Public Opinion on Elon Musk's Innovations and Tech Ventures

I remember a point where users was obsessed with how brilliant Elon Musk was and everything he did. Now he seems to be the villain that no one likes. what happened? Was the turning point in 2018, after the rescue of the soccer team suck in the cave in Thailand, where he got mad for not using his robot?

I think opinion has always been split. Depending on where you look, you'll find hero worship and intense hostility.

The "peado guy" tweet did it for me

He didn’t just get mad about the diver team not wanting to use his robot sub—he called the lead caver (who eventually orchestrated the rescue of all the kids) a pedophile out of nowhere. That was many people’s first sign (including myself) of the raging narcissist and asshole hiding behind Elon’s cultivated PR.

I was one of the ones who idolized him, what’s not to like: billionaire, sleeps with supermodels, seemingly out to make the world a better place with electric cars, solar energy and colonizing Mars. He always seemed like the smartest guy in the room, the real life Iron Man. He made the plans for EVs open source (rather than keep as private patents) ostensibly to allow the tech to proliferate faster, just seemed an all-around Great Man.

After the seeming aberration of the twitter snit in 2018…it was like the Elon facade broke and more and more kept coming to light (a lot of it from Elon himself) that made it seem Elon was not actually a good guy, just a guy with good PR who appeals to a certain segment of people regardless. His anti-union practices at Tesla while claiming he’s for the workers made him a hypocrite (as did claiming to be all about “free speech” but making Tesla workers sign NDAs so they can’t criticize Tesla). Threatening a coup in Bolivia (“We will coup anyone we want. Deal with it.” -Elon Musk) so he could mine lithium there. His petty attacks on people for even small criticisms, standing with Amber Heard in the Depp trial, his weird semi-support for Trump, joining Trump’s economic council and saying he would reinstate Trump to Twitter. Putting microchips in monkey’s brains that killed dozens of them…it started to become clear Musk was less Iron Man and more “Bond Supervillian”.

For me the breaking point was the pandemic. Musk loudly spreading misinformation (like graphs on how Covid would just disappear in a few months that turned out to be extremely wrong, or that masks don’t work—my wife is a respiratory therapist and masks work just fine) and raging against reasonable measures taken to stem the virus he just lost me. He has revealed himself as someone that thinks they are an expert in things they are not, first revealed in his petty lashing out that the Thai rescue team didn’t see his dumb idea as brilliant, and continuing to when the epidemiologists who do this virus stuff for a living didn’t want to listen to his idiot ideas about the pandemic.

Now seeing him with clearer eyes, he seems exactly like what he is: a guy born on 3rd base from his parents emerald mines, who thinks he hit a triple with his self-made man nonsense, thinks he’s always the smartest when there are very clear examples that he’s not, and generally just the modern definition of a narcissist.

Edit: I incorrectly referred to Thai Cave Rescuer Vernon Unsworth as “decorated Navy Seal”, confusing him with the Seals who were involved with the rescue. Thanks to many who pointed out the inaccuracy.

I'm curious to understand why so many people who once admired Elon Musk now seem to strongly dislike him. If you were a fan before but no longer are, what changed your perspective? Was it his actions, statements, or something else? Let’s discuss!

His only invention is himself. A dysfunctional man of average intelligence has invented himself as a tech genius.

This is not a rhetorical question. What exactly are the inventions of Musk? I don't mean the patents of his company for the inventions of his employees. I mean the stuff that was actually invented by Musk himself. Is there a list I can see from a valid source?

Elon Musk is not an inventor, he is and always has been on the business side, not the technology side (despite his desperately wanting people to think otherwise).

Prior to Tesla (which he did not start), nothing he did was terribly successful, however due to what was essentially luck, he ended up as the main shareholder in Paypal. Even there, he only successfully failed. He was forced out of the company, but he still held the largest share of the stock, so when it was acquired by eBay, he became a billionaire.

I haven't tried hard to figure it out because I regard character as much more important than intelligence. And I already have a well informed opinion of his character. Which is very poor.

In terms of evaluating his intelligence and specifically his contributions to innovation within his companies, we have a epestimic problem. We can't trust what he says about himself of course. He is a self aggrandizer. And those around him who talk about him have a built in bias to make him look good because their success is tied to his. Even the whistleblowers who speak poorly of him are biased because their notoriety is in trashing him.

So I have not found a good way to evaluate his intelligence and his contributions to innovation other than the success of his companies. And that can be attributed to business acumen and contributions from others around him as well.

So if someone has a good objective way to evaluate it I'm all ears.

One way or the other, he's a prejudiced ass and a liar.

All Musk has ever done is buying promising companies, proclaiming himself as the genius behind them and making them infinitely worse in the process. There's nothing beneficial behind any of his actions.

Look, I don’t exactly approve of Elon getting insanely political in the last 3-4 years. It clearly tarnishes the brand image of him and his companies, and he would be better off staying out of politics.

However, it absolutely does not take away from his insane accomplishments in the business world.

Building out Tesla and SpaceX simultaneously is simply one of the greatest feats a human has ever done. Not only are these companies financially successful, they also genuinely push humanity forward.

A common leftist rebuttal is that Elon didn’t actually found Tesla. Yes, he bought out Tesla and took over it when nobody ever heard of it. He then turned it into a trillion dollar company over the course of 2 decades. Anyone who knows anything about business knows that ideas don’t mean jackshit, it is all about the execution.

For some reason, people want to discount Elon’s business success simply because they don’t like his recent political views. It’s like if an athlete starts playing poorly during the end of his career - does that discount how good he was in his prime?

You’re allowed to disagree with his political views, but acting like he is successful only due to fraud or nepotism is just plain dishonest.

Absolutely negative. He helped give us Trump’s second term.

Wow found Elons burner lmao

This has to be a joke, every billionaire have a massively negative impact on the world.

He did not invent or create anything.

Sure he is great at raising funds and sell people his bullshit vision, but thats about it. So a glorified salesman! And like a true salesman -- does not deliver on what he promised.

Relax, not that impressive.

Even if you don’t want to consider him “one of the greatest inventors” he’s clearly one of the greatest business men of this century. To have the management skills to take such risks and allow some of the smartest minds in the world to achieve amazing things, takes a special skill set most people don’t have. I think hating Elon now is fair but what Tesla and spacex have done is truly amazing.

I’m Interested in hearing opinions from both sides. I’m curious how people weigh things like Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, etc. against the criticisms and controversies surrounding him personally and professionally.

Elon musk is genuinely one of the greatest men of the 21st century.

Well his reputation is not the best recently, but that guy is one of the greatest inventors, and creators of this time, and for those who say he is an evil person, you guys are so naive you think people who we call heroes were good people, lol a lot of the people who we call heroes, and builders of the future were by no means good people( George Washington, Issac Newton , and many more), and this doesn't undermine their greatness.
Being completely good in an evil world is a joke, Elon, and many more made some people lives bad, but millions better, and in the end reputation is a matter of framing some people do it good some bad, Elon generaly did it pretty well, but now he isn't.

I hate Elon, truly, but in arguing with my dad yesterday about him, I came to the realization that the reason my dad reveres him is not because of his political views, but because of Elon's insane ability to almost see into the future, whether it be him inventing things or not.

Paypal, while seeming like an obvious progression nowadays, was a huge step forward in 2000. Tesla, a staple of the modern world was a failing company when Elon bought it. SpaceX was built on an idea that most people thought was impossible. Now, Terafab and the soon-to-be space-based data centers are another insane innovation that I don't think anyone else would have the balls to do.

I really, really don't want to hear about him coming from money. There are loads of people who have come from money and have not accomplished even 1/10000 of what Elon has. If you have someone else in mind for the best entrepeneur of all time, I'd like to know who, and why.

I’ve always wondered, is Elon Musk truly a genius and the mastermind behind all these ventures like SpaceX, Tesla, and Neuralink? Or is he more of a visionary with ideas, who then brings in the right people to make those ideas a reality?

Would love to hear what everyone thinks.

Edit : Some people say he has been an intelligent person since his young age, so he managed to do all of this for humanity.

why you ppl don't give upvote but keep commenting ? can i consider it has you ppl hate him but love to talk abt him?