Apart from the Ketamine, this struck me in the article:
“His life just sucks,” one colleague told The New Yorker. “It’s so stressful. He’s just so dedicated to these companies. He goes to sleep and wakes up answering e-mails. Ninety-nine per cent of people will never know someone that obsessed, and with that high a tolerance for sacrifice in their personal life.”
This doesn't mean that person is wrong about Elon's life sucking, but it's also a dungeon of his own making. Instead of stabilizing his businesses and raking in the profits, he seems to think his wild gambles are somehow wise. He got away with using Tesla to bail out his brother, which took Tesla to the brink. Any CEO without a lapdog board would be long gone for a stunt like that.
Cybertruck is a hyperactive child's idea of cool. Starship is, so far, neither an economical launch vehicle nor a viable tool for interplanetary manned exploration, and possibly a lesson in why a bastardized Agile-ish style of project management doesn't scale up. Starlink needs 10X the subscribers to be viable.
But those situations and a dozen more were not imposed on Musk, nor are they even necessary to achieve his goal nor has taking those risks kept projects on schedule. He chose this life. How big a hole in one's soul that needs so much to fill it?
Contrary to pop-culture opinion, one does not arrive at such a position by resting on their laurels or by lacking obsessive dedication to their work.
That said, I genuinely would like to see him stay healthy so he can focus on SpaceX. Tesla could continue on just fine without him at this point, Twitter/X was a dumpster fire before and will remain so long after, but SpaceX really does seem to benefit from his presence and unwavering vision. And SpaceX is objectively pulling the entire space industry kicking and screaming into the 21's century.
The position of being a ketamine addicted narcissist who thinks they know better than everyone? Or the position of being born filthy rich and purchasing stakes of large existing companies that you didn’t build yourself.
You can root for SpaceX and the good it’s doing while also acknowledging it’s ran by a pretty pathetic dude.
I can acknowledge a man's shortcomings without discounting his positive contributions (which are manifold). Without him, there would be zero EV market. Without him, US space dominance would continue to atrophy into oblivion. Without him, there would be no reusable space launch vehicles (and all of the opportunities that accompany it) in existence.
But I will grant that the Twitter acquisition was a pretty clear unforced error.
The BEV market was already picking up in Asia before Tesla rose to prominence. And Asia prefers small electric cars for the city, and many other small electric vehicles like electric scooters, bikes, motorcycles, which make a lot more sense than the electric sedans, SUVs and trucks, that Tesla is offering.
For bigger cars, a hybrid is much superior from engineering perspective with the state of current tech, it uses a lot less Lithium, and still promotes the development of a charging network that could then charge small EVs.
And for even bigger vehicles, for industrial transport and public transport, we've had the electric train, tram, subway and trolleybus for decades. Decades. All running without batteries, which vastly reduces their weight and improves their safety and performance.
Tesla's contribution to the EV market are overblown. It's by far the most well known EV brand in the West, and it did open many people minds' to the prospect of getting an EV. But Tesla is offering product quality of continuous decline, and is in the process of being replaced by the very competitors in Asia I referred to earlier, who have been in this game for much longer than Tesla, and without peddling vaporware like the always broken FSD. Not to mention Optimus.
Tesla seems like they invented something. And changed the world. But they were just a huge distraction that sucked up the capital for other startups coming up with similar products, at a similar time, due to Elon Musk's empty promises and boatsmanship. Tesla is a distraction and will be forgotten, except for two things: their charging plug standard, and their supercharger network. Those will likely stick around.
Shame really, because I really liked the Tesla brand, and I really like the look of the Model 3/Y (not the interior nor the quality, but it's a nice looking car, simple, elegant). Unfortunately Tesla is currently in decay and they're putting up increasingly weirder rabbits from their hat to hide that fact (and why the CFO left).
Perhaps worth noting, too, that Tesla have gone from >80% BEV market share in the US in 2020 to (probably) below 50% right now. (Probably because they were at just over 50% in January, and analyst predictions had them dropping below 50% within months.)
They're still absolutely dominant in the US, but losing ground fast. And, anecdotally, their BEV market share in Europe (based on what I see on the road and whilst shopping for used cars) is much lower. In the UK, I believe it's below 20%.
This is primarily a reflection of new manufacturers entering the market rather than Tesla declining in quality. It's worth noting that Musk is on record saying that Tesla's mission is to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles - regardless of who is selling them, be it Tesla or another automaker.
If you think Tesla's existence is a net-negative because you don't agree with everything Musk does, you've lost the plot.
They're still driving innovation in this space, still employing tens of thousands of people, still providing shareholder value and still making cars people want to own.
Tesla's mission was never to sell the most electric cars or to dominate the EV market. Their mission was to make a competitive and desirable BEV that normal people would want to own. To make the BEV market a viable thing. Even more - to not just make a great BEV, but to make a great car. And to that extent, I'd say they succeeded.
Hybrids are not superior in any way. Indeed they are actually inferior in just about every way - cost, performance, maintenance / reliability, emissions. Which hybrid beats a Model 3/Y?
Referring to electric trains, trams and subways is also a red herring. This discussion is about Tesla's contribution to electric cars.
Tesla's quality is only suffering in the eyes of its most vocal critics - who often have a vested interest in stirring up controversy. I've owned both a Model S and a Model X - both are significantly more reliable (and better performing) than any other car I've ever owned. Observing that Tesla was not immune from the global supply chain crisis caused by the lockdowns, or is having difficulty perfecting FSD, or is actively researching humanoid robotics (ie: diversifying) seems short-sighted. Would you prefer they make no attempt at innovation? Expecting perfection from Tesla, but excusing mediocrity from every other manufacturer is an unreasonable double-standard. (Although I would agree that their early marketing of FSD was overly optimistic and potentially reckless.)
Nobody is claiming Tesla invented BEV's - that's a straw man. But they certainly did push the BEV market into the mainstream and drastically improve the technology. The fact that you can drive anywhere in the US and be within driving distance of a Supercharger is testament to that. Without Tesla leading the way, I think there's a strong argument to be made that there would still be no EV market in the US.
And finally, Tesla is the first new US car manufacturer to arrive, and be competitive in the last century. I think that's an accomplishment in itself.
What was a typical day for him at Tesla or SpaceX? My understanding is his contribution is getting big government contracts, but the companies were essentially run by others.
From what I read his contribution to SpaceX is creation of an informal department of people to deal with his idea and deflecting them from being implemented while feeding elon's ego.
Ketamine is an amazing drug but also must be taken with extreme care. I'm friends with a bunch of ex-military guys and they rave about how it helps with PTSD and depression symptoms. But on the flip side of that coin I also have several friends that are downright addicted to the substance.
How can anyone be addicted to alcohol? Its effects are also shit, overdosing can definitely make the abuser a vegetable (temporarily and, over time, permanently).
Both drugs act on similar receptors (GABA), and both induce euphoria, which can lead to abusive behaviour when users keep chasing that ever waning bits of euphoria.
“His life just sucks,” one colleague told The New Yorker. “It’s so stressful. He’s just so dedicated to these companies. He goes to sleep and wakes up answering e-mails. Ninety-nine per cent of people will never know someone that obsessed, and with that high a tolerance for sacrifice in their personal life.”