Sam Kriss has a funny and rather engaging review at the point of a new biography of Elon Musk, written by Walter Isaacson. I would not have time to read this book if tomorrow I found out that I was immortal. You may well feel the same way. So I appreciate Kriss taking the bullet on that one.
On Musk's role as the CEO of Twitter (or, okay, X,) there's not too much to be said. regardless of who runs it Twitter has always been a prime illustrator of Carlin's Law. "Think of how stupid the average person is, then realize that half of them are stupider than that." But the rather tatty business plans of his other businesses are a revelation. And his father sounds like an alarming scumbag.
Isaacson, the biographer, is also a founder of the Aspen Ideas Festival, a sort of stateside equivalent to Davos. The "ideas" at these festivals of ideas are always luxury items no one has ever actually thought about. Bringing the biggest idea is like showing up with the most luxurious jet or the youngest wife (or failing that, the most reconstructed.) These are people who should not have any influence outside the walls of their own homes but needless to say, have a good deal more than that.
2 comments:
Unsure as I am of my own immortality, I'm happy for both of us and grateful to Sam Kriss we don't have to read Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk. As Kriss so succinctly wrote, 'When we start writing the lives of the living we become sycophants.' It was a most excellent book review that told me more about the state of America by describing the way Isaacson maneuvered his way into the heady world of the super rich.
Geez, when he was CEO of CNN he ordered the staff to downplay the suffering of the Afghans during the war by saying they always had to remember to focus on 9/11. Who wouldn't be reminded of the current fiasco in Israel? He left CNN soon after and was awarded the presidency of the Aspen Institute. Goes to show how some people are appreciated for their efforts to confound the public.
So that's essentially how he came to be Musk's biographer. I don't know if anyone could get very far in making Elon Musk sound like a genius. If anything he sounds like grifter with a capital 'G', which is I think what you're referring to when you say the decriptions of his other businesses came as a revelation. He sold 'electric vehicle credits' when nobody else was making battery powered cars and sold carbon credits too - probably still is. Dad provided some initial funding for a mapping program (must have stopped beating young Elon by then). Elon eventually got $22mil for his share. Decent start for a young man with boundless ambition. Kriss's description of how Elon's space projects are wholly owned by the US government was enlightening for sure.
I admire your concise summary of Isaacson too. You're exactly right that the bloated monied class has far too much influence altogether. Gone are the days of funding libraries and museums.
The line about becoming sycophants when we write the lives of the living is something that hadn't occurred to me before. But having heard it, it's obviously true. And it's had huge consequences as the need--or at least desire--to curry favor with the wealthy and powerful has led to a lot of absurdly wrong coverage.
CNN did indeed downplay the suffering of the Afghan people during the war, as well as the Iraqis. It's always more important to keep big dates like 9/11 and 10/7 in mind. The thing about the media when the War on Terror broke out is that Fox News took a lot of heat for jingoism, but it wasn't really an outlier. Fox had a greater interest in protecting Bush and the Republicans than the other networks, but they all agreed on the importance of taking the right (US government) side.
Selling "electric vehicle credits" and carbon credits is how you build a fortune up fast. And of course that's how you get people paying attention to you, listening to you regardless of whether you know what you're talking about, etc. And yes, the bits about SpaceX are very illuminating. Kriss is right in pointing out that the space shuttles of the 1980s were made by officially private contractors as well. But no one back then was talking about "Rockwell International's space exploration missions." What changed? Back then it seems the government had more credibility in the eyes of the people, and thus less need to have a frontman.
It was nice when donations went to founding libraries and museums. It would be nice to see more of that now, provided that they were left alone. The thing about those institutions now is that they're often run by people with an agenda that's unrelated to the cultural purposes they once had.
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