> Without Musk EVs would be nowhere and NASA and ESA would still be the laggard they are with reusable launchers absolutely nowhere to be found.

There is no way to prove this without having the ability to observe all the other universes that have Musk and that don't have Musk. It's very likely if he didn't build these companies, someone else, or multiple someones, would have built similar companies.

Elon is a ressentiment magnet. It's the price of success today.

I respected the guy on his merits until he fabricated the Saudi investor nonsense to take Tesla private at $420 a share. When that happened, I sold my last few Tesla shares that came from the SolarCity acquisition. It's been a word vomit rollercoaster since then.

He feeds off negative attention and actively seeks it out.

People can use their successes for common good. I don’t see Elon Musk or Liza Powell-Jobs or Miriam Adelson doing that.

> Liza Powell-Jobs

Laurene Powell Jobs?

Lisa Brennan-Jobs?

Liza Powel O'Brien?

Whatever

Absent Musk, someone else would have worked out how to arbitrage government subsidies on efficient cars, household solar and space flight. That's how capitalism works: if there's free money floating about, someone will figure out how to take it.

There were - and are - a lot of companies vying for those sweet subsidies. And most of them can't make it work even with subsidies. Maybe Toyota with their prius is getting anywhere, the rest are mostly a footnote. And yet, Musk comes and makes a successful business there. I think there's something more than subsidies in play. Sure, subsidies help, but a lot of people failed where Musk succeeded.

As an investor, I’d prefer to fire him. Capitalism is about what I get now, not what you did yesterday

No, we hold them to account like everyone else and they still give us what we want, they just get a little bit less outrageously wealthy doing it.

What's "outrageous" about Musk's wealth? He built companies that provide breakthrough goods and services.

The increasing amounts of envy and malice in American culture is troubling.

> What's "outrageous" about Musk's wealth?

Aside from everything?!

I’ll bite.

1) He’s an individual yet his wealth surpasses the GDP of entire nations.

2) The market caps of his companies that informs that wealth are wildly and recklessly speculative. The company that innovated in its space is worth 1/3 of the company that has consistently oversold or completely failed to make good on promises(which frankly they all do regardless of their innovative effect).

3) And still, he’s currently holding one of his companies for ransom for even more.

> He built companies that provide breakthrough goods and services.

I must have misunderstood why his companies hired all of those employees.

Were they all just there cheering him on as he built it all himself?

> Without Musk EVs would be nowhere

This is a pretty absurd idea. The Tesla Model S, the Nissan Leaf, and the Renault Z-E platform (initially with a pretty unsuccessful car built on it; the successful Renault Zoe came the year after) all came out within a year of each other. The VW e-Golf came out the year after. You can thank progress in lithium ion batteries hitting a tipping point, not Musk, coupled with government incentives (California, the EU, and China were all pretty much saying to manufacturers "make this, and we will subsidise it").

I can see why people might think this, particularly Americans, because the Tesla Model 3 was arguably the first mainstream/affordable electric car _in America_ (the Leaf and similar vehicles never really caught on there; they're too far outside market preferences), but the idea that Tesla in some way made electric cars possible is simply nonsense.