petersabainiNov 11, 2022
Jarrett Walker
Many journalists and social media experts are surprised that Elon Musk would go into a business that he doesn't understand and refuse to listen to anyone who does. But we who work in urban transport planning already knew this about him. https://humantransit.org/2018/12/elon-musks-tunnel-it-doesnt-scale-so-it-doesnt-matter.html
Elon Musk's Tunnel: It Doesn't Scale, so it Doesn't Matter — Human Transit

Elon Musk just gave the media a tour of his 1.5 mile prototype tunnel under Los Angeles, which he spent US$10m to build.  Why are Elon Musk’s tunnels so cheap?  Because they’re tiny. As media photos of the event will show you, the tunnel is just slightly wider than a car.  That means that if […]

Human Transit
Nov 11, 2022 at 5:08pmWeb
Show threadJarrett WalkerNov 11, 2022
cc: @JamesFallows @fmanjoo
Show threadBenjamin RossNov 11, 2022
@humantransit To be fair, he has now admitted that hyperloop was a ploy to kill California high-speed rail. Whatever else you can say about the Twitter purchase, it wasn't a ploy to kill Mastodon.
Show threadJesseNov 12, 2022

@BenRossTransit @humantransit I'm doubtful it was actually a ploy. Claiming that his impossible to build and very flawed concept was actually a genius plan to trick everyone fits the image he wants to show. But there are too many examples of him pushing forward with silly ideas without consulting experts. Eg. that child submarine.

Before he was forced to buy Twitter he tried to pull out of the deal claiming it was a genius ploy to sneak a look at Twitter's internals.

Show threadDennis JernbergNov 11, 2022
@humantransit IIRC this is the exact article that taught me the term "elite projection". Because this is what he's doing. Elon doesn't grok city.
Show threadwitchlectical runeterialistNov 11, 2022
@humantransit its also not surprising to anyone knows that his greatest contribution to paypal was demanding they move their entire backend to windows server, a thing that is not just literally impossible but also provides no benefits whatsoever for an absolutely ridiculous amount of work, and he had to had keys jangled in front of him for an extended period of time to get him to drop the decree
Show threaddavsotNov 11, 2022
@humantransit 😂 funny if it wasn't so sad
Show threadIvan 🎧Nov 11, 2022
@humantransit There's nothing surprising imo. Musk subscribes to the 'Enough of experts' concept. It's typical for people like him. The only way to deal with people like him is to stay calm, find patience and wait until they fail, and they eventually will as a result of their own arrogance.
Show threadPrem Kumar Aparanji 👶🤖🐘Nov 11, 2022
@ivan @humantransit donno ... Everything that he's done after PayPal is built using tech that was developed over decades by others ... He merely keeps leapfrogging and obviously his costs are going to be so much lower since he didn't have to invest in the foundational R&D ... Be it rockets, electric batteries, self driving vehicles, tunnel boring machines, robots or ... Twitter.
Show threadSylvNov 11, 2022
@humantransit to be fair his urban planning plans might really have been to keep car centric and deviate public money from actual useful stuff. With Twitter it's not as obvious what it's diverting from
Show threadAaron Bieber (no relation)Nov 11, 2022

@humantransit "If it doesn't scale, it doesn't matter."

Well said!