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I know there's a risk when Musk's name comes up that everyone takes "all against" or "all for" approach - very polarising figure. But I see a lot of that annou

I know there's a risk when Musk's name comes up that everyone takes "all against" or "all for" approach - very polarising figure. But I see a lot of that announcement, and the others someone else pointed to as his "aspirational, but ultimately never going to happen" goals - whether he believes the claims are achievable, or not, he says these things to energise people to working/paying for him to try It costs him little to nothing to say, and other people's time, effort, and capital to try (and succeed/fail) Tesla is falling to pieces now, and SpaceX is getting loaded up with completely unrelated projects (xAI) in order to try and make it look saleable (I guess) - it's very difficult to see the Mars announcement as anything but hype.

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
> difficult to see the Mars announcement as anything but hype Oh yeah, the announcement is hype. But there is actual work underneath it making real progress in science and engineering that moves us closer to Mars. Some of that, moreover, is work that has limited appeal outside a Martian context.
- fragmede 5mo ago
  The real thing is that the moon is a better stepping stone, but Bezos already claimed it so Musk had to out do him, which is why he's shooting for Mars.
  - JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
    > the moon is a better stepping stone, but Bezos already claimed it so Musk had to out do him, which is why he's shooting for Mars They were contemporaenous. Musk was trying to send stuff to Mars in 2001 [1]. Bezos started Blue Origin in 2000 before any Moon goals had been made concrete or public. I wouldn't say either of their goals really referenced each other until after the financial crisis (that is, after they were both comfortably billionaires with launch-vehicle programs). [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-elon-musk-spacex/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-elon-musk-spacex/
vardump 5mo ago
> Tesla is falling to pieces now Did I miss something?
- stickfigure 5mo ago
  Year over year sales are declining. Stratospheric stock price is propped up by promise of selling humanoid robots, a technology (and market) which are unproven. I would not invest.
  - scottyah 5mo ago
    That's a no, it's business as usual except they have massive cash reserves.
    - rubyn00bie 5mo ago
      Having approximately $44 billion in cash on hand is not a massive cash reserve for any company with the market cap of Tesla ($1.3 trillion). Even less so when you realize how capital intensive its current car and non-existent robot business is… The entire EV market is risky right now for margin compression as Chinese EV manufacturers are really pulling ahead. It’s pretty wild to see just how far they’ve progressed while the west mostly does nothing. Even Tesla hasn’t provided any real innovation in years in regards to their core business. And from what I can tell, they’re pretty much outright ignoring their auxiliary businesses. If Optimus fails to impress, and gain traction, I’d seriously expect Tesla to end up a subsidiary of SpaceX within the next ten years as Elon tries to protect up his net worth.
      - lotsofpulp 5mo ago
        > It’s pretty wild to see just how far they’ve progressed while the west mostly does nothing. The “west” came up with Tesla and Rivian, and their cars are on the road. And the US tariffed chinese EVs. What else can be done to combat China’s lower priced labor and possibly more lax environmental regulations?
usefulcat 5mo ago
> It costs him little to nothing to say, That all depends on how much he values his credibility, I think.. But to be fair, for someone as good at self promotion as he is, I can believe that the value of the hype could be greater than the cost in credibility.
hcurtiss 5mo ago
Tesla is falling to pieces? https://stocks.apple.com/symbol/TSLA https://stocks.apple.com/symbol/TSLA

JumpCrisscross 5mo ago

> difficult to see the Mars announcement as anything but hype Oh yeah, the announcement is hype. But there is actual work underneath it making real progress in science and engineering that moves us closer to Mars. Some of that, moreover, is work that has limited appeal outside a Martian context.

fragmede 5mo ago
The real thing is that the moon is a better stepping stone, but Bezos already claimed it so Musk had to out do him, which is why he's shooting for Mars.
- JumpCrisscross 5mo ago
  > the moon is a better stepping stone, but Bezos already claimed it so Musk had to out do him, which is why he's shooting for Mars They were contemporaenous. Musk was trying to send stuff to Mars in 2001 [1]. Bezos started Blue Origin in 2000 before any Moon goals had been made concrete or public. I wouldn't say either of their goals really referenced each other until after the financial crisis (that is, after they were both comfortably billionaires with launch-vehicle programs). [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-elon-musk-spacex/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2015-elon-musk-spacex/

vardump 5mo ago

> Tesla is falling to pieces now Did I miss something?

stickfigure 5mo ago
Year over year sales are declining. Stratospheric stock price is propped up by promise of selling humanoid robots, a technology (and market) which are unproven. I would not invest.
- scottyah 5mo ago
  That's a no, it's business as usual except they have massive cash reserves.
  - rubyn00bie 5mo ago
    Having approximately $44 billion in cash on hand is not a massive cash reserve for any company with the market cap of Tesla ($1.3 trillion). Even less so when you realize how capital intensive its current car and non-existent robot business is… The entire EV market is risky right now for margin compression as Chinese EV manufacturers are really pulling ahead. It’s pretty wild to see just how far they’ve progressed while the west mostly does nothing. Even Tesla hasn’t provided any real innovation in years in regards to their core business. And from what I can tell, they’re pretty much outright ignoring their auxiliary businesses. If Optimus fails to impress, and gain traction, I’d seriously expect Tesla to end up a subsidiary of SpaceX within the next ten years as Elon tries to protect up his net worth.
    - lotsofpulp 5mo ago
      > It’s pretty wild to see just how far they’ve progressed while the west mostly does nothing. The “west” came up with Tesla and Rivian, and their cars are on the road. And the US tariffed chinese EVs. What else can be done to combat China’s lower priced labor and possibly more lax environmental regulations?

usefulcat 5mo ago

> It costs him little to nothing to say, That all depends on how much he values his credibility, I think.. But to be fair, for someone as good at self promotion as he is, I can believe that the value of the hype could be greater than the cost in credibility.

hcurtiss 5mo ago

Tesla is falling to pieces? https://stocks.apple.com/symbol/TSLA https://stocks.apple.com/symbol/TSLA