Video Killed The Radio Star. 
He was just lucky.
And today, he is in trouble for making this false statement.
Tesla stock down over 13%.
Luck, ambition, tenacity.
Most successful people have some combination of those qualities. Musk’s particular ‘genius’, such as it is, is selling a vision, even if the reality repeatedly fails to live up to the advertisement. This isn’t particularly uncommon, but Musk has managed to attract enough actually competent people to make some version of that vision a reality with both SpaceX and Tesla, albeit far less than what investors have been sold on or customers have been promised. Musk wants to be D.D. Harriman, but he’s closer to Harold Hill.
Stranger
In view of recent events the first page of the thread makes for interesting reading.
On Thursday morning, the SEC had a settlement agreement in place with Tesla and Musk. Under the deal, Tesla would step down as chairman from Tesla (but could resume the position after two years and could remain as CEO) and both he and the company would pay fines and the company would add two new board members (presumably so that his influence on the board was reduced). Musk walked away from the deal, apparently because he couldn’t claim he had done nothing wrong.
Also, The Wall Street Journal mentioned the large number of executives who have left the company recently, “Tesla’s executive bench is thin after more than 50 vice presidents or higher-ranking executives have departed over the past two years. Tesla’s top sales executive, Jon McNeill, left for a role as chief operating officer at ride-hailing company Lyft Inc., while the auto maker’s engineering chief, Doug Field, returned to a job at Apple Inc.”
Certainly in any large company, some percentage of the executives are going to move on at any point, but this seems a particularly large number for a company that’s not very large.
This. He hired people with technical skills. Period. And then usually doesn’t listen to them. People keep saying he’s a a Tony Stark level genius. I just don’t see it.
It sounds awful top heavy.
That was my thought, unless there are 10 of those positions that have all turned over 5 times (which is of course a lot in two years).
The people saying this are fawning apologists for all things Elon and without awareness of the technical details of the products that his companies produce. When the Model S was just coming out, Elon claimed to be intimately involved in the design of every subsystem on the car, which is just impossible; the battery and power management system alone requires multiple disciplines of people focusing on individual components of the system. And working in the space launch industry, when I hear Musk speak about rocket technology it is apparent to me that he is repeating things other people have said to him without good comprehension and often wrong enough that he clearly does not actually understand the fundamentals of propulsion engineering, guidance & control, or other aspects beyond a cartoon level.
Tony Stark is an amazing genius because he is a comic character who is not subject to the limits of physics, and he also has some kind of ridiculously sophisticated automation technology that allows him to CAD up a new mechsuit and have it manufactured and working within hours. It makes for some great cinema, and the design and testing of the Mark II suit are some of the best scenes in the entire MCU series (“This is a flight stabilizer; it’s completely harmless…I didn’t expect that.”) but in reality Stark would had to have mastered dozens of different engineering disciplines AND be an expert electrical/mechanical/computer technician, notwithstanding that a microfusion reactor the size of a tuna can would put out so much waste heat it would burn its way right out of his chest in no time. I’ve worked with a handful of actual geniuses (including one who worked on the predecessor to SpaceX’s Merlin pintle injector engines at TRW) and another who was a Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner. Nearly all are remarkably humble people in regard to their intellect and professional accomplishments.
Tesla has had a lot of executive turnover; some forced, but a lot of it voluntary, with many execs only staying for less than a year. And sure, this happens in Silicon Valley tech companies all the damn time because C-suite execs are in such demand and there are a lot of conflicts within companies that are still trying to figure out what it is they are actually going to make, but Tesla has been in production mode with the Model S for nearly six years now, and ought have a stable business strategy and leadership at this point.
Stranger
If Musk ends up doing a perp walk, how does that affect SpaceX? It’s a private Company. I understand due to the nature of the business, the USG could seize control, but then what? Would it be bought out by say Lockheed Martin or Boeing?
Other than Musk having to resign as CEO I don’t think it does much of anything to SpaceX in terms of their ongoing space launch operations. It is pretty well understood that Gwynne Shotwell is overseeing the day-to-day operations of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches, and she has a good working relationship with the engineering and operations teams that do the actual work. I’ve been critical of SpaceX and Shotwell in making predictions about capability and schedule that have not come to pass but she does seem to be a pretty effective Chief Operating Officer (and President), and there is not a lot of churn at the upper management level even though they have a lot of turnover at the working level (burnout, firing for underperformance, Silicon Valley style periodic RIFs to “clean house”). Short of failing to turn a profit and run out of operating capital, I expect SpaceX can continue to operate indefinitely as long as they don’t have a string of failures or other loss of confidence.
I don’t know under what pretense the United States government could “seize control” of SpaceX. It is a private company whose contracts with government agencies are FAR Part 12 commercial contracts; as a result, the government can say and do very little with regard to the internal operations at SpaceX, and short of outright fraud I can’t see any way to claim authority without essentially “nationalizing” the company, the justification for which would be extraordinary to say the least. SpaceX does perform some national security launches and could be cited for security violations, but all that would mean are fines or rescinding the contract, and frankly every large contractor has security violations on a not infrequent basis (hopefully not major ones, but it happens because people are sloppy).
I can’t see Lockheed buying SpaceX; they have their own current heavy lift vehicle and are working on the replacement (Vulcan) which is a direct competitor to SpaceX. There is virtually no way they could share technology between the vehicles, and the government wants multiple options for launchers (and has subsidized development at great expense) ever since the Challenger disaster. Lockheed has never had much success in the commercial market so operating with SpaceX–which aims to be all commercial in how it works even with government launches–is not really in their wheelhouse.
Boeing, on the the other hand, has kind of a dinosaur with the Delta IV; it has been a remarkably reliable vehicle after some initial teething problems, and the Delta IV Heavy is the only triple core launcher available for national security payloads, but the Falcon Heavy is likely to be certified for EELV launches pending successful launch of STP-2. The Delta IV is a LOX/LH[SUB]2[/SUB] launcher and so is expensive to operate with all the hazards that come along with liquid hydrogen (although in fairness, they’ve never blown up a vehicle fueling on pad, so they are one up on SpaceX in that regard). The D-IVH is at about the limit of capability for that design, and save for improvements on the Delta Cryogenic Second Stage it isn’t going to grow in capability. The ability of SpaceX to get higher payload capability using liquid hydrocarbon fuel at what is presumably much lower operating costs could be a potentially selling point, but the more appealing advantage would be if they actually get the BFR working, which is the first truly novel advance in heavy lift space launch since the Delta IV. (I’m discounting any supposed advantages of reusability, although if the BFR is truly a refuel-and-fly-away design it could potentially be a significant cost reducer, and even the “refurbishable” Falcon 9 stage 1 allows for a higher rate of flights than could be supported by new manufacture alone even if it doesn’t save any costs.)
The question is why would SpaceX sell out to Boeing (or Northrop Grumman, or General Dynamics, or whomever)? Unless they are desperate for capital, they just don’t need engineering support or infrastructure from an existing player in the industry (unlike Tesla which should have partnered with GM or Toyota to leverage their production experience and vendor infrastructure), and they’ve done pretty well getting government contracts without the traditional method of hiring a bunch of retiring colonels and generals to ooze their way into Acquisition. I was dubious when the Falcon 1 kept repeatedly failing for dumb reasons that SpaceX would end up being any more viable than the multitude of other new entrants into the space launch field but I have to admit that time has proved me wrong, and even if they had to up their launch costs (which they do anyway; the advertised costs are just bare manifesting, and they charge for everything extra beyond that from additional modal testing and load cycles to vehicle processing) they still appear pretty competitive from a reliability and schedule standpoint.
If Musk had to relinquish control I don’t think it would affect SpaceX except that they could stop working on his fool-ass “Occupy Mars” colonization plans and focus on the core business of launching payloads faster and cheaper than anyone else. And there is a lot of trade space for operational improvements and cost reductions in volume even over what SpaceX is currently doing with the Falcon, provided you are willing to invest the money and engineering development time. If they could actually get to the point of launching vehicles once a week, it would probably spur the satellite industry into massive growth which SpaceX would have the largest part of in the heavy lift segment.
Stranger
Note that the penalties sought by the SEC include “a bar prohibiting Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public company.” So that would not affect his involvement in the privately-owned SpaceX.
True, that. It’s possible the DoD would have to restrict contracts or rescind Musk’s security clearance if he were actually convicted of felony securities violations, but again, SpaceX can operate without Musk as well as they are now.
Stranger
$20 mil fine and out as chairman of Tesla
Just for reference, Elon Musk’s net worth is about $20 billion. The approximate equivalent for a guy in my age class (average net worth for 24-32-year-olds: $9000) would be fining us… what, maybe $9? It’s 1/1000th of his net worth. That’s chump change. It’s a fucking joke. By comparison, my friend parked his car in the wrong spot and had to pay 1/50th of his net worth on a fucking tow bill. If there was any aspect of this decision intended as a punishment for him, It has failed. You cannot punish the super-rich with fines. This is a bit of a personal bugbear of mine, but… jesus. C’mon. This is a lesson we shouldn’t have to learn over and over again.
Sure, but they’re also putting restrictions on his tweeting.