Musk's behaviour has always been controversial and he's always been kind of a dick, but I don't think it is controversial at all to say that until some years ago he has been extremely net positive for society and humanity in general. However, he's behaviour and actions turned much more disruptive in the recent years while, at the same time, the reach of his actions and opinions have also maximized.
So, do you think Musk is still net-positive for humanity or he already turned to be net-negative in your view? I'd be interested to read your arguments below (also if you think that he's never been net-positive, for example).
I crossposted this question in LessWrong. I think having a flavour on how these communities feel about Musk is important because EA and the rationalist community have had kind of a "close" relationship with Musk -partly having helped shape his ideas and with adjacent organizations having received donations from him.
Yep. I agree it can be interpreted in other ways and would agree with you that taking everything into account he's probably had more impact at the margin on the positive stuff than the negatives, so far. There was certainly a bigger shortage of people with the means and the motivation to take on EVs and commercial space in the early 2000s[1] than peopl willing to spout stupid stuff on social media in the last three years.
I think battery and photovoltaics were coming down in manufacturing cost over the last decade regardless, but you don't automatically get complex products out of that...