He seems like kind of a dick
Unlike most comments in this thread, which discuss his social-political orientation, I wanted to question his (please forgive me) genius status.
Yes, he does own some pretty innovative companies that do some pretty innovative cool things, but what exactly was his part in it besides buying/co-founding them? That’s my genuine question. The reason I would ask something like this or doubt his genius in the first place are the things that he proposes purely on his own, with nobody else’s involvement.
For example, the tesla roadster air thrusts, flying cars or the hyperloop as the most notable examples, both extremely dumb ideas that anyone with the most superficial understanding of physics will recognize as completely infeasible.
Yes, he does have a Bachelor’s degree in physics and economics, which makes me think that he is simply very capable of recognizing potential in things, but not conceiving these ideas by himself. He is a very talented business manager and PR strategist, but I have some doubt about his abilities beyond that…
Basically this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gnlhmaM-dM
He sells a personal brand as much as whatever he technical feats his companies accomplish. A consequence of that continuous self serving sales pitch is that facts waver into fantasy. When it does and people point out incongruencies there’s a knee jerk reaction from the more cult like believers. For an crowd that’s so focused on factual scientific rigor, people start acting very religious when it comes to their hero.
That’s what he is. He’s the archetype 21st century tech geek hero. Made millions from a startup and then became a crass billionaire playboy. That’s the brand he sells.
I suppose he doesn’t do as much hands on dirty work as he did in the dotcom startup days. He knows how to surround himself with smart people. I remember watching some stream where he had a panel of experts. He was trying to talk himself up but clearly some panel members were frustrated with his attempts to look smarter than he is. So awkward watching that. It felt like a school presentation where the kid who did nothing for the project tries to act like he did.
In Canada we’ve got some initiatives to get remote communities hooked up to the new satellite internet tech. Around social media the Musk evangelists are quick to praise him as the tech Jesus right on cue. There have been other programs working on the same LEO internet services too. It goes back a few years along side whatever Starlink was doing too. It’s not like he invented this or is the first and only player on the field. But people perceive it to be because he’s a showman and that’s his pitch.
Seems a bit like you are more annoyed by the fan-boys (which are horrible indeed) than the actual Elon Musk. Maybe he could do more to reign in those that idolize him, but I can kind of understand why he doesn’t want to bother with that crap.
Also add to this all his covid bs, using arbitrary made-up predictions to excuse the exploitation of his workers during a pandemic
Yes, it’s fair to say he’s kind of a dick but it’s not the full story. His goals for electric vehicles and universal internet access are noble ones. Wanting to put people on Mars seems like a waste of time to me, but so are most human pursuits and this one’s at least interesting. His use of social media is juvenile. His attempt to help the kids trapped in the cave was ham-fisted attention-seeking. I don’t give a toss if he smokes weed, that’s not my business.
I’m not going to try to put him on a single-axis scale of good/bad. Doing so is a popular hobby among those who wish to have endless arguments with the “other” on social media. The guy’s useful for some things but not others.
the fact that people think that a person behind something as anti-consumer and for-profit as tesla would try to build universal internet access just out of the goodness of their hearts of insane to me
that’s like saying facebook provides the entire world with a free platform to express their opinions
He is a capitalist applying capitalist solutions to problems. You don’t have to like capitalists but for all its flaws the system does function, and taking a profit is table stakes. The consumer who opts in to his way of doing things gets a car with a reduced dependency on fossil fuels, advanced safety features, and some level of self-driving capabilities. On the flip side they are deeply proprietary, in constant communication with the mothership and very expensive. For everyone else, Tesla is pushing the industry along so we will get more EVs to choose from sooner than we might otherwise have done. Can you really say his activities are anti-consumer? I don’t think so - it’s just that you and I are not his target consumer.
The real damage of Facebook is their monopoly created through network effects. I am not anticipating a monopoly on electric cars or internet access any time soon.
I would argue against the Capitalist system being functional. Capitalist propaganda has created a mythology of attributing to itself many accomplishments which should really be attributed to human labour. All of its flaws are cast off as “simple facts of life”.
Much of the foundational technology in communications, the Internet, and medicine were initially developed in government (public ally funded) labs, where profit was never a motive. All capitalism has done is give us thousands of variations of similar technologies, at the expense of countless other technologies - and in the process has forced humans into wage slavery / actual slavery, destroyed our coral reefs, and is heating up and polluting our planet - driving us toward extinction.
Even if we build the perfect solar panel, or do make it to Mars - where sustaining life will be much harder than sustaining life on Earth - that won’t save Earth, and it won’t solve the problem of the endless commodification and exploitation which is the capitalist system.
At some point we need to stop acting like mindless automatons and abandon capitalism, and work toward an actual sustainable system which isn’t hostile to life.
— Posted from my iPhone (which was created by exploited human labour and natural materials, not capitalism)
He’s cringe, and an awful person. I might even hate him more than a purely vile person like Rupert Murdoch - who at least seems like he has some idea of how evil he is.
Money inherited from colonization and slavery. He constantly tries to show how cool he is by doing performative crap like referencing anime, smoking weed, or doing some forced zany eccentric billionaire shit.
Putting solar panels on stuff and desperately trying to colonise Mars won’t save us if workers and the planet are being exploited into annihilation.
Unionize SpaceX.
Unbelievable you are denying climate change. This guy made more for solving climate change than all politicians combined.
You just read news titles without reading/watching source material - for example his “smoking weed” was a first try and after few seconds his cough was visible as hell. But all media made a weed smoker from him and people trust mainstream media because they are always one and the only source of truth.
When did I deny climate change?
Green capitalism isn’t going to stop climate change, and colonizing Mars isn’t any kind of solution as long as we’re still living under a system that expects and enforces unrestrained exploitation and consumption.
If we can’t do what’s required to keep this planet habitable, we don’t have much chance of surviving Mars.
The solution to climate change isn’t making electric luxury cars so some Silicon Valley techbros can drive them to Burning Man to take LSD and feel like they’re changing the world. The solution to climate change is for workers to build power in their workplaces, communities to organize, strike, abolish capitalism and build a system from the bottom up that works for the health and happiness of all people, animals, and the planet that we live on - not enslaving most of us so a select few billionaires can hoard obscene amounts of stolen wealth.
“The media” hasn’t done anything to Elon Musk except fawn over him and paint him as some kind of benevolent saviour. Just go look at his Twitter and you’ll see that he’s a right wing “Libertarian” who thinks it’s funny to actively exploit workers and destroy their attempts to unionize and organize against his exploitation. He makes clueless references to pop culture to try to seem cool. He supported the fascist Trump and was shouting about “FREEDOM” for people not to wear masks during a global pandemic.
You should read about S-curve in manufacturing business.
I assure you that Tesla cars will be much cheaper and affordable than VW or GM cars (VW poisoned millions of people recently for profit and used forced labor during WWII without any penalty for doing so - it took them many decades to say simple “sorry”, GM bought battery startups just to close them and closed EV1 successful electric car because they were scared it could disrupt their business).
It is all about cost and wealthy ones are paying premium for development of technology which will allow to mass manufacture cheap car. Electric drive train will be much cheaper in the future than gasoline one.
There is huge lobbying going on (oil/gas lobby and Internal Combustion Car manufacturers lobby) trying to silence any reports about huge effect of transportation industry on pollution. But during COVID there was clear evidence that significant drop of transport miles driven was correlated with low pollution.
His dislike of unions is simple - unions do not care about company’s mission (“to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”). You do not understand why Tesla cars will be cheaper than cheapest cars and why unionized member should know that? Unions take over decision making in company and in majority of cases it is slowing down progress.
There are many car manufacturers in USA - you can choose whatever you want. If knowledge about no union policy in Tesla is show stoper for you why not just pass on their career offers and go elsewhere?
He is totaly destroyed in media because media are interested only in clicks - and Elon/Tesla in the title with any bad context means many times more clicks.
I know about S-curves, economies of scope and scale, JIT production, etc. I’ve read Stiglitz, Fukuyama, and the rest of it. I was also fed the same neoliberal propaganda about unions, and how great individual contracts are.
Ok, so let’s say we’re all in some distant future driving electric vehicles with no emissions.
That’s still not addressing mass deforestation, overfishing, pollution, and the myriad of other destructive practices that capitalism encourages.
And it’s not addressing why everyone need a car in the first place to rush to jobs, most of which are useless, destructive, or could be automated if we weren’t all required to do wage work in order to pay rent and survive.
Elon Musk is now the richest person in the world and what’s he doing to create actual change? Nothing.
Well, it would mean, that other big companies didn’t spend an awful lot of time in optimizing processes. I don’t believe that Ford or Toyota would say: oh, we have good sales, let’s not optimize the process and earn more. Why would an S-curve work for Tesla and not for any other company?
Does it matter? At least he seems to have some genuinely good goals other than making loads of money. Compare that to Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos. I guess every person in his position will look kind of like a dick through the lens of the media unless they have a personal PR department to smooth things over… with Elon Musk you at least get the general idea of what kind of person he really is. Nobody is perfect shrug
He’s an Afrikaner marshmallow whose family fled South Africa after apartheid ended who buys companies and steals credit for other people’s work.
EDIT: drie downvotes van kwaai rassiste ;P
elon musk bad
