You are right, the post definitely is about musk implying (likely false) and terrible things about someone, I probably shouldn’t get cranked about someone here implying not-so-terrible things about someone very rich and powerful.
I was not making any bad faith implications, just adjusting my perspective.
All of those things make me sad. Tesla and SpaceX make me optimistic that the future may not be terrible. I think this is normal and important. Is this enthusiasm for the status quo? I don’t think so as I wish terribly for things to be different.
When you’re a famous rich person, being ignored is way worse than being sued
I don’t know what that guy did, but he really got under Elon’s skin. This is just plain bizarre, like grandpa off of his meds bizarre.
Let’s have a thought experiment where we imagine that Elon Musk did not emigrate to Canada and then to the US. He did not start any internet companies, spaceflight companies or car companies. Imagine Elon Musk had no impact on the world.
In this world all of the EV startups that were inspired by Tesla did other things because “Nobody has successfully started a new car company in decades.” Traditional car companies are not releasing interesting EVs because nobody showed that it can be done. EVs are really only available as compliance cars and is very small numbers. Renewable energy production still has a very bad wrap because “You can’t afford to store that energy for later use and it causes grid stability issues.”
Is this a better world than ours? I certainly like this world better than one without Musk and Tesla. That is my definition of making the world a better place and I think that it is something that Elon Musk has done. This is maybe different that how you want the world to change or less than you wish it would change but I don’t think that means that the world isn’t better than without him.
Your point is valid, I’m just cynical. I think that Tesla and SpaceX aren’t different enough to point to a wildly different future.
Tesla – OK great electric cars will cut down oil consumption, provided we don’t recharge them with natural gas or coal electricity. Using them still doesn’t solve the gigantic issue of how we structure cities and towns. Owning a Tesla doesn’t magically mean that you’re using it more than 5-10% of the time. Otherwise it’s just sitting there inert, taking up space. Nor does owning a Tesla reduce road degradation and repair costs. It’s a nice intention to make electric cars appealing, but it was going to happen with or without Musk and it doesn’t fundamentally change the structure of the problems around car dependency and all of its massive downstream costs.
SpaceX – cool, rockets. Rockets aren’t going to be the thing that gets us colonizing space. Just by virtue of fuel consumption, there’s a fixed floor past which rocket delivery can’t get any cheaper. Investing in the materials science to build a space elevator or electromagnetic rail launch (for non-biological items) would have shifted the paradigm.
Total and utter arsehole with some cool tech: so again very much like tony stark that the press always seems to love comparing him to.
I told the travel agent I was interested in wink “cave diving” exaggerated wink and I spent the whole goddamned vacation looking at some underwater rocks like a jerk.
I read his biography and he seems to have been a difficult person to deal with from the start. Fame and social media just makes it more visible to outsiders now.
Keep fuckin’ that chicken, Elon.
It is also a reasonably pleasant and safe place to live, where the dollar, pound or Euro goes a long way. I have several friends who live there for those reasons.
It would be pretty unwise to sue a billionaire. I annoyed one once, by pointing out animal abuse on property he owned. He had his people hit me with a lawsuit, which they knew they would not win, or even take to court. The point was to make me have to pay a lawyer to defend myself. If you don’t have legal representation, or ignore the nuisance lawsuit, they have a good chance of getting a summary judgement against you.
Some states have laws against filing lawsuits just to annoy someone, where legal fees and damages can be collected for filing such a suit. Mine did not.
He’s not Tony Stark, he’s Peter Weyland, and like Weyland, his shortsighted egotistical actions are probably going to unintentionally unleash some sort of unspeakable horror on humanity.
Just like the late roman republic!
You know he didn’t found Tesla right? It literally came into existence without him. Did he do a good job promoting the tech? Yes, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have happened without his particular… issues.
Another thought experiment (since that’s what we’re doing I guess), would be to imagine if he did all the things you claim, but wasn’t a complete giant asshole. That would be a better world than this one.
I’m afraid this is now easier said than done. The realm of public perception has a lot of sway. He lost a lot of admirers and advocates with his recent behavior and fall-from-grace, public-perception-wise, myself included. I used to think he could change the world, get us to Mars, even when his Mars idea had nothing concrete in place for how colonists survive once they arrive – even though he was talking about the reality of constructing 100-colonist transports. We all believed he would fill in the blanks.
No longer. Belief is a powerful thing. I now just look strictly at what he has accomplished, and what occurs in actuality. The Model S is pretty great; autopilot is poorly-named and not reliable. SpaceX is doing great things with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy; they have yet to safely launch a human being. Everything else is just vapor.
I guess maybe Musk shouldn’t have fired his personal assistant way back when.
I was replying to someone else’s comment, but this will do for here:
I don’t subscribe to the Elon Musk newsletter for his stupid ego or his dipshit views on some rando in a cave, I subscribe to it for the pushing of electric cars, the redefining of energy storage, and the kick in the ass he’s given others in all the industries he’s involved in.
Yes, electric cars and rockets aren’t going to save the world, but it’s a far sight better than what we had before him. NASA tragically underfunded, Electric cars were a joke, the idea of even seeing one was reserved for a car show.
He’s doing great things. He’s saying stupid things. His mistake is talking, and not doing.
I smell monumental melt down in the works.
Sure.
But I’m not going to stop unless someone pays me to or I get bored of him.
And even fake billionaires. 
