> Automotive and aerospace are not similar to each other, either. I don't know any other outfit that was successful at both.

Rolls-Royce (of the last century) would qualify, but it was more aero than space.

There's a lot to unpack here, for one do we consider those two enterprises to be successes? It seems too early to tell - they do appear to be influential, but the C64 and Palm Pilot were influential without being successful. It's also not clear if they are long term successful (I think Tesla will be, but SpaceX is very much currently dependent on government funding). Finally, it's not clear whether Musk was a critical driver of success - evaluating his contributions based on the outcome of a company is basically resulting.

Look, I don't know if Elon is a genius or an opportunistic parasite with really good PR. It seems unlikely if we ever will know that. What I object to is people pointing at his ultimate financial success and crediting him with the current result of 2 big companies whose future is very much not determined.

When I look at his process from this ant's perspective, I think he is an abusive unstable individual who takes credit for everyone's work and lies a lot. He also flip-flops depending on the wind. Is that success? Not based on my personal values. Have his companies accomplished a lot? Some of them, absolutely.

The definitions and evidence matter a lot, and I personally don't think any of us are qualified to make blanket statements based on incomplete outcomes. Further, I don't think his other companies that require primarily good engineering are very relevant to inherently people problems, like Twitter. My evaluation of how Musk handles people problems is that he is very bad at them, and I anchor my prediction about his Twitter leadership based on that.

What I think makes people skeptical of him is that deep down we all believe in nominative determinism. Who do you think runs a rocket company behind the scenes, "Shotwell" or "Musk"?

Dealing with people is generally far harder than pretty much any engineering problem. The same is true of Twitter, because there are no easy answers or even clear goals.

Ok, you were joking. I agree.

BTW I am a fan of your work.

98% of SpaceX contracts are govt. That business has no viability without taxpayer money.

Tesla, to this day but especially early, had the govt subsidize their products to help make them more competitive.

I don’t think those are even a bad thing, but it isn’t a supportive argument that he’s a great free market capitalist.