‘The smartest person in any room anywhere’: in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland – The Guardian

Its interesting whenever Elon Musks name comes up and people begin discussing his accomplishments, such as the reinvention of money, automobiles and space travel, theres always someone who says: Yeah, but I hear he can be a real dick.

Take that, Elon.

So then, lets be totally honest here, because in your heart, you know, and I know, dear reader, that you can be a real dick, too. So can I, and, if were being truly honest, so can, say, the Queen. She probably has to be a dick 10 times a week. So since when does being a dick somehow invalidate you as a person? It doesnt. Thats just stupid. And whats in it for you to dis someone you dont know, anyway? Being negative is a stupid persons way of trying to appear smart without actually being smart. And lets also be certain about something else: we all hate a goody two-shoes, so come on, what kind of perfect behaviour is it you expect from a person, any person, let alone Elon Musk?

Elon Musk is actually terrible at publicity. His Cybertruck launch was a disaster, and the Tesla in space thing was cringey. When being interviewed hes opaque, overly techy and difficult to connect with Richard Branson is a million times better with publicity, but theres something about Musk that makes Branson seem a thousand years old.

Hes terrible at that, too. After the deplatforming of Donald Trump, Musk is undebateably the planets alpha tweeter. One of those Kardashian people can make a line of armpit hair remover go viral, but Musk can generate or destroy billions of dollars of wealth in three or four words. Why on earth would he bother wasting three brain cells trying to manipulate the media? As well, his often-lame tweets frequently backfire, as hes the first to attest with his all too true tweet: Tweeting on Ambien isnt wise. Musk doesnt need to manipulate the media because what he does is fantastically interesting. He isnt someone who needs to fish for press.

a) So, what if he is? But, b) He isnt. Hes just doing what he does. Hes also, at the time of writing, the second richest person on Earth. He probably got used to going to the candy store and buying 10 of everything a long time ago. He lives modestly. He always reinvests in his own ideas and his ideas are good.

Grow up.

Musk didnt just generate a few fundamental patents and move to Santa Barbara to golf for the rest of his life. Every day he tries to reinvent the wheel and its working. Shopped online lately? Ever wanted to visit the International Space Station? Want a new car? With cars alone, Musk pretty much single-handedly shamed and forced the global auto industry to accelerate the electric car rollout by seven to 10 years. Yet people kvetch, and it makes me wonder if there is something fundamentally flawed about our era that it is almost impossible to get people to say something nice about pretty much anyone else. A like given to someone else is a like that could have instead gone to oneself, which I suppose indicates that theres something fundamentally different about selfhood than, say, 25 years ago. I pick 1996 because it seems to me to have been the acme of the celebrity profile remember them? In Vanity Fair, say. The glossy cover. The fawning. The expectation of dirt revealed. Will they backstab? Even the interviewers were famous for interviewing, and it all feels like a million years ago. Are there any celebrity interviewers left? Oprah, I guess, but her heart doesnt seem to really be in it, and she now seems to be merely an enabling conduit for the Megan-and-Harry feelings politics that blights our era.

First, we already discussed this: he can be a dick, so dont be surprised when he is. Second, people know theyre going to be working with Elon Musk, so they cant play woe is me if he goes Elon on them. And third, hes incredibly smart and is used to working with the worlds smartest and most accomplished people, so if you dont cut the mustard then you didnt cut the mustard. And heres something funny he actually said to someone who was pissing him off in the Tesla factory: You know, I could be drinking mai tais with naked supermodels, but instead Im here with you. He has a point.

Dear God, is this what our society has been reduced to?

Hes a good father with six sons: triplets, twins and one solo. A first son died of Sids at the age of 10 weeks.

He has been married to two women (his second wife twice).

He is famous for his need to be in love and for being unable to sleep alone.

He spent his 47th birthday in his factory fixing robots for 24 hours.

He loves his mother, who is a top global fashion model at 73.

He sees no future in fossil fuels.

He hates visible seams on his products.

He swears a lot.

In 2018 his tunnel-drilling company, the Boring Company, sold 20,000 novelty flamethrowers as a publicity stunt. They now sell on eBay at an average of $3,000.

No, hes not. The left doesnt like him because he doesnt fund them or show interest in their causes. And the right doesnt like him because he messes around with the stock market and doesnt take classical capitalism seriously. For example, he thinks short selling the stock market should be banned. Musk donates to Democrats and Republicans only because its the cost of having a voice in government. He seems to see left versus right as an obsolete binary and instead focuses his altruistic energies on ecology and invention. He seems to be more about the systems that create signals rather than the signals themselves.

I know, saving the world could anything be more Megan-and-Harry? But Musk isnt trying to save the world, only to make it better. Musk has created three multibillion-dollar companies in four profoundly difficult fields in which to create anything. And these companies are successful, usually without help from the people we once considered gatekeepers. Like lots of people who do lots of things, hes too busy for elaborate introspection.

This is actually the most baffling thing about Musk: whats his deal with Mars? He loves discussing the creation of new platforms for humans elsewhere in the cosmos. He wants humans to be multiplanetary, telling Rolling Stone: There have been five mass-extinction events in the fossil record. People have no comprehension of these things. Unless youre a cockroach or a mushroom or a sponge youre fucked. So, I guess hes expecting a mass extinction event soon, but really though, arent we all? *Nervous chuckle* Well, maybe not. But his Martian plans will probably happen soon enough, and if nothing else have spurred great general discussion on just what sort of person it takes to go to Mars on what is most likely a one-way trip. I know nothing about therapy, but it strikes me that perhaps Musk sees himself as a prime candidate. This is maybe reading too much into it. Maybe he simply thinks its a cool idea. Sometimes its that simple.

This is true. But Zowie Bowie turned out just fine, so why shouldnt X AE A-XII Musk?

OK, but what if hes right? The radio gave us Hitler. The internet gave us the past five years. Maybe AI will happily surprise us, but Musk only foresees a 5-10% chance of humans being able to contain AI and make it safe. It will possibly do this using the systems devised by his non-profit, Neuralink, which aims to create mind/machine interfaces. So combatting potential AI enslavement down the road may seem quixotic, but frankly, why not give it a go?

Hes done more than his share down here, if nothing else, making great leaps at reducing fossil fuel consumption, but I have no idea if he recycles rubbish at his house wherever he lives. What if he didnt? Thats right: that would make him a terrible human being. We could go jump on him and beat him with sticks.

If you search for Musk online comment threads on, say, Reddit, youll quickly sense the presence of teenage male body sprays and stained gym socks. Its incel heaven. Adult voices discussing Musk are rare, and it seems the vast bulk of Musk commentary centres on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and yes, I can hear you stifling a yawn, but were stuck with these things, so wed better cobble together some sort of peace deal with them. Cryptocurrency does seem to be the one topic where Musk genuinely enjoys messing with peoples minds as well as with stock market regulators. I suspect that he doesnt have a stand on crypto at all my guess is that he sees cryptocurrencies as being interesting simply because they exist at all, like Klein bottles or those Japanese Kit-Kats in flavours such as pumpkin or green tea. Regardless, Musks public toxic trolls included seem to adore his ongoing dance of taunts and teases and hints and theyd have it no other way, especially with a crypto called dogecoin, which is like Daffy Duck to b itcoins Bugs Bunny, and the two are locked in an eternal battle for relevance, and even onlooking Belarusian troll farmers must be thinking: Wow. We were going to fabricate a pseudo-conflict between these two things, but it looks like the real world is already doing it for us. Moi slezy ne soderzhat antibiotikov! *

Its also interesting to note that when Musk posts big events in his life on Twitter, successful experimental space launches, say, his detractors will post things like a photo of a Tesla Model 3 whose real wheels went off a suburban garden ledge a photo appended by vitriolic meta-commentary along the lines of: My moms Roomba has better edge detection than a Tesla. #VeryDisappointed.

PS: Musk is already worth $185bn.

* My teardrops contain no antibiotics!

*Cringe* Hearing this makes it feel like its the 1920s and were comparing Vanderbilts with Rockefellers. But, having said this, I will admit that there is a deeply concealed dark part of my soul that aches for Bezos and Musk to even somewhat resemble that blank-eyed, walrus-mustached plutocrat who haunts the Monopoly game board, but alas, that is not going to happen. Both men seem to dress exclusively from Tommy Hilfiger shops at outlet malls. Maybe Lauren Snchez buys Bezoss shirts in those hotel lobby stores in coastal resort towns but honestly, even if youre the two richest unmarried guys on Earth, whose job is it to pull your wardrobe anyway? Your girlfriends? No. So who? A personal assistant? Your mum? Its actually kind of a miracle that new clothing ever even appear in these guys dressing rooms to begin with. But this doesnt directly address the Bezos/Musk rivalry, which I dont think actually exists. It technically seems like it could be a good rivalry, but they both made their money in such different ways (and remember, money is a primary lens through which we view them) that it feels wrong to lump them together. Bezos is like your mums leathery third boyfriend after her divorce, while Musk is your maths tutor who won the Powerball lottery. Zero overlap.

People want to believe that, but heres the thing: Musk has a huge IQ. He is measurably, scientifically, clinically and demonstrably the smartest person in any room anywhere. He can tell you the square root of your Amex card number at a glance. He can tell you, I dont know the square root of zinc. He has mild Aspergers, which prevents him from snagging on details and talking himself out of trying new things. Hes a perfect storm who comes from about as middle class a family as was possible in the late 20th century, so you cant beat him with sticks. His family was like scores of millions and then he became one of the richest people on Earth.

I think the biggest difference between the 20th century and the 21st is that in the 20th century you were able to see the future in your head. There were new ways of envisioning, say, an information utopia or an ecological harmonisation of humans with everything non-human. But here in the 21st century were only able to possibly glimpse a small workable future, and even then only if we work at it incredibly hard. Thats a huge difference in looking at what lies down the road. Musks appeal is that he still sees both the future as well as a future albeit a future on Mars, which has 38% of the gravity of Earth and about 1% of its atmosphere. And wifi back and forth to Earth would take six-and-a-half minutes each way. Hardly smoking hot, so good luck watching random episodes of The Big Bang Theory while real-time wisecracking with your former cubicle mates back in Palo Alto.

On 28 June, Musk turned 50. He has at least three more high-functioning decades to go. More likely five or six, so were not even halfway through his movie. Pundits who think hell soon be over are either naive or assassins.

Douglas Couplands Binge: 60 Stories to Make Your Head Feel Different will be available in the UK in October via Amazon

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'The smartest person in any room anywhere': in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland - The Guardian