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riphitter t1_iu46j92 wrote

I heard recently he didn't even found it. He joined as an investor and then got legal made a cofounder after the fact.

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SiegeGoatCommander t1_iu5dw0h wrote

Yeah, the contracts the actual founders signed when they sold him Tesla stipulated that he could use the title 'founder,' and they couldn't talk to anyone about it.

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IQueryVisiC t1_iu7ugaw wrote

Steve Wozniak build the Apple 1 and then with Steve Jobs it became a company. Before Musk Tesla only had a prototype like many electric enthusiasts had in their garage. With Musk it became a company with business plan and sales.

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SiegeGoatCommander t1_iu7vkqu wrote

Except Jobs didn't exactly tell Woz to fuck off and make him sign something promising not to talk about inventing the thing

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ringobob t1_iu5pmmj wrote

As others said, he came in and made a deal with the founders to also call himself a founder, and eventually the other founders left.

They were pretty early, it's not correct to say that Musk was the only driver of innovation in the early days, nor is it correct to say he had nothing to do with an otherwise fully functioning car manufacturer. It's not clear based on what I've read exactly whose idea it was to make their initial effort a performance car, but that decision was key to making electric cars something the public took an interest in, and Musk had a hand in some of the design choices supporting that decision according to other founders.

It's important to understand that Musk had a very real and present role in the early days of Tesla, so dismissing him as a co-founder simply because he came in when the number of employees was already greater than 0 isn't really right or fair, but neither is it right to say he did it all by himself and the other founders did nothing as is implied by many of his fanboys.

If nothing else, then the big takeaway is that you don't want Musk to hold financial control over your idea if you want to continue to be associated with it. Whatever he brings in terms of investment and decision making, his own credit will subsume yours.

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john_fartston t1_iu7uz8r wrote

yes, if you're going to criticize Elon for his false image criticize the fact that he never mentions the fact that he claims to come from humble beginnings when his father owned an emerald mine growing up

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TummyDrums t1_iuia3qj wrote

Musk is no doubt a successful businessman. He isn't however, the genius inventor that he portrays himself as. He sees a good idea, buys the company, and funds/expands it. Most of his companies were all existing entities with established ideas before he got involved with them. He's not the innovator himself, he just pays other people to innovate. He'd like you to think its all him, though.

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NorwayNarwhal t1_iu7fxrn wrote

One of my high school friends is the son of one of the original founders. I would spend every Christmas eve at their house.

Musk wasn’t involved until well after Tesla was already established. They built the roadster before Elon butted in. Literally all he did was buy them out and slap his name on it.

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wasdlmb t1_iu7hwej wrote

That's... not true. Elon Musk was the biggest investor and chairman since 2004, less than a year after the company was founded. He became CEO in 2008, a year before the Roadster was released.

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NorwayNarwhal t1_iu7li4x wrote

The roadster was released well after the first one was built and designed. They built one and sold it for a tremendous amount to build capital, then started a small production run

Edit: I am wrong. Oops. Still gonna insist my friend’s dad was far more instrumental than elon was, but I’m certainly biased

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KeckyOK t1_iu4tg97 wrote

Twitter is just a repeat. He bought some stock, then moved up to purchasing the company and vacating its CEO position.

..and I guess he's like Edison too, while not robbing Nikola Tesla's inventions directly but pretty much using his name to give an EV company some 'sciency cred'.

The Nikola company tried to do the same thing with EV trucks, but that was just a scam from the very start.

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Reefer-eyed_Beans t1_iu6c6fz wrote

Nope not at all. You know it's a stretch if you're comparing two people yet saying of one of them, "while not..." doing what the other person was doing.

Edison took credit for inventions that weren't his. Elon Musk invested in a company already named "Tesla"... the "sciency cred" coming from Tesla being one of the inventors of the electric induction motor. There's 0 comparability in these scenarios.

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dewayneestes t1_iu6l4v4 wrote

I think it’s important to be respectful of the truly amazing technological feat that a Tesla vehicle is. Watch the 8hr takeapart of a wrecked model 3, it’s truly amazing tech. I’m not saying Elon is the reason, but the cars are truly innovative.

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Hot_Carpenter8959 t1_iu68ju6 wrote

Buying Tesla before they even made a vehicle and turning it into a real car company, staking your whole net worth on it and buying Twitter after it's fully developed are not the same thing.

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DRY_D3Y t1_iu87upf wrote

But he didn’t buy Tesla before they made the Roadster. He didn’t stake all his net worth on it, not even close to it, not to mention that he had already lost all his money once at learned daddy warbucks will feed into his dumb bullshit over and over again. Elon is nothing but a spoiled idiotic entitled little boy who is currently waking up to the fact that he as amounted to nothing and no one can actually stand him or his unjust fame he just bought

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Iz-kan-reddit t1_iu5mvy8 wrote

While technically true, Tesla was nothing but a name and an idea at the time.

The company was only a few months old.

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alilbleedingisnormal t1_iu6hxi9 wrote

The only company Musk built instead of buying was Boring Company and it's idiotic.

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Voodoo_Masta t1_iu71108 wrote

Not actually true.

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alilbleedingisnormal t1_iu74g7n wrote

Is there another company he started that isn't a subway but stupid?

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TheMisterTango t1_iu75usc wrote

He founded SpaceX in 2002

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alilbleedingisnormal t1_iu79si8 wrote

Huh! I had heard he bought SpaceX. I still see no reason to fly rich people into space and not leave them there.

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TheMisterTango t1_iu7abb3 wrote

SpaceX isn’t flying rich people to space, SpaceX has flown something like 20 astronauts to the space station, while doing it for cheaper than nasa could have ever dreamed of doing itself. Plus all of the various other customers that SpaceX has.

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alilbleedingisnormal t1_iu7bqrx wrote

NASA could but NASA doesn't have to. That's the difference. Musk doesn't have some secret knowledge.

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AllCingEyeDog t1_iu7u2mr wrote

Without the restrictions of govt red tape, SpaceX is able to land and reuse boosters.

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TheMisterTango t1_iu99min wrote

He doesn't need to have secret knowledge, contrary to the reddit circlejerk he is just genuinely knowledgeable and involved in the engineering process at SpaceX, and he surrounds himself with world class engineers. Obviously he isn't doing everything himself, but people acting like he is completely uninvolved in his companies is simply an ignorant take.

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durgadas t1_iu69ewl wrote

Now the "founder" of Twitter, and apparently the actual father of the original Nikola Tesla himself!

The only mystery larger than why we throw cash at this crazy person is why we throw it at any Kardashian.

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skgody t1_iu5t98m wrote

The company hadn’t really done anything until Elon joined.

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ArbutusPhD t1_iu7he3r wrote

He initially thought he was going to get to literally milk Tesla, and thereby gain his power.

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New-Topic2603 t1_iu4v9d7 wrote

Yep that's what he did, it raises questions on all the the claims hes made.

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bubblesort33 t1_iu6hcf2 wrote

What's actually required to be a real founder? I feel like anyone that comes in before a single product is sold, or the product is even half way done engineer, seems like a founder to me. Or is it actually a legal term that is decided when they apply for a business license?

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TheAres1999 t1_iu4iudm wrote

He is also awarded way more credit for technology innovations than he is due

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concept_I t1_iu6c2vp wrote

Yeah, people talk about him like he is designing and building rockets all by himself.

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Sasso-ta t1_iu6uxrx wrote

Same way people talk about Steve Jobs designing and building computers.

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day7seven t1_iu4ootp wrote

Kind of like Steve Jobs but neither Apple nor Tesla would have accomplished as much without Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Sure other people did most of the work but they would not have as much success without their cult leaders.

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TheAres1999 t1_iu4ql6z wrote

I guess without Musk investing his emerald money in the tech geniuses, their projects couldn't have gotten very far. You need a business man to fund your operation. He does have 3 of his own design patents. I just wish people would stop treating him like a Tony Stark type.

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day7seven t1_iu4uyj2 wrote

I think both of their greatest skills are being hype men. Not many people have the ability to make millions of customers so loyal to their brands.

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Teddy_Icewater t1_iu61abn wrote

Well then you came to the right place because nobody on Reddit treats him like a Tony Stark type.

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Iz-kan-reddit t1_iu5n16o wrote

>I guess without Musk investing his emerald money in the tech geniuses,

What emerald money. Musk has a lot of faults, but that's not a reason to make up bullshit.

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ultinateplayer t1_iu5v16h wrote

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-made-money-rich-b2212599.html

Musk "walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pockets".

His seed money came from his dad, that money came from a profitable emerald venture amongst other things.

So that emerald money.

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Iz-kan-reddit t1_iu5y22n wrote

>Musk "walked the streets of New York with emeralds in his pockets".

As a teen, with daddy's emeralds, not his.

>His seed money came from his dad,

He disputes that, saying his dad didn't invest until a later funding round. In any case, it was $28K, which is a pittance when building a billion dollar fortune.

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REDGOESFASTAH t1_iu51zqt wrote

What kind of culture and society are we perpetuating when we worship such a monstrous psychopathic thief.

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KaladinarLighteyes t1_iu5d6fo wrote

A a capitalist one

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Sasso-ta t1_iu6uzck wrote

A prosperous one.

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DRY_D3Y t1_iu8880c wrote

Ah yes, the only prosperous society where Kids are dying left and right with the two most common reasons being gun violence or poverty. How prosperous when only 10% of the country have no debt, prosperous is when laws are only for the poor, prosperous is when 1% of your citizens have more money than they and the next 5 generations could ever spend, yet people starve to death every day, all across your great “prosperous” United States of Suffering

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New-Topic2603 t1_iu4vqmw wrote

I do wonder with these scenarios how much of it is really down to the man themself and how much is down to a marketing plan.

I mean, trump had enough of a good PR department to become president, who's to say a random guy couldn't be the face of one of these brands with a good team doing PR and telling him what to say?

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kush125289 t1_iu5pgea wrote

It's not a joke. These are facts.

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Reefer-eyed_Beans t1_iu6emwi wrote

To the confidently stupid kids of reddit, perhaps.

Otherwise it's so devoid of fact, it's hard to even see how it qualifies as a "joke". Never mind Elon not "milking" Tesla at all, in any sense... but how did Edison continue to milk Tesla after his death when he'd already been dead himself for over a decade?

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brainwashedASSHOLE t1_iu48rwa wrote

He is a grifter using tax payer dollars to fund his businesses. Fun fact, his dad got his step sister pregnant twice. Elon also has 10 children with 4 different women. He is a chip off the old block.

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AirbagOff t1_iu4dsto wrote

Good ol’ “Space Karen”.

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BloodAndSand44 t1_iu5on4f wrote

Edison “invented” things that others had invented and sold them as his.

Elon invests in companies and makes it look like he created them.

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kimthealan101 t1_iu7ochu wrote

Do you mean Musk is a complete ass who got rich on the ideas of others then claimed those ideas as his own?

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EyeSpyNicolai t1_iu5klff wrote

Uhhh.... who's getting milked?

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CyberNinja23 t1_iu5ocmh wrote

You can milk anything with nipples

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1TenDesigns t1_iu65y6c wrote

Fuck you and your Luke Skywalker mental imagery.

Fuck...

I need brain bleach now.

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Mikesaidit36 t1_iu7r5em wrote

My theory is that it seems to take a megalomaniacal narcissist like Elon Musk to be able to push through ideas like full self driving (pretty implausible from the start and even now), six kinds of farts available on the touchscreen (totally juvenile), and unnecessarily crazy-fast acceleration (also juvenile but with HUGE appeal to 49 year old juveniles with big piles of money), while at the same time going as far into debt as Tesla did only to emerge as a success. No corporation with a responsible board of directors would ever be able ever do amy of that. Ford will never come out with an electric car with six kinds of farts named after a pet projects of its founder, guaranteed. (Do people know that those different kinds of farts are more or less named after Elon Musk‘s detractors?)

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e1p1 t1_iu7qsu2 wrote

When you learn that Edison was an opportunistic a******, who cheated people out of their patents and ruthlessly pursued Fame and Fortune... then yes. A good comparison.

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Specific_Welder_3967 t1_iu6ijip wrote

Edison at least created a DC generator-Musk only creates his stools in a toilet.

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LigmaBahlls t1_iu89mzh wrote

So many musk bootlicker fanbois in this comment section.

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SandyGibson63 t1_iu8bdzt wrote

The richest man in the world at age 49 and a true visionary with the balls to speak his mind and invest in and create things that most others wouldn't dare. Looks like a lot of sour grapes on this thread.

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teejaysaz t1_iu9hi0z wrote

Its not an outright attack on Elon.

The point of the joke is simply that Elon is no inventor, and we all know it. Much like Edison, he stands on the backs of lesser geeks and takes the credit.

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watermelonspanker t1_iu6prry wrote

Because he's an immoral capitalist who profits off of other people's ideas?

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NoRealId t1_iu7pez9 wrote

Who TF is Nicolai!? If you mean NIKOLA then that is a really disrespectful not knowing the actual f#cking name of one of greatest minds ever!

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Mrjoker2-4 t1_iu65h4x wrote

If that’s the case why have mankind benefited from Elon vs Edison

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Mocha-Jello t1_iu6jetl wrote

Easy answer: we absolutely have not benefitted from either

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Conscious_Ad_6572 t1_iu6mo49 wrote

Elon is amazing, stop nit picking cause he finally rich

a man can only do so much, expecting end to end solution is crazy

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Zdaman1993 t1_iu74orn wrote

He’s a racist colonizer white “African”. A white can never be African. Fuck him.

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