alt Hacker NewsThe counterpoint of course is that he has demonstrated a consistent ability to build and run successful businesses, many of which are extremely high risk
The only new western car company in decades to not fail, based on a technology nobody believed in at the time, least of all other car companies
SpaceX being a private space company, which was completely unheard of. No experts though they could succeed
Smaller earlier businesses like Zip2, paypal, etc
These are gigantic high risk companies with high failure probabilities, the chance they they all happened to be successful despite Musk and not at least in part because of him is stretching reasonable doubt for me.
I'm absolutely no fan of his politics or personality, but the man can run a business that nobody else even dares try (at least until he demonstrates viability and the market starts to generate competitors)
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paypal succeeded _despite_ musk and required a boardroom coup to remove him from leadership because he was about to tank the company. if he had is way nobody would remember paypal besides a couple people with merch for a long defunct company.
I'd still restrict this to an ability to pursue ideas that others find too risky with relentless persistence and a laser focus. He is able to get something off the ground and make others believe in it, but not good at actually running a stable business. And that's fine, mind you, I absolutely respect what has built. But the person who is responsible for turning SpaceX from an incredibly risky bet into a profit machine is Gwynne Shotwell, not Elon Musk.
Rivian, Polestar, Slate etc. Would like a word.
Of course it’s still early days for all these companies and they’re not exactly fiscally solid, but if Tesla had not made all those cars, someone else would have.
> The counterpoint of course is that he has demonstrated a consistent ability to build and run successful businesses, many of which are extremely high risk
Three sucesses.
Not so successful: Solar City, Neuralink, TBC, X.
(X exists, but before it was valued-and-bought by one of Musk's other companies, it appeared to have lost about half its value).
Richard Branson he aint.