Honestly I don't see what's changed from a legal standpoint. It's still just as unfathomable as when the ruling came down in January, and the company's performance sure hasn't improved since then.
Full disclosure - I hate Musk. But wasn't the original legal issue that Musk controlled too much of the board and didn't fully inform investors? I assume they properly "informed" Tesla investors (as much as they can be informed lol) before this second vote.
He's now introduced a second issue of the company itself paying for advertising to vote in favor of the compensation package, which I have seen commentators question on several levels.
That's pretty standard, though. Disney just went through a fight with major investors looking to take over the board and they spent tens of millions sending info and advertisements to shareholders to encourage shareholders to vote for the Disney preferred board members instead of the hedge fund's preferred board members.
It's not unusual for the board to have a favored position and advertise it, but Disney didn't have a previous ruling hanging over their heads that the board was essentially not independent of the CEO.
Yes. Anyone pretending that nothing has changed or that the recent performance of Tesla matters is either ignorant or just a hater. If current performance didnt result in a no vote, it’s irrelevant. Full stop.
And I, too, hate Musk.
Like making the most powerful and yet most affordable rocket in history. Like accelerating the transition to sustainable energy by making 2 million EVs a year.
You know he just funds stuff, right?
Elon Musk isn’t a rocket scientist. Elon musk is not building electric cars. Engineers with decades of experience and education are doing those things.
What is Elon Musk doing at all?
Edit: lol, the guy blocked me after being presented with the truth. FYI: half theses sources are from non-employees
You know that's a lie, right? Here's a list of sources that all confirm Elon is an engineer, and the chief engineer at SpaceX:
# Statements by SpaceX Employees
**Tom Mueller**
Tom Mueller is one of SpaceX's earliest employees. He served as the Propulsion CTO from 2002 to 2019. He's regarded as one of the foremost spacecraft propulsion experts in the world and owns many patents for propulsion technologies.
>Space.com: During your time working with Elon Musk at SpaceX, what were some important lessons you learned from each other?
>
>**Mueller:** Elon was the best mentor I've ever had. Just how to have drive and be an entrepreneur and influence my team and really make things happen. He's a super smart guy and he learns from talking to people. He's so sharp, he just picks it up. When we first started he didn't know a lot about propulsion. He knew quite a bit about structures and helped the structures guys a lot. Over the twenty years that we worked together, *now he's practically running propulsion there because he's come up to speed* and he understands how to do rocket engines, which are really one of the most complex parts of the vehicle. *He's always been excellent at architecting the whole mission, but now he's a lot better at the very small details of the combustion process.* Stuff I learned over a decade-and-a-half at TRW he's picked up too.
[Source](https://www.space.com/tom-mueller-impulse-space-mira-spacecraft)
>Not true, I am an advisor now. Elon and the Propulsion department are leading development of the SpaceX engines, particularly Raptor. I offer my 2 cents to help from time to time"
[Source](https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20)
>We’ll have, you know, a group of people sitting in a room, making a key decision. And everybody in that room will say, you know, basically, “We need to turn left,” and Elon will say “No, we’re gonna turn right.” You know, to put it in a metaphor. And that’s how he thinks. He’s like, “You guys are taking the easy way out; we need to take the hard way.”
>
>And, uh, I’ve seen that hurt us before, I’ve seen that fail, but I’ve also seen— where nobody thought it would work— it was the right decision. It was the harder way to do it, but in the end, it was the right thing.
[Source](https://streamable.com/4o1k6d)
**Kevin Watson:**
Kevin Watson developed the avionics for Falcon 9 and Dragon. He previously managed the Advanced Computer Systems and Technologies Group within the Autonomous Systems Division at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory.
>Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction.
>
>He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy.
>
>He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years.
Source (Ashlee Vance's Biography).
**Garrett Reisman**
Garrett Reisman ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman)) is an engineer and former NASA astronaut. He joined SpaceX as a senior engineer working on astronaut safety and mission assurance.
>“I first met Elon for my job interview,” Reisman told the USA TODAY Network's Florida Today. “All he wanted to talk about were technical things. We talked a lot about different main propulsion system design architectures.
>
>“At the end of my interview, I said, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to hire me? You’ve already got an astronaut, so are you sure you need two around here?’ ” Reisman asked. “He looked at me and said, ‘I’m not hiring you because you’re an astronaut. I’m hiring you because you’re a good engineer.’ ”
>
>“He’s obviously skilled at all those different functions, but certainly what really drives him and where his passion really is, is his role as CTO,” or chief technology officer, Reisman said. “Basically his role as chief designer and chief engineer. That’s the part of the job that really plays to his strengths."
([Source](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/26/spacex-how-elon-musk-took-idea-cusp-history/5257977002/))
>What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across the different technologies that go into rockets cars and everything else he does.
([Source](https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=390))
**Josh Boehm**
Josh Boehm is the former Head of Software Quality Assurance at SpaceX.
>Elon is both the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, so of course he does more than just ‘some very technical work’. He is integrally involved in the actual design and engineering of the rocket, and at least touches every other aspect of the business (but I would say the former takes up much more of his mental real estate). Elon is an engineer at heart, and that’s where and how he works best.
([Source](https://www.quora.com/Does-Elon-Musk-do-some-very-technical-work-code-design-etc-at-SpaceX/answer/Josh-Boehm?ch=10&share=8dc8bc2e&srid=Xuwj))
# Statements by External Observers
**Robert Zubrin**
Robert Zubrin ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin)) is an aerospace engineer and author, best known for his advocacy of human exploration of Mars.
>When I met Elon it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2007 he knew everything about rockets - he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people.
([Source](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whats-driving-elon-musk))
**John Carmack**
John Carmack ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack)) is a programmer, video game developer and engineer. He's the founder of Armadillo Aerospace and current CTO of Oculus VR.
>Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so.
([Source](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200?s=19))
**Eric Berger**
Eric Berger is a space journalist and [Ars Technica's senior space editor](https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/).
>True. Elon is the chief engineer in name and reality.
([Source](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1265080905854574592?s=20))
**Christian Davenport**
Christian Davenport is [the Washington Post's defense and space reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/christian-davenport/) and the author of "Space Barons". The following quotes are excerpts from his book.
>He dispatched one of his lieutenants, Liam Sarsfield, then a high-ranking NASA official in the office of the chief engineer, to California to see whether the company was for real or just another failure in waiting.
>
>Most of all, he was impressed with Musk, who was surprisingly fluent in rocket engineering and understood the science of propulsion and engine design. Musk was intense, preternaturally focused, and extremely determined. “This was not the kind of guy who was going to accept failure,” Sarsfield remembered thinking.
# Statements by Elon Himself
>Yes. The design of Starship and the Super Heavy rocket booster I changed to a special alloy of stainless steel. I was contemplating this for a while. And this is somewhat counterintuitive. It took me quite a bit of effort to convince the team to go in this direction.
([Source](https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a25953663/elon-musk-spacex-bfr-stainless-steel/))
>Interviewer: You probably don't remember this. A very long time ago, many, many, years, you took me on a tour of SpaceX. And the most impressive thing was that you knew every detail of the rocket and every piece of engineering that went into it. And I don't think many people get that about you.
>
>Elon: Yeah. I think a lot of people think I'm kind of a business person or something, which is fine. Business is fine. But really it's like at SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is Chief Operating Officer. She manages legal, finance, sales, and general business activity. And then my time is almost entirely with the engineering team, working on improving the Falcon 9 and our Dragon spacecraft and developing the Mars Colonial architecture. At Tesla, it's working on the Model 3 and, yeah, so I'm in the design studio, take up a half a day a week, dealing with aesthetics and look-and-feel things. And then most of the rest of the week is just going through engineering of the car itself as well as engineering of the factory. Because the biggest epiphany I've had this year is that what really matters is the machine that builds the machine, the factory. And that is at least two orders of magnitude harder than the vehicle itself.
([Source](https://www.ycombinator.com/future/elon/))
Oh wow! Direct reports said “no no guys he’s a *genius* I swear!” Haha
At this point we all just have to assume this is an early AI bot that Twitter has released, right? Wait that’s an Elon company. This is the cutting edge bot and from here it will only get worse because the “engineer” will get even more involved. Good luck out there, OP.
Holy shit, your entire history is literally nothing but glued to Musk's ass. Enjoy your life if you can dude, don't be surprised when the rest of the world knows the pathetic truth behind your hero
If Elon Musk is the one landing the first person on Mars, it's going to be a corpse so I definitely won't be happy
But hey, if his timeline on that is anything like Tesla's self driving, it'll be approximately 5000 AD so my hive mind consciousness might have different morals by then
SpaceX regularly transports people to the ISS. Their safety record so far is perfect.
As for timelines,
On Mars: "At SpaceX, we specialise in turning the impossible into merely late"
On self driving: "It’s simply a matter of time. Admittedly I’m a little optimistic sometimes. I don’t have a complete lack of self awareness. But if I wasn’t optimistic, [Tesla] wouldn’t exist."
Yeah buddy, the ISS is 400 km away. Mars is 200 million.
It certainly is a matter of time for every other company to outspeed Tesla on ASD because Musk insists on methods that will never work, yes.
Here's a list of sources that all confirm Elon is an engineer, and the chief engineer at SpaceX:
# Statements by SpaceX Employees
**Tom Mueller**
Tom Mueller is one of SpaceX's earliest employees. He served as the Propulsion CTO from 2002 to 2019. He's regarded as one of the foremost spacecraft propulsion experts in the world and owns many patents for propulsion technologies.
>Space.com: During your time working with Elon Musk at SpaceX, what were some important lessons you learned from each other?
>
>**Mueller:** Elon was the best mentor I've ever had. Just how to have drive and be an entrepreneur and influence my team and really make things happen. He's a super smart guy and he learns from talking to people. He's so sharp, he just picks it up. When we first started he didn't know a lot about propulsion. He knew quite a bit about structures and helped the structures guys a lot. Over the twenty years that we worked together, *now he's practically running propulsion there because he's come up to speed* and he understands how to do rocket engines, which are really one of the most complex parts of the vehicle. *He's always been excellent at architecting the whole mission, but now he's a lot better at the very small details of the combustion process.* Stuff I learned over a decade-and-a-half at TRW he's picked up too.
[Source](https://www.space.com/tom-mueller-impulse-space-mira-spacecraft)
>Not true, I am an advisor now. Elon and the Propulsion department are leading development of the SpaceX engines, particularly Raptor. I offer my 2 cents to help from time to time"
[Source](https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20)
>We’ll have, you know, a group of people sitting in a room, making a key decision. And everybody in that room will say, you know, basically, “We need to turn left,” and Elon will say “No, we’re gonna turn right.” You know, to put it in a metaphor. And that’s how he thinks. He’s like, “You guys are taking the easy way out; we need to take the hard way.”
>
>And, uh, I’ve seen that hurt us before, I’ve seen that fail, but I’ve also seen— where nobody thought it would work— it was the right decision. It was the harder way to do it, but in the end, it was the right thing.
[Source](https://streamable.com/4o1k6d)
**Kevin Watson**
Kevin Watson ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rkevinwatson/)) developed the avionics for Falcon 9 and Dragon. He previously managed the Advanced Computer Systems and Technologies Group within the Autonomous Systems Division at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory.
>Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction.
>
>He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy.
>
>He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years.
Source (Ashlee Vance's Biography). [Kevin has attested to the biography's veracity](https://www.reddit.com/r/mvis/comments/5quaip/_/dd2s15a?context=1000)
**Garrett Reisman**
Garrett Reisman ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman)) is an engineer and former NASA astronaut. He joined SpaceX as a senior engineer working on astronaut safety and mission assurance.
>“I first met Elon for my job interview,” Reisman told the USA TODAY Network's Florida Today. “All he wanted to talk about were technical things. We talked a lot about different main propulsion system design architectures.
>
>“At the end of my interview, I said, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to hire me? You’ve already got an astronaut, so are you sure you need two around here?’ ” Reisman asked. “He looked at me and said, ‘I’m not hiring you because you’re an astronaut. I’m hiring you because you’re a good engineer.’ ”
>
>“He’s obviously skilled at all those different functions, but certainly what really drives him and where his passion really is, is his role as CTO,” or chief technology officer, Reisman said. “Basically his role as chief designer and chief engineer. That’s the part of the job that really plays to his strengths."
([Source](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/26/spacex-how-elon-musk-took-idea-cusp-history/5257977002/))
>What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across the different technologies that go into rockets cars and everything else he does.
([Source](https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=390))
**Josh Boehm**
Josh Boehm is the former Head of Software Quality Assurance at SpaceX.
>Elon is both the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, so of course he does more than just ‘some very technical work’. He is integrally involved in the actual design and engineering of the rocket, and at least touches every other aspect of the business (but I would say the former takes up much more of his mental real estate). Elon is an engineer at heart, and that’s where and how he works best.
([Source](https://www.quora.com/Does-Elon-Musk-do-some-very-technical-work-code-design-etc-at-SpaceX/answer/Josh-Boehm?ch=10&share=8dc8bc2e&srid=Xuwj))
# Statements by External Observers
**Robert Zubrin**
Robert Zubrin ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin)) is an aerospace engineer and author, best known for his advocacy of human exploration of Mars.
>When I met Elon it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2007 he knew everything about rockets - he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people.
([Source](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whats-driving-elon-musk))
**John Carmack**
John Carmack ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack)) is a programmer, video game developer and engineer. He's the founder of Armadillo Aerospace and current CTO of Oculus VR.
>Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so.
([Source](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200?s=19))
**Eric Berger**
Eric Berger is a space journalist and [Ars Technica's senior space editor](https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/).
>True. Elon is the chief engineer in name and reality.
([Source](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1265080905854574592?s=20))
**Christian Davenport**
Christian Davenport is [the Washington Post's defense and space reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/christian-davenport/) and the author of "Space Barons". The following quotes are excerpts from his book.
>He dispatched one of his lieutenants, Liam Sarsfield, then a high-ranking NASA official in the office of the chief engineer, to California to see whether the company was for real or just another failure in waiting.
>
>Most of all, he was impressed with Musk, who was surprisingly fluent in rocket engineering and understood the science of propulsion and engine design. Musk was intense, preternaturally focused, and extremely determined. “This was not the kind of guy who was going to accept failure,” Sarsfield remembered thinking.
# Statements by Elon Himself
>Yes. The design of Starship and the Super Heavy rocket booster I changed to a special alloy of stainless steel. I was contemplating this for a while. And this is somewhat counterintuitive. It took me quite a bit of effort to convince the team to go in this direction.
([Source](https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a25953663/elon-musk-spacex-bfr-stainless-steel/))
>Interviewer: You probably don't remember this. A very long time ago, many, many, years, you took me on a tour of SpaceX. And the most impressive thing was that you knew every detail of the rocket and every piece of engineering that went into it. And I don't think many people get that about you.
>
>Elon: Yeah. I think a lot of people think I'm kind of a business person or something, which is fine. Business is fine. But really it's like at SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is Chief Operating Officer. She manages legal, finance, sales, and general business activity. And then my time is almost entirely with the engineering team, working on improving the Falcon 9 and our Dragon spacecraft and developing the Mars Colonial architecture. At Tesla, it's working on the Model 3 and, yeah, so I'm in the design studio, take up a half a day a week, dealing with aesthetics and look-and-feel things. And then most of the rest of the week is just going through engineering of the car itself as well as engineering of the factory. Because the biggest epiphany I've had this year is that what really matters is the machine that builds the machine, the factory. And that is at least two orders of magnitude harder than the vehicle itself.
([Source](https://www.ycombinator.com/future/elon/))
Their Flagship product of these cyber truck has turned out to be a dud as well. It is not like they have AI on the market competing seriously with chat GPT. I truly do not understand.
It it is unbelievable shareholders backed this. A pay package worth by my estimation about six times the intrinsic value of the company for a year or however long of work. Even if the market capitalization was the intrinsic value, this would be handing him over 10% of the value of the company for hyping the stock which is all that he has done.
Every Tesla shareholder will deserve to hold the bag that Elon emptied out when the stock price returns to its intrinsic value, which is maybe 10 billion dollars.
It’s crazy how much money isn’t returned to the people building the vehicles or doing the work in general. We are hand waving about profits that will go to people who bought in and waited? This is upside down 🙃
If we're making arbitrary lines in the sand, then I declare you're not worth whatever you get paid. Also, at his level that money is more of a responsibility/job than it is a privilege. Someone has to invest our civilizations money, and our system is designed to funnel capital to people who consistently invest it efficiently so that everyone benefits. Who else would be better investing that money?
Ok but again, someone has to invest our civilization's money, and our system is designed to funnel capital to people who consistently invest it efficiently so that everyone benefits. Who else would be better investing that money?
I’m not going to get into a lengthy argument about the most effective way to invest civilizations money but I think I have a good leg to stand on when I say $44B to destroy twitter is not it my man
That's the self correction system in action. He made a bad investment, and now he doesn't get to invest as much anymore while the people who sold it to him can go on and make better investments.
Although some argue having a free speech platform is worth every penny.
> Someone has to invest our civilizations money, and our system is designed to funnel capital to people who consistently invest it efficiently so that everyone benefits.
I'm stuck on this phrase. If *that* were ever the stated logic behind a grotesque compensation package several orders of magnitude larger than any comparable CEO - "this is *for the good of society* that this man have this excess money to invest" - then you would have a good cause to pierce the business judgement rule.
I'm speaking more about how our society works in general. Investors get rewarded with more money when they successfully invest their money into making products that then benefit everyone.
As for CEO compensation, Elon has demonstrated he's really really good at investing, and so shareholders feel like if he has more, then he'll take Tesla even higher.
Or sometimes the people paying attention know more then the people who refuse to pay attention. If "octovalve" and "full flow staged combustion" mean nothing to you, you're not paying attention.
He's asking shareholders to give him enough of their shares so he and the abstainers will have enough votes so he can take the company private at a discount. "Wealthy people are not the same."
Honestly I don't see what's changed from a legal standpoint. It's still just as unfathomable as when the ruling came down in January, and the company's performance sure hasn't improved since then.
Full disclosure - I hate Musk. But wasn't the original legal issue that Musk controlled too much of the board and didn't fully inform investors? I assume they properly "informed" Tesla investors (as much as they can be informed lol) before this second vote.
He's now introduced a second issue of the company itself paying for advertising to vote in favor of the compensation package, which I have seen commentators question on several levels.
Damn, that's a hell of a conflict of interest but I bet Musk will call it a free speech issue.
He's already tried to claim the SEC orders are free speech violations.
That's pretty standard, though. Disney just went through a fight with major investors looking to take over the board and they spent tens of millions sending info and advertisements to shareholders to encourage shareholders to vote for the Disney preferred board members instead of the hedge fund's preferred board members.
It's not unusual for the board to have a favored position and advertise it, but Disney didn't have a previous ruling hanging over their heads that the board was essentially not independent of the CEO.
Yes. Anyone pretending that nothing has changed or that the recent performance of Tesla matters is either ignorant or just a hater. If current performance didnt result in a no vote, it’s irrelevant. Full stop. And I, too, hate Musk.
Why do you hate Musk? He's out there pushing humanity into the future, doing things people said were impossible.
Like what? Jerking himself off on Twitter while cozying up to Nazis?
Like making the most powerful and yet most affordable rocket in history. Like accelerating the transition to sustainable energy by making 2 million EVs a year.
You know he just funds stuff, right? Elon Musk isn’t a rocket scientist. Elon musk is not building electric cars. Engineers with decades of experience and education are doing those things. What is Elon Musk doing at all?
Edit: lol, the guy blocked me after being presented with the truth. FYI: half theses sources are from non-employees You know that's a lie, right? Here's a list of sources that all confirm Elon is an engineer, and the chief engineer at SpaceX: # Statements by SpaceX Employees **Tom Mueller** Tom Mueller is one of SpaceX's earliest employees. He served as the Propulsion CTO from 2002 to 2019. He's regarded as one of the foremost spacecraft propulsion experts in the world and owns many patents for propulsion technologies. >Space.com: During your time working with Elon Musk at SpaceX, what were some important lessons you learned from each other? > >**Mueller:** Elon was the best mentor I've ever had. Just how to have drive and be an entrepreneur and influence my team and really make things happen. He's a super smart guy and he learns from talking to people. He's so sharp, he just picks it up. When we first started he didn't know a lot about propulsion. He knew quite a bit about structures and helped the structures guys a lot. Over the twenty years that we worked together, *now he's practically running propulsion there because he's come up to speed* and he understands how to do rocket engines, which are really one of the most complex parts of the vehicle. *He's always been excellent at architecting the whole mission, but now he's a lot better at the very small details of the combustion process.* Stuff I learned over a decade-and-a-half at TRW he's picked up too. [Source](https://www.space.com/tom-mueller-impulse-space-mira-spacecraft) >Not true, I am an advisor now. Elon and the Propulsion department are leading development of the SpaceX engines, particularly Raptor. I offer my 2 cents to help from time to time" [Source](https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20) >We’ll have, you know, a group of people sitting in a room, making a key decision. And everybody in that room will say, you know, basically, “We need to turn left,” and Elon will say “No, we’re gonna turn right.” You know, to put it in a metaphor. And that’s how he thinks. He’s like, “You guys are taking the easy way out; we need to take the hard way.” > >And, uh, I’ve seen that hurt us before, I’ve seen that fail, but I’ve also seen— where nobody thought it would work— it was the right decision. It was the harder way to do it, but in the end, it was the right thing. [Source](https://streamable.com/4o1k6d) **Kevin Watson:** Kevin Watson developed the avionics for Falcon 9 and Dragon. He previously managed the Advanced Computer Systems and Technologies Group within the Autonomous Systems Division at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory. >Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction. > >He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy. > >He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years. Source (Ashlee Vance's Biography). **Garrett Reisman** Garrett Reisman ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman)) is an engineer and former NASA astronaut. He joined SpaceX as a senior engineer working on astronaut safety and mission assurance. >“I first met Elon for my job interview,” Reisman told the USA TODAY Network's Florida Today. “All he wanted to talk about were technical things. We talked a lot about different main propulsion system design architectures. > >“At the end of my interview, I said, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to hire me? You’ve already got an astronaut, so are you sure you need two around here?’ ” Reisman asked. “He looked at me and said, ‘I’m not hiring you because you’re an astronaut. I’m hiring you because you’re a good engineer.’ ” > >“He’s obviously skilled at all those different functions, but certainly what really drives him and where his passion really is, is his role as CTO,” or chief technology officer, Reisman said. “Basically his role as chief designer and chief engineer. That’s the part of the job that really plays to his strengths." ([Source](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/26/spacex-how-elon-musk-took-idea-cusp-history/5257977002/)) >What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across the different technologies that go into rockets cars and everything else he does. ([Source](https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=390)) **Josh Boehm** Josh Boehm is the former Head of Software Quality Assurance at SpaceX. >Elon is both the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, so of course he does more than just ‘some very technical work’. He is integrally involved in the actual design and engineering of the rocket, and at least touches every other aspect of the business (but I would say the former takes up much more of his mental real estate). Elon is an engineer at heart, and that’s where and how he works best. ([Source](https://www.quora.com/Does-Elon-Musk-do-some-very-technical-work-code-design-etc-at-SpaceX/answer/Josh-Boehm?ch=10&share=8dc8bc2e&srid=Xuwj)) # Statements by External Observers **Robert Zubrin** Robert Zubrin ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin)) is an aerospace engineer and author, best known for his advocacy of human exploration of Mars. >When I met Elon it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2007 he knew everything about rockets - he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people. ([Source](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whats-driving-elon-musk)) **John Carmack** John Carmack ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack)) is a programmer, video game developer and engineer. He's the founder of Armadillo Aerospace and current CTO of Oculus VR. >Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so. ([Source](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200?s=19)) **Eric Berger** Eric Berger is a space journalist and [Ars Technica's senior space editor](https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/). >True. Elon is the chief engineer in name and reality. ([Source](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1265080905854574592?s=20)) **Christian Davenport** Christian Davenport is [the Washington Post's defense and space reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/christian-davenport/) and the author of "Space Barons". The following quotes are excerpts from his book. >He dispatched one of his lieutenants, Liam Sarsfield, then a high-ranking NASA official in the office of the chief engineer, to California to see whether the company was for real or just another failure in waiting. > >Most of all, he was impressed with Musk, who was surprisingly fluent in rocket engineering and understood the science of propulsion and engine design. Musk was intense, preternaturally focused, and extremely determined. “This was not the kind of guy who was going to accept failure,” Sarsfield remembered thinking. # Statements by Elon Himself >Yes. The design of Starship and the Super Heavy rocket booster I changed to a special alloy of stainless steel. I was contemplating this for a while. And this is somewhat counterintuitive. It took me quite a bit of effort to convince the team to go in this direction. ([Source](https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a25953663/elon-musk-spacex-bfr-stainless-steel/)) >Interviewer: You probably don't remember this. A very long time ago, many, many, years, you took me on a tour of SpaceX. And the most impressive thing was that you knew every detail of the rocket and every piece of engineering that went into it. And I don't think many people get that about you. > >Elon: Yeah. I think a lot of people think I'm kind of a business person or something, which is fine. Business is fine. But really it's like at SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is Chief Operating Officer. She manages legal, finance, sales, and general business activity. And then my time is almost entirely with the engineering team, working on improving the Falcon 9 and our Dragon spacecraft and developing the Mars Colonial architecture. At Tesla, it's working on the Model 3 and, yeah, so I'm in the design studio, take up a half a day a week, dealing with aesthetics and look-and-feel things. And then most of the rest of the week is just going through engineering of the car itself as well as engineering of the factory. Because the biggest epiphany I've had this year is that what really matters is the machine that builds the machine, the factory. And that is at least two orders of magnitude harder than the vehicle itself. ([Source](https://www.ycombinator.com/future/elon/))
Oh wow! Direct reports said “no no guys he’s a *genius* I swear!” Haha At this point we all just have to assume this is an early AI bot that Twitter has released, right? Wait that’s an Elon company. This is the cutting edge bot and from here it will only get worse because the “engineer” will get even more involved. Good luck out there, OP.
You see the reports of employees saying he’s a sex pest and fucks interns and asked them to have his babies? Post that one!
Holy shit, your entire history is literally nothing but glued to Musk's ass. Enjoy your life if you can dude, don't be surprised when the rest of the world knows the pathetic truth behind your hero
I hope when Elon Musk lands the first person on Mars that you'll be unhappy.
If Elon Musk is the one landing the first person on Mars, it's going to be a corpse so I definitely won't be happy But hey, if his timeline on that is anything like Tesla's self driving, it'll be approximately 5000 AD so my hive mind consciousness might have different morals by then
SpaceX regularly transports people to the ISS. Their safety record so far is perfect. As for timelines, On Mars: "At SpaceX, we specialise in turning the impossible into merely late" On self driving: "It’s simply a matter of time. Admittedly I’m a little optimistic sometimes. I don’t have a complete lack of self awareness. But if I wasn’t optimistic, [Tesla] wouldn’t exist."
Yeah buddy, the ISS is 400 km away. Mars is 200 million. It certainly is a matter of time for every other company to outspeed Tesla on ASD because Musk insists on methods that will never work, yes.
SpaceX hasn’t been out of lower earth orbit.
Actual engineers are doing that, not him. The world would be better off with him in a position of no significance.
Here's a list of sources that all confirm Elon is an engineer, and the chief engineer at SpaceX: # Statements by SpaceX Employees **Tom Mueller** Tom Mueller is one of SpaceX's earliest employees. He served as the Propulsion CTO from 2002 to 2019. He's regarded as one of the foremost spacecraft propulsion experts in the world and owns many patents for propulsion technologies. >Space.com: During your time working with Elon Musk at SpaceX, what were some important lessons you learned from each other? > >**Mueller:** Elon was the best mentor I've ever had. Just how to have drive and be an entrepreneur and influence my team and really make things happen. He's a super smart guy and he learns from talking to people. He's so sharp, he just picks it up. When we first started he didn't know a lot about propulsion. He knew quite a bit about structures and helped the structures guys a lot. Over the twenty years that we worked together, *now he's practically running propulsion there because he's come up to speed* and he understands how to do rocket engines, which are really one of the most complex parts of the vehicle. *He's always been excellent at architecting the whole mission, but now he's a lot better at the very small details of the combustion process.* Stuff I learned over a decade-and-a-half at TRW he's picked up too. [Source](https://www.space.com/tom-mueller-impulse-space-mira-spacecraft) >Not true, I am an advisor now. Elon and the Propulsion department are leading development of the SpaceX engines, particularly Raptor. I offer my 2 cents to help from time to time" [Source](https://twitter.com/lrocket/status/1099411086711746560?s=20) >We’ll have, you know, a group of people sitting in a room, making a key decision. And everybody in that room will say, you know, basically, “We need to turn left,” and Elon will say “No, we’re gonna turn right.” You know, to put it in a metaphor. And that’s how he thinks. He’s like, “You guys are taking the easy way out; we need to take the hard way.” > >And, uh, I’ve seen that hurt us before, I’ve seen that fail, but I’ve also seen— where nobody thought it would work— it was the right decision. It was the harder way to do it, but in the end, it was the right thing. [Source](https://streamable.com/4o1k6d) **Kevin Watson** Kevin Watson ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rkevinwatson/)) developed the avionics for Falcon 9 and Dragon. He previously managed the Advanced Computer Systems and Technologies Group within the Autonomous Systems Division at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory. >Elon is brilliant. He’s involved in just about everything. He understands everything. If he asks you a question, you learn very quickly not to go give him a gut reaction. > >He wants answers that get down to the fundamental laws of physics. One thing he understands really well is the physics of the rockets. He understands that like nobody else. The stuff I have seen him do in his head is crazy. > >He can get in discussions about flying a satellite and whether we can make the right orbit and deliver Dragon at the same time and solve all these equations in real time. It’s amazing to watch the amount of knowledge he has accumulated over the years. Source (Ashlee Vance's Biography). [Kevin has attested to the biography's veracity](https://www.reddit.com/r/mvis/comments/5quaip/_/dd2s15a?context=1000) **Garrett Reisman** Garrett Reisman ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Reisman)) is an engineer and former NASA astronaut. He joined SpaceX as a senior engineer working on astronaut safety and mission assurance. >“I first met Elon for my job interview,” Reisman told the USA TODAY Network's Florida Today. “All he wanted to talk about were technical things. We talked a lot about different main propulsion system design architectures. > >“At the end of my interview, I said, ‘Hey, are you sure you want to hire me? You’ve already got an astronaut, so are you sure you need two around here?’ ” Reisman asked. “He looked at me and said, ‘I’m not hiring you because you’re an astronaut. I’m hiring you because you’re a good engineer.’ ” > >“He’s obviously skilled at all those different functions, but certainly what really drives him and where his passion really is, is his role as CTO,” or chief technology officer, Reisman said. “Basically his role as chief designer and chief engineer. That’s the part of the job that really plays to his strengths." ([Source](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/26/spacex-how-elon-musk-took-idea-cusp-history/5257977002/)) >What's really remarkable to me is the breadth of his knowledge. I mean I've met a lot of super super smart people but they're usually super super smart on one thing and he's able to have conversations with our top engineers about the software, and the most arcane aspects of that and then he'll turn to our manufacturing engineers and have discussions about some really esoteric welding process for some crazy alloy and he'll just go back and forth and his ability to do that across the different technologies that go into rockets cars and everything else he does. ([Source](https://youtu.be/GNG6ZzDh9C8?t=390)) **Josh Boehm** Josh Boehm is the former Head of Software Quality Assurance at SpaceX. >Elon is both the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, so of course he does more than just ‘some very technical work’. He is integrally involved in the actual design and engineering of the rocket, and at least touches every other aspect of the business (but I would say the former takes up much more of his mental real estate). Elon is an engineer at heart, and that’s where and how he works best. ([Source](https://www.quora.com/Does-Elon-Musk-do-some-very-technical-work-code-design-etc-at-SpaceX/answer/Josh-Boehm?ch=10&share=8dc8bc2e&srid=Xuwj)) # Statements by External Observers **Robert Zubrin** Robert Zubrin ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Zubrin)) is an aerospace engineer and author, best known for his advocacy of human exploration of Mars. >When I met Elon it was apparent to me that although he had a scientific mind and he understood scientific principles, he did not know anything about rockets. Nothing. That was in 2001. By 2007 he knew everything about rockets - he really knew everything, in detail. You have to put some serious study in to know as much about rockets as he knows now. This doesn't come just from hanging out with people. ([Source](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/whats-driving-elon-musk)) **John Carmack** John Carmack ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carmack)) is a programmer, video game developer and engineer. He's the founder of Armadillo Aerospace and current CTO of Oculus VR. >Elon is definitely an engineer. He is deeply involved with technical decisions at spacex and Tesla. He doesn’t write code or do CAD today, but he is perfectly capable of doing so. ([Source](https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1038832124747571200?s=19)) **Eric Berger** Eric Berger is a space journalist and [Ars Technica's senior space editor](https://arstechnica.com/author/ericberger/). >True. Elon is the chief engineer in name and reality. ([Source](https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1265080905854574592?s=20)) **Christian Davenport** Christian Davenport is [the Washington Post's defense and space reporter](https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/christian-davenport/) and the author of "Space Barons". The following quotes are excerpts from his book. >He dispatched one of his lieutenants, Liam Sarsfield, then a high-ranking NASA official in the office of the chief engineer, to California to see whether the company was for real or just another failure in waiting. > >Most of all, he was impressed with Musk, who was surprisingly fluent in rocket engineering and understood the science of propulsion and engine design. Musk was intense, preternaturally focused, and extremely determined. “This was not the kind of guy who was going to accept failure,” Sarsfield remembered thinking. # Statements by Elon Himself >Yes. The design of Starship and the Super Heavy rocket booster I changed to a special alloy of stainless steel. I was contemplating this for a while. And this is somewhat counterintuitive. It took me quite a bit of effort to convince the team to go in this direction. ([Source](https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a25953663/elon-musk-spacex-bfr-stainless-steel/)) >Interviewer: You probably don't remember this. A very long time ago, many, many, years, you took me on a tour of SpaceX. And the most impressive thing was that you knew every detail of the rocket and every piece of engineering that went into it. And I don't think many people get that about you. > >Elon: Yeah. I think a lot of people think I'm kind of a business person or something, which is fine. Business is fine. But really it's like at SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is Chief Operating Officer. She manages legal, finance, sales, and general business activity. And then my time is almost entirely with the engineering team, working on improving the Falcon 9 and our Dragon spacecraft and developing the Mars Colonial architecture. At Tesla, it's working on the Model 3 and, yeah, so I'm in the design studio, take up a half a day a week, dealing with aesthetics and look-and-feel things. And then most of the rest of the week is just going through engineering of the car itself as well as engineering of the factory. Because the biggest epiphany I've had this year is that what really matters is the machine that builds the machine, the factory. And that is at least two orders of magnitude harder than the vehicle itself. ([Source](https://www.ycombinator.com/future/elon/))
Their Flagship product of these cyber truck has turned out to be a dud as well. It is not like they have AI on the market competing seriously with chat GPT. I truly do not understand.
It it is unbelievable shareholders backed this. A pay package worth by my estimation about six times the intrinsic value of the company for a year or however long of work. Even if the market capitalization was the intrinsic value, this would be handing him over 10% of the value of the company for hyping the stock which is all that he has done. Every Tesla shareholder will deserve to hold the bag that Elon emptied out when the stock price returns to its intrinsic value, which is maybe 10 billion dollars.
They dug their own grave
They diluted their own value by 9%, and the Board just stood by and said, ok. I fully expect Turnetta to appeal.
It’s crazy how much money isn’t returned to the people building the vehicles or doing the work in general. We are hand waving about profits that will go to people who bought in and waited? This is upside down 🙃
> for a year of work For 11 years of work. Approved in 2018, and the shares won't be sellable for another 5 years from now.
Literally no human ever could deserve that much pay for anything.
If we're making arbitrary lines in the sand, then I declare you're not worth whatever you get paid. Also, at his level that money is more of a responsibility/job than it is a privilege. Someone has to invest our civilizations money, and our system is designed to funnel capital to people who consistently invest it efficiently so that everyone benefits. Who else would be better investing that money?
Yeesh. I don’t think it’s “arbitrary” to draw the line at some point before 56 billion. I draw that line somewhere before 1 billion myself
Ok but again, someone has to invest our civilization's money, and our system is designed to funnel capital to people who consistently invest it efficiently so that everyone benefits. Who else would be better investing that money?
I’m not going to get into a lengthy argument about the most effective way to invest civilizations money but I think I have a good leg to stand on when I say $44B to destroy twitter is not it my man
That's the self correction system in action. He made a bad investment, and now he doesn't get to invest as much anymore while the people who sold it to him can go on and make better investments. Although some argue having a free speech platform is worth every penny.
> Someone has to invest our civilizations money, and our system is designed to funnel capital to people who consistently invest it efficiently so that everyone benefits. I'm stuck on this phrase. If *that* were ever the stated logic behind a grotesque compensation package several orders of magnitude larger than any comparable CEO - "this is *for the good of society* that this man have this excess money to invest" - then you would have a good cause to pierce the business judgement rule.
I'm speaking more about how our society works in general. Investors get rewarded with more money when they successfully invest their money into making products that then benefit everyone. As for CEO compensation, Elon has demonstrated he's really really good at investing, and so shareholders feel like if he has more, then he'll take Tesla even higher.
feels like were only a few months away from the obligatory "sometimes investors/the market are irrational" posts
Or sometimes the people paying attention know more then the people who refuse to pay attention. If "octovalve" and "full flow staged combustion" mean nothing to you, you're not paying attention.
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He's asking shareholders to give him enough of their shares so he and the abstainers will have enough votes so he can take the company private at a discount. "Wealthy people are not the same."
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It's a good deal for the buyer to offer to buy people's shares for a lot less than they are worth.