Comment by komali2
1 day ago
I mean, surely you know already the responses to these?
1. Elon didn't "create jobs," he profited off other's labor by having his name on some pieces of paper. Furthermore it's often reported that rather than an innovative force in a company, usually people have to work hard to keep him as uninvolved as possible, because he's mostly incompetent.
2. He's the richest man in the world. I don't care the volume of tax he paid, I care what percentage of his spending power it is, because that's how my taxes and my neighbor's taxes are calculated, and it's only fair his should be as well. By that measure, he pays functionally no taxes. My taxes impact my purchasing power and I have to budget for it. His should as well. After all, his money only has value because of the existence of this government.
3. SpaceX sucks the air out of the room the same way his fake drill company killed California HSR. Stop letting crony capitalists suck government contracts dry and then have their buddies sell the "more efficient private solution" that also doesn't get delivered. It's frankly absurd to not nationalize something as critical to sovereignty as a space program.
>Elon didn't "create jobs," he profited off other's labor by having his name on some pieces of paper. Furthermore it's often reported that rather than an innovative force in a company, usually people have to work hard to keep him as uninvolved as possible, because he's mostly incompetent.
I worked at Tesla for two years on the capital expenditure team... He literally goes around the factory making hundreds of changes. Sometimes those changes are bad, and are reverted but in my experience, he's right 95% of the time, and the other 5% he'll revert when shown evidence of why it's a bad idea. I'm sure he does the same thing at SpaceX. He is literally the HEAD ENGINEER. He approves the factory layouts, he is responsible for tak time personally, he is constantly on the factory floor.
>"Furthermore it's often reported that rather than an innovative force in a company, usually people have to work hard to keep him as uninvolved as possible, because he's mostly incompetent."
WTF are you talking about? Who could possible keep him from being uninvoled? he is on the factory floor bi weekly making adjustments and negotiating equipment delivery. No one has the power to try and "Keep him uninvoled" and if so, they would be quickly fired.
>It's frankly absurd to not nationalize something as critical to sovereignty as a space program.
Uhh... we tried that. it'd called NASA, and it's been behind the soviet union since the early 2000's.
What happens when you nationalize it? You realise you can't force people to innovate, right? Do you think Gavin Newsom will be a better CEO of SpaceX? Do you think we have any chance of reaching mars after nationaliztion?
Why do you feel the right to be able to take what someone else has built?
Damage control at SpaceX https://www.theinformation.com/articles/elon-musks-no-2-at-s...
Damage control at Tesla https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-giga...
Twitter finally distracting him away from his meddling https://www.yahoo.com/news/spacex-employees-relieved-elon-mu...
> Uhh... we tried that. it'd called NASA, and it's been behind the soviet union since the early 2000's.
Fascinating. You know what, actually, this part of the conversation is far more interesting to me. I concede that Musk is a super genius that definitely didn't do a Nazi salute on live television. I'd rather explore this with you.
So, you said it right there... NASA, which functioned as a government sponsored project manager distributing out contracts to businesses from a government budget... Failed to keep up with the Soviet Union space program, which was, well you know the answer! Fully nationalized.
I'm not surprised that American half measures at nationalization fail, just like I'm not surprised that the HSR failed through crony capitalism. There in the name. I'm arguing for something a little more dramatic than NASA. Something provably effective. Speaking of HSR, I'm reminded of another modern nationalized infrastructure project that is unparalleled in scale or success, somewhere in the East ;)
> Why do you feel the right to be able to take what someone else has built?
Musk's money has value only because of the society we all together create. It's silly to draw some lines around and say "actually the country's national space program should move to the whims of this one guy that signed investment paperwork and occasionally yells at people on a factory floor." A deeply unserious way of managing something critical to national sovereignty. The Soviets understood this which is why they got to space first. The Americans could only come close when they got a little commie about it; they surpassed the Soviets only when they centralized even more than the Soviets did, which is why Ayn Rand got upset enough to write about it: https://courses.aynrand.org/works/apollo-11/
I don't know if we are talking past eachother, or you are proving my points here? NASA would be nowhere without spaceX. In a centralized system, they never would have developed reusability, because economics are not a consideration. And when you try and produce an end good where economics are not part of the consideration, even with success, you achieve failure.
If SpaceX was nationalized, Starship development would of never happened. Catching the boosters with giant chopsticks, would have never happened. We would probably spend $100B to get to a human to mars and we'd say "Done". However, keeping a profit incentive ensure proper allocation of resources and goals with economic fucundity instead of dumping 60 years to build a death trap with no meaningful payload capacity to the moon. SpaceX has only 20 years, and has rapidly advanced past any agency or company on the planet. SpaceX has the capacity and access that Governments wish they could create, but inside a government system the incintives can never exist to create those in the first place.
edit: Those three links you provided... The last one, a "Calmer work enviroment" because His [Elons] demands have sometimes led to staff reworking the product again for its functionality."
Don't you think these articles kinda of disprove your original statement that he's not intimately involved in the design details? Yes, definitely Elon is not known to be subtle with his employees and he definitely yells alot I can tell you that from first hand experience. Shotwell is definitely the more level headed of the two, with a much higher EQ, so of course, when Elon comes in and fires the entire Starlink team, comes in and redesigns it from scratch, she picks up the pieces of those in his way. At Tesla, however, there is no equivelent to shotwell.
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