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> With both companies having an almost absurdly good track record of execution. Musk has consistently produced the wrong numbers. Some examples (and there are

> With both companies having an almost absurdly good track record of execution. Musk has consistently produced the wrong numbers. Some examples (and there are many, many more): Number of teslas in 2018? Musk: 500k Actual: 35K Tesla base price objective, 2016: Musk $35k Actual: Much more Self Driving Cross Country Trip: Musk: in 2017 Actual: NaN Financing Rounds: Musk (2011) "We will never need another financing round" Actual: there were many more Supercharging cost: Musk (2013) "Always free" Actual: Definitely not free Tesla Semis Production Line Date: Musk: "2019" Actual: Not yet happened Gigafactory placement: Musk (2017) "Two to four more" Actual: Only one operational Hyperloop NY-Phil-Balt-DC: Musk (2017) "I have verbal approval, 29 minutes NY-DC" Actual: This appears to be made up Mars Missions: Musk: "Every launch window from 2024 onward" Actual: TBD, maybe 2029? Neurallink: Musk: "Human trials in 2021" Actual: "Lots of dead monkeys" Covid-19 Ventilators: Musk "Our factories will produce them" Actual: Musk sent 1,000 cpap machines Updated Tesla Roadster: Musk: "It exists!" Actual: "It doesn't" There are so, so so many more of these. There's nothing remotely close to an "absurdly good track record". SpaceX is doing well because of Shotwell, not Musk, and Tesla has been plagued with build quality and recall issues from day 1. (To say nothing of absurd repair costs and issues with FSD.)

mlindner 4y ago
Every headline here is missing the nuance and misdescribing the comments out of context. Or removing the caveats that he himself put on the comment. When people preface things with "I think", or "probably" or "possibly" or "good chance" you can't just suddenly turn it around and say they were predicting the future with a crystal ball. This happens so much with Elon's comments it's frankly extremely tiring. And what, you created a brand new account just to post this nonsense again? I've seen this before.
- sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
  Quite a few of these happened in the context of earnings calls or other communications to investors. If the guy in charge of these companies keeps making statements about their future performance and then they repeatedly miss the mark, that's a valid thing to criticize and an "I think" prefix doesn't absolve him.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    Earnings calls are forward looking statements and often turn out to be incorrect predictions, and no, most of these were not in earnings calls because only Tesla has earnings calls. They're also written in bad context, for example the first line about 500k in 2018, wasn't made in 2018. Also, when it's something that literally no company has ever done before, being off by a lot is expected.
- waitwhatuh 4y ago
  It's one thing to be off by, say, 5%. It's another thing to be years or two orders of magnitude off. I'm not expecting Musk to be perfect, I'm expecting him to be reasonably close with his predictions. And many, many of Tesla's predictions aren't predictions. In 2014, Tesla promised full self driving on cars and took money for it. Those cars today will never have it (despite paying for it), and it's been nearly a decade with FSD still an indeterminate period away. And yeah, new account. That's how I interact with HN -- create an account, keep it until it gets some amount of karma (usually 500-1000) decide it's too much of a drain to try and be grounded here, and delete the account. Inevitably, someone comes along and makes a breathy and incredible claim like "tesla is an absolute success" and I feel like I need to come in and provide just a little bit of "Hey, so, the facts don't exactly line up there..." To be clear, I don't create anti-tesla accounts, and this isn't an alt for another existing account, I just don't like having a long term account here.
  - mlindner 4y ago
    > And many, many of Tesla's predictions aren't predictions. In 2014, Tesla promised full self driving on cars and took money for it. Those cars today will never have it (despite paying for it), and it's been nearly a decade with FSD still an indeterminate period away. Yes there's an occasional point that is correct, like this one, but you're mixing in outright incorrect statements, predictions that were missed on dates because they're hard to predict, and statements that have some accuracy, all together. And I don't want to bullet point by bullet point refute you as it's tiresome and there's thousands of breathless posts just like this one all over the internet.

mlindner 4y ago

Every headline here is missing the nuance and misdescribing the comments out of context. Or removing the caveats that he himself put on the comment. When people preface things with "I think", or "probably" or "possibly" or "good chance" you can't just suddenly turn it around and say they were predicting the future with a crystal ball. This happens so much with Elon's comments it's frankly extremely tiring. And what, you created a brand new account just to post this nonsense again? I've seen this before.

sjsdaiuasgdia 4y ago
Quite a few of these happened in the context of earnings calls or other communications to investors. If the guy in charge of these companies keeps making statements about their future performance and then they repeatedly miss the mark, that's a valid thing to criticize and an "I think" prefix doesn't absolve him.
- mlindner 4y ago
  Earnings calls are forward looking statements and often turn out to be incorrect predictions, and no, most of these were not in earnings calls because only Tesla has earnings calls. They're also written in bad context, for example the first line about 500k in 2018, wasn't made in 2018. Also, when it's something that literally no company has ever done before, being off by a lot is expected.
waitwhatuh 4y ago
It's one thing to be off by, say, 5%. It's another thing to be years or two orders of magnitude off. I'm not expecting Musk to be perfect, I'm expecting him to be reasonably close with his predictions. And many, many of Tesla's predictions aren't predictions. In 2014, Tesla promised full self driving on cars and took money for it. Those cars today will never have it (despite paying for it), and it's been nearly a decade with FSD still an indeterminate period away. And yeah, new account. That's how I interact with HN -- create an account, keep it until it gets some amount of karma (usually 500-1000) decide it's too much of a drain to try and be grounded here, and delete the account. Inevitably, someone comes along and makes a breathy and incredible claim like "tesla is an absolute success" and I feel like I need to come in and provide just a little bit of "Hey, so, the facts don't exactly line up there..." To be clear, I don't create anti-tesla accounts, and this isn't an alt for another existing account, I just don't like having a long term account here.
- mlindner 4y ago
  > And many, many of Tesla's predictions aren't predictions. In 2014, Tesla promised full self driving on cars and took money for it. Those cars today will never have it (despite paying for it), and it's been nearly a decade with FSD still an indeterminate period away. Yes there's an occasional point that is correct, like this one, but you're mixing in outright incorrect statements, predictions that were missed on dates because they're hard to predict, and statements that have some accuracy, all together. And I don't want to bullet point by bullet point refute you as it's tiresome and there's thousands of breathless posts just like this one all over the internet.