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nova9001 t1_j05asmt wrote

Reply to comment by supified in Tesla value as it relates to Twitter's purchase [OC] by datawazo

I like to bash him but there's no way Tesla or SpaceX would have been what they are today without him.

However, it doesn't mean he can't make mistakes and Twitter is just the prime example of it.

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NrdNabSen t1_j05m0at wrote

Can't say this with certainty. But Tesla and SpaceX could sell the vision of being the first successful electric car company and commercial space venture, respectively, to employees. People who cared about those ideas would more likely tolerate a shitty CEO because they believed in the mission of the company. Not sure Twitter has that same greater purpose to overcome his fuckwittery. Especially since his fuckwittery often runs counter to what Twitter was before he took over.

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supified t1_j05bd0c wrote

Perhaps he has some talent somewhere that helped those companies be successful (though we can't discount engineers and scientists working there).

And perhaps the success and people calling him a genius went to his head and he believed it that he could do no wrong, so he started making increasingly dumb moves and failing harder and harder, but because he's been successful he's incapable of seeing his own failures and so he just gets more and more out of control.

In the end he's remembered more for his failings than his successes.

At least that's the trajectory I see.

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Spillz-2011 t1_j05j7dp wrote

What does “where they are mean” in this context?

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anonkitty2 t1_j05v3s8 wrote

Without Tesla, the electric car might still be all but nonexistent; the oil companies could have stifled them indefinitely. Without SpaceX, America would not currently have a space program that includes manned missions it launches. His products are still flawed, but Musk and cos. got them off the drawing boards and helped show there was a market for them.

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Spillz-2011 t1_j075u20 wrote

Sure but Tesla and using lithium ion batteries for evs wasn’t his idea so musk wasn’t in any way necessary for that to happen

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anonkitty2 t1_j08tesz wrote

No. Musk wasn't necessary. But he was helpful. He was a little like Harold Hill in "The Music Man."

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Spillz-2011 t1_j08vgnn wrote

Was he though? they already had the idea, the contacts, the prototype, the lithium battery expertise. They brought him in to help with funding and he decided he would put in his money and take over the company and force them out. He complained that they set up the production line for the 3 wrong and almost caused bankruptcy, but that was after he forced them out. He set up a horrible process then wants everyone to congratulate him for fixing the mess he created.

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anonkitty2 t1_j0avur5 wrote

Oh. There wasn't much publicity for Tesla, to my knowledge, before Musk came. Musk really is like Harold Hill. Hill successfully created a market for brass bands but would include as a critical part non-working music lessons, and then jump ship just before it could be proven they didn't work. When Tesla reached public awareness, expectations for electric cars were so low that Teslas still met them. (I have a relation who still believes electric cars can't go farther than 40 miles a charge, like the ones GM leased and lost in the early 2000s.)

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