Is Elon Musk a fraud?

[schlaufuchs]

The fact that "projects" get abandoned does not nullify that we build upon the efforts of others. Gay rights, civil rights, women's rights all built upon the efforts of those that went before. The same with industrial robots, automobiles, airplanes, medical practices, computer chips. The list is endless. It is often a crooked path with stops and starts.

God isn't real bro.

 

[Rg339]

I suppose the contention is between Musk being criticised and the end result somehow becoming "nobody tries". That's likely where you're losing people (myself included). I'd argue in light of the article I found earlier that Tesla would do better with somebody else in charge, even if it remains a way of generating revenue for the private sector.

NASA only has the resources to employ so many people. Like I’ve said, I believe that’s a mistake, and have argued for a higher budget multiple times.

If Elon doesn’t try, where do the engineers he employs go? There’s nowhere else where they’d produce comparable innovation. It’s SpaceX, or they leave the field entirely, in all likelihood. This is the context I have to include.

From wiki, SpaceX employs 12000. Its closest rival, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, employs 3500. SpaceX likely employs more engineers than the rest of its competitors in the private sector combined.

The limit isn’t technical expertise. It’s will, and it’s money. If NASA’s tapped, and Elon doesn’t try, well, who else is going to step in? Who can else can you point to in the private sector to assume SpaceX’s role?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

i don't think all of his moves are ethical, but most don't reach the definition of fraud.

i question his motives wrt twitter, from the start. he might have felt slighted and sought to screw them over or sink them. if he knew about the extent of its bots wasn't what twitter claimed to advertisers in advance, my estimate for this conclusion goes up by a lot. that problem is bad enough that he shouldn't be on the hook for twitter if backing out.

using insider information to arrange and then legally renege on a deal while exposing them is petty, but probably within his personality. it is also not some huge 4d chess scheme...if anything it only requires musk to identify that someone else is doing what he does (selling a rosy picture of a company's capabilities inconsistent with reality), then thinking about how he might out them.

he also might have just went to purchase twitter over ego though, and only later discovered its problems.

 

[Hygro]

I don't think bots factored into his motives at all. I do think his mania subsided somewhat as his money slowed and he started to sober to the reality he was about to blow his empire on getting back at people for calling him racist any sort of shaming.

 

[Gorbles]

The fact that "projects" get abandoned does not nullify that we build upon the efforts of others.

I didn't say it did. I'm saying we don't always build on the past, ergo, lionising Musk now for someone else using his work as a basis in the future isn't a guarantee. Which seems to be what you're presenting it as.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think bots factored into his motives at all. I do think his mania subsided somewhat as his money slowed and he started to sober to the reality he was about to blow his empire on getting back at people for calling him racist any sort of shaming.

regardless, the bots will still be a factor in letting him back out without nearly the cost he'd have otherwise. they will let him (legitimately) pin blame on twitter.

you may well be right that he just got lucky on this one.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I didn't say it did. I'm saying we don't always build on the past, ergo, lionising Musk now for someone else using his work as a basis in the future isn't a guarantee. Which seems to be what you're presenting it as.

Musk is just like most other rich guys with ambition. He wants to leave a mark and has followed his interests to do so. Of course there are no guarantees, but he has already influenced both the space and auto industries. Musk is just easy to dislike because he is fabulously rich, outspoken, self centered, and provocative among other things. The "march of progress" is a real thing.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, wonder what the result would have been in the poll, if taken now ^^
That said, Musk is unlikely to avoid harder times, and not just due to ruining the (overpriced) Tesla stock to pay for his recklessness. Now a lot more people have had reason to focus on his actions and words...

 

[Broken_Erika]

Elon Musk is an investor, not an inventor.

 

[Kyriakos]

Elon Musk is an investor, not an inventor.

He isn't that great an investor either, by the looks of it (seemed to have gotten lucky with -what later became- Paypal and then -what later became- Tesla, neither of which were founded by him).
When you lose around 100 billion in less than a year, you can't be as good as it said on the box.

 

[stinkubus]

Definitely a fraud. I have no doubt he'd still be rich otherwise, but his current ventures are all supported by government subsidy and contracts.

 

[amadeus]

I voted no because someone would need to have been defrauded. People can be bamboozled, misled, make incorrect inferences, fall victim to hype, but only fraud connotes a criminal willingness at deception. I don’t think this has been the case outside of perhaps with him running afoul of the SEC, but that gets into even more hair-splittery.

Is he a great guy I’d like to pal around with? Nah, I think he’s kind of obnoxious. Fraud? No.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Fraud.

I never took an interest in the man before his acquisition of Twitter, but it's clear he has no idea what he is doing, and had very simplistic notions about how the platform could thrive.

 

[Birdjaguar]

He is an eccentric rich guy who puts his money where his mouth is and tries big things. He might even be a jerk. He had 200+ billion dollars; now he has 100+ billion dollars. So what? He is a smart guy who plays hard in risky arenas. He was born into big money and will likely always be richer than almost everyone else. Tesla stock is down. Tomorrow it might go up. He is certainly not a fraud. He has accomplished more in the last 10-15 years them most do in a lifetime. Even if he totally screws Twitter, he will not be the first or last guy to wreck a company through bad decisions. There are lots of frauds out there, but Musk isn't one of them.

 

[Kyriakos]

Fraud.

I never took an interest in the man before his acquisition of Twitter, but it's clear he has no idea what he is doing, and had very simplistic notions about how the platform could thrive.

Definitely. Unless gov subsidies keep him afloat, he will be the first former richest person (in recent times) to completely disappear.
It takes a special kind of unawareness to do what he did (invite popular scrutiny, when literally the myth was the only thing shielding him), far more common in frauds than simply people born to money.
Of course the criticism (up to and including claims that he is a complete fraud) was there before, eg before the Twitter fiasco he was publickly mocked by academics on his claims of a brain interface in the works. But nothing multiplies the known quite like a reason to look into it.

 

[PhroX]

I dunno if he's engaged in legally fraudelent behaviour, but I think he's shown very clearly that the image he created of himself, of a technical visionary, pushing humanity forward, was a fraud. It was never about anything beyond the money and ego. He has no interest in actually doing anything useful or productive, he just wanted people to think he was.

 

[Kyriakos]

I dunno if he's engaged in legally fraudelent behaviour, but I think he's shown very clearly that the image he created of himself, of a technical visionary, pushing humanity forward, was a fraud. It was never about anything beyond the money and ego. He has no interest in actually doing anything useful or productive, he just wanted people to think he was.

I mean it in that way, fraud as in fooled many people into thinking he is a genius/world-changing businessman, when in reality he is (condensed) a luckier version of Elizabeth Holmes.
(or maybe just an Elizabeth Holmes that started with more money ^^ )

(also a response to: )

I voted no because someone would need to have been defrauded. People can be bamboozled, misled, make incorrect inferences, fall victim to hype, but only fraud connotes a criminal willingness at deception. I don’t think this has been the case outside of perhaps with him running afoul of the SEC, but that gets into even more hair-splittery.

Is he a great guy I’d like to pal around with? Nah, I think he’s kind of obnoxious. Fraud? No.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Musk is just like most other rich guys with ambition. He wants to leave a mark and has followed his interests to do so. Of course there are no guarantees, but he has already influenced both the space and auto industries. Musk is just easy to dislike because he is fabulously rich, outspoken, self centered, and provocative among other things. The "march of progress" is a real thing.

I think the egotistical and vindictive elements of his personality make him very easy to dislike.

 

[Angst]

the twitter debacle is kind of indicative of what you shouldn't do as an investor

if you have money, use it to detect & put the competent people together. you should understand the limits of your own abiliities and use your money to facilitate skill. not use the money as a bulldozer so you have space to build a chair for yourself

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

There are multiple facets to his history to look at here; PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter/social media.

PayPal his coding was so bad they literally would replace his work all the time without letting him know.

Tesla he has a deal in place where the actual founders can’t call themselves the founders and only Elon can. His biggest claim is probably in this realm; he did get electric vehicles out the door before anyone else. I think this might be more a criticism of auto companies (particularly American ones) who continuously lag greatly behind others in safety, efficiency, and technology. Almost 90% of new cars sold in Norway in 2022 were electric. They were not all Tesla obviously.

SpaceX is probably technically the most impressive company of his, but everyone involved said Elon’s existence is essentially carefully managed by the real people in charge there. Whenever he comes by a literal group of employees gives him tours, tries to suggest that new things they want to implement were actually Elon’s ideas, try to keep him away from badgering the engineers too hard. It’s kind of like how there were handlers for Trump when he was president to try to limit the damage he could do.

Then twitter/social media. Obviously he is in way over his head with how to run twitter, but the most eye opening part to me of the last few years is how his entire twitter feed is full of economic predictions, and claims about history or science that are all incredibly, overwhelmingly false. He has an incredibly deep ineptitude about a variety of subjects.

That said, I’m a firm believer in intelligence both being obviously infinite (I guess I should say knowledge) and also deeply difficult to quantify. The world’s best plumber and the world’s best astrophysicist might have little in common in their special intelligence but both are deeply smart individuals within their fields.

Which is why it’s especially shocking that I think that Elon has displayed himself so badly over the decades (and this is ignoring the rampant racism and sexism at his workplaces) that he is, to answer the poll, a total fraud AND a deeply, deeply, truly stupid human. He has popped onto numerous live twitter spaces recently and hearing him talk with engineers and programmers live, without handlers and time to curate his response, it shows you the depths of how little he knows. I’ve listened to several and he has absolutely no clue what he is talking about, and you can literally hear him as he tries to conjure some bs story live (he is surprisingly bad at BSing too). Even his most sycophantic suck ups in those spaces have lost faith in him when he arrogantly lashes out at someone and calls people names repeatedly when it’s he himself who knows nothing.

I award Elon the score of 0/100.