[FredPret]

You don't think he's smart?

Maybe he did it for the lol's, or to own his political opponents, or maybe it was just a mistake he locked himself into. All of which sound just like him.

Rockets don't fly and electric cars don't drive if they aren't built right, which puts a floor on the IQ of the man who is that involved and hands-on with it. Being early in a major startup is a big deal, never mind a whole string of them.

He may or may not be weird or an asshole but he sure ain't stupid.

EDIT: I've been on the fence about this guy ever since I read his most recent biography, but it's really hilarious how saying something even remotely positive about him brings out an crowd who is enraged at his very being and the notion that such a thing as competence might exist.

[unaindz]

If he did it for the lols of for "owning the libs" he would have told us way back then.

He did it because he thinks the x looks cool, SpaceX, Tesla model X, even his son is called X. He just didn't realized or didn't care that it would kill the amazing brand it had before. That, just after making the mistake of overpaying for twitter while trying to fool around with a buy he didn't even want to make, makes him not very smart.

If that doesn't convince you lots of his proposals for innovative tech are bs. From single line underground tunnels for cars instead of just using more efficient trains, designing a stupid submarine to rescue the kids trapped in the Tham Luang cave as a PR stunt and then calling a pedophile the expert diver who called him out on it. There is probably more. I mean he doesn't even understand the costs of running a page as big as wikipedia so I wouldn't want him near my rockets if I worked for spaceX.

[fluoridation]

>for the lol's

Well, the previous owners of Twitter are laughing with him, all the way to the bank.

>to own his political opponents

I don't see how throwing away a brand does that.

>maybe it was just a mistake he locked himself into

Again, I don't see how that's possible. What he locked himself into was buying Twitter at a stupid price. After he did that he could have simply kept Twitter as it was, which was what he paid for. If he was just going to remake Twitter into something completely different there was no need to buy it at all. He could have just built X from the start. You could argue that what he bought was Twitter's userbase, but that userbase exists because Twitter is the way it is, and there's no guarantee that it'll stick around once Musk finishes turning Twitter into X.

[kaba0]

> Rockets don't fly and electric cars don't drive if they aren't built right, which puts a floor on the IQ of the man who is that involved and hands-on with it

Agree! So what does it have to do with Musk?

Also, I really wouldn’t call someone smart who literally forced himself into buying a company out of ego for much more than its worth. I wouldn’t call someone smart who did that with a car or whatever, let alone that amount of money. Then firing all the people without realizing that won’t fly that easily in Europe. Then all the bullshit he tried to do around the takeover (lines of code, having twitter explained to him, etc) - like I thought he is at least okay at being a web developer given paypal.. but nope, also a fraud there.

He is at the very least just a dumb narcissistic lucky guy who got dealt a good hand of cards, at worst is actively malicious.

[FredPret]

It's wild that you think he had no positive input with any of his successful technical startups.

Have you considered that x.com might have been an impulse buy (at the market rate, I might add). He could set $40b on fire and still be one of the richest people in history.

I also don't get the hate around that site - it's still very much up and running.

Maybe this site hates him because he trimmed a ton of fat in Twitter's engineering department. Maybe people on the left hate him because he's living proof that some people are just competent. People on the right used to hate him because he's anti-oil. Maybe the tallest trees just catch the most wind.

[kaba0]

How do you know if any of the startups succeeded because of/irrespective/or despite him?

Just as a fact: his only technical contribution to teslas is the design of the goddamn rearview mirror. There are plenty of (unconfirmed) accounts of having to deliberately present information to elon a certain way so he will accept the decision made by the experts, which while I don’t know how true, seems surprisingly plausible, given his personality.

Also, being the richest person doesn’t mean that $40b in immediate hard cash is not a big hit. Most of this evaluation is very transient, e.g. the evaluation of tesla shares (which are very overvalued right now — is it really worth more than all the top 3 car companies together? When they sell orderS of magnitude more cars?)

There are plenty of “fans” of him here, as this libertarian view is quite popular among the startup community. With all due respect, this “on the left” comment is just braindead.

[FredPret]

sigh

> Just as a fact: his only technical contribution to teslas is the design of the goddamn rearview mirror. There are plenty of (unconfirmed) accounts of having to deliberately present information to elon a certain way so he will accept the decision made by the experts, which while I don’t know how true, seems surprisingly plausible, given his personality.

First of all, how do you know this. Where you a fly on the wall for the entire life of Tesla Inc? This is supremely implausible.

Second, why are you willing to believe that good decisions can be made by "the experts", but if it's a rich, brash person you don't like, they can't possibly be "an expert"?

> Also, being the richest person doesn’t mean that $40b in immediate hard cash is not a big hit. Most of this evaluation is very transient, e.g. the evaluation of tesla shares

He didn't even buy the whole thing himself; he has partners in it with him.

> (which are very overvalued right now — is it really worth more than all the top 3 car companies together? When they sell orderS of magnitude more cars?)

Tesla might be overvalued, but selling "orders of magnitude more cars" is actually a drawback if you can't do so profitably.

GM: revenue 165b, profit 10.5b (https://valustox.com/GM)

Tesla: revenue 92b, profit 10.2b (https://valustox.com/TSLA)

Ford: revenue 165b, profit 4.3b (https://valustox.com/F)

They may well be worth more than the others given that they're positioned for much better future growth.

I'll just let your last comment stand on it's own merit.

[kaba0]

> first of all

This is his only patent.

> Second, why are you willing to believe that good decisions can be made by "the experts", but if it's a rich, brash person you don't like, they can't possibly be "an expert"?

This is not an american movie where the boss can change the tide of the whole company by just being so damn good. Reality is also not about CEOs bullshitting why are they so productive with their yoga-10min sleep-whatever diet, working 40 hours in 24. Both tesla and spacex require actual hard engineering knowledge and experience, which elon thoroughly lacks. Like, even if he would be super-human intelligent, these are (and most fields are like this) so specialized, that he couldn’t contribute in a useful manner. Let alone with his actual capabilities, which are thoroughly lacking.

[FredPret]

It's like you're making my points for me.

- Have you interviewed Elon? You have great insight into his "actual" capabilities, as well as his "actual engineering knowledge and experience", not to mention his sleep schedule.

- Do you think there's no value in technical leadership?

- Why do you think progress can be made by many correct decisions at the detailed level made by many engineers, but not by a few correct decisions at the high level made by an engineering leader?

- Do you honestly, honestly believe the only thing he contributed to was the rear-view mirror because that's his only patent?

(by the way, that's exactly the kind of joke that he would love)

- Has it occurred to you that he did not file a patent application for every single thing he did?

- Or that he certainly had a directing influence in almost every aspect of those cars?

- Or that his main contribution is creating the business and factory system that makes the cars?

There's a lot to criticize about this man, and all other people who do things on a big scale, but it really looks like 99.9% of the criticism is just mindless, directionless hate.

[antifa]

> brings out an crowd who is enraged

can't think of a less fanboyish way to describe mild disagreement by 3 random commenters.