Accomplished? He's got money and hired some smart people. And tech media is more than happy to ignore all the stupid shit he's done and tried.
I am entirely skeptical he designed anything and considering the duds he's pretending are revolutionary (Boring, Hyperloop, Mars nonsense, Cybertruck, etc) but instead are failures it seems unlikely he could be so right about one thing and so wrong on others.
Trump is rich also
Definitely not a fan of his but hiring smart people and enabling them is an accomplishment.
As wealthy as he is, he didn’t inherit all of what he has today. He’s definitely done more than many people who come from wealth.
Not to sound “attacky” but that seems extremely naive.
Truthfully, he comes from wealth, but not close to the wealth he has today; his father owned half of an emerald mine for example.
He is quoted as saying (about his youth): "We had so much money at times we couldn't even close our safe"
But yes, he absolutely comes from wealth. Just like most of them do.
If we were to translate 5% of the 2020 U.S. GDP today, that would be 5% of $20.807 trillion. Or about $1.404 trillion. So Bezos, with his $182.2 billion and Musk with his $264.6 billion, have A LONG way to go to catch up with Rockefeller.
Self-landing rockets
Underground tunnel systems
Brain-computer interfaces
OpenAI leading AI research
PayPal
Accomplished? Meh!
EVs are over a century old. SpaceX was recreating NASA research. Subways have been a thing for over a century; literally millions of people use them every day. Paypal's tech stack used Thiel's startup's technology; they jettisoned everything from Musk's stack and moreover fired him for gross incompetence.
> EVs are over a century old.
But not an economic success and there was (and still is to be frank) no successful EV industry besides Tesla. A lot of fanfare with little results.
> SpaceX was recreating NASA research.
NASA and competitors dismissed any idea of landing rockets or even reusability in the first place. It was deemed a failed idea. This is why the SLS has been created by NASA as reusability was deemed a failure.
On the other items besides PayPal, they aren't successes yet so I'll reserve judgement.
On the whole "jettisoned" stuff there's a lot of conflicting reports on that and he wasn't fired.
Reading such an absurd and idiotic reductionist take on HN just makes me sad. I mostly speaks to you having absolutely zero knowlage about space technology and rocketry.
> moreover fired him for gross incompetence.
They fired him because he had a 10 year business plan to replace banks and become the main monetary system for all payments. A combination of being a bank, an online payment provider and Apple pay.
The other founders wanted to sell the company and make quick cash.
> Subways have been a thing for over a century;
Yeah such an asshole wanting to improve tunneling technology. Only assholes try to improve technology. We should just shoot anybody in the head who tries to improve on technology that is more then 10 years old.
I didn't say Elon Musk invented electric cars.
I'm saying he accomplished something in these fields.
If you want to pull him down among the rest of us, why don't you just point out that he's inhaling and exhaling in exactly the same way as everyone else?
In other news: honeybee tongue hairs repel water
Pssh, oil repelled water way before honey bees, they're not that special!
Lines like that work better on a site where most of the people don't appreciate just how damned hard it is to build a business.
Even if you want to go with the idiotic 'he is not an engineer'-storyline to make yourself feel good, as a business man his credentials are literally unassailable.
To downplay business success as 'hired some smart people' is just ridiculous and utterly sad and depressing to read on a page that is hosted on 'ycombinator'. Get a grip and think before you write something.
Ever tried to count all the failed businesses that did the same?
The attrition rate of technological startups that match your description is insane. How many space startups from the early 2000s do even exist today?
Musk's companies have already revolutionized at least two hard-to-crack industries, aerospace and automotive, and are attempting more.
Your exercise in false equivalence is, well, an exercise in false equivalence.