The First Henry Ford compared to Elon Musk; who will be remembered most?

TWO GENIUSES




I was just starting to write a biography of Elon Musk (just the car part, not the other ventures) when I had a moment of pause. I wondered, if he is so mercurial, if he might sully his reputation with some rash move, and I'd have to round file the book.

I now found one way to gauge him, by comparing him to the first Henry Ford, once America's industrial hero.

MASS PRODUCTION Henry Ford was the one man who really refined mass production of cars in North America, making all the variations n the Model T on one chassis design. He didn't update it until the Model A replaced it and there the body was modernized slightly and a V8 made optional.
Musk, except for that first roadster, has made his Model S cars the same for over 10 years.as far as styling though he updated the electronics. Oh there's little detail change (such as the dropping of the false grille early on) But he has saved hundreds of millions in tooling costs.. Oh there's little changes in lights and such but the body shape stays the same.

UNIONS Henry Ford the first hated unions; so much he,hired a gangster to beat up union organizers. Then came the Battle of the Overpass between the union organizers and Ford. HF got bad ink .Had to let the union in. Musk hates unions but so far he hasn't let them in.

ECONOMY One way they really differ is that Henry Ford actually lowered the price of Model Ts, making them more affordable. Musk keeps raising the prices on Teslas. They are becoming luxury cars, with none under $30,000 and some over $100,000.

SPEED Though Model Ts weren't that speedy, Henry Ford did build racing cars to get publicity. In one famous case he raced a rival named Selden and beat him and that helped reduce Selden's claim that he owned the patents to all cars. Musk's Tesla Model S Plaid, a four door sedan, is already embarrassingly faster than many vaunted super cars.

VERTICAL SUPPLY CHAIN HF and Elon are simpatico on owning everything you need to build a car. HF owned the forests that cut the wood in Model Ts. He made the frames, the engines, the transmissions, Elon Musk has been trying to lock in all the suppliers so he won't be caught out by parts shortages, and is building the world's largest battery factory.

FAMILY MAN As far I know HF was married once. Had children and grandchildren. I've lost track of how many times Musk was married but heard he has nine children so far, so paternally he's outscored HF by a bunch. As far as employing relatives, HF put his son, Edsel , in charge of Lincoln but almost nagged him to death. None of Musk's kids are old enough to have jobs yet but his brother is his right hand man and his parents may be involved in his business (his gray haired mum is a fashion model...)

POLITICS It was inevitable that HF would get involved in it. He resisted making war machines in WWII until it looked like the government would confiscate his plants so reluctantly made the Jeep because Willys couldn't make them fast enough) and then bombers at Willow Run. Musk helped the Ukraine get wi-fi by pressing a button on nis satellite network. But just as HF was criticized for his politics, Musk ran into a heap of trouble when it looked like he wanted to buy Twitter and kick out all the pro-union activists.

BEYOND THE CARS Henry Ford was not much beyond the cars. He did start a trade school (which my father went to) He built a tourist town (Greenfield Village) that contains a great museum. Musk has not built any museums or tourist villages but took an interest in space, saw the Russians as unreliable suppliers to the US space program, and aimed his company Space-X to take the place of the Russians which he did at 1/10th the cost to US taxpayers, The most memorable thing I've seen out of his space program is the landing of a rocket booster after their mission on moving ships at sea.

When I first heard of Elon Musk, it was universal praise, up until the Twitter war. HF the First was once idolized by millions of Americans until he fought the union, resisted helping the US with war materials, and failed to update the Ford product line to compete with GM and Chrysler. Now Musk is being roasted by the press because of political views.
Musk's biggest battle with his car company is in his insistence that his $12,000 option called FSD (Full self Driving) is workable and safe where the NHTSA has a bunch of accident reports that point to it being unready to take over fully the task of piloting America's cars.
Is this the cross that Elon is willing to die on? I think it could be. He might not be interested in making cars if it turns out there isn't a future for fully automated self driving. cars in America...he could have other interests but if he des exit auto making, there's other industries that will have to worry about a genius with a few billion in chump change jingling in his pocket....

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