If you look at the kidme5, samegene321, and george23 accounts in this discussion you'll note that they predominantly comment about Musk in Musk-related threads (usually SpaceX, it seems), often sporadically with large delays between when they make comments (weeks and months). They also post the same things as each other (though this is non-obvious, kidme3 deleted the content of one of their dead comments, but it's verbatim what samegene321 posted). It's either an individual or a coincidentally very narrowly-focused group of people who not only think the same, but write the same.
There's a much stronger correlation: these accounts (plus a couple others—who are also active in this thread) all comment about one highly specific, niche topic which absolutely no one else on HN does. It's the claim that the Bush-era NASA Administrator, Mike Griffin, is a unrecognized key figure behind SpaceX' founding.
Just query "spacex mike griffin", and it's exactly these accounts (and people who reply to them).
Yes, more (very obviously connected, they're literally posting the same comments) accounts have turned up and gone more in that direction after I made my initial comment.
There was a similar set of users I've been involved with on Reddit that got banned on Reddit for sock puppeting and similarly on Wikipedia who got banned for sock puppeting.
I feel like I can spot musk-bashing astroturfing a mile away because they repeat the exact same criticisms that made big headlines but aren't actually true, but there's maybe like a tiny nugget of nuance to the topic, and it's repeated forever and ever like it's fact and Elon is literally hitler and tesla doesnt actually exist and space isn't real too and elon is just lying to you.
but also he's a xenophobic, transphobic asshole who supports politicians eroding really basic rights and liberties for people, so fuck em
At the time of my original comment there were about 10 or 12 comments total in this discussion, with the three accounts I named [EDIT: except george23, that was a typo it was georgeg23; george23 is an unrelated account to all of this] making up a good portion of the "discussion". Two of the comments (across two account) were duplicates, literally copy/paste.
As to other people talking about Musk, at least they're actually participating in this community beyond just Musk-related threads. But at this point there are at least 6 accounts in this discussion, including the three I originally named, that continue to copy/paste the same things and post the same links and make claims that their links don't back up. It's clearly a bored individual, a true believer, or a very poorly written bot by a bored individual or true believer (I mean, at least don't throw all your accounts at one discussion, it makes it so obvious when there are multiple identical comments by different accounts).
If you tie yourself to a specific politician, especially in a massively polarised environment, you're going to alienate many people, and it's hardly like Musk wasn't controversial before twitter and his swing to MAGA.
I believe it's fair and based on recent changes in musk's political outlook which many disagree with. His public persona really didn't used to be like this, and he never would have been so popular in the first place if that was the case.
Some are bothered by his positions that explicitly want to roll back rights for people while others are bothered by his current "government aid is bad" position given how much such aid he has received.
I'm guessing if he actually lived the beliefs he said he used to have more people with support him.
The issue is, while the haters do seem like they are the standard outrage machine, I dont think people who are not into politics realize how batshit insane the Republicans side has gotten, which Musk is solidly a part of.
We are used to living this relatively cushy life, where we think that everyone is entitled to the political opinion, and we seem to take it for granted like its never going to change. But in reality, if Trump wins, it may very well be the end of American democratic experiment, and set us on the path towards a much lower standard of life. If EU and other markets start losing faith in US economy because we have a dictator in power, you better believe you are going to feel that, cause nobody will give a shit about the tech sector.
Like, its REALLY fucking bad right now with how close the polls are, and its scary that many peoplendont realize this fact.
So I dont think that at this point and time, its wise to chalk up all the hate rhetoric as just online outrage. People should be outraged. Vote blue downballot in November, and maybe once MAGA movement dies, we can go back to some form of normalicy.
Women are dying because of anti-abortion positions being espoused by these republicans.
People aren't just outraged. Millions are terrified.
There's a 50% chance come November 9th that my girlfriend and I have to have a very serious discussion about how we will protect her rights and literal safety, that we have to make serious sacrifices to go somewhere safer, including leaving family.
I have friends that would have to go into literal hiding, living fake lives to not get systemically harmed and targeted.
Project 2025 damn near calls for my execution, and the execution of people I love, for things that no well adjusted people consider wrong.
America had a blatant and clear taste for actual full blown Nazism in the early 1900s, and people don't seem to realize that it was never rooted out, just made quiet for a few decades. We LOVE eugenics.
Musk is also spreading the "this might be the last election you ever vote in" meme, which is pure projection from the extreme right wing that has taken over so much of the USA. So I have a large amount of derision for provocateurs like Musk, who can simply fly his private jet to another country if the USA becomes embroiled in civil war. https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-claims-during-trump-081...
I utterly loathe the people that would cause violence and stolen elections, and musk is one of them.
And, to the people that would back the extreme right: they will turn on you the very nanosecond it becomes convenient to them.
> "this might be the last election you ever vote in" meme
To be fair the left is saying the same, because Trump will end democracy, this time for real.
I am not American, so often only the crazy/extremist views reach me over the ocean, but I did read over the past years the hope in leftist circles, that migrants will make Florida and Texas first a purple and then blue.
Musk is, to say the least, polarising, and thus attracts a lot of people who take either highly favourable or intensely sceptical stances on everything he says. These two groups then feed off each other - those critical of Musk often feel compelled to counterbalance what they see as overly charitable interpretations of his statements or the actions of companies associated with him, and vice versa I guess.
In this particular topic, Musk has a history of being... opportunistic to disasters and tries to 'help out' to various degrees of success (see his weird mini-sub saga for the thai cave rescue, and Starlink's involvement in Ukraine/Russia war).
Personally, I think he's a terrible human being who uses his platform to spread vile hate which is incompatible with a modern world, and I tend not to separate the art from the artist (if you could call either of them that). But otherwise I'm not brigading out here.
is father was a somewhat wealthy engineer. That about it. His farther wasn't some billionaire. Being born in South Africa to a somewhat wealthy family isn't exactly the golden lottery ticket. Evidence by the fact that most people born somewhat wealthy in South Afirca simply try to buy a house in England and get a job at some banking company or work for some mining company.
If you to go back to Musk birth year and had to pick 'most likely to be most powerful non government person in the world' how many people would you go threw before Musk?
What actually helped him more then wealth is that his mother was Canadian and that allowed him to study in Canada and that eventually allowed him a way to get to Silicon Valley. That doesn't just happen, most people from South Africa don't end up in Silicon Valley creating startups. He struggled more in collage then many others because he wasn't at good terms with his father. His father eventually invested a few 10000s $ in his first startup, many people with small business get more from their parents to get started.
And the idea that his companies 'thrive' in spite of him is just wrong. Tesla was going to shit before he stepped in. Literally everybody that worked closely within would disagree with you, and that includes many people that have long left his employment. Companies with terrible CEO don't just trip into being worth 100 billion $ or more. If he was CEO for a year or so and the company was already successful, maybe. But SpaceX started with a few people in shed and he took over Tesla when it was basically a pile of garbage.
To claim a successful business person was lucky is possible, if it happened once. But being CEO of two multi-billion $ businesses at the same for 20+ and both being considered incredibly successful and influential, that's all luck. You got the be kidding. And these are not some random internet companies, space and car companies routinely were considered some of the hardest industries to break into. There is a whole grep of people wealthier then Musk who tried to break into Space, they all failed. There are tons of failed car companies. Even when Tesla was created, they had problems getting funding and many other companies got more, nobody remembers companies like 'Good Place' anymore.
Again, I understand that somebody doesn't like Musk, but your position is utterly ridiculous. It takes a truly dissociated mind to come believe that nonsense.
At the time Errol & Maye were divorcing they had 2 homes, 5 cars, a yacht, and a plane. Most people don't own homes at the moment, let alone a private plane.
>What actually helped him more then wealth is that his mother was Canadian and that allowed him to study in Canada and that eventually allowed him a way to get to Silicon Valley.
Having generational wealth is by far the largest contributing factor. Otherwise he wouldn't of been able to move across the globe to get a better education, focus on college and network, ect. Also not sure what Canada and Silicon Valley have to do in common? It is not like every Canadian ends up working in the Valley. That said, it does seem like most wealthy people over the past 40 years has in various capacities ;)
I'm not going to argue he isn't a successful CEO, (The results speak for themself) But I don't need to refute his business acumen to think he is an awful CEO who actively abuses, manipulates, and lies to his employees whenever it suites him. You can be a very successful yet bad CEO, these aren't mutually exclusive concepts.
Musk succeeded in Tesla in the same way he didn't at twitter - blindly picking a path and chasing it relentlessly like a carnival barker. To this day Tesla has over promised, under delivered, and has managed to turn a market leading position into a more and more wandering and disconnected third class product. Anyone involved at spaceX will tell you that musk is not involved, that's why spaceX is working. He got a bunch of smart people together, dropped a pile of money on them, and let them work.Merlin made spacex, not musk.
In the real world, unlike your delusional fantasy world, it matters what you deliver, not what you promise.
Its pretty hilarious to blame a CEO for growing a company from basically bankrupt with no revenue to one of the top car companies in the world, and then saying see you can't dominate the global car industry when there are literally multiple of the largest cooperation's in the world with strong support nation state governments doing everything they can to change that. You are just comparing him to something absurdly perfect and then saying 'see he is an idiot'.
I have read multiple books on SpaceX and watched interviews with lots of people inside and outside of SpaceX, and you are literally just factually wrong.
This whole 'pile of money' theory nicely ignores that many much richer people then him (he wasn't a billionaire when SpaceX started) tried to do the same. Bezos invested about 100 more (literally, Musk 90 million $, Bezos over 10 billion $) then Musk in his company and we can see the results. And by LITERALLY any measure, Bezos was far, far, far more hands of then Musk. Musk didn't have as much money as many others who tried their hands at this.
It couldn't be clearer that you just have an axe to grind.
I'm just going to stop you right there. The CEO assumes direct administrative command over their business and the choices they can make that could result in substantial risk. It's not any more outrageous to blame Elon Musk for the colossal failure of Twitter and the politicization of SpaceX than it is to credit him with the success of his decisions. You cannot say "it's pretty hilarious" because this isn't a laughing matter. The parent's comment is not facetious at all - they're making a logical analysis and you're the one warping it into rhetoric.
Since apparently their comment didn't get through to you the first time, I'll paraphrase: Musk does have a winning strategy. It's the same one Nike and McDonalds and Pixar and Disney and Apple roll out to veritable acclaim; abuse marketing until the fucking lever falls off. Opponents accuse you of antitrust violation? Workers accuse you of workplace abuse? Customers accuse you of fraudulent marketing? Market more! Customers are nobodies, they don't have the power and the voice a wealthy person does. This is the bald-faced reason why Musk wanted Twitter, he thought the marketing potential of a social platform "everyone" uses would be the ultimate platinum chip in the social poker game. Except he's quickly finding out that you can devalue an asset with proximity to brand risk.
So there. Nobody will deny his success, but you also have to be realistic about his shortcomings. This website has an unhealthy fascination with unconditional worship of documented assholes like Sam Altman and Steve Jobs. Let me clear things up for you (and hopefully others) on an epistemic basis: we aren't attacking these people to discredit their success. We're criticizing them to help form the basis for future change. People shouldn't be assholes like Jobs when they can lose credibility from their peers. They shouldn't be hat-in-hand begging for money on unproven science like Altman or Holmes. You can aspire to the heroic aspects of someone without idolizing their entire being - you can improve on imperfect leaders like Elon Musk and encourage them to not make boneheaded stupid fucking mistakes for future reference. That is how humanity gets better, not dick-sucking Elon Musk.
> I have read multiple books on SpaceX and watched interviews with lots of people inside and outside of SpaceX, and you are literally just factually wrong.
Log off X, unfollow the futurist-hopium channels you've got on YouTube. Don't be an armchair critic, get involved.
I was talking about Musk in Tesla. And given Tesla trajectory since 2008, its clearly not a failure even if the most recent year wasn't as good as some before.
I have no idea what 'abuse of marketing is', seems like a you thing.
Non of Musk companies have been credibly accused of anti-trust. Not sure where you are getting that.
If your theory of 'marketing above everything' was even remotely true the world would look very differently. There isn't a single credible economic, business or management book that claims that everything can be overcome by marketing. The list of companies you provide is just selection bias.
I never claimed he doesn't have short comings, I seems you are moving the goal posts. I can talk all day long about his short comings, many are not actually often talked about by people who are incredibly critical of Musk and just repeat a bunch of twitter talking points that have been repeated for the last 10 years.
There is a difference between being rationally critical and outright denying agency or basic competence. Most of the time people can't even make their mind up if he is incredibly evolved and responsible for all bad decisions (but not good ones) or if he isn't involved at all and just drops money on people. Pointing how how he or his companies are not perfect is simple, and not interesting. Actually using comparative measures between him and his companies with actual relevant comparison companies make a lot more sense. But if they did that a lot of the criticism would sound very different. The fact is, because Musk is unpopular, people use different standard on him and his company then they do for many others. Musk is seen as a person, while the comparable companies like GM or Lockheed Martin aren't, they are just faceless cooperate blobs no matter that many of their owners are billionaires as well. Its much harder for people to summon the same kind of passion about those kinds of companies. When objectively they are far, far, far, far worse in basically ever way imaginable.
Musk companies are evil and we must hate him and take ever opportunity to point that out, because his evil companies use deceptive marketing. Lockheed Martin was a significant part of lying the US into the Iraq war and they are wasting billions of tax payer $ but somehow people can't summon 1/1000 the amount of effort on that.
And about your 'get involved', I seriously don't understand what that even means in this context. Go work at a space company? Found a space startup? Get a job at SpaceX? How does 'getting involved' get you any actual information on these topics? I guess I could get a job at Airbus, SpaceX is out, but not sure I want to work there.
Or do you mean in the context of 'space isn't relevant' (again just factually wrong) and I should go out and protest climate change or something? I really don't get it.
But whatever it was, frankly, that just sounds incredibly, fucking arrogant. Like you are divine being floating over the rest of us lowly plebs who get their information from 'the internet' unlike you, who gets all the information from 'the real world'.
The fact is this, on Youtube there are interviews (congressional hearings and so on) that are first hand sources on these topic. If you choose to ignore first hand sources and witness testimony because you are out there in the 'real-world' doing gods work, saving babies from burning buildings, or whatever it is you do when you are 'involved'. And you don't want to sit at home and read books, written by people who spend 100s of hours involved in a topic, that's fine. But don't tell other people their facts are wrong or that you know better because you are 'involved'.
What utter nonsense, pure speculation based on nothing and nothing.
And that whole Russia conspiracy, outside it being nonsense doesn't even make sense. Russia doesn't need SpaceX to launch anything, SpaceX wouldn't launch anything for Russia if they knew anyway and if DoD knew they would certainty easily stop it whatever is 'legal'.
Instead of coming up with elaborate stories, its much simpler. He became very politically vocal and that makes you incredibly controversial. Musk was always somewhat controversial but going all in on MAGA stuff made him 10x more so.
A lot of stories around him were already spread long before, and those are just picked up by more people now. And of course its not really about 'false' narratives anymore, a lot of what makes him unpopular are simply the things he literally said outright.
Predates it by many years. It actually even predates the cave submarine, but strongly intensified then and increased roughly constantly until the present day.
Because Musk as a person is a huge liar, fraud and a major disappointment with a messiah complex to boot ?
We could be looking at these developments with excitement, instead many of us think about how he is going to use this tech to fuck more things up and justify more immoral behaviour. He is a real life Bond villain.
5.
Defendant Musk has openly admitted that his leadership philosophy is that the ends—here, Tesla’s mission of “accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy”—justify the means, or fraudulent and unlawful business practices, so long as they keep a company afloat.
He also tweeted this two years ago…
For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally Apr 28, 2022
It makes me nervous such a guy is in control of so many things…
Russia having starlink to use drones to bomb Ukrainian soldiers, for example. Buying Twitter to spread lies and conspiracies is another. Calling a hero a “pedo guy” because he didn’t agree with his approach.
When Ukraine attacks Russian sites, they’re often finding starlink terminals in the debris. They know they’re using them to control drones and other equipment. They’re supposed to be sanctioned under US law.
What’s wrong with lawyers ? Is Musk some how above all lawyers ?
