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The fact Musk still has any credibility at all given his penchant for making wild claims that inevitably fall flat is baffling to me. How many more spurious pre

by neotek 8y ago

The fact Musk still has any credibility at all given his penchant for making wild claims that inevitably fall flat is baffling to me. How many more spurious predictions and imaginary milestones does he need to pump out before people recognise him for the huckster monorail salesman that he is?

manicdee 8y ago
For a huckster he’s doing a damn good job of fake shipping fake cars to fake customers who fake drive them in fake public. Excellent scam, would invest again.
- jethro_tell 8y ago
  There's a huge difference between shipping a product and doing it profitably.
  - icantdrive55 8y ago
    Like the rest, he will eventually move manufacturing overseas, and all will be happy. If I had the money, I would be happy just to be on the waiting list. It's got to be a good feeling you're waiting/driving to a American made vechicle? A vechicle that payed the help(blue collar workers) a living wage? Or, close to a living wage? I'm a Musk fanboy I guess?
  - berbec 8y ago
    You should tell Bezos that.
    - gamblor956 8y ago
      Bezos can and does ship products profitably across multiple, disparate markets. He simply reinvests the company's overall profits from each of Amazon's business lines into new business ventures.
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      Email sent!
- neotek 8y ago
  Don't be so disingenuous. Nobody is claiming the cars don't exist, the point is that Musk continuously makes insane, overreaching predictions that almost never come to pass, like the ludicrous "three months maybe, six months definitely" fully autonomous driving nonsense, or promises that Model 3 production will be on track for x units per month when the actual numbers are half that, and so on. This is so typical of any discussion about Musk - anyone who dares point out that he often just makes things up is met with derision from True Believers who are unable to accept that he isn't the superhero his PR team make him out to be.
  - meva 8y ago
    So he's guilty of too optimistic estimations. Who isn't?
  - mmjaa 8y ago
    You seem too easily persuaded that Elon Musk is a con man. Have you taken into account the massive empire he has already built - if he were truly as nefarious as you seem to imply, its hardly likely that he would've been able to effectively build rockets that land themselves, cars that drive themselves, alternatives to the oil-addiction we're all suffering under, etc. I mean, put some balance in your argument: What has Musk done right, in your opinion? Anything at all?
    - dotancohen 8y ago
      > I mean, put some balance in your argument: What has Musk done right, in your opinion? Anything at all? The roads go without saying.
    - neotek 8y ago
      Buying, or investing in, existing companies and then using his marketing skills to convince other investors (and governments) to pour billions of dollars into them is hardly the same thing as "building rockets that land themselves" - you can thank the engineers and visionaries at SpaceX for that. And his cars absolutely do not drive themselves despite his constant reassurances that they'll be able to do so Real Soon Now™. In fact, as an aside, I would argue that Tesla's marketing is disgustingly misleading - their website loudly proclaims that all Teslas are equipped with every piece of hardware necessary for fully autonomous self-driving, and in a much smaller, much quieter voice they subtly admit that none of their cars are capable of actually doing that yet. You may handwave that away as marketing fluff, but if you asked the average person in the street whether Teslas can drive themselves, 90% of them would say yes, of course they can, when in reality they're merely on par with other makes and models that have had the exact same driver assist features for years. It's misleading at best, and lethal at worst - lives have been lost because drivers blindly placed their faith in autonomous driving features that simply do not work as implied. Go ahead and chalk that up to the drivers not being attentive enough, of course they share the bulk of the blame for not being in control of the vehicle they're driving, but it's hardly a surprise that many Tesla drivers have been lulled into a false sense of security by Tesla's marketing. But again, nobody is arguing that Musk is running a straight up scam or that the products don't exist, the criticism is that he is constantly making promises and predictions he can't fulfil, constantly making claims that sound impressive until you look beneath the veneer, and whenever he is challenged to back up his assertions he either messily dodges the question or launches into yet another Twitter rant, and all the while his fans eagerly accept whatever he says without any care for objective reality.
brightball 8y ago
You did see him launch his car into space, right?
- neotek 8y ago
  So? You couldn't have illustrated my point any better: Musk is a showman, he's great at drumming up PR but not so great at actually running a profitable business or hitting any of the milestones he constantly promises he'll hit.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    I think the point is that he's the CEO of both companies, and some of his wild claims were about building, launching and recovering rockets. Are we supposed to ignore SpaceX and just look at Tesla when considering Musk? You may consider that being a showman, and it was, but it was also showing his ability to delivery on some of his promises of rocket reusability. Anyone basing their opinion of Musk purely on his role and publicity from one of these companies when they are both so very public is the height of confirmation bias, in either direction.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago
  Yes, although it turns out their stream was using fake footage for one of the boosters
  - dotancohen 8y ago
    This is the closest that I've ever felt the need to call someone an idiot on the internet. Both boosters' feeds were fed from the same booster, i.e. we were seeing the same image twice. That is _not_ fake.
    - Rebelgecko 8y ago
      The footage itself was real video from a real camera, but the announcers said the footage was something different than it actually was. The YouTube _recording_ of the livestream was also edited after the fact without any mention that it no longer reflected the originally broadcast. While technically not 100% fake, I think at the very least it would be fair to call that misleading. If this is the closest you've ever come to calling someone on the internet an idiot, I applaud you for your restraint.

by neotek 8y ago

manicdee 8y ago

For a huckster he’s doing a damn good job of fake shipping fake cars to fake customers who fake drive them in fake public. Excellent scam, would invest again.

jethro_tell 8y ago
There's a huge difference between shipping a product and doing it profitably.
- icantdrive55 8y ago
  Like the rest, he will eventually move manufacturing overseas, and all will be happy. If I had the money, I would be happy just to be on the waiting list. It's got to be a good feeling you're waiting/driving to a American made vechicle? A vechicle that payed the help(blue collar workers) a living wage? Or, close to a living wage? I'm a Musk fanboy I guess?
- berbec 8y ago
  You should tell Bezos that.
  - gamblor956 8y ago
    Bezos can and does ship products profitably across multiple, disparate markets. He simply reinvests the company's overall profits from each of Amazon's business lines into new business ventures.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    Email sent!
neotek 8y ago
Don't be so disingenuous. Nobody is claiming the cars don't exist, the point is that Musk continuously makes insane, overreaching predictions that almost never come to pass, like the ludicrous "three months maybe, six months definitely" fully autonomous driving nonsense, or promises that Model 3 production will be on track for x units per month when the actual numbers are half that, and so on. This is so typical of any discussion about Musk - anyone who dares point out that he often just makes things up is met with derision from True Believers who are unable to accept that he isn't the superhero his PR team make him out to be.
- meva 8y ago
  So he's guilty of too optimistic estimations. Who isn't?
- mmjaa 8y ago
  You seem too easily persuaded that Elon Musk is a con man. Have you taken into account the massive empire he has already built - if he were truly as nefarious as you seem to imply, its hardly likely that he would've been able to effectively build rockets that land themselves, cars that drive themselves, alternatives to the oil-addiction we're all suffering under, etc. I mean, put some balance in your argument: What has Musk done right, in your opinion? Anything at all?
  - dotancohen 8y ago
    > I mean, put some balance in your argument: What has Musk done right, in your opinion? Anything at all? The roads go without saying.
  - neotek 8y ago
    Buying, or investing in, existing companies and then using his marketing skills to convince other investors (and governments) to pour billions of dollars into them is hardly the same thing as "building rockets that land themselves" - you can thank the engineers and visionaries at SpaceX for that. And his cars absolutely do not drive themselves despite his constant reassurances that they'll be able to do so Real Soon Now™. In fact, as an aside, I would argue that Tesla's marketing is disgustingly misleading - their website loudly proclaims that all Teslas are equipped with every piece of hardware necessary for fully autonomous self-driving, and in a much smaller, much quieter voice they subtly admit that none of their cars are capable of actually doing that yet. You may handwave that away as marketing fluff, but if you asked the average person in the street whether Teslas can drive themselves, 90% of them would say yes, of course they can, when in reality they're merely on par with other makes and models that have had the exact same driver assist features for years. It's misleading at best, and lethal at worst - lives have been lost because drivers blindly placed their faith in autonomous driving features that simply do not work as implied. Go ahead and chalk that up to the drivers not being attentive enough, of course they share the bulk of the blame for not being in control of the vehicle they're driving, but it's hardly a surprise that many Tesla drivers have been lulled into a false sense of security by Tesla's marketing. But again, nobody is arguing that Musk is running a straight up scam or that the products don't exist, the criticism is that he is constantly making promises and predictions he can't fulfil, constantly making claims that sound impressive until you look beneath the veneer, and whenever he is challenged to back up his assertions he either messily dodges the question or launches into yet another Twitter rant, and all the while his fans eagerly accept whatever he says without any care for objective reality.

brightball 8y ago

You did see him launch his car into space, right?

neotek 8y ago
So? You couldn't have illustrated my point any better: Musk is a showman, he's great at drumming up PR but not so great at actually running a profitable business or hitting any of the milestones he constantly promises he'll hit.
- kbenson 8y ago
  I think the point is that he's the CEO of both companies, and some of his wild claims were about building, launching and recovering rockets. Are we supposed to ignore SpaceX and just look at Tesla when considering Musk? You may consider that being a showman, and it was, but it was also showing his ability to delivery on some of his promises of rocket reusability. Anyone basing their opinion of Musk purely on his role and publicity from one of these companies when they are both so very public is the height of confirmation bias, in either direction.
Rebelgecko 8y ago
Yes, although it turns out their stream was using fake footage for one of the boosters
- dotancohen 8y ago
  This is the closest that I've ever felt the need to call someone an idiot on the internet. Both boosters' feeds were fed from the same booster, i.e. we were seeing the same image twice. That is _not_ fake.
  - Rebelgecko 8y ago
    The footage itself was real video from a real camera, but the announcers said the footage was something different than it actually was. The YouTube _recording_ of the livestream was also edited after the fact without any mention that it no longer reflected the originally broadcast. While technically not 100% fake, I think at the very least it would be fair to call that misleading. If this is the closest you've ever come to calling someone on the internet an idiot, I applaud you for your restraint.