Call me cynical, but I couldn't help but notice Musk seemed to be going about his effort with the maximum amount of tweeting and publicity possible.
There was talk about having the kids wait in there until as late as November, or maybe a long process of drilling an escape hole.
If the rescue had begun a week or two later, perhaps Musk's gadget would have been used. As it is, the divers already had a plan that, by the time Musk arrived, appeared to be working well.
But yeah, he tweets a lot about his projects, and no doubt has some thought toward self-promotion.
He appears to follow through, so I can't be too cynical about his apparent opportunism.
The cave was too narrow in sections for a diver to pass through still wearing his cylinders. How exactly was a sub supposed to get in?
The problem may have been more that it would be too long to navigate some bends in the caves.
It also occurs to me that, being made of aluminum, the tube would act like a giant heatsink in the cold water, chilling whoever was inside.
But with more time before the rescue, and by consulting with divers familiar with the caves, the problems might have been worked out.
So, yeah, taking the tube to Thailand was kind of pointless, but I guess at least shows that it wasn't just empty tweeting. There was an effort.
But he did also send 700 or so PowerWall batteries to Puerto Rico for hospitals and whatnot.
I got the feeling that he just jumped in on that, without further thinking (which at least to me seems sympathetic). Got the feeling that it rather hurt their PR as people were quick to call it a PR stunt, which is foreseeable if you mainly think about PR.
Seriously though, there's a strong cult of personality at play and HN readers frequently downvote any comment that is even slightly negative about Musk or Tesla or SpaceX.
Okay, you are cynical.
But in all seriousness given the domain knowledge that Musk has at his disposal he was perfectly entitled to get involved.
Tweeting his thoughts is pretty much how he rolls ...
But it's conceivable that his expertise could have been useful.
Did any other organisations offer subterranean expertise? Genuine question, e.g. mining companies, drilling, or was it just that Musk made the most noise about it?
There is no evidence presented that Musk, nor any of his companies, has any of this kind of useful expertise.
[1] Emphasis here on vertical shafts. There is a world of difference between a tunnel-boring machine that tends to remain within a single geological stratum and a vertical shaft that is constantly cutting through several strata of different kinds of rock (that require different cutting techniques).
> There is no evidence presented that Musk, nor any of his companies, has any of this kind of useful expertise
https://www.boringcompany.com/faq/
> There is a world of difference between a tunnel-boring machine
Yeah it wasn't the machine he was offering but the expertise.
I get it, you've got it in for Musk. Fair enough, and I'm not out to hero worship him but lets be fair here - he did offer to help, and did so in good faith.
My contention isn't that Musk didn't make a good-faith offer to help, it's that Musk didn't have anything useful to offer. The end result is that would come across as something like this: https://xkcd.com/793/.
There is also a tragedy going on in Japan right now with a lot of people actually with us no more. But a few million people with flooded homes is a 'statistic' whereas a few boys in a cave is a 'tragedy' to paraphrase Stalin.
I think that there is a time for offering assistance in a big public way, there is also the 'George Michael' approach. He was willing to help many desperate people that happened to get into the news, however he helped out anonymously or in a way where it was clear that publicity was not sought. When he passed away a lot of people then learned how many people he had extended his hand of friendship to.
This is true, and a tragedy, but I think it's natural for "12 kids in great jeopardy" to draw more interest than 100+ people who are already gone due to a flood and perhaps couldn't have been saved.
To be honest had the kids been found dead in the cave, it would have been a relative blip on Western media like the flood deaths in Japan or the 41 dead in the sinking of the Phuket tourist boat.
"He was willing to help many desperate people that happened to get into the news, however he helped out anonymously or in a way where it was clear that publicity was not sought"
In this case, talking about it on Twitter was probably an easy way to get in touch with the relevant authorities at the rescue site.
Similarly, when he offered PowerWall batteries to help Puerto Rico, perhaps that made it easy for people who knew where they were needed to get in touch with him.