5 ms·

How does Musk posting that sort of stuff, which is difficult to get across in text at the best of times, benefit anyone, including Musk? It's a pattern of poin

How does Musk posting that sort of stuff, which is difficult to get across in text at the best of times, benefit anyone, including Musk? It's a pattern of pointless provocative nonsense by Musk, befitting a teenager, not the CEO of multiple multi-billion dollar companies. I guess he's free to do what he wants, but people are free to read whatever they want into it as well. Dismissing it as humour is not a given.

leereeves 4y ago
Provocative nonsense has worked for Musk up till now. He got billions of dollars worth of free media coverage from his antics. And after all of it, here we are still talking about Elon, Tesla, and Twitter.
- aaronbrethorst 4y ago
  Musk’s provocative nonsense was a major reason why I didn’t consider leasing a Tesla earlier this year when I was in the market for an EV. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way.
  - newZWhoDis 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - kortilla 4y ago
    What EV did you choose instead? They are all so terrible by comparison when it comes to range and charging infra that it’s hard to go elsewhere. I don’t like Tesla because of the lack of CarPlay, etc and the tight attachment to their central servers but can’t find a reasonable alternative yet.
    - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
      Kia Niro EV. It’s been totally fine, especially since I don’t have to commit to it for more than 3 years.
    - SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
      >They are all so terrible by comparison when it comes to range and charging infra Come again? There are at least ten non-Tesla EVs that have a rated range of 300+ miles, and DC fast charging is everywhere. Look on PlugShare and filter out Tesla connectors. Tesla is not the only game in town. And I say that as someone who recently bought a Model S Plaid.
      - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
        I can attest to this. My wife and I took a road trip from Seattle to the redwoods in California and back this summer in the aforementioned Kia, and I didn't have any issue with charging infrastructure at any point along the trip.
      - kortilla 4y ago
        Ten models or ten cars? And are they actually capable of hitting that? I see people say this but I’m suspecting they don’t actually enjoy large road trips so don’t comprehend how terrible the difference is between 250 and 350 usable miles is. What EVs can do LA to Salt Lake City with one full charging stop?
        SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
        > Ten models or ten cars? I don’t understand what you are asking. >What EVs can do LA to Salt Lake City with one full charging stop? I said that there are at least ten non-Tesla EVs that have a rated range over 300 miles. LA to Salt Lake City is ~690 miles, half of which is 345 miles. Few EV owners actually get their car’s rated range, and you’d have to be nuts to intentionally pull into a charging station with zero battery. Your scenario really calls for a car that has a rated range of ~400 miles, which, AFAIK, is currently limited to the Model S and the Lucid Air. The longest range configuration of a Model S has a 405 mile rated range, though you’re not going to get that on a long road trip. The Lucid Air’s rated range is 516 miles. No idea how that bears out in reality, though I suspect it’s similarly less-efficient at interstate highway speeds. (Actual speeds, not speed limits.) I’ll be test driving one soon.
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  I'm not sure it's worked in his favour. Whenever I think about Tesla I wonder why a company that had such a head start with electric cars doesn't basically own like half of the car industry now. He had a massive stock price which could have enabled huge growth. There's a strong argument to be made that Musk has bungled it.
- notahacker 4y ago
  > And after all of it, here we are still talking about Elon, Tesla, and Twitter. If he got paid for us talking about him, that'd be great. But he doesn't, not even on Twitter where advertising revenues were better before all the fuss. (There are people who get paid mostly from being famous, it's just they tend to operate well below "world's richest man" level, sell content or consumer goods considerably more mass market than the Model 3 and tend not see their net worth crash at the time their celebrity status goes mainstream) Cause and effect is actually the reverse: the media started thinking his antics were interesting enough to cover because he'd already been very effective at promising spaceships and cars and organising people to deliver enough of his promises to earn him the status of maverick genius (and a lot of money). Nobody cares about your 420 jokes if you don't own a rocket company. He did the hype-man who delivers stuff well enough to more-or-less get away with dumb stuff that didn't exactly win the sort of headlines that sold Teslas (there is such thing as good free publicity; but they involve hyping his achievements and multiplanetary plans, not defending himself from libel actions). Then at some point he probably started reading his fans' takes on how his real genius was getting attention and so losing a board seat over a joke was actually 5D chess rather than a mistake to learn from, and now he's busy spending his fortune on being talked about... (I guess you could still chalk that up as a win if you figure he always cared more about being noticed every day than stuff like going to Mars, but I don't think that's the case)
kylecordes 4y ago
I agree - Musk's behaviour is harmful to his personal reputation, his businesses, his investors, and sometimes beyond. Also utterly unbecoming a CEO of companies which routinely have human life at risk, serve critical national security interests, etc. (Yet I would not bet against him making a success of Twitter, as he has Tesla and SpaceX.)
- newZWhoDis 4y ago
  Maybe what’s wrong isn’t his behavior, but how you expect a CEO to act?
  - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
    I’d expect a CEO to act like an adult.
    - jacquesm 4y ago
      At this point I'll settle for 'like a responsible teenager'.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
I've never been on twitter and _will_ never be on twitter because I have zero interest in 140 character posts (now 280). OTOH, I get the feeling people are being overly judgemental due to text being hard and 280 character text being even harder.
- zzleeper 4y ago
  "EPIC THREAD" is 269 characters short of the limit... so yeah, 280 might not be enough to make nuanced arguments, but he was not even trying (and he is not known for making nuanced arguments, just for being a tantrum-prone narcissist)

leereeves 4y ago

Provocative nonsense has worked for Musk up till now. He got billions of dollars worth of free media coverage from his antics. And after all of it, here we are still talking about Elon, Tesla, and Twitter.

aaronbrethorst 4y ago
Musk’s provocative nonsense was a major reason why I didn’t consider leasing a Tesla earlier this year when I was in the market for an EV. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way.
- newZWhoDis 4y ago
  [flagged]
- kortilla 4y ago
  What EV did you choose instead? They are all so terrible by comparison when it comes to range and charging infra that it’s hard to go elsewhere. I don’t like Tesla because of the lack of CarPlay, etc and the tight attachment to their central servers but can’t find a reasonable alternative yet.
  - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
    Kia Niro EV. It’s been totally fine, especially since I don’t have to commit to it for more than 3 years.
  - SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
    >They are all so terrible by comparison when it comes to range and charging infra Come again? There are at least ten non-Tesla EVs that have a rated range of 300+ miles, and DC fast charging is everywhere. Look on PlugShare and filter out Tesla connectors. Tesla is not the only game in town. And I say that as someone who recently bought a Model S Plaid.
    - aaronbrethorst 4y ago
      I can attest to this. My wife and I took a road trip from Seattle to the redwoods in California and back this summer in the aforementioned Kia, and I didn't have any issue with charging infrastructure at any point along the trip.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      Ten models or ten cars? And are they actually capable of hitting that? I see people say this but I’m suspecting they don’t actually enjoy large road trips so don’t comprehend how terrible the difference is between 250 and 350 usable miles is. What EVs can do LA to Salt Lake City with one full charging stop?
      - SpelingBeeChamp 4y ago
        > Ten models or ten cars? I don’t understand what you are asking. >What EVs can do LA to Salt Lake City with one full charging stop? I said that there are at least ten non-Tesla EVs that have a rated range over 300 miles. LA to Salt Lake City is ~690 miles, half of which is 345 miles. Few EV owners actually get their car’s rated range, and you’d have to be nuts to intentionally pull into a charging station with zero battery. Your scenario really calls for a car that has a rated range of ~400 miles, which, AFAIK, is currently limited to the Model S and the Lucid Air. The longest range configuration of a Model S has a 405 mile rated range, though you’re not going to get that on a long road trip. The Lucid Air’s rated range is 516 miles. No idea how that bears out in reality, though I suspect it’s similarly less-efficient at interstate highway speeds. (Actual speeds, not speed limits.) I’ll be test driving one soon.
dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
I'm not sure it's worked in his favour. Whenever I think about Tesla I wonder why a company that had such a head start with electric cars doesn't basically own like half of the car industry now. He had a massive stock price which could have enabled huge growth. There's a strong argument to be made that Musk has bungled it.
notahacker 4y ago
> And after all of it, here we are still talking about Elon, Tesla, and Twitter. If he got paid for us talking about him, that'd be great. But he doesn't, not even on Twitter where advertising revenues were better before all the fuss. (There are people who get paid mostly from being famous, it's just they tend to operate well below "world's richest man" level, sell content or consumer goods considerably more mass market than the Model 3 and tend not see their net worth crash at the time their celebrity status goes mainstream) Cause and effect is actually the reverse: the media started thinking his antics were interesting enough to cover because he'd already been very effective at promising spaceships and cars and organising people to deliver enough of his promises to earn him the status of maverick genius (and a lot of money). Nobody cares about your 420 jokes if you don't own a rocket company. He did the hype-man who delivers stuff well enough to more-or-less get away with dumb stuff that didn't exactly win the sort of headlines that sold Teslas (there is such thing as good free publicity; but they involve hyping his achievements and multiplanetary plans, not defending himself from libel actions). Then at some point he probably started reading his fans' takes on how his real genius was getting attention and so losing a board seat over a joke was actually 5D chess rather than a mistake to learn from, and now he's busy spending his fortune on being talked about... (I guess you could still chalk that up as a win if you figure he always cared more about being noticed every day than stuff like going to Mars, but I don't think that's the case)

kylecordes 4y ago

I agree - Musk's behaviour is harmful to his personal reputation, his businesses, his investors, and sometimes beyond. Also utterly unbecoming a CEO of companies which routinely have human life at risk, serve critical national security interests, etc. (Yet I would not bet against him making a success of Twitter, as he has Tesla and SpaceX.)

newZWhoDis 4y ago
Maybe what’s wrong isn’t his behavior, but how you expect a CEO to act?
- aaronbrethorst 4y ago
  I’d expect a CEO to act like an adult.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    At this point I'll settle for 'like a responsible teenager'.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago

I've never been on twitter and _will_ never be on twitter because I have zero interest in 140 character posts (now 280). OTOH, I get the feeling people are being overly judgemental due to text being hard and 280 character text being even harder.

zzleeper 4y ago
"EPIC THREAD" is 269 characters short of the limit... so yeah, 280 might not be enough to make nuanced arguments, but he was not even trying (and he is not known for making nuanced arguments, just for being a tantrum-prone narcissist)