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> Obviously he’s utterly nuts He takes risks very few others are willing to do, but he is not nuts by any reasonable definition.

LightBug1 2y ago
You're right. Not nuts. Utterly nuts. By any reasonable definition.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Explain.
  - LightBug1 2y ago
    No. It's blindingly obvious. You can be utterly incredible at delegation. You can be incredibly productive. You can also be utterly nuts. The utterly nuts part is self-evident to people who aren't temporarily impoverished billionaires and don't want to kiss his ass and be him. In my experience, that tends to include people who need it "explained". No disrespect.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      Re-asserting that he's nuts is not an explanation. > No disrespect. But you disrespected me anyway :-)
      - LightBug1 2y ago
        You're welcome. Have a lovely Sunday.
brookst 2y ago
How many children with how many women? How many disowned? False accusations of pedophilia against people he doesn’t know? Free speech absolutist who gleefully bans speech? Corporate acquirer who accidentally fires key people, and then makes the exact same mistake as a coup leader? He is batshit. He is also smart and has accomplished some impressive things. The two are not incompatible.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  > How many children with how many women? How many disowned? That's common human behavior. > False accusations of pedophilia against people he doesn’t know? Against a single person who had just called him "insane" on TV. Not nuts at all. > Free speech absolutist who gleefully bans speech? Not all speech is free speech - you cannot advocate for hits on people, for example. Besides, it's perfectly legal to censor speech on his platform. Not nuts at all. Musk has made no attempt to suppress speech on Bluesky, Facebook, Reddit, Tiktok, etc. > Corporate acquirer who accidentally fires key people That's not how it worked. Twitter was losing money at an astonishing rate, and he had to cut expenses immediately. It is the fastest way to determine who was actually needed and who wasn't. Then hire back the ones who were actually needed. > makes the exact same mistake as a coup leader? It's the only way to do it when time is critical. It's also the only way when the agencies are doing everything possible to not cooperate with DOGE. There's been no coup. Trump was lawfully elected.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - loxodrome 2y ago
    Great answers! Couldn’t agree more.
  - brookst 2y ago
    Well, I hope the kool aid is tasty at least. Do you ever stop and think it’s an amazing coincidence that every criticism of Musk is totally unfair?
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      When a criticism sounds like a substitute for the real reason a person hates Musk, it is totally unfair. For example, where was the disgust at the person who publicly called Musk insane first? A fair criticism would have included that. A fair person would also be aware that there is not a single person on the planet who has not called someone else a nasty name.
bumby 2y ago
I’d argue he offsets his risks (but not profits) to the taxpayer. His high-risk bets have largely been buoyed by government contracts, subsidies, and borderline crony-capitalism. In many respects, that’s not always bad for the taxpayer when he delivers, but it’s not the same as being a free-market risk taker.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  I recommend reading a biography of him. He did not offset risks to the taxpayer. SpaceX, for example, got contracts from NASA. He delivered on those contracts. If he hadn't, he would have gone bust, not the taxpayer. At one point with Tesla he was within hours of business and personal bankruptcy, before making a deal with an investor. The investor wasn't the government. The taxpayer never assumed a risk there. > but not profits) to the taxpayer He pays taxes on profits like anyone else.
  - bumby 2y ago
    You may want to familiarize yourself with counter examples from Musk biographers, like Seth Abramson. Musk said himself SpaceX would’ve gone bankrupt without NASA contracts. He needed those contracts because Spacex was too high of a risk at the time for private business. NASA is self-insured. This is the the way the government supports high-risk nascent industries, because they are the only institution capable of shouldering that risk. It’s well-established that the solvency of his companies are tightly coupled, just like TFA. Further, Tesla is made competitive by subsidies for EVs and manufacturing. Not necessarily bad, but the success isn’t occurring in a free-market vacuum. When companies accepting subsidies go under, the govt doesn’t typically get that money back, at least not in full. (See the faux Solyndra “scandal”) I know that doesn’t fit the preferred narrative of the mythical free-market iconoclast succeeding in spite of the govt, but that’s reality. On the profit side, I should have said he gets a disproportionate amount of profit and the taxpayer gets a disproportionate amount of risk.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      > Musk said himself SpaceX would’ve gone bankrupt without NASA contracts. And he wasn't paid until he delivered, like any contract with a business. The taxpayers were never at risk. It was not a subsidy. Yes, Tesla benefited from EV subsidies, like all the electric car makers. He'd be stupid not to take the subsidy. > You may want to familiarize yourself with counter examples from Musk biographers, like Seth Abramson. I read "Elon Musk" by Ashlee Vance.
VectorLock 2y ago
You're good at this. Tell me how the Nazi salute, twice, on a national stage, wasn't nuts.
- WalterBright 2y ago
  Nobody hates Musk because he's a nazi. He is called a nazi because they hate him.
  - VectorLock 2y ago
    I hate him because he's a Nazi, because of the Nazi salute.
    - WalterBright 2y ago
      I'll let you defend that.
      - VectorLock 2y ago
        Which part? That I hate Nazis or that when he did a Nazi salute, twice, that categories him as a Nazi? Since you seem to champion him a lot, I'd really like to hear your take on his Nazi salute.
    - lenkite 2y ago
      If that is a Nazi salute, then a lot of democrat party politicans are also Nazis, lol.
  - nickpp 2y ago
    He is supporting and promoting extreme-right parties all over Europe though. Like AfD in Germany, widely considered a nazi party. He’s also never criticized (while busy criticizing European democracies) Russia or Putin, which are obviously nazi at this point.

LightBug1 2y ago

You're right. Not nuts. Utterly nuts. By any reasonable definition.

WalterBright 2y ago
Explain.
- LightBug1 2y ago
  No. It's blindingly obvious. You can be utterly incredible at delegation. You can be incredibly productive. You can also be utterly nuts. The utterly nuts part is self-evident to people who aren't temporarily impoverished billionaires and don't want to kiss his ass and be him. In my experience, that tends to include people who need it "explained". No disrespect.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    Re-asserting that he's nuts is not an explanation. > No disrespect. But you disrespected me anyway :-)
    - LightBug1 2y ago
      You're welcome. Have a lovely Sunday.

brookst 2y ago

How many children with how many women? How many disowned? False accusations of pedophilia against people he doesn’t know? Free speech absolutist who gleefully bans speech? Corporate acquirer who accidentally fires key people, and then makes the exact same mistake as a coup leader? He is batshit. He is also smart and has accomplished some impressive things. The two are not incompatible.

WalterBright 2y ago
> How many children with how many women? How many disowned? That's common human behavior. > False accusations of pedophilia against people he doesn’t know? Against a single person who had just called him "insane" on TV. Not nuts at all. > Free speech absolutist who gleefully bans speech? Not all speech is free speech - you cannot advocate for hits on people, for example. Besides, it's perfectly legal to censor speech on his platform. Not nuts at all. Musk has made no attempt to suppress speech on Bluesky, Facebook, Reddit, Tiktok, etc. > Corporate acquirer who accidentally fires key people That's not how it worked. Twitter was losing money at an astonishing rate, and he had to cut expenses immediately. It is the fastest way to determine who was actually needed and who wasn't. Then hire back the ones who were actually needed. > makes the exact same mistake as a coup leader? It's the only way to do it when time is critical. It's also the only way when the agencies are doing everything possible to not cooperate with DOGE. There's been no coup. Trump was lawfully elected.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- loxodrome 2y ago
  Great answers! Couldn’t agree more.
- brookst 2y ago
  Well, I hope the kool aid is tasty at least. Do you ever stop and think it’s an amazing coincidence that every criticism of Musk is totally unfair?
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    When a criticism sounds like a substitute for the real reason a person hates Musk, it is totally unfair. For example, where was the disgust at the person who publicly called Musk insane first? A fair criticism would have included that. A fair person would also be aware that there is not a single person on the planet who has not called someone else a nasty name.

bumby 2y ago

I’d argue he offsets his risks (but not profits) to the taxpayer. His high-risk bets have largely been buoyed by government contracts, subsidies, and borderline crony-capitalism. In many respects, that’s not always bad for the taxpayer when he delivers, but it’s not the same as being a free-market risk taker.

WalterBright 2y ago
I recommend reading a biography of him. He did not offset risks to the taxpayer. SpaceX, for example, got contracts from NASA. He delivered on those contracts. If he hadn't, he would have gone bust, not the taxpayer. At one point with Tesla he was within hours of business and personal bankruptcy, before making a deal with an investor. The investor wasn't the government. The taxpayer never assumed a risk there. > but not profits) to the taxpayer He pays taxes on profits like anyone else.
- bumby 2y ago
  You may want to familiarize yourself with counter examples from Musk biographers, like Seth Abramson. Musk said himself SpaceX would’ve gone bankrupt without NASA contracts. He needed those contracts because Spacex was too high of a risk at the time for private business. NASA is self-insured. This is the the way the government supports high-risk nascent industries, because they are the only institution capable of shouldering that risk. It’s well-established that the solvency of his companies are tightly coupled, just like TFA. Further, Tesla is made competitive by subsidies for EVs and manufacturing. Not necessarily bad, but the success isn’t occurring in a free-market vacuum. When companies accepting subsidies go under, the govt doesn’t typically get that money back, at least not in full. (See the faux Solyndra “scandal”) I know that doesn’t fit the preferred narrative of the mythical free-market iconoclast succeeding in spite of the govt, but that’s reality. On the profit side, I should have said he gets a disproportionate amount of profit and the taxpayer gets a disproportionate amount of risk.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    > Musk said himself SpaceX would’ve gone bankrupt without NASA contracts. And he wasn't paid until he delivered, like any contract with a business. The taxpayers were never at risk. It was not a subsidy. Yes, Tesla benefited from EV subsidies, like all the electric car makers. He'd be stupid not to take the subsidy. > You may want to familiarize yourself with counter examples from Musk biographers, like Seth Abramson. I read "Elon Musk" by Ashlee Vance.

VectorLock 2y ago

You're good at this. Tell me how the Nazi salute, twice, on a national stage, wasn't nuts.

WalterBright 2y ago
Nobody hates Musk because he's a nazi. He is called a nazi because they hate him.
- VectorLock 2y ago
  I hate him because he's a Nazi, because of the Nazi salute.
  - WalterBright 2y ago
    I'll let you defend that.
    - VectorLock 2y ago
      Which part? That I hate Nazis or that when he did a Nazi salute, twice, that categories him as a Nazi? Since you seem to champion him a lot, I'd really like to hear your take on his Nazi salute.
  - lenkite 2y ago
    If that is a Nazi salute, then a lot of democrat party politicans are also Nazis, lol.
- nickpp 2y ago
  He is supporting and promoting extreme-right parties all over Europe though. Like AfD in Germany, widely considered a nazi party. He’s also never criticized (while busy criticizing European democracies) Russia or Putin, which are obviously nazi at this point.