I know right! Except for the electrification of the auto industry, internet available from every place on the globe, and rocket launches so cheap they got 90% of the market, what has he ever done for us?
Elon has a closed box that he has successfully convinced a lot of people that there is a lot of money inside, and sold them small stakes in the contents, and promised year after year for 10+ years that this will be the year he opens it.
So the people who lament that he is a trillionaire have nothing to worry about then. It is just paper "wealth" that the market will pull back down to earth
Even if his 1T is speculative and undeserved he still has extreme power from that wealth. And there’s no indication that the bottom will fall out any time soon, so I think the lamenting is justified.
Many people have built products used by far more people, that have generated far more utility, and accumulated far less personal wealth. These things aren't connected.
It's possible that the first sentence is true. Open source software comes to mind. However, that doesn't undermine the point that the reason he has money is because he built things other people wanted to buy. The fact that other people chose to forgo monetary rewards for their creations, or gave away their money, is not relevant to the question of whether he provided value to others.
Not an native english speaker, but someone "doing something for me" is not (me buying products and services from that someone|selling products and services to me).
He has created the second most millionaires out of direct employees behind Microsoft. Many, though not all, of those new millionaires have been blue-collar workers (not office workers), unlike the case for Microsoft produced millionaires. So, from that PoV, he's done good for his employees.
> internet available from every place on the globe
I keep hearing this refrain that Starlink is going to connect everyone. LTE already covers 93% of the population globally [1]. There are obviously dead spots but I really don't see the economic case for Starlink coverage. I frequently travel with a mini and I appreciate the near certainty of connection but it seems like a luxury item. The vast majority of the time cell connection is fine. I suppose Starlink could eat all the telcos but it seems like they aren't too far behind and this connectivity will be commoditized.
China electrified the auto industry [1] [2] [3], not Tesla (mostly BYD). SpaceX is appreciated for proving that reusable vehicles are possible, which other nation states are building [4].
Musk is the management huckster who slaps his name on it, sells it, and reaps the benefits as opposed to the person grinding creating the actual results and innovation. "It is what it is."
This is conveniently forgetting that China used Tesla as a template on how to build out its electric car companies, as it is now using SpaceX as a template to get reusable rockets going...
Actually, there's good evidence that it's the other way around. According to Elon, designing a car factory is 1000X harder than designing a car. According to Elon, the initial model 3 production was a big mess that almost bankrupted the company.
How did they turn this around? By building a car factory in China using local knowledge, then building an duplicate of that factory in Germany, and then building a factory in Texas that incorporated knowledge learned.
BYD sells fewer BEVs than Tesla globally. Their large numbers stem from hybrids. They also grew long after Tesla established EVs as a viable market. You're misinformed.
BYD continues to expand faster than Tesla. If you’re focused on anything other than rate of change, you’ve missed the mark. They intend to be the biggest global automaker in five years, and their trajectory to get there is clear.
Tesla isn’t going away, but it isn’t ever going to be a giant in the industry anymore. Their maximum output is ~2M/units/year, which BYD already easily exceeds while continue to scale.
You mean like Krugman recognizes in this paragraph:
> Granted, Musk has had some real successes. Tesla was ahead of the EV curve, and Starlink is a critically important service as well as a viable business.
Krugman's hypothesis is in the very next paragraph:
> But these achievements weren’t enough to make Musk the world’s richest man. His wealth has, instead, historically rested mainly on self-fulfilling faith — investors believing in Musk’s genius have piled into stocks in Musk-controlled companies, and the rising value of these companies has enhanced his reputation for genius.
followed by:
> We have a term for enterprises that look successful because they keep drawing in new investors and keep drawing in new investors because they look successful. They’re called Ponzi schemes. And Elon Musk is basically a human Ponzi scheme.
> Furthermore, the SpaceX IPO now in progress makes it clearer than ever that Musk’s greatest skill isn’t developing futuristic products. It’s his mastery of financial shell games and his ability to leverage insider influence, especially his influence with the Trump administration.
> We have a term for enterprises that look successful because they keep drawing in new investors and keep drawing in new investors because they look successful. They’re called Ponzi schemes. And Elon Musk is basically a human Ponzi scheme.
Kind of a lame comparison. Nobody is sold on the dream at a "guaranteed" profit by in his companies, you know, like an actual Ponzi Scheme. It's literally the free market at work--it's really simple, if you don't believe in whatever he says, don't speculate!
You can make the same argument for literally any overhyped, or maybe properly hyped depending on who you ask, company. Doesn't mean they're all Ponzies. Unless your argument is ultimately that the stock market is a ponzi, which in that case is a different argument altogether.
Wish people would stop crying about this guy already. These hit pieces are so goddamn boring at this point.
> It's literally the free market at work--it's really simple, if you don't believe in whatever he says, don't speculate!
This, too, is actually addressed in the article - the whole point is that you're being forced to participate/speculate through this rapid inclusion in indices and mutual funds, because he's had the indices change the rules for him. So no, it's not that simple.
I've never understood how common the appeal to "simplicity" is. It's also very simple to just kill everybody you disagree with. There isn't a simpler idea, really. What is the point? Why even write a comment?
He revolutionized car and rocket industry , internet industry , military industry in a very dramatic obvious way. Now grab let’s say Amazon what did they revolutionize? Yeah they do deliver to you goods from China and help you to tend hardware with some decent soft on it .
You can twist it both ways. He has a bravery to take on super complex tasks. You might not like him personally but this is so much aspiring vs see on that list of richest people folks that sell shirts and pants or telco guy .
You can type in whatever sequence of keys you want, but Amazon preety much created and shaped that Cloud thing, if you ever heard of it. And that's just one of their side-projects.
This is the part people are missing. You are investing into the most important U.S government/military contractor (SpaceX + Twitter). And if you really look at how Tesla survived (i.e electric vehicle subsidies) you can make an argument Musk is the biggest state capitalist of the 21st century.
I've posted comments previously about how Musk & the Paypal mafia were the first to realise that the US government offers you the bigggest captive TAM in the world, but the SpaceX IPO just cements it.
If you listen to Elon speak, and you don't have much technical knowledge, or even maybe have some mild technical knowledge, Elon really sounds like he knows what he is doing and has very high confidence he can execute it. He can very non-nonchalantly rattle off a plan to pull off the impossible like it's no big deal. And he does have some significant achievements under his belt, but quite a bit easier things than what he promises (and promised, often a decade ago) ahead.
I can totally see why retail shareholders are so enthralled with him. Nevermind Tesla largely was a self-fullfilling prophecy, despite the prophecy not even becoming true. But the share price did, and that's all that really matter to retail traders.
Your response is also a common trope. What has Elon actually invented? What code did Elon write on-par with Carmack?
We can judge him by technical merits very easily. But if you hold him to the standards of Carmack or Feynman, Elon's accomplishments are entirely benign.
The query in question is "Elon little real technical understanding", which is demonstrably false. Responding to that with the logical fallacy of Moving the Goalposts does not address it.
> Elon really sounds like he knows what he is doing and has very high confidence he can execute it
In 2015, Elon Musk on Hyperloop: "it's no that hard", "it's like a tube with an air hockey table...", "I swear, it's not that hard" [1] Eventually, it was hard. You can literally go on and on with these examples.
On one hand SpaceX and Starlink are businesses that it's practically embarrassing that seemingly nobody else even tried to build. You look into it and look at Bezos and Blue Origin and wonder if the markets can actually build new businesses anymore.
Then you set them aside and realize that he basically got away with visa fraud because he was wealthy to begin with and lucked into making tons of money off PayPal and didn't even found Tesla...
...and the lesson I take away isn't that there's anything special about Musk. It's that if you have billions of dollars almost anybody with some kind of preoccupation can build giant businesses related to it.
For example, I totally believe if some random geek obsessed with SeaQuest had been part of the PayPal Mafia they could have figured out a way to make a billion dollar business out of underwater habitats and submarines.
...at least if they were crazed in public enough about it, which seems to have turned into a key part of how Musk works at some point.
Kind of like if you have a lot of money and a few obsessions you now get ahead more by having Tom Cruise couch hopping moments than by being an actual Howard Hughes or Hearst.
Separately we obviously really shouldn't be letting companies with such concentrated ownership be publicly traded with these multi-class shares, but I guess that's where we are now: reinventing feudalism in market trappings.
"In this world some people born are like keys that move the world and exist having no connection to the social heirarchy established by man." - Kentaro Miura
I think that the average American discounts how important sociopaths are to the economy. The man chanting about developers, the guy who says you're holding it wrong, the human lawnmower who supports genocide, the CEO that introduced his wife to Epstein, the gay executive that launders bigoted politics, the other gay executive that wants to scan your eyeball and build AGI. The scheming Afrikaner now rides in to collect his due, astride two horses and a retinue of unsold EVs.
They all have rabid fanbases, but also the Mandate of Heaven. These sociopaths can exploit whatever they set their eyes on, and dominate it until their judgement fails them. It wouldn't be such a problem if Americans had a healthy skepticism for chronic liars, and didn't worship brand identity to their last breath. That tide is slowly changing, but not fast enough to stop where we're headed.
It’s hard to imagine it all crashing down for him tbh. He has so many ways to conjure money and his mafia has immense resources. Why people love him so much I will never understand.
I used to respect Krugman, but as time has gone on he seems like yet another New York Times style leftist monkey just whining about people they have disagreements with. Pushing the frontiers of science and technology is an unknowable endeavor for which accurate predictions can never be made unless they are not really pushing the limits. It's attitudes like this which restrict us from actually doing real R&D, and instead focusing on quarterly profits and simple stories that nincompoops can understand. Has he not seen how Tesla transformed the global perspective on EVs? Has he not driven in one in FSD mode? Has he not seen the constant launches and innovation happening at SpaceX, or the XAI leap from nothing to having hyperscaler class datacenters and near frontier models. Sure, they haven't gotten to the lead yet, but jesus christ, what's Krugman bringing into the world from zero. The world would be a far better place with 1,000 brilliant kids taking their inspiration from Musk than from taking this pessimistic, whining NYT perspective on science and technology.
Its hilarious that the left, the home of the Weathermen, masked Antifa terrorists, assassins cheered by their base, studiously ignoring rape by favored groups, and a list I could continue for paragraphs, so weakly grasps for morality as some kind of new Puritans.
The only morality of the left is that of Big Brother.
Musk must be verboten because of his heresies, not because he shares the libertine tendencies of the left.
Considering that Climate Change is apparently the greatest challenge of our age, please point me to a single person who has done more to move the world economy to a Green economy than Musk?
Musk does indeed have some detestable tendencies, as indeed most of us do, if we will be honest in our private moments. The difference is his are magnified by those vehemently opposed to his willingness to oppose the entrenched political elite and speak the truth as he sees it. If Musk was willing to bend the knee he would be as celebrated as Soros despite his trillion..
Musk doesn't need me or anyone to stick up for him, but we as a society need to be much more honest in these dialogues about what we are truly talking about rather than cloak in vile rhetoric and divisive attacks. As long as we debase the debate with emotional baggage of envy and vitriol rather than goal based reasoning, we deserve the pit of despair we're currently swirling into.
> Considering that Climate Change is apparently the greatest challenge of our age, please point me to a single person who has done more to move the world economy to a Green economy than Musk?
The same guy burning portable gas generators at both Colossus data centers?
Yep. Also the guy moving countries to battery peaking power instead of gas turbines, the guy who started the revolution that has China moving to mostly battery powered cars. He could run those data centers for decades and not dent his net green credentials.
The SpaceX IPO prospectus states that the company is targeting a TAM of $28.5T, equal to roughly a quarter of the world's gross economic output.
Patrick Boyle said it best. Roughly 1 billion people on the planet make more than $12k annually (folks with "discretionary" income). Divide that TAM of $28.5T by 1B and the every single person needs to give SpaceX ~$28.5K every year forever in order for that figure to make sense. It's more than 3x what the planet spends on food currently.
You have to take Krugman with a big grain of salt.
It's been decades since he was in a policy position and these days he's more of a commentator, opinionator who is often wrong. I think he sometimes leans on his nobel prize to give his opinions weight that people should discount given how often his opinions fall flat.
Krugman's brushing off genuine engineering wins here. SpaceX got space launch costs down to unheard of levels and built Starlink. Tesla built and scaled EVs at a time when no one else was willing to really try. Musk has a habit of overpromising, but there is real output that we can measure as well.
I expect SPCX might stay in squeeze territory until insider lockups expire, and yeah that's financial engineering, but the stock is not going to zero anytime soon the way an actual Ponzi would.
A wonderfully written article. I think Musk is simply a singular example of how the broligarchy has managed to overwhelmingly influence the very fabric of political and economic institutions: he's not the only one and certainly not the originator.
I wonder if the underlying principle of Ponzi schemes have been wielded in western democracies a lot more than most realise, amplifying (through greed rather than direct maliciousness) wealth disparities that have been growing since long before Musk started Paypal. The sad point isn't that this mentality exists, but that many who can ill afford such an atrocious investment don't have the opportunity to do much about it: how many people really can do much about where their low-grade investments are really placed?
It says more about the state of transparency in economies and politics in the 21st century than it does about the man himself. Symptom of the system is what I think Musk and Trump really are.
> But Musk proceeded to destroy X’s business model by turning it into an extreme-right, Nazi-friendly cesspool, prompting advertisers to flee.
This is where he lost me. There are still plenty of liberals and independents on Twitter. It is not "extreme-right" and anyone who thinks so is either being dishonest or has no idea what the left-right scale of politics in America looks like.
According to the media and on Reddit, since Musk bought Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky and Threads have collectively gained 70 bazillion users on seventeen different occasions, and have caused Twitter to collapse and disappear eleven times.
Meanwhile, in the real world, without Twitter, the video footage of the near beheading in Belfast would never have been seen by the world; yet another example of how it continues to make and drive the news.
Without the footage being available to all, the police and mainstream media would have continued to describe what happened as a mere "stabbing" or "assault" or "attack", as the media did for hours after it occurred. When was the last time anything, anything at all, happened after a Bluesky post?
guy who predicted that the internet would be a flop and whose career amounted to taking potshots from a paper calling one of the greatest capital allocators of all time a fraud
> guy who predicted that the internet would be a flop
1. If you actually read the Snopes article, you'll see that his 1998 "prediction" was actually a humorous take on the Information Superhighway hoopla what was going on at the time.
3. If you do want to take his "prediction" seriously, he was of course wrong about the social impact of the Internet (which he has himself admitted, IIRC).
4. But if you look at the economic numbers of the productivity Internet, he was actually correct: