Comment by Aarostotle
17 hours ago
Well reasoned.
Before he smoked that reefer, his space company was catching the largest booster ever made with metal chopsticks, all paid for by global satellite internet revenue.
His electric crossover/SUV was the best selling car in America.
Now that he’s gotten distracted by politics I dislike, he’s not doing any of that. Definitely no longer the world’s greatest builder.
/s
> all paid for by global satellite internet revenue.
Huh? You think starlink is funding space-x? If they lost all government and private launch business tomorrow and had to rely on Stalink revenues to stay in business they wouldn’t last through next month.
> His electric crossover/SUV was the best selling car in America.
It was, and then he fried his brain and decided to support fascists across the globe and can’t understand why people no longer want to support him or his businesses.
He apparently watched handmaid’s tale and thought “man those Gilead guys are really onto something”.
I dont think Starlink can actually make money without government subsidies and a whole lot of inactive users. It simply cannot scale, the width spot beams are limited by physics - they cannot get small enough to get the density needed.
I think that's the point? I'd always assumed Starlink was a way to fill in coverage gaps in low-density areas where cable would cost more than it was worth, not cities?
He didn’t need to watch Handmaid’s Tale. He grew up in 1970s South Africa and has never accepted that this model of society lost.
He and Thiel claim South Africa’s current government is engaged in genocide against whites, but they have never criticized apartheid.
On that front an interesting read is: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/26/elon-musk...
Supposedly the South African side of his family is actually pretty reasonable - it's the Canadian side that had the virulent racists.
> Huh? You think starlink is funding space-x?
In the last year alone, around 2/3 of space X's revenue was directly tied to starlink launches.
> If they lost all government and private launch business tomorrow and had to rely on Stalink revenues to stay in business they wouldn’t last through next month.
That's kind of the problem.
The irony of the biggest welfare queen in the world being worshipped by libertarian tech bros is too much sometimes.
Dude, nobody with a brain thinks he would have succeeded without the subsidies and support, but that still doesn't invalidate his achievements.
It's really annoying that I'm defending him because I find him reprehensible, but the truth is that he's accomplished some crazy things.
> the truth is that he's accomplished some crazy things.
I would argue: yes, to the extent that a leader gets to be described as having "accomplished" the work of the team.
It's not nothing, to be a visionary and charismatic leader!
But at the same time… when the reality distortion field seems to be in the process of transforming into a cult of personality, I think it's fair to ask if he'll ever again do something like a new SpaceX or a new Tesla, either as a maker or an investor.
I'm not sure when the cut-off between the two states, RDF and cult, would be. Not unreasonable to say it was when he libelled the cave diver, but there are other times it could've been.