I look forward to Twitter becoming an even more poisonous hellscape under Musk’s ownership.
Weren’t many of these billionaires originally innovators, engineers, producers…?
Of the top 10 richest people in the world at least 7 fit into that category.
Originally, but now? (I couldn’t open the link, so I’m just basing it off your statement)
NASA still has a annual budget of 22bn. Which is huge by any measure. I once met Andrew Aldrin (Buzz Aldrins son) and we’ll respected in his own right. He described NASA continually blowing budget (by billions) not to mention timelines. How numerous space companies that have failed since the 90s (this is the third wave).
He illustrated the huge difference in cost of NASA, the Russian Space program, Boeings space programs to send a man to space. SpaceX was effectively half the price of Boeing. A third of what Russia was charging.
This graphic gives an indication.
SpaceX is not the same as Jeff Bazos or Richard Bransons ventures. The technology developed is pushing boundaries. They are outcompeting Boeing. Taking risks but being successful. They have the agility and risk profile that enables them to act differently to a Boeing, differently to a government agency.
It’s like a football team. You can have great player but still need leadership. No different for scientists and engineers.
You can make the case that many billionaires create wealth, just as you can make the case that they hoard it. Perception of where you fall in that line is likely defined by political ideology.
Musk is a clever, driven man, and the world is better for advancements made in electric cars, battery power, and the drive to cleaner energy. All car manufacturers are now in this game, and the advances made by Tesla have pulled the market in that direction, and it will only increase and improve.
For example, the battery technology in Lucid cars is now much better than what Tesla is producing, and this sort of innovation will extrapolate out around the whole industry. Tesla has been a massive catalyst, but is being, and will be bettered, but Musk, as an ideologue, will be happy about that.
As for Space X, his stated goal is for humans to become a multi-planetary species, so if catastrophe should happen - asteroid, nuclear destruction, fatal pandemic - we have a “back up” on another planet to keep the species going. Advancements in technology have made launching satellites cheaper, reusing rockets has been a technical game changer, and the strides he has made in this arena have pushed it all forward. Ancillary benefits like improving internet connection in remote areas via the use of satellites have been impressive too.
There’s a lot to like about his intelligence, and his big thinking. It seems as though he is trying to solve some of the biggest issues we face and the world is a better place for that.
There is of course another side to this.
He hasn’t been the sole innovator and he has used the work of others and built on it. Nothing wrong with that, but it is different from the perception some have, that Musk invents stuff out of thin air.
He has benefitted from government money in order to build his businesses. The government is an excellent tool for absorbing the risk necessary for something nearer to the start of the process, and Musk has benefitted from billions of dollars on that front, not to mention government subsidies and contracts. So, lots of government help along the way for him to become what he is.
Now the flip side of that. He barely pays any taxes, and not too long ago he ridiculously took it to Twitter to ask the public if he should pay some. I’d like to see him pay a lot more tax, to help pay for the things we all need in order for society to function. Not least, his tax could fund billions and billions for other innovators, and who knows what dreams and ideas have yet to come to the surface because they have not been adequately resourced?
In addition to this he comes across as a mean spirited man sometimes. Pedo guy? Come on, you can’t say that. Although he can, and he did.
Labels like narcissist are in vogue but a proper assessment would have to be made, in person, by a qualified professional, so I won’t go there. But with that said, he does seem to like the fanfare and the self-promotion.
As for the purchase of Twitter, I don’t think this is one is about money, but it is about power. He will be able to shape the narrative in the public domain and now has the means to damage rivals and others he does not like. I don’t think his purchase of Twitter is a good thing, but we will have to see what he does.
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Maybe that’s why he avoids paying them.
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Launching a rocket is not the same thing as being a great person, otherwise Kim Jong-Un would be admirable.
Everything Musk does is an ego massaging vanity project about nothing other than self glorification. That is massively obvious and if you can’t see that then there’s no point in me trying to help you.
Buying Twitter is a way to control the narrative and gain power. All the free speech rhetoric will disappear as soon as anyone dares to oppose him.
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I see this differently. The pipe dream of colonizing Mars is what allows him to defend the current rampaging and destructive mentality of continual economic growth: planet Earth is fucked anyway (that’s what he says), so let’s exploit and ultimately destroy all ressources here, as my brilliant genius technologies will allow us to start all over again on Mars.
This guy is dangerous imo, because he manages to implant false ideas in peoples’ heads. Of course, owning Twitter will help him to go along that way.
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Going to start off my reply by caveating that I’m not very familiar with SpaceX, so I’m speaking in general.
NASA doesn’t just manufacture rockets for explorations. They do other things too.
Which happens regularly in large organisations. Even Tesla continually missed timelines.
And the former don’t push boundaries? Or they just haven’t had the headstart?
If Boeing/NASA hived off their spacecraft development units, wouldn’t that achieve the same effect?
Yes, but in this case the “leadership” is vastly overrated. Kind of like Solskjaer, or Lampard. There’s a lot of attributing to skill what really is just luck.
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This is part of the myth. Of that top ten you’re really reaching to include anyone other than Bezos, Page and Brin. The rest, including musk, made their wealth by understanding markets with other people’s ideas. There is absolutely an entrepreneurial skill, and successful innovation needs people who can manage the companies who are doing the innovating, but lets not pretend these guys are Ben Franklin or Thomas Edison.
I think the other thing related specifically to Musk, is lots of people really underappreciate how much of Telsa’s story as a viable profitable business is yet to be written. For the vast majority of their existence they have been an investment play that makes cars rather than a car company. They became profitable only in the last 18 months and that was taking advantage of some of the lowest hanging fruit. A present their revenue and profit is a tiny fraction of someone like Ford, with a share price 8-9 times higher. That’s not a good recipe when the easy growth has already been achieved.
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Bill Gates?! Ellison? Then you’ve got the likes of Paul Allen and Zuckerberg.
Either you dont remember much about what those guys did or I completely failed to make my point.
MS established its market position, and with it Gates’s money, by ripping off Jobs’ product (who he was contracted to work on) and then using monopolistic practices to force out better competitors.
Ellison is probably a better shout than I gave him credit for, but again it’s important to understand even a company like that where the founder rides it to riches is generally the product of small teams not some single heroic genius. Also, have you ever been forced to use any Oracle products? Their success is not because they are better than competitors. Like MS, their success is largely because of the business strategy that made them ubiquitous, definitely not because of the engineering.
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I don’t think it is why he is buying twitter but twitter is already awash with “people” pushing Tesla stock/crypto currency and jumping on the offence against any criticism of Musk. I can only see this increasing under his stewardship.
I also find it concerning that he seems to believe “free speech” means the right to say anything you want without consequence. It’s no surprise that racists, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, MLMers etc are delighted with the news. Again, whether that is his intention or an unintended consequence I am not sure - but if he really is as smart as lots of people want to claim he is then he surely knows where this leads.
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I think you have pretty much covered everything I had to say.
My only pushback is regarding one of your points regarding him originally being financed by government grants, subsidies, etc, but you 1, have to convince them to agree to this, and 2, make it work. However, I appreciate you kind of allude to this in your previous paragraphs.
I respect Musk in what he has achieved, as you don’t become the worlds richest person without reason, but to me (and I know I am comparing him to a fictional character) he has a very ‘Tony Stark/Iron Man’ personality. Infact I believe he actually appeared in one of the movies.
He wants to save the day, portrays a willingness to make the world greener but then promotes Bitcoin/alt coins to his own gain.
As you mentioned, Provided a mini-sub to rescue the people trapped in a cave in Thailand to then accuse one of the rescuers of being a pedo because they suggested it as being a PR stunt.
He is very much an attention seeker, wanting reassurance from other and seeking to be a bit out there, name of his child, etc.
Obviously, Musk has his own views on saving the world but as you say he could at least pay his taxes and fund other research projects. At the very least start off by reducing the current environmental impact. For example, Musk and Bezos with their wealth could probably put a solar panel system on every building across the whole world, set up solar farms, wind farms, increase research into Nuclear fusion.
But, that is boring, why rescue the planet you live on when you can break a new frontier in space exploration. We can find a new planet to inhabit and call it Planet Musk.
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I agree, however, I can not see how Twitter or any other social media platform can regulate this fully.
I believe that for a start every account should be authorised by legal identification. However, this does not solve problem.
What is deemed as free speech and who determines this? Without free speech things like the abolishment of slavery/BLM, woman’s and LGBTQ rights, etc, (although not perfect and still needing a lot of work) would not be where they are now. It would have been suppressed like we are seeing at present in other countries.
My problem with social media is the cancel culture. Its a shame because Social Media has so many positives but it has been over run IMO by narrow minded people who believe what they are told without forming their own opinions and that is in all forms of discussion. Additionally (admittedly, only as an opinion, as I have no evidence of this), I believe it allows people with low self esteem, bullies to gain self gratification, reassurance by attacking someone else through anonymity, even when they may not actually agree with what they are saying.
Social media when relating to topics/debate be a very toxic environment. Unfortunately, I do not believe this format will ever be able to be regulated 
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The SpaceX philosophy to working is a bit different shall we say. They obviously aren’t afraid of failure evidenced by the number of rockets that explode on the launch pad but it does also give me the impression of carelessness. I’m probably very wrong on that front but it is certainly a different approach to pushing boundaries. One that other scientific type organisations don’t seem to take.
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I think there are a few things to unpack.
Musk, Branson and Bazos are frequently put in the same basket. Their companies though are miles apart in terms of technology, ambitions and achievements.
SpaceX will be flying to the moon in the next 3 years. Mars in the not too distant future. They have developed rhe most powerful rocket ever made (can carry 100 tons). They are are making deep space travel a reality.
Virgin by contrast are making space planes for space tourists.
What differentiates SpaceX is they are reducing costs AND developing technological innovations. According to NASA themselves, outsourcing to SpaceX has reduced spacecraft costs from $27.4 bn to $1.7bn. They estimate other contractors (eg Boeing) would be 10x more expensive.
From a technology perspective, the Falcon 9 is regarded as the best rocket ever built (cost, reliability etc). They took the rocket and redesigned every aspect. They used 3D printing to print the thruster. They have plans to 3D print entire rockets !!
From battery technology to developing drilling technology to build underground habitats. From releasing the next generation of broadband (star link) to using solar panels to make rocket fuel. The technology development is another level.
The knock on consequences of these advancements span distributed manufacturing to the internet, to energy. From the science of pure space exploration to utilisation to of drilling technology for hyper loop transport systems.
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Again, I have no idea as to the specific details of SpaceX (you seem way more clued up than I am), so I’m speaking in generalities here.
The problem I have with all of this is that these are the exact same things that came out of NASA during that space race era. Or any other investment effort anywhere. What you’re lauding as remarkable innovations now are no more remarkable (for their era) than what was achieved in the 1970s either.
They didn’t invent 3D printing, they didn’t innovate battery technology either. For battery technology it was their supplier. I’m not familiar with the Boring Company or whether they’ve achieved anything new on that front.
Musk is nothing special.
