This is a repost of comments I made on LinkedIn, in response to someone surprised at the sudden shift in public perception of his Tesla vehicle.
I have had a relatively negative opinion on Mr. Musk for a lot longer than most. Fundamentally I have an authenticity issue with him.
Mr. Musk presents himself as a brilliant engineer, but what he actually is is a brilliant marketer. The engineering decisions he makes (architecture, production scale up, software decisions) are pretty universally bad, as far as I’m aware. A tail-sitting rocket is a failure prone, over-complicated solution to the rocket reusability problem. That his company made it work after spending billions of dollars and untold engineering hours does not change that fact, rather it supports it. Tesla cars have poor quality control, and are substandard failsafe designs (eg. car doors that need power to operate, including under water).
On the other hand, battery electric vehicles were ready for implementation, but had a marketing problem. Anyone familiar with the technologies could have told you it was trivial to make a high performance sports car with battery tech and in 2005-2010. Burt Rutan made one in the 1980’s I believe. So, rather than make a commuter car, Tesla founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning made a sports car. Mr. Musk came later, and spun up the hype machine.
What Mr. Musk does is channel the sense of futurism from the mid 20th century that stagnated after the end of the cold war. That’s fine, and if he presented himself as such, I wouldn’t have an issue with him. But an engineer he is not, and I find it tiresome that people are in awe of his ideas just because he said them. Even Steve Jobs, another CEO with a cult of personality, was at least a first-class product designer.
As to his recent politics: Were his antics with DOGE actually about reducing fraud and waste, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. I would even applaud it. But the organizations DOGE are targeting are specifically those in Mr. Musk’s way. The FAA is not a corrupt organization. If anything, it’s too competent and safety focused (Pilot medical license restrictions for Ritalin prescriptions spring to mind). It is, however, slapping SpaceX with fines and restrictions because of a demonstrably substandard safety culture. “Go fast and break things” is fine in a software startup, but when your 100 ton rocket is breaking up and throwing debris all over congested airspace, *real* safety analysis is required. That is why we have rocket test ranges, after all.
Is the recent public about-face on Mr. Musk entirely justified? Probably not, but the public’s esteem for him was not justified in the first place. That the pendulum has swung the other way is just a different manifestation of the same problem.
One thing is certain, however. He should not be the one deciding which federal agencies get funding and which do not.
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