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I see this opinion over and over again, but I don't know the reasons sustaining it, so I will ask: why is he a fraud? Are his companies fraudulent as well or ju

I see this opinion over and over again, but I don't know the reasons sustaining it, so I will ask: why is he a fraud? Are his companies fraudulent as well or just their iconic leader/founder?

misiti3780 5y ago
this sums it up from three weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27997438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27997438
dougmwne 5y ago
People have been expressing this skepticism for many years and every time there's a groundbreaking accomplishment the goalposts get moved. At what point are we able to admit that he's the most accomplished CEO since Steve Jobs? I personally thought the rocket reusability sounded far-fetched and doubted the Model 3 was going to be successful. I also thought there was no way they'd ever manage to get so many Starlink satellites in orbit before bankrupting themselves. Wrong, wrong and wrong again. The self driving doesn't seem like it will ever work, the Starship sounds like a fantasy and the robot sounds like an episode of Star Trek. But I'm just some guy who has been wrong every time about what Elon's companies can do, so what does my opinion matter?
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  I love posting the landing rocket to the fraudster astroturfers.
simiones 5y ago
Well, he has settled for securities fraud with the SEC for claiming over Twitter that he would take Tesla private; and he is currently being sued for literally defrauding Tesla investors in order to prop up his bad SolarWinds investment, including outright lies about the state of SolarWinds technology (he had a huge press conference before the acquisition vote about a series of houses tiled with SolarWinds solar tiles, that he knew at the time were not working). He has also defrauded Tesla customers by claiming that the cars they were sold will have access to full self-driving in a future software update, which is obviously not going to happen (FSD has already been claimed to actually mean L3 self-driving, and even that is unlikely to be achievable without hardware modifications). He has consistently come out before the public and claimed that he&his companies will achieve impossible things in a year or two, or presenting failed ancient tech ideas as future success ("hyperloop", or the 1850s vacuum train idea, which has never worked and will never work). I gave a list in another post, but I will copy it here again: FSD, SolarWinds solar tiles, the robotaxis, "founding" Tesla, "founding" PayPal, the Vegas "loop", cheaper tunnels, hyperloop, NeuraLink brain-computer videogames, flying cars, the cave submarine, turbines on cars, "more efficient" batteries, Space Ship point-to-point, Tesla semi
- optimiz3 5y ago
  You can't use your examples of what hasn't been delivered yet without the things people said were impossible and have been delivered (reusable rockets, M3, etc.). FWIW it's SolarCity, not SolarWinds. The SolarCity acquisition was also put to a shareholder vote. After the vote passed one had plenty of opportunity to sell their shares. Of course that would have been dumb given Tesla's and Musk's outstanding performance.
  - simiones 5y ago
    Oops, you're right about SolarCity, sorry about that. However, you're glossing over some important details regarding the vote: Musk was supposed to recuse himself from the whole process, given the obvious conflict of interest, and he did not. Related to what has been delivered: reusable rockets are not entirely new, the Space Shuttle was a reusable vehicle that flew many times; various versions of reusable rockets have been tried since the 1990s, though none achieved orbit before SpaceX. The M3 is a car, not sure why anyone believed it couldn't be delivered. It was delayed to some extent though.
    - optimiz3 5y ago
      > given the obvious conflict of interest, and he did not This is being litigated and there has been no finding of fact. Even if true, who cares? Tesla owes much of it's success to Musk's leadership. > reusable rockets are not entirely new Absurd position. Before SpaceX, reusable rockets were mostly concept and theory only. SpaceX made them practically viable and useful. A quick search of HN will show countless comments and skeptics of the M3 all through it's progress, just as people are skeptical of FSD development now.
      - simiones 5y ago
        > This is being litigated and there has been no finding of fact. Even if true, who cares? Tesla owes much of it's success to Musk's leadership. I can have an opinion on a civil case even before it has finished being litigated. And if he were to lose the litigation (it will almost certainly be settled out of court, but that's beside the point), I will feel entirely entitled to call him a fraudster, even if he's done a lot for Tesla. > Absurd position. Before SpaceX, reusable rockets were mostly concept and theory only. SpaceX made them practically viable and useful. Reusable stage 2 has existed for ~40 years, the Space shuttle. Reusable single-stage rockets with VTOL was in the advanced prototype stage in 1993-6, the McDonell-Douglas DCX and DC-XA, which flew up to 3.1km. In its initial version, it was successfully flown and recovered 7 times, up to 2.5km, even executing a successful abort after launch on one occasion. It was then upgraded and flew and was recovered an additional 3 times (reaching up to 3.1 km) until a fourth flight was not successfully recovered. For various reasons, no additional funding was provided. I don't mean to say SpaceX did nothing innovative here, they achieved a great success and pushed human engineering forward. But it's also wrong to say that we went from 0/theory only to reusable rockets thanks entirely to SpaceX. Regarding the Model 3, I believe skepticism was about timelines and potential popularity or production volume. I don't think you'll find anyone who didn't believe Tesla could come up with a third car at all. Of course, the popularity/production volume skeptics were proven entirely wrong. In contrast, FSD is a research-level project, with no reason to assume that it will be feasible in the next 100 years, nevermind 2 (Elon lies) or 10 (optimistic realists).

I see this opinion over and over again, but I don't know the reasons sustaining it, so I will ask: why is he a fraud? Are his companies fraudulent as well or just their iconic leader/founder?

misiti3780 5y ago

this sums it up from three weeks ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27997438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27997438

dougmwne 5y ago

People have been expressing this skepticism for many years and every time there's a groundbreaking accomplishment the goalposts get moved. At what point are we able to admit that he's the most accomplished CEO since Steve Jobs? I personally thought the rocket reusability sounded far-fetched and doubted the Model 3 was going to be successful. I also thought there was no way they'd ever manage to get so many Starlink satellites in orbit before bankrupting themselves. Wrong, wrong and wrong again. The self driving doesn't seem like it will ever work, the Starship sounds like a fantasy and the robot sounds like an episode of Star Trek. But I'm just some guy who has been wrong every time about what Elon's companies can do, so what does my opinion matter?

AtlasBarfed 5y ago
I love posting the landing rocket to the fraudster astroturfers.

simiones 5y ago

Well, he has settled for securities fraud with the SEC for claiming over Twitter that he would take Tesla private; and he is currently being sued for literally defrauding Tesla investors in order to prop up his bad SolarWinds investment, including outright lies about the state of SolarWinds technology (he had a huge press conference before the acquisition vote about a series of houses tiled with SolarWinds solar tiles, that he knew at the time were not working). He has also defrauded Tesla customers by claiming that the cars they were sold will have access to full self-driving in a future software update, which is obviously not going to happen (FSD has already been claimed to actually mean L3 self-driving, and even that is unlikely to be achievable without hardware modifications). He has consistently come out before the public and claimed that he&his companies will achieve impossible things in a year or two, or presenting failed ancient tech ideas as future success ("hyperloop", or the 1850s vacuum train idea, which has never worked and will never work). I gave a list in another post, but I will copy it here again: FSD, SolarWinds solar tiles, the robotaxis, "founding" Tesla, "founding" PayPal, the Vegas "loop", cheaper tunnels, hyperloop, NeuraLink brain-computer videogames, flying cars, the cave submarine, turbines on cars, "more efficient" batteries, Space Ship point-to-point, Tesla semi

optimiz3 5y ago
You can't use your examples of what hasn't been delivered yet without the things people said were impossible and have been delivered (reusable rockets, M3, etc.). FWIW it's SolarCity, not SolarWinds. The SolarCity acquisition was also put to a shareholder vote. After the vote passed one had plenty of opportunity to sell their shares. Of course that would have been dumb given Tesla's and Musk's outstanding performance.
- simiones 5y ago
  Oops, you're right about SolarCity, sorry about that. However, you're glossing over some important details regarding the vote: Musk was supposed to recuse himself from the whole process, given the obvious conflict of interest, and he did not. Related to what has been delivered: reusable rockets are not entirely new, the Space Shuttle was a reusable vehicle that flew many times; various versions of reusable rockets have been tried since the 1990s, though none achieved orbit before SpaceX. The M3 is a car, not sure why anyone believed it couldn't be delivered. It was delayed to some extent though.
  - optimiz3 5y ago
    > given the obvious conflict of interest, and he did not This is being litigated and there has been no finding of fact. Even if true, who cares? Tesla owes much of it's success to Musk's leadership. > reusable rockets are not entirely new Absurd position. Before SpaceX, reusable rockets were mostly concept and theory only. SpaceX made them practically viable and useful. A quick search of HN will show countless comments and skeptics of the M3 all through it's progress, just as people are skeptical of FSD development now.
    - simiones 5y ago
      > This is being litigated and there has been no finding of fact. Even if true, who cares? Tesla owes much of it's success to Musk's leadership. I can have an opinion on a civil case even before it has finished being litigated. And if he were to lose the litigation (it will almost certainly be settled out of court, but that's beside the point), I will feel entirely entitled to call him a fraudster, even if he's done a lot for Tesla. > Absurd position. Before SpaceX, reusable rockets were mostly concept and theory only. SpaceX made them practically viable and useful. Reusable stage 2 has existed for ~40 years, the Space shuttle. Reusable single-stage rockets with VTOL was in the advanced prototype stage in 1993-6, the McDonell-Douglas DCX and DC-XA, which flew up to 3.1km. In its initial version, it was successfully flown and recovered 7 times, up to 2.5km, even executing a successful abort after launch on one occasion. It was then upgraded and flew and was recovered an additional 3 times (reaching up to 3.1 km) until a fourth flight was not successfully recovered. For various reasons, no additional funding was provided. I don't mean to say SpaceX did nothing innovative here, they achieved a great success and pushed human engineering forward. But it's also wrong to say that we went from 0/theory only to reusable rockets thanks entirely to SpaceX. Regarding the Model 3, I believe skepticism was about timelines and potential popularity or production volume. I don't think you'll find anyone who didn't believe Tesla could come up with a third car at all. Of course, the popularity/production volume skeptics were proven entirely wrong. In contrast, FSD is a research-level project, with no reason to assume that it will be feasible in the next 100 years, nevermind 2 (Elon lies) or 10 (optimistic realists).