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> The man has objectively created some incredible businesses Even this, you need to put asterisks on "created" because he spends so much time building out lies

by rtpg 2y ago

> The man has objectively created some incredible businesses Even this, you need to put asterisks on "created" because he spends so much time building out lies about the companies he runs/ran because the creation myth is so important. The amount of unforced errors behind his tenure at Paypal, a lot of it around trying to be taken as the guy who "made Paypal"... it's just very silly! And I think ultimately in a place like HN, where there are supposedly a lot of "builder" types, when you hear every Musk company say "yeah the way we stay productive is to keep Musk out of things...." everyone's natural bias against bullshitters kick in! I think it's hard to discount Tesla really pushing forward EVs. I think it's extremely easy to discount all of his other stuff if you're cynical (yes I include SpaceX in there, though it's easy for me because I think manned spaceflight, let alone "going to Mars", is extremely silly). But this stuff isn't really fungible...

bboygravity 2y ago
[flagged]
- cletus 2y ago
  Elon literally cannot stop lying [1]. [1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk-twitter-zuckerberg-lies-1234808808/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk...
  - simondotau 2y ago
    That's a weird article, because most of them don't even fit a reasonable person's definition of a "lie". The majority of them are overconfident predictions of the future, or differences of opinion between Musk and the author of this listicle. For a person who does and says so much in public, the notion that a "top ten" list of "lies" needed so much filler is, IMHO, a compelling case for the inverse assertion.
    - haspok 2y ago
      Like when they faked the first Tesla self driving video, or when Musk boasted in 2017 (!!!) that they can drive the Semi in convoys so that it beats rail ("This is something we can do RIGHT NOW!"). Robotaxis that make the car appreciate, and not depreciate... etc. These are lies, but perhaps more importantly, should be considered fraud. To this day I don't understand how Musk can get away with all this... but hey, it's not my money (I'm not a US taxpayer).
      - simondotau 2y ago
        The first self driving video wasn’t faked, it was “staged” which just means they planned the route ahead of time. When Musk said “we can do this right now” he meant it’s possible with today’s technology, and that Tesla had probably run experiments to that effect already. The hypothetical ability for a vehicle to act as a robotaxi would absolutely lift the value of the asset. That’s not even controversial. It’s a separate question whether the technology is ready to go in time for people to take advantage of it.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Hyperloop? The Boring Company? The founding myth of Tesla? Is it really controversial to observe the Elon has a very flexible relationship with facts? He made some good choices with Tesla. And some boneheaded ones. And SpaceX is a great example of success, because he made a really great decision there -- he hired Gwynne Shotwell. Then there's Twitter. Which is less about overt lies and more about gross incompetence. I think being a billionaire might have gone to his head and made him think he could only be successful.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    Gwynne Shotwell, Tom Mueller, Hans Koenigsmann… it was more than one stellar hire. Those are just the top three of an all-star cast.
- randerson 2y ago
  How about the recent lie about a Cybertruck being faster than a 911 while towing a 911? https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/tesla-cybertruck-beast-vs-porsche-911-carrera-t-drag-race-towing-rematch/ https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/tesla-cybertruck-beast-vs...
  - simondotau 2y ago
    It's far more likely that Musk was misled, not that he lied. My zero-evidence guess is that the Cybertruck team predicted the outcome in simulation, hyped everyone up about this as a visual demonstration, then spent tens of millions of dollars replicating the outcome in the real world, buying two Porsche 911s, renting a film crew etc. Except they couldn't replicate it in the real world. So instead of admitting the wasted money/time, they covered their asses and misled their boss.
    - randerson 2y ago
      If that is true it does not exonerate Musk at all, it means the lying is systemic. If the CEO creates a culture where people are too scared to tell him the truth, that falls squarely on the CEO. And it inspires no confidence if a $500B company can't predict the performance of their own product when the YouTuber above could predict it with nothing but a whiteboard.
      - simondotau 2y ago
        I think you're being a bit optimistic if you think that stretching the truth and/or concealing one's mistakes and/or covering one's own ass is not utterly unremarkable behaviour for any sufficiently large company. While it's fair to say that Musk sets the tone, it's a bit much to suggest that he should have the power to totally suppress all negative human tendencies. There are many possible explanations for the discrepancy. The failure might have been in predicting the performance of that base model 911. Maybe the data they used was someone who was very slightly less urgent on the manual transmission. The failure might have been a failure to predict the performance of their own product when it was still in the late stages of tuning. A last minute change to tyre compounds or stability control algorithms could have made enough of a difference in this very very close race. It could be argued that in a fair comparison between cars, the stopwatch should begin when the driver slams the pedal, not when the car itself starts moving. The latter is how races are timed, but I'd argue that the former is more honest. Including the split-second delay of the ICE engine might make enough of a difference.
- yazaddaruvala 2y ago
  “Funding secured” ? “___ is a pedo” ? Like, the guy has done good shit (better than most), but he has certainly set his reputation on fire with many of his (at best “inaccurate”) tweets. At that point you gotta caveat praise lol.
  - xNeil 2y ago
    funding secured wasn't a lie so much as a premature declaration, if walter isaacson is to be believed.
  - peterfirefly 2y ago
    Funding was indeed secured + he hired a private detective that proofed the guy was a pedo (with falsified evidence, as it turns out).
throwAGIway 2y ago
> keep Musk out of things Never heard that from people at Tesla or SpaceX.

by rtpg 2y ago

bboygravity 2y ago

[flagged]

cletus 2y ago
Elon literally cannot stop lying [1]. [1]: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk-twitter-zuckerberg-lies-1234808808/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/elon-musk...
- simondotau 2y ago
  That's a weird article, because most of them don't even fit a reasonable person's definition of a "lie". The majority of them are overconfident predictions of the future, or differences of opinion between Musk and the author of this listicle. For a person who does and says so much in public, the notion that a "top ten" list of "lies" needed so much filler is, IMHO, a compelling case for the inverse assertion.
  - haspok 2y ago
    Like when they faked the first Tesla self driving video, or when Musk boasted in 2017 (!!!) that they can drive the Semi in convoys so that it beats rail ("This is something we can do RIGHT NOW!"). Robotaxis that make the car appreciate, and not depreciate... etc. These are lies, but perhaps more importantly, should be considered fraud. To this day I don't understand how Musk can get away with all this... but hey, it's not my money (I'm not a US taxpayer).
    - simondotau 2y ago
      The first self driving video wasn’t faked, it was “staged” which just means they planned the route ahead of time. When Musk said “we can do this right now” he meant it’s possible with today’s technology, and that Tesla had probably run experiments to that effect already. The hypothetical ability for a vehicle to act as a robotaxi would absolutely lift the value of the asset. That’s not even controversial. It’s a separate question whether the technology is ready to go in time for people to take advantage of it.
rootusrootus 2y ago
Hyperloop? The Boring Company? The founding myth of Tesla? Is it really controversial to observe the Elon has a very flexible relationship with facts? He made some good choices with Tesla. And some boneheaded ones. And SpaceX is a great example of success, because he made a really great decision there -- he hired Gwynne Shotwell. Then there's Twitter. Which is less about overt lies and more about gross incompetence. I think being a billionaire might have gone to his head and made him think he could only be successful.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Gwynne Shotwell, Tom Mueller, Hans Koenigsmann… it was more than one stellar hire. Those are just the top three of an all-star cast.
randerson 2y ago
How about the recent lie about a Cybertruck being faster than a 911 while towing a 911? https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/tesla-cybertruck-beast-vs-porsche-911-carrera-t-drag-race-towing-rematch/ https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/tesla-cybertruck-beast-vs...
- simondotau 2y ago
  It's far more likely that Musk was misled, not that he lied. My zero-evidence guess is that the Cybertruck team predicted the outcome in simulation, hyped everyone up about this as a visual demonstration, then spent tens of millions of dollars replicating the outcome in the real world, buying two Porsche 911s, renting a film crew etc. Except they couldn't replicate it in the real world. So instead of admitting the wasted money/time, they covered their asses and misled their boss.
  - randerson 2y ago
    If that is true it does not exonerate Musk at all, it means the lying is systemic. If the CEO creates a culture where people are too scared to tell him the truth, that falls squarely on the CEO. And it inspires no confidence if a $500B company can't predict the performance of their own product when the YouTuber above could predict it with nothing but a whiteboard.
    - simondotau 2y ago
      I think you're being a bit optimistic if you think that stretching the truth and/or concealing one's mistakes and/or covering one's own ass is not utterly unremarkable behaviour for any sufficiently large company. While it's fair to say that Musk sets the tone, it's a bit much to suggest that he should have the power to totally suppress all negative human tendencies. There are many possible explanations for the discrepancy. The failure might have been in predicting the performance of that base model 911. Maybe the data they used was someone who was very slightly less urgent on the manual transmission. The failure might have been a failure to predict the performance of their own product when it was still in the late stages of tuning. A last minute change to tyre compounds or stability control algorithms could have made enough of a difference in this very very close race. It could be argued that in a fair comparison between cars, the stopwatch should begin when the driver slams the pedal, not when the car itself starts moving. The latter is how races are timed, but I'd argue that the former is more honest. Including the split-second delay of the ICE engine might make enough of a difference.
yazaddaruvala 2y ago
“Funding secured” ? “___ is a pedo” ? Like, the guy has done good shit (better than most), but he has certainly set his reputation on fire with many of his (at best “inaccurate”) tweets. At that point you gotta caveat praise lol.
- xNeil 2y ago
  funding secured wasn't a lie so much as a premature declaration, if walter isaacson is to be believed.
- peterfirefly 2y ago
  Funding was indeed secured + he hired a private detective that proofed the guy was a pedo (with falsified evidence, as it turns out).

throwAGIway 2y ago

> keep Musk out of things Never heard that from people at Tesla or SpaceX.