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Just reading the first few comments.... I really don't get the Tesla hate. Is it hacker-ish contrarianism? Have they done something? What's the deal HN, why are

• pstuart 8y ago
  Many here likely feel that they've been subjected to too much hype.
  • qaq 8y ago
    I would generally agree, but on HN? With people hyping as much Uber for hairbrush type products that will "change the world" Tesla and SpaceX hype is fairly warranted.
    • hndamien 8y ago
      I really need to rent out my hairbrush on demand. Do you have a link?
      • qaq 8y ago
        Still in stealth mode but raised 10 dollars at 50 billion valuation
  • rootusrootus 8y ago
    I feel like the old criticism leveled against Steve Jobs definitely applies here -- the so-called "Reality Distortion Field." It seems extremely prevalent around Tesla. Even though IMHO Steve Jobs was far more charismatic. Musk has a rabid following that is very unwelcoming towards anything perceived as slightly critical of him or his companies.
• cjhopman 8y ago
  Possibly an aversion to seeing con men succeed at the con.
  • dalbasal 8y ago
    Con man? Really? What's the con?
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    • RivieraKid 8y ago
      Several days before Tesla raised cash he said there's "zero concern, and I mean zero" about 10k/week by the end of 2018. According to documents from some lawsuit by ex-employees, he was told repeatedly that 5k/week is impossible by the end of 2017, but despite that knowledge, he publicly stated that as Tesla's guidance. After Tesla got fired from NTHSA investigation, he issued a press release stating they decided to leave the investigation. After that, NTHSA had to clarify what really happened. Etc.
• ohitsdom 8y ago
  Musk and Tesla have marketed their autopilot and handled autopilot accidents very poorly. Musk has been indignant at suggestions that Tesla needs to raise more money this year. That attitude in the face of a financial situation that seems to obviously require an influx of cash (while dealing with major production issues) has not helped their public perception.
• stevievee 8y ago
  My problem has always been that he pushes these altruistic goals "green earth"/"space travel" and then executes it with the most extreme version of capitalism available. It's like an ad campaign to him.
  • corndoge 8y ago
    You must know him personally to make these assessments of his intentions, got any other stories to share?
    • stevievee 8y ago
      He states them in every single press conference and interview? Edit: added "like" to the original comment.
  • dalbasal 8y ago
    The most extreme (or normal actually) version of capitalism is to milk anything riskless. Build moats. Lock in customers create network effects and entrench your position regardless of how good your future products will be. Musk is criticised for doing exactly the opposite. Risking shareholders money by (for example) insisting on going to mars, when there are lower risk options available.
    • frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
      It's not actually that risky to already be rich and then find a way to milk the government for billions of dollars in subsidies.
      • hndamien 8y ago
        You do understand why Governments subsidise things don't you?
        • frgtpsswrdlame 8y ago
          Yes - to make it much less risky for business to engage in those endeavours. That only proves my point though.
• newman8r 8y ago
  Apparently Musk really pissed off the media with his talks about creating a media ratings/fact-checking site. I'm actually following it closely because I'm also working on a fact-checking project. Maybe the hate predates this incident and has little to do with it, but a few weeks of negative articles can do a lot to change some people's attitudes. At one point CNN had an opinion piece on the homepage titled "Elon Musk is Humiliating Himself" - that can't be helpful.
  • madeofpalk 8y ago
    Scepticism for Musk/Tesla has been around for much much longer than the fact-checking site idea.
    • newman8r 8y ago
      True, although I'd never seen him attacked as harshly as he has been recently. This time it was a lot more personal.
    • Clubber 8y ago
      Yes, but this seems new and improved. Media articles were mostly gushing over him for the longest time, now there seem to be much more negative articles and comments floating around. It seems somewhat engineered.
  • dalbasal 8y ago
    Ok, so that covers the media. What did he do to piss of hn?
    • newman8r 8y ago
      I assume most HN readers are impacted by attitudes in the media. We like to think all of our opinions are our own but it's not always the case.
    • prewett 8y ago
      It's his repeated blatant disconnection from reality (a.k.a. technically not lying, but...) in his remarks regarding production levels of the Model 3, regarding Tesla's financial state, and most importantly, regarding the capabilities of "autopilot" and refusal to take responsibility for technical failures in said "autopilot." I wouldn't say HN is mad at him so much as wanting him to be responsible and own up to reality. He's supposed to be an engineer, and Proper engineers don't engage in "spin." Furthermore, "spin" has to be somewhat believable, whereas Musk has had a recent history of blatant falsehoods. Just like HN calls out anyone else when they're wrong (that is, disconnected from reality), HN is calling out Musk now that he's verbally disconnected from reality. HN has a low BS threshold.
• Fins 8y ago
  Maybe there is that element that Tesla is risking not only their business (which would be totally fine) but also their customers' lives.
• neves 8y ago
  As far as I understand, Tesla is a cool and hyped company, and it also overexplores their workers, and their fabrics are unsafe: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/19/tesla-california-factory-investigated-safety-concerns-model-3 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/19/tesla-cal... Their relation with journalists aren't also very good: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/elon-musk-tesla-twitter-journalism/561086/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/05/elon-...
• madeofpalk 8y ago
  I think this crux of it comes down to: 1. People thinking Tesla is overhyped 2. People thinking Musk is overhyped 3. Failings of the two (autopilot, product/shipping delays, etc)
  • dalbasal 8y ago
    I dunno... I'm beginning to think HN sees this as hype=overhype. On failing... thats unconsciounable. Of any place, this should be the site where we don't hate on failure. Failure is a definitive property of risk. Risk is the one thing that makes Musk unique, at the scale he's acting on. He puts everything on the line for a chance at an ambitious goal. This is exactly the ethic I come to this site for.
    • siidooloo 8y ago
      If you’re building a web app you can fail upwards until you find success. If you’re building a car and you fail people die. Its like the difference between any random saas and Theranos.
      • hndamien 8y ago
        And if you succeed in producing an exceptionally safe car, you save many lives.
• bowlofpetunias 8y ago
  Musk has been acting like a wealthy douchebag on Twitter with Trump-style meltdowns about fake news, especially concerning the (excellent, quality journalism) reports about unsafe practices and union busting at his factories. Basically, he's an empathy deficient exploitative narcissistic a-hole, an laying people off fits that picture perfectly.
• rjzzleep 8y ago
  I think, he's started to quell too many disagreeing opinions. That's why people started seeing him as delusional. And his business seems to suffer from that. You need opposing views. I get that you have to push forward strongly for a vision to succeed, but there seems to be a fine line between strongly pushing a vision and ignoring all important criticism. And right now he's no longer on the right side of that line IMHO. That seems to be the price of success. People made him a hero and this is the result.
• knuththetruth 8y ago
  He's used his public profile as a Barnum-esque celebrity to bury and bully away legitimate criticism of him and his companies' on any number of fronts, from worker mistreatment to the dangerous state of his self-driving program. https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-its-like-when-elon-musks-twitter-mob-comes-after-you https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-its-like-when-elon-musks-... https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is-safer-but-it-left-injuries-off-the-books/ https://www.revealnews.org/article/tesla-says-its-factory-is... http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tesla-racism-lawsuit-20180412-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tesla-racism-lawsuit-2... https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/12/17229518/tesla-ntsb-autopilot-crash-investigation-removed https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/12/17229518/tesla-ntsb-autop...
• entee 8y ago
  Personally I don't disagree with the notion of taking huge risks and going all out. Tesla and SpaceX have made the world a better place in my view, and they've definitely made the world more interesting. That said, the overhyping, recklessness and hubris at this stage on the Tesla front seems like instead of helping achieve the wildly ambitious goal, they're making it more likely to fail. If Tesla was slightly more reasonable, and extended their timelines out a bit, it's entirely likely they'd be selling more, better cars. At some point the company needs to mature a bit and become a little more structured, especially when you're dealing with devices that can literally kill people. I don't think at this stage they'd be less likely to hit their marks if they just got a little more down to earth, on the contrary I think it would help them. And like it or not, a fund manager can be risky because they're making dozens of bets. Musk has 2, and both are in areas that can directly harm people if things go sideways, it's not the same thing.
  • _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    Tesla has zero impact on the world right now. And probably never will.
    • entee 8y ago
      Isn't that self-evidently false? On at least a superficial level it's a constant part of the conversation. It has in many ways precipitated the debate around self-driving cars by putting the technology in the open (for better and worse and also it's not-quite-there but still!). There's a really strong argument to be made that Tesla has accelerated the development of electric cars at more mainstream manufacturers and pushed large-battery technology substantially forward. Even if Tesla vanished tomorrow, it would be very hard to say it has had no impact.
  • slg 8y ago
    >That said, the overhyping, recklessness and hubris at this stage on the Tesla front seems like instead of helping achieve the wildly ambitious goal, they're making it more likely to fail. If Tesla was slightly more reasonable, and extended their timelines out a bit, it's entirely likely they'd be selling more, better cars. I think Musk and Tesla are in the middle of a real life trolley problem. It is certainly true that people have died as a result of Autopilot. It is also certainly true that lives have been saved by Autopilot. There is no statistics to tell which group is larger, but Musk and Tesla obviously think the second group is larger. If that is true, everything that further delays progress is something that is causing people to die on net. They are instead flipping that switch and possibly killing people, but overall they are saving lives. Thousands of philosophers would have a better take on the ethics of that decision than I would, but that is clearly where the motivation for Musk's aggressiveness is coming from.
• _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  I never understood the fanboyism on HN. Tesla builds electric cars with a subpar autopilot. They are nice cars but it's far from revolutionary. Tesla is not SpaceX. Tesla is not Apple, the car industry is not Nokia. Many people on HN seem to be confused here. I do think SpaceX should be renamed Tesla though, it would help selling Tesla cars.
  • knuththetruth 8y ago
    Musk's greatest skill is as a self-promoter, conflating technological progress with the success of his business ventures. Many fall for this marketing.
  • rconti 8y ago
    I actually think the Apple comparison is quite apt; it's the novel application and extension of existing technologies into desirable consumer-level products. Not an Apple product/feature announcement goes by without a chorus of people shouting about how it's not really an invention because some other company already has it buried in their product. Can't the same be said about virtually everything Tesla is doing in the electric car space? And yet, in both cases, there is something much more compelling about it than the competitors' products. It doesn't matter if you're a fanboy, an anti-fanboy, or somewhere in the middle-- from where I sit, they both have a similar niche where they stand out, and get excessive press coverage for both the good and bad things they do.
    • carlivar 8y ago
      The only problem is that Apple products have been printing money for the past 15 years while Tesla products burn through money. The argument against Tesla isn't about their products, it is about the economic valuation of the company making the products.
      • rconti 8y ago
        true, but Apple had its dark days too, and fundamentally much of their vision was the same back then as it was when they hit it big -- user friendly, design forward, closed ecosystem, etc. Also, Tesla does well between car development cycles. If they can ride it out, they can print money too. The problem is whether they can get BETTER at developing new cars with less investment, and ramping more quickly, driving true volume. They might print money for a few quarters once Model 3 production is up, but that depends on there being an endless stream of buyers, and in cars, we know that's not the case.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• rayiner 8y ago
  Interestingly, I see this from the exact opposite view. I'm surprised it's taken this long for the rubber to meet the road. Tesla sells the most electric vehicles, but it's hardly the sort of delta you describe ("extremely ambitious goals, like none of their competitors do"). Nissan and Tesla both hit the 300,000 car mark in January/February of 2018. And let's not forget the recent NTSB report, which revealed that "Autopilot" is just a better-marketed version of the lane-keeping everyone else is doing. As to SpaceX--it's an extremely interesting attempt to tread a well-worn path. Commercial exploitation of space travel is a really neat concept. But again your comparison is completely unmoored from reality. SpaceX disappearing will "hurt our changes of landing people on other worlds anytime soon?" Who exactly do you think got us into space, then to the moon? Who is responsible for almost all the progress in space exploration to date, including developing the RP-1 based rocket designs that SpaceX is refining half a century later? It was U.S. defense contractors! It's worth keeping in mind that the Saturn V developed by Boeing/NAA/Douglas in the 1960s could hurl three times as much weight to the moon as the Falcon Heavy. To date, the only proven model for treading new ground in space is large defense contractors spending gobs of State money. The real question is: why does Tesla/SpaceX generate so much sophomoric positivity?
  • lutorm 8y ago
    the Saturn V developed by Boeing/NAA/Douglas in the 1960s could hurl three times as much weight to the moon as the Falcon Heavy True. At more than an order of magnitude higher cost.
    • rayiner 8y ago
      Achieving an order of magnitude cost reduction for proven technology is impressive, even given the intervening half century of progress. But similar achievements are routinely made in other industries. It doesn’t justify the breathless fanboyism Space X engenders.
      • lutorm 8y ago
        Maybe because people think space is cool and there's been close to zero progress for decades before they came along? Or maybe because the goal is something more than just making money, something that clearly set them apart from the other entities in the field, at least when they started.
• deleted 8y ago
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• craig1f 8y ago
  The problem is that most unbiased news sources have been corrupted. Reddit has fallen, and hackernews is about all that's left. That means that the trolls have begun showing up here. Trolls have gotten more skilled, and are able to convert new trolls without people realizing they have become trolls. You just have to get people angry a few times, and they'll do anything you want. Once they've calmed down, they'll continue doing the same thing for the sake of consistency. Musk has pissed off the media by calling them out on their lack of ethics, so a storm is coming for Musk that will look very similar to what happened to Gamer-gate when they called out the media. The media literally branded them as women-haters with zero evidence and it stuck.
  • darpa_escapee 8y ago
    There are legitimate criticisms of Tesla that shouldn't be hand-waved away as trolling.
    • craig1f 8y ago
      Few and far between. Whenever I hear this, it's always "oh, they take subsidies". The only ones I've heard that haven't been trolling are concerns about their financial reports, which are always "concerns about financial reports" with no additional information. Ok, go ahead and be concerned that the stock is inflated. It's not a real conversation. Like, for example, look at what happened last week. We were bombarded by an avalanche of negative Elon/Tesla articles. It was consistent. "Tesla Factory is HELL". Like, I must have read "HELL" 3 or 4 times last week. This followed by a failed coup attempt to oust him from the board of directors. Turns out that there were billions of dollars invested in shorts that Tesla stock would plummet. There was a coordinated effort to tank Tesla and oust him as CEO last week that failed. The result was that stock spiked and the short-sellers lost like 1.5B. This is the kind of shit that goes on week after week with Tesla.
      • fmihaila 8y ago
        > Few and far between. Whenever I hear this, it's always "oh, they take subsidies". The only ones I've heard that haven't been trolling are concerns about their financial reports, which are always "concerns about financial reports" with no additional information. I would add to that concerns about the current state of their automated driving implementation, as well as the way they are marketing it. I think a lot of those concerns are justified, and I say this as a pretty hardcore fan. (I don't disagree with the rest of your post.)
• ideamonk 8y ago
  SpaceX has admirably ambitious goals. While cheering/hating is of negligible value, it doesn't hurt to broaden one's view about NewSpace. Ref: https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-ffc-12-in_elon_we_trust https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-ffc-12-in_elon_we_trust
• tway2888888 8y ago
  >Overall Musk has been pretty straightforward and explicit with what he's doing. He's selling things that he can't produce now, and possibly won't ever be able to produce. If you think this is simply about missing a few deadlines, you aren't following along close enough. Telling people profits are around the corner for years on end, that self-driving is around the corner for years on end, that you'll build a mass-market $35,000 car for years on end, all the while collecting money to do so. Being very coy about disclosures. Playing the Trump "fake news" card (every negative article is fake!). I remember coming to HackerNews and reading about Theranos, and anyone who claimed it wouldn't work was sexist or couldn't dream big enough. We are lazy bums, and these people are changing the world! Who are we to criticize? >If Tesla disappears, this could set back electric cars by 5yrs Five whole years of setback? Versus the hundreds of thousands of jobs related to GM, as well as their world class self-driving tech and decent EV programs? Maybe you need to reassess what you "care" about. >Why doesn't Elon get this amount of rope? If he didn't want to be accountable to shareholders, he should have kept the company private. Why is it that HackerNews acts like companies go public as a favour to the rest of us poor schlubs?
• notabee 8y ago
  I want you to run with this thought wherever it takes you: 1. Tesla is heavily shorted. 2. Tesla and SpaceX are disrupting heavily entrenched industries (and we could argue a lot about how much or how effectively, but let's not). 3. It's become apparently easy to mobilize armies of artificial opinion on the internet, who in turn mobilize real people due to groupthink and the human love for picking sides and shouting about it. I am not suggesting in any way that there isn't anything valid to criticize or that anyone who does so is a sockpuppet, but if there aren't any such campaigns by moneyed interests to tarnish those brands online I would be extremely shocked.
  • rootusrootus 8y ago
    The interesting thing is ... I have had similar thoughts but exactly the other way around. Sometimes the fanboyism is so strong I figure it must be subsidized. I feel ambivalent myself, I have no vested interest in Tesla succeeding or failing. Objectively, the numbers paint a pretty sober picture of their future and I wouldn't consider investing any of my money there. But ... I think it would be cool if they succeeded. I've never been particularly interested in any electric car, Tesla or not, but anybody willing to push the technology forward is appreciated.
    • notabee 8y ago
      Even if Tesla was engaging in similar games, there's a lot more money and resources on the opposing sides, because he's created a lot of opposition. I'm not a fan in general of one person having ridiculous amounts of money or power because the human psyche never deals with that well, but I would rather such a person attempt to push progress forward rather than hide from the world with other rich folks and idly hoard. Elon Musk has become the bike shed of rich people because he's doing flashy, obvious things.
  • opencl 8y ago
    Tesla is heavily shorted but there is still way more long position stock. Shorters hiring astroturfers seems vaguely plausible but no more likely than people with long positions doing the same thing. I very highly doubt that Honda is hiring people to make negative forum posts about Tesla.
• RivieraKid 8y ago
  I've become increasingly annoyed by Musk's personality, ego, Twitter tantrums and his deceptive statements. I used to be a big fan and follower of anything Elon-related. Still a fan of SpaceX. Having said that, I think they make well-designed, innovative and inspiring products. Build quality and financials are terrible though. > A fund manager can be as risky as she likes This is off-topic but... am I the only one that finds this cringey and forced, given that it's such a such male-dominated field?
  • J_cst 8y ago
    > am I the only one that finds this cringey and forced You are not the only one. I also find this politically-correctness quite useless and - in this particular case - also insulting towards women.
  • duderific 8y ago
    Yes, you see that everywhere nowadays... why not just say "A fund manager can be as risky as they like" and leave it at that.
  • DoreenMichele 8y ago
    FWIW, I'm a woman and I'm a big fan of singular they. It is also possible to avoid pronouns altogether at times. It's more work to both do that and not sound stilted and weird. I have made my peace with occasionally sounding stilted, such as A fund manager can be as risky as a fund manager likes. When I had a corporate job, some training examples advocated finding ways to rewrite the sentence to sanitize it of gender rather than using awkward constructions like he or she. It's more work, but if you do it habitually it gets easier.
    • RivieraKid 8y ago
      Yeah, I use "they" most of the time. When I can't think of a phrasing that wouldn't sound weird I occasionally just use "he" or "she", depending on which is more likely. It's not a huge deal.
  • phyzome 8y ago
• HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
  If GM disappeared tomorrow, nothing that I care about changes I think you'd care far more than you realize. GM is huge and it failing would have massive downstream effects.
• paidleaf 8y ago
  > Seriously, what has he done to deserve this negativity? Interesting isn't it? It's almost like someone turned on a switch and suddenly there is rampant anti-elon musk sentiment. What has elon musk done recently? Well, he went after the biased media. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1000560049389907969?lang=en https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1000560049389907969?lang... and the "journalists" have been waging a war against him. There is a ridiculous amount of news industry workers here ( one of the reasons for the rampant censorship here and on other social media sites is to accommodate the news industry ). The news companies have social media teams pushing their narrative all over social media along with their third party affiliates and ngos. The media's current punching bag is zuckerburg ( hence the nonstop facebook stories here ). But zuckerburg is giving in to the media, so I suspect the new punching bag will be elon musk. Expect a lot of negative stories, comments and threads about tesla and elon musk going forward. At least until musk apologizes or gives in to the media.
  • ianleeclark 8y ago
    Alternatively, Musk does a lot of bad things and the journalists are rightfully calling him out for it. Musk is notoriously anti-union, continually over-promises then under-delivers, has continually treated his wives as trophies, and has designed a worse subway just because he doesn't want his knees to touch some peasant's knees. He's just another shitty billionaire
    • paidleaf 8y ago
      That's true. Musk, like all people, have their positives and negatives. But he's always been this way. The question is why the sudden change in sentiment? And as bad as elon musk is, the journalists are much worse. I'd rather have a world full of elon musks than journalists. > Musk is notoriously anti-union To be fair, no entrepreneur in a fledgling/new industry is pro-union. Actually, no entrepreneur is pro-union. > continually over-promises then under-delivers That's shareholders' concern, not ours. > has continually treated his wives as trophies Welcome to humanity. Are you going to blame his wives who loved to be trophies? Seems like personal business between consenting adults. > and has designed a worse subway just because he doesn't want his knees to touch some peasant's knees. As opposed to the elitist journos who love to slum it with the peasants right? > He's just another shitty billionaire Who the media loved. For nearly 20 years, the media wasn't too concerned with his anti-union stance, his trophy wives, his failure to delivery on his promises, etc.