# Elon Musk **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 29, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765 "2018-01-29T23:24:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2020, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765/261 "2020-05-01T23:06:45Z")
> [@QuickSilver](#): > > I thought smoking pot made people really chill and easy going. Maybe he’s doing it wrong. Isn’t there some kind of synthetic pot that makes people go bonkers instead of chilling out? Maybe he hoarded the wrong substance. Went to high school with a young man who was arrested for smoking leafy green substances with his pals on campus…turns out he had a nice stash of oregano. No idea what kind of effects they experienced from that though. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765/262 "2020-05-09T18:20:00Z")
Today, he [tweeted](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259159878427267072?s=20) that he’s suing Alameda County (Tesla’s main plant is in Fremont, in Alameda County) because the health authorities are preventing the factory from reopening. He also [tweeted](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1259162367285317633?s=20) that he’s going to move the headquarters out of California (the HQ is in Palo Alto) and possibly even move the factory. I don’t understand how the board hasn’t fired him yet. (Or why NASA gave SpaceX a contract.) ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765/263 "2020-05-09T18:30:56Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I don’t understand how the board hasn’t fired him yet. (Or why NASA gave SpaceX a contract.) I am at a loss as to how the Securities Exchange Commission hasn’t gone after him for clear violations of his agreement to have Tweets regarding Tesla stock valuation and production forecasts vetted. However, it is pretty clear why both NASA and the USAF have issued contracts to SpaceX; they have (after some initial hiccups) provided a reliable launch vehicle that is cost competitive with the existing EELV vehicles (Atlas V and Delta IV/IVH, albeit both are contracted on a [FAR Part 15](https://www.spendlogic.com/far-12-vs-far-15-a-tale-of-two-documentation-requirements/) basis, and both NASA and the USAF have paid additional tens of millions of dollars to get the necessary documentation from SpaceX to perform independent verification and validation for mission assurance and independent risk analysis). Given the reliance of Lockheed Martin for Russian RD-180 engines, and the cost of LOX/LH2 on the Delta IV, the American-sourced Falcon 9 and Heavy using LOX/RP-1 is a sensible move. It is also the case that Elon Musk has little involvement at this point with the day-to-day operations at SpaceX involving NASA and USAF programs, and SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell is capable of behaving like a responsible adult human being. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [May 9, 2020, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765/264 "2020-05-09T18:52:10Z")
He’s providing a strong case that billionaires are, as a general rule, inhuman scum. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2020, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765/265 "2020-05-12T17:50:39Z")
Yea, a human scum who helped solve the payment problem on the internet, has done more than anyone to popularize electric cars, who has revolutionized the rocket industry, and who may soon bring universal internet access to the poorest people in the world - one of the largest step changes in history in terms of bringing education and access to markets to the 3rd world. What a monster. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765/266 "2020-05-13T03:22:27Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Yea, a human scum who helped solve the payment problem on the internet Non sequitur. I hold no brief for the innate inhuman-scumminess or otherwise of billionaires in general or Elon Musk in particular, but the fact that a businessman ran a successful money-transfers company (for about six months, before being ousted as CEO) does not automatically preclude his **also** being inhuman scum. Heck, notorious inhuman-scum businessman Martin Shkreli founded a company to create treatments for rare diseases, which on paper sounds pretty darn philanthropic too. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > has done more than anyone to popularize electric cars Also not intrinsically incompatible with inhuman-scumminess, so again, non sequitur. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > who has revolutionized the rocket industry See above. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > and who may soon bring universal internet access to the poorest people in the world - one of the largest step changes in history in terms of bringing education and access to markets to the 3rd world. :dubious: It’s kind of adorable how you imagine that a billionaire’s business venture that he’s openly pursuing for the sake of [large profits and taxpayer funding](https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/10/elon-musk-wants-taxpayers-to-pay-for-his-starlink.aspx) ought to be preemptively regarded as a sign of his nobly altruistic nature. > [@](#): > > The first part of Musk’s plan to pay for Starlink works as you’d expect it to. Once achieving “moderate” internet coverage, SpaceX will begin providing, and charging for, broadband internet service from space. […] > > Over time, as the company orbits and activates more and more satellites, SpaceX expects to derive increasingly large percentages of its revenue from satellite internet service. In fact, by 2025, the company think broadband satellite internet could be a $30 billion-a-year business, generating six times more revenue than the company gets from launching rockets – and at operating profit margins approaching 60%. […] > > Long story short, SpaceX is almost certainly capable of building, and paying for – and profiting richly from – Starlink all on its own. Nevertheless, Elon Musk has never been one to leave government money on the table. And as WSJ reported last month, there’s a chance Musk could get U.S. taxpayers to pay for all of Starlink, such that the money SpaceX makes from operating the service could turn out to be pure profit for SpaceX. […] > > In January, the Federal Communications Commission launched a $20.4 billion “Rural Digital Opportunity Fund” to expand fast internet access by paying for the construction of “up to gigabit speed broadband networks in unserved rural areas” over the next 10 years. $16 billion will be up for grabs initially, and another $4.4 billion later on, with the funds coming from government surcharges (taxes) levied on consumers’ phone bills. > > SpaceX wants to bid for part or all of the funds available […] there’s a very real chance that the lion’s share of this Rural Digital Opportunity Fund money will go to SpaceX. > > In that case, SpaceX could conceivably build its network on the government’s dime – and keep the profits for itself. > [@Sam Stone](#): > > What a monster. Maybe. Despite your own most cherished ideological convictions to the contrary, being a massively wealthy and successful anti-government (but simultaneously tax-revenue-milking) entrepreneur is not automatically incompatible with being a shitty human being. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2020, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765/267 "2020-05-13T03:28:05Z")
Musk is behaving like someone who realizes his company’s not as financially strong as he’s leading people to believe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/elon-musk/807765.md?page=13)