This fucking loser also lies to people that he's the reason OpenAI exists LMFAO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWr-DA5Wjfw ("Elon Musk on Sam Altman and ChatGPT: I am the reason OpenAI exists")
Tesla was incorporated in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors. The company's name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer . In February 2004, via a $6.5 million investment, Elon Musk became the company's largest shareholder. He became CEO in 2008.
There are a lot of reasons to dislike Musk, this is not one of them.
When Elon came on board Tesla their business plan was to buy existing super cars and an existing electric drive train and then convert the super cars.
This was all going to be done by hand in a workshop. They would do dozens of cars a year.
Without Elon that's what they would be doing, he was behind the transition to building their own vehicles on their production lines and volumes comparable to normal manufacturers.
That's why he won his lawsuit to be listed as a founder.
They had the full plan laid out (start with expensive sports cars, then step by step move into mass market) and got Musk involved using it as a proposal.
By the sounds of it all they brought to it was the name and maybe some technical knowhow. Because everything else about their business seems to have been abandoned. The only way to get further off from "we'll make electric conversions with preexisting parts" is to abandon electric cars as a whole.
He may not deserve all of the credit, but it sounds like he deserves something north of 90% of it.
Musk has consistently proven himself to be a driving force behind the sustained success of every company under his leadership. Disparaging attitudes towards Elon seem to follow popular opinion rather than fact. While there's plenty of justifiable criticism, the points frequently echoed here don't contribute meaningfully to constructive discourse.
Edit: The prevalence of downvotes simply underscores my argument. How does this platform distinguish itself from Reddit, when it harbors a similar degree of negativity and concerted downvoting targeted at individuals participating in earnest conversation?
Honestly though who gives a shit about Musk though? Do you personally admire him? He’s a rich guy that is good at managing, if that’s something to admire then I understand your comment, otherwise it’s just ball riding
Spouting absolute horseshit and then declaring that people not liking it is proof that you're right is exactly what Alex Jones does. Please be better than Alex fucking Jones.
Yeah, the reddit hate train is here. Choo Choo! We can't hang people anymore because that's not PC, but we sure as hell still have the hate for it! Let's worship people one day and then burn them the next, blaming our disillusionment on someone else rather than on our own illusions!
In June 2009, Eberhard brought a lawsuit against Elon Musk for libel, slander, and breach of contract, alleging that Musk pushed him out of the company, publicly disparaged him, and compromised Tesla's financial health.[16] In August 2009, Eberhard dropped the lawsuit for undisclosed reasons
I hate elon as well but I have to give it to him, not everyone with money can scale a company like he did.
People say elon's dad was rich and he bought all the companies, this might be true but there are many people with rich dad's but not everyone can take a company to a level where Tesla, spacex and others are.
You're saying that like he scaled it with profits. This is all taxpayer money and grifting.
Tesla exploded during the start of EVs, and has only devalued since. SpaceX is run by crazy engineers, not Musk, and is all paid for by taxpayers and carbon offsets.
Twitter is an example of a company where Musk is left at the helm, alone.
Not everyone with money could build two huge successful companies (and let's face it, while he didn't found Tesla, the company wouldn't be this successful without him).
Someone without money (as in, at least multiple millions) could never do this, no matter how talented.
Elon Musk has repeatedly beaten the odds when everyone was telling him that it's impossible or stupid. He did this at least 3 times. But this breaks a man. He starts to think that every idea of his is a good one, especially when everyone else is telling him it's stupid. A good example is George Lucas, prequels and sequels were the way they were because he didn't have to listen to anyone, so he didn't.
No, it's not that. But also I want free stuff because I'm not cutting it in a dog eat dog world, man! Let's eat the people who actually make anything happen, cause they own more widgets and floombozzles than me!
Anyone who thinks Mark and Martin deserve any credit for Tesla needs their head examined. They were nothing more than yes-men for Elon’s brilliant ideas. True innovators like Elon don’t need anybody else to help them succeed
I’m trying to be unbiased here, Mark and Martin from my reading deserve some credit for the initial creation of the company and vision but I’d agree that they have very little to do with where the company is now.
Elon does play a big role, I don’t like his grandstanding and arrogant behaviour as much as the next person but to suggest otherwise would be foolish, I’m not sure how far beyond just his money and determination that contribution goes but it’s there.
It is however also foolish to not mention people like Jb Straubel, Franz von Holzhausen and many others when talking about Teslas success, if there’s one thing Elon is good at it’s getting talented people excited about hard problems.
One of the many problems with Elon is that he actively supports his portrayal as the lone technical genius who does most of the work instead of a guy who is very good at motivating (or sometimes threatening) talented people into working 80 hour weeks and also has a bit more technical understanding than the average CEO
One of the many problems with Elon is that he actively supports his portrayal as the lone technical genius who does most of the work instead of a guy who is very good at motivating (or sometimes threatening) talented people into working 80 hour weeks and also has a bit more technical understanding than the average CEO
This is the crux of it. Fanboys treat him like he does it all. Is he an educated person who has a far deeper knowledge of his company’s works than most CEOs? Unarguably, yes. He’s good at getting investors and he’s good at extracting work from employees. That’s what he does. He’s not here to save the world, he doesn’t build cars or spacecraft. He’s plainly here to be successful and make money, and if he could do it making something like an iPhone competitor or whatever it would be no different to him.
Thank you for posting a nuanced comment on this topic.
Elon Musk strikes me a lot like Steve Jobs, a micromanager that is terrible to work for but gets shit done. Seeing him flail around with twitter definitely makes me question how he was successful with Tesla. He isn’t afraid to take risks, but I wonder what or who was able to counter balance him at Tesla to make that more successful. Maybe his ego was just not as big then.
I’m sad to see that group think is alive and well on lemmy, like on reddit, maybe even worse on some topics. On Elon Musk people just upvote hate and downvote anything that may even superficially seem counter to it. I wish downvoting was disabled so people can’t just mash it angrily but need to think more.
People write that lemmy is full of “tankies”, which seems at least partially true to me? So dishonest right wing rich people get extra hate? I’m trying to get a feel for the community and was hoping it would be less emotional and tribal.