Comment by chipotle_coyote | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chipotle_coyote | Hacker News Reader

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chipotle_coyote

I'm going to push back against this narrative, because it seems a lot of the "let Elon be Elon" arguments are neatly encapsulated in this line:

Tesla is doing wild things which are causing crazy growth, but also crazy panic.

But the critics of Musk's behavior would respond, I think correctly, that there is a categorical difference between "wild things which cause crazy panic because they are high risk with high upside potential ('crazy growth')" and "wild things which cause crazy panic because they are high risk with little to no upside potential." And while perhaps sometimes it's difficult to tell whether a certain Crazy Elon Thing falls into Category A or Category B, things like "let's accuse someone who criticized me of being a pedophile, that'll teach him" or "hey, we have nothing signed and this blatantly violates SEC rules, but screw it, it'd be funny if I said we were going private at $420 a share, because 420"? Those are very clearly things that are in the "little to no upside potential" category.

I have a hard time seeing arguments against the SEC taking action-- especially here-- as anything but overcomplicated rationalizations rooted in a personal adoration of Elon Musk. Basically, "I like Elon Musk and so I don't want anything bad to happen to him."

But (a) laws don't work like that (b) selectively enforcing rules (especially those designed to prevent fraud and deception) isn't justice or ethics, and (c) he genuinely did something wrong-- multiple things wrong. He deserves to face adverse consequences for those choices.

This reminds me of the heart surgeon student who avoided jail time for attacking her partner with a knife because she 'showed potential'.

People are perhaps sympathetic to Elon because he shows more potential than other CEOs, no? Did the judge in the case above show leniency because 'he liked her'?

For b) rather than selectively enforcing rules, this would be an example of discretionary punishment, which is absolutely a part of justice and ethics, as in the case above. Some could interpret your argument to support mandatory minimum sentencing, which many don't believe works.

Disgressionary punishment is based on the severity of the crime, not the 'potential' of the person. You just described bias.

should be. In reality it is at the discretion of the judge.

I liked Musk because he seemed to play the engineering adventurer card. Not willing to submit to the average market opinion on how to do things. For instance Model S got more safety and performance than many cars. It started to fade with Autopilot which was way more gimmicky and rushed than the rest. The latest period was just chaos.

Indeed, but at end of the day he's human and sometimes we say stupid things driven by emotion.

You have to weigh the good and the bad, and thus far I'd say it's no contest. Elon has contributed far more upside.

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