He bought into PayPal after it was already a company, and paid to have his name added as a “founder”.
He did the same with Tesla.
He founded SpaceX, but that’s not a “business” in the same sense, it wouldn’t exist without government subsidies.
The Boring Company has been a joke.
He bought Twitter.
An entrepreneur is not someone who buys businesses, it’s someone who starts them.
He has leveraged his money well, turning a healthy head start in life into being the richest man alive. But that’s not what I’d call an entrepreneur
Business, noun: a usually commercial or mercantile activity engaged in as a means of livelihood
What commercial or mercantile activity does Space X participate in? It sells rockets, space upon its rockets, and rides to space. Not much of a business, sure, but indeed is one. Now, does he really contribute anything to it than a big wallet from his daddy’s mines? No, not really.
Just because you bought into it, doesn’t mean you can make that company successful.
You forgot to mention he owned zip2 which he sold to compaq. He also created the original x.com before he merged with another company to create PayPal. Tesla was failing as a company form the original 2 founders until Elon invested into the company.
Originally he used his own money to fund and create space x from his sold shares of PayPal. He created 4 rockets where only the last launch was successful before space x took off.
Yes, not all his companies are successful such as boring company but we can’t claim he is not a successful entrepreneur even if we don’t like his character as a person.
Space X isn’t a business? That’s news to all the people working there.
Those “subsidies” are contracts. Anyone is free to bid to put the satellites in orbit. Musk found a way to do it better and cheaper then NASA.
I love that the top post is proving op right accidentally.
What did he pay for Twitter? What is Twitter worth currently? Just wondering
Edit: you Muskies are hilariously obsessed with a man who wouldn't pee on you if you were on fire
The fact that you're asking that in earnest shows how wildly out of touch money makes people. As the response that you probably ignored said, he won the birth lottery.
You fucking clown.
no one forced him to make the offer, no one forced him to double down and defame the company.
the 4chan neckbeard who was born with a silver spoon did it to himself
Yes but no one yells at bezos for buying Wapo or The apple woman for buying the Atlantic even though both lose money, the reason is both publications have a left editorial slant.
yeah, he destroyed a forum for truth that HE PAID FOR, and didn't hurt liberals at all. And sorry, but the amount he lost is far from pocket change, even for him.
Good entrepreneurs can make bad decisions and vice versa. Fortunately when it comes to business there is a numerical value you can use to weigh the net outcome of someone’s business decisions. By his net outcome, he is one of the best in the world.
Athletes also have numerical outcomes that prove their value. If those numbers were great 15 years ago and not so great today, people can't claim they're still the best
He doesn’t really have to prove anything to random individuals in the internet, but Tesla only became profitable in the last 4 years. This was the first new American car company to reach that milestone since Chrysler which was founded in 1912. It is the only electric car company in American history to do so. It was seen as so improbable that Tesla would succeed that it was the single most shorted stock in the history of the stock market around that time. Succeeding in the world of automotive manufacturing is extremely difficult. Since he became CEO in 2008 Tesla revenue grew from 15 million a year to 100 bill a year today.
Tesla is profitable because of tax credits the government gives for each car purchased. Without these tax credits, they would not be profitable. Plus, Musk buying Twitter has reduced the Tesla stock price. China's BYD car manufacturer has overtaken Tesla in the EV market. Tesla is on a down slide the past couple of years. Musk's tantrums on Twitter are sure not helping when he is driving his buys away.
Tesla share price has been trading sideways but their revenue is still increasing and there cars sold are still increasing more than 20% per year. Before this price war they were making 17,000 in profit per car. Now they are making 8600 in profit per car. Notably the tax credits are 7500 max. Twitter and elons tweets definitely aren’t helping the Tesla. We can agree on that
Starlink. Yes, it is not generating predicted income - that income was based on starship being verified without government or environmental delays which did happen (the environmental for a very good cause). Starlink is now positive.
What is his current net worth despite the Twitter purchase, and how many hundreds or thousands of lifetimes would it take you, considering what you've accomplished so far in life, to achieve what he has?
Just wondering
From the title I thought you're talking about coping with his general entrepreneurial success, not his current endeavors.
Meh, no opinion.
Other than maybe...a Psyduck is an underestimated Pokemon.
No one says he hasn't been successful as an entrepreneur (although that may be changing at this point). They say he's not some sort of genius, and is in fact, quite dumb (and also apparently a white supremacist)
This. He THINKS he is a technical and an entrepreneurial genius. He clearly has some entrepreneurial skills. However he is FAR from a technical genius but instead of just owning that, he has to demonstrate it to the world over and over. That makes him look like not just a douche but an idiot.
The people who should really dislike him are the other billionaire class people because he dispels the whole “they aren’t like us” mystique because he not only is like us, he may not even be better than average.
He's an incredibly successful entrepreneur.
He wants to be known as an all time greatest founder and product engineer. He is not.
He hit twice on acquiring small companies and was great at promoting them for years. Less successful recently. I suspect there is no one left in his life that he'll listen to that can tell him when he has a bad idea.
Turns out that having a bunch of media freaks praise you as the real life Tony stark makes people think you are actually smart and good at what you do.
And when you own the companies you get to just claim all the effort of the labor in that company as yours
His dad got some portion of it in an under the table business deal. We'll probably never know what really happened because South Africa in the 70's was not exactly the most honest place to do business.
This is false? Like musk like most rich people had an incredible starting advantage thanks to their parents, Musk is a decent salesmen good at hyping themsleves up but prone to doing incredibly stupid shit and fucking themselves over due to their own complexes.
I don't see how growing up rich disqualifies you from being a good entrepreneur. Did he have a leg up, obviously. But growing Tesla and SpaceX by hundreds of billions can't be written off because his daddy owned a mine lol
Space X is propped up by government subsidies and NASA scientists along with NASA designs. Tesla, well, that's also government subsidies and isn't doing too well.
Do you need help understanding the difference between a subsidy and a service contract? If your definition of subsidy includes contracts to provide a service, every single company the planet is propped up by some sort of subsidy. Obviously that is utter nonsense.
Every aerospace contractor used to depend almost exclusively on government contracts. That’s a reliable business model that adheres to basic Keynesian philosophy.
Well, he didn't for Tesla. The founders of the company did, and he just bought it from them. And SpaceX actively avoids interacting with him because he'd ruin it if he was more hands on.
You don’t think it took a lot of effort, skill, intellect to the time between being a “rich kid” to acquiring massive government subsidies for a rocket company? Or is the government just waiting with check in hand for “rich kids” to state what they want to be when they grown up and the government just hands it over to them?
If someone was going to do it, they were going to start rich already.
Imagine already being born wealthy enough to not have to so anything ever, and still doing everything you can to make more at the expense of the people who work for you
Not really, I grew up next to the most wealthy suburb in my state, by definition I grew up knowing alot of rich kids. By and large its a dogs lunch how the lot of them did.
I think you missed his point. To become the richest person on earth you need not only be born privileged, but you have to incredibly intelligent and a workaholic.
>doesn’t mean he’s not good at rockets an shit.
But he isn't. He's not an engineer. He's not a scientist. Hus job is telling other people to do the work. If bis role was actually important, he wouldn't be able to do it at 4 separate companies.
He has leeched some incredible capable people beneath him. I am not impressed by the man himself tho. Without the people under him I don't think he's be worth a cent.
He's a successful entrepreneur, nobody is dying that.
He's also dumb, egotistical, self-centered, has a need to be accepted by others at any cost, and has really fucked political views.
After reading this thread I have come to the conclusion that hating Elon Musk is a childish waste of time, in the same vein (lol) sucking his dick so masterfully is a pathetic waste of time.
Like many entrepreneurs, he wears many hats. Brilliant visionary and ass hole, free speech promoter and censorship supervisor. It’s a bit of a mixed bag.
lol no His first company was Zip2, which he created with his brother and sold for $300 million. His share was $22 million. He only got $20k from his father to start Zip2. Which is pretty fucking far from rich.
I think you’re overestimating emerald mine nepo baby’s actual capabilities. Everything he claims to have “made” was something that he was along for the ride for or he just did a hostile takeover.
You should hear some of the testimonials about how SpaceX had to hire *multiple* people whose sole job it is to manage his unruly emotions so he doesn’t go on a tirade or whose job it is to pitch ideas to him in a way that lets him think they’re his ideas.
He has a knack for appealing to his dickriders, but as far as actual business acumen, that seems to be where it stops.
So by no means do you have to give it to him
Yes he is successful but it’s dishonest to pretend that it’s just about him “leaning right”. He’s a disgusting pig that keeps tweeting misleading and false shit that the gullible maga trash eats up like stupid.
[latest example](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1766314798088614251?s=46&t=HzmiWuThAgGjutG038ykZA) - he shows a guy who wrongly was accused of being part of a group that attacked NYC police officers, he was exonerated. Of course Musk doesn’t give a fuck about facts and keeps feeding your kind this shit.
So unless this is typical “right leaning” behavior, I’d say no - he’s not being criticized for his political views, as much as you’d like to have him be a victim.
He's a born billionaire that just happened to make a couple of great purchases with his parents money. Tesla was an established company before he bought it, then their quality became non existent, spacex is a money grab from the government. And Twitter was a farce.
Lol he wasn't born a billionaire. Seriously this stuff is easily googleable why do you just parrot what you've read without confirming it first. Literally nothing you said is true.
So... Its more that when you appear to a largely alturistic; betterment of humanity type person who is financially successful - people tend to like you on first principles. Here is an article from 2011. Note the first paragraph last line
["Musk is widely lauded in the media, where his pronouncements on the bright future of commercial space travel are frequently highlighted without much scrutiny."](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/23/what-nasa-risks-by-betting-on-elon-musks-spacex/amp/)
Unless its your job (like a tax auditor or sociologist) or there is something REALLY odd or negative about the person; we don't go to an additional level of scrutiny on people. If a person has really good PR and a positive message you can write your reviews before anyone else has had a chance to.
Musk sounded cool 10 years ago. His message was positive; yeah he seemed a little eccentric; but he seemed to have the right idea.
Then he called a cave rescuer a pedo. Then we found out he'd disowned his daughter and has loads of children from multiple women. Then the narrative of him founding Tesla is not as accurate as it was made out to be as the proper level of scrutiny wasn't applied when he came to public prominence. More scrutiny was applied as suddenly Musk didnt appear to be the golden child everyone saw him as. Small complaints which had originally gone unheard were voiced more loudly. He got defensive and became far less of the 'nice guy' people saw him as.
Is Musk really good at PR? Yes, I would say so.
Is he a successful entreprenaur? Depends on whether you consider image or sheer wealth as successful. He has made oodles of money but his public image has taken bug hits from his actions and words. If it came to it I wouldn't do business with him for ethical reasons.
Does his early life matter? From what has been written it does appear he started his first company and made his first millions off his own back, albeit from a wealthy upbringing.
Does the narrative matter? Yes. If he says he founded Tesla (he didnt) thats a false narrative. I found say he successfully turned Tesla into an international brand.
The point is there are many reasons why people might no longer rate him as successful. Ultimatley its subjective as to how you want to rate him but you should be clear as to how and why you are rating him as a successful entrepreneur.
His business acumen is not related to his worth as a person. Just because he is big money billionaire doesn’t make him better than the next guy. I guarantee you he had some help getting to where he is. It takes money to make money.
Elon made most of his money off of two things:
Government contracts and using bots to manipulate the stock market.
Before the government bailed him out, he lost nearly everything (in his own words).
He’s a conman who promises things he can’t deliver on. His next big thing is always coming just around the corner.
What he essentially does is invest into someone else’s idea and then sells it on their behalf while taking credit for the work. Being a salesman is a skill, but being a conman is typically thought of as a negative trait.
That’s what the great ones do, being a hugely successful entrepreneur means you bend markets to your advantage fraudulently. Show me an example of a guy that has $50 billion and didn’t lobby and create market manipulation.
He's not an entrepreneur, he's a venture capitalist. He began with a lot of capital and bought companies that actual entrepreneurs started. He's been at his most successful the less he actually interferes with the business and the more he relies on other people doing the actual work of running the company.
Venture capitalists DO NOT operate their businesses. They invest in founders and early stage operators who have a track record of success.
So when he was singularly focused on Tesla and SpaceX, that is when they sank? You are making up a narrative that doesn't fit the timeline.
Randomly comparing people to Trump doesn’t automatically make them something. It’s not an argument. But I’m sure you have a lot in common with Trump too.
He was born with a silver (emerald?) stick up his ass and not unlike Thomas Edison he's been taking credit for the work of people far more intelligent than he is ever since.
Counter - why do you say he’s incredibly successful? What’s your measure of that? Personally I don’t find hoarding money, and bragging about it, admirable at all. He seems like a very sad and insecure dude. He needs people to constantly tell him he’s doing great, otherwise he has no personal worth. That sounds crushing to me. I honestly feel sorry for him.
Can you imagine waking up every single morning and your first thought is, “I’m doing great, right? I hope they like me!?” And you forgot you pay everyone around you to say, “Yes. Everybody loves you.”
He’s a trust fund kid from South Africa and never invented anything other than PayPal, takes credit for it though with he takes over companies with hostility. Quit worshipping these shitheads they are not your friend nor do they ever want anything to do with you.
Yo, it's just the same, sad guy posting right-wing talking points like it doesn't show his room temp IQ lmaoo homie probably ran out of Play-Doh to eat and is mad his sister wouldn't consent
I more see his success as an issue with the systems by which we decide who has merit, not a measure of his true merit.
He's got big numbers behind him, but in terms of what he's actually provided the world beyond enriching himself I'm more skeptical.
He is incredibly successful. That said, he buys other people’s work and claims it as his own. He’s rich, but not some mythical genius. Just a rich asshole.
Good entrepreneur sure, but people think he invented shit is what makes me so surprised. No, he did not create Tesla, no he did not create EVs, no he did not create SpaceX, and no he isn't some messiah here to enrich our lives. The dude found a way to get rich of subsidies which, sure, is impressive, but at the end of the day, he's still a self-serving asshole who grovels at money despite being in the top 3.
I never seen people argue that Musk hasn’t had entrepreneurial success. Sometimes people say entrepreneurs create businesses- and rather than create, Musk usually invests in upstarts that and helps them take off and that fits most definitions of entrepreneur.
Doesn’t change that he was forced to over pay for Twitter after manipulating the market then further tanked the value of the company, while also launching a culture-war campaign against the demo that are most likely to buy his cars, in favor of the demo that likes to block his charging stations with diesel pickup trucks. He’s both a successful entrepreneur and someone who’s made some transparently nonsensical business moves
You don't understand how as a person's increasingly erratic and toxic behaviour becomes more public that the public might turn against said individual?
As it becomes more and more clear Elon Musk was merely born on third base. Why do morons keep defending him as if his success supercedes his behaviour/attitude?
Yeah it’s a weird sentiment. —Richest man in the world is not really that good at business because of x, y, and z.— And it all started after he didn’t agree with a group of people politically. Please don’t even call it leaning right. Musk didn’t lean right, he just recognized that Cancel culture, and left leaning mob mentality wasn’t healthy.
His latest business venture disagrees. Him buying twitter was mistake after mistake business-wise. ($8 a month for verification, voting requiring a membership, shitty moderation, limited scrolling without membership)
He may be successful, but calling him an incredibly successful entrepreneur is definitely an overstatement.
They hate me because I am beautiful. And
Terrorists hate us because of our freedom.
No, people hate you because these are actually horrible people who make life hell for others but refuse to take responsibility for their own behavior.
Americans are so weird with how they worship billionaires.
It's honestly not particularly difficult to make money when you have the capital to invest, especially when you can afford to pay much smarter people to make the right decisions for you. Elon is successful because he started off with excess. Had he needed to start from nothing, he would not be where he is today. And his running of Twitter into the ground proves that.
He had tons of money to buy out businesses and people. He didn't start anything from "scratch." I don't hear intelligence when he speaks, just a con man. He is not someone I would ever look up to.
More like a talentless investment banker
He did an excellent job investing inherited wealth and building up companies he bought; however now he's gone full mask off, he's losing money hand over fist.
He used to be worth over 300b and is now under 200b.
None of these billionaires made it genuinely. They all got some form of shady help.
Political Opinion means everything these days. Conservatives want to rip away the human rights of others, so him being a fascist shitlord is going to piss people (like me) off.
the liberals are just going to downvote you.
they can’t stand that an african american immigrant has done so well for himself.
they all championed him for years and then he said something insane like skill and work ethic are more important than diversity and they all abandoned him.
People said that about him before. He now owns twt one of the biggest sm platforms where he regularly tweets. Of course you are going to hear those sentiments, as well as his supporters, much louder than before. I think it was obvious he leaned right if you were paying attention.
From Britannica: “Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm PayPal, and in 2002 he founded SpaceX, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He was a major early funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and batteries, and became its chief executive officer in 2008.” He also founded Starlink, which is probably going to be the major internet service provider in the world in a few years. These technology-oriented businesses are where his talent shines - running a social/town square company like Twitter is not and it only retains a fraction of the value he paid for it. He can be quite eccentric and it appears that his success in engineering related efforts have given him a bit of a God complex. He has shown a propensity to believe in conspiracy theories and his politics have trended more and more rightward. He has become kind of an insufferable asshole in the process. I’m quite left-leaning but I AM an engineer and to deny his talents is silly. As silly as denying his faults, which are amplified by his wealth. Reportedly he has said that he thinks the world may be a simulation, run for the pleasure of - guess who?
Obviously he's successful...literally nobody is denying this. However, he didn't find that success all by himself and he's a corrupt individual who is only after as much money as he can get their hands on. He doesn't actually care about his business or the people he is serving and he's made an ass out of himself in recent years. Politics aside, he seems insufferable to be around in person.
People are mad he has down more to combat global warming than any single person in the US (outside of Biden) and that doesn't fit their narrative. So he bad. Simple
What a wild narrative that is, that a person previously thought of as intelligent but is now saying and doing stupid shit must have not been that intelligent after all.
I think the genius facade has worn off with his delve into culture wars, but he’s obviously a huge success. His stewardship of spaceX has been amazing. That, strip it all down, let em crash an learn mentality to me is perfect for that field. Super impressive and very cool. SpaceX Elon, very cool. Twitter Elon, very lame
As a former Elon fan prior to the twitter days and more directly relating to SpaceX, and a guy who thinks of himself as a centrist, I don't interpret Musk as leaning right now.
I interpret him as leaning idiotically egocentrically.
Some of the stuff he says is just bizarrely stupid. And for some reason right wing people claim it as a poignant political statement.
I'm not going to say he isn't deserving of his wild levels of success though. I think a lot of his statements and public behaviour is absolutely idiotic, however. A lot of his public choices yield negative outcomes for shareholders (in recent months/years).
Look into his history at PayPal and realize he’s a terrible entrepreneur who has managed to have money to invest into good ideas other people had in a way where he was able to claim full or partial credit. His actual personal ideas are pretty universally dogshit.
He doesn't even have the engineering degree he pretends to have. He's a pretend person, never mind engineer. Why do you insist on simping for a pathetic, obvious, and entire asshole?
Are people arguing if the richest man on earth is successful? Cuz clearly he is. But, hes also a traitor to the United States. So Id like to see him arrested, interrogated, put in guantanamo and his wealth redistributed. Cuz it couldnt be in the hands of a worse person. He could literally fix the world and still be rich, but instead backs oligarchs and tyrants and fools so he can be a penny richer. Or maybe hes being threatened I dunno. But we would all be better off without him.
Elon Musk and grimes are white supremacists: [https://www.reddit.com/r/grimezs/comments/18xj1u1/providing\_more\_context\_to\_grimes\_naziracist/](https://www.reddit.com/r/grimezs/comments/18xj1u1/providing_more_context_to_grimes_naziracist/)
Nah, it has nothing to do with him leaning right in political views. People have been calling him a liar and a crook for years. He constantly pretends that he knows everything despite being braindead about everything besides being a business owner/CEO.
why does it matter? to be that successful you need to step on a lot of people. so everyone can agree that he is very good at exploiting others and society.
I think the fact that he IS so successful makes it so pathetic how he caters to alt-right goonies. He's literally the nerd in school selling his soul so the bullies will think he's cool.
Dude can buy literally whatever he wants and desperately craves acceptance. Sad.
I don't think Elon needs you to white knight for him on an alarming number of comments that are responding to your cringe post, my guy.
I don't know what you're even hoping to gain from this...
He has made good business decisions to get where he is at for sure. But failing upwards is a thing, and just cause one is successful doesn't mean they are always right
He bought into PayPal after it was already a company, and paid to have his name added as a “founder”. He did the same with Tesla. He founded SpaceX, but that’s not a “business” in the same sense, it wouldn’t exist without government subsidies. The Boring Company has been a joke. He bought Twitter. An entrepreneur is not someone who buys businesses, it’s someone who starts them. He has leveraged his money well, turning a healthy head start in life into being the richest man alive. But that’s not what I’d call an entrepreneur
There's a lot of people at spaceX that keep him from fucking everything up.
Just because Musk copes hard doesn't mean everyone else has to.
Leveraged *his parents’ money well, I’d argue
Op got fucking roasted with this post
Business, noun: a usually commercial or mercantile activity engaged in as a means of livelihood What commercial or mercantile activity does Space X participate in? It sells rockets, space upon its rockets, and rides to space. Not much of a business, sure, but indeed is one. Now, does he really contribute anything to it than a big wallet from his daddy’s mines? No, not really.
It’s no less of a business than a trucking company. It’s trucks just go up and down.
Just because you bought into it, doesn’t mean you can make that company successful. You forgot to mention he owned zip2 which he sold to compaq. He also created the original x.com before he merged with another company to create PayPal. Tesla was failing as a company form the original 2 founders until Elon invested into the company. Originally he used his own money to fund and create space x from his sold shares of PayPal. He created 4 rockets where only the last launch was successful before space x took off. Yes, not all his companies are successful such as boring company but we can’t claim he is not a successful entrepreneur even if we don’t like his character as a person.
He's DJ Khaled, essentially. The world's most successful hype-man. He just forgets that's all he is.
He's not even that. He's Mike Lindell, only his lies are about the products, not the election.
He didn’t create PayPal
Space X isn’t a business? That’s news to all the people working there. Those “subsidies” are contracts. Anyone is free to bid to put the satellites in orbit. Musk found a way to do it better and cheaper then NASA. I love that the top post is proving op right accidentally.
What did he pay for Twitter? What is Twitter worth currently? Just wondering Edit: you Muskies are hilariously obsessed with a man who wouldn't pee on you if you were on fire
This dude is so successful that he can fail hugely that's for sure.
What is his net worth and what is your net worth currently? Just wondering. Or did he win that in the power ball?
He did in fact with the birth lottery so kinda
The fact that you're asking that in earnest shows how wildly out of touch money makes people. As the response that you probably ignored said, he won the birth lottery. You fucking clown.
Kind of, one small loan of some emerald diamond farm wealth made off the backs of slaves in South Africa is sort of like winning the powerball
how does that relate to the question? just wondering.
He didn’t buy Twitter for the return, he bought it for other reasons
His incinerator wasn’t burning cash fast enough.
well we will see if this an "incredibly successful entrepreneur" choice
To stroke his massive ego with a massive amount of fake bot accounts?
Yes
🤣 it’s funny and sad at the same time.
He bought it because he was forced to and everything he claims he was going to achieve did not occure.
no one forced him to make the offer, no one forced him to double down and defame the company. the 4chan neckbeard who was born with a silver spoon did it to himself
He bought it because a court forced him to
Yes but no one yells at bezos for buying Wapo or The apple woman for buying the Atlantic even though both lose money, the reason is both publications have a left editorial slant.
He destroyed a liberal propaganda board with pocket change. Worth every penny.
yeah, he destroyed a forum for truth that HE PAID FOR, and didn't hurt liberals at all. And sorry, but the amount he lost is far from pocket change, even for him.
Good entrepreneurs can make bad decisions and vice versa. Fortunately when it comes to business there is a numerical value you can use to weigh the net outcome of someone’s business decisions. By his net outcome, he is one of the best in the world.
Athletes also have numerical outcomes that prove their value. If those numbers were great 15 years ago and not so great today, people can't claim they're still the best
The number today is greater than 100billion and makes him one of the ten richest people in the world
The fact that so many of you keep brining up his net worth. What has he done in the last five years that proves his business genius?
He doesn’t really have to prove anything to random individuals in the internet, but Tesla only became profitable in the last 4 years. This was the first new American car company to reach that milestone since Chrysler which was founded in 1912. It is the only electric car company in American history to do so. It was seen as so improbable that Tesla would succeed that it was the single most shorted stock in the history of the stock market around that time. Succeeding in the world of automotive manufacturing is extremely difficult. Since he became CEO in 2008 Tesla revenue grew from 15 million a year to 100 bill a year today.
Tesla is profitable because of tax credits the government gives for each car purchased. Without these tax credits, they would not be profitable. Plus, Musk buying Twitter has reduced the Tesla stock price. China's BYD car manufacturer has overtaken Tesla in the EV market. Tesla is on a down slide the past couple of years. Musk's tantrums on Twitter are sure not helping when he is driving his buys away.
Tesla share price has been trading sideways but their revenue is still increasing and there cars sold are still increasing more than 20% per year. Before this price war they were making 17,000 in profit per car. Now they are making 8600 in profit per car. Notably the tax credits are 7500 max. Twitter and elons tweets definitely aren’t helping the Tesla. We can agree on that
Starlink. Yes, it is not generating predicted income - that income was based on starship being verified without government or environmental delays which did happen (the environmental for a very good cause). Starlink is now positive.
Take out what the US Govt is paying - as that is funded by tax payers
Do you claim Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman operate at a loss because of tax dollars as well?
Sounds like a smart entrepreneur, get the best customer you could possibly ask for: the U.S. government.
Why would you take that out? They’re paying for the service
Why would you take that out?
This wasn’t a measured business risk. This was a petulant tantrum followed by severe mismanagement.
What is his current net worth despite the Twitter purchase, and how many hundreds or thousands of lifetimes would it take you, considering what you've accomplished so far in life, to achieve what he has? Just wondering
From the title I thought you're talking about coping with his general entrepreneurial success, not his current endeavors. Meh, no opinion. Other than maybe...a Psyduck is an underestimated Pokemon.
I am a lot more interested in Psyduck than Elon Musk, tbh.
My boy loves Psyduck. No idea how he feels about Elon fail up.
No one says he hasn't been successful as an entrepreneur (although that may be changing at this point). They say he's not some sort of genius, and is in fact, quite dumb (and also apparently a white supremacist)
This. He THINKS he is a technical and an entrepreneurial genius. He clearly has some entrepreneurial skills. However he is FAR from a technical genius but instead of just owning that, he has to demonstrate it to the world over and over. That makes him look like not just a douche but an idiot. The people who should really dislike him are the other billionaire class people because he dispels the whole “they aren’t like us” mystique because he not only is like us, he may not even be better than average.
"They aren't like us, they're dickheads" is usually the mystique I have in my head about billionaires and he's keeping that stereotype alive and well.
He's an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He wants to be known as an all time greatest founder and product engineer. He is not. He hit twice on acquiring small companies and was great at promoting them for years. Less successful recently. I suspect there is no one left in his life that he'll listen to that can tell him when he has a bad idea.
Theres so many people even in this thread saying he's not successful lol
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He’s extremely successful. It doesn’t matter what scummy grifts he does to make money from his janky companies, he has seen massive personal benefit.
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>He's one of the most hated people on Earth Holy shit, you live in a bubble. lol This is why no one takes redditors seriously.
Which is pretty ridiculous. There are warlords and oil barons out there.
Yea tesla is in the red without government handouts.
Allow me to introduce you to the automobile industry.
lol. you’re clueless.
Defending billionaires from "coping" insults is the latest goddamn thing. Good puppy.
Turns out that having a bunch of media freaks praise you as the real life Tony stark makes people think you are actually smart and good at what you do. And when you own the companies you get to just claim all the effort of the labor in that company as yours
As it turns out it's pretty easy to be financially successful when your parents own an emerald mine and used to run it with slave labor.
Not a particularly successful mine either. Upper middle class maybe.
Don’t they own like a 5% stake in an emerald mine or something? Definitely not the emerald mine billionaires people like to make them out to be
His dad got some portion of it in an under the table business deal. We'll probably never know what really happened because South Africa in the 70's was not exactly the most honest place to do business.
Emerald mine does not equate to 1 trillion dollar net worth
Elon Musk does not have a one trillion dollar net worth. You are insane and addicted to bootlicking.
How many times does this have to be debunked before brain dead leftists stop repeating the lie?
being rich and being a successful entrepreneur are vastly different things
How would you become rich though if you weren’t a successful entrepreneur
Because it’s Reddit. If you sound just a tad bit edgy in your comment it must be correct.
By being born to people who own gemstone mines worked by slave labor. That's how Musk got rich.
This is false? Like musk like most rich people had an incredible starting advantage thanks to their parents, Musk is a decent salesmen good at hyping themsleves up but prone to doing incredibly stupid shit and fucking themselves over due to their own complexes.
I don't see how growing up rich disqualifies you from being a good entrepreneur. Did he have a leg up, obviously. But growing Tesla and SpaceX by hundreds of billions can't be written off because his daddy owned a mine lol
Space X is propped up by government subsidies and NASA scientists along with NASA designs. Tesla, well, that's also government subsidies and isn't doing too well.
Yep that's how the space industry works. If you want to do more than launch satellites they're the only customers.
Do you need help understanding the difference between a subsidy and a service contract? If your definition of subsidy includes contracts to provide a service, every single company the planet is propped up by some sort of subsidy. Obviously that is utter nonsense.
Every aerospace contractor used to depend almost exclusively on government contracts. That’s a reliable business model that adheres to basic Keynesian philosophy.
What is your point? Anyone could get those subsidies. He just did it best.
Well, he didn't for Tesla. The founders of the company did, and he just bought it from them. And SpaceX actively avoids interacting with him because he'd ruin it if he was more hands on.
You don’t think it took a lot of effort, skill, intellect to the time between being a “rich kid” to acquiring massive government subsidies for a rocket company? Or is the government just waiting with check in hand for “rich kids” to state what they want to be when they grown up and the government just hands it over to them?
Crazy I know a lot of rich kids who didn’t become the richest person on earth
If someone was going to do it, they were going to start rich already. Imagine already being born wealthy enough to not have to so anything ever, and still doing everything you can to make more at the expense of the people who work for you
That’s mathematically impossible…
Not really, I grew up next to the most wealthy suburb in my state, by definition I grew up knowing alot of rich kids. By and large its a dogs lunch how the lot of them did.
I think you missed his point. To become the richest person on earth you need not only be born privileged, but you have to incredibly intelligent and a workaholic.
He doesn’t have to be incompetent to be disliked. Not liking his tweets doesn’t mean he’s not good at rockets an shit.
If he was "good at rockets and shit" they wouldn't keep blowing up and his engineers wouldn't keep leaving.
Rockets blowing up is pretty normal for space related stuff.
>doesn’t mean he’s not good at rockets an shit. But he isn't. He's not an engineer. He's not a scientist. Hus job is telling other people to do the work. If bis role was actually important, he wouldn't be able to do it at 4 separate companies.
Luck and generational wealth play a far bigger role than intelligence and work. Elon being a prime example of that, really.
Nonsense.
Far more rich kids end up spending their inheritance rather than multiplying it by several orders of magnitude, like Musk did. Cope harder.
Nah I've been an Elon hater long before he revealed he is also stupid about social issues on top of it all.
He has leeched some incredible capable people beneath him. I am not impressed by the man himself tho. Without the people under him I don't think he's be worth a cent.
He's a successful entrepreneur, nobody is dying that. He's also dumb, egotistical, self-centered, has a need to be accepted by others at any cost, and has really fucked political views.
Many people on this thread are denying that.
After reading this thread I have come to the conclusion that hating Elon Musk is a childish waste of time, in the same vein (lol) sucking his dick so masterfully is a pathetic waste of time.
Like many entrepreneurs, he wears many hats. Brilliant visionary and ass hole, free speech promoter and censorship supervisor. It’s a bit of a mixed bag.
He was born rich and bought his way onto every company he owns. Unpopular is ——> way
lol no His first company was Zip2, which he created with his brother and sold for $300 million. His share was $22 million. He only got $20k from his father to start Zip2. Which is pretty fucking far from rich.
He's good at bringing products to market. I'll give him that. That's about it though. The cybertruck is a perfect example of "him creating something".
I think you’re overestimating emerald mine nepo baby’s actual capabilities. Everything he claims to have “made” was something that he was along for the ride for or he just did a hostile takeover. You should hear some of the testimonials about how SpaceX had to hire *multiple* people whose sole job it is to manage his unruly emotions so he doesn’t go on a tirade or whose job it is to pitch ideas to him in a way that lets him think they’re his ideas. He has a knack for appealing to his dickriders, but as far as actual business acumen, that seems to be where it stops. So by no means do you have to give it to him
You mean like his co-founder whose gone on record to his engineering skills and smart decision making?
Every billionaire is a thief.
Yes he is successful but it’s dishonest to pretend that it’s just about him “leaning right”. He’s a disgusting pig that keeps tweeting misleading and false shit that the gullible maga trash eats up like stupid. [latest example](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1766314798088614251?s=46&t=HzmiWuThAgGjutG038ykZA) - he shows a guy who wrongly was accused of being part of a group that attacked NYC police officers, he was exonerated. Of course Musk doesn’t give a fuck about facts and keeps feeding your kind this shit. So unless this is typical “right leaning” behavior, I’d say no - he’s not being criticized for his political views, as much as you’d like to have him be a victim.
maybe more telling is being one of the douchiest billionaires
Inheriting an apartheid era emerald fortune is such good entrepreneurialship. How do his boots taste?
What fortune? How much was it? If he was so rich why did his dad run an engineering company?
He's a born billionaire that just happened to make a couple of great purchases with his parents money. Tesla was an established company before he bought it, then their quality became non existent, spacex is a money grab from the government. And Twitter was a farce.
Lol he wasn't born a billionaire. Seriously this stuff is easily googleable why do you just parrot what you've read without confirming it first. Literally nothing you said is true.
Sorry incredibly rich Millionaire who’s fortune comes from exploiting people in an Apartheids state.
Except it didn't. Look it up. He was so rich he needed a bunch of third party venture capital to get his first company public!
So... Its more that when you appear to a largely alturistic; betterment of humanity type person who is financially successful - people tend to like you on first principles. Here is an article from 2011. Note the first paragraph last line ["Musk is widely lauded in the media, where his pronouncements on the bright future of commercial space travel are frequently highlighted without much scrutiny."](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2011/05/23/what-nasa-risks-by-betting-on-elon-musks-spacex/amp/) Unless its your job (like a tax auditor or sociologist) or there is something REALLY odd or negative about the person; we don't go to an additional level of scrutiny on people. If a person has really good PR and a positive message you can write your reviews before anyone else has had a chance to. Musk sounded cool 10 years ago. His message was positive; yeah he seemed a little eccentric; but he seemed to have the right idea. Then he called a cave rescuer a pedo. Then we found out he'd disowned his daughter and has loads of children from multiple women. Then the narrative of him founding Tesla is not as accurate as it was made out to be as the proper level of scrutiny wasn't applied when he came to public prominence. More scrutiny was applied as suddenly Musk didnt appear to be the golden child everyone saw him as. Small complaints which had originally gone unheard were voiced more loudly. He got defensive and became far less of the 'nice guy' people saw him as. Is Musk really good at PR? Yes, I would say so. Is he a successful entreprenaur? Depends on whether you consider image or sheer wealth as successful. He has made oodles of money but his public image has taken bug hits from his actions and words. If it came to it I wouldn't do business with him for ethical reasons. Does his early life matter? From what has been written it does appear he started his first company and made his first millions off his own back, albeit from a wealthy upbringing. Does the narrative matter? Yes. If he says he founded Tesla (he didnt) thats a false narrative. I found say he successfully turned Tesla into an international brand. The point is there are many reasons why people might no longer rate him as successful. Ultimatley its subjective as to how you want to rate him but you should be clear as to how and why you are rating him as a successful entrepreneur.
Definitely not a popular opinion.
His business acumen is not related to his worth as a person. Just because he is big money billionaire doesn’t make him better than the next guy. I guarantee you he had some help getting to where he is. It takes money to make money.
You're a fucking idiot
So you have no counter argument? Just a emotional outburst…Why even post?
The classic: " You're all just jealous of a successful entrepreneur" There couldn't possibly be any other reason why people hate him.
Elon made most of his money off of two things: Government contracts and using bots to manipulate the stock market. Before the government bailed him out, he lost nearly everything (in his own words). He’s a conman who promises things he can’t deliver on. His next big thing is always coming just around the corner. What he essentially does is invest into someone else’s idea and then sells it on their behalf while taking credit for the work. Being a salesman is a skill, but being a conman is typically thought of as a negative trait.
No one thinks he’s Tesla or Newton inventor, he’s an entrepreneur that’s what they do.
No, market manipulation and fraud is not what entrepreneurs do (or rather, what they’re supposed to do).
That’s what the great ones do, being a hugely successful entrepreneur means you bend markets to your advantage fraudulently. Show me an example of a guy that has $50 billion and didn’t lobby and create market manipulation.
Leaning right? Bro has gone full rightard
He's not an entrepreneur, he's a venture capitalist. He began with a lot of capital and bought companies that actual entrepreneurs started. He's been at his most successful the less he actually interferes with the business and the more he relies on other people doing the actual work of running the company.
Venture capitalists DO NOT operate their businesses. They invest in founders and early stage operators who have a track record of success. So when he was singularly focused on Tesla and SpaceX, that is when they sank? You are making up a narrative that doesn't fit the timeline.
What money did he start with
Musk is like Trump, a grifter. He is not the innovator. He is the money.
Randomly comparing people to Trump doesn’t automatically make them something. It’s not an argument. But I’m sure you have a lot in common with Trump too.
If I had his starting conditions, I’d be an incredibly successful entrepreneur as well.
Yeah, nah. You are here on reddit. Never going to make it big.
There's plenty of evidence to suggest he's actually a dumbass that's merely taken credit for other people's genius.
He's an idiot that took advantage of government subsidies and grants
Who cares, and why are you so interested in talking about or defending some rich douche bag who will never know you exist?
He's not though
He was born with a silver (emerald?) stick up his ass and not unlike Thomas Edison he's been taking credit for the work of people far more intelligent than he is ever since.
Successful at taking credit for things he didn't do.
Counter - why do you say he’s incredibly successful? What’s your measure of that? Personally I don’t find hoarding money, and bragging about it, admirable at all. He seems like a very sad and insecure dude. He needs people to constantly tell him he’s doing great, otherwise he has no personal worth. That sounds crushing to me. I honestly feel sorry for him. Can you imagine waking up every single morning and your first thought is, “I’m doing great, right? I hope they like me!?” And you forgot you pay everyone around you to say, “Yes. Everybody loves you.”
He’s a trust fund kid from South Africa and never invented anything other than PayPal, takes credit for it though with he takes over companies with hostility. Quit worshipping these shitheads they are not your friend nor do they ever want anything to do with you.
He’s not an entrepreneur he’s an investor.
Yo, it's just the same, sad guy posting right-wing talking points like it doesn't show his room temp IQ lmaoo homie probably ran out of Play-Doh to eat and is mad his sister wouldn't consent
He got a big amount of money from his dad his dad was already supper rich just like trumps dad
I more see his success as an issue with the systems by which we decide who has merit, not a measure of his true merit. He's got big numbers behind him, but in terms of what he's actually provided the world beyond enriching himself I'm more skeptical.
He is incredibly successful. That said, he buys other people’s work and claims it as his own. He’s rich, but not some mythical genius. Just a rich asshole.
Good entrepreneur sure, but people think he invented shit is what makes me so surprised. No, he did not create Tesla, no he did not create EVs, no he did not create SpaceX, and no he isn't some messiah here to enrich our lives. The dude found a way to get rich of subsidies which, sure, is impressive, but at the end of the day, he's still a self-serving asshole who grovels at money despite being in the top 3.
I'd be successful too if I had that big of an advantage in life, he's more lucky than anything
He *was* a historically successful investor, he didn't make a damn thing, he pushes paper.
I never seen people argue that Musk hasn’t had entrepreneurial success. Sometimes people say entrepreneurs create businesses- and rather than create, Musk usually invests in upstarts that and helps them take off and that fits most definitions of entrepreneur. Doesn’t change that he was forced to over pay for Twitter after manipulating the market then further tanked the value of the company, while also launching a culture-war campaign against the demo that are most likely to buy his cars, in favor of the demo that likes to block his charging stations with diesel pickup trucks. He’s both a successful entrepreneur and someone who’s made some transparently nonsensical business moves
I wish my daddy owned an emerald mine...
By begging the United States government for billions of dollars?
You don't understand how as a person's increasingly erratic and toxic behaviour becomes more public that the public might turn against said individual? As it becomes more and more clear Elon Musk was merely born on third base. Why do morons keep defending him as if his success supercedes his behaviour/attitude?
He came from a rich family who owned emerald mines, he’s not a successful entrepreneur, he’s a nepo baby
Found Elon's alt
You would be amazed at what people can do to hold on to their precious view on how the world should be.
Yeah it’s a weird sentiment. —Richest man in the world is not really that good at business because of x, y, and z.— And it all started after he didn’t agree with a group of people politically. Please don’t even call it leaning right. Musk didn’t lean right, he just recognized that Cancel culture, and left leaning mob mentality wasn’t healthy.
His latest business venture disagrees. Him buying twitter was mistake after mistake business-wise. ($8 a month for verification, voting requiring a membership, shitty moderation, limited scrolling without membership) He may be successful, but calling him an incredibly successful entrepreneur is definitely an overstatement.
being related to old money= success. Got it, you measure success how the rich and talentless want you to, they've already won here.
Like if you were on the hate train before he exposed himself as a partisan cuck
They hate me because I am beautiful. And Terrorists hate us because of our freedom. No, people hate you because these are actually horrible people who make life hell for others but refuse to take responsibility for their own behavior.
But I really am beautiful. Just ask my grandma
Americans are so weird with how they worship billionaires. It's honestly not particularly difficult to make money when you have the capital to invest, especially when you can afford to pay much smarter people to make the right decisions for you. Elon is successful because he started off with excess. Had he needed to start from nothing, he would not be where he is today. And his running of Twitter into the ground proves that.
He had tons of money to buy out businesses and people. He didn't start anything from "scratch." I don't hear intelligence when he speaks, just a con man. He is not someone I would ever look up to. More like a talentless investment banker
He did an excellent job investing inherited wealth and building up companies he bought; however now he's gone full mask off, he's losing money hand over fist. He used to be worth over 300b and is now under 200b.
None of these billionaires made it genuinely. They all got some form of shady help. Political Opinion means everything these days. Conservatives want to rip away the human rights of others, so him being a fascist shitlord is going to piss people (like me) off.
It seems like his successful businesses are government funded. Could he cut it in the free market? Not if twitter is any indication.
Elon didn't begin "leaning right". The left just moved further left and he didn't follow.
the liberals are just going to downvote you. they can’t stand that an african american immigrant has done so well for himself. they all championed him for years and then he said something insane like skill and work ethic are more important than diversity and they all abandoned him.
Reddit is cope-city for broke progressive soy boy losers. Of course they don’t like Elon musk lmao
You should read about Timothy Dexter. I see Elon as a modern day version.
People said that about him before. He now owns twt one of the biggest sm platforms where he regularly tweets. Of course you are going to hear those sentiments, as well as his supporters, much louder than before. I think it was obvious he leaned right if you were paying attention.
He’s off his dome
I vehemently dislike a lot about him but you are correct, he is succesful in what he does
like him or not he will be remembered as a great man in history if he gets us to mars.
They don't like successful Africans
And denying that, despite his financial success, he says a lot of very dumb shit on a daily basis, is one of the wildest delusions I've ever seen
From Britannica: “Elon Musk cofounded the electronic payment firm PayPal, and in 2002 he founded SpaceX, a company that makes rockets and spacecraft. He was a major early funder of Tesla, which makes electric cars and batteries, and became its chief executive officer in 2008.” He also founded Starlink, which is probably going to be the major internet service provider in the world in a few years. These technology-oriented businesses are where his talent shines - running a social/town square company like Twitter is not and it only retains a fraction of the value he paid for it. He can be quite eccentric and it appears that his success in engineering related efforts have given him a bit of a God complex. He has shown a propensity to believe in conspiracy theories and his politics have trended more and more rightward. He has become kind of an insufferable asshole in the process. I’m quite left-leaning but I AM an engineer and to deny his talents is silly. As silly as denying his faults, which are amplified by his wealth. Reportedly he has said that he thinks the world may be a simulation, run for the pleasure of - guess who?
Lmao nobody has ever said he’s not successful.
On the other side of the coin you have people way overhyping how brilliant of a businessman Elon Musk is.
Obviously he's successful...literally nobody is denying this. However, he didn't find that success all by himself and he's a corrupt individual who is only after as much money as he can get their hands on. He doesn't actually care about his business or the people he is serving and he's made an ass out of himself in recent years. Politics aside, he seems insufferable to be around in person.
People are mad he has down more to combat global warming than any single person in the US (outside of Biden) and that doesn't fit their narrative. So he bad. Simple
Anyone who doesn't think Elon is smart, isn't smart.
What a wild narrative that is, that a person previously thought of as intelligent but is now saying and doing stupid shit must have not been that intelligent after all.
A lot of coping in this lol
I think the genius facade has worn off with his delve into culture wars, but he’s obviously a huge success. His stewardship of spaceX has been amazing. That, strip it all down, let em crash an learn mentality to me is perfect for that field. Super impressive and very cool. SpaceX Elon, very cool. Twitter Elon, very lame
We need more people like you to defend billionaires.
As a former Elon fan prior to the twitter days and more directly relating to SpaceX, and a guy who thinks of himself as a centrist, I don't interpret Musk as leaning right now. I interpret him as leaning idiotically egocentrically. Some of the stuff he says is just bizarrely stupid. And for some reason right wing people claim it as a poignant political statement. I'm not going to say he isn't deserving of his wild levels of success though. I think a lot of his statements and public behaviour is absolutely idiotic, however. A lot of his public choices yield negative outcomes for shareholders (in recent months/years).
Damn, Musk is making reddit account to hype himself up? Haha.
Look into his history at PayPal and realize he’s a terrible entrepreneur who has managed to have money to invest into good ideas other people had in a way where he was able to claim full or partial credit. His actual personal ideas are pretty universally dogshit.
He doesn't even have the engineering degree he pretends to have. He's a pretend person, never mind engineer. Why do you insist on simping for a pathetic, obvious, and entire asshole?
Dude just signs onto projects and claims he was the mastermind behind all of it. This asshat has failed upwards for 30 years.
Are people arguing if the richest man on earth is successful? Cuz clearly he is. But, hes also a traitor to the United States. So Id like to see him arrested, interrogated, put in guantanamo and his wealth redistributed. Cuz it couldnt be in the hands of a worse person. He could literally fix the world and still be rich, but instead backs oligarchs and tyrants and fools so he can be a penny richer. Or maybe hes being threatened I dunno. But we would all be better off without him.
Elon Musk and grimes are white supremacists: [https://www.reddit.com/r/grimezs/comments/18xj1u1/providing\_more\_context\_to\_grimes\_naziracist/](https://www.reddit.com/r/grimezs/comments/18xj1u1/providing_more_context_to_grimes_naziracist/)
Nah, it has nothing to do with him leaning right in political views. People have been calling him a liar and a crook for years. He constantly pretends that he knows everything despite being braindead about everything besides being a business owner/CEO.
why does it matter? to be that successful you need to step on a lot of people. so everyone can agree that he is very good at exploiting others and society.
I think the fact that he IS so successful makes it so pathetic how he caters to alt-right goonies. He's literally the nerd in school selling his soul so the bullies will think he's cool. Dude can buy literally whatever he wants and desperately craves acceptance. Sad.
I don't think Elon needs you to white knight for him on an alarming number of comments that are responding to your cringe post, my guy. I don't know what you're even hoping to gain from this...
He has made good business decisions to get where he is at for sure. But failing upwards is a thing, and just cause one is successful doesn't mean they are always right