Inside the Mind of the $20 Billion Dollar Man: Elon Musk Internal Letter to Employees

[SouthernCharm]

From the horse's mouth:



Tesla alone has received ~$2.4B in government incentives and credits: Complete breakdown of the $4.9 billion in government support the LA Times claims Elon Musk’s companies are receiving

Who is paying for those incentives and credits?

I'm not hating on Elon, I like his vision and the products. However, I disagree with the blind praise and adoration for Musk, and how he consistently overpromises and under-delivers. He's not the supremely moral and benevolent genius that the media makes him out to be.

Agree that Elon probably gets more than his fair share of passes and praise due to the sheer magnitude of his endeavors and his general badassery. However, saying that he has squandered government money because he uses contractors and subcontractors is a little off the mark. I have worked as a consultant for all types of Fortune 1000 companies. Every large business uses a preposterous amount of contractors, consultants and subcontractors. Almost all of those contractors and consultants (our firm included) also use subcontractors. So with that logic, we'd have to say any company that has ever used the services of a consulting firm and has been incentivized by the government in some way has squandered money.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

At this point Elon is living in the Unscripted realm ... he's playing with FU money and FU time, pursuing passions and ventures that might never be profitable.

If the gubbermint says, "Hey, you wanna few extra billion to play in your sandbox?" who would refuse?

 

[Bennu]

Elon really has his stuff together. Two of the things giving me impetus is I want a Tesla and I want to take a SpaceX flight.

He's so right about meetings. Having been in companies that were addicted to endless meetings about stuff that could have been easily relayed in an email, I completely agree with him. Same about chain of command. When I had ideas, chain of command only made sure that I didn't get credit for them.

 

[biophase]

People respect action takers that tackle tough things. I heard this quote in a podcast, "Nobody looks up to the millionaire that's sits on the beach all day".

I'm a Musk fan, and I don't mean this to be political but let's just compare Musk's businesses to a handful of other billionaires. Suppose the government gave 10 billionaires, $2.4B in grants. How many would put that money to better use in R&D for the future. Isn't this what we want our money spent on?

 

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