It’s important not to make any issue an “I align with X so you’re against me” conflict.
Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact.
Musk is also behaving erratically, inconsistently, and seemingly also unethically over Twitter. And has done so in the past, eg in the dispute with the diver or against short sellers.
One aspect of Elon’s actions does not cancel the other out. We should celebrate the good and debate the bad.
I feel like this melodrama is driven by Musk’s detractors ready to pounce and dismiss, say, the development of reusable rockets, by Musk being petulant. That is not an argument that makes any sense.
And the same goes for any fans who think Musk’s incredible achievements give him permission to ban and censor those who annoy him.
All he's demonstrating is that CEO pay and comp should never have got as high as it has and taxes on rich people needs to go way higher, they are just going to waste it any way.
You can’t be serious. So Musk can’t take any credit for what those companies have achieved?
By that logic, he should also be blameless for any problems at Twitter.
Please
The reason the twitter fiasco is happening is that twitter doesn't have such a team dedicated to cushioning musk, and so he goes around dictating whatever thoughts he has on an already major platform, even if these thoughts are directly contradictory with earlier ones, as was visible publicly on twitter.
Other than PR, which he is becoming worthless for (unless you count appealing to the historically not-believing-in-climate-change right as good PR for an EV company), i don't think musk has achieved much personally beyond having capital (with questionable legitimacy re its acquisition).
However, I find it incredibly telling that every time Musk is criticized about his behavior over Twitter, some people cannot but bring up Tesla and SpaceX. Why is that? Do we have to put a disclaimer with every potentially good thing someone has done every time we criticize someone?
I was following the other way around… people are dismissing Musk as a whole and turning this into a binary debate, so I felt the need to point out that Musk’s achievements aren’t really disputable, so it’s silly to treat this as a binary debate.
It can be “yeah musk has done stupid things and brilliant things” but not “musk has done stupid things and anyone who defends him is a fanboy and what he has achieved positively is now moot.” And the post I was replying to, and indeed much of the debate, takes that form.
And y’know personally that really bothers me. Casting people as goodies or baddies just really gets to me for some reason. I don’t know why, it’s just really irrational behaviour that I can’t tolerate very well.
Though in my opinion you assign way too much credit to a CEO of three companies that apparently spends most of his time on social media and being offended.
I generally agree with you POV (people are complicated). I don't think the parent was calling people people cheerleaders merely for defending him on any level.
But to add to your comment. I never understand why people are surprised that a person driven, opinionated and cutthroat enough to be a successful business person is a bit of an arsehole in person. It kind of goes with the territory.
Elon didn't design Starship – SpaceX engineering teams did. Why don't ULA's engineers do something like Starship, is it because they aren't capable? I don't think that's fair; I think many engineers at ULA would love to do something like Starship, but Tory Bruno won't let them. And why is that? Well, I think Tory would love it if ULA could do something like Starship too, but he only has as much money as Boeing and Lockheed Martin are willing to give him, and he can only spend it on what they feel comfortable spending it on. And as far as Boeing and Lockmart go, why risk billions on some high-risk commercial space venture, when there are plenty of far safer big juicy defense contracts to chase instead?
That's the thing that Elon brings to SpaceX – expansive requirements, but also a willingness to risk billions in pursuing them. Gwynne Shotwell and Elon Musk make a good team, because she balances that out with pragmatism, organisation, management efficiency, customer focus. But, imagine if Elon had died suddenly 10 years ago – would Starship still be where it is today? As excellent an executive as Gwynne is, if it was all up to her, she might not have been wiling to make as big and risky bets as Elon has.
So I think this idea that all that Elon brings to the table is capital and PR is very mistaken. The other thing he takes to the table, is a willingness to take big risks which few others would, and the direction he gives to his teams to chase the limits of what is currently possible rather than settling for what is more obviously feasible. Sometimes, it all blows up in his face; other times, it has been a recipe for immense success. But, in that regard, both the success and the failure are coming from the same place.
Ah, I definitely read it that way. The use of “cheerleaders” leaves little room for ambiguity, I think.
I was watching a brilliant talk from someone quite famous in the nerd world and he was talking about Steve Jobs and the two things he brought to business… paraphrasing, one about being a visionary, and the other about… let’s say “strong management”. I do wonder if you’re right, I hope it’s possible to be nice and great though. Maybe it’s just harder.
You seriously believe he allows a team of people to act as an intermediary between him and the company, yesman and nod to him, then go and do their own thing?
Step back for a second and consider how incredibly unlikely this scenario is. Try and put another successful billionaire and the company they founded into a hypothetical, and tell me it's realistic.
Casting people as “goodies” and “baddies” might be rational. Suppose humans have a need (or desire) to predict another’s actions, or consequences of another’s actions.
Humans do not have all the time and resources in the world to evaluate each individual they interact with, directly or indirectly, so they may choose to use prior probabilities to model their world, as a shortcut.
It seems plausible that if this model of the world developed by shortcut is sufficiently accurate, then it would be rational to use this approach because the time and resources conserved can be better directed elsewhere (for the individual’s benefit).
Of course, erroneous or excessive use of prior probabilities may lead to negative effects for societies (possibly visible only in the long term).
That’s an instinct we can and should avoid in general debate though.
Another scenario to think about here is how does he spend any amount of quality time focusing on SpaceX or SpaceX projects when he’s running day-to-day ops at Twitter for sure and supposedly Tesla too. Something has to give.
If he’s mostly spending his time on Twitter I don’t see how it’s all that implausible that for SpaceX he does randomly show up and toss around ideas and people tell him yes so he goes away and they can go back to their normal ops. I don’t know either way, but I wouldn’t really dismiss it so offhandedly.
Yes well unreasonable men change the world and all that. I don't think it's impossible to not be an arse hole and successful in business, but the 2 tend to go together, and even after you tend to get surrounded by yes men so even if you weren't an arse hole to start with, the situation runs the risk of turning you into one.
Musk is not talentless. His abilities allowed him to make the best of his opportunities of the time and his own circumstances. But this is a story of a fortunate business person, not some inspiring role model in any professional field or just as a person. On the whole he isn't even unique, just very public and the richest one.
>It’s important not to make any issue an “I align with X so you’re against me” conflict.
Ethics aren't some opinion you may or should just keep to yourself while lack of reason in public discourse does not need to be tolerated either.
Of course, that applies to the rest of us as well. There is definitely a subconscious wish within the hivemind of the public to see a bad guy fail, so a lot of people are willing stretch the truth a little bit.
What would be? When I see replies on Twitter that say things like “why are you arguing with literally the smartest person in the world?” in reference to someone challenging or critiquing Musk and other such hyperbolic comments coming out of nowhere, what do you call this other than cheerleading?
> Musk has achieved great, incredible things. That’s just indisputable fact.
That is more than disputable. What great things has he done?
Musk has acted like a child and bully his entire career. People like me have called this out to downvotes, criticism, and almost ostracization and finally others are becoming aware of it. The sort of outpouring of hate of Musk is coming from this because people are more than weary of putting up with cult of personality and unbridled and misplaced worship of Musk.
However, he did found SpaceX 20 years ago in 2002. And their first successful launch was in 2008, 14 years ago.
It's entirely likely he puts less effort and impact into the daily running of SpaceX now, however I don't believe his last 6 months running Twitter invalidate his last 20 years running SpaceX.
> I see replies on Twitter that say things like “why are you arguing with literally the smartest person in the world?” in reference to someone challenging or critiquing Musk
Let me rephrase:
What makes you believe he effectively does not run the company, despite his entitlements? There appears to be strongly evidence for him running it (his entitlements primarily) and no evidence I've seen against it.
If one defends a person who is effectively a cult leader and their maniacal actions, they shouldn’t be surprised to often get lumped into the more fanatic followers as a sort of social collateral damage. Very little about Musk’s behavior is defendable, and he also has a huge amount of unwavering followers. So defense of his behavior are questionable from the start.
I’m not sure why you’re so obsessed with a fantasy version of a man.
MIGB, what makes musk think he can behave like a spoiled brat and people still keep liking him? He’s had his day in the sun and now he’s just a rich annoying brat.
Can you prove this statement or is it just how you feel about it?
Given the number of news stories I’ve read like that, from a range of news outlets, and given that Musk is also CEO of Tesla, I’ve decided that I find these stories plausible.
Have to imagine investors in Tesla are not happy right now with such divisive activities from Elon Musk in the public sphere and the lack of focus on the company (yes I can say factually he is not focusing enough on Tesla).
Why? What do the previous achievements matter in a discussion about a self described “free speech absolutist” suddenly banning accounts without any transparency
All I care as a Twitter user is if the accounts I follow will be there tomorrow- if not my experience is diminished
This is the kind of statements that are not a helpful framing of the debate. Musk alone hasn't "has achieved great, incredible things", I can try and dispute this. Why celebrate the good while debating the bad. Instead we should question the good and verify the bad. It should the expected behavior towards anyone in a position of power. Musk being in one of the highest positions of power in the world does not make him more vulnerable...
No, I have never worked with a billionaire CEO, founder and chairman of a space company. I have however worked with many founders and CEOs, and the ones who are dead weight quickly get moved on.
Why you do believe it's likely for this one to hold all the decision making power in a successful company with effectively no input?
Surely the default assumption is the founder/CEO of a successful company plays a part in it? So what do you have to indicate this is untrue, aside from your obvious dislike of a person you don't know.
You can be ethically against stealing, but still see the positive elements in the life of a thief.
It is absolutely not necessary to turn the discussion around Musk into a trial. It is possible he is neither guilty or innocent, but rather a mixture of good and bad - like everyone on here, even those condemning him as a terrible human.
But I dispute that.
> the development of reusable rockets
Reusable rockets existed for almost exactly 25 years before the first SpaceX flight.
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A sense of perspective is always valuable in avoiding hyperbole.
Pasteur's invention of vaccination was a great thing. Walking on the Moon was an incredible thing.
Musk is some industrialist with a bunch of _promising_ projects, many of which are in trouble right about now.
Buying a car company and convincing rich people to buy shoddy electric cars, in part by lying about their capabilities, does not make you a Darwin or an Einstein. It doesn't even make you a Jimmy Carter (an underrated President in my opinion).
Once all the dust has settled, I expect Musk's story to be a cautionary tale and not an inspiration.
Translated: You can use ethics to judge an action or just look at its risk/reward ratio? Yeah, that's what Musk does but that's also why plenty of people consider him a (near) sociopath.