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Comment by ALittleLight | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't make any sense to me. Musk has done genuinely pioneering work in electric vehicles and rocketry. Things like the Boring company or Neurolink obviously haven't really panned out - but still, good areas to work in. That he also goes a bit crazy on Twitter doesn't really take away from any of that. To think less of Musk for his tweets means that you equate the latter behavior with the former, when, clearly, the former is much more consequential.

Every notable figure, and likely (almost) every person, has done things that are bad. Gandhi was a racist, Lincoln's social media squabbles led him to a duel, Edison electrocuted an elephant for entertainment or advertising, and so on. That Musk has flaws shouldn't surprise anyone or discredit him for his accomplishments.

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Tesla and SpaceX have done great work. Its hard to tell exactly how influential Musk is to these companies. Perhaps a lot, perhaps only financially, perhaps just a figurehead. When his tweets are less than brilliant, your prior assumption starts to move away from brilliance and towards the idea that he's just a blowhard at the top of two great companies. Couple that with the fact that Musk makes a lot of broken promises on Twitter you can see why people think Musk's tweets detract from his reputation.

It's only "hard to tell" if you don't care to find out. Watch Everyday Astronaut's Starbase tours and tell me afterward that he's just a figurehead.

Why is that convincing? You'd have to have inside knowledge of Musk's day to day value add in a way you were certain wasn't created for PR purposes.

On top of that, you'd have to treat his Twitter account as anomalous and not indicative of his day to day work because of ...some reason?

He's just a figurehead. SpaceX does best when Musk is absent and Shotwell is in charge. Notably, every major SpaceX failure has happened when Musk decided to come back to the facilities and meddle in the engineers' work.

i've never trusted him ever since he promoted Leap Motion as some great piece of tech. and his notion that two cheap ass cameras should be sufficient to get self driving up to par with human drivers really sealed the deal. he's a fucking idiot. maybe he gets coached by people who actually know what's going on when he does pr shit.

It may be coincidental that Musk is the leader of two pioneering companies. I think you'd need more evidence than not liking his tweets for that to be a reasonable conclusion though.

I mean, if his skillset was identifying, investing in and hyping great companies, that would be valuable. But that would undermine his Ironman persona that made him popular to a lot of people.

I personally don't respect him any less if he just finds and supports smart people, but for some reason others dismiss that unless they think he is personally designing rocket engines.

i wouldn't have issues with him if that's what he claimed he was doing instead of trying to pass off every engineering feat of Tesla and SpaceX as his own. but the piece of shit has made himself the stereotypical entitled executive type by taking credit for other people's work.

> Musk has done genuinely pioneering work in electric vehicles and rocketry. [...] That he also goes a bit crazy on Twitter doesn't really take away from any of that.

If you look at it from the perspective of someone who likes Musk, then he's the lynchpin of Tesla and SpaceX which are advancing humanity, every other company's EV and self-driving features are only because he lit a fire under them; and the stuff he's doing with his money is much more exciting than other billionaires like Larry Ellison.

But from the perspective of someone who doesn't like Musk, it's engineers/ scientists/ programmers doing all the real work; 90% of Musk's promises remain undelivered; and his contribution to each company is so minor he can 'lead' five companies at once and still has so much free time he wants to buy a sixth.

And if seeing him be an asshole to that diver is what changes you from one perspective to the other?...

> it's engineers/ scientists/ programmers doing all the real work

Ask the engineers of any failed companies what real work they’ve been doing?

> 90% of Musk's promises remain undelivered

He promised the hard things that are more often than not fail. He doesn’t care if he is wrong.

> his contribution to each company is so minor he can 'lead' five companies at once and still has so much free time he wants to buy a sixth.

That’s an uncharitable take. He is obviously doing a good job given how EVs are being seen today, and how dominant SpaceX has become. One may argue he isn’t afraid of challenge, and work six times as hard of other CEOs

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