What do users on Manifold think about Elon Musk?
Related questions
How will this resolve? Should it actually be a poll instead of a market?
If it's self resolving, it might not do what you want:
https://manifold.markets/old-posts/selfresolving-markets-why-they-dont
@EvanDaniel Creator is deleted. How do you want to move forward with this one? It keeps popping up on manifold tools lol.
@SirCryptomind It's vague, if it was intended as a poll it has served that purpose. I vote resolve N/A.
@dionisos He stupid projects are innovative and keeping the whole god damn US of Ass’ economy afloat that’s why he gets what he wants!
@dionisos He’s delivered millions of vehicles and launched hundreds of rockets.
Voters sensibly elected politicians who’d promised to subsidize green tech and NASA has contracted with SpaceX because they provide best value.
Where’s the con?
He’s delivered millions of vehicles and launched hundreds of rockets.
First, he didn’t, the engineers, researchers, workers, did.
(also he wasn’t even the founder of Tesla, he pushed to be considered it, which is ridiculous)
He mostly is just a investor and a public figure, and he is apparently very bad to work with, also he pushed to fire many of the founders or co-founders of the companies he was in.
And other companies do cheapest electric car, which is what is important for transitioning (most people can’t buy a new 50-100k car), so they aren’t really needed for that.
And I think he is a conman, because he lies all the time, about how much time X or Y will takes, about what they already have, about what he will do or never do, etc…
His Paypal company froze or directly stole money from numerous customer (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Criticism_and_controversies).
Also, a lot of its companies and ideas, like the boring company or the solar tiles, are really stupids.
And he still get a lot of states subventions, for projects that never reach the end (or are just almost useless), which is infuriating.
This guy do some funny videos about these kind of stuffs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR23x2zeuGQ
Also, these kind of stuffs : https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/07/tech/elon-musk-twitter-employee-disability/index.html
@ElmerFudd Well Tesla wouldn’t have made it without the subsidies. That is a fact. SpaceX and Starlink are his best work IMO. He is not a trustworthy actor anymore however.
My biggest issue is that he gives “aid and comfort to our enemies” by deep throating Putin’s pecker at the expense of our allies and national security. That is the technical definition of treason.
@BTE Are companies which receive public subsidies cons?
WRT Putin treason, he's allowed Ukraine to use Starlink for free. That's effectively a donation worth hundreds of millions or billions.
@dionisos Tesla was two guys and a lotus chassis when Musk joined. Now it's sold millions of cars. That's nigh-impossible with an absentee CEO. But ask Tesla engineers about it or read their accounts.
@ElmerFudd No Starlink for Ukraine is NOT a donation, it is a marketing campaign. A great one too. However, it’s a problem that the DoD doesn’t have their own Starlink but I suspect that is a solvable problem. Also, why don’t they just pay Ukraine’s fucking bill??? But regardless Musk should not be in a position to be leveraged by our adversaries because of his personal interests.
And no subsidies don’t make a business a con. Lying about autonomous Tesla taxis or full self driving is a con. Telling employees to never put details about software failures in writing is a con. The guy is a manufacturing genius full stop. Great engineer it appears. Risk taker extraordinaire. Very lucky no doubt. But deeply flawed and extremely petulant.
@BTE I agree with all that. (Never heard of this though - "Telling employees to never put details about software failures in writing is a con" - source?) He certainly overpromises. Still seems absurd to me to call him a con artist on that basis.
Are companies which receive public subsidies cons?
No, but it is infuriating if he is a conman (or even just if it is for really bad projects).
(It was unclear, but it wasn’t an argument for him being a conman, it was just me venting about it)
@dionisos Got it.
The flip side of the subsidies thing is that it's a phenomenal climate policy success. The Obama administration budgeted just $2.5 billion to stimulate electric car production in 2009. There were no mass market electric vehicles at the time. The subsidies got the mass market Tesla models, Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf off the ground and 14 years later there's dozens of manufacturers across several countries selling tens of millions of EVs annually.
@ElmerFudd Yes, this is a good consequence, this can’t be all bad (even if, I think developing infrastructure for public transports, bikes, and helping to develop carpooling, would help more).
And I am definitely not against subsidies in general.
But I was thinking of these kind of stuffs : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company#2020_:_tunnel_%C3%A0_Las_Vegas