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Comment by rmason | Hacker News Reader

Surprised no one here has mentioned that Elon Musk is living in a Boxabl house in Austin, TX. This has totally perplexed the people who follow his every move.

https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/elon-musk-texas-hou...

I think that he might possibly be doing his homework. Can you imagine a Boxabl house outfitted with a solar roof, a Tesla battery and a Starlink dish?

I could see people having a remote cottage not hooked into the power line. I just know that Elon Musk doesn't do stuff without a reason.

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There's a video from Boxabl pitching their stuff to Elon https://twitter.com/i/status/1367548452633206789

The pitch kind of makes sense - he's trying to have a lot of people work at Starbase but there isn't much housing there so they could sort it by installing a lot of Boxabl units. Also the things are high tech made in a factory which fits a bit with the Tesla model.

I imagine he's trying one out for a bit before maybe ordering a bunch for the other workers. See also Teslarati https://www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-50k-house-texas-pictures...

"I think that he might possibly be doing his homework."

I believe you're dead on, this guy's an absolute baller of a CEO (running 3 totally game-changing startups) and completely immerses himself in his work and research.

“The coronavirus panic is dumb” -Elon Musk (March 6th 2020)

Everyone has the rights to behave as an idiot, including Musk. To his partial defense, he minimized the risks, got Covid, then it seems he changed his stance on the matter. A bit late, but better than never.

"To be clear, I do support vaccines in general & covid vaccines specifically. The science is unequivocal. In very rare cases, there is an allergic reaction, but this is easily addressed with an EpiPen." — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2021

I admire your admiration of him, it's a sign you haven't reached the level of cynicism required to classify him in the 'snake oil salesman' category yet.

Snake oil salesmen do not send self landing rockets to the ISS.

He may have a bit more hype and may be manipulative in some ways, but you have to admit that he has given a good amount of technological progress to the world.

Would you think the big car companies would scramble for electric cars if not for Tesla?

“Would you think the big car companies would scramble for electric cars if not for Tesla?”

Yes, I would. Technological progress gives lawgivers room to tighten emission rules, and that’s what drives car makers. Tesla sped up that process, but not by much, IMO.

I also don’t think ‘scramble’ is the right word. Tesla was (maybe even is: they make a profit from selling emission rights, and a big buyer says they don’t need them anymore. See https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-emissions-credits-sale...) wiling to sell at a loss in order to get market share and brand awareness. The big companies need neither, so they stepped in later.

I doubt it. The car companies have/had outsourced almost all of their manufacturing other than their core IP, engine production. If it didn't have an engine in it, it wouldn't have been built. They would have produced hybrids, but I doubt we would have seen any pure-EVs outside of hobbiest production or limited run hypercars by today.

Eventually maybe, but Tesla vastly accelerated that schedule.

Would you think the big car companies would scramble for electric cars if not for Tesla?

I feel some people give Tesla too much credit on this one. When I arrived in the UK (3 years ago), there were Nissan Leafs and Renault Zoes everywhere. It was rare that I saw a Tesla. Tesla's are much more common, now, but so are many other models. I would not say that Tesla has driven the market at all, here.

SpaceX sent a self landing rocket to the ISS. CEOs matter, but Musk seems to consistently get more credit for his company's successes than other leaders. His reality distortion field that enables him to hire very strong engineers is his biggest boon.

Musk is a lot more involved in day to day operations at SpaceX than a lot of people seem to understand. Shotwell on division of labor with Musk:

> The way Elon and I share the load, he focuses on development. He's still very highly engaged in the day-to-day operations, but his focus is on development. He was the lead on Starlink, and I started shifting my focus to Starlink around late spring, early summer of last year. Elon’s focus in that time was moving to Starship, that is his primary focus at SpaceX. It doesn't mean he's not thinking about the company on a day-to-day basis, but his emphasis is to get the Starship program to orbit.

Even if SpaceX was his only company, he still is just one person. I'm not talking about Musk specifically, but CEOs generally. In almost no circumstance does it make sense to assign engineering success to a CEO in the way it was done above. CEOs are responsible for hiring executives and setting and enforcing vision and values. That's important but it isn't the whole story.

What I understand is that Musk is very skilled at taking highly technical decisions, that have huge risks and financial implications.

Take the example of the decision to re use rocket engines. Its a highly technical decision that has huge financial repurcussions and essentially the whole basis for the low cost business model of SpaceX.

It would not be surprising if there were similar stories from Ramesh Balwani about the division of labor with Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos. SpaceX is no Theranos, but you shouldn't reach that conclusion from stories from the C-suite.

Elon Musk has repeatedly over and over made "bet the company" product decisions at all his companies. You aren't that lucky that many times without being able to skillfully grok technical things.

SolarCity failed. Investor fraud, not luck, saved it.

Elon delivered on his promise of using reusable rockets which other govts and billionaires could not do, how is that snake oil?

Hyperloop - snake oil

Crypto - snake oil

Colonization of Mars - (hilarious) snake oil

Starlink - (subsidized) snake oil

Tesla stock - snake oil

Mini rescue submarine - snake oil

Tesla cars from an ownership perspective - snake oil

etc.

You might find this interesting

Debunking Elon Musk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-FGwDDc-s8

that would be cool, I would buy that

I wouldn't be surprised if he was living in some space pod. Musk Elon is such a weird man.

My guess is that a man known for sleeping at the office is literally doing just that except with a bed instead of on the floor.

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