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Just to explain as someone that was initially a fan of Musk but now highly critical of him: SpaceX owes a great deal of it's success to the people around Elon,

Just to explain as someone that was initially a fan of Musk but now highly critical of him: SpaceX owes a great deal of it's success to the people around Elon, particularly Shotwell, minimizing his bad behaviors. Compare this to Tesla and now Twitter, where Elon has unilateral power. At the first he managed to get in trouble with the SEC in the dumbest way possible, as well as continues the Fully Self Driving saga that many of us regard as fraud, the solar tiles debacle, etc. At the latter he's treating employees in an utterly reprehensible and illegal way. He's currently under investigation for similar behaviors at Tesla but involving far fewer employees. The left hates Elon more for his union busting and abusive labor practices than bad jokes, but bad jokes certainly don't help Elon any when it comes to PR. I can give Elon credit for advancing the timelines of both EVs and solar power, and applaud SpaceX for their innovation, while also being highly critical of Elon's general behavior and treatment of the people who work for them. Put more bluntly: I AM judging Elon on the basis of his actions. Your position is actually that SpaceX is so cool it forgives all wrongs.

spaceman_2020 4y ago
The EV industry as well as the spacetech industry would have none of the momentum they currently have if there was no messianic figure like Musk leading the pack. Industries need charismatic evangelists to attract capital. Musk made investing in serious hardware ventures cool. Now all the billionaires have their own space companies just to compete with Musk. All in, a net positive. Otherwise Bezos billions might have gone into yet another superyacht. If you get an abrasive personality with it, that’s a decent bargain.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  > Now all the billionaires have their own space companies just to compete with Musk. Do they? The only other billionaire-owned space company that comes to mind is Blue Origin, but they were founded years before SpaceX. (Which incidentally, seems to debunk the common argument that any billionaire funding a space program would have success similar to SpaceX/Musk. If success with such funding were inevitable, Blue Origin would have gotten to orbit years ago but in reality they still haven't.)

spaceman_2020 4y ago

The EV industry as well as the spacetech industry would have none of the momentum they currently have if there was no messianic figure like Musk leading the pack. Industries need charismatic evangelists to attract capital. Musk made investing in serious hardware ventures cool. Now all the billionaires have their own space companies just to compete with Musk. All in, a net positive. Otherwise Bezos billions might have gone into yet another superyacht. If you get an abrasive personality with it, that’s a decent bargain.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> Now all the billionaires have their own space companies just to compete with Musk. Do they? The only other billionaire-owned space company that comes to mind is Blue Origin, but they were founded years before SpaceX. (Which incidentally, seems to debunk the common argument that any billionaire funding a space program would have success similar to SpaceX/Musk. If success with such funding were inevitable, Blue Origin would have gotten to orbit years ago but in reality they still haven't.)