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If we can refine the "he got lucky" statement I'd say it's this: He's a talented motivational speaker, he can inspire as a leader, he can paint a vivid future

If we can refine the "he got lucky" statement I'd say it's this: He's a talented motivational speaker, he can inspire as a leader, he can paint a vivid future of great accomplishments , not in the least bolstered by his extreme confidence of expertise and knowledge (often not actualized). Everything he talks about is at least about the entire planet, sometimes multiple planets, and with xAI even for understanding the entire Universe, and this helps him attract two key resources: - Capital. - Talent. And then when he puts talent and capital together... yes he got lucky couple of times. But he's always been a terrible manager and this is visible not just with Twitter.

oneeyedpigeon 3y ago
> He's a talented motivational speaker He IS? In what contexts? Because every time I see him speak, it's painful. His delivery is so stilted/awkward, that I think he's one of the worst speakers I've ever seen.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  He's no Steve Jobs, but sometimes when you don't say something people fill-in context themselves. For example when he makes a long dramatic pause, so he seems deeply contemplative. Or when he stops himself midway through a sentence and corrects himself, he seems earnest. We're ready to forgive a lot if we suspect behind the awkwardness hides a genius. The trope of the distracted professor, the autistic savant is at least centuries old. He leans into every such trope, and he's very careful in cultivating an image of a "founder", of an "inventor" of an "engineer". Most people by now know he hasn't founded Tesla, or PayPal (was fired from it in fact), he hasn't engineered the SpaceX rockets (although he had a hand in those that blew up), and he in fact has no engineering degree despite claiming otherwise. So I'd say all this means he's building this image very intentionally, and he's trying to turn his weaknesses into strengths. The more he stutters and repeats, the less we notice how much of what he says is kinda... vapid. Trump has some similar patterns by the way, you can ask him a specific question and he'll say he has great ways of answering that, some of the best people told him he has the best answers, his history of a businessman speaks about long experience providing great answers to all kinds of questions... and he won't answer your question in the end. Trump and Musk are very different in some ways, but very similar in others.
  - hackerbob 3y ago
    My personal belief was after 2016 there was a Trump effect. Once everyone saw you could say WHAT!? and still become the president of the United States. I think that made a lot of people bolder in what they could think, say and do from business people to sports athletes.
    - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      It's complex. On one hand, some people feel emboldened to reveal their "true side". On the other hand, we realize the guardrails we thought protect society from illogical or immoral behavior... aren't really there. From that point on we have a choice. Accept increasing chaos and corruption, or build up the missing guardrails we thought were there. However, from what I see, things aren't going strongly in the right direction as I see it, so far... A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - gtirloni 3y ago
    >He's no Steve Jobs, but sometimes when you don't say something people fill-in context themselves. Exactly. A significant number of people want to see "Iron Man" in him or that he is playing 5D chess and they will fill the gaps to rationalize that image they have made of him.
  - thomasjudge 3y ago
    "Very stable genius" "I alone can fix it"
- uncletaco 3y ago
  I saw him in Machete and people were calling him the real life Tony Stark. With little other context I just assumed he was a cool guy. After all people were always super positive about his projects. In fact, I don’t think I actually heard Elon Musk speak freely until the cybertruck announcement. By then he started appearing on YouTube channels I watch and my opinion of him has done nothing but lower ever since. I’m wondering if my experience was only my experience, was Elon Musk surrounded by good marketers who made sure the right things were said 10 years ago but he somehow lost them along the way? Because he is definitely not the man with the mystique he used to have for me.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    Not sure if he had good marketers, I think he himself is a good marketer. But restraint is very hard. Especially when you love to talk. Which he clearly does if we judge by his tweets. It's a bit like how in Big Brother and other reality shows people first try to show their best side, to show restraint. But over time, and with stress, despite all the cameras, despite the knowledge the world watches, you slowly revert to being yourself.
    - spiralx 3y ago
      > It's a bit like how in Big Brother and other reality shows people first try to show their best side, to show restraint. But over time, and with stress, despite all the cameras, despite the knowledge the world watches, you slowly revert to being yourself. Hah, I'd never have considered the parallels between Big Brother and Twitter before but you're spot on here - even more so when you consider the existence of Celebrity Big Brother showing that celebrities are - of course - people who act like people do. Musk isn't the only famous person who's been unable to stop revealing who they are on Twitter, but he's certainly the one who's taken it the farthest.
- hibikir 3y ago
  Being a very good speaker, or leader, isn't really about convincing everyone, but convincing a certain group of people consistently. This being HN I don't want to get all that political, but I am sure you can think of a few recent US presidents, from both parties, which were seen as quite charismatic and great at speaking, even though they were seen as unconvincing, and downright loathed by many in their opposition. You can find the same situation in many non-political speakers: The magnetism doesn't really hit everyone. So someone can be very effective and charismatic while turning off a non-trivial percentage of the people: I've seen this in company executives a whole lot. The people that dislike the CEO will bounce quick, and in the end you end up with a workforce that is very loyal, via self-selection. So is he a talented speaker? Just by by how many people react well to him, the answer is yes, regardless of how well he might convince you or me.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

oneeyedpigeon 3y ago

> He's a talented motivational speaker He IS? In what contexts? Because every time I see him speak, it's painful. His delivery is so stilted/awkward, that I think he's one of the worst speakers I've ever seen.

3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
He's no Steve Jobs, but sometimes when you don't say something people fill-in context themselves. For example when he makes a long dramatic pause, so he seems deeply contemplative. Or when he stops himself midway through a sentence and corrects himself, he seems earnest. We're ready to forgive a lot if we suspect behind the awkwardness hides a genius. The trope of the distracted professor, the autistic savant is at least centuries old. He leans into every such trope, and he's very careful in cultivating an image of a "founder", of an "inventor" of an "engineer". Most people by now know he hasn't founded Tesla, or PayPal (was fired from it in fact), he hasn't engineered the SpaceX rockets (although he had a hand in those that blew up), and he in fact has no engineering degree despite claiming otherwise. So I'd say all this means he's building this image very intentionally, and he's trying to turn his weaknesses into strengths. The more he stutters and repeats, the less we notice how much of what he says is kinda... vapid. Trump has some similar patterns by the way, you can ask him a specific question and he'll say he has great ways of answering that, some of the best people told him he has the best answers, his history of a businessman speaks about long experience providing great answers to all kinds of questions... and he won't answer your question in the end. Trump and Musk are very different in some ways, but very similar in others.
- hackerbob 3y ago
  My personal belief was after 2016 there was a Trump effect. Once everyone saw you could say WHAT!? and still become the president of the United States. I think that made a lot of people bolder in what they could think, say and do from business people to sports athletes.
  - 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
    It's complex. On one hand, some people feel emboldened to reveal their "true side". On the other hand, we realize the guardrails we thought protect society from illogical or immoral behavior... aren't really there. From that point on we have a choice. Accept increasing chaos and corruption, or build up the missing guardrails we thought were there. However, from what I see, things aren't going strongly in the right direction as I see it, so far... A civilization is born stoic and dies epicurean.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- gtirloni 3y ago
  >He's no Steve Jobs, but sometimes when you don't say something people fill-in context themselves. Exactly. A significant number of people want to see "Iron Man" in him or that he is playing 5D chess and they will fill the gaps to rationalize that image they have made of him.
- thomasjudge 3y ago
  "Very stable genius" "I alone can fix it"
uncletaco 3y ago
I saw him in Machete and people were calling him the real life Tony Stark. With little other context I just assumed he was a cool guy. After all people were always super positive about his projects. In fact, I don’t think I actually heard Elon Musk speak freely until the cybertruck announcement. By then he started appearing on YouTube channels I watch and my opinion of him has done nothing but lower ever since. I’m wondering if my experience was only my experience, was Elon Musk surrounded by good marketers who made sure the right things were said 10 years ago but he somehow lost them along the way? Because he is definitely not the man with the mystique he used to have for me.
- 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  Not sure if he had good marketers, I think he himself is a good marketer. But restraint is very hard. Especially when you love to talk. Which he clearly does if we judge by his tweets. It's a bit like how in Big Brother and other reality shows people first try to show their best side, to show restraint. But over time, and with stress, despite all the cameras, despite the knowledge the world watches, you slowly revert to being yourself.
  - spiralx 3y ago
    > It's a bit like how in Big Brother and other reality shows people first try to show their best side, to show restraint. But over time, and with stress, despite all the cameras, despite the knowledge the world watches, you slowly revert to being yourself. Hah, I'd never have considered the parallels between Big Brother and Twitter before but you're spot on here - even more so when you consider the existence of Celebrity Big Brother showing that celebrities are - of course - people who act like people do. Musk isn't the only famous person who's been unable to stop revealing who they are on Twitter, but he's certainly the one who's taken it the farthest.
hibikir 3y ago
Being a very good speaker, or leader, isn't really about convincing everyone, but convincing a certain group of people consistently. This being HN I don't want to get all that political, but I am sure you can think of a few recent US presidents, from both parties, which were seen as quite charismatic and great at speaking, even though they were seen as unconvincing, and downright loathed by many in their opposition. You can find the same situation in many non-political speakers: The magnetism doesn't really hit everyone. So someone can be very effective and charismatic while turning off a non-trivial percentage of the people: I've seen this in company executives a whole lot. The people that dislike the CEO will bounce quick, and in the end you end up with a workforce that is very loyal, via self-selection. So is he a talented speaker? Just by by how many people react well to him, the answer is yes, regardless of how well he might convince you or me.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]