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Elon Musk: Not Especially Smart, Little Business Sense

Discussion in 'Too Hot for Swamp Gas' started by chemgator, Feb 22, 2025.

  1. chemgator

    chemgator GC Hall of Fame

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    Remarkable. An Elon Musk biographer estimates his I.Q. at no more than 110, and says that he basically stole ideas to become successful. His achievements have largely been smoke and mirrors, with a little luck and some marketing ability. It's not that unusual--Bill Gates did not make his fortune because he was a genius at programming. A lot of successful businessmen recognize the value in something that others do not see, but contribute little to the technical success.

    So if you view Musk as some sort of a technical wizard and genius after reading this, you are "in a cult". (Kind of like if you view Trump as a great businessman after all the evidence to the contrary, you are "in a cult".) His apparent lack of ethics is highly troubling for someone trusted to advise the president, but then again, the current president is not known for having any ethics.

    Author of Upcoming Elon Musk Biography Says ‘There Is No Evidence’ Billionaire Has Any ‘Intellectual Achievements’

     
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  2. citygator

    citygator VIP Member

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    Could be why he and Trump get along so well - 2 peas in a pod.

    I have no idea about his smarts or business luck but he cries for attention as much as Trump. Signs of insecurity abound. I’d compare to Bezos and Zuckerberg who may be as big of dorks and as greedy as the other two, but they aren’t begging the world for love and admiration daily. It’s pathetic.
     
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  3. WC53

    WC53 GC Hall of Fame

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  4. slocala

    slocala VIP Member

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    I find this type of hit job article to be distasteful. Has anyone seen his medical records and if he is on the spectrum and diagnosed with Asperger’s?

    Stipulate for a second that he is on the spectrum. WHO CARES?

    All of this shouldn’t have been part of the underlying premise of the article, which is that Musk is an opportunist who has managed to build a fortune on the backs of people who have created and he took the credit.

    No one believes that Musk “built” the underlying tech of PayPal, Tesla, SolarCity, Neuralink, SpaceX, he just has the capital to make other inventors’ and engineers’ dreams a reality.
     
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  5. thomadm

    thomadm VIP Member

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    Elon and his mother has said he has Asperger's. I assume Trump falls into the autism spectrum as well, since he doesn't pick up social cues well. Most boomers never got diagnosed since it wasn't a thing back then.

    As an engineer, his ideas are not revolutionary or groundbteaking, just about every industry he has been involved in is extremely derivative. IMHO, he's more businessman than scientist/engineer.
     
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  6. G8R92

    G8R92 GC Hall of Fame

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  7. slocala

    slocala VIP Member

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    Bingo, and he may not even be a good businessman. He has finance and other operators who know stuff he doesn’t. That’s the way the world works. Intelligence does not equal wealth.
     
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  8. BLING

    BLING GC Hall of Fame

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    He’s definitely at least very business savvy, you don’t get to be a key cog in so many successful startups without being extremely smart. I agree he’s probably not the inventor he wants everyone to see him as, but I’d guess he at least has enough of his own know-how to sort out merely good engineers or bullshitters from actual geniuses and then he lets those people get to work. I think that’s how companies like Intel get stuck, they hire many “good” or even excellent engineers and it turns into bureaucratic mess or too many cooks in the kitchen scenario where there is no vision.

    That being said, Tesla in particular has never traded on business fundamentals and behaves very much as a cult stock, with ever increasing series of undelivered promises to boot.

    I never really thought Elon as a bad guy until that issue with the cave rescue mission. Yesterday he got into it with an astronaut and called him “a retard” for daring to fact check him online, and it harkened back to that. I didn’t know about the 14 (known!) kids from 5 different women either until probably the last year or so. Apparently Grimes AND that MAGA chick who is his latest baby mama can’t even get in touch with him. Remember when it was such a big deal that Biden didn’t recognize an illegitimate grandchild? It’s wild how everything they accuse others turns out 10x worse.
     
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  9. CaptUSMCNole

    CaptUSMCNole Premium Member

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    You might want to read up a bit more on the "biographer" and his prior published works.

    FYI - There was already a thread about this book.
     
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  10. slocala

    slocala VIP Member

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    The eugenics stuff is all I needed to know. He is detached from our collective humanity.
     
  11. g8trjax

    g8trjax GC Hall of Fame

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    You guys really should pace yourselves, gonna be a long 4 years.
     
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  12. G8trGr8t

    G8trGr8t Premium Member

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    Did you know his dad married his step daughter.

    Elon Musk’s Dad Told Him on Father’s Day 2022 That He Fathered Second Child with Former Stepdaughter: Book
     
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  13. vaxcardinal

    vaxcardinal GC Hall of Fame

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  14. WarDamnGator

    WarDamnGator GC Hall of Fame

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    Musk said he has Asperger’s when he hosted SNL. Doesn’t seem to be disputed.
     
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  15. GatorTheo

    GatorTheo GC Legend

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    Long and entertaining.
     
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  16. slocala

    slocala VIP Member

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    Which is my point. If the article and author are going to punch down on IQ, have the intellectual fortitude to write a balanced critique. There is so much more to critique about Musk than some IQ fiction.
     
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  17. rivergator

    rivergator Too Hot Mod Moderator VIP Member

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    Just Imagine if he was smart and had a few business skills. :cool:
     
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  18. WarDamnGator

    WarDamnGator GC Hall of Fame

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    I was responding to your question:

    “Has anyone seen his medical records and if he is on the spectrum and diagnosed with Asperger’s?”

    You don’t need to see his medical records to discuss his Asperger’s unless you think he’s lying about that.
     
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  19. ncargat1

    ncargat1 GC Hall of Fame

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    I have tried to say exactly that on this board in multiple threads and the MAGA zombies come out in force. Musk's only genius has been to take Tesla from its creators and parlay that money into whatever the hell he felt like funding.
     
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  20. chemgator

    chemgator GC Hall of Fame

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    Just to be clear, if you are in a cult, you should give the OP a "Come on man" rating. Let's not have any "funny" ratings--that's just going halfway. You are either in the cult, or you are not in the cult. (You can give this post a funny rating. Because it is kinda funny, in spite of it also being tragic.)
     
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