XPost: rec.arts.sf.written   
   From: jfindley@cinci.nospam.rr.com   
      
   In article ,   
   taustinca@gmail.com says...   
   > >>Musk says a lot of things.  Some of them turn out to be true.   
   > >>   
   > >   
   > > Ah, the old "if he doesn't agree with me he's lying" fallacy.   
   > > He's made billions of dollars being 'wrong'.  What have you made   
   > > being 'right'?   
   > >   
   > He's made a lot of money being right about things. The trick if   
   > figuring out precisely what those things are. It's not a given that   
   > they are what his various companies *say* they are all about. He   
   > appears, to me, to be far better at attracting money from investors   
   > than he is at delivering products.   
      
   Really?  Falcon has captured 60% of the global commercial launch market.   
   How is that "not delivering"?  Dragon is the only commercial cargo   
   vehicle flying to ISS that can return cargo to earth.  How is that "not   
   delivering"?  Tesla's Model 3 has become the #1 selling small luxury car   
   in the US.  How is that "not delivering"?  Tesla's power storage   
   division has delivered over 1 gigawatt-hour of storage so far.  How is   
   that "not delivering"?   
      
   I'll agree that Musk never seems to hit his "aspirational time-lines",   
   but he does deliver.  If the approach being taken doesn't work, he   
   adjusts the approach and/or adjusts the goal a bit.  In the end though,   
   he's put out an impressive number of products that beat the heck out of   
   the stagnant competition.   
      
   > Yeah, SpaceX is successful so   
   > far, but it would never have happened without taxpayer dollars, and   
   > a desperate need for alternate launch systems that aren't Russian.   
      
   Yes, SpaceX got lucky with their timing.  They were ready to build the   
   Falcon 9 and NASA had a *great* need for US cargo resupply for ISS.   
   Dragon has been a huge boon for NASA.  Without it, they couldn't return   
   more than a few tens of pounds of cargo on returning Soyuz capsules.   
   NASA needed a service and SpaceX delivered.  Well, all except for that   
   one cargo flight that went "boom", but as NASA loves to say,   
   "spaceflight is hard".   
      
   > His other companies . . . are having rather more mixed results. For   
   > instance, Tesla is now being sued for securities fraud because . .   
   > . they made some claims about their ability to mass produce the   
   > Model X that turned out to . . . not be true.   
      
   True.  We'll see how that one plays out.  But even if they lose, they   
   still have an insane amount of support from their investors.  I'm an   
   engineer/programmer not an economist, but to me it seems like Tesla's   
   market capitalization is crazy high for a company their size.  I'm   
   pretty sure they'll weather this particular storm.   
      
   Jeff   
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