I really wish there is stronger support for him against these sorts of people. How can he be all talk when we see his rockets going up and coming back down.
Second, there are many promises he still hasn't delivered on: SpaceX targets not met, Tesla still running at a massive loss, Hyperloop being doomed to failure, etc etc. I can definitely see why people say he is mostly talk, even though admittedly he has achieved some successes.
Am I understanding this correctly, that the criticism of Elon Musk being all talk is because he didn't personally perform all the work in achievements like Falcon 9 and Model S?
Tesla I could still grant but you do him great injustice by simply ignoring how much of his personal resolve is responsible for SpaceX even existing.
Feel free to list the number of times a group of engineers have spontaneously teamed up to form a rocket company.
Your assume that A) big things can only ever get done by companies. B)A CEO 'owns' a company's assets.
I'll give credit to him for creating and acquiring funding for the organization. I'll give him credit for publicizing his vision. Each and every rocket/car however, was massively subsidized by taxpayer dollars, and made feasible by hundreds of people WORKING TOWARD A COMMON GOAL.
The practice of abstracting away hundreds to thousands of people's hard work and financial support, involuntary or not, is disingenuous at best and downright dishonest at worst.
Abstraction is evil. Abstraction is what turns "people" into "human resources".
And before the inevitable "That's not practical!" or "That's unreasonable!": It really isn't. Most people have just gotten so used to credit for their own work being sacrificed to someone else that nobody points out how incredibly screwed up the practice is.
I do not think that Musk should get a free pass. His companies have taken on some pretty impressive projects. One day someone will make a better electronic car but much like the Wright brothers and Henry Ford, Musk did lead the way.
Maybe Musk really is as skilled as all that. Or maybe he was lucky enough to make a lot of money once (with x.com) and hire good people. It's hard to tell since so few people ever get to try having that much money to play with.
Elon is still in control of SpaceX, so the Falcon 9 and FH rockets are his by any reasonable definition.
> Second, there are many promises he still hasn't delivered on:
What matters is overall progress and not progress relative to elons timelines. Also, most of those were not promises but rather announcments.
> SpaceX targets not met
Yeah, he only took like 15 years to launch more rockets then China or Russia. Build the largests commercial launch buissness.
But of course what we should focus on is that he is such a failure because he said 5 years ago that the FH would fly a bit sooner.
You really need learn to evaluate things on its own terms.
> Tesla still running at a massive loss
Poor Elon, 500000 reservations that any other company would kill for. Revenue stream for 1-2 years even without new reservations. What a failure.
> Hyperloop being doomed to failure,
Whitepaper without company behind it not successful. More big news at 8pm.
> I can definitely see why people say he is mostly talk, even though admittedly he has achieved some successes.
Yeah, the guy who revolutionised space launch, landed fucking rockets and created reusable rockets is 'mostly talk, with some success'. Honstly people can't see the trees because of the forest. This is so fucking bizar.
He's a CEO. All the support he needs is to deliver on his promises. From my exceptionally limited point of view, he's at about 35% there:
Space X: 100% (Reusable, self-landing rockets. Fuck yeah!)
Tesla: 40% (Prototype in decent shape, promised production capabilities of model 3 still seems a long ways off)
The Boring Company: 0%
Hyperloop: 0%
- More popular support means his visions resonate, and more people will start pursuing them too.
- More popular support means the market will be more receptive towards those visions.
Note that Musk doesn't care if it's SpaceX or Tesla that are the market leaders long-term. He cares that we go to Mars and get off fossil fuels in transportation, however that happens. Hence e.g. opening up Tesla patents.
RE your % score, I'd give a different breakdown, based on what are Elon's actual goals:
SpaceX: 40% (reusable, self-landing first stage done; Falcon Heavy yet to launch, BFR in the works)
Tesla: 80% (their latest cars might have problems, but they successfully cracked the car market and started a wave of electrification that's unlikely to stop now; Chinese companies alone will carry it forward)
WRT Tesla: The company has started a revolution, but to all intents and purposes it feels like its falling behind. The Model 3 was supposed to be in full production already, but it's not. It's also not profitable, which is a major problem for Tesla (and Musk by extension) in the long run.
Not to mention, all of the pre-orders for Model 3's that aren't fulfilled in a timely manner are going to hurt the population's opinions of Elon Musk - and rightly so.
As far as following a vision: history is full of failed visionaries, and vision alone is not enough to propel mankind forward. Execution is.
Paypal: 75% (Much hate, still good option for many things.)
Solar City: 75% (Over expanded, not sure if that was a bad thing and was bought by Tesla. Still it installed 870 MW of solar in 2015 alone.)
Steve Jobs had close ties to fewer companies, Pixar, Apple, NeXT and did a similar purchase of NeXT by Apple. However, while dubious Apple greatly benefited from NeXt. So, I am willing to bet Solar City could be a similar net benefit.
The boring company is still to early to judge. Hyperloop is not yet a failure and considering it was simply a short paper I think 0% is overly harsh.
I could swear that the rush for solar via Solar City has dropped precipitously. It seems like those who want it have it at this point. Its business model is also heavily dependent on US grants, and has seen some major downturns in terms of litigation and has been operating at a net loss for its lifetime. Let's put it closer to 50%
The boring company is simply trying to make underground highways - a task which makes very little practical sense in a world where highways already exist, and their downsides are well known. Not to mention, no execution or proof of concept exists.
As for the Hyperloop, again with the lack of execution or proof of concept. Anybody can make a whitepaper, but Elon Musk has put his weight behind the concept, to no practical end. But sure, let's remove it because you're right, he made no promises behind it; didn't start a company around it.
We're still only around 40%.
