this post was submitted on 08 May 2025
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I think you meant to say “cannot be overstated.” “Cannot be understated” means the opposite of the point you’re trying to make.
He definitely lit a fire under the asses of the traditional automakers, no doubt. But then he consistently threw away every advantage his company had, one after another.
Had they developed a normal-ass pickup truck they could’ve beaten the Lightning F-150 to market. But no, because Musk wanted to make a car as stupid and ill-advised as the DeLorean DMC-12 it resembles, design time took so long that by the time the thing hit the streets it wasn’t what truck owners wanted or what Tesla owners wanted. There was already an EV version of the best-selling pickup truck in the world. And he had, by that point, thoroughly torched his image among the people most likely to buy his cars.
Tesla definitely accelerated the development of EV models and infrastructure, but I personally think it’s easy to overstate Elon’s impact.
Elon Musk clearly has enourmous skillset at managing startups from their early stages though their explosive growth stages. He's successfully done so both with Tesla and SpaceX. Unfortunately his management skills are clearly incompatible with running a large company that makes up a notable portion of a market. He should have stepped away from Tesla about a decade ago (possibly as much as 15 years ago). He should have stepped away from SpaceX about 5 years ago. He should be known for growing a promising disruptive startup into a true market player then immediately handing the reigns away and moving onto the next startup, but his ego is simply too big for that, and he doesn't seem to have the introspection to see the damage he's doing to the companies he built up
Hasn't basically bought his way into pretty much everything but paypal?
You’re right re:overstated, thanks for the correction.
Tesla didn’t want to build a regular pickup truck. They wanted to build something different, essentially a concept car. That should be applauded imo as a car fanatic.
No one in the history of the world has been more influential for electric cars than Elon Musk. I don’t think that’s even slightly debatable.