Entrepreneur: Elon Musk Is An Awful Speaker. But Keep Listening.

FutureBoy

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Elon Musk Is An Awful Speaker. But Keep Listening.
Making a good presentation is not about theatrics. It's about content.
By Gene Marks December 30, 2021

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Love him or not, respect him or not, there's little argument that Elon Musk is not a genius. But with all of his enormous talents, and his remarkable intelligence, there's one thing that he doesn't do very well. He's not a very good public speaker.

Don't believe me? Then take 12 minutes out of your life and watch this YouTube video of Musk's 2015 presentation to a climate change conference in Paris. As a professional speaker myself, I found his presentation style to be pretty awful.

Musk breaks almost every presentation rule and violates almost every platform skill. He mumbles and he stutters. He doesn't engage his audience. He brings very little humor, energy or liveliness to his presentation. He stands still throughout most of his speech. His slides are small, boring and too dense. He doesn't leverage technologies like video and graphics to enhance his points. Musk sometimes loses his train of thought and then returns to it. He seems at times as if he's only speaking to himself and not to a roomful of people. He appears to look more at his monitors than the audience. He puts his hands in his pockets.

Professional speakers — like me — don't do this.

We're trained to give a show. A happening. A performance. An experience. We strut around the stage, gesticulating, pantomiming, waving and acting. We use words like "Boom!" "Pow! "Yes!" and "Nailed it!" The great speakers I know don't even use PowerPoint slides because they tell stories, weave tales and share lessons with humor and personal insights. And if they do lean on technology it's not with boring charts and graphs like Musk uses, but funny videos, striking images and pithy quotes from iconic historical figures. They jump and dance and sweat and yell and bring dynamism to an event. They make their audiences shout responses, embrace each other and walk over hot coals.

Musk doesn't do that. So by comparison to the pros, he's a pretty awful speaker. And yet I couldn't stop watching his speech. In fact, I’ve watched it a few times. Why is that? Am I climate change advocate? An environmentalist? An oil industry supporter? Is it because I'm an Elon Musk fanboy? Well, OK, a little.
The reason why his presentation was so compelling had nothing to do with his presentation skills. It was because of him. And his content.

I wanted to hear what Elon Musk had to say about this issue because I’m interested in him. I think he's extremely smart, and his point of view interests me. I know he does his research. I know that when he talks about a topic near and dear to his heart (and his business, which is selling electric vehicles) he's going to have something relevant to say. And I want to hear that, regardless of whether he's talking from behind a podium or sitting on the back of a horse.

And his content didn't disappoint. Musk broke down an enormous issue (climate change) into a simple, 12-minute explanation along with how he would go about solving it (a carbon tax). It doesn't matter whether you agree with him or not. What matters is that he was able to deliver his message succinctly. No hot coals. No sweat. No jumping, screaming or yelling. Too many speakers focus on these theatrics. Not enough pay attention to their message. They know they’ve got little new to say. So they cover up their lack of content with bells and whistles.

Of course, a minimum level of communication skills is important when speaking to a group. But in the end, it’s not about the speaker at all. It’s about the content. That's what people came to hear. If the information you're going to provide to an audience is really important for them, then they'll listen to you regardless of how bad a speaker you are. Elon Musk is a pretty awful speaker. But I listened.
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FutureBoy

FutureBoy

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While I admit that Elon doesn't do the typical things that supposed great speakers do, I really don't have a problem listening to him.

Occasionally I do get distracted or lose the train of thought for a bit. But really, what he is saying is compelling enough and important enough that I follow along and am engaged.

In the thread about the Lex Fridman interview of Elon, there were comments about Elon's long pauses. But really, the content of what he says takes over for me and things like long pauses just build antici ... pation.

I sometimes see young kids being brought up as great speakers. I agree that they have some skill. But most times they are so young and are speaking about things that require empathy and experience beyond their years. It just loses credibility. I prefer to hear from the likes of those who have a passion for a topic or concern that find a voice that is compelling in and of its own self.
 
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FutureBoy

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There was also a great comment by Zac in Tesla Time News on 12/28/2021.

In this story about the Model Y getting IIHS Top Safety Pick, Zac makes some great points about Elon.

Zac:
You know, I just want to make a little comment here. Which is that I saw a video this week of on the streets of Germany, someone went around asking people what they thought of Elon Musk. And a lot of people were like, "He's crazy. I don't know about that guy." And when they'd ask further like, "Okay, what is it about him?" They're just like, "He's just detached from reality."

And I'd like to say, I think that's because most people don't follow Tesla Time News, or what Tesla's up to, or what SpaceX is up to. Elon does follow reality. You may not understand him or his kind of silly tweets, but the fact that this car is going to see Timmy, and is stopping, and third-party independent groups like IIHS are testing the cars and these are the safest cars on the road, show you that he is going for what's most important in the world: humanity. He cares about safety and people.

Jesse:
I feel like Elon is actually REALLY closely following reality. Whereas most people are a little bit further back. Because they don't have to deal with the actual math, the actual dealing with reality on the closest most fundamental level that Elon does.

Zac:
And here's the other problem. When Elon does something that seems weird like removing radar from the cars, mass media goes, "Oh! Mary, he's crazy. What's he doing now? No other car company does that!" And then, they don't follow up months later when it turns out he was right.
 

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I agree, it's not how someone delivers the information. It's about the information. Elon has information that I want to hear about. So I set aside time to watch most of these interviews. Also my attention span depends on the person doing the interview. This guy Lex was really good. He asked questions that made Elon have to think about his answers, and he has a way of starting a conversation, and then backing off and letting Elon take the conversation into whatever direction he wants to go. I also liked the conversation Elon had with Joe Rogan where they were smoking weed & drinking whiskey. Rogan does a great job of steering the conversation a bit and then getting out of the way.
A couple of weeks ago I watched the interview Elon did with Babylon Bee. He went over a lot of the same material I've heard him say many times before. It wasn't very interesting.
 


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Elon is the most motivating speaker of my lifetime. He's showing me new ways to think about things and demonstrating those things in real life.

I had to sit through dozens of corporate "motivational" speakers which did nothing but waste my time. They also don't motivate for free, there's a healthy fee for them to talk at us. And sell a book or tape/video/subscriptions. So fake. I ended up being sarcastic, suspicious, and skeptical of the whole motivational speaking setup. And everyone of them had a different hook, but ended up the same.

We really need to redefine what a "good communicator" is, not a professional corporate time filler.
 

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Elon is the most motivating speaker of my lifetime. He's showing me new ways to think about things and demonstrating those things in real life.

I had to sit through dozens of corporate "motivational" speakers which did nothing but waste my time. They also don't motivate for free, there's a healthy fee for them to talk at us. And sell a book or tape/video/subscriptions. So fake. I ended up being sarcastic, suspicious, and skeptical of the whole motivational speaking setup. And everyone of them had a different hook, but ended up the same.

We really need to redefine what a "good communicator" is, not a professional corporate time filler.
OMG yes. I hope to never need to attend another one of those. I can’t believe people enjoy all that word salad nonsense.
 

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as some1 who thinks similarly to Elon (imo), I prefer his to the point just get the data out way of speaking.

I was once being questioned by a "peace officer" and I, like elon, do those long pauses wehre i actually think about the question. apparently this is a no-no and makes 1 look suspicious.
 
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FutureBoy

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as some1 who thinks similarly to Elon (imo), I prefer his to the point just get the data out way of speaking.

I was once being questioned by a "peace officer" and I, like elon, do those long pauses wehre i actually think about the question. apparently this is a no-no and makes 1 look suspicious.
been there done that.
 

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I disagree with the article in the sense that awful speaking is all relative. While Elon might not be the most polished when speaking to large audiences and to a lesser degree on-the-fly, it's the value of his words that trump all rules of marketing and public speaking. This is especially true given the current climate - I rather have something that's concise, clear, open to constructive dialog, and respects the audience's time and intelligence, as opposed to the shiny stuff any day. What's even more remarkable is the breadth, depth, and speed at which Elon can move. Something only I can aspire to.

To date, the only presentation I couldn't get through with relative ease was Tesla's AI day. It was too technical beyond my knowledge areas and I had to watch it in smaller segments and rely on others to break it down. Mind you, it was more of a recruiting event so I understood that.
 


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I rather enjoy the moments when Elon has long pauses to think. It means something substantial is coming. Low IQ listeners can't appreciate this sort of wisdom.

"Good" speakers can just ramble ad nauseum about nothing using double-speak even while lying to your face, like politicians.
 

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Its all about genuineness and credibility. Professional speakers can start to boarder on the space of magicians. The audience starts to look for the "trick" and how they are getting taken (on the extreme side- obviously there are lots of good professional speakers). I think anyone who has seen enough of Elon speaking, along with his accomplishments are mostly sold on his no BS, no slight of hand attitude. I think people have a pretty highly tuned and sensitive BS detector and those don't go off when Elon talks. You may disagree with some of his ideas or beliefs, but you know he isn't trying to say A, but believes B. To me, the lessen is if you are truly invested in the topic, it becomes obvious to people and they will listen if you are doing meaningful things.
 

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One may be an engaging speaker, even when they have little to say.
Or, one may have plenty to say, but be a tepid communicator.

It is too much to ask for both?
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