Agree with your last statement. I like that Gates has had to come out against Musk. It is interesting to watch people begin to rail against Elon, particularly the misguided hydrogen community. He is being direct, and correct. I wonder if he is resisting the establishment, and they are beginning to ostracize him. They probably can't figure out how to demonize him yet. Expect some woman to come out and #metoo him or something.

I had a headhunter call me to work in Tesla's home power division some time ago. We talked about Elon a little bit, and I would have had to interview with him. I did not pursue it. His description of Elon was very much as you would expect, intense, engaged, volatile (all described in a positive way of course)

There are some great ideas in that article, very quotable.
The only improvement I can make is to the comment at the end,
add 'celebrities' to the list of non-producers.

I never liked Reich. He's a lifelong bureaucrat that really doesn't produce anything, but sucks the life out of those that do. I'm sure he could model for a number of AS antagonists.

I do like Musk because he knows how to make things work and endeavors to achieve those ends. It only bothers me a little that a good portion of his success is due to tax breaks and grants, but the politicians created those (at our expense) and Musk took advantage of them. Perhaps not what a Hank Rearden would do, but we don't know that for sure. I imagine if Dagny could pull down a huge tax break for building the Galt Line to bring Wyatt's oil to market she'd take it without shedding a single tear. I suspect a guy like Musk would succeed at many endeavors without anything from government - it would just be different from what he's done now.

One note regarding the wage feud, however: everyone seems to gloss over the fact that all that "value" in the stock is completely worthless unless one sells the stock. And then the gain realized is the sale price of the stock minus the purchase cost. Both Musk and Reich miss this crucial detail. (It's very similar to to property taxes based on the "assessed" value of the home rather than the purchase price - a current gripe in my area where immigration from other states has doubled property values in the past two years.)

Ask most workers and they'll tell you that their wage is far more important than stock options because it is dependable income flow. Stock/option sales are a one-time. Now I'm more than happy to give credit to Musk for giving stock options to his line employees. Hewlett-Packard used to share its profits in a similar manner and that process led to a company which was doubling its share price every other year for twenty years until greedy management killed that golden goose.

I watched Tony Stark, oops I mean Elon Musks YouTube video on announcing his new "Million Mile Battery" it was all "Smoke and Mirrors" "Baffle them with BS.". I been learning about actual open source Carbon Battery research for over a year from Robert Murray-Smith on YouTube an industrial chemist in Britain who has been doing experiments with carbon based batteries. I have have been doing some small experiments myself based on his videos.
Musk is still doing his own research in his company to come up with something. If he goes the carbon battery route he will have to eventually lower the price point of the Tesla electric cars, Although, he will come out and say it's a different formulation to keep the profits he makes on them.

Gates is Deep State big time! I would not trust ANYTHING he says.

Not to mention, he takes the name of a brilliant man, whom may have been the richest man on earth if he chose and perhaps we'd not had half the problems we've had as a result.
His chosen company name is not apt nor telling, not even fitting but perhaps, someday may be vindicated...we'll see.