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Alan Boyle writes that over the years, Elon Musk's showmanship, straight-ahead smarts and far-out ideas have earned him a following that spans the geek spectrum — to the point that some observers see glimmers of the aura that once surrounded Apple's Steve Jobs. "To me, it feels like he's the most obvious inheritor of Steve Jobs' mantle," says Ashlee Vance who's writing a biography of Musk that at one time had the working title "The Iron Man." "Obviously, Steve Jobs' products changed the world ... [But] if Elon's right about all these things that he's after, his products should ultimately be more meaningful than what Jobs came up with. He's the guy doing the most concrete stuff about global warming."
So what is Musk's vision? What motivates Musk at the deepest level? "It's his Mars thing," says Vance. Inspired in part by the novels of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein, Musk has come around to the view that humanity's long-term future depends on extending its reach beyond Earth, starting with colonies on Mars. Other notables like physicist Stephen Hawking have laid out similar scenarios — but Musk is actually doing something to turn those interplanetary dreams into a reality. Vance thinks that Musk is on the verge of breaking out from geek guru status to a level of mass-market recognition that's truly on a par with the late Steve Jobs. Additions to the Tesla automotive line, plus the multibillion-dollar promise of Tesla's battery-producing "gigafactory" in Nevada, could push Musk over the edge. "Tesla, as a brand, really does seem to have captured the public's imagination. ... All of a sudden he's got a hip product that looks great, and it's creating jobs. The next level feels like it's got to be that third-generation, blockbuster mainstream product. The story is not done."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Tuesday October 14 2014, @02:41AM
I've run into some pretty staunch "Musk will save us all" (with the implied can do no wrong) types in conversations (mostly on that "other" site). That's especially in the space area.
My take is: Musk is an excellent CEO. He's a very different type of company runner than Steve Jobs was. It's hard to compare them.
He's doing wonderful work with SpaceX. I admit I was a little skeptical at first. I've seen quite a number of visionary led rocket ventures fail (Conestoga, American Rocket). But, Musk has taken it to being a company with a proven launch record. I expect they'll be able to pull off the manned versions as well. How far he'll go, we have to wait and see. I'm hopeful, because I've been a "get off this rock" type for a long time.
Tesla? Still a question for me. Will they get the cost down? Will they manage to compete well with the existing gasoline autos? Don't know. I won't bet against him, but it's less clear to me than with SpaceX. Let's get the Giga-factory up and running with the inevitable production bugs ironed out. Then maybe we can talk.