Currently, Tesla and SolarCity and others like it are dealing with current political turmoil. It's obvious to anyone with secular attitudes that we need to build up battery and renewable energy technologies. When we appeared to be moving in the direction of supporting the technologies with subsidation, it appeared that this was the path that we'd be taking long term, that the US political system was coming to term with its issues, and that early adopters would be able to survive. This isn't always the case, often times early adopters don't quite get it right, and later adopters come along and correct the few issues that exist, and then they prosper.

For better or worse, secular understandings and political understandings don't always jive. Now that political attitudes have changed, it seems obvious that early adopters will struggle, as their affordability is often based on those same subsidies. This is the only frame of reference in my mind that is terribly important when it comes to the success or failure of many of the properties that Musk runs. The fact that he's kept them going in the current political and social environments is really a credit, I think.

He's not building fossil fuel based vehicles. He's not building coal plants. He's keeping the space race alive. The general dislike of this guy seems personal. There are far larger financial crimes to go after, but Musk made himself a target. Damn, I wouldn't doubt that he does some of it on purpose.