San Francisco, Oct 30 (IANS): Peter Thiel, a Trump supporter and entrepreneur has called Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a "negative role model" due to his many innovations which make him difficult to emulate.
Thiel while debating the question: "Has true innovation stalled?" with Robert Metcalfe, professor at University of Texas during UCLA's Internet50 event, also called Musk a good friend.
Thiel compared Musk to former Apple CEO Steve Jobs and hailed him as a single great innovator. He said, "Elon is the counter example" to the hype that true innovation has stalled.
"It's a very weird thing where that's the go-to story is we have one person who helped develop electric cars and reusable rockets," Thiel said.
"But if you tell a young person, why don't you be like Elon? it's a negative role model where the basic response is well that is too hard, I can't do that," he added.
Thiel's association with Musk dates back, Thiel was the co-founder of PayPal and it was taken over by Musk's financial services company.
Recently, Musk's request to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by British caver Vernon Unsworth over a "pedo guy" tweet, was denied by a Los Angeles judge.
US District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles has ruled that a jury will have to decide whether those tweets count as recklessly negligent.