Is this a common belief? That he is taking "risks" others don't have the courage to? This is a new one to me and interesting cultural development for sure.

Edit: Just kind of seems in contradiction to the previous stories of him where it focused on his intelligence/de facto technocratic authority to save the world. It wasn't so much his courage, but his moral rectitude combined with capital resources -- "he is going to save the world! Take us to mars!"

His two main companies have apparently taken risks that established companies in those areas were not willing to do.

Could Boeing built a self-landing reusable rocket? Almost certainly. Would they have been willing to, considering it almost certainly involves failing in explosive ways multiple times? That may be a risk they aren't willing to take.

> Could Boeing built a self-landing reusable rocket? Almost certainly.

McDonnell Douglas is part of Boeing and (before they were part of Boeing) did the DC-X prototype.

One failure ended the program, but it was transfered from McDonnell to NASA at that point I think and funding was shifted towards the reusable VentureStar. But it did demonstrate reuse and went through a partial failure of a hydrogen explosion and recovery:

https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_McDonnell_Douglas_DC-...

Yeah, basically exactly what I would expect - they're perfectly capable technology-wise, but they're not capable bureaucratically.

Which, if Musk has value, is where it comes in.

s/at that point/before that point

I would say it’s common. Both SpaceX and Tesla almost ran out of money with Musk maximally invested. Both moments were widely reported 5-10 years ago when they happened.

Sorry I was not clear, it was not the fan base that turned me away from him. It was the way he treated his workers during the start of the pandemic, forcing them to work. Along with other workplace controversies.

That's just my opinion, but I don't admire someone that prioritizes profit over human life.

You’re right, but actually the workers know what they are getting into in return for their options packages, it’s clear on Glassdoor. When I was looking for jobs in 2016, my slogan for myself was invest in Tesla, work at Google, not the other way around.

The only problem is that the stock price was growing more than the revenue, so I’m not sure how fast it can keep up growing, and what the current employees are expecting.

I believe OP is referring to Musk re-opening production against Alameda County's standing work-stop rules at the time.

This isn't necessarily the same as forcing people to work, but I have no idea if Tesla employees willing to return vs. those deciding to follow county rules saw any advantages or disadvantages at work as a result. Certainly forcing people to defy government rules to keep their jobs would be highly problematic to me as well, for example.

He could waste a lot of money on failed startups and never have any appreciable impact on his day to day life and standard of living other than his own satisfaction of seeing $BigMoneyNumber.

What comfortable life do you think he's giving up? Owning only 10 houses instead of 45?

The comfortable life of not working full time.

Even if you say that someone like him simply enjoys work, it seems clear that he's often working an uncomfortable amount, in order to achieve his two stated objectives, which at least in his perspective are altruistic (and are objectively not the best ways for him to get richer.)

I'm not sure you can argue that the richest man in the world got rich by accident while pursuing purely altruistic goals. He clearly knows what he's doing.

I say this while having an appreciation for the existence of Tesla and SpaceX, but let's not pretend he supresses unionisation at his factories because he cares too much.

not by accident, but getting rich clearly wasn't his goal when he dumped all his money into the start ups. why aren't we glad the richest man in the world got there by using his resources for futuristic ideas instead of something like oil and gas

I actually am glad of that - I think Elon is one of the less-bad billionaires. His views are stupid and most of his ideas are too, and billionaires shouldn't exist at all, but I am glad that he made his money building companies that are doing important things. Well, SpaceX and Tesla are - the Boring Company and Neuralink seem like boondoggles, to say nothing of Hyperloop.

SpaceX is interesting, but are they really doing anything important? Maybe if starlink goes global, but until then it doesn't seem to change anything in my or many peoples lives by not existing.

They are working on interesting problems though, far more interesting to me than most companies (including Tesla)

> SpaceX is interesting, but are they really doing anything important?

I'd say it's the most important company on the planet seeing as it's the only one that's truly carving a path for us to one day become a spacefaring civilization and doing so at a seemingly 10x faster pace than competitors

Spacefaring? Hopefully you mean Marsfaring (at best, if you can find a good reason to set up a colony there)

The average stellar density around our sun is about 0.004 per cubic light year, so definitely don't get your hopes up on some Star Trek scenario for the next few hundred years at least.

What is SpaceX's value again? P.S. Musk himself admits that SpaceX wouldn't be a thing if it hadn't been saved by a phone call from NASA. You know, the government, the same entity that Musk worshipers seem to dismiss as the lesser party when it comes to ingenuity and forward-progression.

I said SpaceX is moving us towards that goal, not that it will turn us into a spacefaring civilization

Whether it was saved by a phone call from NASA doesn't detract from its merits

> SpaceX wouldn't be a thing if it hadn't been saved by a phone call from NASA

I believe you, but when I tell other people that they don't believe me. Do you have something I can show them.

I don't see that at all. We're never going to spacefare on chemical rockets, unless you mean maybe going as far as the asteroid belt.

Reusable rockets are about satellites and maybe the space station. But until we see something use the cheap launches to improve life on earth, it's meaningless.

That said, I'd invest in SpaceX for the Starlink potential if it was public.

SpaceX has drastically lowered cost/mass to put something in orbit with Falcon 9. If they are successful with Starship they will do so again. Already lowering cost to orbit is increasing access to space for companies, universities, and governments. This is huge. Their success has lead to a number of new companies trying to innovate in a similar way and even. altering how governments plan to run future space programs.

I'm asking what is good about cheaper orbit. I get telecommunications, but other than that, what's the point. Any examples?

Because if all we're going to do is launch a few probes every few years, than the cost of the launches is a minor improvement.

Lower cost to transportation is key for pretty much any economic growth. People and companies have significantly more plans than just a couple probes every few years. Exploration, mining, tourism, scientific research, manufacturing are a couple things that come to mind. There are probably many more ideas than what i can think of and that’s the point. Make it cheaper for people with ideas to make them a reality. When only the largest of governments can afford to put something into space then we won’t see much innovation/economic growth.

You should check your facts. Elon doesn’t own any houses, he lives in rentals. Also in 2008 when he didn’t even have money for that after putting all his PayPal money into the startups, he was living at his friends’ places.

But the main point is the side comment: I’m having fun coding whenever I want to, but I strictly do non-payed hobby projects, as I don’t want to get into commitments ever again.

Loads of wealthy people live in houses that they themselves don't directly own. Instead they'll form a real estate LLC that owns property, pays contractors to maintain the houses, and the people will then pay rent to their own LLC to live there to cover the maintenance costs and whatever mortgage/debt the LLC has.

Everyman non-home-owning Musk: https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-says-he-lives-in-a-50...

The link you sent doesn’t confirm the comment that he owns lots of houses. Of course he won’t live in a bad place, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t stick to facts.

And how do you know what you stated are actually facts?

Multiple books and first-party reports. Hundreds of interviews.

He claimed to plan to offload all his 7 houses in 2020, and it seems that this was completed only a few weeks ago.

`Just look at the tax law of California, I wouldn’t own a house there either.

You mean the state with one of the lowest effective property tax rates in the country? Your property tax is pegged to 1% of the purchase price, and essentially never goes up ever again.

One of the only (if not the only) state where that happens.

The main reason not to own in CA is the insane purchase price, not the taxes.