Ask HN: Is Elon Musk *actually* providing value?

I recall Musk on Joe Rogan saying something like: 'How do you get high quality information and news on various topics?' (I'm paraphrasing). Twitter is my go-to for that and I have 100+ lists with different themes for each (which I don't get promoted tweets in, yay!). One example list I enjoy is computer history where people tweet about old technology and software and rift all day on that topic, another list is for infosec, another for political zealots and political punditry, and the list goes on.

So there's his solution for ingesting content absent of algorithmic noise and 'suggested topics'. Now if he could hire people to curate these lists and make proper feeds with high signal, that would be great. The Internet needs more curators & curation. I'm tired of social media algorithmically deciding what I should & shouldn't read.

Value to his stakeholders? Definitely. We should try to imagine whether all Musk's companies would be equally valued by their customer's base without his bold leadership. In full honesty I doubt so. Not only Musk has managed to succeed to recruit very talented people – without whom none of his endevour would have succeeded – but he proved to be (one of) the most iconic figures of our times, who has the ability to execute very fast on his ideas. Today I cannot envision any other leading his projects.

Looking from the outside it is impossible to determine.

Without doubt, there are hundreds of talented hardworking people in key positions across the many companies that Musk "heads". The media makes it appear as all that happens is of Musk's doing. As the supreme leader he probably plays a key part in the selection and motivation of those top players. As for results, without them, Elon would have nothing to grandstand about.

Musk is a revolutionary thing because for the first time you can invest or divest in a celebrity/politician, and in a very direct and liquid manner . Tesla stock price is a function of Musk "approval rating", celebrity status and trust among the population, in the past year or so the it finally became clear to everybody and there is no more confusion around the matter. Previously some people were saying that this wasn't about Musk but about the companies, now that thesis has been put to rest and finally even those people had to admit that it's all about Musk. So essentially you can now bet on his further rise (eg. Mr. Musk goes to Washington) or his downfall, or even a relatively stable future for him from now on.

You can't find anything like that for Biden or Trump or Bernie or De Santis...yes there are betting lines open, but they are event based (election) and they don't have nearly enough liquidity as Tesla's stock, which is essentially a perpetual betting line.

It is spurring a golden age for political commentators, pundits and even TMZ-like journalists and people who are usually entrenched in celebrity gossip.

For example...if Musk lays his hands on Grimes and she's an extremely outgoing person and tells her circle of people, then it's in the hands of TMZ by noon.

That news is a 300+B in market cap wiped out right there. Celebrity is a very fragile thing in the US, we've just seen it with Johnny Depp. You could have made a lot of money betting on the downfall of Johnny Depp but there wasn't a market to do so.

Giving credit to whom credit is due. Italy ran a small sized POC during the years of Berlusconi, but his companies shares were essentially all tied, illiquid and not very popular among international market makers.