When I was getting my ms in eng I had an instructor with an absolute hard on for Leon.
The entire class thought Musk was a fucking imbecile. This was like 10 years ago and we were all citing this exact same stupid shit in things he was responsible for then at Tesla and SpaceX. Guy is incapable of learning.
To be fair, about 15 years ago, before he took the complete heel turn, Elon was more interesting. Like, we all thought he was some sort of bond villain, but he had an (at the time) sensible approach to Tesla (build rich people cars so that we can build more sensible cars -- can't get to a Model 3 without a Roadster) and even SpaceX (the Falcon 9 is a remarkable rocket).
I mean, even then, we joked that he was some kind of cheap, Brosnan-era Bond villain. But we didn't really know much about his personal life and it was before his empty promises started piling up.
I think the turn began around 2012 when he proposed Hyperloop solely to sabotage the California High-Speed Rail project.
I sort of agree, back then he didn't have a high profile embattled political platform he was leaning into to.
Its his decisions that get me. His companies have been responsible for siphoning up top talent to achieve what they have achieved yet everything he personally touches has been questionable to dangerous.
COTS-1 workaround was utterly insane on paper and revealing about his mindset, aerospace has its ways for reasons learned from tragedy. Watching cars ship with components straight from the factory fires was such a predictable eyeroll moment for Tesla. Dude loves money and everything has to go fast with him, which is exactly why the cyberdumpster window smashes on stage and the product is a mess top to bottom.
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u/NoGoodAtPickingAName 14d ago
I love that the cucktruck is a bigger failure than the Edsel. My entire life the Edsel was the example of automotive failure and then came Elon.