Elon Musk: Officially a fraud and piece of shit. Official or unofficial war criminal?

[52-80 19221]

1 minute ago, Celery Man said:

I’ll get in trouble trying to make football analogies but i think it’s more like understanding Jon Gruden as a Super Bowl champion head coach.

Framing this 446 page conversation as hurr durr billionaire bad is reductive on your part but do you.

Page 445 has a glib response of 'billionaire defended' following a back and forth on the history of a company, arguing merits of contribution in business building, but nothing about ethical merit of being a billionaire itself.  Do your reading.

 

18 minutes ago, Captainant said:

So is it your position that elmos management of Twitter has caused it to grow large and generate wealth? Or are you arguing that since elmo has successfully manipulated the value TSLA, everything else he does is defacto correct?

My position is when I disagree with nivek, celery man, and other people, i believe some/most of the time they are arguing in earnest.  Whereas you exist merely as a dingleberry on the very anus of this website, never to be taken seriously, but only to be mocked.

[TwiceHorn 31519]

18 hours ago, Nivek said:

So do you know the real story of Tesla and the 2 founders? One was an electrical engineer who raced electric cars. He asked a custom electric race car company to make production vehicles and they declined. He did some work for them and then figured he could make a go of it and brought in another guy. Elon sued to have himself listed as a founder of the firm when he was just an investor. Once it got rolling he started branding it as his idea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Eberhard

[Celery Man 20987]

I guess - this particular thread in this conversation didn’t fall out of a coconut tree. I’m not deeply familiar with the history of either Tesla or SpaceX but I’m not sure you’re making much more of a substantive argument that Elon being around and nominally in charge through the growth = Elon is responsible for the success than the folks who are arguing some version of the opposite. I would guess one might argue that he never cared about the business success of Twitter, but he’s tanked that by 75% and I don’t think I’m looking through shit colored glasses when I see his meddling as being very harmful to Tesla. I could be wrong. To whatever degree he was a genius and business visionary 10 years ago his story now is proof that people can change.

Edited October 16 by Celery Man

[Captainant 27722]

6 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

I guess - this particular thread in this conversation didn’t fall out of a coconut tree. I’m not deeply familiar with the history of either Tesla or SpaceX but I’m not sure you’re making much more of a substantive argument that Elon being around and nominally in charge through the growth = Elon is responsible for the success than the folks who are arguing some version of the opposite. I would guess one might argue that he never cared about the business success of Twitter, but he’s tanked that by 75% and I don’t think I’m looking through shit colored glasses when I see his meddling as being very harmful to Tesla. I could be wrong. To whatever degree he was a genius and business visionary 10 years ago his story now is proof that people can change.

One step further - I would not argue that Tesla is a successful company. Sure it's grown a whole shitton and it has a big market cap, but the company is a paper tiger. They make dogshit quality vehicles that automatically kill first responders, and run beta autopilot software on public roads without any sort of oversight. 

But elmo has been able to pump its value using the same strategies as crypto scams - namely FOMO and straight up lying about what it can do - and has been able to convert that high paper worth into real money with tax-free loans. So apparently that makes him a good businessman or something?

[royiv 9334]

23 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Whereas you exist merely as a dingleberry on the very anus of this website, never to be taken seriously, but only to be mocked.

The irony.

[TwiceHorn 31519]

13 hours ago, 52-80 said:

What part is cherry picked?

The fact that Musk was the 4th person in Tesla, joining the now-250 months old company 6 months after it was founded, and as the majority owner and actual chair, had authority over the company?

When you say the company was “established” -- when Eberhard was kicked out -- it had produced 0 cars, the Model S hadnt been designed, 3 years before IPO, and would go on to accumulate $6 billion dollars of net losses over the next 13 years….

…and you want crown the first 2 guys for “having the plan” 13 years and 1,000,000 vehicles sold later?

That is an amazingly bad understanding of business and history. 

 

 

It’s just that easy? You just build a cheaper one after the other - and it will be no surprise to have a profitable business? When the entire public market signaled (through its equity) for 9 straights years that it didnt believe the company would get anywhere, and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, you just knew success was no surprise?

The revisionism is amazing.

I'm going to guess that because Elmo is not a real engineer, he gins up wild-ass ideas while in a K-hole or something, some of which are feasible and many of which are not.

Guessed example:  wouldn't it be cool if we could retrieve rockets/stages without destroying them or splashing them down in water?  Yeah, Elmo cool idea, not particularly original, I'm guessing.  Probably not a priority idea at NASA for various reasons, nor at other private aerospace because they can sell more rockets if they're single-use.

The real brain geniuses at SpaceX were able to so far at least somewhat implement it with what seems to be reasonable success.

Another example:  FSD and robotaxis.  Well, the real brain geniuses at Tesla are not able to implement that with reasonable success, likely in no small part to Elmo's capricious management and employment practices.

[royiv 9334]

Just now, Captainant said:

One step further - I would not argue that Tesla is a successful company. Sure it's grown a whole shitton and it has a big market cap, but the company is a paper tiger. They make dogshit quality vehicles that automatically kill first responders, and run beta autopilot software on public roads without any sort of oversight. 

But elmo has been able to pump its value using the same strategies as crypto scams - namely FOMO and straight up lying about what it can do - and has been able to convert that high paper worth into real money with tax-free loans. So apparently that makes him a good businessman or something?

Let’s not forget that the success of Tesla and SpaceX, not to mention his obscene wealth, has been built on the backs of American taxpayers.

[Captainant 27722]

11 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm going to guess that because Elmo is not a real engineer, he gins up wild-ass ideas while in a K-hole or something, some of which are feasible and many of which are not.

Guessed example:  wouldn't it be cool if we could retrieve rockets/stages without destroying them or splashing them down in water?  Yeah, Elmo cool idea, not particularly original, I'm guessing.  Probably not a priority idea at NASA for various reasons, nor at other private aerospace because they can sell more rockets if they're single-use.

The real brain geniuses at SpaceX were able to so far at least somewhat implement it with what seems to be reasonable success.

Another example:  FSD and robotaxis.  Well, the real brain geniuses at Tesla are not able to implement that with reasonable success, likely in no small part to Elmo's capricious management and employment practices.

Elmo is just Miles Bron from Glass Onion. He didn't build or make any of the things he's best known for. He just paid for them. He's an idiot posing as a genius. For all of his wildly successful and groundbreaking ideas, there's a mountain of broken promises and bullshit that's been swept under the rug. Nevermind that he's just straight up dumping wastewater into our fucking waterways.

[wildcat09 29364]

If you want to credit Elon for Tesla's growth you kind of have to acknowledge that much of that growth was only possible because of pretty rampant fraud by Elon.  

[royiv 9334]

5 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

If you want to credit Elon for Tesla's growth you kind of have to acknowledge that much of that growth was only possible because of pretty rampant fraud by Elon.  

And gigantic subsidies.

[Captain Ron 12890]

59 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Many people now dislike him/them and are disinclined to buy his/their products. Many people also now like him and more inclined to buy his/their products. Net-net, it's much better for business to have him stayed silent and let products compete on their merits.

That's not controversial, and also not been the argument.

The argument was a very reductive marginalization of his impact to a company he stewarded through 99.5% of its life as person #4, in favor of guys #1-2.  It's like giving Dana Bible credit for Sark's team. And then the very juvenile and populist rhetoric of why 'billionaire bad', when we've merely been discussing the prior topic. 

People should admit when they cant argue the facts in the conversation, that their issue is with the conversation about facts itself.  (Which is kinda weird because why would you click into this topic...) 

 

I don't think anyone is discounting his impact on Tesla through force of money, will and manipulation. You saying things like:

The fact that Musk was the 4th person in Tesla, joining the now-250 months old company 6 months after it was founded, and as the majority owner and actual chair, had authority over the company?

It really feels like you don't really know/understand the history of the company so it makes this statement seem disingenuous. Yeah, he did a lot after this, because he was able to use his money and loading up the board with his people to wrest the company away from the real founders and then sue them into oblivion to make them go away.

This is a great crash course in the history of Elon Musk and Tesla, I recommend it:

But even with all his resources, you can see that Tesla needed a lot of help. If not a for subsidies, they go under.

[atomheartbevo 89774]

20 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Elmo is just Miles Bron from Glass Onion. He didn't build or make any of the things he's best known for. He just paid for them. He's an idiot posing as a genius. For all of his wildly successful and groundbreaking ideas, there's a mountain of broken promises and bullshit that's been swept under the rug. Nevermind that he's just straight up dumping wastewater into our fucking waterways.

Yep:

Quote

The relatively miniscule $11,876 figure due for environmental violations—based mainly around the company's construction operations—includes failing to control erosion and sediment to minimize the discharge of pollutants; failing to secure areas after "earth-disturbing" activities; discharging concrete truck wash-out water without authorization; and discharging industrial stormwater without a permit. 

It's estimated that Musk makes about $656 per second, so the fine should be paid off well before you finish reading the next paragraph. 

 

[ChickenSandwich 9848]

42 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm going to guess that because Elmo is not a real engineer, he gins up wild-ass ideas while in a K-hole or something, some of which are feasible and many of which are not.

Guessed example:  wouldn't it be cool if we could retrieve rockets/stages without destroying them or splashing them down in water?  Yeah, Elmo cool idea, not particularly original, I'm guessing.  Probably not a priority idea at NASA for various reasons, nor at other private aerospace because they can sell more rockets if they're single-use.

The real brain geniuses at SpaceX were able to so far at least somewhat implement it with what seems to be reasonable success.

Another example:  FSD and robotaxis.  Well, the real brain geniuses at Tesla are not able to implement that with reasonable success, likely in no small part to Elmo's capricious management and employment practices.

 

[C-Man 27247]

54 minutes ago, Captainant said:

One step further - I would not argue that Tesla is a successful company. Sure it's grown a whole shitton and it has a big market cap, but the company is a paper tiger. They make dogshit quality vehicles that automatically kill first responders, and run beta autopilot software on public roads without any sort of oversight. 

But elmo has been able to pump its value using the same strategies as crypto scams - namely FOMO and straight up lying about what it can do - and has been able to convert that high paper worth into real money with tax-free loans. So apparently that makes him a good businessman or something?

Elmo is such a sharp businessman that he's completely tanked Tesla by alienating the very group of Americans were are/were most likely to purchase the cars that he makes.

Then again, buying Twitter and driving it into the side of a cliff from an economic standpoint will be pretty genius if Trump wins next month and Elmo starts getting involved in American politics in an official capacity. Oh, the things they'll do ...

Edited October 16 by C-Man

[atomheartbevo 89774]

Leon donates to his own PAC, calls it "centrist"

 

Also, if we are going to "secure our borders" how about we go after people who screwed around with their student visas...

 

[Captain Ron 12890]

Posting that podcast reminded me I meant to post this from a few days back. Long story short, Elon has been giving money to political causes (you'll never guess for what side) for a while now through big time dark money.

 

 

[aggie08 21513]

19 hours ago, partytimesausage said:

Space x is wild.  Tesla is an amazing company.  Neuralink is pretty fucking cool.  And Elon is a douche.  All these things are allowed to be true at the same time.  I can filter through the elon douchiness and still see the generational possibilities of these companies.  I wish the man would divest out of them so other people could embrace the spectacle of snatching a skyscaper sized booster out of the air. 

I have no issue separating the accomplishments from the man and still giving Elon his credit. Could another primary investor/CEO have achieved what his companies have with the same subsidies, founders, and engineering personnel? Maybe. Who knows. But he did and, as CEO, he gets the lion's share of the credit. That's just how it works.

But this discussion began when someone posted a tweet about how amazing it is for something with no formal engineering background to be spearheading what SpaceX is doing. I think Elon has made it perfectly clear by this point that he's much dumber than any of us could have ever guessed. It's fair to assume that he has minimal, if any, involvement on the technical/engineering side of his companies.

I still think he's been a net positive for society. Though, holy shit, that gap is closing and, if he gets his way in November and becomes a defacto cabinet member, it will likely slam shut.

It's just disappointing that one of the richest, most powerful, influential human beings in the history of modern civilization has decided that internet troll is his true calling.*

*this also might be a net positive for society, seeing the most powerful among us still fall prey to social media brain rot. Hopefully it's been a wake up call to some.

Edited October 16 by aggie08

[Nivek 16958]

15 hours ago, 52-80 said:

What part is cherry picked?

The fact that Musk was the 4th person in Tesla, joining the now-250 months old company 6 months after it was founded, and as the majority owner and actual chair, had authority over the company?

When you say the company was “established” -- when Eberhard was kicked out -- it had produced 0 cars, the Model S hadnt been designed, 3 years before IPO, and would go on to accumulate $6 billion dollars of net losses over the next 13 years….

…and you want crown the first 2 guys for “having the plan” 13 years and 1,000,000 vehicles sold later?

That is an amazingly bad understanding of business and history. 

 

 

It’s just that easy? You just build a cheaper one after the other - and it will be no surprise to have a profitable business? When the entire public market signaled (through its equity) for 9 straights years that it didnt believe the company would get anywhere, and the company was on the verge of bankruptcy, you just knew success was no surprise?

The revisionism is amazing.

I think you are under some delusion that I was going to write an exhausting evaluation of the Tesla Corp complete with insider information and references.  I am not.   But what I can do as a layperson outsider, is make observations and use judgement.   An electrical engineer and inventor whose hobby was racing electric vehicles founded the company with his former business partner.   His focus was not on reinventing the wheel, but to use technology that largely existed and leverage his own skill set to develop a car that could be street legal and sporty and electric.   Musk joined on as an early seed investor and helped with the Series funding for sure.  He definitely helped make the company what it is through funding it.  But is Musk providing some unique value here?  Is this the first time a company has been funded before?  No.  Does he have prior manufacturing experience?  Racing? Automotive?  The fact that the company is now 250 months on, after it was founded, is irrelevant.  He is not the founder nor was it his idea.  He just latched on to something someone else did which is a pattern for him in his most successful ventures.  

The fact that they kicked out the guy the same year they sold their first models doesn't mean there weren't plans for the future.  I am not really sure how you operate, but some of us operated in a current sphere while working on the next phase of development.  This is not unusual in manufacturing as well as other sectors.  In one former role of mine,  we were working on developing techniques and software for the next phase of operations while we trained people on something that could be made obsolete -  this was a smallish private company.  And while this might come as a surprise to you, the investors of that firm were not in the room with us talking about Bequay's method for 3 component geophone calibration in free space or finite difference modeling details to be worked out.  

You keep harping on the fact they ran off the founder just before the first model was produced seems to make me question your understanding of business and design.  Unless you think Musk sat down in 2008, put pen to paper and came up with a car <6 months before selling them (which curiously matches the actual founder's original stated plan)  and the other founders were just chasing their tail for the previous ~4 years in spite of their backgrounds for bringing products to market and prior expertise on the subjects.  Or maybe you think Drori was the one who designed the car and got the old GM/Toyota plant all going at once.  Well then maybe we can claim the first car was on the founders but the second is all Elon.  Is it?  The first car was proof of concept, it lost money and was expected to lose money.  Unless you think one can mass produce ~200 cars and ever break even even though you just bought a factory that was used to produce thousands of cars week?

This brings me to my next point, business having net losses is not really something all that unusual as they get going.  The fact that you talk about this as evidence is strange.   There are kind of fundamental aspects to manufacturing of products that you seem to be overlooking and/or ignoring.  Economies of scale, I believe is the terminology for spreading costs amongst more products which can then allow for profits to be generated.  So yeah, I do think they had an idea of how much it would cost them to build and mass produce their first serious production vehicles, at scale (which was Ebenhard's goal in the first place) with a profit in mind, and with about $450 million of US government loans helping to fund it.  

As I have mentioned, Musk did a job, he showed up at the right time, and leveraged his skills/assets/connection to help develop the company from a financial aspect, and he branded himself as a founder, genius, and tried to champion trends of the time.  I admit, at first I thought he might be doing something good for humanity and I originally thought he was the founder (I didn't care to look it up).   Now I see him for what he really is.  He used massive assets that he had to create massive wealth for himself by piggybacking on the works of others but then trying to take credit for it.   But his character couldn't be concealed by the PR firms, and he has come across as a bit of a scumbag.   His hubris created a stupid truck that cannot do truck things.  His management of twitter has made it largely unusable for some people (no, I do not care to see random porn or elevated racism, misinformation, disinformation, and xenophobia that are all but unavoidable).   The success of Tesla is from the hardworking engineers, designers, manufacturers, supply chain managers, software writers, and the scientists that helped invent what is put into production there and of course the founders.  The money guys allowed it to happen, but they didn't make it happen.   I cannot imagine any other company operating with a part-time executive who spends much of his day rallying for fascism, popping pills, and syphoning off resources from one company for another.   That leads me to believe that his role as a leader at Tesla is mostly symbolic, and that the real management is handled by others, while he just gets in the way and fucks things up from time to time.      

Lastly, the public's hesitation to invest during the first 9 years was limited due to the fact that they didn't go public until 7 years after their founding.   So this is just a ridiculous statement by you.   Plus you are trying to twist what I stated, when I am not an officer of the company, of course I did not have access to their internal documents.  So yeah, when I say it is fucking obvious they are successful after having 50% margins, this is entirely after the fact and I have never stated otherwise.  But I imagine the folks who did have access to this information sure as shit knew it would work when they had the math available.    

So tell me how I am wrong or if anything I said was dishonest or a spin.  

 

Edited October 16 by Nivek

[52-80 19221]

2 hours ago, royiv said:

The irony.

sorry booboo did i hurt your feelings too?

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I'm going to guess that because Elmo is not a real engineer, he gins up wild-ass ideas while in a K-hole or something, some of which are feasible and many of which are not.

Guessed example:  wouldn't it be cool if we could retrieve rockets/stages without destroying them or splashing them down in water?  Yeah, Elmo cool idea, not particularly original, I'm guessing.  Probably not a priority idea at NASA for various reasons, nor at other private aerospace because they can sell more rockets if they're single-use.

The real brain geniuses at SpaceX were able to so far at least somewhat implement it with what seems to be reasonable success.

what is your framework/criteria of who gets to take credit for what? because everybody here makes their conclusion first, and then contort their rationale to fit. 

in the same thread, people who insist he makes zero contribution to the products/company, will simultaneously mock the cybertruck to deride the man. so which is it — he is or isnt responsible?  their arguments have no integrity.

the top executive is responsible for vision, objectives, hiring, financing, etc, pushing the company in a direction of their choosing by tipping the scale on any major decisions.  they do this to different degrees, but all of it is instrumental.

jobs didnt write the firmware for the ipod. bezos didnt pack shipping boxes or wire their server racks, so the fact that they arent chartered engineers doesnt mean they werent instrumental in their tech companies.

anyone suggesting that musk, not just as a hired employee, but as the largest individual owner of his company (larger than bezos’ ownership of amazon), gets credit for success by just “asking people to do stuff” reveals

(a) they know nothing about business, and should save their arguments for reddit during their starbucks shiftbreak

or

(b) theyre being willfully obtuse, which is a lie not to other people, but to themselves.

if your personal suggestion is that all he does is come up with drugged up ideas….how much credit accrues also then risking capital to fund it, and convincing people to go along with it, and pushing them to execute it (its wild right?)

the world is not short of certified engineers, people with crazy ideas, people with business connections, and billionaires.  wheres all their versions of teslas and spacex?

[Captain Ron 12890]

1 hour ago, aggie08 said:

I have no issue separating the accomplishments from the man and still giving Elon his credit. Could another primary investor/CEO have achieved what his companies have with the same subsidies, founders, and engineering personnel? Maybe. Who knows. But he did and, as CEO, he gets the lion's share of the credit. That's just how it works.

But this discussion began when someone posted a tweet about how amazing it is for something with no formal engineering background to be spearheading what SpaceX is doing. I think Elon has made it perfectly clear by this point that he's much dumber than any of us could have ever guessed. It's fair to assume that he has minimal, if any, involvement on the technical/engineering side of his companies.

Really?

 

 

(political comment removed)

People believe that he is the guy doing this.

[TwiceHorn 31519]

23 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

sorry booboo did i hurt your feelings too?

what is your framework/criteria of who gets to take credit for what? because everybody here makes their conclusion first, and then contort their rationale to fit. 

in the same thread, people who insist he makes zero contribution to the products/company, will simultaneously mock the cybertruck to deride the man. so which is it — he is or isnt responsible?  their arguments have no integrity.

the top executive is responsible for vision, objectives, hiring, financing, etc, pushing the company in a direction of their choosing by tipping the scale on any major decisions.  they do this to different degrees, but all of it is instrumental.

jobs didnt write the firmware for the ipod. bezos didnt pack shipping boxes or wire their server racks, so the fact that they arent chartered engineers doesnt mean they werent instrumental in their tech companies.

anyone suggesting that musk, not just as a hired employee, but as the largest individual owner of his company (larger than bezos’ ownership of amazon), gets credit for success by just “asking people to do stuff” reveals

(a) they know nothing about business, and should save their arguments for reddit during their starbucks shiftbreak

or

(b) theyre being willfully obtuse, which is a lie not to other people, but to themselves.

if your personal suggestion is that all he does is come up with drugged up ideas….how much credit accrues also then risking capital to fund it, and convincing people to go along with it, and pushing them to execute it (its wild right?)

the world is not short of certified engineers, people with crazy ideas, people with business connections, and billionaires.  wheres all their versions of teslas and spacex?

People seem to think Elmo is smart because his companies do technically somewhat amazing things.  That's a fallacy.

No one credits Chainsaw Jack Welch with GE's successes in various technologies.  Or claims Tim Cook is primarily responsible for Apple's innovation.

 

[Deej 76882]

27 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

People seem to think Elmo is smart because his companies do technically somewhat amazing things.  That's a fallacy.

No one credits Chainsaw Jack Welch with GE's successes in various technologies.  Or claims Tim Cook is primarily responsible for Apple's innovation.

 

It's like you don't even remember Mack Brown Texas Football.

[52-80 19221]

1 hour ago, Nivek said:

1. An electrical engineer and inventor whose hobby was racing electric vehicles founded the company with his former business partner.   His focus was not on reinventing the wheel, but to use technology that largely existed and leverage his own skill set to develop a car that could be street legal and sporty and electric.   Musk joined on as an early seed investor and helped with the Series funding for sure.  He definitely helped make the company what it is through funding it. 
2. But is Musk providing some unique value here?  Is this the first time a company has been funded before?  No.  Does he have prior manufacturing experience?  Racing? Automotive? 
3. The fact that the company is now 250 months on, after it was founded, is irrelevant.  He is not the founder nor was it his idea.  He just latched on to something someone else did which is a pattern for him in his most successful ventures.  

4.The fact that they kicked out the guy the same year they sold their first models doesn't mean there weren't plans for the future.  I am not really sure how you operate, but some of us operated in a current sphere while working on the next phase of development.  This is not unusual in manufacturing as well as other sectors.  

5.You keep harping on the fact they ran off the founder just before the first model was produced seems to make me question your understanding of business and design.  Unless you think Musk sat down in 2008, put pen to paper and came up with a car <6 months before selling them (which curiously matches the actual founder's original stated plan)  and the other founders were just chasing their tail for the previous ~4 years in spite of their backgrounds for bringing products to market and prior expertise on the subjects.  Or maybe you think Drori was the one who designed the car and got the old GM/Toyota plant all going at once.  Well then maybe we can claim the first car was on the founders but the second is all Elon.  Is it?  The first car was proof of concept, it lost money and was expected to lose money.  Unless you think one can mass produce ~200 cars and ever break even even though you just bought a factory that was used to produce thousands of cars week?

6. This brings me to my next point, business having net losses is not really something all that unusual as they get going.  The fact that you talk about this as evidence is strange.   There are kind of fundamental aspects to manufacturing of products that you seem to be overlooking and/or ignoring.  Economies of scale, I believe is the terminology for spreading costs amongst more products which can then allow for profits to be generated. 

7.So yeah, I do think they had an idea of how much it would cost them to build and mass produce their first serious production vehicles, at scale (which was Ebenhard's goal in the first place) with a profit in mind, and with about $450 million of US government loans helping to fund it.  

…

8.Lastly, the public's hesitation to invest during the first 9 years was limited due to the fact that they didn't go public until 7 years after their founding.   So this is just a ridiculous statement by you.   Plus you are trying to twist what I stated, when I am not an officer of the company, of course I did not have access to their internal documents.  So yeah, when I say it is fucking obvious they are successful after having 50% margins, this is entirely after the fact and I have never stated otherwise.  But I imagine the folks who did have access to this information sure as shit knew it would work when they had the math available.    

I snipped off the section about how you feel about his personal character. Thats  a subjective opinion people should share with their pets because theres no debate value, but we can talk about the business history because I think you’re trying to be honest with it. 

1. The founders’ hobby and nominal profession and work experience doesnt trumps Musks’ for relevance to the business. They didnt have experience in vehicle or industrial manufacturing, they were tech founders like Musk was. Musk owned a sports cars (McLaren F1), and also expressed interest in commercializing AC Propulsions car. Thats how he got turned onto Tesla in the first place: ACP referred him to Eberhard.

2. Funding is not unique but uh its pretty essential to survival? Moreover this wasn’t a minority stake, like a VC punt on an investment. He bought majority ownership right out of the gate. Not 3 years in a coup or 7 years later when you suggest the company was “rolling”.

3.The fact that the company is 250 months old is not the point. The point is musk headed the ship for 97% of those months as chair/owner/ceo, and the 2 cofounders were completely removed 200 months ago.

4. A plan is a plan until its completed. Do you think theres some hurdle between the plan and achieving it? Through…say….the global financial crisis of 2007?

I get your main thesis that “#1 had the idea”. But the totality of the idea as you described is “make cheaper and cheaper cars” — is that their groundbreaking unique idea? did that map out to the actual 3 and y? and is the incantation of “lets make it cheap” more valuable than overseeing bringing the actual manufacturing online through to 1M of cars?

5. Argument wasnt ascribing the Roadster to Musk. Argument was the Roadster is pretty immaterial to what Tesla is today. Thats why its total sale of 2500 was brought up. It had nonvalue in showing that electrics could be cool. Theres lots of electric cars today from dead companies. (Fisker was cool).

The car that brought Tesla to prominence was the S. That was penned by a Musk hire (Franz) and engineered by a Musk hire (Rawlinson). The S kept the lights on until the Model 3 made money.  

6. The blueprint doesnt guarantee execution. Even after Tesla made EV palatable and prove the business model, subsequent EVs companied died or are dying. Vinfast? Fisker? Faraday? Lucid? Ties back to #4.

7. The low-information guys in this thread also picked up on this great “government fund” thing as a gotcha. I think you know, that loan was given to other car companies (like Nissan and Ford) and in even larger sizes. Tesla paid back the loan in full, before term, whereas the other companies loans might still be outstanding. I love it when they mention the govt money as an indictment!

8. Nope, I didnt trickmath you while claiming that there was reluctance for public investment in the (9-7)=2 years after founding. I meant the 9 years after IPO, 16 years after founding. And in the IPO filing (S-1), they would have laid out details plans and visions and risks. 

This post-dated all the sales of the Roadsters. It covered the Model S blowing up the internet with drag racing videos. It covered 9 years of public financials giving insights into financials and trends. And yet the investing public, by way of flat stock valuation, did not signal they believed in the future of the company. 

That is the reason i claim it wasnt *obvious* that the company was rolling or thriving, which contrasts to your claiming that that was inevitable as far back as 2010. It doesnt jive at all.

[Celery Man 20987]

1 hour ago, 52-80 said:

 

in the same thread, people who insist he makes zero contribution to the products/company, will simultaneously mock the cybertruck to deride the man. so which is it — he is or isnt responsible?  their arguments have no integrity.

the top executive is responsible for vision, objectives, hiring, financing, etc, pushing the company in a direction of their choosing by tipping the scale on any major decisions.  they do this to different degrees, but all of it is instrumental.

The thing that people are arguing or that has been suggested from a number of different sources throughout this thread and elsewhere is that he brought money and marketing and probably some vision early on at places like Tesla and SpaceX, but the smart people with the degrees and expertise drove most of the actual innovation. Then he got brainworms, started huffing his own farts, fired all the experts and brought in the meme team, and now with total creative and executive control he’s bringing us the Cybertruck and X. Are you able to follow that?

[Captainant 27722]

7 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

I snipped off the section about how you feel about his personal character. Thats  a subjective opinion people should share with their pets because theres no debate value, but we can talk about the business history because I think you’re trying to be honest with it. 

1. The founders’ hobby and nominal profession and work experience doesnt trumps Musks’ for relevance to the business. They didnt have experience in vehicle or industrial manufacturing, they were tech founders like Musk was. Musk owned a sports cars (McLaren F1), and also expressed interest in commercializing AC Propulsions car. Thats how he got turned onto Tesla in the first place: ACP referred him to Eberhard.

2. Funding is not unique but uh its pretty essential to survival? Moreover this wasn’t a minority stake, like a VC punt on an investment. He bought majority ownership right out of the gate. Not 3 years in a coup or 7 years later when you suggest the company was “rolling”.

3.The fact that the company is 250 months old is not the point. The point is musk headed the ship for 97% of those months as chair/owner/ceo, and the 2 cofounders were completely removed 200 months ago.

4. A plan is a plan until its completed. Do you think theres some hurdle between the plan and achieving it? Through…say….the global financial crisis of 2007?

I get your main thesis that “#1 had the idea”. But the totality of the idea as you described is “make cheaper and cheaper cars” — is that their groundbreaking unique idea? did that map out to the actual 3 and y? and is the incantation of “lets make it cheap” more valuable than overseeing bringing the actual manufacturing online through to 1M of cars?

5. Argument wasnt ascribing the Roadster to Musk. Argument was the Roadster is pretty immaterial to what Tesla is today. Thats why its total sale of 2500 was brought up. It had nonvalue in showing that electrics could be cool. Theres lots of electric cars today from dead companies. (Fisker was cool).

The car that brought Tesla to prominence was the S. That was penned by a Musk hire (Franz) and engineered by a Musk hire (Rawlinson). The S kept the lights on until the Model 3 made money.  

6. The blueprint doesnt guarantee execution. Even after Tesla made EV palatable and prove the business model, subsequent EVs companied died or are dying. Vinfast? Fisker? Faraday? Lucid? Ties back to #4.

7. The low-information guys in this thread also picked up on this great “government fund” thing as a gotcha. I think you know, that loan was given to other car companies (like Nissan and Ford) and in even larger sizes. Tesla paid back the loan in full, before term, whereas the other companies loans might still be outstanding. I love it when they mention the govt money as an indictment!

8. Nope, I didnt trickmath you while claiming that there was reluctance for public investment in the (9-7)=2 years after founding. I meant the 9 years after IPO, 16 years after founding. And in the IPO filing (S-1), they would have laid out details plans and visions and risks. 

This post-dated all the sales of the Roadsters. It covered the Model S blowing up the internet with drag racing videos. It covered 9 years of public financials giving insights into financials and trends. And yet the investing public, by way of flat stock valuation, did not signal they believed in the future of the company. 

That is the reason i claim it wasnt *obvious* that the company was rolling or thriving, which contrasts to your claiming that that was inevitable as far back as 2010. It doesnt jive at all.

[royiv 9334]

I don’t know why you guys engage with 5280. He’s the smartest guy in the room and if he only had a little of that sweet apartheid seed money he would be Elon. 

[52-80 19221]

1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

People seem to think Elmo is smart because his companies do technically somewhat amazing things.  That's a fallacy.

No one credits Chainsaw Jack Welch with GE's successes in various technologies.  Or claims Tim Cook is primarily responsible for Apple's innovation.

The sheer fact that he is atop multiple successful companies in widely different disciplines had to be attributed to *some* superlative. Whether its smarts, motivation, tenacity, including cunning and luck, and all combinations thereof, its open to arguments of pedantry. But if people reduce it to simply “he asks people to do stuff” or “hes good at marketing (but akin like ptbarnum)”, thats really dumb. If its easy, you do it: ask people to do stuff. 

Apple is a good tangent because people do argue whether Cook is a good executive or an overpriced beancounter stalling the company. (Read the Apple thread). Ill pull an argumentum ad stockium on this one: if hes horrible, why do the owners keep paying him? Punters opinion have literally zero value. Shareholders opinion puts their money at stake: whos more informed?
 

[52-80 19221]

18 minutes ago, royiv said:

I don’t know why you guys engage with 5280. He’s the smartest guy in the room and if he only had a little of that sweet apartheid seed money he would be Elon. 

Nice to have our own schoolmarm in the room. Have you asked for immamacs assistance to help police my posting?

[52-80 19221]

41 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

The thing that people are arguing or that has been suggested from a number of different sources throughout this thread and elsewhere is that he brought money and marketing and probably some vision early on at places like Tesla and SpaceX, but the smart people with the degrees and expertise drove most of the actual innovation. Then he got brainworms, started huffing his own farts, fired all the experts and brought in the meme team, and now with total creative and executive control he’s bringing us the Cybertruck and X. Are you able to follow that?

Im not litigating things from page 300. Im citing direct claims made in this thread in the last 4 pages since ive revisited it. Are you able to follow that or do you need direct links? 

[royiv 9334]

11 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Nice to have our own schoolmarm in the room. Have you asked for immamacs assistance to help police my posting?

You are insufferable. The funny thing is that you know you are.

[Brisketexan 105199]

Elon is Jerry Jones.  He showed up with piles of cash, acquired an asset with real potential, and made some smart moves (hired a good coach, backed him on the Herschel Walker trade, etc.).  Resulted in some big wins back in the day.
BUT....his ego got in the fucking way.  He didn't think that he was getting enough credit.  So, he started sticking his less-knowledgeable nose in things.  He ran off the coach who was getting the wins.  He made it about HIM, instead of about the product and results.  And where did that take things, at least with Tesla and Twitter?
 


 
NOTE: I actually think that his performance as CEO at Space-X is a solid B+.  Yes, he's stepped on his dick a few times (environmental violations, some personnel mismanagement, etc.), but grading him on a curve with other CEOs, he's doing pretty well.  He's offering some leadership while also staying enough out of the way, and letting his team perform.  If he can STAY out of the way, Space-X looks to have a bright future.

[Celery Man 20987]

Right as I suggested before you can’t just cherry pick comments from a massive forever lasting conversation and then act like the only person in the room not eating crayons. Billionaire Defended image memes exist in the context of this thread. Sure people are hyperbolic with some of the statements about how little Elon did. If you engage in the conversation the assumption is going to be that you’re engaging in the conversation.

[choripan 790]

51 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

The sheer fact that he is atop multiple successful companies in widely different disciplines had to be attributed to *some* superlative. Whether its smarts, motivation, tenacity, including cunning and luck, and all combinations thereof, its open to arguments of pedantry.

Important to refute this. We have enough incompetent, entitled, ambitious children of wealth that at least one of them is going to roll double-sixes a few times in a row. 

Elon has. Good for him, until his wild heel turn over the last few years.

But overall, we have far more evidence that he is an awful human being that happened to get lucky than we do evidence that he's a born leader or a genius or anything along those lines. He is like Eli Manning with two Super Bowls. Catch fire at the right time and place and voila(!).

[Nivek 16958]

2 hours ago, 52-80 said:

I snipped off the section about how you feel about his personal character. Thats  a subjective opinion people should share with their pets because theres no debate value, but we can talk about the business history because I think you’re trying to be honest with it. 

1. The founders’ hobby and nominal profession and work experience doesnt trumps Musks’ for relevance to the business. They didnt have experience in vehicle or industrial manufacturing, they were tech founders like Musk was. Musk owned a sports cars (McLaren F1), and also expressed interest in commercializing AC Propulsions car. Thats how he got turned onto Tesla in the first place: ACP referred him to Eberhard.

 

I don't have much time to reply in depth but for this part I want to get something out there.   Eberhard was into racing EVs, he was a consultant for AC Propulsion, and this was a hobby of his.  This was not someone who bought an unrelated sports car or started collecting cars just because they were bored and had money to burn.   I say this as a guy who has rebuilt engines, fixed and modified cars and have scars on my hands left over from that time. 

There were car guys who were into it and wanted to learn and car guys who just wanted to buy it.  Even when it came to racing cars there were people who built and tested modifications, those who had and idea but couldn't do the work (or didn't want to) and there were others who just brought theirs to a shop and let them go at it.   And it was pretty easy to discern who was who.  

Edited October 16 by Nivek

[High Plains Drifter 11050]

Off the top of my head, I made of list of Elmo pros and cons: 

 

Space X- Current leader in the private space industry, but only with massive government investment (some might call that "welfare"), but continuous, repeated environmental violations. Boca Chica, Port Isabel, South Padre Island, and the southern Laguna Madre will be a giant superfund site long before Space X lands somebody on the Moon, much less Mars. Goodbye fishing, goodbye best birding in the US, goodbye best beaches in Texas. Given us a rocket that can be reused (although maybe we should wait until its successfully relaunched before we start sucking Elmo dick), looks cool on video when it lands. 

 

Tesla- Started out well, turned to complete shit. See cyber suck, FDS, human controlled robots serving drinks (lol wut?). 

 

Boring company- Complete joke from the start, hasn't done anything. Of course Aggy goes full aggy and hires them to bore a tunnel.... somewhere. 

 

Neuralink- not even sure what the fuck that is, other than a money hole. 

 

Starlink- being actively used by Russian invaders. Bringing internet to remote areas? Is it reliable, affordable, I don't know. Does it do what it was supposed to do, such as provide high speed internet to a moving vehicle? Adds to the low Earth orbit landfill (space fill?).

 

Twitter- lol, not going to bother. 

 

Add in safety violations at various factories, accident rates way higher than any industry average, union busting, more ignoring of environmental regulations. 

 

Keeps talking shit about saving humanity by colonizing mars, which is a fucking joke that a smart 9 year old knows is bullshit. If he really was concerned about humanity, he would use his fortune and alleged smarts to reverse global warming.

 

He's a wannabe fascist. He openly promotes conspiracy theories that undermine democracy and endangers marginalized communities. He's also a complete dipshit, horrible father to X kids from Y baby mommas, an illegal immigrant, lies lies lies, over promises and underdelivers, and is just an all around terrible person. 

 

Extremely punchable face, wears cowboy hat backwards in an attempt to look Texan (black felt in summer in S. Texas), sports a disgusting half ass beard, smells his own farts. 

 

Last and maybe worst (depends on your world view I guess), he's a billionaire. Billionaires should not exist in a functioning democracy. When they do occasionally show up like a turd washing up on a public beach, they should be immediately sterilized and disposed of/ taxed out of existence, and viewed as a symptom of a fucked up sewer system/ failing democracy, not something to be celebrated and idolized.  

 

Did I miss any?

Also, sorry for bad grammar. 

 

 

 

 

 

[atomheartbevo 89774]

Leon continues to fuck up twitter.  A lot of us knew they were going to allow people we blocked to see our public posts.  Bluesky not having it.

It will most likely get twitter banned from some of the app stores

 

[52-80 19221]

15 hours ago, royiv said:

You are insufferable. The funny thing is that you know you are.

You talk about me in the sneering tone of a schoolgirl. "Ewww I dont know why you guys engage with 5280". And you even post angry reaction emoji when I call it out.

So am I supposed to be offended that you, of all people, find me insufferable?

[DigglerontheHoof 21209]

Well, he might let you suck his dick, if you ask nicely enough. 

[52-80 19221]

14 hours ago, Nivek said:

I don't have much time to reply in depth but for this part I want to get something out there.   Eberhard was into racing EVs, he was a consultant for AC Propulsion, and this was a hobby of his.  This was not someone who bought an unrelated sports car or started collecting cars just because they were bored and had money to burn.   I say this as a guy who has rebuilt engines, fixed and modified cars and have scars on my hands left over from that time. 

There were car guys who were into it and wanted to learn and car guys who just wanted to buy it.  Even when it came to racing cars there were people who built and tested modifications, those who had and idea but couldn't do the work (or didn't want to) and there were others who just brought theirs to a shop and let them go at it.   And it was pretty easy to discern who was who.  

I can believe Eberhard was the a car enthusiast. But you have to bridge how being a bigger gearhead translates into being responsible for what Tesla Inc is today. Eberhard 'consulting' with ACP actually was him discovering when they were already converting their battery to li-ion (per ACP President Tom Gage). He had no prior experience attesting to any involvement in auto manufacturing or motor design or such.  He last worked making book readers.  The technical chops overseeing most of Tesla engineering history was Straubel (#5) and Baglino, both Musk hires.

Let me know if I sum your arguments correctly:

1. Eberhard and Tarp are more responsible for Teslas success than Musk

2.Because contribution of their Plan during 4 year tenure supercedes whatever musk contributed in his 21 year tenure

3.The Plan being.. put li-ion in a car, and then make progressively cheaper cars... ?

Is that plan particularly unique or groundbreaking? Is that the key to making the #1 selling car in the world, and why havent anybody else successfully followed it? Why arent those 2 being sought after for any other gigs today given the enormity of their idea? Finally, if we're making this argument of genesis, wouldn't you say it's actually AC Propulsion that is responsible for everything Tesla is today?

 

14 hours ago, choripan said:

Important to refute this. We have enough incompetent, entitled, ambitious children of wealth that at least one of them is going to roll double-sixes a few times in a row.
..

He is like Eli Manning with two Super Bowls. Catch fire at the right time and place and voila(!).

Rolling double-sixes multiple time in a rows gets exponentially harder. Name some of these children of wealth who have done this.

Eli is top 10 in career yards and touchdowns. The only 2 guys above him who dont have championships are Marino and Rivers. Without the championships, he would still end up in HOF, just like Rivers will, and like the rest of the T10 are.  Are you seriously suggesting his career achievement is luck over competence?

 

[52-80 19221]

43 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

Well, he might let you suck his dick, if you ask nicely enough. 

Post + Avatar: Have you talked to your therapist about this?

[DigglerontheHoof 21209]

3 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

Post + Avatar: Have you talked to your therapist about this?

Yeah, they said you definitely want to suck Elmo's dick. 

[52-80 19221]

7 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

Yeah, they said you definitely want to suck Elmo's dick. 

You and roy, 2 adult men behaving like Mean Girls on a message board.  Much impressed. Wow.

[Celery Man 20987]

It would make sense if part of Musk’s ability early on was bringing in smart people. A big part of his success is the cult of personality he built around himself and the hype that was able to generate for projects he was involved in. He’s lost that because he started to believe his own bullshit about himself and there’s nothing that will make you stupid (and an asshole!) quicker than being certain you are right all the time about everything, especially if you have people surrounding you encouraging you to feel that way. But those people are rarely smart and it is impossible to work with the smartest people if you insist on being smarter than them.

[MinerProphet 71]

1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

It would make sense if part of Musk’s ability early on was bringing in smart people. A big part of his success is the cult of personality he built around himself and the hype that was able to generate for projects he was involved in. He’s lost that because he started to believe his own bullshit about himself and there’s nothing that will make you stupid (and an asshole!) quicker than being certain you are right all the time about everything, especially if you have people surrounding you encouraging you to feel that way. But those people are rarely smart and it is impossible to work with the smartest people if you insist on being smarter than them.

Elon Musk certainly confounds me. Most of the time I think he's barely smarter than some of my dumbest friends. But then other times, I have to begrudgingly allow that he's been a visionary and done some really extraordinary things. Like, society changing disruptions and innovations-- and that's no hyperbole.

Further, one time is a fluke. He's done it numerous times to show it's a trend (e.g. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, etc.). And generally you can't attribute those odds to luck, though I guess it's possible he kept doubling up until he crapped out on Twitter.

[Celery Man 20987]

The point that it is an incredible run is true, and that it is difficult to attribute to luck (even though people are far too hesitant to give luck its due when understanding success generally) is true. I think I can make sense of Musk if it’s…. he had some vision and drive and work ethic and hit the jackpot on PayPal, giving him the added benefit of wealth. And then on top of that the vision to either bring in or attach himself to the right people to make cool shit happen.

and then he huffs his own farts, dates and is dumped by one of the stupidest people on the planet, fails at fatherhood when his daughter comes out as trans and gets completely red pilled and all he has left is money and idiots.

[wildcat09 29364]

21 minutes ago, MinerProphet said:

Elon Musk certainly confounds me. Most of the time I think he's barely smarter than some of my dumbest friends. But then other times, I have to begrudgingly allow that he's been a visionary and done some really extraordinary things. Like, society changing disruptions and innovations-- and that's no hyperbole.

Further, one time is a fluke. He's done it numerous times to show it's a trend (e.g. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, etc.). And generally you can't attribute those odds to luck, though I guess it's possible he kept doubling up until he crapped out on Twitter.

Musk didn't do shit at PayPal except nearly fuck it all up and get forced out by people who realized he was fucking it all up.

[MinerProphet 71]

33 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

The point that it is an incredible run is true, and that it is difficult to attribute to luck (even though people are far too hesitant to give luck its due when understanding success generally) is true. I think I can make sense of Musk if it’s…. he had some vision and drive and work ethic and hit the jackpot on PayPal, giving him the added benefit of wealth. And then on top of that the vision to either bring in or attach himself to the right people to make cool shit happen.

and then he huffs his own farts, dates and is dumped by one of the stupidest people on the planet, fails at fatherhood when his daughter comes out as trans and gets completely red pilled and all he has left is money and idiots.

....The Aristocrats!!! The Innovator's Dilemma!!

[C-Man 27247]

13 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Leon continues to fuck up twitter.  A lot of us knew they were going to allow people we blocked to see our public posts.  Bluesky not having it.

It will most likely get twitter banned from some of the app stores

 

 

[Hank Kingsley 21010]

Every accusation is a confession. 

 

[chainsaw 9873]

1 hour ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Every accusation is a confession. 

 

Must burn him up that despite forcefeeding this tweet on the entire userbase's feeds it's been over 12 hours and there are more people living in Beeville than there are people (and bots) worldwide who "liked" his "joke."