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Before he took his recent (regrettable) turn he did pour his heart and soul (and personal fortune) into SpaceX for over a decade. If it weren't for SpaceX we'd

Before he took his recent (regrettable) turn he did pour his heart and soul (and personal fortune) into SpaceX for over a decade. If it weren't for SpaceX we'd be relying on the incompetent monstrosities of Boeing or ULA.

ta1243 2y ago
It seemed to all start going wrong with "pedo guy". Before then Musk was doing great things at Tesla and SpaceX. After that he started getting more and more unhinged, leading through to buying twitter, then trying to get out of it, then doubling down.
- dyauspitr 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - scblock 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - nervmodem 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - ta1243 2y ago
        > I think the republican position is more nuanced than that. To summarize: 'all children are special and important but any life changing decisions like joining the army or getting a tattoo are best left for later in life. I didn't realise republicans were against genital mutilation.
      - zuminator 2y ago
        > It's quiet amusingy that up ubtill recently in the usa it was easier to get surgery to turn you to your 'real' gender compared to buying yourself some alcohol. That's not true at all. Kids can't just get surgery on their own. They need parental consent at the very least. Interestingly, one survey indicated that 97% of minors receiving breast reduction surgery were not transgender kids, but cis male kids with gynecomastia. In your hand-wringing about life-changing decisions, would you deny these boys the treatment they need and instead force them to keep their breast growth all throughout adolescence? And it's certainly easier to get parental consent to consume alcohol than it is to get elective gender-affirming surgery. The total number of people getting GAS in the USA in one year has never exceeded ~13,000. That's for all ages. Meanwhile about 10 million young people under 21 per year drink alcohol, of whom about 10% were able to obtain it from their own home, which in some states is perfectly legal.
      - seethedeaduu 2y ago
        Not starting transition is also a life changing decision. Testosterone never stops permanently mutilating the bodies that it poisons until it's removed from the body.
    - throwaway898988 2y ago
      [dead]
  - reverendsteveii 2y ago
    *daughter
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  Don't abuse ketamine, kids.
  - MrMcCall 2y ago
    And love your kids, folks.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Or at least don't hate them and then become convinced there are global conspiracies...
    - TomK32 2y ago
      Watch out and make sure your rocket doesn't explode to early.
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  If Elon recognized that he had the social skills of an NPC and had hired a PR team, we would probably all still adore him and likely he would still just be doing engineering company stuff. Take heed, if you have money, power, and poor social skills, hire people to manage it for you.
  - grandiego 2y ago
    Sad world where people expects successful people to hire a PR team just to be liked.
    - OKRainbowKid 2y ago
      Not as sad as a world in which Billionaires actively and shamelessly use their power to rebuild the government on their favor and spread misinformation, populism and hate globally their own media platforms.
    - amluto 2y ago
      Only if one insists on talking/tweeting all the time. Plenty of business leaders do just fine by mostly keeping their mouths shut.
      - timschmidt 2y ago
        Ah, so, just like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Quiet_Place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Quiet_Place What was the genre of that film again?
    - andrepd 2y ago
      He could, however, not give a fuck about whether he is liked or not, which is certainly what I would do if I had 400,000,000,000$ of fuck you money. But being what would in rude terms would be described as an "attention whore", he instead spends his time making insane tweets and pretending to be good at videogames in order to impress a bunch of adolescent boys. It's almost sad.
    - zzzeek 2y ago
- indoordin0saur 2y ago
  > It seemed to all start going wrong with "pedo guy". Before then Musk was doing great things at Tesla and SpaceX. If you read the Isaacson biography of him, it seems like he's always been like this.
exodust 2y ago
> recent (regrettable) turn It's only regrettable through the lens of partisan politics. DOGE is undeniably a good concept. You will notice governments around the world copying the method. That is, launching initiatives to audit everything, cut wasteful spending, expose corrupt spending, and trim bureaucratic inefficiency via external oversight. It would be regrettable not to undertake the task.
- yibg 2y ago
  Audit -> glance at program names to decide if they are worthy or not? Cut wasteful spending -> things Musk doesn’t like? Or people responsible for safely handling nuclear waste? Expose corrupt spending -> would be nice to get a report of this Trim bureaucratic inefficiency -> like firing people and then having to hire them back? I can get behind the concept of DOGE. But that’s not what DOGE is actually doing.
- chris_va 2y ago
  Maybe Audit committees have been around forever, because people think they are a good concept. A large fraction of the (time) cost in government (or dealing with the government) is dealing with initiatives to audit everything, and cut wasteful spending. Not to say that eliminating waste isn't a good concept, but do not conflate the _idea_ of eliminating waste with any one particular implementation.
- gwill 2y ago
  There are no audits, there are no reports, there is little to no transparency with DOGE. They're gutting first, thinking later and it's costing us a ton. How can you trust an administration to expose corrupt spending when they freeze the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?
- tverbeure 2y ago
  Adding “undeniably” to a sentence doesn’t magically make it so.
- imglorp 2y ago
  DOGE saving effectiveness has been questioned. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates-savings-federal-contracts https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates... Of the $6.8T budget, $55B (or whatever is the truth) would amount to less than 0.9% of spending. https://usafacts.org/articles/this-chart-tells-you-everything-you-want-to-know-about-government-spending https://usafacts.org/articles/this-chart-tells-you-everythin... Anyway, we have a Government Accounting Office already which is highly critical of waste. If anyone was earnest, they'd send them more resources. On the other hand, if someone wanted to cripple every infrastructure, institution, and agency across the board in order to cause chaos, without transparency, accountability, and compliance, then DOGE is super effective!
timewizard 2y ago
> he did pour his heart and soul And you have this knowledge, how? > (and personal fortune) into SpaceX for over a decade. Using paypal money to chase government contract money. > If it weren't for SpaceX we'd be relying on the incompetent monstrosities of Boeing or ULA. That does not automatically follow. It's entirely possible that a company better than all of them might now exist if SpaceX didn't.
- avhon1 2y ago
  Eric Berger, senior space editor for Ars Technica [0], has written two books about Elon Musk and his role at SpaceX: Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX [1] Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age [2] [0] https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/ https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/ [1] https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-berger?variant=40332919308322 https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-berger?v... [2] https://benbellabooks.com/shop/reentry/ https://benbellabooks.com/shop/reentry/
culi 2y ago
SpaceX is and always has been funded by NASA. Congress simply doesn't allow NASA to do its own missions any more so it's been forced to add a middle man where it pays private companies to use its technology, infrastructure, and money to do the work it wishes it could do itself
trompetenaccoun 2y ago
As you said they're incompetent so it would be Russia more like. Imagine the bizarre situation that the US would be in while fighting a proxy war against them at the same time. Also in that alternative timeline, I wonder what that would do to Americans psychologically. If China and Russia had already beat the US in space, the decline would be extremely obvious. To the rest of the world as well.
class3shock 2y ago
ULA is not a "incompetent monstrosity" (Boeing yes sadly). The company is making good progress with Vulcan and if they were given the funds/time to design a reusable rocket they're probably one of the few companies that has the talent/experience to pull it off. Tony Bruno is maybe the only CEO of a large space company that is a hardcore engineer and has a passion for space. Would have been cool to see BO/ULA get combined under Tony's leadership but wasn't meant to be.

ta1243 2y ago

It seemed to all start going wrong with "pedo guy". Before then Musk was doing great things at Tesla and SpaceX. After that he started getting more and more unhinged, leading through to buying twitter, then trying to get out of it, then doubling down.

dyauspitr 2y ago
[flagged]
- scblock 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - nervmodem 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - ta1243 2y ago
      > I think the republican position is more nuanced than that. To summarize: 'all children are special and important but any life changing decisions like joining the army or getting a tattoo are best left for later in life. I didn't realise republicans were against genital mutilation.
    - zuminator 2y ago
      > It's quiet amusingy that up ubtill recently in the usa it was easier to get surgery to turn you to your 'real' gender compared to buying yourself some alcohol. That's not true at all. Kids can't just get surgery on their own. They need parental consent at the very least. Interestingly, one survey indicated that 97% of minors receiving breast reduction surgery were not transgender kids, but cis male kids with gynecomastia. In your hand-wringing about life-changing decisions, would you deny these boys the treatment they need and instead force them to keep their breast growth all throughout adolescence? And it's certainly easier to get parental consent to consume alcohol than it is to get elective gender-affirming surgery. The total number of people getting GAS in the USA in one year has never exceeded ~13,000. That's for all ages. Meanwhile about 10 million young people under 21 per year drink alcohol, of whom about 10% were able to obtain it from their own home, which in some states is perfectly legal.
    - seethedeaduu 2y ago
      Not starting transition is also a life changing decision. Testosterone never stops permanently mutilating the bodies that it poisons until it's removed from the body.
  - throwaway898988 2y ago
    [dead]
- reverendsteveii 2y ago
  *daughter
ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
Don't abuse ketamine, kids.
- MrMcCall 2y ago
  And love your kids, folks.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Or at least don't hate them and then become convinced there are global conspiracies...
  - TomK32 2y ago
    Watch out and make sure your rocket doesn't explode to early.
Workaccount2 2y ago
If Elon recognized that he had the social skills of an NPC and had hired a PR team, we would probably all still adore him and likely he would still just be doing engineering company stuff. Take heed, if you have money, power, and poor social skills, hire people to manage it for you.
- grandiego 2y ago
  Sad world where people expects successful people to hire a PR team just to be liked.
  - OKRainbowKid 2y ago
    Not as sad as a world in which Billionaires actively and shamelessly use their power to rebuild the government on their favor and spread misinformation, populism and hate globally their own media platforms.
  - amluto 2y ago
    Only if one insists on talking/tweeting all the time. Plenty of business leaders do just fine by mostly keeping their mouths shut.
    - timschmidt 2y ago
      Ah, so, just like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Quiet_Place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Quiet_Place What was the genre of that film again?
  - andrepd 2y ago
    He could, however, not give a fuck about whether he is liked or not, which is certainly what I would do if I had 400,000,000,000$ of fuck you money. But being what would in rude terms would be described as an "attention whore", he instead spends his time making insane tweets and pretending to be good at videogames in order to impress a bunch of adolescent boys. It's almost sad.
  - zzzeek 2y ago
indoordin0saur 2y ago
> It seemed to all start going wrong with "pedo guy". Before then Musk was doing great things at Tesla and SpaceX. If you read the Isaacson biography of him, it seems like he's always been like this.

exodust 2y ago

> recent (regrettable) turn It's only regrettable through the lens of partisan politics. DOGE is undeniably a good concept. You will notice governments around the world copying the method. That is, launching initiatives to audit everything, cut wasteful spending, expose corrupt spending, and trim bureaucratic inefficiency via external oversight. It would be regrettable not to undertake the task.

yibg 2y ago
Audit -> glance at program names to decide if they are worthy or not? Cut wasteful spending -> things Musk doesn’t like? Or people responsible for safely handling nuclear waste? Expose corrupt spending -> would be nice to get a report of this Trim bureaucratic inefficiency -> like firing people and then having to hire them back? I can get behind the concept of DOGE. But that’s not what DOGE is actually doing.
chris_va 2y ago
Maybe Audit committees have been around forever, because people think they are a good concept. A large fraction of the (time) cost in government (or dealing with the government) is dealing with initiatives to audit everything, and cut wasteful spending. Not to say that eliminating waste isn't a good concept, but do not conflate the _idea_ of eliminating waste with any one particular implementation.
gwill 2y ago
There are no audits, there are no reports, there is little to no transparency with DOGE. They're gutting first, thinking later and it's costing us a ton. How can you trust an administration to expose corrupt spending when they freeze the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?
tverbeure 2y ago
Adding “undeniably” to a sentence doesn’t magically make it so.
imglorp 2y ago
DOGE saving effectiveness has been questioned. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates-savings-federal-contracts https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302705/doge-overstates... Of the $6.8T budget, $55B (or whatever is the truth) would amount to less than 0.9% of spending. https://usafacts.org/articles/this-chart-tells-you-everything-you-want-to-know-about-government-spending https://usafacts.org/articles/this-chart-tells-you-everythin... Anyway, we have a Government Accounting Office already which is highly critical of waste. If anyone was earnest, they'd send them more resources. On the other hand, if someone wanted to cripple every infrastructure, institution, and agency across the board in order to cause chaos, without transparency, accountability, and compliance, then DOGE is super effective!

timewizard 2y ago

> he did pour his heart and soul And you have this knowledge, how? > (and personal fortune) into SpaceX for over a decade. Using paypal money to chase government contract money. > If it weren't for SpaceX we'd be relying on the incompetent monstrosities of Boeing or ULA. That does not automatically follow. It's entirely possible that a company better than all of them might now exist if SpaceX didn't.

avhon1 2y ago
Eric Berger, senior space editor for Ars Technica [0], has written two books about Elon Musk and his role at SpaceX: Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX [1] Reentry: SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets that Launched a Second Space Age [2] [0] https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/ https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/ [1] https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-berger?variant=40332919308322 https://www.harpercollins.com/products/liftoff-eric-berger?v... [2] https://benbellabooks.com/shop/reentry/ https://benbellabooks.com/shop/reentry/

culi 2y ago

SpaceX is and always has been funded by NASA. Congress simply doesn't allow NASA to do its own missions any more so it's been forced to add a middle man where it pays private companies to use its technology, infrastructure, and money to do the work it wishes it could do itself

trompetenaccoun 2y ago

As you said they're incompetent so it would be Russia more like. Imagine the bizarre situation that the US would be in while fighting a proxy war against them at the same time. Also in that alternative timeline, I wonder what that would do to Americans psychologically. If China and Russia had already beat the US in space, the decline would be extremely obvious. To the rest of the world as well.

class3shock 2y ago

ULA is not a "incompetent monstrosity" (Boeing yes sadly). The company is making good progress with Vulcan and if they were given the funds/time to design a reusable rocket they're probably one of the few companies that has the talent/experience to pull it off. Tony Bruno is maybe the only CEO of a large space company that is a hardcore engineer and has a passion for space. Would have been cool to see BO/ULA get combined under Tony's leadership but wasn't meant to be.