Hard to believe now, but for quite a long time he focused on visionary technology, was an exceptional business man, an inspiring builder and leader of his organizations.He also demonstrated other unusual skills in ways people forget, never noticed, or sneer at ignorantly. Successfully navigating the national red tape for both Tesla and SpaceX, in industries with extremely entrenched regulatory captivating incumbents, demonstrated just one of many non-obvious skills.

Today?

He incessantly spews anti-inspirational anti-rational anti-social and anti-business diarrhea to an alarming and epic degree. He drives Twitter/X’s business logic like a drunk going the wrong way on a highway, seemingly intent on hitting every guardrail he can find.

So far SpaceX and perhaps to a lesser degree Tesla are getting by on the deep talent he gathered in better times.

He is an unusual person.

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cess11 7 months ago | parent [-]

No, most of the reporting from "his organizations" is about how they defend themselves against him and blow the whistle about security concerns, plus the union busting and wage theft and so on. Plus the story about how Thiel kicked him out to save PayPal.

Both Tesla and SpaceX are military labs behind plausible deniability, dual-use aprons. Hence they're run to a larger extent by people who aren't him and he works like a neat distraction for outsiders.

Much like Thiel he doesn't show any "deep talent". That's something other people are bringing to the organisations they're part of.

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Nevermark 7 months ago | parent [-]

This is hogwash.

Dramatic exits after successful acquisitions are common. You have to earn “failures” like that.

That created SpaceX’s seed capital.

(You can’t have it both ways. If he had convinced the US to bankroll him, that would have been serious business acumen.)

Minor success on hard problems, with a shoe string budget, and an attractive business plan (vertical integration, fast-failure iteration, reusability) got investment capital flowing.

More successes, more capital.

Result: They changed the economics of space launches & save money for all their customers, including NASA & the military.

No resemblance to nepo operations or results. See Boeing, Lockheed, etc.

$ billions of dollars burn with each SLS launch. Massive delays & cost plus overruns. For now.

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cess11 7 months ago | parent [-]

Thiel put him aside before the IPO, which was before Ebay bought them.

There's been a lot of reporting about how SpaceX is keeping Musk's influence at a minimum. If you go looking you'll also find video from interviews with Musk in that role where he isn't talking from a script and comes across as a clueless high schooler.

Why are you taking hits for him? Does he somehow pay your bills?

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Nevermark 7 months ago | parent [-]

> Why are you taking hits for him? Does he somehow pay your bills?

I don’t like one-sided trolls who are insecure that some other people are exceptional?

Is that really the kind of conversation we want to have?

—

More productively:

I don’t have an axe to grind either way, other than giving credit where it is due, and vice versa.

My original comment reflected both.

He has done some truly incredible work. He earned his success.

Lately, he is a mess with completely different priorities.

I imagine many employees in all his companies are happier when he is not around these days. And would be happy if he stopped posting opinions, given the downstream impact to their brands.

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cess11 7 months ago | parent [-]

Do I come across as insecure?

What "success"? The stuff that other people have made happen that he takes credit for?

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Nevermark 7 months ago | parent [-]

> Why are you taking hits for him? Does he somehow pay your bills?

I responded to your pointless, inaccurate and rude conjecture with an equally pointless, rude, and what I assumed was an equally inaccurate conjecture to suggest that perhaps we keep our conversation substantive.

If the sense in that still isn’t clear, you might check out the guidelines on this site for keeping discussion constructive.

> What "success"? The stuff that other people have made happen that he takes credit for?

I don’t know how “success” could be any more evident.

But if you believe you see shortcuts that were taken, then perhaps take your insight and do something comparable? Good luck!

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FredPret 7 months ago | parent [-]

We've seen an explosion in time spent looking at second-hand information online in recent decades - social media & news. I think a healthier way is to get information direct from the source, and from going and doing things.

I think some people responded to the deluge of slop by clutching out their connection to reality and relying solely on a couple of third parties for their worldview.

There's no point in arguing with someone who looks at Elon Musk and cannot see success because they can only look at him through a thick lens of ideology and tribalism. Five, ten years ago, some these same people probably thought he was in their tribe and idolized him then. Ten years ago, they probably liked Trump and his shows too.

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cess11 7 months ago | parent [-]

I think it's the other way around. My interlocutor above has a "thick lens of ideology and tribalism".

This is why they're being very unspecific and arguing like a child from a position of conviction, "this is the most evident thing there ever was".

I've never had a keen eye to people that ride on the labour of other people and take credit for their work. Gossip magazines just don't work on me, and I don't trust the rich when they say they're "progressive" or whatever, like Musk did before. If they meant what they say, they'd get rid of their riches and return to society.

	▲	Nevermark 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		> My interlocutor above has a "thick lens of ideology and tribalism". This is why they're being very unspecific and arguing like a child from a position of conviction, "this is the most evident thing there ever was". There you go again, making up my back story despite having no idea who I am. It is rude, but worse than that, a waste of words. I would insert another whimsical parody, referring back to you, but that somehow threw you last time. So I will just repeat: > Is that really the kind of conversation we want to have? > you might check out the guidelines on this site for keeping discussion constructive. -- It isn't controversial, nor should it require a complex justification to say with some confidence, that the richest person on the planet has been "successful". Widely documented synonym: "prosperous", i.e. achieving great wealth. >> "this is the most evident thing there ever was". I will be more precise and less rhetorical: based on the meanings of the words "successful", "prosperous" and "richest person on the planet" it is as close to a tautology as informal human language allows. -- > I don't trust the rich when they say they're "progressive" or whatever, like Musk did before. If they meant what they say, they'd get rid of their riches and return to society. "Progressive" doesn't mean charitable. As has been pointed out to you already, reading and using words consistent with their widely documented meanings will help you communicate better, and communicate something coherent, beyond simply projecting strong dislike and distrust of Musk. But, I am sympathetic to that viewpoint as was evident from my first comment. Musk has not lived up to values he previously espoused. And he routinely demonstrates deep hypocrisy relative to principles he claims to value today.