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A comment on SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says. Parent comment

Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by unethical_ban on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @02:29PM (#33440687)
I do believe he positively influenced these companies. I also believe he seems to be an insufferable megalomaniac; perhaps less malicious than others but still not healthy. I don't think his goals at twitter are long term profitability or a healthier American society/democracy, so I am very skeptical of his character.
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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by WalterBright on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @02:54PM (#33441111)
Merely "positively influenced"? Come on, without Musk those companies would not exist.

> insufferable megalomaniac

Nah. He's arrogant, to be sure, but nobody would attempt SpaceX or Tesla without being arrogant. It's a feature, not a bug.

> I don't think his goals at twitter are long term profitability or a healthier American society/democracy

Do you really think he spent $44B on Twitter to lose money on purpose?

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by unethical_ban on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @03:12PM (#33441391)
The top line is debatable, it gets into the great man theory. And FWIW Tesla literally did exist before he was involved. Credit to him entirely for SpaceX being founded, but IIRC Gwynne Shotwell runs it day to day.

To the last point: Yes, I think he could. When you have $150,000,000,000, even losing $149,000,000,000 would leave you with $1,000,000,000, which is hundreds and hundreds of times the lifetime net worth of most Americans.

Meaning yes, I can completely imagine someone with his money spending a lot of money to have major influence over how the world communicates. Bloomberg spent a billion dollars of his own money trying to be president and he's still quite rich.

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by WalterBright on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @03:39PM (#33441796)
> Bloomberg spent a billion dollars of his own money trying to be president

The Clintons made around $100 million for being President. The Clinton Foundation is worth $300b, and is largely used to fund the Clintons. Obama is worth $70 million. Trump initially viewed his run for office as publicity stunt for his businesses. He was obviously surprised that he won.

Being President is very, very lucrative.

> FWIW Tesla literally did exist before he was involved

I know. And without Musk nobody would have ever heard of it.

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by terafo on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @03:46PM (#33441910)
I think it's 300 million[1], not billion.

[1] https://www.clintonfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11...

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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by WalterBright on Wednesday November 02, 2022 @04:27PM (#33442490)
You're right. I fixed it.
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Re:SpaceX is now building a Raptor engine a day, NASA says by mlindner on Sunday November 06, 2022 @10:31PM (#33500781)
> The top line is debatable, it gets into the great man theory. And FWIW Tesla literally did exist before he was involved. Credit to him entirely for SpaceX being founded, but IIRC Gwynne Shotwell runs it day to day.

Shotwell runs certain parts of the business day to day. Elon heads up new projects whereas daily operations goes to Shotwell, which makes sense given her position of Chief Operating Officer. For example, by her own words, she has little involvement in the Starship project, or didn't as of early 2021 when asked about it.

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