Having a high IQ doesn't make you immune from cockups.

No I guess not. His rants on social media have cost him in the past. I believe he may have psychopathic tendencies because he appears to be attempting to project his own work ethic (long hours etc) onto staff but cannot emphasize with them, or understand they aren't him/have his circumstances/have his ability. His goals are great and have certainly pushed our tech boundaries into near science fiction, but he really doesn't have the social and people skills, which is ironic given he's bought Twitter. If there was one thing I could tell him, it's that he should engage his brain before his mouth, a little (benevolent) social manipulation to get what he wants will be more successful before he barks orders for long hours or sacks people at short notice. Carrot before the stick.

I generally agree with what you are saying. But:

> certainly pushed our tech boundaries into near science fiction

That bit seems a bit of an exaggeration to me.

The reasoning:

- Boeing laughed at SpaceX and their proposed rocket re-use and cheap(er) space flight. Now Boeing is the no.3 supplier to NASA, SpaceX at 2 and playing catch up.

- Self driving cars were not an industry until Tesla pushed it, it is still the pioneer in this respect as no other car make has the same level of self driving features. How cool is a car that drives to you on button click? :)

- No other US company has announced humanoid robots aside from Boston Dynamics, which are not for the general public.

- Tesla has pushed for secondary industries such battery invovation and solar roof tiles (not regular panels on roofs). This in itself is not new but is a future green environment goal.

- The Boring company goals may be a pipe dream (har har) but the intent is there to provide hyper transportation, akin to 50s trashy comic ideals.

- How many non governmental industries can offer Ukraine help with something like Starlink? Can't be many... (honestly don't know but initially seems altruistic).

I'm afraid you have drunk the kool aid. Self-driving cars are an idea as old as the car itself, and many companies are much further along than Tesla who are stuck on their "no LIDAR" stance when LIDAR is rapidly becoming cheaper and more available. Almost ironic from the company that bet on lithium batteries for cars. The robots are a demo gag (much like the smart summon, or the cybertruck, or the semi, or ..). The "solar tiles" are a fire hazard and the Tesla solar business a total shambles, which makes sense since it was just a nepotistic bailout of Solarcity. Hyperloop is dead and so is the Boring company.

SpaceX alone succeeding is a once in a century event. Tesla kicking off EV for the world as well.

> - Self driving cars were not an industry until Tesla pushed it, it is still the pioneer in this respect as no other car make has the same level of self driving features. How cool is a car that drives to you on button click? :)

Tesla was founded in 2003, and self driving wasn't a thing to think about back then.

DARPA had been working on getting the research for it underway - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge_(2004) -- and that was announced in 2002.

I'd suggest a read of https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-grand-urban-challenge-self... to get a bit of perspective on it. Also look at the number of teams that were trying to do it back then and presumably had thought about it and done some preliminary work on it even before ( https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/11/08/107226/in-the-19... ).

This isn't "before Tesla, no one was doing it" it is much more a "until recently, the necessary processing power was impractical to have in a car."

> - The Boring company goals may be a pipe dream (har har) but the intent is there to provide hyper transportation, akin to 50s trashy comic ideals.

It's worth noting that what they're pushing is not tunneling technology but a particular mass transit system that is essentially a repackaging of personal rapid transit (PRT). Although, unlike the PRT system constructed 50 years ago and every other PRT system built since, Musk's version requires human drivers (as it relies on unmodified Tesla vehicles which are not self-driving).

These are not complicated decisions to navigate.

Sometimes it makes you less self aware that you might be wrong.