Elon Musk documentary/factual tonight

[Pink Duck]

Courtesy of Channel 4: “Elon Musk: Superhero or Supervillain?” (Monday 16th May 2022, 21:00–22:00)

“Profile of the billionaire entrepreneur, one of a tiny group of powerful, uber-rich men with global reach exceeding governments. The programme features contributions from those who know Musk, who have worked with him, and who have made millions investing in his businesses, as well as those who have gone to war with his companies.”

 

[adsheff]

I think the issue with these mega rich billionaires is not so much that they are totally good or totally evil - all of us humans have good sides and bad sides. We can all be selfish, selfless, whatever, we can all make silly mistakes or say silly things, and we all have capacity to do great good. The problem is when one person ends up with untold billions of dollars, all of these things are amplified massively, and affect tens of thousands of people. In democratic countries we see the need for checks, term limits and scrutiny for our elected officials, as power has a corrupting effect. Billionaires like Musk don't have these checks, so bad things, as well as good, can happen.

I guess what I'm saying is it's not good for so much wealth to be in one man's hands.

 

[WannabeOwner]

In democratic countries we see the need for checks, term limits and scrutiny for our elected officials

... and yet we allow Lobbying and Party Donations to influence their thinking. I don't have a better system to offer though ...

 

[ACarneiro]

Courtesy of Channel 4: “Elon Musk: Superhero or Supervillain?” (Monday 16th May 2022, 21:00–22:00)

“Profile of the billionaire entrepreneur, one of a tiny group of powerful, uber-rich men with global reach exceeding governments. The programme features contributions from those who know Musk, who have worked with him, and who have made millions investing in his businesses, as well as those who have gone to war with his companies.”

I think that descriptor sort of gives me an idea which way this documentary is likely to go...

 

[ACarneiro]

... and yet we allow Lobbying and Party Donations to influence their thinking. I don't have a better system to offer though ...

I'm not sure that you need to offer a better system.
What would be stood to lose by banning lobbying and party donations?

 

[WannabeOwner]

What would be stood to lose by banning lobbying and party donations?

Excellent point! Who do I lobby for that ? ... Ah! ...

 

[robbieduncan]

I ordered my Tesla despite Elon not because of him. I've already got a pretty good idea of the sort of person he is. But I'm also a long term Apple fan and Steve Jobs was a pretty big asshole too

 

[Zilla91]

I ordered my Tesla despite Elon not because of him.

This. I think the guy is an arsehole and I hate how some people treat him as some kind of messiah and go around calling him “Elon” as if he was their best mate.

Is the guy a visionary? Well he’s the front man to a few companies that have built some revolutionary things but it’s the engineers and all the people under him that have done it not him personally.

It’s great having a vision and if you have a vast quantity of money to throw at it then you’re more likely to achieve said visions compared to you or I.

I got a Tesla because it’s a fun car to drive and the running costs are peanuts and not because of Musk.

 

[ACarneiro]

Yes, I tend to agree. The man is a bit of a knob and not someone I'd wish to be friends with (even if I had enough brains to mingle in his circle). But there is no denying he has done (and is still doing) remarkable things, and his cars are VERY good products.
Although I still think Energy and SpaceX are going to be what his legacy will be all about.

 

[WannabeOwner]

Although I still think Energy and SpaceX are going to be what his legacy will be all about

Excluding getting the world, punters and car makers alike, to wake up to the fact that not-all-EVs-are-like-milkfloats ?

 

[Jason71]

Courtesy of Channel 4: “Elon Musk: Superhero or Supervillain?” (Monday 16th May 2022, 21:00–22:00)

“Profile of the billionaire entrepreneur, one of a tiny group of powerful, uber-rich men with global reach exceeding governments. The programme features contributions from those who know Musk, who have worked with him, and who have made millions investing in his businesses, as well as those who have gone to war with his companies.”

I'll pass but I might read a summary if you could post one here, in less than 280 characters of course.

 

[ACarneiro]

Excluding getting the world, punters and car makers alike, to wake up to the fact that not-all-EVs-are-like-milkfloats ?

Yes, that’s no mean feat.
But Energy storage —> wider adoption and better use of renewables
SpaceX —> Space becomes affordable, resources to a scale never before imagined are accessible, maybe the start of interplanetary exploration? THIS may be the big one
Twitter Schmitter, that’s a distraction

 

[Zeit93]

I've no problem with Musk.

I actually enjoy his endless attempts to push the boundaries of science.

 

[thesmokingman]

Villain?

Lmao, the one guy pushing this rock towards a sustainable future and he's a villain to some?

 

[Jason71]

I actually enjoy his endless attempts to push the boundaries of science.

As do I.
Its his endless attempts to push the boundaries of being a **** that annoy me.
Like using his bully pulpit to attack someone helping to rescue children trapped in a flooded tunnel.

 

[Adopado]

As do I.
Its his endless attempts to push the boundaries of being a **** that annoy me.
Like using his bully pulpit to attack someone helping to rescue children trapped in a flooded tunnel.

Oh yes … enough said!

 

[Graham J]

I used to like Musk because I felt he was kind of like me. Smart, geeky, idealistic, throwing convention to the wind. But now I see he's also like the parts of me I (mostly) grew out of - immature, impulsive, pretending to be an extrovert. I think he's also sliding conservative as he ages which doesn't mix well with those foibles.

I hope he drops the Twitter thing because it will be bad for him personally and that will affect his important work. He'd be much better off going the other way and getting off of social media and out of the spotlight. People like us do our best work in the shadows. It's fun pretending to be an A-type for a while but it doesn't end well if that's not who you really are.

 

[Brando]

I think the issue with these mega rich billionaires is not so much that they are totally good or totally evil - all of us humans have good sides and bad sides. We can all be selfish, selfless, whatever, we can all make silly mistakes or say silly things, and we all have capacity to do great good. The problem is when one person ends up with untold billions of dollars, all of these things are amplified massively, and affect tens of thousands of people. In democratic countries we see the need for checks, term limits and scrutiny for our elected officials, as power has a corrupting effect. Billionaires like Musk don't have these checks, so bad things, as well as good, can happen.

I guess what I'm saying is it's not good for so much wealth to be in one man's hands.

Buffet, Gates, Bezos, Duponts, Rockerfellow, Soros ... All of US Congress people seem to have 100 Millions each, Obama $ billion and you are worried about Musk ????

Forbes 400 2023

The Forbes 400 is the definitive list of the richest Americans, ranking the country’s wealthiest billionaires by their net worths.

www.forbes.com

 

[Wol747]

Musk is the epitome of the notion that one can be very very bright yet not have an equivalence in wisdom.
He has almost singlehandedly pulled the world into thinking about electrifying transport as a means of transforming society into renewables. He has pushed the boundaries of rocket science from the huge bureaucratic hugely expensive NASA paradigm to a reusable system. He has started Starlink - which may well be a mixed blessing from the scientific point of view.
In the process he has become quite well off - and good luck to him.
But on the way he has continually made expansive promises that he has spectacularly failed to live up to: tunnelling and FSD come to mind. The latter has pulled thousands of lesser mortals to "invest" probably something in the order of billions of dollars in a project which will probably not come to fruition in it's promised sense in the lifetime of many purchasers' vehicles.
He has fallen into the trap of thinking that just because something CAN be done it should be - the little boy syndrome. Yokes and cars deciding whether you want FWD or REV come to mind. Hugely complex programming that is updated almost weekly with sometimes unpredictable results which the average user cannot or will not appreciate.
No, I will call him Musk, or Mr Musk. He's not "Elon" to millions of his admirers - and I am one - he's not a friend.

 

[spacerfc]

Is the guy a visionary? Well he’s the front man to a few companies that have built some revolutionary things but it’s the engineers and all the people under him that have done it not him personally.

It’s great having a vision and if you have a vast quantity of money to throw at it then you’re more likely to achieve said visions compared to you or I.

Elon Musk is an engineer, he's literally the Chief Engineer of SpaceX (and there're many current and former employees who can back this up), and was recently elected to National Academy of Engineering.

And he most definitely did not win by "throwing vast quantity of money" at projects. He only invested $100M initially in SpaceX, about 50% of what Andrew Beal - a wealthy Texas banker - invested in Beal Aerospace, yet Beal's company folded after 2 years, while SpaceX went on to become the most powerful space company in the world. $100M is not much for a rocket company even today, for example Relativity Space, a new rocket company founded in 2015, already raised $1.3B in funding, and they haven't reached orbit yet.

It is a unfortunate fact that most people lack the knowledge to really evaluate Elon Musk, most of what they heard about Musk comes from biased main stream media hit pieces like this supposed "documentary". If you really want to know the man, at the very least read Ashlee Vance's book.