Well thank you very much to many of you for informative and constructive explanations of why Musk would be called a con man. I suppose I am blinded to his chicanery by the fact that he is fundamentally a builder of cars, rockets, robots and a handful of other things. In my mind, a con man is someone who is fundamentally in the business of lying to you so he can run off with your money WITHOUT leaving behind remarkable things like Models Y and Starlink satellites as your consolation prizes. Tempermentally, I never believe anybody anyway, which leads me I think more to judge people by what they deliver than by all the stupid shit they say about it on the way. To me that makes sense but I can certainly see that it is not just inexcusable error to judge this activity harshly.

I am glad the SEC and the supreme court of Delaware have come down on the side of shareholders who have made their desires about whether they would rather take their chances with Musk or not despite the range of Judgments it is possible to have about him. If you are a shareholder in Tesla or SpaceX but you feel injured by Musk's fastness and looseness, then IMHO you are at fault for not noticing you have bought exactly the thing you claim not to want. Let people who want it buy it, and we'll see in the end how well the different approaches have done.

Meanwhile I haven't seen as much about Altman but at least one of you left a trail of breadcrumbs to more substantial discussion of his dishonesty. In my case, Paul Graham (of Y-combinator) has been a hero of mine for many decades, and I find it implausible given the relationship he has had with Sam that he is taken in by a monster. So i don't know the bill of particulars against Altman, but I do know that Paul Graham likes him and enough of the productive members of OpenAI liked him so much that even the board that fired him agreed the best thing to do was bring him back. So whatever his sins, he seems to be an incredibly talented individual who at worst has some things one might not like about him. I know less about Sam than Elon, but I know enough to bet on him in the market.

Anyway, for those of you who think Musk is NOTHING BUT a con man, I beg you to look dispassionately at what is happening at Tesla and SpaceX, and i will try to keep in mind that character does matter too.

R:)