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Elon Musk has built up a really uncomfortable cult of personality in my opinion and I think it results in an incredibly horrendous environment to work in. The

Elon Musk has built up a really uncomfortable cult of personality in my opinion and I think it results in an incredibly horrendous environment to work in. The way he's been behaving over the past few weeks (incl. his since-deleted reference to a cult site) does not exactly help his credibility when he's making broad claims like this. He's been blaming everyone else but himself for every single little mistake and I can't imagine him lasting very long like that if not for the cult surrounding him propping up his ego.

Denzel 8y ago
> He's been blaming everyone else but himself for every single little mistake Really? I guess you glossed over him personally accepting responsibility for pushing Model X's falcon wing doors even though it was a mistake; and personally accepting responsibility for automating too much of the Model 3's assembly line which has caused massive delays. And those are just the two examples that spring to mind of him apologizing personally and acknowledging the weaknesses of his personality, multiple times, in public. Maybe you should reevaluate your absolutism.
- fzeroracer 8y ago
  Where was that personal responsibility when he started slinging mud at the media for reporting on the issues his company has been very publicly going through? Or when he started insulting people in the Tesla earnings call? Or during the fatal autopilot crash? Or him linking to, again, a literal cult website and calling it good journalism.
  - AckSyn 8y ago
    What "literal cult" website? Also, it's not very difficult to sling mud at the media (these days or ever), especially at the ones hyping up the collisions/crashes far more than the deserve.
  - mmjaa 8y ago
    If you think Musk has a cult, why do the media get a free pass? There's nothing honourable about the media that means they aren't susceptible to the same impulses that the Musk cult manifest. Or, is the media some sort of holy institution that can do no wrong?
  - nwah1 8y ago
    I don't share your absolutism, but you're absolutely right that at least lately, Musk has been sending a lot of signals that he's becoming unhinged. I wonder if, in trying to compete with people like Bezos, including by trying to become more macho, that he has overdosed on testosterone lately. He used to be circumspect in his public comments. Now he seems to be increasingly paranoid and grandiose in his thinking, and bitter towards the "fake news" media that made him a celebrity in the first place. And his proposals and estimates are likewise getting more detached from reality. He claimed rockets could be a good form of intercontinental travel, and his video showed a rocket outside a city with passengers boarding. We can't put rocket ships outside of cities. His proposed BFR system would have about as much explosive potential as a Hiroshima nuke, and there'd be constant sonic booms and extremely loud engine blasts. One mix up, and you could incinerate Manhattan. I do like his present goals of electric cars, reusable launch vehicles, solar power, and cheaper tunnels. But maybe take a chill pill. Ease up on the steroids or whatever.
coss 8y ago
So didn't Steve Jobs, but look at Apple now. This is just the whiplash argument so I really don't want to get into it.
Diederich 8y ago
> blaming everyone else but himself for every single little mistake Citation needed
- dnomad 8y ago
  Of course none of this ever happened. Musk has repeatedly accepted responsibility for many of the problems at Tesla around excessive automation. But try to understand the sort of psychology at work when somebody projects a fantasy onto a figure like Musk. In this thread alone we have people attributing quotes to Musk that he never said ("unfair", "witch hunt") and others insisting Musk is paranoid in response to finding an actual saboteur. Frankly, Musk isn't a real person to these people, he's a puppet trapped in some made up morality play.
  - mmjaa 8y ago
    True that. Plus, there is a great deal of jealousy involved in Musk criticism these days. He has pushed things far further than a lot of anyone in this particular crowd ever will, and there is no indication that the Musk event horizon has any end. So yeah, this particular crowd here on HN has the potential to let jealousy override rationality, and the more banal human emotions come to play instead. Personally, I think Elon Musk is an exceptional human being, who has somehow not let himself be limited in his actions by jealousy, hatred, intolerance, and so on. This is bound to make a lot of people upset - after all, humans have a long and sordid history with cutting down the taller poppies.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      I suspect that if we were living and had easy access to information about any number of people from the past that had a large influence on history, we would find the opinion of the time much less one sides than it becomes after they are gone and their legacy (whether good or bad) has been largely decided by the culture. There's a whole literature category devoted to taking the caricatures of historical people and expanding them into much more complex and realistic depictions of the people in question. Frankly I think it's amazing that so many people can't imagine a complex person with competing goals and motivations when considering public personas, when this is true of literally everyone alive.
FortNightLord 8y ago
Obviously a bot.

Denzel 8y ago

> He's been blaming everyone else but himself for every single little mistake Really? I guess you glossed over him personally accepting responsibility for pushing Model X's falcon wing doors even though it was a mistake; and personally accepting responsibility for automating too much of the Model 3's assembly line which has caused massive delays. And those are just the two examples that spring to mind of him apologizing personally and acknowledging the weaknesses of his personality, multiple times, in public. Maybe you should reevaluate your absolutism.

fzeroracer 8y ago
Where was that personal responsibility when he started slinging mud at the media for reporting on the issues his company has been very publicly going through? Or when he started insulting people in the Tesla earnings call? Or during the fatal autopilot crash? Or him linking to, again, a literal cult website and calling it good journalism.
- AckSyn 8y ago
  What "literal cult" website? Also, it's not very difficult to sling mud at the media (these days or ever), especially at the ones hyping up the collisions/crashes far more than the deserve.
- mmjaa 8y ago
  If you think Musk has a cult, why do the media get a free pass? There's nothing honourable about the media that means they aren't susceptible to the same impulses that the Musk cult manifest. Or, is the media some sort of holy institution that can do no wrong?
- nwah1 8y ago
  I don't share your absolutism, but you're absolutely right that at least lately, Musk has been sending a lot of signals that he's becoming unhinged. I wonder if, in trying to compete with people like Bezos, including by trying to become more macho, that he has overdosed on testosterone lately. He used to be circumspect in his public comments. Now he seems to be increasingly paranoid and grandiose in his thinking, and bitter towards the "fake news" media that made him a celebrity in the first place. And his proposals and estimates are likewise getting more detached from reality. He claimed rockets could be a good form of intercontinental travel, and his video showed a rocket outside a city with passengers boarding. We can't put rocket ships outside of cities. His proposed BFR system would have about as much explosive potential as a Hiroshima nuke, and there'd be constant sonic booms and extremely loud engine blasts. One mix up, and you could incinerate Manhattan. I do like his present goals of electric cars, reusable launch vehicles, solar power, and cheaper tunnels. But maybe take a chill pill. Ease up on the steroids or whatever.

coss 8y ago

So didn't Steve Jobs, but look at Apple now. This is just the whiplash argument so I really don't want to get into it.

Diederich 8y ago

> blaming everyone else but himself for every single little mistake Citation needed

dnomad 8y ago
Of course none of this ever happened. Musk has repeatedly accepted responsibility for many of the problems at Tesla around excessive automation. But try to understand the sort of psychology at work when somebody projects a fantasy onto a figure like Musk. In this thread alone we have people attributing quotes to Musk that he never said ("unfair", "witch hunt") and others insisting Musk is paranoid in response to finding an actual saboteur. Frankly, Musk isn't a real person to these people, he's a puppet trapped in some made up morality play.
- mmjaa 8y ago
  True that. Plus, there is a great deal of jealousy involved in Musk criticism these days. He has pushed things far further than a lot of anyone in this particular crowd ever will, and there is no indication that the Musk event horizon has any end. So yeah, this particular crowd here on HN has the potential to let jealousy override rationality, and the more banal human emotions come to play instead. Personally, I think Elon Musk is an exceptional human being, who has somehow not let himself be limited in his actions by jealousy, hatred, intolerance, and so on. This is bound to make a lot of people upset - after all, humans have a long and sordid history with cutting down the taller poppies.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    I suspect that if we were living and had easy access to information about any number of people from the past that had a large influence on history, we would find the opinion of the time much less one sides than it becomes after they are gone and their legacy (whether good or bad) has been largely decided by the culture. There's a whole literature category devoted to taking the caricatures of historical people and expanding them into much more complex and realistic depictions of the people in question. Frankly I think it's amazing that so many people can't imagine a complex person with competing goals and motivations when considering public personas, when this is true of literally everyone alive.

FortNightLord 8y ago

Obviously a bot.