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Comment by publius_0xf3 | Hacker News Reader

Was Musk always this mercurial or was he more competent at his previous companies? I still have trouble understanding how this man created something as good as SpaceX despite displaying no obvious indications of genius, and every sign of mediocrity, in his current state.

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> I still have trouble understanding how this man created something as good as SpaceX despite displaying no obvious indications of genius, and every sign of mediocrity, in his current state.

Well either your perception of things Musk does at SpaceX is wrong or your perception of things Musk does at X is wrong, right ?

The other option (and the one that would appear to be true in this case) is that SpaceX has more effective management, and Musk isn’t as closely involved.

Musk is very closely involved with SpaceX. There are extensive technical interviews with him on YouTube talking about the Starship program.

I mean, there are extensive technical interviews with Kim Jong Un on North Korean tv talking about whatever the random factory he’s visiting does; wouldn’t read too much into that.

(Actually, I’m not 100% sure if Un does this; Il was certainly big on it)

It seems he does:

https://kimjongunlookingatthings.com/

I have the same question. It’s hard to judge from the outside like this but there are Trump-ian displays of arrogance, disconnection and incompetence that seem at odds with his massive successes with SpaceX and Tesla in particular. He’s clearly book smart, but seems like a petulant, chronically insecure man-child in most areas from the accounts both public and insider. I find the incongruence strange.

Elon Musk isn't responsible for the success of his companies - they succeed in spite of him, because of the quality of the people who do the actual work, and their ability to manage him and keep him from doing to Tesla and SpaceX what he's doing to Twitter.

Unfortunately, modern American capitalism is obsessed with hero worship of CEOs and the myth of Elon Musk as a real life Tony Stark is just too compelling for people to shake off.

That's obviously false, because then it would be highly unlikely to have two highly successful companies (Tesla and SpaceX, not even counting PayPal) if it was just him being lucky with employees.

The more you know about something that Musk talks about as if he’s an expert in it, the more you realise that he’s a bluffer. He real skill may be his motivational & promotional skills but from all that’s known, he’s neither reasonable or honest when doing that.

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