• flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz
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      7 months ago

      Wasn’t really a fan as such, but I also though as far as billionaires go he’s at least useful to humanity.
      He should have kept to what he was good at - marketing big ideas. Unfortunately narcissists don’t work that way.

      • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        as far as billionaires go he’s at least useful to humanity.

        There’s a good argument that this is still true (PS: in historical terms) despite everything. Without China the green-tech revolution would be decades behind schedule, and it took Tesla to make China move.

        • PonyOfWar@pawb.social
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          7 months ago

          it took Tesla to make China move.

          Maybe so, but I’m not sure whether Tesla really needed Elon Musk.

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Really? So where are all its peer competitors? This person has obviously gone off the rails but was once extremely good at making seemingly impossible things happen.

            • PonyOfWar@pawb.social
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              7 months ago

              The charismatic guy at the top may always get all the credit, but hundreds of other people played a role in Tesla’s success. He wasn’t even a founder of the company. All we can really say is that he bought in at the right time, but we don’t know how much of Tesla’s success was down to his personal decisions. If anything, it seems like Tesla’s decline really started when Musk started using the company more and more for his personal pet projects (Cybertruck, Teslabots etc) rather than the cars that people actually want.

            • SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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              7 months ago

              Yeah, all those losers born in Soweto in 1971 who haven’t used their enormous wealth to fund a bunch of different business ventures. What are they even doing?

            • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk
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              7 months ago

              was once extremely good at making seemingly impossible things happen.

              Seeing them land the Starship booster on the chopsticks - I’d say that he still is.

        • MagicShel@lemmy.zip
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          7 months ago

          I agree that Ellen was significant in the race to EVs, but that is definitely in the past. As far as present tense goes, nah.

          The tenses are a bit murky “I used to think ‘he’s useful…’” “this still true…” could kinda go either way, but it sounds like you’re saying it applies today, and nah.

          • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Just read what I write, rather than what you think I might be trying to say.

            I can’t find it now but there was an analysis a few days ago by a reputable source, maybe in The Atlantic, which said basically what I just said. It’s not scandalous. The guy has an impressive record as a business leader. Perhaps not as a product specialist, or even an engineer, but as force for making things happen at the company level.

            Anyway, apparently there’s not much willingness to engage in nuanced debate here so that’s all I have to say.

      • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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        7 months ago

        I’ll never forget the chill that ran down my spine when that thing with these cave kids happend in Thailand, and some random guy tweeted him: pleas mr. Musk, you are the closest thing we have to tony stark, help them. I felt genuinely disgusted.

        • JGrffn@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Musk losing it and calling that other dude a pedo during this event is what got me to start hopping off the musk train, so I kinda feel thankful for it?

          • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Watching the SpaceX engineers transform those pods overnight really highlighted the fact that all he does is talk until other, more capable people actually make it happen. They probably could have been quite helpful had he not got in the way with his tantrums.

            • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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              7 months ago

              At teh end it really wasn’t helpful at all and the diver who saved them explained why. That led to his tantrum. I appreciate they tried, but at the end they werre just victims of a marketing stunt.

              • KneeTitts@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                they are not designed to be in caves

                are they design for cardboard box in the middle of a lake?

              • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                You’d think so right? I’m a certified diver and love swimming around the bottom of the ocean but caves and climbing inside shipwrecks is a hard pass. Just going through a lava tube and scraping my tank on the rock gives me the heebie jeebies

                  • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
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                    7 months ago

                    There’s a million specialties you can be certified in SCUBA, as part of cave diving they literally teach you how to take off your BCD/tank and push it ahead of you if the space is too tight for you and your gear. NOPE

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        he always seem wierd to me wasnt a good first impression, he made news, i assume many people found out who he was when announcing the sub/calling the thai seals pedos.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmings.world
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          7 months ago

          Yeah, that thing with the Thai soccer team really opened my eyes. Later, I saw a documentary on the situation, and there was no way that his submarine idea could have worked, it simply would not have fit.

          But rather than accept that those on the scene were more knowledgeable about the situation, he immediately jumped to calling the rescuers pedos, as if the only reason they wanted to rescue them was because they were young boys, and wanted to molest them. What an unhinged take, proving that he was more interested in playing the hero and feeding his ego, than actually rescuing anyone. He saw an opportunity for global promotion, and was pissed when it was denied to him.

          It showed me a side that we hadn’t seen before, but turned out to be his real personality.

          • JacksonLamb@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            What an unhinged take, proving that he was more interested in playing the hero and feeding his ego, than actually rescuing anyone.

            Worse, it showed he couldn’t get his head around anyone else genuinely wanting to save children from dying. That was mask-off for his sociopathy.