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by keeda 1 day ago
Wait, "demonstrably false" based on anecdotes? I'm sorry, when I wonder whether someone like, say, Carmack has technical chops I wouldn't rely on anecdotes from people, especially people I do not know of.

For one, I can counter those with anecdotes from people I do know and trust. Like, I know directly from at least one very senior ex-Twitter engineer, who I worked directly with and whose technical chops I can vouch for (and who left before Elon took over, so you know, less chances of prejudice) that everything Elon said about Twitter engineering after he took over was absolute BS.

For another, I can point to boneheaded moves directly traceable to Elon, like eschewing LIDAR for Tesla FSD, that have endangered my own life on multiple occasions. Like, phantom braking is STILL a problem for in 2026, something that LIDAR would largely eliminate.

Just because he's built some very successful technical businesses does not mean he's technically strong. It is useful to know that cults of personality are cultivated. And especially for one like Elon (cf video game cheating scandal) when in doubt, it is probably a good idea to err towards "cultivated."

1 comments

Elon is clearly highly technical as demonstrated by the Starbase interviews by Everyday Astronaut https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLStF4EoZOEFJ6xDx656Ik...

You can pick any video and see this for yourself.

Wasn't the orginal point that he sounds highly technical to people that don't understand the field well?
Elon Musk is the chief engineer of SpaceX. If you don't believe this, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's extremely well documented. https://erik-engheim.medium.com/is-elon-musk-just-a-sales-gu...

You can watch the playlist linked above to verify this for yourself. Tim Dodd asks Elon deeply technical questions about Starship and Elon explains the design rationale and tradeoffs behind each of them.

In one of the videos Elon walks around Super Heavy booster with Joe Petrzelka, Head of Booster Engineering at SpaceX, and they take turns explaining the technical details of how the ship works.