4 ms·

He is not a good engineer or strategist. He is good at marketing though. He got lucky with Space X and the rockets launched. He got a shit-ton of funding for Te

• rvnx 3y ago
  The current vision for SpaceX is great, the product as well. Let's not forget that the initial plan of SpaceX was to meet and get drunk with Russian leaders to buy missiles from them and resell them to US market. Imagine the nightmare if it actually had worked as planned. Regarding implementation in SpaceX, the success is mostly due to very good engineers and to a less bureaucratic process, where you can move fast and break things. The NASA is a big boat that cannot steer due to political issues. It works ok but it is extremely slow and expensive.
  • ajmurmann 3y ago
    I thought he wanted to just buy a single rocket to fly a plant with a webcam to Mars to inspire people.
  • Covzire 3y ago
    Musk's companies operate without a lot of the kind of beaurocratic bloat found in most other auto makers or NASA. No dozens of DEI administrators making everyone's work life miserable, pretending it's not just politics being rammed down their throat, treating grown adults like children, etc. That alone gives him a competitive advantage.
    • amanaplanacanal 3y ago
      Do you honestly think DEI is the biggest source of bureaucratic bloat?
      • Covzire 3y ago
        Yes, though not directly perhaps in many private companies, but it's a sure sign of a serious systemic inefficiency in management and company culture. Unless it's a major University, then it's absolutely a massive problem by itself.
  • mcpackieh 3y ago
    > Let's not forget that the initial plan of SpaceX was to meet and get drunk with Russian leaders to buy missiles from them and resell them to US market. Imagine the nightmare if it actually had worked as planned. The story I've heard is that he wanted to buy a single missile, but regardless.. where is the 'nightmare' in disarming Russia by buying up all their missiles in a firesale? It seems doubtful that such purchases would have effectively funded the construction of new missiles since Russia is/was so corrupt. I think the money would have gone into the hands of some oligarchs, and not been invested back into new missile development. Even if that plan had gone through, it would have been child's play compared to the ESA and NASA as well as numerous western corporations buying rocket rides from Russia since the mid 90s up to the second Russian invasion of Ukraine a few years ago. Go down the lists of Proton launches on wikipedia and mouse over each of the payloads, you'll see that most of them since the mid 90s have been for American or European organizations. Even ULA and Orbital Sciences have bought hundreds of engines from Russia and used them to launch US payloads. I don't see many people raking them over the coals for this. Has this even proven to be a nightmare? Western money has kept Russia's space program alive, but has that funded any successful 'Wunderwaffes'? Russia's military is still running off the fumes of the Soviet Union and their supposedly amazing wonder weapons either don't exist or aren't relevant. Most of that money probably went up their noses.
  • tills13 3y ago
    > political issues Ah those pesky "political issues" commonly known as "process", "due diligence", or "laws".
• cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Something like Tesla only worked because of the era of low interest rates, quantitative easing, insanely busy tech investment market, etc, in the post 2008 era. 15 years of record low interest rates meant investors were desperate to find places to shove money to get returns, and Tesla was one of the chosen spots, profitability be damned. These days it would be harder to pull something like that off, investors would be demanding better books from day one.
  • flavius29663 3y ago
    > profitability be damned Currently, Tesla makes each car with a profit of almost 10k USD. That is insane compared to competitors, VW is at 973USD. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-teslas-unrivaled-profit-margins/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-teslas-unrivaled-pr... It was really bad in the beginning, but now it's stellar, second only to Ferrari and other luxury cars. I don't like the guy, but this is not just luck.
    • cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      Well yes that's my point. In the long run it worked out for them... but only after years of intense non-profitable investment that would not have happened in a more conservative investment climate where higher interest rates prevailed. There would have been other places for investors to stick their money.
    • martin8412 3y ago
      They're not comparable numbers. Tesla doesn't count profit per car the same way as the rest of the industry.
      • flavius29663 3y ago
        care to explain yourself? All I could find was this article, lamenting that car dealerships take up too much profit for everyone else other than Tesla. https://seekingalpha.com/article/4573601-tesla-gross-margins-not-impressive-as-seem https://seekingalpha.com/article/4573601-tesla-gross-margins... I don't see how that negates everything I said. Tesla can and does ship directly to buyers, so kudos to them.
• mschuster91 3y ago
  > I just hope Space X survives all this madness. Should SpaceX even threaten to go off the rails, the US government can and will seize it faster than Elon can go crying to the Supreme Court. Space access is too much of a national security risk.
  • phone8675309 3y ago
    I think they're more likely to bail it out than seize it
    • mschuster91 3y ago
      I don't have any worries that SpaceX goes under financially. I'm more worried Musk allowing Russian or Chinese companies access to their launch vehicles, or refusing to launch US/Western hardware because he thinks his ass hasn't been kissed enough.
• tremon 3y ago
  I just hope Space X survives all this madness Let's hope Musk's vision for SpaceX will not devolve into "Twitter, but in space".
  • jerjerjer 3y ago
    MySpaceX