I used to respect Krugman, but as time has gone on he seems like yet another New York Times style leftist monkey just whining about people they have disagreements with. Pushing the frontiers of science and technology is an unknowable endeavor for which accurate predictions can never be made unless they are not really pushing the limits. It's attitudes like this which restrict us from actually doing real R&D, and instead focusing on quarterly profits and simple stories that nincompoops can understand. Has he not seen how Tesla transformed the global perspective on EVs? Has he not driven in one in FSD mode? Has he not seen the constant launches and innovation happening at SpaceX, or the XAI leap from nothing to having hyperscaler class datacenters and near frontier models. Sure, they haven't gotten to the lead yet, but jesus christ, what's Krugman bringing into the world from zero. The world would be a far better place with 1,000 brilliant kids taking their inspiration from Musk than from taking this pessimistic, whining NYT perspective on science and technology.
With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
11–20 of 99 posts
Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#12You have to take Krugman with a big grain of salt.
It's been decades since he was in a policy position and these days he's more of a commentator, opinionator who is often wrong. I think he sometimes leans on his nobel prize to give his opinions weight that people should discount given how often his opinions fall flat.
Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#13Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#14> But Musk proceeded to destroy X’s business model by turning it into an extreme-right, Nazi-friendly cesspool, prompting advertisers to flee. This is where he lost me. There are still plenty of liberals and independents on Twitter. It is not "extreme-right" and anyone who thinks so is either being dishonest or has no idea what the left-right scale of politics in America looks like.
[flagged]
Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#15[flagged]
China electrified the auto industry [1] [2] [3], not Tesla (mostly BYD). SpaceX is appreciated for proving that reusable vehicles are possible, which other nation states are building [4].
Musk is the management huckster who slaps his name on it, sells it, and reaps the benefits as opposed to the person grinding creating the actual results and innovation. "It is what it is."
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/electric-car-sales
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/china-car-exports-jump-73...
[3] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinas-byd-overtakes-ford-glo...
[4] https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/another-falcon-9-looka...
Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#16Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#17Krugman's brushing off genuine engineering wins here. SpaceX got space launch costs down to unheard of levels and built Starlink. Tesla built and scaled EVs at a time when no one else was willing to really try. Musk has a habit of overpromising, but there is real output that we can measure as well.
I expect SPCX might stay in squeeze territory until insider lockups expire, and yeah that's financial engineering, but the stock is not going to zero anytime soon the way an actual Ponzi would.
Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#18[flagged]
> I know right! Except for […]
You mean like Krugman recognizes in this paragraph:
> Granted, Musk has had some real successes. Tesla was ahead of the EV curve, and Starlink is a critically important service as well as a viable business.
Krugman's hypothesis is in the very next paragraph:
> But these achievements weren’t enough to make Musk the world’s richest man. His wealth has, instead, historically rested mainly on self-fulfilling faith — investors believing in Musk’s genius have piled into stocks in Musk-controlled companies, and the rising value of these companies has enhanced his reputation for genius.
followed by:
> We have a term for enterprises that look successful because they keep drawing in new investors and keep drawing in new investors because they look successful. They’re called Ponzi schemes. And Elon Musk is basically a human Ponzi scheme.
> Furthermore, the SpaceX IPO now in progress makes it clearer than ever that Musk’s greatest skill isn’t developing futuristic products. It’s his mastery of financial shell games and his ability to leverage insider influence, especially his influence with the Trump administration.
Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Judging by his net worth he hasn’t done anything for us, he did it all for himself
The reason he has money is because he built products and services that people willingly exchanged their money for.
While true, his wealth is 99% speculative.
Elon has a closed box that he has successfully convinced a lot of people that there is a lot of money inside, and sold them small stakes in the contents, and promised year after year for 10+ years that this will be the year he opens it.
Re: With Wall Street’s help, you’re about to be forced to buy stock in SpaceX
#20[flagged]
Judging by his net worth he hasn’t done anything for us, he did it all for himself
He has created the second most millionaires out of direct employees behind Microsoft. Many, though not all, of those new millionaires have been blue-collar workers (not office workers), unlike the case for Microsoft produced millionaires. So, from that PoV, he's done good for his employees.