I mean this really doesn't sound that bad to non-stuck-up people. Elon is currently the greatest single person in tech fighting climate change and working towards providing a solution to a planet-level apocalypse while also being the 8-year boy creating the inspiration of a lifetime for many.
So I have hard time accepting ad hominem arguments as anything but jealous, uninformed, or just plain conformist. Or maybe some people like to just speak untruths with the mindset that the billionaire can take it, but find that anti-intellectual and unnecessarily polarizing.
(This is a comment in general, not an attack on the parent comment but critiquing the generally hateful air I'd expect the HN crowd to be above of)
> Elon is currently the greatest single person in tech fighting climate change
If you're going to defend him for this, you have to admit his distractions have be a hindrance to the cause. Rather than running Tesla and making sure its the market leader across market segments, he's been off on side quests. And now his side quest is making people not want Teslas.
I don't think Elon has ever aimed to specifically be a "climate activist". His positive effects on the environment seem more of a side product from making the "crappy but sustainable, will be cool in 10-20 years at current pace" option "cool+useful and sustainable, now". Which makes sense, he would probably have gotten less done environmentally and generally if he didn't have success of the businesses as clear priority.
I think he stated that his underlying big plan was to act in fields that he thinks will have the most impact in the future, being good business while not just profit-driven, after he got the PayPal money (Can't find a source right now though) in which he has succeeded, profiting from making the world better, instead, for example, lobbying against ICE's and then providing "just-good-enough" Environmental(r) ShittyCars(tm)
He also has shifted his focus accordingly when Tesla, and at part, SpaceX, were at dire straits. For his kind of personality, I'm not sure just working more would even transfer as simply to linear benefit on that thing.
Tesla Solar is a dud, had to be saved by Tesla using SpaceX money. Or rather Elon's cousin had to. PV tech is solidly in Chinese hands by now, and getting cheaper every year, Tesla has nothing to do with it. Same for powerwalls.
What Tesla figures out so, was that charging infrastructure was the early EV winner, nobody else did that. Whether Tesla's netwirk is still the largest in the world, no idea.
So I have hard time accepting ad hominem arguments as anything but jealous, uninformed, or just plain conformist. Or maybe some people like to just speak untruths with the mindset that the billionaire can take it, but find that anti-intellectual and unnecessarily polarizing.
(This is a comment in general, not an attack on the parent comment but critiquing the generally hateful air I'd expect the HN crowd to be above of)