Hehehe you don't sound like a fan Jeff 😉

I am critical of a number of things he does and says, but I try to give a balanced picture. I also wrote a defense of Musk here: https://erik-engheim.medium.com/a-letter-to-elon-musk-haters-3c0f895a52dc

For instance the Emerald mine story is almost complete fabrication. https://savingjournalism.substack.com/p/i-talked-to-elon-musk-about-journalism

Elon Musk did not come to North America as a rich man. He came with $2000 in his pocket. He worked on farms, cleaned chimneys in factories and all sorts of shitty jobs to finance his studies. He racked up $100 000 in student debt.

With his first company Zip2, they could not afford an apartment or two computers as far as I remember. They would sleep in the office and take turns programming on the single computer they had. While one was sleeping, the other one was programming.

The Musk family actually had a lot of financial difficulty. His parents split and the mom had to work several jobs to make ends meet. His father was absolutely horrible from what I hear. He never had a good relation with him. He didn't give him a penny when Elon Musk ran away from South Africa to avoid serving in the Apartheid army suppressing black people. Not an unsual thing for South Africans. I remember hanging out in the house of a South African when I was a kid. He had also left to avoid serving the Apartheid regime he opposed.

I don't like what Elon Musk is doing with crypto. But it is also not entirely susprising. Remember Elon Musk was part owner of PayPal and helped create one of our first widely used electronic payment systems. He knows a lot about electronic money and has interest in it.

Yes, Elon Musk was not the nicest person in how he took over Tesla, but at the same time there is no doubt that he built the Tesla success. And Tesla is indeed profitable. It has had 9 quarters straight with profit. I know it was a truthism passed around a long time that Tesla would never make money. But now they do.

I think people should look at Elon Musk like a rock star. You can like their music without liking the person. Likewise it should be possible to be impressed with Elon Musk achievements while not necessarily liking the guy.