All I’m saying is he has talent/skill in manufacturing, which sadly and evidently, aleast in the area of space, other companies or ceos didnt have…no proof of it so far.
He did make SpaceX the only company which makes reusable rockets…no other company or country can till date make an orbital class reusable rocket stage. And for that, yes I feel, he can be acknowledged.
I’m not a tech person but there are videos on youtube where Musk explains the technological reasons for choosing SS and the chopsticks.
As per him “rapid and full reusabilty” of rockets is the holy grail of space.
How so? Tesla does not produce especially reliable automobiles and sales have fallen off. That takes no special manufacturing talent.
As above, he has talent in convincing people to invest in him - see Twitter. Despite the $44B price tag, he only put up about $9B himself. And reports are that the banks and investor groups who provided the bulk of the investment aren’t so happy with what he did with Twitter. They convinced themselves he would provide a massive return on investment that has absolutely no sign of actually happening.
That would be a biased presentation. Likewise, so would be an oppositional presentation.
I’m not personally interested enough to try and perform a fact finding analysis. I would be willing to accept that his engineers were being needlessly risk adverse. I’d also be willing to accept that he was choosing things on the basis of personal predilections and wow factor, without paying sufficient attention to the cost/benefit ratios.
Ultimately, it’s the cost/benefit ratio that is the most important. If that’s not the measure, then you’re not measuring the right thing.
Tesla remains the biggest EV seller in 2024 …yes it is not BYD of China.
Ford, GM and practically every other EV company in the US surrendered to him on the charging stations and adopted Tesla standard called NACS which now became the industry standard in NA. And yes Rivian too adopted NACS.
Model Y was the best selling car in 2023 and remains on track to be the best selling car in 2024. Tesla has the most cash reserves of any automobile company in the world. All these are facts, not myth and can be easily verified online.
Twitter purchase at 44B was very imprudent which he himself acknowledges but in the end it all worked out for him consdering how he used it in the 2024 elections. Perhaps in hindsight it was a foolish but ultimately lucky acquisition for him.
This is the very measure that goes into material selection for SpaceX rockets as they aim to and are making reusable rockets. Reusing a rocket stage 20 times ( yes numerous Falcon 9 and Superheavy rockets boosters and other parts were reused 18-20 times) cuts the cost by an order of magnitude. This is precisely the area where other companies are unable to compete with SpaceX.
One of those sold more pure EVs in 2024 than it did in 2023 and it wasn’t Tesla. BYD sold more overall electrified cars (100% battery EV plus partial EV, i.e. hybrid)…by a lot. And did not have multiple recalls involving its latest model.
That’s no sign of any special engineering or manufacturing talent.
When I was young and eager, I had a boss three levels up who used to ask for random, weird stuff. He once said to me “Deviations are something we’ve never really, defined well. I feel like we just know them when we see them.” [This wasn’t really true, and for the uninitiated “Deviation” means something very specific in pharma]. He casually said I should define them. I spent hours putting together a white paper. Interviewed QA and manufacturing, read through every SOP that touched on deviations, on and on. I finally, and proudly, presented him my paper. Which he had forgotten all about.
As I got more confidence and experience, I learned to ask “Is this a real request, or a Bob Request?” which he took in good humor, and would in fact sometimes say “Never mind. It’s a Bob Request.”
Pure evs tesla sold more…and tesla margins are higher than byd .Tesla sold more pure evs and it doesnt make hybrids.
The recalls were fixed by an over the air software update unlike the Ford/Toyota recalls which needed the cars to be taken to the service centre.
Unlike the other threads you have been polluting with your ridiculous, ignorant motormouth bullshit, this one is in the Pit, so I don’t have to be nice to you.
I look forward to the day you run out of gas and shut the fuck up for good.
Until that day comes, do you have it in you to dial it the fuck back just the tiniest little bit so you don’t turn every thread where you participate into an absolute flaming train wreck? Jesus fucking Christ.
In some senses, yes.
I’d probably say that it’s more a matter of having or having had a better engineering crew (which includes Musk as a component). With a better crew, you have more options. With more options, you have a larger set of cost/benefit selections that you can make, so you’re better positioned to get the best one.
But, Julius Caesar is the person who grew the Roman Empire to its maximum state, and also the person who began its collapse by thinking short term and egotistically rather than long-term and selflessly. Tesla invented alternating electricity and much of our power generation infrastructure, just to morph into a penniless crazy man. Howard Hughes created some of the cleverest aircraft of his day and one of the most successful Hollywood production companies, then became obsessed with building an all-wood airplane that had no value, then became obsessed with collecting fingernails, hair, and urine, and spent his last years hiding in dark rooms, in the middle of his compound.
Smart, capable people aren’t flawless, unchanging statues of everlasting health and fortitude. The man that made Tesla and SpaceX might still be that same man. He might also be the result of taking that man, injecting him with loads of ketamine and LSD, topped with a good helping of brain-devouring syphilis from varying orgies, and destroying most of what made him great.
Saying that he did create amazing things does say that he had certain talents for - at minimum - recognizing the right moment for a technology and assembling a crew who can pull it off. But if he can’t maintain that crew - because they don’t want to work with him - then that will fall apart. And if his ability to tell when it’s the right time for a technology, and when it’s time to rein in the ambition, then he’ll end up in R&D hell and waste exorbitant amounts of capital on what are - at the end of the day - little more than advertising gimmicks, while others take over the markets that he used to lead in.
Plausibly, the guy is just blowing off steam with all his recent craziness and pivoting, politically, in order to cash in on the gullible swaths that follow Trump and throw bad money after bad. That would be a rational and reasonable decision. While not a benevolent act, it is good business and I wouldn’t fault him greatly for it.
But I’m not particularly convinced that, that’s what we’re looking at.
Uhh…Nikola Tesla was indeed a bright fella, but maybe you should reconsider this one?
I have not run out of gas but as you very politely requested, I will indeed “shut the fuck up” for now.
Chill and sleep well. Peace !
I should have said that he invented alternating current not electricity. Otherwise, I’m not seeing anything to complain about.
It would be helpful to mention to whom this is directed towards.
Even that is not true.
It is true he was a proponent of it and made several contributions to A/C power generation and distribution to make it more feasible and practical. But he did not invent A/C power generation by any stretch - it was invented before he was even born.
Unfortunately, the last ~100 years or so have see-sawed on his reputation. He was under-appreciated until the '60s or so when there was a push to get broader recognition for his accomplishments (including having an SI unit named for him) but that’s gone the other way over the last half century where he gets a bit more credit than he deserves.
I’m willing to admit that my chosen two word summation of the man’s life accomplishments was inaccurate, imprecise, and should not be used as the basis for anyone’s history doctorate on the subject.
Sure. I guess the issue is that the same sort of thing happens with several public figures - especially the ultra-wealthy like Musk.
While he does have his detractors, they try to stay within the bound of facts. But there are more than a few Elon Musk fans who mythologize both his achievements and abilities. Of course, he does encourage that sort of thing and has very successfully engaged in building his own myth. Almost everything about his involvement in Tesla (the company, not the man) has been mythologized in that sort of way.
It was a reply to the immediately preceding comment on which Discourse so helpfully omitted the reply icon, as it does.