Are you sure of this? Paypal truely was grand. Many people love their Teslas, and there is a (very strong, IMO) argument to be made that Tesla is the reason that the auto industry is transitioning, at least in part, to electric cars. Both of these seem like they are increasing the quality of life of the population.

Then comes SpaceX, doing engineering that NASA seems either incapable of or uninterested in (no specific blame on NASA, there is no substantial government push for progress in this area). OK, maybe you and I have not directly benefited from SpaceX yet, but do not discount the accruing benefit of cheap transport to space.

There are much, much, much easier ways to make money than to make an electric car company and a space company. Your argument is a little too cynical.

SpaceX built on existing engineering, and by some accounts isn't that much cheaper than Ariane 5 launches. It is bloody impressive so because it is a new company. Selling SpaceX as the saviours of space exploration and rocketry is a bit much so. It hirts to have Musks business, and other, attics overshadow that success.

> All he created was a financial bubble that he inflated to enrich himself for . work that he'll never actually deliver.

I literally drive a Tesla. I've watched SpaceX land reusable rockets and send people to the International Space Station. What you are saying here is factually incorrect and I'm really losing patience for this very obvious trolling and flame-baiting.

The entire history of this user's 3 day old green account is made up of this behavior. It's one thing for people to do this on HN, but to skirt the community conduct expectations by using a throwaway account is frankly frustrating to witness.

> I literally drive a Tesla

Congrats for being rich I guess? Your car brand is still as rare as Porsches, if you account for Europe it's still more rare on the road compared to Porsches.

Musk has been at the helm of Tesla since 2002. In FY21 Tesla accounted for 1% of vehicles sold globally. 1% in 20 years

I reapeat. 1% in 20 years. Hyper-growth for me (the stock market) , snail growth for thee (the American/global consumer)

For comparison in the US tesla had about a 2% market share in 2021, with Mazda at 2.3% and BMW group at 2.4%, and Toyota, the largest, at 15.5%, and Porsche at 0.46%.[2]

[1]https://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-analysis-2021/ [2]https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/porsche-us-sales-figures/

How many car startups in the last 50 years have made half as many cars as Tesla? Cars are an extremely competitive space. In my life in the last few years, Musk has gone from just a name on the internet to maker of a car I see on the streets at least once per day. That kind of progress is frankly undeniable. The same can be said of SpaceX - love Elon or hate him, there's no other company on earth doing what SpaceX does in the volume it does. I roll my eyes a lot at Musk on i.e. his Twitter takes, but I find the current zeitgeist of blind hate against him to be really reductive and boring. I feel like it's possible to be worried about his power, disagree with his politics, but also be impressed at the same time.

Porche sold 14k(apparently record year) to Telsas 34k in the uk for 2021 alone.

It's absolutely not that rare.

In addition to what other users have mentioned, I think the impact of the Starlink system in Ukraine is an example of where a Musk project has delivered significant value, and delivered that to people who are not in the upper stratas of western wealth. Starlink provided a swap-in alternative to Ukraine's disabled SATCOM infrastructure, realtime communications are a critical tool in this war.

As a side note, I would suggest reviewing HN's community guidelines regarding discussion of controversial issues and use of throwaway accounts. Respecting these guidelines would help your comments remain visible, rather than getting downvoted grey.[0]

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

> Throwaway accounts are ok for sensitive information, but *please don't create accounts routinely. HN is a community—users should have an identity that others can relate to.*

WRT the last point, maybe you just found HN this week and this is your brand-new community identity, but your account name and posting activity doesn't give that impression.

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's like all the jealous engineers who constantly try to tear down Linus.

> All he created was a financial bubble that he inflated to enrich himself for . work that he'll never actually deliver.

He's already delivered, one hundred times over. Continuously moving the goal posts of what you're criticizing doesn't suddenly make it a lack of delivery.