to Russia's benefit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/world/europe/elon-musk-uk...

> Elon Musk foiled an attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet last year

> Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, accused Mr. Musk of enabling Russian aggression. Because of Mr. Musk’s decision, “civilians, children are being killed,” he wrote on X on Thursday. “This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego.”

> a SpaceX executive said that Starlink had taken steps to curtail Ukraine’s use of the technology to control drones, infuriating Ukrainian officials.