I don’t know enough about their projects but here are a list of them and general company breakdown.
SpaceX was founded in 2002 and did nothing for years. Now they’re doing insanely innovative things.
Boring’s aims seem to be extremely long term as well. Maybe this will pan out and underground public infrastructure will be revolutionized the same way EVs, reusable rockets and satellite wifi have been with his other companies. Or, maybe not. I’m not going to judge their success or failure just yet. It seems like people with smart money are betting on them (or maybe more specifically, on musk).
Amazon didn’t turn a profit for a decade and there was a long time where people doubted they would amount to anything too.
I’ve said nothing negative about Space X. And now that Elon has his grubby paws in the governments coffers I would suspect that Boring and Space X will profit nicely.
Ignoring Elon specifically, this is a fascinating trend. What makes people with so many resources, so much money and power, etc. spiral to the crazy so severely in this way?
Not Elon’s autism spectrum condition, what has made Elon (and many other nutters) change so bloody much in the last decade? Is it a brain worm, was it covid, is it something else? Is it just the allure of sucking up to the powerful? It is also JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and hundreds of others that 10 years ago were saying very astute things about trump (that he was an unhinged conman and not remotely fit for office). And yet today, they think trump (and his absolutely idiotic ideas) are the best things ever.
To me, very puzzling.
But maybe I am not just cynical enough about human nature.
I think the hate has grown over time. It begins with people who simply hate all billionaires, and then grows to include people who go, “Damn, those haters were right about this one.”
Elon was a billionaire for a long time. And, billionaire or not, I sincerely respected him even as recently as 2016 when he said some very perceptive things.
But you have not noticed a big change in him since then?
Thanks, I would do that, but the search function on this new forum really sucks. Finding a certain post on that thread is near impossible. If you are so inclined, can you paraphrase?
I don’t get the hate for the cyber truck. It’s like people aren’t ready for something that doesn’t look like every other dam thing out there. Same with bicycles, everytime a manufacturer tries something new people lose their minds at something that doesn’t look like the carbon copy shit that has been repeated adnauseum for the last 100 years…
Not everyone hates the cybertruck. I personally think it is a bit weird and cool all at the same time.
But what I do think is very weak is its terrible design/utility and quality (like having body panels stuck on with double-sided tape). The looks of the car have nothing to do with it (for me).
I saw a few in Hawaii, its kind of cool and functional.
But you can probably see the hate for it on here is like the hate for everything else, no reason other than it or the person who created it doesn’t accord with the World view of the leaders of the LR.
If anyone has a few hours spare, look for a podcast called The Dollop. It did a three parter on Musk and a two parter on Trump. Suffice to say they are not fans of either.
There’s also a two parter on the opioid crisis in the US, which is excellent (and yet hilarious in places).
Funny, I had a debate with a coworker ~15 years ago over government cuts. he said, “We should cut the government by 10%.” “Okay, which 10%?” “Just 10% across the board.” “Okay, so you want the government to cut your salary by 10%. Is that what you’re saying?” It turns out, that was not what he was saying.
It was so weird being a military contractor. I worked with so many small government Republicans who got paid via government contracts.
I often wondered, how SpaceX was a success given elon’s track record with other ventures. I mean SpaceX actually is delivering… Elon where is that sports car? Digging deeper I found that after elon promised to have a full returning craft in like 2 years, and engineering had been working on just returning the booster in that time frame. They tried and soon realized it wasn’t possible and they should have said so. Well I guess the President? of spacex told elon to go away, leave SpaceX alone and chased him out. Since then he shows up for major events, but isn’t involved in setting priorities etc, and its been a success.
Tons of articles out there, about what elon will really be able to do as co-head of Doge. Mostly not much. Now he may use his influence to get NHTSA to provide a low national bar for autonomous vehicles. This will be a big win for Waymo and Cruise, and a life line to Tesla. And make American roadways less safe (A minor issue).