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Comment by uxcolumbo | Hacker News Reader

The real problem with Musk is that he seems to be a narcissist and a good hypeman.

His achievements are that he invested in the right companies and then he ousted the original visionaries / founders... and finally claiming he is the founder... see Tesla.

Also a real leader usually gives credit where credit is due. Not once have I seen where Musk has credited his team.

And don't get me started with how he's calling a rescue diver a pedo, because his idea of his rescue submarine was rejected. Fragile ego is a dangerous thing.

He wants to be seen as a real life Tony Stark. It's more about him, not really about moving humanity forward, that's just a side effect.

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From what I can tell Musk is literally a founder of SpaceX. I know he was a dick to the founders of Tesla, and he deserves shit for that, but it is a fact that Tesla has come very far since then under his leadership, and any claim that the founders would have done better is pure speculation. And of course the teams at these companies deserve credit, which he consistently admits. People who are obsessed with tearing down Tesla/SpaceX are often inconsistent in that any good thing these companies do cannot be attributed at all to Elon, because “he’s just a grifter hypeman, the team/other founders deserve the credit”, but any bad press they get is somehow entirely Elon’s fault. The truth is just that he’s partially responsible for all the good and the bad.

From accounts of people who have actually worked with him, he’s a legitimately smart guy with a laser focus on executing, albeit a micromanager. All the people I’ve seen saying he’s just some idiot MBA type who doesn’t actually believe what he’s selling are random media personalities and pundits. I can’t claim to know which is true, but one is certainly more credible than the other.

Good points. I was only talking about Tesla.

What I was trying to get across is that a founder's own value system and motivations of why a founder is doing a thing are an important factor for the longevity of a company.

To me it appears that Musk is only in it for himself and his legacy. Eventually this will become more apparent and the loyalty and followership he's enjoying will drop.

He's more of a hypeman than a true visionary.

See how he hyped up his other ventures... solar city, self-driving cars you can make money with, electric trucks, hyperloop, etc... still waiting for that self-driving car which should be available 'next year' and that was in 2018 or something.

Is there a way to save comments so I can come back and laugh at them when I'm feeling down?

Just hit on the upvote button and then you can find them in your upvoted comments list ;)

Both can be true at the same time.

He has a fragile ego and weird behavior on the social networks. At the same time, SpaceX is by far the most successful of all the space startups that have emerged in this century. Most of its competitors are not even unsuccessful, but outright dead. Blue Origin, financed by Bezos, hasn't yet managed to reach the orbit after 22 years of operation.

Yes, it is possible that random forces of luck selected SpaceX for a string of successes. But I think it is deeper than that. Musk has an ability to attract engineering talent and give it enough leeway so that interesting concepts may emerge. Shotwell has an ability to keep the company financially sound and on track.

SpaceX is in big part successful through what looks like corrupt self-dealing and fraud. They bailed out SolarCity with NASA funded bonds and then instead of taking the L when SolarCity was to go bankrupt, Tesla bailed them out with a fake demo of non-functionable solar shingles followed by an acquisition.

SpaceX has delivered fundamental breakthroughs in commercial space launch. Any analysis of the company that omits this is extremely disingenuous and makes me suspect ignoble motivations behind the critique.

If Theranos had a breakthrough other parts could still have been fraud.

he credits his team in every speech he gives, and thanks the team constantly on twitter.

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