What are the main points of criticism against Elon Musk?www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/ag1tc7/what_are_the_main_points_of_criticism_against/I‘m quite new to the whole SpaceX and Tesla (etc) stuff. The first impression of the guy was actually really positive, he does seem like someone trying to change the world. But i‘m usually very keen to always look on both sides of something. So what are his biggest flaws? How is he worse than any other billionaire? Well, how is he not better than any other billionaire. I understand that there is a somewhat dangerous fandom behind him. And a lot of musk-fanboys really are not capable to see anything negative about him.
Where i‘am standing right now is that he is a overly ambitious dude with a shit ton of money in his hands. But he seems to be really trying to change the world into a better (or at least longer lasting) place. And he is doing so in a really refreshing way while beeing somewhat of a celebrity doing so. So please, change my mind. I know how dangerous blind fandom can be!
25
120
Share
120 Comments sorted byBest
Log in or sign up to leave a comment
Post is archived
Wynardtage
1y
Has anyone mentioned the fact that he legit called a guy a pedophile and then doubled down to it to a reporter?
35
Reply
0nomatopoet
1y
That was mentioned several times and as long as he does not come forward with any proof (which is very improbable at this point) his behaviour in this situation was simply idiotic and inexusable.
4
Reply
540degrees
1y
Here's some of my top points.
Point 1:
One of my main reasons for disliking him is he stole the company Tesla from Martin Eberhard (CEO) and Marc Tarpenning, the actual founders.
Basically what happened is that years before Elon even heard of Tesla Martin and Marc had been developing an electric vehicle that was meant to have high-performance and be aesthetically designed. This vehicle eventually became the Roadster. The founders needed some funding, however, so they went to Elon who was willing to give them a few million. Elon basically didn't do anything relating to the development of the car. Soon the company started to become well known and began getting a lot of positive press coverage.
Since Elon didn't actually do anything, the founders never mentioned him in any interviews which pissed off Elon. Elon whined about it and threatened Martin. After this, Elon would occasionally come visit the people designing the car and make a few cosmetic changes that would set the company behind. Then he would leave for awhile. Once the company started to become bigger, Martin wanted to stick to more of the engineering side brought up the idea of hiring a new CEO. After a lot of shenanigans, Elon eventually became CEO through a series of decisions by the board members behind Martin's back. When Elon became CEO, he decided to kick Martin out of the company.
Elon seems to be given too much credit when it comes to Tesla. Many people even think of him as the founder of the company when it was hardly his idea at all. He's listed as a co-founder of the company, but that is simply not true.
More info here:
www.businessinsider.com/tesla-the-origin-story-2014-10Point 2:
His companies have the some of the worst working conditions.
When it comes to places to work, working for Elon has gotta be one of the worst experiences. In his companies, it is standard to work 80+ hour weeks for less pay than what you'd expect in a similar position. Safety is of no concern to Elon as he decided that he didn't like yellow safety lines in his factory that led to injuries. Even when injured, the injuries mostly go unreported so that the company appears safer and doesn't get investigated. Elon's also against the idea of a union being formed to protect the workers.
Basically Elon will do anything to reduce prices to gain some sort of competitive advantage. He ignores many of the safety and quality checks that most engineering companies do in order to get things done faster. Ever wonder why SpaceX is so cheap compared to other launch? I'll give you a hint. It's not because of reusable rockets.
I could go into SO much more detail, but here is a good place to start:
www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/Point 3:
He has dumb ideas.
First the hyperloop. From what so many have said about the hyperloop, it's obvious that there's many engineering problems yet to be solved. He wanted to "disrupt" the high speed rail industry by proposing that his idea will be faster and cheaper than its competitors. As cool as his idea sounds, it will definitely not be cheaper (or doable).
The boring tunnel is a joke. I get that what his demo was not the final product, but even if it worked like he originally proposed, it would still be terrible. The amount of people that can be transported by a subway is way higher than what the tunnel could ever do. His elevators into the tunnel create such a bottleneck too that it would cause huge backups to get into the tunnels. When an actual expert in public transit planning called him out on it, Elon said "You're an idiot".
I could keep going on going on, but I'll stop here for now. If you want to challenge any of these points, please feel free to do so. There's also so many more points that I haven't mentioned that I feel like I've barely scratched the surface.
