zugi t1_j294l7j wrote on December 30, 2022 at 3:27 PM

Unpopular 2022 Musk is the same Musk that led Space X from its founding to its current role of revolutionizing access to space, and was quite popular until a year or three ago. And yes, he accomplished that by hiring a bunch of ridiculously smart people, motivating them to work hard and succeed, and taking risks that the entrenched players wouldn't take. I'm not worried one bit about Space X continuing to do more of what it's done so far. Sure, I do wish other competitors would step up, but so for no one else has. The entrenched bureaucracies like NASA and Boeing/Lockheed have proven unable to innovate. The other upstarts have overly modest goals like 6-minute entertainment rides.

If Bezos really wants to revolutionize space, the best thing he could do is probably to just buy Twitter from Musk and immediately ban Musk from it. Maybe then Musk would get back to focusing on space.

Muninwing t1_j2975yb wrote on December 30, 2022 at 3:45 PM

Counterpoint: musk has always been like this… but that’s not why he has been successful.

Money. That’s it. He has money. So he launched a pet project… and hired committed, intelligent people to work there. But listen to accounts of his “management style” — at SpaceX, they had to devote resources to managing him and distracting him from undermining their work.

Billionaires are more predatory, more selfish, and better funded than other people. Not smarter, more skilled, or somehow better people.

zugi t1_j299wea wrote on December 30, 2022 at 4:03 PM

Counter counterpoint: Bezos has money and got only silly toys at the edge of space. Branson has money and got nowhere too. NASA has money - billions in tax dollars - yet they can't build anything without spreading the work across 50 states and 100 different contractors. Until they changed their contracting method to contract types that Space X could bid on and win, which was smart on their part.

Sure, having a bunch of money is important - getting into the space business requires a lot of startup capital. But even with money, most ventures fail, yet Musk succeeded. I just think it's strange the lengths that 2022 redditors are willing to go to deny Musk any credit at all for Tesla, Space X, Starlink, etc. But regardless of credit, Space X is revolutionizing access to space, and that's a great thing.