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Comment by woodandsteel | Hacker News Reader

You know, it is really interesting watching the Musk haters over the years.

The more he succeeds in doing what he promised (albeit usually behind schedule), the more they hate him, and the more convinced they become that his present projects will all turn out to be complete failures.

It almost makes you think they have some ulterior motive, like they work for the fossil fuel industry, of one of the other rocket launch companies, or a major auto manufacturer, or maybe they bet their life savings on Tesla stock crashing.

Any Musk haters out their want to respond? And if you do, be sure to tell us about your past predictions, and if they turned out right or wrong.

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yeah, when he crashes and burns it will burn 100 billion dollars and the credibility of the whole tech industry (like Theranos but 100X).

There will be a nuclear winter in tech investment after that which sets back legitimate companies with real innovation by years with lasting damage to the global economy.

Same story as Uber and why people "hated" on them before the adults cleaned things up (as best as possible).

These con artists are shitting in the water for everyone else which has direct financial impact. Not hate, just money.

I think there's something to this argument. Elon actually realizes this part himself:

  when he crashes and burns it will burn 100 billion dollars and the credibility of the whole tech industry

Elon has stated publically that it would be "really bad" (his words) if Tesla fails, because Tesla will then serve as an example of why electric cars will never work, and from that point it will be 10x harder to create an EV startup - to say nothing of the investment crater that's leftover from their death.

However, I don't understand the rest of the comment regarding the "con artists" and how this is at all like Uber.

>if Tesla fails, because Tesla will then serve as an example of why electric cars will never work, and from that point it will be 10x harder to create an EV startup

Except that during the last two years all the major car companies have started big EV programs, and in China, the world's largest car market, the government has gone all-in on pushing EV's. So no matter what happens with Tesla, EV's are here to stay. In fact the experts say that when batteries get cheap enough around 2025, the whole market is going to swing in their favor.

Let me repeat my question: what have been your past predictions about Musk's projects, and have they been right or wrong.

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