How do you define "successful?"

If Elon is doing things that are illegal or otherwise just boneheaded now, how much leeway does he get? What would it take to make you decide he shouldn't be CEO?

How I define successful. Well, how about go back 10 years and look at the size of Tesla and SpaceX. And then look at them now.

I dont think anybody can argue that he was not succcessful.

But Tesla is not profitable, SpaceX claims to be but the veracity of the claim is untested. They're constantly at risk of collapse (due to bad management), and they don't seem to be self-sustaining - Tesla in particular needs infusions of cash constantly to function, and is essentially on life support. They do make good (or at least novel and fascinating) products, but the cost of doing so is extremely high.

Why does "big" == successful? I'm not saying money is the only thing we should ever optimize for, but I'm skeptical that growth is a viable alternative.

Edit: I've edited the first paragraph substantially because I did not accurately understand SpaceX's profitability vs Tesla's.

Profit doesn't matter growth matters. How can you live in the 21 century and still hold to the idea that profit is what matters? I mean we have seen so many company not make profit for a long time, were they all not successful?

I mean, Tesla could be profitable if they didn't fund massive amounts of expansion.

> Why does "big" == successful? I'm not saying money is the only thing we should ever optimize for, but I'm skeptical that growth is a viable alternative.

They are optimizing for money. They want more revenue, not more profit.

The question is not if the company is profitable, but rather if each product individually can be profitable.

You have any data to backup your claim that SpaceX is not profitable ?

In fairness, it's probably more accurate to say their profitability is not clear.

Their president says they are profitable, and they've claimed that several times over the last few years.[1] However, an expose from the WSJ from 2015 indicated they were quite the opposite then.[2] The Motley Fool suggested in 2017 that SpaceX might be on its way to profitability, but it was still unclear whether they really were or not.[3]

So what I should say is that Tesla is not profitable, and that SpaceX claims profitability, but that the claim is questionable. I'll update my post.

[1] http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-shotwell-201805... [2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusive-peek-at-spacex-data-s... [3] https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/11/11/will-spacex-earn-a...