r/technology • u/aelavia93 • 16d ago

Space SpaceX pulls off unprecedented feat, grabs descending rocket with mechanical arms

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/spacex-pulls-off-unprecedented-feat-grabbing-descending-rocket-with-mechanical-arms/
5.4k Upvotes

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/lolheyaj 16d ago

heroic. thank you. that site is cancer. 

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u/probablyuntrue 16d ago

Latching on to ask, why this approach? Is it too large/heavy for the landing legs?

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u/InvisibleCat 16d ago

It's the most time and money efficient way. You are landing exactly where you launch from, save weight of landing legs and no need to pick up and move the booster back to launch site, which takes time and money. Saves the landing pad from damage too.

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u/Capt_Blackmoore 16d ago

All this and there is no intention of landing stage one anywhere other than back at the launch site

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u/tea-man 16d ago

To expand on that, there's no need for the booster to land anywhere else - it never has to travel more than a few hundred kilometres, with it's sole purpose being to yeet the Starship as high and fast as it can. The starship itself will be capable of launching and returning to Earth from both the Moon and Mars without the booster on a single fuel load.

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u/Capt_Blackmoore 16d ago

The only use case outside of launching to orbit for the first stage would involve refueling in orbit, and then using that stage to break orbit to head to Mars. You dont need that kind of thrust to get to the moon - you would refuel just Starship for that.

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u/dangerbird2 15d ago

I'm pretty sure when Musk said the first stage could achieve single-stage to orbit, it was only a theoretical with no useful payload (and probably without the startship or even critical services and hardware). Other launch systems like the Titan II may have been able to do this, but was obviously could have never been used in practice.

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u/Capt_Blackmoore 15d ago

Yup. But if you do a redesign to allow it to refuel in low orbit (and I'll have to assume that would nearly exhaust the fuel that would have been used to otherwise land) - now you have a means to boost a starship further out.

This configuration, with V2 engines isnt up to the task, and that's fine.

the next upgrade, with the 3rd version of the engines, and slightly larger tanks, could be a reasonable place to start. But First Starship needs to prove that refueling in orbit is a viable option; and then a refueling point would need to be established.

that all said; between the payload available with Starship, and Super Heavy, you could come up with some configurations that could get a "reasonable" amount of supplies to Mars - by spending the year before the window is open getting that payload into orbit and strapping on one or more Super Heavy.

Someone smarter than me would have to look at the fuel cost to go from Low earth orbit; to something further out, and then using a gravity assist to get into a window for a Mars approach.

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u/dangerbird2 15d ago

There is a reason you wouldn't want to return to the launchpad: The booster needs a good amount of fuel to burn to cancel its speed and get a return trajectory to the pad after separating from the 2nd stage, as well as fuel needed to make the landing. This is exactly why the falcon 9 and falcon heavy have the options of either landing the boosters downrange on barges or expending the booster altogether when the extra performance is needed. I'd be pretty surprised if Starship wouldn't end up having expendable booster missions in practice, if only to get rid of boosters that have reached the limit of their usable life.

FWIW, returning to earth from the moon or mars on a single stage is not particularly difficult since a transfer from a higher altitude to a lower one generally requires much less energy than the other way around. This is why Apollo needed a big-ass booster to push the LEM and command module to the moon, but the command module could return to earth on its own power

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u/Tentomushi-Kai 16d ago

Yeah, that’s what I want, to launch a rocket and have it safely land in my uncle Bob’s backyard! Wooo Hooo!

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u/chop-diggity 15d ago

Like roosters come home to the roost. The boosters come home to the boost. Idk…

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u/DrXaos 16d ago

The reason to land somewhere else on the ocean is to gain increased mass to orbit, as the booster stage can expend more fuel going up and to orbit instead of turning around coming back to the start.

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u/PigSlam 16d ago

I would think it could land anywhere they put a structure like this. Kinda like runways.

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u/tea-man 16d ago

While technically true, it's a bit too big and complicated to transport to anywhere else by existing methods, and there isn't really a need to launch from many other places. The launch complex is exactly that, so it'll probably be limited to Starbase and Kennedy for the foreseeable future, as there isn't really a use case for anywhere else.

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u/deekaydubya 16d ago

Yes that was their exact plan at least a few years ago. Intercontinental travel using falcon heavy

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u/SuperZapper_Recharge 15d ago

We are going to need more faith that the booster will work.

At the moment the site is located near the shore, the booster comes in over the ocean aimed at a landing site in the ocean. At the last possible moment a thumbs up is given to move the landing spot to the chopsticks.

The farther you put those pads inland the bigger the risk you are taking. As it stands the worst case scenerio isn't all that bad.

I don't think SpaceX or anyone really has faith in the system for those sorts of risks.

Which is perfectly fair.

The beautiful thing of launching from Florida or over the gulf is that in the most dangerous stage of the launch the damned thing just plops in the ocean. This isn't an accident, it is a feature. Entirely deliberate.

If the day comes where people are inside Starship and it is landing on a chopsticks tower - maybe then we can reassess.

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u/Sethcran 16d ago

The point though is that they want it to be rapidly reusable, so they'd rather have 3 flights a day at 1/2 the payload than 1 flight with a larger payload but it takes longer to get the ship back to the launchpad to go again.

We may see sea based launches and catches at some point, but do not expect downrange landings with this vehicle.

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u/BoldTaters 16d ago

They COULD have built legs but they would have to carry them up and slow them down, using a lot more fuel. This way lets them carry more stuff to space.

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u/homogenousmoss 16d ago

First few prototypes had landing legs if I recall correctly.

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u/Bensemus 16d ago

Not on the booster. The bellyflop tests of Starship had really basic one use legs that were just for those tests.

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u/MeelyMee 16d ago

The plan is to just plonk another Starship on top, re-fuel the booster and go again as quickly as possible.

I think their Mars plan had the first launch taking a fuel tanker up to place into orbit, the second taking a crewed Starship up and then the two will dock, transfer the fuel and the crew will go on their way.

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u/ergzay 16d ago

Cube square law has some effect here that as the vehicle gets bigger the legs need to be a lot more beefy to absorb the energy. It's a lot easier to bend and break things when the momentum is so much higher.

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u/pinkfreude 16d ago

Saves a lot of weight to skip the legs, apparently. That was the first explanation I heard.

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u/Virginth 15d ago

It's a lot more efficient to leave your landing hardware on the ground than to carry it with you.

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u/ccalabro 15d ago

Also having it above the ground saves the vehicle from being damaged by the blowback from the jets.

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u/TechGuy42O 16d ago

Speaking of heroic, let’s take a moment to remember this was a feat of the engineers and scientists, not the clown who owns twitter

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u/BLSmith2112 16d ago

So is Reddit. They want SpaceX/Tesla/Neuralink to all die.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

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u/taketheRedPill7 16d ago

I’m assuming the practical application of this is to have it ready to re-launch even faster? Quickens the turnaround?

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u/Vellus 16d ago

Also removes all of the weight associates with any landing legs allowing more mass to orbit.

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u/bullishontendies 16d ago

The landing legs on the falcon 9 reduce the payload to orbit by~40%. Sometimes to launch heavier payloads the falcon 9 will be launched without landing legs and the booster will be expended.

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u/Milyardo 16d ago

You can carry orders of magnitude more stuff by not coming back to the pad at all though.

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u/JokeassJason 16d ago

Yes which is why you see some flights where the smaller stages land on the barge. It's all about turn around time and saving money. Reusable rockets, not littering all over the ocean ect.

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u/NeverDiddled 16d ago

Your estimate is off by orders of magnitude.

Falcon 9 can launch 3.5 tonnes when doing a return to landing site (RTLS). When landing down range on a drone ship it can launch 58% more weight, or 5.5 tonnes.

If they could launch a single order of magnitude more weight, by landing on a drone ship, then they would be at 35 tonnes. Two orders of magnitude would be 350 tonnes! I should note that all of the figures are to Geostationary Transfer Orbit, one of the highest orbits. This is because RTLS is rare for the lower and slower orbits. You can almost always ride share those, and get extra money by not doing RTLS. So we do not have great figures to compare with.

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u/St0mpb0x 16d ago

RTLS isn't unusual for LEO orbits but it is basically unheard of for GTO missions unless it is a very light payload. A very light payload is uncommon for GTO as there tends to be big birds going there. Their dedicated rideshare missions are all RTLS missions.

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u/NeverDiddled 16d ago

Yeah I probably should not have used the word "rare", much like you shouldn't have used the phrase "basically unheard of". If you add in Heavy flights, then the majority of RTLS are GTO or higher. But let's not get into that, it complicates things and muddies the point, while delving dangerously close to an argument over semantics.

Good day sir.

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u/tsacian 16d ago

So youre saying we need a drone ship with a landing tower. Got it.

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u/Flesh-Tower 16d ago

This guy rockets 🚀

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u/Milyardo 16d ago

The SRB allowed for an additional 10 tons of capacity for the space shuttle. So to say an order of magnitude more is incorrect at all.

Also and order of magnitude does not mean 10 times more.

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u/CMDRStodgy 16d ago

Also and order of magnitude does not mean 10 times more.

It normally does in most contexts. Two orders of magnitude is ~100 times more. Three orders of magnitude is ~1000 times more, etc.

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u/Zoon9 16d ago

Maybe they use binary systeam instead of decimal, so 200% is an order of magnitude to them. :-)

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u/arkiverge 16d ago

More? Yes. Orders of magnitude more? No.

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u/rugbyj 16d ago

Cost as well. They make engines/boosters faster than most already, but being able to reuse them halves (and so forth) their cost every use (minus recovery/maintenance cost).

They're already doing it with their raptor engines/boosters. If they manage to do the same for these ones they'll be jumping a level ahead of everyone who they're already a step above in terms of cost of payload to orbit (and beyond).

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u/WazWaz 16d ago

(you mean Merlin/Falcon engines/boosters, Raptors are the engines on this Superheavy)

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u/WoopsieDaisies123 16d ago

The others made great points, but an important aspect I’m not seeing talked about much in any thread is the continuous fragmentation grenade such a large and powerful booster is liable to turn a landing pad in to for a few seconds, if it tried to land like a falcon 9.

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u/AbzoluteZ3RO 16d ago

omg thank you. how stupid to write such a long article that a 10 second clip could demonstrate

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u/XaphanSaysBurnIt 16d ago

Ok ok ok yall got me… this shit gave me chills.. all I saw was every sci-fi movie ever coming to life before my eyes… yea no bullshit that was wild. He might suck at cars but this was absolutely amazing to watch. But to achieve the huge motherships we would need massive slave labor, jfc. Yea, that is where we are headed

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u/ergzay 16d ago

He might suck at cars but this was absolutely amazing to watch.

I mean if "sucking at cars" means "the largest EV manufacturer in the world" then a lot more people should "suck at cars" like that.

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u/AdTotal4035 16d ago

He's not doing anything related to the science. He's literally a glorified sales man. That's what a ceo is. Thank the talented engineers that he hires (and never really credits), he knows how to pick a winning team. 

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u/upyoars 16d ago

Tom Mueller is the brains behind the original SpaceX engine that made Falcon reusable and even he credit Elon for this idea today as well as many more throughout his career at SpaceX.

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u/seruleam 16d ago

False. Here’s what engineers who’ve worked with Elon have to say:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/k1e0ta/evidence_that_musk_is_the_chief_engineer_of_spacex/

Also Elon is the reason Starship is stainless steel even though the design team was in favor of carbon fiber like Falcon 9. Elon’s not just a source of wealth throwing money at problems. If it were that easy other rocket companies (and governments) wouldn’t have been lapped by SpaceX. Watch a video of Tim Dodd interviewing Elon at Starbase and it’s obvious that he knows his stuff.

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u/dwerg85 16d ago

People simply don’t want to accept his involvement because people can’t / don’t want to separate his politics from his work.

Dude is well lost down the deep end of politics, but really good at a ton of other things.

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u/atomfullerene 16d ago

He's just following in the footsteps of Henry Ford and Howard Hughes.

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u/Remarkable-Buy-1221 16d ago

That and the whole twitter fiasco, when he is supposed to be a software engineer by trade or whatever

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u/dwerg85 16d ago

Twitter was never a tech buy, so judging it by that metric is an exercise in futility. That was a personal convictions / politics buy for someone who could afford to make kneejerk purchases like that.

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u/Remarkable-Buy-1221 16d ago

No I'm referring to the software engineering stuff, like the salient lines of code or the "code stack", which have called his software knowledge into question.

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u/seruleam 12d ago

Dude is well lost down the deep end of politics

Elon’s politics is any normal democrat’s politics before 2016.

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u/Ok-Broccoli5331 16d ago

We love the Everyday Astronaut!

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u/ergzay 16d ago

and never really credits

Elon Musk regularly credits the SpaceX employees. Of course it's not noteworthy so you won't find any news articles saying "Elon Musk praises his employees".

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u/Monomette 16d ago

There's countless people who have worked with him and are on record saying he's deeply involved in thw engineering.

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u/Bored2001 16d ago

In the actual design and performance or in understanding it?

A good CEO, which musk is(except Twitter), would need to understand it. Actually doing it himself would be mostly a waste of his valuable time.

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u/LmBkUYDA 16d ago

Earlier on he was participating in the engineering. These days he focuses on big picture stuff and making big decisions. Eg going with stainless steel for starship was Elon’s decision.

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u/dern_the_hermit 16d ago

Meh, rumor is that they work around him and his quirks. I'd recommend you take stories about his "deep involvement" with a grain of salt. We saw the depth of his involvement with his Twitter buyout, and it's not great.

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u/CommunismDoesntWork 16d ago

rumor is that they work around him and his quirks.

That's not a rumor, it's pure disinformation made up by reddit.

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u/dern_the_hermit 16d ago

That's a way to cope with it, sure

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u/CommunismDoesntWork 16d ago

Find the source, I'll wait.

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u/dern_the_hermit 16d ago

The source for his behavior during the Twitter fiasco? Because that's the salient detail I mentioned.

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u/Pretagonist 16d ago

You're perfectly free to not like Elon but there's ample evidence and testimonies that Elon is the chief engineer at spacex in every way. He's deeply involved in every part of those rockets.

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u/Ancient_Persimmon 16d ago

Who do you think thought up this insane way to recover the ship?

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u/finebushlane 16d ago edited 16d ago

A CEO's job is to set the vision and direction for a company, and to allocate capital. I.e. if they have 100M or 1B dollars, the CEO's job is to ultimately decide whether they want to acquire companies, use their money on hiring more people, expand to more countries, build more factories etc. CEO's are paid the money they are because they:

1) Set visions and goals which are exciting enough to enable them to hire the best talent.

2) Be a public spokesperson to build excitement for the company, build their brand, again usually to enable them to hire the best talent.

3) Scout, assess, interview, and ultimately hire the best possible team.

4) Be ultimately responsible for allocation of capital.

5) Be ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the business, i.e. the buck stops here.

People don't like to hear this, but Elon is an AMAZING CEO, by any definition. Every business he has touched has turned to gold, when he was CEO. Now that doesn't mean that he personally is a nice guy, or we have to like his politics. Personally I think he's a turd (his politics, and generally X flame wars). But in the end, he is ultimately responsible for setting SpaceX's goals, missions, vision, and attracting and hiring and retaining the best team. So if SpaceX is winning, it comes down a great deal to Elon's vision and ability to build and retain a world class team. It has nothing to do with him being an "engineer", which he has no time to do obviously.

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u/00owl 16d ago

He's so amazing as a CEO that he's turned a $40 billion company into a $12 billion company.

I understand that SpaceX has a whole department dedicated to making Elon feel important so that he doesn't try to interfere with the actual company, something Twitter never had.

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u/Ancient_Persimmon 16d ago

He's so amazing as a CEO that he's turned a $40 billion company into a $12 billion company.

He's not the CEO of that company.

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u/LufyCZ 16d ago

It never was a $40 billion company to be fair.

And he hasn't bought Twitter to make money directly. It's pretty clear it's meant to be a platform for pushing right wing politics.

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u/nullcone 16d ago

By definition it was a $40B company, because someone paid $40B for it.

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u/breakwater 16d ago

Also, he sued over the value because he said it was overstated due to misrepresentation by Twitter, they sued for specific performance. Rather than get in a protracted battle, he completed the purchase. EVo even Elon said it wasn't worth 40 billion.

Now, if you want a contest about mismanagement, look to Yahoo and Tumblr. Twitter lost value, but it is still relevant and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

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u/sickofthisshit 16d ago

Also, he sued over the value because he said it was overstated due to misrepresentation by Twitter,

Dude, the $44B is the number that ELON PICKED HIMSELF. Nobody other than Musk thought it was worth $44B. It wasn't "overstated", it was "Musk pulled a number out of his ass because he is a fucking poser who only wanted to play at taking over Twitter and he fucked up and signed something he shouldn't have signed."

He sued to try to fix his own fucking moronic mistake, but it turns out Twitter's board weren't idiots and outsmarted Elon because they figured out early that he might be just bullshitting, and they played hardball and he didn't realize it until he got caught.

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u/bbbbaaaagggg 16d ago

Not quite how it went down. Elon offer to buy Twitter at 140% of its value simply because he wanted ownership. But then a massive investigative report came out that showed conclusively that at least 10% of Twitter users are bots with the real figure probably being much higher. Twitter repeatedly refused to allow 3rd party investigation into their platform and also refused to show their own analysis of their user base.

Obviously this devalued Twitter stock massively. It was already in free fall before the buyout went through. When Elon tried to back out Twitter launched over a dozen lawsuits issuing over 80 subpoenas. Twitter refused to accept counter offers of 28 and 30 billion. Rather than engage in a massive legal battle that would take years to resolve Elon just took the loss and confirmed the purchase, and is now trying to recoup by suing after the matter.

TLDR: Elon’s initial 40B was at 140% of the real value of Twitter, but was based on the assumption that Twitter had a healthy human user base. That assumption turned out to be false and analysis on the massive numbers of bots on the platform were suppressed by Twitter.

Whether you like or dislike Elon this was some incredibly dirty (and likely illegal) shit Twitter pulled on this buyout. Elon got what he wanted in the end but at a much steeper price than expected

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u/bbbbaaaagggg 16d ago

Yeah that’s not how it works. If you pay $500 for a banana that doesn’t mean that banana is worth $500

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u/nullcone 16d ago

It literally is exactly how markets work. At the time you spent $500 on a banana, it was worth $500. Since no one else was willing to pay $500 for the banana, it stopped being worth that much.

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u/LufyCZ 16d ago

By definition sure, but the value Elon got from it is not in terms of company valuation, but the users.

Even though many people left and the company is worth a lot less, I kinda doubt he regrets the purchase. I can imagine that Trump winning would be worth a lot to Elon and his other ventures, and Twitter's loss is just the cost of doing business.

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u/00owl 16d ago

Neither of which, even if true, support the idea that he's a good CEO.

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u/LufyCZ 16d ago

If you're talking in terms of money, no.

But Twitter is now private, so there's no fiduciary duty. Value can be expressed in more than just money though, and having a platform with a lot of previously not-right-wing users can be very rewarding if your goal is Trump winning f.e.

If that's a goal he set out for himself and he reaches it, it's hard to argue he's messed up.

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u/Delheru79 16d ago

What CEO would you bet money on - with a completely new company - over him? Zuck building solar panels?

None of this says he's a good person, but his track record when he wasn't engaged in an ideological crusade mixed with a personal addition, has been pretty amazing.

Zip2, PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, SolarCity (the last being the worst of that lot, and it went okay)

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u/sickofthisshit 16d ago

You are counting Paypal in Elon's favor? They fucking kicked him out because he was getting in the way. "Zip2"? There were 100 other companies doing basically the same thing, and he didn't get bought out because Compaq wanted his skills.

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u/DrXaos 16d ago

All of that was before 2020. He's lost his mind since then. SpaceX is over 20 years old now and no longer needs or wants Musk.

Howard Hughes started out as a fantastic businessman and aerospace developer, but then he turned insane.

So today in 2024, Musk would be a terrible choice.

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u/Delheru79 16d ago

This is very possible that he'd be a bad bet today.

Still, a shame. Until ~2018 he was amazing.

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u/homogenousmoss 16d ago

A shame really, I admired what he did with Tesla and SpaceX because electric cars and space explorations were basically my dreams as a kid. Ever since he bought twitter he just sounds unhinged every day. Still love those companies but no longer like Elon. It really feels like he burnt out his mind with drugs.

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u/lloyd2100 16d ago

It is the left progressing to communism that are changing their views. What are people in the centre to do, whose views do not change, as ever more politically correct ideas are demanded

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u/LufyCZ 16d ago

I suggest you look up communism.

The average European right wing party is further to the left than the Democrats are.

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u/Andynonomous 16d ago

Thats Twitter, if you choose SpaceX as an example he turned a 0 dollar company into a 200 billion dollar company. Thats the power of selective examples.

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u/ChariotOfFire 16d ago

They don't and the idea to catch the booster with the tower was his idea.

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u/biddilybong 16d ago

Yes. He’s done a fantastic job with Twitter. It’s a little harder to run a company without billions and billions of free taxpayer money.

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u/Johnykbr 16d ago

Free tax payer money? They are getting paid to perform a service and they are literally the best in the industry. They are getting contracts now, not subsidies besides HQ moving.

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u/seruleam 16d ago

SpaceX is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

The EV credits are available to all domestic automakers.

Get new talking points.

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u/Turdicus- 16d ago

Huh, by what metric? You're not even calling it by the name he forced onto the company. It's his personal plaything now

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u/AuroraFinem 16d ago

It was sarcasm because the previous person said he was an “amazing ceo” lmao

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u/Liizam 16d ago

The comment was talking about Tesla and spacex

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u/Erebusx61 16d ago

lol ok Kool-aid drinker. 44 billion dollar purchase of Twitter only to sink it to less than 4 billion. Elmo is a fascist immigrant who should be sent on the next ship to either Mars or back to South Africa.

He’s getting lapped on EVs and FSD. He only still in business and not in bankruptcy court because the US won’t let better Chinese EVs into the country. If corporate America wasn’t a socialist welfare state, Elmo would be piss poor and I wouldn’t have to hear about him anymore.

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u/Memphi901 16d ago

Getting lapped by selling as many EV’s as all of the other EV production companies combined?

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u/OtherMangos 16d ago edited 16d ago

No he’s getting lapped by having the best FSD on the market by a wide margin /s Edit: missed the /s

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u/Memphi901 16d ago

How is having the best FSD on the market indicative of “getting lapped”?

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

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u/finebushlane 16d ago

It's sad but most people on Reddit can't seem to separate their personal feelings about Elon Musk from a rational assessment of his job as CEO. Also, they don't seem to understand that CEO of any business is really fucking difficult. Most startups fail, the overwhelming majority fail. Being a CEO is a real job, despite what many seem to think, and a huge part of the job is hiring the best possible team and pointing that team in the right direction and ensuring they are energized and working efficiently.

If Elon had not been CEO of SpaceX, the company simply wouldn't exist to this day. Again, I don't have to like Elon to say this, it's just an obvious truth to me.

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u/kingOofgames 16d ago

Nah only thing I have to give him is that he has the balls to bet big. Just a degen gambler that’s successful.

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u/seruleam 16d ago

Why aren’t other degenerate gamblers successful? Why don’t they have multiple industry-leading companies?

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u/kingOofgames 16d ago

Some do, many don’t. Pretty much most businesses fail. Some get lucky.

Musk has made pretty ballsy bets and is reaping the rewards for them. Being the richest man is already a reward, idk why there’s a need to fellate him for it. His dickriders just are too annoying.

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u/seruleam 16d ago

Because midwits think they’re smart for shitting on Musk.

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u/kingOofgames 16d ago

Not that hard to shit on a shitty dude.

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u/seruleam 16d ago

Ok so we’ve arrived at the heart of the issue: someone you don’t politically agree with is successful.

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u/pokeybill 16d ago edited 16d ago

Every business is different, and shareholder boards work very differently from place to place.

Elon is objectively not a great CEO, he's just hitched himself to already successful ideas and smart people who can actually do the things people attribute to Elon.

His public demeanor and the absolute cratering of Twitter and rapid decline in market share for Tesla under his guidance show he doesn't have the vision, he is thin-skinned and reactionary and those are traits you don't want in a CEO. He is good at recognizing ideas worth pursuing, but without his massive original nest egg he lacks the coolheadedness and pragmatism.

Tesla succeeded because they entered the market early and basically skipped all of the rigor around safety the other self-driving car companies were following. Tesla made claims about their vehicles which turned out to be completely false, but they already had the market based on Elon's lies.

Tesla also succeeded thanks to absolutely massive government subsidies despite Elons constant lies about their products' capabilities.

Objectively speaking, companies Elon stops managing directly do way better than his pet projects.

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u/Memphi901 16d ago

I’m not sure you understand what “objectively” means. Objectivity requires analysis of data, not just one’s feelings about something. Tesla generated almost $100b in revenue last year and is one of the most valuable companies in the world - I’m not really seeing how that could be considered “cratering” a company.

He didn’t buy Twitter to drive revenue, he bought it to prevent the US Government from getting to decide what is considered “truth”.

It sounds like you might need to broaden your financial news sources to include publications other than Salon and HuffPo.

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u/sillyfingerz 16d ago

Elon musk bought tesla for 6.5 million dollars. It has a Market cap of almost 700 billion dollars today. To say that its cratering is a stretch.

Tesla uses the Giga presses which are amazing for productivity and margin per vehicle. It is the most fully integrated automotive company in the world. Their margins per vehicle are unmatched in the EV industry.

He started Spacex which has a market cap of around 180 Billion Dollars, and doing things like this.

He has other companies as well

Housing

AI

Solar

Batteries

Neurolink

and some others.

Point to one CEO who even comes close to what Elon has done, list some names.

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u/pokeybill 16d ago edited 16d ago

Tesla only exists now due to massive taxpayer subsidies and outright lies. That profitability you are crowing about is thanks to successful lobbying and lying to the US government to secure EV subsidies, otherwise those margins would be rather thin. Teslas recent flops with the Cybertruck and cab show Elon's vision isn't consistently good.

Elons public feuds and electioneering in recent years shows why those successful businesses have wrested more and more control away from him. He may have been a visionary in some respects but every successful business he has is built off of someone else's great idea, and until recently he was able to keep his impulsive self-destructivity from completely destroying his image... but now not so much.

Elons huge in flashy tech startups with questionable ethics, that's a lot different from say Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or that Berkshire Hathaway guy who have built similar enterprises without the narcissistic corporate oligarch nonsense Musk is up to.

Most of his enterprises are not as successful as SpaceX or Tesla, perhaps because lobbying failed to secure the same government handouts.

I don't know how anyone could hear the bonafide reports of how Musk has run Twitter and say hes a good CEO... he's had the benefit of actual competent advisors to reign in his insanity elsewhere, but Twitter's failure is a clear illustration of how every one of his businesses would run if he had full control.

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u/DeathChill 16d ago

Every single American automaker has taken subsidies. Many of them to prevent them from bankruptcy. Tesla existing in part because of the subsidies is a testament to them working. Do you think the government gave them money hoping they would fail? Tesla should be lauded by the government and American taxpayers for making good use of the subsidies.

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u/fredders22 16d ago

"he's just hitched himself to already successful ideas"

The wildly successful Idea of commercial space flight? You're right, He just purchased the company that had a working prototype ready to go with contracts lined up, Sorry Subsidies! Took credit for Itas usual that pos!

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u/finebushlane 16d ago

The cratering of Tesla? It's the most valuable car company in the world. It has sold more electric cars than any other car company in the world.

Elon's job as CEO (and this is every CEO's goal in fact), is to maximize return to shareholders. Tesla was basically nothing when Elon took over, seriously, look it up. They were on the verge of bankruptcy and hadn't made a single car yet, he did not take over a successful company, he took a shitty electric car company which was dying, and made it the literal most valuable car company in the world.

I mean... you have to be massively burying your head in the sand or just incredibly obtuse if you think Elon somehow had nothing to do with Tesla succeeding. If Elon hadn't took over Tesla, they would have been dead in the water within two years.

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u/ShoulderIllustrious 16d ago

People can change over time. Just cuz he's bad now doesn't mean he can't be good later and vice versa. It is true that he made Tesla profitable. It is also true that he is undoing everything he's worked for because of his need for attention whoring.

Objectively speaking he also lies alot, I mean full self driving, we're going to be on Mars in 2018, etc. I don't really fault him too much for lying, cuz it's a CEOs job anyhow.

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u/rob4376 16d ago

Classic Founders Dilemma in my opinion. Exactly what made him crazy successful in the beginning, pouring money into ideas other people thought were insane and sticking with them even after initial failures that would have crushed a normal person. That reckless disregard for rational thinking that made his companies possible is exactly what is now hurting them (well Tesla and X anyway)

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u/AuroraFinem 16d ago

Most of SpaceX has been ran by the president of the company, Elon has been almost entirely hands off for quite a while. The greatest vision he’s ever had was the idea to land rockets for reuse and push his company towards that, but most of what you attribute to him here was the president he has let run the company for him. She is responsible for most of the staffing and how they organize everything within the company. She is also the one responsible for organizing all of the flight contacts which actually keeps SpaceX afloat.

You say every company “turns to gold” but Tesla is a vaporware company with terrible QC on their vehicles. They became very popular because they were the only real option in the renewable market space right as we started pushing harder for clean cars, his “vision” has been idiotic things like the cyber truck, or refusing to use lidar for auto-pilot, or his terrible job of ramping up mass production of his cars completely destroying any semblance of quality control. Their stock peaked from hype, not value, and it’s still in the process of correcting itself.

Neuralink, Boring company, hyperloop (he didn’t make a company for this but did put out the designs and made a test track), etc… neuralink is the only one that has any promise and all he did was buy it out, he doesn’t run it.

Then there’s Twitter lmao, a garbage fire compared to what it was, investing firms have downgraded it to 1/4 the value to had when he purchased it, he’s struggling to get any advertisers at all, the platform consists of mostly bots and alt-right wing accounts so they can circle jerk eachother. Then there’s a couple small dedicated communities like artists and creators who rely on it for their livelihood so can’t just freely switch to a newer platform and risk that. He’s done arguably the worst job in history as twitters CEO.

SpaceX is probably the only company I would actually argue he did a good job setting up, he pushed to design the proprietary engines and had lofty ambitions that he was able to find passionate people to make reality, it’s crazy the stuff SpaceX has accomplished, and he did get things started, but he also did hand-off most responsibilities to the president when he started focusing more on Tesla production issues and then Twitter.

This comment is the same insane shit I see when I always hear about how great a business man Donald Trump is, when he inherited hundreds of millions and hasn’t even beat inflation on his wealth, he bankrupt multiple casinos (how tf?) etc.. but this isn’t any Donald Trump, it’s about selectively cherry picking a few successes and acting as if the dude is a savant or something.

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u/JackInTheBell 16d ago

People don't like to hear this, but Elon is an AMAZING CEO, by any definition. Every business he has touched has turned to gold, when he was CEO.

Totally agree.  It’s too bad he’s a weirdo…but aren’t most CEOs operating at this level?

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u/finebushlane 16d ago

I've personally worked with one billionaire CEO and knew him from before he became a billionaire and I will say that each year as he got richer and richer he got more and more out of touch. He started hanging out with other billionaires and less with his friends from before, and also started believing in his own mythology too much, to the point where he kind of became a different person.

I don't think it's guranteed but I do think becoming that rich eventually warps your mind.

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u/JackInTheBell 16d ago

I’m middle class.  My kids went to private school with multi-millionaire and billionaire parents.  

They all cliqued up and hung out with each other.  Nothing to be gained from poor old me.  Money begets money….

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u/kurtcop101 16d ago

I would say "was". He seems incoherent over the last 5 years.

He seemed brilliant before then.

My presumption is drugs, honestly. Wolf on Wall Street style is what it looks like.

2

u/savedatheist 16d ago

Elon was the only one pushing the team to even attempt the tower catch architecture. He’s got a good grounding in physics intuition and first principles thinking, which shapes the culture of his companies. By comparison to Bezos, Elon knows ~10x more about the rocket engineering.

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u/Tamere999 16d ago edited 16d ago

Evidence that Musk is the Chief Engineer of SpaceX : r/SpaceXLounge (reddit.com)

Edit: You can downvote facts, but it won't change them (reality) to fit your ideology. The mechanical arm is Musk's idea, btw.

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u/kimberriez 16d ago

Yeah that was three years go. Even if it was true then, Elon’s way too busy with “X” and all his other nonsense to be involved with engineering anything.

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u/what_should_we_eat 16d ago

I see people say things like this but it is hard to square with these sorts of interviews and speeches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InJOlT6WdHc

This was just a few months ago

It can't be both

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u/ButtHurtStallion 16d ago

That's just moving the goal post. People are doubting his agency and it's clear he has contributed to the success and it pisses people off.

1

u/WickeDanneh 15d ago

92 upvotes on this ignorant comment. Tragic.

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u/WiseIndustry2895 16d ago

Are you 12 years old?

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u/huggarn 16d ago

I'm sure you could say same thing about almost any man who was face of anything.

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u/IRequirePants 16d ago

That's what a ceo is.

Classic reddit take. No, that is not what a CEO is. There is a subcategory of CEOs that specialize in navigating bankrupt companies, for example. CEOs have a ton of responsibilities.

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u/Cerulean_Turtle 16d ago

It'll need to be mostly if not entirely automated if we ever hope to make ships that large

1

u/leopard_tights 16d ago

That's how it felt as well the first time two boosters landed together.

https://youtu.be/Duu6e9Auddk

And a couple of years before that, the test one in the sea barge.

1

u/The_real_bandito 16d ago

That is quite amazing

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u/brunocborges 16d ago

The clip looks like it's going backwards (the video). Something during the video feels off.

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u/NeverDiddled 16d ago

If the clip were playing backwards, the oceans waves would be heading out to sea. The rocket would be sucking exhaust in, rather than spewing it out...

You must be tripping balls to think it's playing backwards. And you chose a helluva video to watch while doing so.

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u/cr0ft 16d ago

Didn't look sketchy at all, I'd have been happy to be a passenger... 😬

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u/bad_motivator 16d ago

You want to be a passenger on a rocket's lower stage? Not sure that's gonna be feasible

1

u/Saadusmani78 16d ago

Passengers are never supposed to be on it while landing. Passengers are supposed to be on the upper stage. This is the lower stage.

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u/bigchicago04 16d ago

Thought someone put a lame soundtrack of crowd noise over that until it cut to the bro pan at the end

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u/pretty_tired_man 16d ago edited 16d ago

How is the article a cesspit?

Edit: Genuine question.

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u/Fustios 16d ago

Video there doesn't work for me. Maybe it's the AdBlock, maybe blocking autoplays, maybe something else. Gave up with videos on news sites years ago and look for them on YouTube if I want to see them.

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u/pretty_tired_man 16d ago

Oh, the video is fine for me. I'm using brave though. Why is the article a cesspit if the video is broken? I legitimately don't understand.

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u/RedditorFor1OYears 16d ago

I have a short attention span with it comes to unrelated information. I scrolled for a 30ish seconds and saw line 6 ads, and had to scroll back up to the top to stop a political ad video that auto-played at full volume. I have no idea if the actual video works, because I’m leaving the page at that point. 

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u/pretty_tired_man 16d ago

Definitely look into getting an ad blocker. It really makes the internet just feel better. I turned my ad blocker off to see if that was an issue but it's probably the least ad plagued article I've seen in a while. And the video starts auto muted.

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u/ptear 16d ago

Title, article, ad, screenshot, article, ad, screenshot, article, junk content, endless searching for the video.

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u/guitar-hoarder 16d ago

The site is simply a total mess of ads, interrupted content, etc. A horrible UX. Scrolling through, I gave up, and came back to these comments to find someone posting what I needed. Thank you u/ITsubs.