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Perhaps a more interesting comparison is between Elon the CEO of Tesla and Elon the CEO of SpaceX. You may notice that these are two very different personaliti

Perhaps a more interesting comparison is between Elon the CEO of Tesla and Elon the CEO of SpaceX. You may notice that these are two very different personalities that serve two different corporate requirements. The Elon of SpaceX introduces himself as "I'm proud to be here representing the SpaceX team." The Elon of Tesla is smoking up on camera, throwing humongous ball bearings at the Cybertruck windows, sleeping in his sleeping bag while trying to bring Model 3 production through the Shadow of the Valley of Death. You almost never hear about any of Elon's direct contributions to SpaceX whereas he's mister Tesla front and center at Tesla pulling stunt after tweet. SpaceX servers a very conservative industrial market and Tesla makes consumer products. These companies require to very different types of leadership. Who is the real Elon behind this public Jekyll and Hyde dynamic? Most likely it's the driven "man of first principles" just doing what needs to be done.

briga 6y ago
I think it's pretty transparent that Elon creates controversy and does stunts to get attention. Like many other celebrities he seems to have mastered the art of getting the public to talk about him. It's easier to sell your products or ideas if people are continually talking about you.
nickik 6y ago
I think you are pretty wrong, I see absolutely no difference at all and I follow both companies pretty closely. The media is just much more actively following Tesla in because they are marketing to the general population there is a far more detailed view on Tesla. However overall Elon is pretty much just Elon al the time. Elon talks about the Starship pretty much like he does about the Cybertruck. These are just products he is working on, he informs people about what is going on, changes that they are doing and so on. Both during SpaceX and Tesla talks he gives about equal time thanking the team as far as I can tell. We know that Elon for example pushed the team to develop phase shut off for Merlin engine. We know that Elon was pushing for adopting steal on the Starship. With both companies its not totally clear when what decisions are made (as makes sense with private companies), but overall I think its pretty much the same. Most of his twitter shananigans have nothing to do with Tesla or SpaceX, or have to do with both. The Tesla factory opening was of course about Tesla, but his comments in general about Corona were not. His Thailand diver thing was not about a particular company either. > The Elon of Tesla is smoking up on camera In that interview he spent about equal time on both companies > sleeping in his sleeping bag while trying to bring Model 3 production through the Shadow of the Valley of Death He has said much the same kind of stuff for SpaceX stuff too. Not specifically sleeping in the factory but overwork after failures, not sleeping for a long time and so on.
apendleton 6y ago
I get the sense that a lot of the distinction is that at SpaceX he has a by-all-accounts extremely competent lieutenant in Gwynne Shotwell running the day-to-day operations and probably, to some extent, helping keep him grounded, whereas it has always seemed like there's been a bit of a non-Elon leadership vacuum at the top at Tesla. To the extent that there has been other top management, they don't seem to last that long, and seem to have trouble earning his trust, which I imagine makes challenging his nuttier ideas harder to do.
gridspy 6y ago
I think you're actually seeing Falcon flights have become more routine - it's moved from innovation to operation. So Elon is less hands-on, focusing instead on the innovation around starship (and Tesla).

briga 6y ago

I think it's pretty transparent that Elon creates controversy and does stunts to get attention. Like many other celebrities he seems to have mastered the art of getting the public to talk about him. It's easier to sell your products or ideas if people are continually talking about you.

nickik 6y ago

I think you are pretty wrong, I see absolutely no difference at all and I follow both companies pretty closely. The media is just much more actively following Tesla in because they are marketing to the general population there is a far more detailed view on Tesla. However overall Elon is pretty much just Elon al the time. Elon talks about the Starship pretty much like he does about the Cybertruck. These are just products he is working on, he informs people about what is going on, changes that they are doing and so on. Both during SpaceX and Tesla talks he gives about equal time thanking the team as far as I can tell. We know that Elon for example pushed the team to develop phase shut off for Merlin engine. We know that Elon was pushing for adopting steal on the Starship. With both companies its not totally clear when what decisions are made (as makes sense with private companies), but overall I think its pretty much the same. Most of his twitter shananigans have nothing to do with Tesla or SpaceX, or have to do with both. The Tesla factory opening was of course about Tesla, but his comments in general about Corona were not. His Thailand diver thing was not about a particular company either. > The Elon of Tesla is smoking up on camera In that interview he spent about equal time on both companies > sleeping in his sleeping bag while trying to bring Model 3 production through the Shadow of the Valley of Death He has said much the same kind of stuff for SpaceX stuff too. Not specifically sleeping in the factory but overwork after failures, not sleeping for a long time and so on.

apendleton 6y ago

I get the sense that a lot of the distinction is that at SpaceX he has a by-all-accounts extremely competent lieutenant in Gwynne Shotwell running the day-to-day operations and probably, to some extent, helping keep him grounded, whereas it has always seemed like there's been a bit of a non-Elon leadership vacuum at the top at Tesla. To the extent that there has been other top management, they don't seem to last that long, and seem to have trouble earning his trust, which I imagine makes challenging his nuttier ideas harder to do.

gridspy 6y ago

I think you're actually seeing Falcon flights have become more routine - it's moved from innovation to operation. So Elon is less hands-on, focusing instead on the innovation around starship (and Tesla).