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I'm not the best in expressing this, but I believe to think like Elon Musk (except I'm lazy and not that bright), I think there are quite a few that think like

I'm not the best in expressing this, but I believe to think like Elon Musk (except I'm lazy and not that bright), I think there are quite a few that think like Elon. Yes, I know how it sounds, but if you're obsessed about truth there's a chance you think like him as well. IMO Elon Musk is rational and also expressive. He thinks from first principles (aka how does the world really work?) and he communicates that way. Most people can't handle that. They can't handle when someone is expressive (aka the Tesla @ 420 tweet, he simply expresses his opinion) or reasoning from first principles (weed is legal right? Yea, might smoke it, might not, does it matter? New experience is new data, hmm, doesn't seem too interesting). They think he's insane. He isn't. He does live a bit in a bubble where he sometimes forgets that other people are judgmental, mostly in a conservative sense (compared to how he thinks). But those judgmental people don't see one thing: the guy is hunting for truth, finding it and he applies it to its product. Nothing beats truth* (the fact that we're using computers now and not an abacus is evidence of that) * All the standard considerations of science apply (falsification, learning from your mistakes and so on).

jonny_eh 7y ago
> Most people can't handle that Right, we can't handle a billionaire demanding that everyone risk their lives to boost his stock price. And since when are arguments derived from first principles delivered in 3 word all-caps tweets?
- megaman821 7y ago
  You think Elon Musk's motivation is greed? That people going back to work or not will greatly affect his lifestyle? Is there any nuance when it comes to Elon Musk, or only fan-boys and haters?
  - LunaSea 7y ago
    I haven't seen him announce that he would make Tesla or Space X a non-profit so it's gotta be at least a little bit about money.
  - Barrin92 7y ago
    Not the OP. I don't think his motivation is greed in a strictly financial sense but he's a complete narcissist. When a government guy comes and shuts his factory down due to a pandemic he apparently can't live with the fact that he's a non-essential business and needs to lay low for a while. It's the same thing with the mini-submarine paedophile fiasco. Some regular dude who has experience in what he's actually talking about tells him to go away and he can't handle it because he thinks he's Tony Stark or something. I don't think his eccentric behaviour really leaves much space for nuance, that's not really on anyone commenting here.
    - wonderwonder 7y ago
      He has lofty goals that require massive resources. Each also requires a long timeline. Specifically he is attempting to populate another planet, link computers to brains and turn transportation green. Each is an earth shattering accomplishment on their own. He is trying to do all 3 and in his mind at least he is driven by saving humanity not greed. He feels the current restrictions are going to have severe impact on what are for him lifetime goals. Now is it narcissistic to think that he has to do it? Maybe. Often times though I would think that the people that changed our way of life have to be narcissistic. Gates, Jobs, Rockefeller, Ford, Edison. They are real people with flaws but sometimes those flaws also drive them. Not malignant narcissistic though, there is a difference. He is definitely ill served by his twitter account though and these recent tweets are not great in regards to the opinions of many of those that support him.
      - jkachmar 7y ago
        Along the lines of what others have said elsewhere in this thread: No one reasonable is criticizing Musk for being a visionary CEO, someone who is interested in taking risks that overcome historically difficult challenges. They're criticizing him going completely off the handle; calling someone a pedophile on Twitter when they disagree with him, talking completely out of his ass about "taking the company private", or trying to play armchair epidemiologist when he _clearly_ has a vested interest in a potentially risky avenue of behavior. I'm very happy to see the things that SpaceX has achieved [0] and I'm also happy that Tesla has done such a good job popularizing EVs [1], but I'm blown the fuck away whenever I see people responding to _entirely justified_ criticisms of Elon's character by pointing out what he's accomplished and how lofty the rest of his goals are. Do we just not have standards for people in Musk's position? Do folks really think it's reasonable for someone to comport themselves the way he _routinely_ does? [0] Although let's be honest, the company treats its employees pretty damn badly. [1] Accurately representing the self-driving capabilities of their vehicles, on the other hand, leaves quite a bit to be desired.
  - jsight 7y ago
    I feel like a there is a large percentage of the population that doesn't realize just how dire things are getting as a direct result of these lockdowns. It really is frightening and there are some strong responses, both rational and irrational on many sides.
  - xkjkls 7y ago
    Um, it could greatly depending on how Tesla is affected by this current lockdown and the recession afterwards. Close to half of Elon Musk's stock has been used in loans to finance his lifestyle of buying mansions, flying around in a private jet, and financing his other unprofitable companies. If the price of Tesla stock ever goes down too far his whole empire risks crumpling.
- mettamage 7y ago
  I don't get the first sentence fully. I guess it's a sarcastic remark about the 420 price, but I can't see how it "risks people their lives". Hmm... now that I think about it, 420... weed? I wonder if he made that as a suble joke, in any case. I do get your second point, let me go into that. I have friends who have a lot of difficulty distinguishing expressiveness and rationality. I can't do that in a post. The best way to see the difference: find a CS/psychologically-minded person that is capable of being rational but has a default state of being creative. Yep, kind of describing myself here (= easiest description to give). They're quite easy to spot: - they have some creative thing they like (drawing, music, anything pertaining to multimedia) - they are also capable of going from existential and psychedelic to rational and focused within one second - they are capable of explaining why they act crazy when they do and tell you their emotional, rational perspective on it (on parties, for example, it has a lot of instrumental value). Hangout with them for a year. And you'll see how expressiveness is mixed with rationality. FYI the 3 word all-caps tweet is the expressive part of Elon. Also, I could be wrong about all of this obviously, this is simply my current opinion about it, I thought quite a bit about it (also about my biases, can't rule them out) and I think I'm right but I've been proven wrong (and right) in beautiful ways before in my life. So I could be (horribly) wrong.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  Tesla should have considered that before announcing in their Annual Report that they considered @tesla and @elon to be "Official Company Statements", then, no?
YorickPeterse 7y ago
> They can't handle when someone is expressive (aka the Tesla @ 420 tweet, he simply expresses his opinion) He tweeted about having money to take Tesla private, which from what I remember turned out to be false. Lying is not being expressive, it's just that: lying.
- mettamage 7y ago
  I don't know enough about this (how CEOs ought to behave) and I don't know to what extent Elon Musk cares. But I do know what I'd think in his position: I'd care more about freedom of speech. I believe that I should be capable of saying whatever I want (usual restrictions apply, hate speech etc.). Even if that means that I'm tweeting on a social platform about the share price. Twitter is not a platform where official stuff should be on. That is what press releases are for. If people believe Twitter, then where should I go (as the new imagined Tesla CEO) to just say whatever the hell I want? In any case, that's how I would think about it. You're correct though, it is lying. Lying is a consequence of saying whatever you want to say. When he wrote that tweet, I thought nothing of it. I just thought that it was his own private ideas that he wrote out in the world because he likes to interact. I know how naive that sounds, but I would be that naive as Tesla's new imagned CEO. And there are a few hints that Elon might be that as well. But of course, that's a different discussion whether he actually is (on paper: probably not, when I look at his behavior: well... it could be).
  - xiphias2 7y ago
    Actually there was a big difference between this tweet (expressing his opinion) and the 420 tweet, which was a statement on a material fact. There exist special laws for CEOs of all public companies, and he should be extremely careful about those statements. The new CFO helps Elon with those though, and Elon just gives really boring statements about the future numbers (as opposed to the products, where he can get more crazy).
    - jsight 7y ago
      I think those "special laws" harm me as an investor. Corporate speak does not make my job as an investor any easier.
andrepd 7y ago
See, it's precisely this cult of personality I can't stand about Tesla.
- mettamage 7y ago
  I don't like the impression either. With that said, if I were to comment on you, I wouldn't use words like "cult of personality". I'd try to make a comment about what I observe about the person, how I interpret that and how I think that to be wrong (and "wrong" is strongly worded here). Unfortunately, it also takes more typing effort.
gamblor956 7y ago
He thinks from first principles (aka how does the world really work?) and he communicates that way. Everyone does that. Most of us just aren't stupid until to think that this means we suddenly experts in fields we know nothing about, especially when the "first principles" Musk deals with are just simplified abstractions of very complicated subjects. Or all we all forgetting that Musk has claimed that a substance which kills people will cure coronavirus (it doesn't), that children are immune (they're not), and that coronavirus is less deadly than the seasonal flu (it's not)? Moreover, Musk has demonstrated time and time again that he refuses to use scientific methods in his "reasoning" from "first principles", since when confronted with evidence that he is wrong he triples down on his assertions and begins making personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with him.
- mettamage 7y ago
  You have a couple of points that I would need to look into. I do remember that he was a bit too fast with certain things (seems to be an ailment of SV in general, fail fast and all that). The comment that he acts like an expert where he isn't is probably a valid one (haven't looked into it, I'm hearing it sometimes though). > Everyone does that. You have a completely different social circle than me then. Some people don't believe in atoms, they believe in aura's.
- xiphias2 7y ago
  You're right in all of these, he doesn't care about the virus, because he's focused on stopping global warming and getting to Mars. Also he's probably not the nicest person with everybody, as that's also not his focus. I would be much more worried if he stopped developing the autopilot hardware for example, thinking that the current version has enough capacity for the necessary calculations. The truth is, even if it has (with the right algorithm), more computations mean that self driving can launch earlier. It would be better for example if the Model Y wouldn't be manufactured with lots of errors that QA should have caught, but that's also secondary to getting self driving, which is an extremely hard problem.
  - gamblor956 7y ago
Swenrekcah 7y ago
I don't think people doubt his smarts or business acumen. I'm really impressed by the guy. But his behaviour also shows him to be reckless and a disregard for the rules. This is great to an extent when building a business but he just really has to rein it in with regards to his publicly traded companies, that shouldn't be too much to ask.
- mettamage 7y ago
  Well, we all know he's willing to lose it all. > he just really has to rein it in with regards to his publicly traded companies, that shouldn't be too much to ask. Sounds fair enough
xkjkls 7y ago
> They can't handle when someone is expressive (aka the Tesla @ 420 tweet, he simply expresses his opinion) How is faking a buyout offer for your company expressive? That's fraudulent. > (weed is legal right? Yea, might smoke it, might not, does it matter? New experience is new data, hmm, doesn't seem too interesting). Smoking weed on Joe Rogan's podcast forced the government to spend $2 million investigating the drug policies at SpaceX. Government contractors, especially those with security clearance are expected to have strict drug policies. Doing so sets an obviously bad example to all of your employees. > They think he's insane. He isn't. People don't think he's insane, they think he's a narcissist who is willing to say almost anything in order to satisfy his own ego or to meet some goal. He needs to save his cousin's failing solar company, so he goes on stage with a fake product that has never come to fruition. He needs to keep his shares a higher price in order to meet the debt convert convenants on some of his loans, so he fakes a buyout offer. He has a cave diver see through his cynical PR move to insert himself in an international crisis, so he calls him a pedophile and pays a guy to try to dig up dirt on him. He needs to re-open his Fremont factory in order to not keep burning cash in Q2, so he rails against "fascist policies" that close it down. This isn't insanity; it's self-serving narcissism.

jonny_eh 7y ago

> Most people can't handle that Right, we can't handle a billionaire demanding that everyone risk their lives to boost his stock price. And since when are arguments derived from first principles delivered in 3 word all-caps tweets?

megaman821 7y ago
You think Elon Musk's motivation is greed? That people going back to work or not will greatly affect his lifestyle? Is there any nuance when it comes to Elon Musk, or only fan-boys and haters?
- LunaSea 7y ago
  I haven't seen him announce that he would make Tesla or Space X a non-profit so it's gotta be at least a little bit about money.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  Not the OP. I don't think his motivation is greed in a strictly financial sense but he's a complete narcissist. When a government guy comes and shuts his factory down due to a pandemic he apparently can't live with the fact that he's a non-essential business and needs to lay low for a while. It's the same thing with the mini-submarine paedophile fiasco. Some regular dude who has experience in what he's actually talking about tells him to go away and he can't handle it because he thinks he's Tony Stark or something. I don't think his eccentric behaviour really leaves much space for nuance, that's not really on anyone commenting here.
  - wonderwonder 7y ago
    He has lofty goals that require massive resources. Each also requires a long timeline. Specifically he is attempting to populate another planet, link computers to brains and turn transportation green. Each is an earth shattering accomplishment on their own. He is trying to do all 3 and in his mind at least he is driven by saving humanity not greed. He feels the current restrictions are going to have severe impact on what are for him lifetime goals. Now is it narcissistic to think that he has to do it? Maybe. Often times though I would think that the people that changed our way of life have to be narcissistic. Gates, Jobs, Rockefeller, Ford, Edison. They are real people with flaws but sometimes those flaws also drive them. Not malignant narcissistic though, there is a difference. He is definitely ill served by his twitter account though and these recent tweets are not great in regards to the opinions of many of those that support him.
    - jkachmar 7y ago
      Along the lines of what others have said elsewhere in this thread: No one reasonable is criticizing Musk for being a visionary CEO, someone who is interested in taking risks that overcome historically difficult challenges. They're criticizing him going completely off the handle; calling someone a pedophile on Twitter when they disagree with him, talking completely out of his ass about "taking the company private", or trying to play armchair epidemiologist when he _clearly_ has a vested interest in a potentially risky avenue of behavior. I'm very happy to see the things that SpaceX has achieved [0] and I'm also happy that Tesla has done such a good job popularizing EVs [1], but I'm blown the fuck away whenever I see people responding to _entirely justified_ criticisms of Elon's character by pointing out what he's accomplished and how lofty the rest of his goals are. Do we just not have standards for people in Musk's position? Do folks really think it's reasonable for someone to comport themselves the way he _routinely_ does? [0] Although let's be honest, the company treats its employees pretty damn badly. [1] Accurately representing the self-driving capabilities of their vehicles, on the other hand, leaves quite a bit to be desired.
- jsight 7y ago
  I feel like a there is a large percentage of the population that doesn't realize just how dire things are getting as a direct result of these lockdowns. It really is frightening and there are some strong responses, both rational and irrational on many sides.
- xkjkls 7y ago
  Um, it could greatly depending on how Tesla is affected by this current lockdown and the recession afterwards. Close to half of Elon Musk's stock has been used in loans to finance his lifestyle of buying mansions, flying around in a private jet, and financing his other unprofitable companies. If the price of Tesla stock ever goes down too far his whole empire risks crumpling.
mettamage 7y ago
I don't get the first sentence fully. I guess it's a sarcastic remark about the 420 price, but I can't see how it "risks people their lives". Hmm... now that I think about it, 420... weed? I wonder if he made that as a suble joke, in any case. I do get your second point, let me go into that. I have friends who have a lot of difficulty distinguishing expressiveness and rationality. I can't do that in a post. The best way to see the difference: find a CS/psychologically-minded person that is capable of being rational but has a default state of being creative. Yep, kind of describing myself here (= easiest description to give). They're quite easy to spot: - they have some creative thing they like (drawing, music, anything pertaining to multimedia) - they are also capable of going from existential and psychedelic to rational and focused within one second - they are capable of explaining why they act crazy when they do and tell you their emotional, rational perspective on it (on parties, for example, it has a lot of instrumental value). Hangout with them for a year. And you'll see how expressiveness is mixed with rationality. FYI the 3 word all-caps tweet is the expressive part of Elon. Also, I could be wrong about all of this obviously, this is simply my current opinion about it, I thought quite a bit about it (also about my biases, can't rule them out) and I think I'm right but I've been proven wrong (and right) in beautiful ways before in my life. So I could be (horribly) wrong.
FireBeyond 7y ago
Tesla should have considered that before announcing in their Annual Report that they considered @tesla and @elon to be "Official Company Statements", then, no?

YorickPeterse 7y ago

> They can't handle when someone is expressive (aka the Tesla @ 420 tweet, he simply expresses his opinion) He tweeted about having money to take Tesla private, which from what I remember turned out to be false. Lying is not being expressive, it's just that: lying.

mettamage 7y ago
I don't know enough about this (how CEOs ought to behave) and I don't know to what extent Elon Musk cares. But I do know what I'd think in his position: I'd care more about freedom of speech. I believe that I should be capable of saying whatever I want (usual restrictions apply, hate speech etc.). Even if that means that I'm tweeting on a social platform about the share price. Twitter is not a platform where official stuff should be on. That is what press releases are for. If people believe Twitter, then where should I go (as the new imagined Tesla CEO) to just say whatever the hell I want? In any case, that's how I would think about it. You're correct though, it is lying. Lying is a consequence of saying whatever you want to say. When he wrote that tweet, I thought nothing of it. I just thought that it was his own private ideas that he wrote out in the world because he likes to interact. I know how naive that sounds, but I would be that naive as Tesla's new imagned CEO. And there are a few hints that Elon might be that as well. But of course, that's a different discussion whether he actually is (on paper: probably not, when I look at his behavior: well... it could be).
- xiphias2 7y ago
  Actually there was a big difference between this tweet (expressing his opinion) and the 420 tweet, which was a statement on a material fact. There exist special laws for CEOs of all public companies, and he should be extremely careful about those statements. The new CFO helps Elon with those though, and Elon just gives really boring statements about the future numbers (as opposed to the products, where he can get more crazy).
  - jsight 7y ago
    I think those "special laws" harm me as an investor. Corporate speak does not make my job as an investor any easier.

andrepd 7y ago

See, it's precisely this cult of personality I can't stand about Tesla.

mettamage 7y ago
I don't like the impression either. With that said, if I were to comment on you, I wouldn't use words like "cult of personality". I'd try to make a comment about what I observe about the person, how I interpret that and how I think that to be wrong (and "wrong" is strongly worded here). Unfortunately, it also takes more typing effort.

gamblor956 7y ago

He thinks from first principles (aka how does the world really work?) and he communicates that way. Everyone does that. Most of us just aren't stupid until to think that this means we suddenly experts in fields we know nothing about, especially when the "first principles" Musk deals with are just simplified abstractions of very complicated subjects. Or all we all forgetting that Musk has claimed that a substance which kills people will cure coronavirus (it doesn't), that children are immune (they're not), and that coronavirus is less deadly than the seasonal flu (it's not)? Moreover, Musk has demonstrated time and time again that he refuses to use scientific methods in his "reasoning" from "first principles", since when confronted with evidence that he is wrong he triples down on his assertions and begins making personal attacks on anyone who disagrees with him.

mettamage 7y ago
You have a couple of points that I would need to look into. I do remember that he was a bit too fast with certain things (seems to be an ailment of SV in general, fail fast and all that). The comment that he acts like an expert where he isn't is probably a valid one (haven't looked into it, I'm hearing it sometimes though). > Everyone does that. You have a completely different social circle than me then. Some people don't believe in atoms, they believe in aura's.
xiphias2 7y ago
You're right in all of these, he doesn't care about the virus, because he's focused on stopping global warming and getting to Mars. Also he's probably not the nicest person with everybody, as that's also not his focus. I would be much more worried if he stopped developing the autopilot hardware for example, thinking that the current version has enough capacity for the necessary calculations. The truth is, even if it has (with the right algorithm), more computations mean that self driving can launch earlier. It would be better for example if the Model Y wouldn't be manufactured with lots of errors that QA should have caught, but that's also secondary to getting self driving, which is an extremely hard problem.
- gamblor956 7y ago

Swenrekcah 7y ago

I don't think people doubt his smarts or business acumen. I'm really impressed by the guy. But his behaviour also shows him to be reckless and a disregard for the rules. This is great to an extent when building a business but he just really has to rein it in with regards to his publicly traded companies, that shouldn't be too much to ask.

mettamage 7y ago
Well, we all know he's willing to lose it all. > he just really has to rein it in with regards to his publicly traded companies, that shouldn't be too much to ask. Sounds fair enough

xkjkls 7y ago

> They can't handle when someone is expressive (aka the Tesla @ 420 tweet, he simply expresses his opinion) How is faking a buyout offer for your company expressive? That's fraudulent. > (weed is legal right? Yea, might smoke it, might not, does it matter? New experience is new data, hmm, doesn't seem too interesting). Smoking weed on Joe Rogan's podcast forced the government to spend $2 million investigating the drug policies at SpaceX. Government contractors, especially those with security clearance are expected to have strict drug policies. Doing so sets an obviously bad example to all of your employees. > They think he's insane. He isn't. People don't think he's insane, they think he's a narcissist who is willing to say almost anything in order to satisfy his own ego or to meet some goal. He needs to save his cousin's failing solar company, so he goes on stage with a fake product that has never come to fruition. He needs to keep his shares a higher price in order to meet the debt convert convenants on some of his loans, so he fakes a buyout offer. He has a cave diver see through his cynical PR move to insert himself in an international crisis, so he calls him a pedophile and pays a guy to try to dig up dirt on him. He needs to re-open his Fremont factory in order to not keep burning cash in Q2, so he rails against "fascist policies" that close it down. This isn't insanity; it's self-serving narcissism.