Tesla employs 100,000 people, SpaceX about 10,000. These are substantial enterprises with huge investments in factories and infrastructure. Anything they do will have an impact that affects someone somewhere.
No doubt there are regulators and courts and processes to resolve issues.
This is just part of doing business at such a scale.
Perhaps there is something different about these companies that makes the more objectionable than others?
The whole space launch business is pretty bad for the environment. Some of the satellites they launch into space have very poor carbon footprints. Especially those earth observation satellites that monitor pollution and climate change. Do we really need all those satellites up there? Do we really need Starlink. All that Internet stuff is mainly used for porn, watching pointless sports and kids playing video games.
The business of making cars also has an appalling record. Most cars sit on someone’s drive for 95% of the time. This is a huge waste.
Industry is toxic, many of its products are wasteful and unnecessary.
Would it be better if these inconvenient truths were hidden from the public by a more discrete business leader who takes more care to guard reputation?
I don’t think so.
Musk is a lightning conductor that draws the ire many who do not like the way the world of space tech and manufacturing are going,
His competitors are no doubt keen for his detractors to put obstacles in the way of new businesses like his. That would then leave the field clear for them to continue their polluting and wasteful business activities, but more discretely.
Musk is not doing anything worse and doing many things a whole lot better, That he makes stupid remarks about stuff in the news and some of his more fanciful ideas seem absurd. How does that compare with other magnates and moguls? There are vast swathes of country lain waste by the industries of the twentieth century. His twenty-first century factories and spaceports are nothing in comparison.
He and his businesses are a lot better than those that have gone before. But I guess people do not like change…and nor do his competitors. I am sure many in the cosy cartels that dominated space tech and auto manufacturing wish he had never arrived on the scene.
Anyone who shakes up business with innovation will face plenty of opposition. If he was undermining progressive, improving businesses, that would be justified. But he is not.
I am very aware of all the very skilled engineers and designers that are work at SpaceX and Tesla. Their innovations and achievements have been remarkable.
Musk is just a figurehead that draws the flak while they get on with revolutionising these industries. As such he plays a useful role. Because there is nothing the public like more than some celebrity personality to love or hate.