Talk:Elon Musk

Frequently asked questions

If you cannot show the answers, please try the desktop view.

Q1: Can I write a message to Elon Musk here? (No.)

A1: No. The "Talk:Elon Musk" page is not for writing messages to Musk. It is only for discussing changes to the Wikipedia article about him. Writing a message to Musk here is pointless and disruptive, and such messages will be removed as an improper use of the page.

Q2: Can you update the article to call Musk a "business magnet"? (No.)

A2: No. Musk once suggested in an interview that his Wikipedia article be changed to describe him as a "business magnet" rather than a magnate. The tone of that interview was not very serious; he also claimed to be an alien. Wikipedia doesn't have to do what Musk says, and this request has been made and declined dozens of times already. New requests may be removed without a response so that other discussions are not disrupted.

Q3: Should Musk be identified as South African in the opening sentence?

A3: Musk is a US citizen (since 2002) born and raised in South Africa, and also acquired Canadian citizenship via his mother. Including these nationalities in the opening sentence in a balanced way would be complex, and the consensus is that they should instead be explained later in the lead.

Q4: Can you change "Tesla CEO" to "Tesla Technoking"?

A4: No, because he is still CEO according to company records and that is a common corporate title that readers will understand, unlike "Technoking". The goal of the article is to inform people, which would be hindered by raising a confusing technicality.

Q5: Should the mention of Errol Musk having an interest in an emerald mine be removed in view of Elon's denials?

A5: While Elon today vehemently disputes any history with an emerald mine, he formerly accepted and even confirmed it. Specifically, a 2014 report originally printed in the San Jose Mercury News (and cited in the article) stated that Errol Musk had "a stake in" a mine. Elon affirmed his father's mine involvement in an interview with Jim Clash, a career interviewer of public figures, that was published by Forbes and withdrawn without explanation a few months later. Elon biographer Ashlee Vance likewise confirmed Errol's mining interest, with Elon's objections but not denials, in a 2020 interview report with Elon. Errol has stated that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of emeralds from his dealings.

Q6: Should "Bachelor of Arts in Physics" be "Bachelor of Science" instead?

A6: No. Although it may seem counterintuitive, "Bachelor of Arts" is awarded for all undergraduate degrees at the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. His economics degree however is from the Wharton School which does award a "Bachelor of Science" degree.

Q7: Should the article acknowledge doubts about Musk's academic record?

A7: Wikipedia policy on biographies of living persons requires that negative information about a person must be attributed to reliable published sources, and excludes both self-published sources (e.g. Twitter threads) and court trial records. The article states that sources disagree about when Musk obtained bachelor degrees, and that he did not attend Stanford for any significant amount of time. Any doubts beyond this require appropriate sources.

Q8: Why doesn't this article describe Musk as an engineer?

A8: Musk is chief engineer of SpaceX, a title that applies within the company and that the press regularly mentions. He is not a professional engineer, a distinction within engineering that carries certain legal privileges in the United States, nor has he completed an engineering training program, nor has he ever been hired as an engineer. The article therefore does not include any of these claims. It does note that, from time to time, Musk has made initial product proposals at his companies that his trained engineers then research and develop. He does hold IEEE Honorary Membership.

Q9: Why doesn't the article identify Musk as co-founder of PayPal?

A9: Because that could mislead readers that Musk was involved in the creation of the PayPal service and brand, when he was not. Instead, as the article states, he co-founded a company (X.com Corporation) that acquired the company that had developed PayPal (Confinity Inc.) and then renamed itself as PayPal, Inc.

Q10: Why does this page include criticism of Musk's actions and stances?

A10: Musk is criticized/praised a lot in many reliable sources, and as such we need to talk about these criticisms and praise. To quote from Wikipedia's policy on a neutral point of view, articles must represent "fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."

Q11: Why is this a "good article" when some people consider Musk a bad person?

A11: "Good article" on Wikipedia refers to the way the article is written, not what kind of person Musk is. Good articles have been found to satisfy Wikipedia editorial standards for accuracy, verifiability and balanced presentation.

Q12: Why doesn't this page call Musk African American?

A12: African Americans are an ethnic group of Americans with total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. Reliable sources do not use this term to describe Musk.

References

Education

The Education section of the article doesn't make any sense. It tells us that Musk was an unexceptional student at school, and then dropped out of a couple of universities. It tells us that he earned bachelor's degrees from Pennsylvania in economics and physics which he claims were both awarded in 1995 but were actually both awarded in 1997. It states that Stanford accepted him into a PhD program in materials science in 1995, which he then left after two days. The main sources for these crumbs of information are Snopes, Bloomberg and the biography by Vance. Snopes implies heavily that his physics degree was paid for. The Bloomberg article is behind a paywall. The biography is cited but not quoted. The timeline is absurd. The whole story defies credibility. Rustyfx (talk) 23:13, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia cannot make allegations about a living person (especially a litigious one) that are unsupported by reliable sources. Just as Snopes stops at "implying", so must Wikipedia. See question 7 of the FAQ, above. 2601:642:4600:BE10:7CEC:7DB1:5F50:458F (talk) 17:30, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

I added quotes for the Vance source and reworded the section slightly. Musk's claim is that he finished all but two courses at Penn in 1995 and had an agreement to complete those courses at Stanford. Musk initially deferred his admission to Stanford, but by 1997 he had decided not to attend. By that time, Musk claims that Penn had dropped the requirement for those two courses, so he was able to get his degrees issued. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for adding the quotes in the footnotes. So at least now the footnotes make clear that Stanford has no record of accepting Musk. Musk's claim about Stanford is ridiculous. No reputable university, let alone an elite university like Stanford, would accept an unexceptional undergraduate onto a PhD program. Rustyfx (talk) 03:44, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

WP:5P4 - “Wikipedia's editors should treat each other with respect and civility.” The word “ridiculous” has a harsh connotation to my ears. You could find a more neutral way to state that you disagree or believe something is not true.

> No reputable university would accept an unexceptional undergraduate into a PhD program.

WP:TALK#TOPIC - I think this is your personal belief about the characteristics of universities, but it arguably isn’t directly about the content of this article. Julkhamil (talk) 07:28, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

A BA in Physics and a B.Sc. in Economics? That doesn't make a lot of sense, are we sure this isn't backwards? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ScorpioSymbol (talk • contribs) 15:06, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, we're sure; see the answer to Q6 of the FAQ above. Rosbif73 (talk) 16:45, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Automotive pioneer?

Musk is listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_automotive_pioneers though there's really nothing much in which he pioneered the automotive industry nor the automobile itself. Unless you count the many things which were or are basically fails like autonomous driving or collecting loads of data like no other car manufacturer had done before. 2A02:560:59C7:2100:C5DF:7447:4F6:350E (talk) 18:26, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

We need more evidence to determine to what extent he was an “automotive pioneer”. Perhaps this Wikipedia article itself could gather more information on his specific role in relation to the activities of Tesla corporation. Julkhamil (talk) 07:19, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Moving one section

I had suggest trimming down the "Personal views and Twitter usage" section since we already have an article called Views of Elon Musk. Regards MSincccc (talk) 06:45, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Ideally we would have our main coverage of views on the dedicated page with only a summary here, when you trim here check to make sure that what you're trimming is already on Views of Elon Musk and if not please add it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:08, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Draft:Musk v. OpenAI

I just created a draft for Musk v. OpenAI. Any help would be appreciated! Best, Thriley (talk) 06:05, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

Mocking aid to Ukraine

@Slatersteven Do you mind expanding on this revert? Seems rather relevant given it was an expression of opinion that was picked up by multiple WP:RS. TylerBurden (talk) 18:46, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

The article is already way to big, if we add every comment he makes on every subject it will get unmanageable, as such I think this just adds words. Slatersteven (talk) 18:54, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

This isn't some random Tweet, hence why entire articles by WP:RS were written on it. This article is outdated relating to Musk and Ukraine. He has become increasingly vocal against Ukraine, and the article does nothing to show that which causes a WP:WEIGHT issue. What do you suggest is done instead in order to address this while avoiding just "adding words"? TylerBurden (talk) 20:17, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

I see you're contributing to the Personal views section, this would be the main issue. That section is "supposed to be" a WP:SUMMARY of the main article: Views of Elon Musk. That section should only be a few paragraphs summarising the main article, ideally using a strong (paragraph-specific) lead excerpt, that doesn't exist. It therefore would only contain one sentence about Ukraine at best, such as from the lead summary; His views on international relations, including on the China-Taiwan and Russia-Ukraine conflicts, have received mixed reactions., not specific detail. CommunityNotesContributor (talk) 15:33, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Overall tone of article seems disliking of Musk

In the intro section, after a reasonably impartial account of his career and background, the last paragraph states “he has expressed views that have made him a polarizing figure”. To me, “polarizing” means that it pushes people to opposing stances, as in, increases contrast between them, so that they are at two different poles. But that paragraph doesn’t discuss the people who champion Elon Musk. The examples of his “polarizing” views seem to be only negative ones, with words like “criticized”, “unscientific”, “misleading”, “misinformation”, “antisemitic”, “hate speech”, and an anecdote about him being sued and paying a fine. Similarly, it says his ownership of Twitter has been “controversial”, then mentions negative angles on that, like him laying off employees. It does not mention any positive views of Musk’s Twitter takeover. Based on the examples given, it seems like it would be more fitting to say, “Elon Musk is widely condemned”, than that he is “controversial”.

My point is in reference to the Wikipedia policy of NPOV or “neutral point of view”.

I can work on gathering sources if necessary, but from personal experience, I believe there is a pretty “prominent” (to use Wikipedia guidelines’ own language) viewpoint that thinks very highly of Musk, that sees him as an exemplary figure and person. I do not see this viewpoint much reflected in the article, whereas I think Wikipedia stresses that various viewpoints should be given “due weight”. I think more quotes should be added from people who see him as a great person, a hero, an inspiration, a singularly accomplished person, a moral figure, and a historically significant personage. Again, I believe such quotes are to be found, so I can seek some out if need be.

It is interesting to compare this Wikipedia article to the Britannica one, how much they differ in content in tone. The Britannica one focuses on the story of a technologist; his innovations, projects, going-ons. The Wikipedia article is a chronicle of his business activities with heavy amounts of political criticism sifted in. There is very little discussion of the technical details of what he has actually done: what technical ideas were pioneered in his new rocket designs? How do hyperloops work? Similarly, no space is given to Musk’s personal philosophy about the world: about why he wanted to buy Twitter, about what he viewed as the shortcomings of how the platform had been run and how he considered his changes improvements on them. No article space is dedicated to Musk’s idealism, his ethical perspective, his prosocial vision for humanity and his desire to improve society.

To be slightly more frank, to see back to back sections about “one time Musk got in an online fight with a person and called them a pedophile”, to “Elon Musk once starred in an Iron Man movie”, to “one time Elon Musk smoked pot on a podcast,” to “Elon Musk made a song and put it on SoundCloud”, and to think about what could be said about such a singularly intelligent, ambitious, innovative, effective, progressive, and authentic person, is something of a disgrace. I am tempted to use more stern language but hold back.

The article appears to be written predominantly by people who can’t find anything good to say about him; but this does not represent all points of view.

One other point. I am still learning what Wikipedia policy considers a “reliable source”, but I was curious if the publication Vox counts as one, and why? The article cited for the claim that Musk has “polarizing views” sounds a little click-baity, like it is seeking to put forward a flashy headline and a particular caricature of him. Julkhamil (talk) 08:00, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Welcome! I'm not that familiar with this article or its subject, so I won't be able to help as much as others. But I did notice you made a fallacious comparison:

It is interesting to compare this Wikipedia article to the Britannica one, how much they differ in content.

That's not really helpful for us to know anything one way or the other -- they can choose to focus only on specific aspects of his life, but we can't take our cues from them. I'm not saying this to disagree with your opinion, just pointing out that we have a very different scope and mission. Feoffer (talk) 08:35, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

The lead is a summery of the article, so we have one line discussing a lot of negative publicity. Slatersteven (talk) 12:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Heard

Allegations that Amber Heard abused Elon Musk in their relationship are not mentioned, although they gained widespread media attention when Musk's biography was published. In that biography, several of his family members testified that Heard was abusive to him during their relationship.

https://metro.co.uk/2023/09/12/elon-musk-biography-relationship-amber-heard-brutal-19488551/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12509267/Amber-Heard-despised-Elon-Musks-family-drew-Tesla-founder-dark-vortex-book-reveals.html

https://pagesix.com/2023/09/12/elon-musks-brother-grimes-friends-hated-amber-heard-bio/

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/elon-musk-amber-heard-friends-dating-reaction-b2409694.html

https://nypost.com/2023/09/12/elon-musks-friends-hated-amber-heard-new-bio/

https://www.geo.tv/latest/511896-amber-heard-toxic-and-abusive-to-elon-musk-a-nightmare

https://www.skynews.com.au/lifestyle/celebrity-life/elon-musks-friends-and-brother-hated-his-toxic-ex-amber-heard/video/b3bcc06a30e82f4e097506cea11b815f

https://www.eonline.com/news/1385474/elon-musk-reflects-on-brutal-relationship-with-amber-heard-in-new-biography

https://radaronline.com/p/elon-musk-friends-family-hated-ex-amber-heard/ Eenchantedd (talk) 17:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

A quote saying she abused him from one of the few RS here would be nice. Slatersteven (talk) 17:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Biography writer Walter Isaacson claims the Tesla CEO was drawn ‘into a dark vortex’ around the time they made things official. He added: ‘That lasted more than a year and produced a deep-seated pain that lingers to this day.’

According to The Los Angeles Times, Isaacson further claimed that Musk’s ‘brother and friends hated her with a passion’ and described it as a ‘hellacious’ period.

Kimbal Musk, Elon’s brother, said his brother ‘falls in love with these people who are really mean to him’, calling it ‘very sad’. The chef added: ‘They’re beautiful, no question, but they have a very dark side and Elon knows that they’re toxic.’

Isaacson claims that the SpaceX founder admitted the relationship ‘was brutal’ while Heard confessed she still loves him ‘very much’. The Danish Girl actress added: ‘Elon loves fire, and sometimes it burns him.’

Aware of his own downfalls, Musk said: ‘I’m just a fool for love. I am often a fool, but especially for love.’

https://metro.co.uk/2023/09/12/elon-musk-biography-relationship-amber-heard-brutal-19488551/ Eenchantedd (talk) 21:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Child Elon didn't read a book published in 2003

He probably read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, not the Walter Isaacson book 100.4.180.238 (talk) 01:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

You are absolutely right. He didn't. The source said he was inspired by Ben Franklin as a child and read the book (presumably as an adult unless he got an advance copy ;)). Removed. Schierbecker (talk) 06:31, 15 March 2024 (UTC)