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Comment by mplewis | Hacker News Reader

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I think you damage your own credibility more than Musk's by saying things like this. He's delivered on electric cars and reusable rockets. It's fair to say promises more than he delivers, but he delivers an awful lot.

I agree that he delivers a lot, but the comment is still fair seems he constantly over-promises and under delivers.

If someone said "I'm the fastest man alive! I can run at the speed of sound!" And then they went out and ran at 30% the speed of sound I think it would make sense to say "That was an amazing try. You're not at the speed of sound, or even that close to it, but you're definitely the fastest man alive and that is amazing running." I don't think it would make sense to call this person a fraud.

The problem with the logic is that he’s commercializing the over-promises. Investors are buying his stock based on those missed promises. People are buying cars based on that too and are being let down.

Underdelivery is par for literally every human institution on earth.

The federal government underdelivers. Corporations by default underdeliver. Grad students underdeliver. Football teams underdeliver.

Every single institution on earth more ambitious than lawncare services makes lofty ambitious goals and then achieve maybe 20% of them. Musk is the same, but the difference is that his 20% are orders of magnitude more ambitious than anyone else, so 20% delivery is still world-changing.

What he "under-delivers" is still a lot more than most other companies deliver, maybe every other company.

> I think you damage your own credibility more than Musk's by saying things like this.

Why are you making it about this commenter? They are not wrong. Unless you can answer this next question:

> He's delivered on electric cars and reusable rockets. It's fair to say promises more than he delivers, but he delivers an awful lot.

So where are the 1 million robo-taxis driving around at Level 5 FSD ready for release in 2020 then?

There is a reason why he is very clever at playing the pied piper and manipulating his customers like crash dummies to buy his FSD contraption to run each other down whilst increasing the price of a broken product.

That alone highlights the scam he is running with FSD which is a shame since that it damages his credibility and with the repeated failed claims and predictions of FSD not materializing, he is making himself a magnificent example of a great con artist with Tesla.

Ardent Musk critics look at FSD, see a scam, and conclude that Musk is a scammer and everything he does is a scam.

Ardent Musk fanboys look at the rockets, see them actually work, and conclude that Musk is legit in everything he does.

Personally I think Musk's ventures are a mix of scam and legitimate. His rockets are real, but I don't believe for a minute they'll ever send a colony to Mars. His cars are real, but anybody who bought one hoping it would make passive income as a robotaxi got burned. Musk ventures are like going to a circus; the lions are probably real, the mermaid exhibit isn't, and the "world's strongest man" is certainly strong, but not the world's strongest.

Well, my criticism is specifically and only with FSD.

There was no mention of me calling SpaceX, Tesla cars, etc a scam. You can support and purchase a Tesla but also be critical of the claims about FSD and leave out SpaceX, Starlink, etc.

I'm pretty happy with FSD beta, drives itself 95% of the time and I can easily see them figuring out the other 5%. People like you said landing rockets wasn't possible either. Where are they now?

Conveniently ignoring all the evidence of success?

I wish I could charlatan my way into thousands of satellites in space, a rocket that flies into space weekly and a car company changing the flow of the entire industry.

Sounds pretty good for a mere charlatan.

This is like the old argument about faking the moon landings. By the time you add up all the things you'd need to fake/people you'd need to buy off in order to make it bullet proof, you end up with it being actually cheaper to actually fly to the moon.

Most of us here would dream of being that effective. He's a jerk though, that's the part the world could do without and with him now firmly in the Trump camp we'll see what kind of long term misery will come from that.

I can't stand it when immigrants into a country become champions for the anti-immigration party, it's the moral equivalent of kicking the door shut behind you.

He is not a champion for anti immigration. Where did you get that impression?

Musk is also not in Trump’s camp [0]. He is centrist and libertarian, and he doesn’t have to cater to any particular political party.

[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-12/musk-says...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1526997132858822658?lang...

> with him now firmly in the Trump camp we'll see what kind of long term misery will come from that.

[citation needed]. I guess you missed the news of Trump completely lambasting Elon? Trump is no friend of Elon. Nor is Elon a friend of Trump. Elon is a centrist, not far right.

lol you can tell someone doesn’t understand elon when they claim he’s on anyones side. He trolls everyone equally

To add, Elon actually accepted an advisory position for Trump when he became President, but quit less than 6 months in after voicing his disagreement on leaving the Paris Agreement. [1]

That’s exactly the opposite of being in the Trump camp.

[1] https://fortune.com/2017/06/01/elon-musk-trump-paris-agreeme...

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