Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cthulhu_ | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad the vote didn't pass; if Musk were to be ousted, Tesla's stock would crash and the company would be dead. Not dissimilar to Apple, except I get the feeling Musk has a much bigger influence on the company than Jobs had at the time he was ousted.

View on HN

publicly maybe but I'm pretty sure internally Musk is way less important than Jobs at Apple

Really? What makes you conclude that? Elon Musk is kind of like Steve Jobs and Wozniak molded into one person. Musk has deeper technical knowledge than Jobs ever had while he also has some of Jobs intuition about design and products.

The cultish adoration of Jobs is strong and they exist in their own reality bubble.

Nothing to do with Musk credentials, I just think in the context of car / factories there's a lot of people as knowledgeable as him. Jobs was dealing with a different field, computer tech is a little weirder, and a lot more to do with culture / brand, which Jobs exuded.

For SpaceX probably especially since SpaceX's president has started to become more visible. However for Tesla I doubt it, at least not yet. Musk wouldn't be sleeping at the factory if he didn't need to micromanage.

I based my comment on SpaceX actually. But I may be wrong, it's just easy to equate Musk with Tesla when you only see him. But he's not alone. About the factory couch .. I wouldn't conclude that his presence is a sign of greatness (nor the contrary)

True,

Tesla is not worth 50B. But Elon musk as a brand is worth billions.

He created a cult with spaceX. Even if his company is dead, his cultists will die with him.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com