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This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward? Based off of the 5 minutes I watched, he clearly hasn’t gotten to where he is throu

This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward? Based off of the 5 minutes I watched, he clearly hasn’t gotten to where he is through charisma and public speaking skills. I’m just wondering if this is typical for him. Also, a million tons to Mars? If each starship lifts 100 tons, that is 10,000 launches. I think he said launch windows only come around every 2 years. He is either planning on building thousands of Starships or taking many years.

oh_sigh 5y ago
Yes, he is always extremely awkward. Stumbling over his own words, telling jokes that only he has context for, going into unscripted mini-tangents without much of a point, "ums" 30x in a row, waiting for applause at inappropriate times. An all around zero when it comes to public speaking. Despite me saying all this, I like Elon when he isn't on twitter. I still own TSLA since the IPO and he has made me a lot of money(I doubt TSLA would be where it was without him, even if the products would have been exactly the same). But he still should take a public speaking crash course, and maybe some beta blockers before these events.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  I think it is good that we have a tech leader succeeding without a polished, coached, focus group approved self presentation. It’s good to have an entirely different brand of bullshit out there and a person demonstrating that a different type of brain can fit in any role.
  - mrspeaker 5y ago
    I think it's a bit of a hack for people like me: everyone has been taught to sound super-confident, make everything super glossy and slick and over-produced. Almost always it's to cover the lack of original or substantial content underlying the delivery. Now the more confident-sounding and charismatic someone is, the less I believe there will be anything interesting I can learn from them, and the less I trust them!
    - djokkataja 5y ago
      > These days, the more confident-sounding and charismatic someone is, the less I believe there is anything interesting I can learn from them, and the less I trust them! Probably a good metric anyway; if someone puts all their points into charisma, they have opportunity costs in other dimensions (excluding any "natural" charisma that some people may arbitrarily have, to the degree that's actually a thing or not).
foota 5y ago
I've heard him talk in the cybertruck announcement and during a neutral link thing, yes.
gpm 5y ago
Honestly, this is "better" than usual for him, in that he's speaking more smoothly. I think it's coming across worse though. He sounds less enthusiastic than usual.
sillysaurusx 5y ago
Yeah, he's always like this. See his Neuralink presentations. He got to where he is through a combination of hard work and luck (a large part of which was the birth lottery), like everyone. Imagine if Woz was intensely interested in building Apple, and had Jobs' judgement. As far as I know, he's planning on a time frame of 200 years to build a sustainable city. He's also intending on building thousands of Starships, by making them as rugged and as cheap as possible without sacrificing safety.
- pageandrew 5y ago
  > birth lottery There are plenty of people born into more favorable conditions than Elon Musk, who haven’t had 1/10,000th of the success that he has had.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    Most people who achieve massive success are born into privilege. Being able to spend your time studying and getting exposed to cutting edge developments rather than struggling to just survive is a massive advantage. It's largely a necessary, but not sufficient condition for major success. People that rise from nothing to achieve massive success are the exception that prove the rule.
    - pageandrew 5y ago
      Yes, if someone is struggling to survive, that will limit their ability to become a world-changing entrepreneur. That said, the average westerner is not struggling to survive, and the average westerner does not end up founding 3 world changing companies and amassing a wealth of $200 billion. Not even the average birthright 1%er achieves that.
      - flyt 5y ago
        Oh, but they are. The average westerner (in the US, at least) is a $400 unexpected bill away from bankruptcy. Also, Musk was not a founder of Tesla.
ajross 5y ago
> I think he said launch windows only come around every 2 years. He is either planning on building thousands of Starships or taking many years. The window to Mars opens every two years or so, but it doesn't need to start at the ground. You can park the payloads in orbit over months or years waiting for the chance to boost to mars. The vehicles themselves are intended to be just shuttles (in the way that the actual Space Shuttle, ironically, was not).
liamwire 5y ago
From my reading of his biography by Ashlee Vance, with imperfect recollection, Musk has always stuttered/struggled with his speech.
barbacoa 5y ago
>This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward? Elon Musk did a Joe Rogan podcast where they smoked a blunt and drank whiskey. Elon went on random mumbling stoner pontifications. It was cringe. It was so bad it made Tesla stock tank.
anonporridge 5y ago
Honestly, I think this is a big part of his brand, to the degree that I wouldn't be shocked to discover he does it intentionally. His brand really is the super awkward nerd who's somewhere on the spectrum but technically brilliant. This is part of what creates such enamor for him in the engineering/tech community. He's the king of nerds, and to a community of nerds who are sick and tired of being led by wellkempt MBAs who don't have any deep understanding of the technology they make leadership decisions for, he's a breadth of fresh air. I'm not making a judgement on whether this brand is actually accurate of who he really is, but that's true of any brand.
fasteddie31003 5y ago
I just wrote 700 lines of code today and I could hardly talk to another human after that. I feel for Elon.
cperciva 5y ago
Launch windows for leaving Earth orbit come around every couple years. But most of that million tons can be lifted to orbit and assembled well in advance. It's only a relatively small weight which is perishable -- some food and a few humans.
mattr47 5y ago
He was born autistic.
- mlindner 5y ago
  Autistic spectrum disorder, but not full on autism.
- shthed 5y ago
  Aspergers
kortex 5y ago
Settling Mars is gonna be some multi-generational Bene Gesserit long term thinking shit. In fact when he dies I hope someone else takes up his obsession with Mars or bust. Settling North America took decades. It's like that, except you need a minimum tech tree to even just breathe and grow potatoes.
mlindner 5y ago
I've been watching his speeches for over 10 years now. He's always this awkward when trying to speak on non-technical topics. Here's an alternative though where he can talk intelligently and clearly about a subject: https://youtu.be/da3iF2Np51A?t=944 https://youtu.be/da3iF2Np51A?t=944
dvirsky 5y ago
I think the tension between how successful he is and how awkward he is, _is_ a key part of his charisma.
kadonoishi 5y ago
He doesn't practice any of his speeches ahead of time. Too busy. When you hear it that's the first time he's said it, generated right there in realtime. Often he'll repeat something he said in another talk, but when it's the same idea that's hard/pointless to avoid.
oxplot 5y ago
> He is either planning on building thousands of Starships or taking many years. Yes, he does have a plan to build thousands of spaceships. See previous presentations of his from 2016, 2017 and 2019. Starting a self sustaining civilization on another planet is not a walk in the park. It will take decades and a lot of $$$.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  I worry about the economics of that $$$... How many people in England invested in the exploration of America and got a return on their investment? And in today's political landscape it seems even less likely you'd get a decent return on investment - the days of high taxes on the colonies to pay for expansion are over...
bongoman37 5y ago
childintime 5y ago
he was actually comparatively relaxed this time, as if it were his party. also didn't really have much new content and (believe it) none of the prior outlandish ambitions.

oh_sigh 5y ago

Yes, he is always extremely awkward. Stumbling over his own words, telling jokes that only he has context for, going into unscripted mini-tangents without much of a point, "ums" 30x in a row, waiting for applause at inappropriate times. An all around zero when it comes to public speaking. Despite me saying all this, I like Elon when he isn't on twitter. I still own TSLA since the IPO and he has made me a lot of money(I doubt TSLA would be where it was without him, even if the products would have been exactly the same). But he still should take a public speaking crash course, and maybe some beta blockers before these events.

colechristensen 5y ago
I think it is good that we have a tech leader succeeding without a polished, coached, focus group approved self presentation. It’s good to have an entirely different brand of bullshit out there and a person demonstrating that a different type of brain can fit in any role.
- mrspeaker 5y ago
  I think it's a bit of a hack for people like me: everyone has been taught to sound super-confident, make everything super glossy and slick and over-produced. Almost always it's to cover the lack of original or substantial content underlying the delivery. Now the more confident-sounding and charismatic someone is, the less I believe there will be anything interesting I can learn from them, and the less I trust them!
  - djokkataja 5y ago
    > These days, the more confident-sounding and charismatic someone is, the less I believe there is anything interesting I can learn from them, and the less I trust them! Probably a good metric anyway; if someone puts all their points into charisma, they have opportunity costs in other dimensions (excluding any "natural" charisma that some people may arbitrarily have, to the degree that's actually a thing or not).

foota 5y ago

I've heard him talk in the cybertruck announcement and during a neutral link thing, yes.

gpm 5y ago

Honestly, this is "better" than usual for him, in that he's speaking more smoothly. I think it's coming across worse though. He sounds less enthusiastic than usual.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

Yeah, he's always like this. See his Neuralink presentations. He got to where he is through a combination of hard work and luck (a large part of which was the birth lottery), like everyone. Imagine if Woz was intensely interested in building Apple, and had Jobs' judgement. As far as I know, he's planning on a time frame of 200 years to build a sustainable city. He's also intending on building thousands of Starships, by making them as rugged and as cheap as possible without sacrificing safety.

pageandrew 5y ago
> birth lottery There are plenty of people born into more favorable conditions than Elon Musk, who haven’t had 1/10,000th of the success that he has had.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Most people who achieve massive success are born into privilege. Being able to spend your time studying and getting exposed to cutting edge developments rather than struggling to just survive is a massive advantage. It's largely a necessary, but not sufficient condition for major success. People that rise from nothing to achieve massive success are the exception that prove the rule.
  - pageandrew 5y ago
    Yes, if someone is struggling to survive, that will limit their ability to become a world-changing entrepreneur. That said, the average westerner is not struggling to survive, and the average westerner does not end up founding 3 world changing companies and amassing a wealth of $200 billion. Not even the average birthright 1%er achieves that.
    - flyt 5y ago
      Oh, but they are. The average westerner (in the US, at least) is a $400 unexpected bill away from bankruptcy. Also, Musk was not a founder of Tesla.

ajross 5y ago

> I think he said launch windows only come around every 2 years. He is either planning on building thousands of Starships or taking many years. The window to Mars opens every two years or so, but it doesn't need to start at the ground. You can park the payloads in orbit over months or years waiting for the chance to boost to mars. The vehicles themselves are intended to be just shuttles (in the way that the actual Space Shuttle, ironically, was not).

liamwire 5y ago

From my reading of his biography by Ashlee Vance, with imperfect recollection, Musk has always stuttered/struggled with his speech.

barbacoa 5y ago

>This is the first time I’ve ever heard him speak. Is he always this awkward? Elon Musk did a Joe Rogan podcast where they smoked a blunt and drank whiskey. Elon went on random mumbling stoner pontifications. It was cringe. It was so bad it made Tesla stock tank.

anonporridge 5y ago

Honestly, I think this is a big part of his brand, to the degree that I wouldn't be shocked to discover he does it intentionally. His brand really is the super awkward nerd who's somewhere on the spectrum but technically brilliant. This is part of what creates such enamor for him in the engineering/tech community. He's the king of nerds, and to a community of nerds who are sick and tired of being led by wellkempt MBAs who don't have any deep understanding of the technology they make leadership decisions for, he's a breadth of fresh air. I'm not making a judgement on whether this brand is actually accurate of who he really is, but that's true of any brand.

fasteddie31003 5y ago

I just wrote 700 lines of code today and I could hardly talk to another human after that. I feel for Elon.

cperciva 5y ago

Launch windows for leaving Earth orbit come around every couple years. But most of that million tons can be lifted to orbit and assembled well in advance. It's only a relatively small weight which is perishable -- some food and a few humans.

mattr47 5y ago

He was born autistic.

mlindner 5y ago
Autistic spectrum disorder, but not full on autism.
shthed 5y ago
Aspergers

kortex 5y ago

Settling Mars is gonna be some multi-generational Bene Gesserit long term thinking shit. In fact when he dies I hope someone else takes up his obsession with Mars or bust. Settling North America took decades. It's like that, except you need a minimum tech tree to even just breathe and grow potatoes.

mlindner 5y ago

I've been watching his speeches for over 10 years now. He's always this awkward when trying to speak on non-technical topics. Here's an alternative though where he can talk intelligently and clearly about a subject: https://youtu.be/da3iF2Np51A?t=944 https://youtu.be/da3iF2Np51A?t=944

dvirsky 5y ago

I think the tension between how successful he is and how awkward he is, _is_ a key part of his charisma.

kadonoishi 5y ago

He doesn't practice any of his speeches ahead of time. Too busy. When you hear it that's the first time he's said it, generated right there in realtime. Often he'll repeat something he said in another talk, but when it's the same idea that's hard/pointless to avoid.

oxplot 5y ago

> He is either planning on building thousands of Starships or taking many years. Yes, he does have a plan to build thousands of spaceships. See previous presentations of his from 2016, 2017 and 2019. Starting a self sustaining civilization on another planet is not a walk in the park. It will take decades and a lot of $$$.

londons_explore 5y ago
I worry about the economics of that $$$... How many people in England invested in the exploration of America and got a return on their investment? And in today's political landscape it seems even less likely you'd get a decent return on investment - the days of high taxes on the colonies to pay for expansion are over...

bongoman37 5y ago

childintime 5y ago

he was actually comparatively relaxed this time, as if it were his party. also didn't really have much new content and (believe it) none of the prior outlandish ambitions.