Elon is not a savior because no one is purely a savior. He is a genius at hardware who badly needs to shut the fuck up and have people rein him in sometimes. Twitter has always been his weakness, and he needs to have emotional maturity and hire a new CEO, then stay off of it entirely for two weeks
I am a big Musk critic, but I think his rise demonstrates a genius for hype and PR. The amount of free media and cheap capital that Tesla got was extraordinary, and I think that was down to Musk.
But I think Musk is also a good example of the reason that I would probably not work for a company whose head is a sales guy. Salespeople are great at hype, but they often do it by living in a fantasy land, and someone insufficiently connected to reality is in charge, things can get wacky. I knew of one place where the CEO was absolutely great at closing deals, but he would do it by promising more new features than the company could build. The well-meaning tech people did their best, but rushing to meet the CEO's promises meant a worse and worse code base, with bug counts skyrocketing and feature velocity slowing.
At Tesla and SpaceX, he apparently had competent people in charge to buffer his impulses and direct him toward what he's good at. But here we see that fantasy dynamic play out as he absolutely flails around trying to run a business that he doesn't really understand after firing most of the people who did and terrifying the remainder. If anything, I think the Twitter saga demonstrates that on his own, he's actually bad at a bunch of core business skills.
> I am a big Musk critic, but I think his rise demonstrates a genius for hype and PR. The amount of free media and cheap capital that Tesla got was extraordinary, and I think that was down to Musk.
A big falsifying hypothesis from this would be to predict that there are NOT any high-up PR staff of notable quality that have been around him for a long time.
If the PR people around him evince no particular talent for it and have been in constant flux for the duration of Musk's career such that he is the only constant, then yea, there'd probably be something to this.
Otherwise, if there is at least one person that was in his inner circle for a critical period of time that can also be said to have strong PR talent, then it's questionable ... sometimes success is having, on top of other things, the right team.
But choosing the right team is part of being a successful business man. I still think it's fair to credit him for SpaceX despite Gwynne Shotwell and his engineers running the company; he founded it, he brought the vision and he hired the right people.
Elon had a lot of luck, no doubt, but his track record is simply impressive and for that, I think it's fair to say that he has extraordinary talent.
> But choosing the right team is part of being a successful business man.
Sure, but it becomes hard to distinguish luck from talent. How would you know that an up and coming but talented PR person didn’t pick him? Or that was random?
It’s the major flaw with idolisation. Ends and means aren’t that tightly coupled. Against the utility of idolising someone, is the noise worth it? Ever?
Twitter is drama entertainment. As far as I can see Elon and the platform are perfect for eachother. Messy as it is. Twitter hasn't gotten as much attention since so seems like he is doing something's right.
There's only so much fuel for that fire and it seems like it's running out now that he's no longer going to be making wild changes or potentially stepping down.
That it coincided with a period of advertiser regression doesn't help.
I think we need to stop pretending that the only possible answer for seemingly misguided decisions is secret brilliance.
It's hyperbole. Tesla and SpaceX were insane accomplishments in moribund industries (the first successful auto startup in 80 years, and pretty much singlehanfedly revitalizing space travel which was basically dead, people with way more resources tried and failed at both of them). That being said, the Twitter acquisition is the work of a petulant child
The ball was already rolling on Tesla before Elon came along though. He was the majority of their first funding round but their company structure and development of a concept car was already underway. He just saw the opportunity that others were already working on and funded it, then stepped in, pushed the original founders out, and claimed it was his idea in the first place until he and the company settled a lawsuit in 2009.
SpaceX was truly his and he found great people to lead the company judging by their results. Contrary to your statement though, space travel wasn't dead at all. During the early SpaceX era when they launched zero rockets there were still a number of successful missions from organizations around the globe as well as routine commercial satellite launches. The key thing SpaceX did was cheapen launch costs to the point where existing launch companies had to start competing. This is down to the engineering achievements at SpaceX.
Musk is a face for businesses but if I were an investor in those other two ventures I'd definitely be concerned that this focus on Twitter is distracting him from his actual important work at those other companies, and I'd probably be pissed about what he's done to the share price of Telsa.
Musk had some pretty influential backing before he even founded SpaceX. From Wikipedia:
"In 2002, Griffin was President and COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA to identify and invest in companies developing cutting-edge technologies that serve national security interests. During this time, he met entrepreneur Elon Musk and accompanied him on a trip to Russia where they attempted to purchase ICBMs. The unsuccessful trip is credited as directly leading to the formation of SpaceX.[11] Griffin was an early advocate for Musk calling him a potential “Henry Ford for the rocket industry".[12]"
> The ball was already rolling on Tesla before Elon came along though.
You clearly have different sources from me (which are primarily Wikipedia).
My understanding was that Tesla did not have:
- Ownership of the Tesla brand
- Any real funding. During the Series A founding in 2004, Elon contributed $6.5M / $7.5 total.
- An actual car. During the development of the Roadster, Elon was both Chairman and Architect/CTO.
- Employees, beyond Eberhard and Tarpenning.
Before Elon, Tesla seems to have been only one of many early stage electric car startups with poor prospects for their future.
As for the developments around 2008, it becomes speculation who is telling the more true story between Musk and Eberhard. But as for what both have achieved elsewhere, it seems to me that Musk is also more effective as CEO.
Maybe you have sources that can contradict the above.
You cite several bullet points that are directly contradicted by Wikipedia itself, when saying Wikipedia is your source:
- Ownership of the Tesla brand
vs Wikipedia[1]:
Tesla was founded (as Tesla Motors) on July 1, 2003, by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in San Carlos, California.
Where's your source that they didn't own the brand?
- Employees, beyond Eberhard and Tarpenning.
vs Wikipedia[1]:
Ian Wright was the third employee, joining a few months later.[2] The three went looking for venture capital (VC) funding in January 2004[2] and connected with Elon Musk, who contributed US$6.5 million of the initial (Series A) US$7.5 million[10] round of investment in February 2004 and became chairman of the board of directors.[2] Musk then appointed Eberhard as the CEO.
I'd like to say, this is just a strange thing to suggest is negative in the tech space; there's loads of companies that start off as a small group of people (or even solo) and grow once they have investment
- Any real funding. During the Series A founding in 2004, Elon contributed $6.5M / $7.5 total.
- An actual car. During the development of the Roadster, Elon was both Chairman and Architect/CTO.
I don't understand this argument. It basically says "before they sought funding they didn't have any funding", which is incredibly obvious and not a point? Was there something more you wanted to say here? Yeah, he was the money guy who invested in an existing company, which kind of reinforces the point that it was an existing company with something worth investing in *because he did and then he took the reins on direction*.
Similarly, "before they had funding, they didn't have any vehicles to show for it." A car is not software, to actually build a functioning vehicle takes quite a bit of time. It took Tesla two full years after his investment to demonstrate a prototype Roadster. Musk had left the CEO position when the first Roadsters started shipping.
From reading the original founders' thoughts about where they initially wanted to go, it seems that the company was going to be focused on automotive technology, with their cars being largely showcases for their technology, essentially the way Unreal engine used to be sold and the way the Doom games have been showcases for id's engines. They were not really setting out to be a mass-market automaker, is the gist I get from their various interviews. It's very possible that this was because they believed they couldn't disrupt the automotive market, feeling it was too entrenched, and Musk had the money to put that goal within reach.
He definitely reset Tesla's aim and the company demonstrated there was money to be made making EVs. He had a big part in it but a lot of the engineering work was courtesy of Lotus' engineering teams[2]. His main contribution appears to have been forcing the team to pursue carbon fiber and pushing them to make custom headlamps that met DOT standards, in spite of costs associated with both. Despite how Wikipedia words it, if you look at the source - [2] below - it makes the following mention about the headlights, for example:
Again, Elon pushed us to spend the considerable money necessary to develop custom (and DOT-compliant) headlights to make the front look great.
I think when people read in the Wikipedia article:
Eberhard acknowledged that Musk was the person who insisted from the beginning on a carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer body and that Musk led design of components ranging from the power electronics module to the headlamps and other styling
The takeaway is that Elon actually designed the components himself. The wording is vague enough to obscure the types of design involved and to play into the "genius" narrative. From all the sources, it appears that he was a guiding influence on style and basic statements about features and materials, rather than actually sitting down and designing individual components.
As to this point:
As for the developments around 2008, it becomes speculation who is telling the more true story between Musk and Eberhard. But as for what both have achieved elsewhere, it seems to me that Musk is also more effective as CEO.
Billionaires make effective CEOs is the argument here? I mean, probably, yes, unless they inherited their billions. I think before Twitter he had proven himself capable, he did great work with SpaceX and Tesla in his role as CEO. It's important to keep in mind the context here: This is a thread in which FormerBandmate wrote "He is a genius at hardware".
> I don't understand this argument. It basically says "before they sought funding they didn't have any funding"
It was in reference to this:
>> The ball was already rolling on Tesla before Elon came along though.
In what way do you think "the ball was rolling" before Elon came along?
> They were not really setting out to be a mass-market automaker, is the gist I get from their various interviews. It's very possible that this was because they believed they couldn't disrupt the automotive market, feeling it was too entrenched, and Musk had the money to put that goal within reach.
In other words, Tesla as we know it today, is due to Elon.
> From all the sources, it appears that he was a guiding influence on style and basic statements about features and materials, rather than actually sitting down and designing individual components.
Well, I suppose he was clearly in charge of it, Kind of like Steve Jobs for the iPhone. Unlike Steve, though, Elon has a technical (physics) education and a background as a developer, so he had the ability to drill into more details than Steve.
> Billionaires make effective CEOs is the argument here?
Effective CEO's tend to become Billionaires, especially if they're owners/founders. Musk has done so twice, at the same time, in Tesla and SpaceX, while also playing a key role in the creation of several other companies.
And this empire was built from essentially nothing (a few thousand dollars from his father at some point). It's not like Musk was born a billionaire.
This is false. You should check the records as to what Tesla was before Musk and JB Straubel came on board, it wasn’t much. I highly doubt the company would have survived past the Roadster.
Do Kia (reborn in 1986), Tata, and Saleen not count as successful? Tesla has had an impressive rise, but it's not like nothing happened between 1923 and 2003 in the automotive industry.
I think most people do not consider enough the importance of timing.
EV cars have existed for more than a century and been tried out by many companies. They all failed to mark a significant dent in the market because batteries technologies weren't as advanced as now, and because regulations weren't as strict as they are now.
Tesla was founded right when at a crossing point when California and European Union emissions regulations started to be more and more stringent and efficient batteries affordable enough. Being an EV-only company it was granted a very generous loan from the US government. This is a kick start no small automotive company ever got.
Not saying Musk hasn't any part in how the development, manufacturing and sale process was done. He certainly is one of the first to make people accept and even pay to be beta testers of an unfinished product/vehicle.
"No one is purely a savior" is a truism. Elon Musk is not a savior for simpler reasons, like all the lying, cheating, and general mishegas he's responsible for.
