> So why does "Elon says..." hold so much sway?

Because he made an easily-falsifiable statement. Either you believe in a massive conspiracy involving Tesla's bankers, Tesla's auditors, Tesla's employees, and members of the public pretending to be Tesla's customers, or you believe that Tesla actually produced X cars last week.

If you're going the conspiracy route, you're also assuming that Musk is willing to risk jail time for... what exactly? To satisfy his ego? It's not like he's going to run out of money if Telsa goes bankrupt.

> We would laugh if it was "Zuckerberg says..."

I mean ... I laughed. Didn't you laugh?

> I often hear how Hackernews is such a bastion of objectivity and critical thinking.

That gave me another good chuckle.

> Elon has "said" many things for many years which have not come to fruition.

They eventually do get realized, and that in a way that many people feel will benefit society as a whole.

For example: Zuck/FB don't care a flying fuck about their userbase and only about advertisers (e.g. chronological feed, the entire handling of the "fake news"/propaganda episode, Cambridge Analytica, handing the American democracy over to Trump) and Zuck is doing nasty stuff like buying his neighbors' houses only to tear them down.

Elon Musk, on the other hand, isn't in the game for personal richness (or at least, he doesn't shove it in the face of everyone standing less than a shovel length away). He could have lived in the Bahamas and sipping Pina Colada for the rest of his life already after Paypal, but no, dude puts literally all his fortunes into SpaceX and Tesla, and makes them succeed (SpaceX at, well, providing humanity with re-usable, affordable rocketry after the corrupt, expensive, Russian-dependent clusterfuck of ULA and Tesla at proving electric-only vehicles can exist and are viable), and then still has not enough and pours more money into The Boring Company, oh and meanwhile also releasing everything regarding Hyperloop as Public Domain. And not to forget he could still exit from all the companies and spend the rest of his life sipping Pina Coladas, but not doing so.

Yes, there are valid points to flame Elon Musk on (especially the allegations of working standards violations, with massive overtime requirements etc.), but in the end Elon Musk wants to advance humanity, and Zuckerberg wants to advance his cash. Not difficult to say who deserves more support.