Musk on the Edge?

louis · 2018-08-17 06:30:10

If you're concerned about Mars colonisation, you have to be concerned about Musk and in particular his physical and mental health because, without him, I don't think we are getting there any time soon...So this latest article coming after a number of erratic statements, tweets and confessions about his family life are somewhat concerning:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article … rview.html

GW Johnson · 2018-08-17 08:36:30

Workaholics usually do implode at least once before they die. He has too big a mouth on Twitter. If he had kept his more shut, he wouldn't be in trouble with the SEC. Trying to influence the market from behind the scenes is a crime. In his case it probably wasn't intentional. How the SEC responds, well, we'll see. But I think this will pass.

Meanwhile, he needs to relax now and then. Get away from work. Unless he can do that, he will stay addicted to the drugs, and become increasingly erratic behaviorally. I've seen this before, we all have. His relatives should probably attempt an intervention.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-08-17 08:37:08)

SpaceNut · 2018-08-17 16:54:06

We saw the first sort of crack come shortly after the cave rescue when there was a small slip of the tongue about one of the rescuers.

High strain and stress from all of the work plus the cheering leading will cause even more until there is reached a breaking point.

louis · 2018-08-17 17:01:47

I think you're right SpaceNut...that's when I became concerned. Up until that point I thought he'd been handling the media/PR pretty well (because he has been swimming with sharks for the last 16 years - there are lot of space-orientated companies that would have liked to have eaten him for breakfast several times over...he seemed pretty good at avoiding the teeth).

If he is really having a breakdown it's really sad. I've seen people at work in leadership positions have serious mental breakdowns or display serious dementia symptoms... no one near them will tell them the truth...there's a huge amount of denial goes on in those situations.

Still, he's a remarkable person...let's hope somehow he can steer through this. But it doesn't sound good...

I have some hope someone could pick up the baton on Space X, someone equally committed to the Mars Goal. Musk has created a v. viable business model.

SpaceNut wrote:

We saw the first sort of crack come shortly after the cave rescue when there was a small slip of the tongue about one of the rescuers.
High strain and stress from all of the work plus the cheering leading will cause even more until there is reached a breaking point.

kbd512 · 2018-08-17 20:23:46

I think he needs to decide between running Tesla and running SpaceX. Between the two, I think SpaceX suits him better than Tesla. The automotive industry is a cutthroat line of business with unrelenting pressure to perform. Being an established player means very little if you don't make your numbers, but it's even worse for startups. Mostly, I think he needs to get some sleep and spend more time with his family. Working 80+ hours a week is only beneficial to your business when you can sustain that time investment. For a very few, they wouldn't be happy doing anything else. For everyone else, there needs to be a balance between home and work life. There are a lot of more interesting things he could do with his time than watching cars roll off the assembly line and answering inane questions at meetings.

louis · 2018-08-17 20:50:55

I think you are probably right about choosing between Tesla and Space X...Space X is a go-it-alone enterprise that is so far ahead of the competition that he doesn't need to look over his shoulder, he just needs to focus on the task and the objective. So I would hope he forgets everything else and focuses on Mars.

But he is a human being and so v. complex...how this ends up I don't know, I just selfishly hope it doesn't impact negatively on the Mars project.

kbd512 wrote:

I think he needs to decide between running Tesla and running SpaceX. Between the two, I think SpaceX suits him better than Tesla. The automotive industry is a cutthroat line of business with unrelenting pressure to perform. Being an established player means very little if you don't make your numbers, but it's even worse for startups. Mostly, I think he needs to get some sleep and spend more time with his family. Working 80+ hours a week is only beneficial to your business when you can sustain that time investment. For a very few, they wouldn't be happy doing anything else. For everyone else, there needs to be a balance between home and work life. There are a lot of more interesting things he could do with his time than watching cars roll off the assembly line and answering inane questions at meetings.

Oldfart1939 · 2018-08-18 07:19:53

Seems that Elon has too many irons in the fire. He has the Photovoltaic panel business, Tesla, and SpaceX. I would advise him to focus on SpaceX of these ventures. As Louis pointed out, he's moved it further ahead of all other players in the industry that he should relax and enjoy watching them outperform everyone else on the planet. The car business--nope. Too dog-eat-dog and cutthroat.

EdwardHeisler · 2018-08-18 07:22:23

GW Johnson wrote:

he will stay addicted to the drugs, and become increasingly erratic behaviorally.
GW

What drugs is Elon Musk addicted to and can you provide links.

GW Johnson · 2018-08-18 09:37:03

Any of the news stories have this, including the one in Louis's first post above. Musk himself says he must have Ambien to sleep at all. Effectively, that is addiction.

I agree with Oldfart1939 that Musk has too many irons in the fire. I don't know about his solar panel/battery business, or his tunnel-boring business, but Tesla is demanding more attention from him than just one man can provide.

Spacex is the exception: he has Glynn Shotwell to make his dreams reality there. He has no one in that role at Tesla, and that is why there are so many troubles at Tesla, and the demand for top leadership is so high.

What that really says is that you need both the dreamer to set lofty goals, and the can-do go-getter to figure out how to really achieve them. No one person can be both. Shotwell is the force behind Falcon-9 and Falcon-Heavy. She will do the same with BFR/BFS, unless Musk implodes and effectively goes away. But she wouldn't do BFR/BFS by herself. That dream comes from Musk.

It takes both types in the top leadership to make it happen. You cannot do it with only one. And no one person can be both. That's fundamentally what's wrong at Tesla.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-08-18 09:39:14)

louis · 2018-08-18 10:51:15

To be fair, my understanding is that in the early days Musk did a lot of the Falcon 1 rocket design himself, did he not? - because they simply couldn't attract rocket engineers to his infant company. Anyway, be that as it may, I think it's pretty clear now he's got way too much going on (several huge development projects) - all against the background of a toxic birth family background and I think ongoing relationship problems...plus what appears to be some type of drug addiction.

It's possible that he is only now beginning to see many of the problems and issues associated with Mars colonisation as the dream approaches reality - all the stuff we have discussed here: personnel selection, governance, habitat design, energy generation, life support, off-Earth agriculture, industrial infrastructure development, propellant production, radiation risks, surface transport, microgravity disease, legal framework, Outer Space Treaty compliance, how to protect possible Mars life, funding/sponsorship, relationship with NASA... etc etc. Each one is a huge issue in itself that breaks down into a hundred or thousand parts.

GW Johnson wrote:

Any of the news stories have this, including the one in Louis's first post above. Musk himself says he must have Ambien to sleep at all. Effectively, that is addiction.
I agree with Oldfart1939 that Musk has too many irons in the fire. I don't know about his solar panel/battery business, or his tunnel-boring business, but Tesla is demanding more attention from him than just one man can provide.
Spacex is the exception: he has Glynn Shotwell to make his dreams reality there. He has no one in that role at Tesla, and that is why there are so many troubles at Tesla, and the demand for top leadership is so high.
What that really says is that you need both the dreamer to set lofty goals, and the can-do go-getter to figure out how to really achieve them. No one person can be both. Shotwell is the force behind Falcon-9 and Falcon-Heavy. She will do the same with BFR/BFS, unless Musk implodes and effectively goes away. But she wouldn't do BFR/BFS by herself. That dream comes from Musk.
It takes both types in the top leadership to make it happen. You cannot do it with only one. And no one person can be both. That's fundamentally what's wrong at Tesla.
GW

Oldfart1939 · 2018-08-18 12:37:35

louis wrote:

It's possible that he is only now beginning to see many of the problems and issues associated with Mars colonisation as the dream approaches reality - all the stuff we have discussed here: personnel selection, governance, habitat design, energy generation, life support, off-Earth agriculture, industrial infrastructure development, propellant production, radiation risks, surface transport, microgravity disease, legal framework, Outer Space Treaty compliance, how to protect possible Mars life, funding/sponsorship, relationship with NASA... etc etc. Each one is a huge issue in itself that breaks down into a hundred or thousand parts.

This pretty well sums it up into a very large nutshell.

Musk needs to join this group!

Last edited by Oldfart1939 (2018-08-18 12:38:19)

louis · 2018-08-18 13:19:40

Yep, I'm sure we could help!

Oldfart1939 wrote:

louis wrote:
It's possible that he is only now beginning to see many of the problems and issues associated with Mars colonisation as the dream approaches reality - all the stuff we have discussed here: personnel selection, governance, habitat design, energy generation, life support, off-Earth agriculture, industrial infrastructure development, propellant production, radiation risks, surface transport, microgravity disease, legal framework, Outer Space Treaty compliance, how to protect possible Mars life, funding/sponsorship, relationship with NASA... etc etc. Each one is a huge issue in itself that breaks down into a hundred or thousand parts.
This pretty well sums it up into a very large nutshell.
Musk needs to join this group!

SpaceNut · 2018-08-18 17:40:17

GW Johnson wrote:

I agree with Oldfart1939 that Musk has too many irons in the fire. I don't know about his solar panel/battery business, or his tunnel-boring business, but Tesla is demanding more attention from him than just one man can provide. Spacex is the exception: he has Glynn Shotwell to make his dreams reality there. He has no one in that role at Tesla, and that is why there are so many troubles at Tesla, and the demand for top leadership is so high.

Sounds to me like he needs a few more "Glynn Shotwell to make his dreams" so that he can focus on the big picture that to which is not the day to day business all of which is pull him down but to work the think tank reality which looks at the world through his eyes in the others ways.

GW Johnson · 2018-08-22 09:47:32

Hi Spacenut:

Yep, Musk needs some more "Shotwells", particularly in the auto manufacturing business for Tesla. The published nonsense about 120-hour weeks would push anyone over the edge, and in short order.

I think I have noticed an uptick in spammer posts, including multiple examples in the MetaNewMars category.

GW

SpaceNut · 2018-08-22 16:56:30

Ya saw the spam at work but can not take care of it there only monitor whats going on, had to wait until I got home to get on my own computer to remove it and thanks to all the other reports of these acts as it helps...

SpaceNut · 2018-08-26 15:41:14

Musk was ready to dump Tesla but as of this week While Musk does not technically control the company's fate — he owns about 20 percent of it — he exerts tremendous control over its future.

CEO Elon Musk after an Aug. 7 tweet about taking Tesla Inc private that sparked an SEC investigation has said Friday the electric vehicle manufacturer will stay public as Tesla’s shareholders are largely opposed to a go-private deal.

Musk stunned investors earlier this month when he tweeted that he was considering turning the company into a private entity with "funding secured."

Questions immediately arose regarding whether he had truly lined up enough support to do the deal — and now the Securities and Exchange Commission is said to be scrutinizing the process.

The primary advantage of going private was to escape scrutiny over quarterly earnings and vehicle sales in favor of focusing on long-term growth plans.

But analysts noted that Tesla investors have not typically punished the company for losing money and falling short of production goals. Instead, the company has repeatedly been rewarded with additional capital that has funded its rise.

Tesla must remain focused on ramping Model 3 production and achieving profitability, he said. “We will not achieve our mission of advancing sustainable energy unless we are also financially sustainable.” Musk continues to have the board’s backing, the six directors of the company’s independent board members have said.

GW Johnson · 2018-08-27 10:23:23

Well, he got himself in a tad of trouble with the SEC by shooting off his mouth too soon in public with that tweet. He'll get past that, he didn't really actually do anything, and Tesla's board has nixed it anyway.

The overwork problem does lead to fuzzy thinking, which may be why he did what he did. That needs a solution. Musk himself is no manufacturer of automobiles, any more than he was an expert rocket designer (the teething troubles getting Falcon-1 to fly prove that assertion). He needs such a one to run Tesla for him. He has one in Shotwell at Spacex, which is why Spacex is doing OK even though Musk is busy essentially all the time at Tesla.

Running successful large business enterprises single-handedly is a fiction. Musk is no exception.

GW

louis · 2018-08-27 13:49:02

I don't see how Space X can go ahead successfully with Mars colonisation without a plan. Maybe there is a plan, maybe there isn't. If there isn't, I think they are going to go down a lot of wrong paths. Ideally they should opt for a 20 year timeframe for the plan which would cover personnel selection, population growth, governance, energy, propellant production, hab construction, industrial infrastructure, agriculture and so on. Based on our experience of the Antarctic, a population target of 5,000 in 20 years' time would be reasonable I feel.

GW Johnson wrote:

Well, he got himself in a tad of trouble with the SEC by shooting off his mouth too soon in public with that tweet. He'll get past that, he didn't really actually do anything, and Tesla's board has nixed it anyway.
The overwork problem does lead to fuzzy thinking, which may be why he did what he did. That needs a solution. Musk himself is no manufacturer of automobiles, any more than he was an expert rocket designer (the teething troubles getting Falcon-1 to fly prove that assertion). He needs such a one to run Tesla for him. He has one in Shotwell at Spacex, which is why Spacex is doing OK even though Musk is busy essentially all the time at Tesla.
Running successful large business enterprises single-handedly is a fiction. Musk is no exception.
GW

SpaceNut · 2018-08-27 18:05:49

A launch provider for mars does not a mission designer make....
BFR requires life support to which just going to iss is still waiting to be proven and that is not even close to what we need for a mars mission from start to finish.

Oldfart1939 · 2018-08-28 10:41:38

Now Musk is under attack in the media. Following article, with which I am in extreme disagreement, attacks Musk and paints him as deranged with a very broad brush:

https://townhall.com/columnists/mytheos … profileid=

I had never heard of the author before, but the outpouring of hatred for the man is evident in many, but not all, of the comment letters following the article.

We all understand that Elon may have bitten off more than he can chew with Tesla, but has superachieved with SpaceX.

GW Johnson · 2018-08-28 11:53:42

Anybody who is successful to the point of public notice will draw enemies as well as friends. Musk is definitely now in such territory, Oldfart1939.

He needs to solve his Tesla problem. Eventually, he will need to interact with Shotwell at Spacex to bring BFR/BFS to fruition. It is the pair of them interacting that is the secret to Spacex's success thus far. He is the dreamer that sets the goals. She is the doer that makes them come true. Neither can fulfill the other's role adequately.

As for "Mars colonization plan", Louis, one must recognize the difference between a dream and a plan. Musk's dream is to colonize Mars. Musk's plan is to build a vehicle that could make such possible. And a lot more than just a vehicle is required to turn dream to plan. Colonization is short by multiple items. Only one of which is the machinery to refill BFS on Mars.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-08-28 11:55:25)

Oldfart1939 · 2018-08-28 13:57:55

Musk himself has said that SpaceX is a "Transportation Company." He cannot make the colonization "happen" alone. There must be other doers besides Shotwell and Musk.

kbd512 · 2018-08-28 14:08:29

Oldfart1939,

Are people actually paying attention to other people bad-mouthing Elon Musk when they've never even met him?

Musk is no more crazy than anyone else who puts in 120 hour work weeks. This is why I ignore all the crap printed in the media. All we seem to get these days are ignorant opinions from sad, spiteful little people who hate watching the success of other people who put in the hard work and waste no opportunity to disparage them. Meanwhile, Musk is busy running 3 major companies.

The problems at Tesla could be easily fixed by hiring someone from Ford, Toyota, or GM to come in and solve the problems. Does it matter greatly if Tesla delivered 2,995 cars and promised 3,000? If 3,000 were promised, but only 1,000 delivered, then that's a different problem. Tesla is going through the growing pains that major car manufacturers all experience. There's a learning curve that looks like the face of a cliff. That's why so few new car manufacturers come along. It's not an easy thing to do.

As I've said before, I think SpaceX suits Mr. Musk better than Tesla. He needs to find someone competent to fix the problems at those other companies and focus his effort somewhere, preferably SpaceX. As long as a 2.5kWh/kg battery is required to effect the switch to battery from gas, the only people who are going to "change the world" in that regard are the people who build a better battery. Tesla makes batteries using technology that others have created, so that probably won't be them, except when it actually comes time to make better batteries.

Oldfart1939 · 2018-08-28 14:37:44

kbd512-

I respect Mr. Musk highly! He's going through what many high level executives do, except he's doing it 3X more with three major companies. I simply posted the article here, as Elon needs defenders and supporters. Most of the blowhards on these websites know NOTHING about the complexity of what he's chosen to do with SpaceX. They sit at their terminals day after day and spout meaningless drivel.

GW Johnson · 2018-08-28 14:42:03

Don't get me wrong! I respect Mr. Musk, too. He has done absolutely incredible things. It's just that I am a realist, and I know he is no superman.

GW

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Musk on the Edge?

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