Sure but if you ever listen to his longer interviews, in particular those with Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut), it's very clear he has a deep understanding of rocket mechanics, production, logistics, launch pad development, etc. It's well beyond manager-just-regurgitating-stuff they hear. One interview he stops briefly and gets into some nitty gritty about hold-downs on the starship pad or something.
looks more like the case of the manager repeating stuff heard from the engineers discussion.
Lex Fridman asked the questions, was the one that clearly layout the challenges, and kindly enough repeated the answer that Elon Musk was not providing. Meaning its not a problem of "vector space". Humans interpret the world and give semantic meaning to the scene in front of them.
He repeated it several times as Elon Musk answers completely missed the critical challenges, until he was perceptive enough to pick and regurgitate back the examples Lex Fridman was providing. Like the one where a human would not miss the fact that although some children temporarily disappear from your field a vision as you overtake a school bus for example, they are likely to appear in front of you as they will try to cross from the front of the bus to the other side of the road.
The interview is actually concerning, as its basically Lex Fridman explaining to Elon Musk the challenges and points he is supposed to address, and throwing him a soft ball while he was running around as this is simple, easy problem of creating a "vector space".
Curiously he does pick up on hints a bit later, but still concludes and reluctantly goes on to declare the problem will be fully solved by middle 2022... At 1:26:48: https://youtu.be/DxREm3s1scA?t=5206
He also has a deep understanding of how important government assistance was to getting SpaceX where it is now but that hasn't stopped him from trying to stop others from benefiting from the same.
He shows a lack of rational thought in regards too SpaceX that is sometimes rather worrying. Take, for example, the time he smoked a blunt on camera which isn't exactly what one of his largest customers likes to see in their executives they are entrusting with launching one of a kind national security assets.
I'm glad SpaceX has an actual professional management team to run most day to day operations.
> but that hasn't stopped him from trying to stop others from benefiting from the same.
That's complete nonsense. Unlike others SpaceX has never really attack other space companies. Musk has been supportive of other space companies.
SpaceX busted open the establishment in both DoD and NASA so the contracts are fairly competent, and everybody coming in the industry benefits from that.
SpaceX just recently lost a contract about Commercial Leo Destination but unlike BlueOrigin they didn't release a pamphlet, an army of lobbyist and a bunch of lawyers.
Can you be specific of what actions SpaceX has taken to prevent others space company from gaining government contracts (other then competing for them)?
> Take, for example, the time he smoked a blunt on camera which isn't exactly what one of his largest customers likes to see in their executives they are entrusting with launching one of a kind national security assets.
Something that had basically no impact other then some not really serious slap on the wrist because the military is federal and not state law and they had to pretend to give a shit.
It wasn't the smartest thing to do but to hold that up as some great example about how he is a bad manager is ridiculous for a company that has been as successful as SpaceX.
> I'm glad SpaceX has an actual professional management team to run most day to day operations.
A lot of those manager are engineers that came up in SpaceX. Early on it was basically Elon and his secretary and a group of senior technical team lead that did everything. Musk was heavily in involved in recruitment, supply chain and other typical management things.
He is very capable of doing management work for small or large company but whenever he can avoid it, he doesn't do it, because its not where he adds most value beyond overall strategy.
In a recent WSJ he, Musk, spoke out against government subsidies. I don't mind such subsidies but I do mind when people who benefit from government help want to stop others from doing the same.
This was a case where Bezos wanted NASA to fund it's entire development program from scratch at a cost much higher than NASA ever funded SpaceX's development program. See my other comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30297198
You mean when Blue did everything they could to prevent SpaceX from gaining a contract. Blue complained to GAO and lost. Then Blue started a propaganda campaign propagating lies about SpaceX and tried to get is bought politicians to force NASA to change, then they sued NASA.
After all of that, with SpaceX never actually doing anything to Blue, all they did was offer a way better option to the government.
> He also has a deep understanding of how important government assistance was to getting SpaceX where it is now but that hasn't stopped him from trying to stop others from benefiting from the same.
That is false. The only companies he has objected to are ULA which was getting a 1 billion dollar a year retainer (effectively a subsidy) from the US government, which is rightfully bad, and Blue Origin which basically wanted NASA to bankroll it's entire development program with little of their own money spent. SpaceX spends a lot of it's own money on things and then is thankful for the little bit on top that NASA has provided to them for portions of development. In no case that I can remember has SpaceX investment on a project been less than 50%, and it is often 100% but with a guaranteed government customer.
