3 ms·

> If you look around, basically every company Elon took over or started relies heavily on government handouts (or at least did during the primary r&d phase) En

> If you look around, basically every company Elon took over or started relies heavily on government handouts (or at least did during the primary r&d phase) Entirely false. That's just a cheap hit on Musk. His first company did not. X (which became part of PayPal of course) did not. Neuralink did not. His funding of OpenAI did not. So what are you going to say? You can start a successful rocket company that delivers a lot of payload to space, people to the Moon or Mars, and you plan to not involve the US Government / NASA? Ha! Sure. Please research what the launch sector looked like before SpaceX, what were the options? You're going to start or take over an energy company (SolarCity) and it's not going to cross paths with the government? Solar shouldn't be subsidized? Yeah ok. You're going to deploy utility scale energy storage (Tesla), and it's not going to involve dealing with governments? Hmmm. You're going to attempt the Boring Company, digging long stretches underground, and you're not going to involve the government. Right. You're going to take on a bunch of the largest companies on earth in terms of sales (car companies), including some of the most politically connected (GM, Ford; both of which have rather notorious histories of killing competition using politics), and you're not going to help your customers save money by making sure they qualify for EV subsidies? Un huh.

kiba 3y ago
He could be doing all of that without making a fool and a general ass of himself, as opposed to being consistently a master class act. Whatever accomplishment you want to make in the world, it's no excuse to be an ass.
- adventured 3y ago
  The issue isn't whether he's making an ass of himself, he certainly does that anytime he gets a platform to speak on regarding general topics. I think everybody knows he does that at this point. So what. Why should I care if Musk makes a fool of himself when trying to talk about anything outside his competency? Why would I become emotionally charged about such a meaningless topic? His detractors do, they can't control themselves. It's because they now view him as someone to fight with in the forever culture war; they previously viewed him overwhelmingly as an ally, prior to the Trump years. At issue is whether people can be rational enough to control their emotions and separate out Musk's obnoxious personality, the way he broadcasts it often, from the factual reality of his accomplishments. The need of his detractors to strip him of all accomplishment, is plainly pathetic. It's easy to recognize both good and bad in regards to the life of a person, without lying and pretending someone like Musk is just all bad/negatives (terrible person, zero accomplishments - that's the detractor position). They view him as a political and cultural opponent (to one degree or another). If you're their opponent, you must be entirely destroyed (not partially, entirely). Since we live in a culture of extremes in terms of politics / partisanship. Their opponents can have no good qualities, no positives, they're all nazis across the board. George W Bush garners a lot more sympathy/ respect from the same exact people than Musk does. The guy that launched a war with Iraq that got hundreds of thousands of people killed in the following civil war, he's more likable than Musk per their views. That's the insanity we're dealing with. Because Michelle Obama likes Bush, and Ellen Degeneres likes Bush, the Clintons built a rapport with the Bush family, so golly gee he can't be all bad, tee hee, it's so cute how he paints and stuff. The same people called Bush a nazi while he was in office. It's because he's no longer viewed as part of the culture war, they called off the attack.
  - hughesjj 3y ago
    Not everyone who hates musk Hates him because of the 'cultural war'. Personally my turning point was the pedophile comments levied against the diver who rescued those kids trapped in that cave combined with him repeatedly lying to pump TSLA stock and ever thinking the boring company was an idea he could execute on. That said, I've seen no evidence that he's contributed more than funding and hype for his companies. Perhaps that's enough for some people to call him a genius, and I suppose in those domains he is, but everything I've seen w.r.t his engineering indicates to me that he's an idiot. That wouldn't be a problem we're it not for him giving out bad engineering takes everywhere, but I digress. @ George Bush, I'd definitely want to include his pushing common core, banning government funds for stem cell research, tax cuts, financial deregulation, waterboarding, and making Dick Cheney his VP on his list of failures
    - kiba 3y ago
      If all Musk is good for is for hype and funding, there's a dime a dozen entrepreneurs who would have done the same thing as him and be equally as successful and make himself less of an ass. I evaluated him as a person who inserted himself and made engineering decisions for good or ill and the result speaks for themselves. Now, whether or not we agree if Musk is good at engineering is beside my point. We should hold our entrepreneurs to higher standard, and not excuse their shitty behaviors.
- robocat 3y ago
  Why do you think that? The things I like most in a friend often come with a price. From what I can tell, many successful people are asses and their is a linkage between those two issues. Media tends to warp how much we can understand about a public person, so it is hard to judge. Even the successful asses I have personally met, I usually can't imagine removing the ass without removing what made them successful. It's not just a crazy artist stereotype.
  - kiba 3y ago
    Even the successful asses I have personally met, I usually can't imagine removing the ass without removing what made them successful. It's not just a crazy artist stereotype. We can do better. Why not?
    - robocat 3y ago
      One key trait of arseholes is that they usually have zero interest in changing their behaviour, and tend to strongly dislike others trying to change them. You and I can do better because we care to improve ourselves. Your answer is unrealistic. Have you ever successfully changed a narcissistic arsehole? I certainly don't know how to. I have heard some arseholes talk the talk about how they will change their destructive behaviours (although more usually just denial and excuses), but I have rarely seen them actually succeed in changing.
_ea1k 3y ago
> You're going to start or take over an energy company (SolarCity) and it's not going to cross paths with the government? Solar shouldn't be subsidized? Yeah ok. I think there are reasonable arguments that solar subsidies shouldn't exist. But if you want to start a solar company what are you going to do? Not take them and also somehow contractually bar your customers from taking them? These are weird arguments to make against a company.

kiba 3y ago

He could be doing all of that without making a fool and a general ass of himself, as opposed to being consistently a master class act. Whatever accomplishment you want to make in the world, it's no excuse to be an ass.

adventured 3y ago
The issue isn't whether he's making an ass of himself, he certainly does that anytime he gets a platform to speak on regarding general topics. I think everybody knows he does that at this point. So what. Why should I care if Musk makes a fool of himself when trying to talk about anything outside his competency? Why would I become emotionally charged about such a meaningless topic? His detractors do, they can't control themselves. It's because they now view him as someone to fight with in the forever culture war; they previously viewed him overwhelmingly as an ally, prior to the Trump years. At issue is whether people can be rational enough to control their emotions and separate out Musk's obnoxious personality, the way he broadcasts it often, from the factual reality of his accomplishments. The need of his detractors to strip him of all accomplishment, is plainly pathetic. It's easy to recognize both good and bad in regards to the life of a person, without lying and pretending someone like Musk is just all bad/negatives (terrible person, zero accomplishments - that's the detractor position). They view him as a political and cultural opponent (to one degree or another). If you're their opponent, you must be entirely destroyed (not partially, entirely). Since we live in a culture of extremes in terms of politics / partisanship. Their opponents can have no good qualities, no positives, they're all nazis across the board. George W Bush garners a lot more sympathy/ respect from the same exact people than Musk does. The guy that launched a war with Iraq that got hundreds of thousands of people killed in the following civil war, he's more likable than Musk per their views. That's the insanity we're dealing with. Because Michelle Obama likes Bush, and Ellen Degeneres likes Bush, the Clintons built a rapport with the Bush family, so golly gee he can't be all bad, tee hee, it's so cute how he paints and stuff. The same people called Bush a nazi while he was in office. It's because he's no longer viewed as part of the culture war, they called off the attack.
- hughesjj 3y ago
  Not everyone who hates musk Hates him because of the 'cultural war'. Personally my turning point was the pedophile comments levied against the diver who rescued those kids trapped in that cave combined with him repeatedly lying to pump TSLA stock and ever thinking the boring company was an idea he could execute on. That said, I've seen no evidence that he's contributed more than funding and hype for his companies. Perhaps that's enough for some people to call him a genius, and I suppose in those domains he is, but everything I've seen w.r.t his engineering indicates to me that he's an idiot. That wouldn't be a problem we're it not for him giving out bad engineering takes everywhere, but I digress. @ George Bush, I'd definitely want to include his pushing common core, banning government funds for stem cell research, tax cuts, financial deregulation, waterboarding, and making Dick Cheney his VP on his list of failures
  - kiba 3y ago
    If all Musk is good for is for hype and funding, there's a dime a dozen entrepreneurs who would have done the same thing as him and be equally as successful and make himself less of an ass. I evaluated him as a person who inserted himself and made engineering decisions for good or ill and the result speaks for themselves. Now, whether or not we agree if Musk is good at engineering is beside my point. We should hold our entrepreneurs to higher standard, and not excuse their shitty behaviors.
robocat 3y ago
Why do you think that? The things I like most in a friend often come with a price. From what I can tell, many successful people are asses and their is a linkage between those two issues. Media tends to warp how much we can understand about a public person, so it is hard to judge. Even the successful asses I have personally met, I usually can't imagine removing the ass without removing what made them successful. It's not just a crazy artist stereotype.
- kiba 3y ago
  Even the successful asses I have personally met, I usually can't imagine removing the ass without removing what made them successful. It's not just a crazy artist stereotype. We can do better. Why not?
  - robocat 3y ago
    One key trait of arseholes is that they usually have zero interest in changing their behaviour, and tend to strongly dislike others trying to change them. You and I can do better because we care to improve ourselves. Your answer is unrealistic. Have you ever successfully changed a narcissistic arsehole? I certainly don't know how to. I have heard some arseholes talk the talk about how they will change their destructive behaviours (although more usually just denial and excuses), but I have rarely seen them actually succeed in changing.

_ea1k 3y ago

> You're going to start or take over an energy company (SolarCity) and it's not going to cross paths with the government? Solar shouldn't be subsidized? Yeah ok. I think there are reasonable arguments that solar subsidies shouldn't exist. But if you want to start a solar company what are you going to do? Not take them and also somehow contractually bar your customers from taking them? These are weird arguments to make against a company.