>SpaceX employees say they are relieved Elon Musk is focused on Twitter because there is a calmer work environment at the rocket company
He sounds like that kind of boss we have all had where you actively avoid interacting with him because his ideas will be stupid and get your project off track. I think SpaceX succeeds despite having to deal with current Elon.
Having read the Isaacson biography, Elon’s management style is essentially to be hands off then show up in “surges” of extreme work. It makes sense that most people would be happy when surges end.
There’s also essentially zero chance his organizations succeed in spite of him. This is just wishful ignorance.
What evidence do you offer that there is no chance of SpaceX succeeding in spite of Elon Musk? I really don't have enough detailed knowledge about his actual contributions to the various companies he runs.
But given the sheer number of projects at the companies he runs I don't find it hard to believe that he is largely not responsible for the technical successes. Again, I have no evidence for it, but it would not be hard to believe. Do you have anything other than faith for that statement?
The fact that none of the other space startups prior to SpaceX, which had access to more resources, succeeded? Same goes with Tesla. You have to really stretch believability to argue that the one factor in common between two companies which broke into extremely hard to break into industries and ushered in paradigm shifts, happened to do so for no reason related to that common factor, let alone arguing that they did so in-spite of that common factor.
We also have pretty detailed books on the history of SpaceX, written from employee interviews, which also indicate that Musk is fairly hands on. There's also this tweet from the designer of the Merlin rocket engine that is usually thrown around when these kinds of claims are made: https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceXMasterrace/comments/15am9pl/t...
There are plenty of very respected people confirming that Elon is extremely hands on and key to Starship development. Also SpaceX engineers who worked directly with him on Reddit - take a look, it's interesting to read.
He's not doing the nitty gritty engineering day-to-day, but he understands enough to ask the right questions, give his teams permission to try ideas that seem crazy at first, and sometimes come up with those ideas himself (e.x. supposedly catching Starship with "chopsticks" was his idea).
Tesla in 2024 is certainly succeeding in spite of Elon. From firing the supercharging team because he had some kind of mental break to the tens of millions of dollars and engineering hours wasted on the cybertruck instead of another practical vehicle he clearly isn't contributing much to what is at this point a matured company that doesn't need a maniac (for better or worse) at the helm.
What you say makes sense, but this isn't the first time he's acted this way at any of his companies and they're all still going well. At some point you have to admit either his methods work or there's more to him than what you the general public see.
Elon was fired from Paypal. He didn't know the platform, didn't really bring much to the table, and just pissed off the board. He got rich because he got to keep his stock. So I'd say yes, Paypal succeeded in spite of him.
SpaceX is doing well because of Gwynne Shotwell the COO. She's been able to keep Elon out of the weeds and basically at arms length. Let's not forget Tom Mueller who basically created the entire propulsion platform.
When Elon gets involved he makes silly things like the Cybertruck. Completely useless, poorly engineered, and overpriced garbage.
https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-employees-elon-musk-f...
>SpaceX employees say they are relieved Elon Musk is focused on Twitter because there is a calmer work environment at the rocket company
He sounds like that kind of boss we have all had where you actively avoid interacting with him because his ideas will be stupid and get your project off track. I think SpaceX succeeds despite having to deal with current Elon.