6 ms·

Elon Musk has been lying about his college degrees

24 points by random314 4y ago

random314 4y ago
Outline A. Review: from college to Zip2 (9-12) B. No visa (13-16) C. No Physics degree (17-30) D. No PhD acceptance (31-44) E. Quitting Twitter’s board (45-48) He was never accepted for admission in to any Stanford PhD program as per court depositions.
random314 4y ago
He was also an undocumented worker between 1995 and 1997
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
hobbitstan 4y ago
tl;dr: man didn't need expensive degrees to become the worlds richest man.
- random314 4y ago
  He did pay up for the expensive degrees. Just failed to graduate. And lied about it including an imaginary Stanford admit. And was an undocumented worker for 2 years!
- FullyFunctional 4y ago
  Yet he still felt the need to pretend he had said degrees. I think that says a lot.
- ashwagary 4y ago
  Allegedly, all you need is a family that smuggles tons of precious stones out of poor countries and admin access to a money laundering tool like paypal.
  - RobertWHurst 4y ago
    I'm so tired of this conspiracy theory. It reaks polically motivated of partisan hatred. This is QAnon levels of stupid.
  - CyberDildonics 4y ago
    What evidence is there of this? Elon Musk's first company was actually called Zip2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Zip2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Zip2 In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded Zip2.[44][45] Errol Musk provided them with $28,000 in funding.[46] The company developed an Internet city guide with maps, directions, and yellow pages, and marketed it to newspapers.[47] They worked at a small rented office in Palo Alto,[48] Musk coding the website every night.[48] Eventually, Zip2 obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.[39] The brothers persuaded the board of directors to abandon a merger with CitySearch;[49] however, Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted.[50] Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999,[51][52] and Musk received $22 million for his 7-percent share.[53]
    - ashwagary 4y ago
      Everything Elon's Dad says flies in the face of his son's "started from the bottom" fictional short story. Common sense should also tell you, no legitimate tax paying business allows a mildly educated middle class family to go to one of the poorest countries in the world and leave multimillionaires when 90% of the population lives in poverty and is under a violent racial apartheid system.
      - CyberDildonics 4y ago
        Nothing you are saying here is evidence of what you claimed. It isn't evidence of anything because it isn't really information, it's just your opinion that you don't believe things you've heard.
        ashwagary 4y ago
        You are incorrect. His Dad is on the record and directly quoted in various interviews.
- roguecoder 4y ago
  Just fraud & crime.
hnaccountme 4y ago
He has been lying about everything for a long time. His companies are a scam. Take a look at thunderf00ts youtube videos
- RobertWHurst 4y ago
  Thunderf00t jumped the shark years ago. He has a most erect hate boner for Elon I've ever seen. He was also saying for a long time that spacex would never succeed nor starlink. You can hate the man, hell you can even accurately point out that he has a habit of taking a lot of shit, but he has delivered time and time again.
  - TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
    So Tesla's are Fully Scam Driven through Hyperloop tunnels where are no traffic jams? Right now I am only waiting when rocket point to point travel will be cheaper than a plane... And how much money Starlink make (or not) could be seen recently when Musk was coercing Pentagon to pay for Ukrainian internet.
    - RobertWHurst 4y ago
      I agree not much has happened with the boring company or the hyperloop stuff, and i dont see them going anywhere yet either. But saying Tesla are a scam is unhinged. In a lot of cities a good portion of cars on the road are Teslas. Here in Vancouver it's about as common as a civic. Hundreds of thousands of regular people love their teslas. This is no small feat either. For decades it was commonly believed that electric cars were silly and wouldn't work as an alternative to combustion cars. Telsa is solely responsible for proving those assumptions wrong, and the existing car companies are now having to compete. In regards to the offer of free service to Ukrane. Thousands of base stations were given for free to the Ukrainian forces, but the demand was way higher than anticipated to the point of being punitive. So when the Pentagon most likey has a budget for this sort of thing, why would you not ask for them to cover cost? Just in this critisim alone there's an interesting point, starlink works and is high demand. Love him or hate him, despite the fact that he talks off the cuff and doesn't always deliver, has as delivered several times in very big ways. Even if you think somehow other people's brilliance are behind the success of these achievement, you still have to contend with the fact that he has been in leadership at several companies that have completely changed their industry's for the better. Why is Musk at the helm for each of these game changing achievements? Low orbit high speed satellite internet with thousands of satellites, rockets with resusable landing boosters, a very functional and reliable ISS resupply mission, a car company that survived through a financial collapse and has proven the viability of mass production general purpose long range vehicles. Not everything he touches turns to gold, but enough of it is that it needs to be taken seriously. You can dislike him, he is wacky, but these are facts. Not recognizing these things makes it plain that these criticisms are in bad faith or are based on ignorance.
oifjsidjf 4y ago
>> Thiel has deliberately destroyed one media outlet already. He calls journalists “terrorists”. The author of this article is severely biased, he makes it look as if Gawker was innocent and makes it look as if Thiel "destroyed" them because of "hating free speech". And since mainstream media journos are proven liars and manipulators calling them "terrorists" is not much of a stretch.
- random314 4y ago
  You can ignore the ideological takes, which aren't really relevant and focus on the court records. Musk is now voting for Republicans while he himself was an undocumented worker between 1995 and 1997.
  - roguecoder 4y ago
    Republicans support undocumented immigration, as long as the immigrants are white. They are racists, not nationalists.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  Technically, absolute free speech means exactly what Gawker did. Even more, they were not even lying about Hulk Hogan or Peter Thiel. What they did, they disrespected their privacy and wishes about secrecy of their private affairs. Good riddance TBH but it wasn't a case of mainstream journalist lying, it was quite the opposite: New media journos were exposing truths about the celebrities and the rich and one of those(ironically, a self proclaimed free speech advocate) went after them and destroyed them for exposing private things they wished remain secret.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
roguecoder 4y ago
Not having a degree isn’t a problem. Even committing immigration crimes isn’t a problem. Making your imaginary degree your whole personality, on the other hand, might lead to the kind of self-delusion that would prevent one from accurately judging one’s own competence. And then one might end up blowing $44 billion destroying a company you thought was simple because you don’t understand web-scale software, the basics of how to manage a business or how laws work. Elon Musk has the opposite of imposter’s syndrome, and a whole lot of people have just lost their jobs because of it.

24 points by random314 4y ago

Outline A. Review: from college to Zip2 (9-12) B. No visa (13-16) C. No Physics degree (17-30) D. No PhD acceptance (31-44) E. Quitting Twitter’s board (45-48) He was never accepted for admission in to any Stanford PhD program as per court depositions.

random314 4y ago

He was also an undocumented worker between 1995 and 1997

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

hobbitstan 4y ago

tl;dr: man didn't need expensive degrees to become the worlds richest man.

random314 4y ago
He did pay up for the expensive degrees. Just failed to graduate. And lied about it including an imaginary Stanford admit. And was an undocumented worker for 2 years!
FullyFunctional 4y ago
Yet he still felt the need to pretend he had said degrees. I think that says a lot.
ashwagary 4y ago
Allegedly, all you need is a family that smuggles tons of precious stones out of poor countries and admin access to a money laundering tool like paypal.
- RobertWHurst 4y ago
  I'm so tired of this conspiracy theory. It reaks polically motivated of partisan hatred. This is QAnon levels of stupid.
- CyberDildonics 4y ago
  What evidence is there of this? Elon Musk's first company was actually called Zip2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Zip2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Zip2 In 1995, Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Greg Kouri founded Zip2.[44][45] Errol Musk provided them with $28,000 in funding.[46] The company developed an Internet city guide with maps, directions, and yellow pages, and marketed it to newspapers.[47] They worked at a small rented office in Palo Alto,[48] Musk coding the website every night.[48] Eventually, Zip2 obtained contracts with The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune.[39] The brothers persuaded the board of directors to abandon a merger with CitySearch;[49] however, Musk's attempts to become CEO were thwarted.[50] Compaq acquired Zip2 for $307 million in cash in February 1999,[51][52] and Musk received $22 million for his 7-percent share.[53]
  - ashwagary 4y ago
    Everything Elon's Dad says flies in the face of his son's "started from the bottom" fictional short story. Common sense should also tell you, no legitimate tax paying business allows a mildly educated middle class family to go to one of the poorest countries in the world and leave multimillionaires when 90% of the population lives in poverty and is under a violent racial apartheid system.
    - CyberDildonics 4y ago
      Nothing you are saying here is evidence of what you claimed. It isn't evidence of anything because it isn't really information, it's just your opinion that you don't believe things you've heard.
      - ashwagary 4y ago
        You are incorrect. His Dad is on the record and directly quoted in various interviews.
roguecoder 4y ago
Just fraud & crime.

hnaccountme 4y ago

He has been lying about everything for a long time. His companies are a scam. Take a look at thunderf00ts youtube videos

RobertWHurst 4y ago
Thunderf00t jumped the shark years ago. He has a most erect hate boner for Elon I've ever seen. He was also saying for a long time that spacex would never succeed nor starlink. You can hate the man, hell you can even accurately point out that he has a habit of taking a lot of shit, but he has delivered time and time again.
- TheLoafOfBread 4y ago
  So Tesla's are Fully Scam Driven through Hyperloop tunnels where are no traffic jams? Right now I am only waiting when rocket point to point travel will be cheaper than a plane... And how much money Starlink make (or not) could be seen recently when Musk was coercing Pentagon to pay for Ukrainian internet.
  - RobertWHurst 4y ago
    I agree not much has happened with the boring company or the hyperloop stuff, and i dont see them going anywhere yet either. But saying Tesla are a scam is unhinged. In a lot of cities a good portion of cars on the road are Teslas. Here in Vancouver it's about as common as a civic. Hundreds of thousands of regular people love their teslas. This is no small feat either. For decades it was commonly believed that electric cars were silly and wouldn't work as an alternative to combustion cars. Telsa is solely responsible for proving those assumptions wrong, and the existing car companies are now having to compete. In regards to the offer of free service to Ukrane. Thousands of base stations were given for free to the Ukrainian forces, but the demand was way higher than anticipated to the point of being punitive. So when the Pentagon most likey has a budget for this sort of thing, why would you not ask for them to cover cost? Just in this critisim alone there's an interesting point, starlink works and is high demand. Love him or hate him, despite the fact that he talks off the cuff and doesn't always deliver, has as delivered several times in very big ways. Even if you think somehow other people's brilliance are behind the success of these achievement, you still have to contend with the fact that he has been in leadership at several companies that have completely changed their industry's for the better. Why is Musk at the helm for each of these game changing achievements? Low orbit high speed satellite internet with thousands of satellites, rockets with resusable landing boosters, a very functional and reliable ISS resupply mission, a car company that survived through a financial collapse and has proven the viability of mass production general purpose long range vehicles. Not everything he touches turns to gold, but enough of it is that it needs to be taken seriously. You can dislike him, he is wacky, but these are facts. Not recognizing these things makes it plain that these criticisms are in bad faith or are based on ignorance.

oifjsidjf 4y ago

>> Thiel has deliberately destroyed one media outlet already. He calls journalists “terrorists”. The author of this article is severely biased, he makes it look as if Gawker was innocent and makes it look as if Thiel "destroyed" them because of "hating free speech". And since mainstream media journos are proven liars and manipulators calling them "terrorists" is not much of a stretch.

random314 4y ago
You can ignore the ideological takes, which aren't really relevant and focus on the court records. Musk is now voting for Republicans while he himself was an undocumented worker between 1995 and 1997.
- roguecoder 4y ago
  Republicans support undocumented immigration, as long as the immigrants are white. They are racists, not nationalists.
mrtksn 4y ago
Technically, absolute free speech means exactly what Gawker did. Even more, they were not even lying about Hulk Hogan or Peter Thiel. What they did, they disrespected their privacy and wishes about secrecy of their private affairs. Good riddance TBH but it wasn't a case of mainstream journalist lying, it was quite the opposite: New media journos were exposing truths about the celebrities and the rich and one of those(ironically, a self proclaimed free speech advocate) went after them and destroyed them for exposing private things they wished remain secret.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

roguecoder 4y ago

Not having a degree isn’t a problem. Even committing immigration crimes isn’t a problem. Making your imaginary degree your whole personality, on the other hand, might lead to the kind of self-delusion that would prevent one from accurately judging one’s own competence. And then one might end up blowing $44 billion destroying a company you thought was simple because you don’t understand web-scale software, the basics of how to manage a business or how laws work. Elon Musk has the opposite of imposter’s syndrome, and a whole lot of people have just lost their jobs because of it.