Elon Musk Achieves “The Impossible” Too Much — Call The Yellow Press!

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First of all, let’s throw some humility into the pot for anyone who’s coming here eager to casually judge: how many multi-billion-dollar companies have you built in the past decade or two?

A second important point: Elon Musk is human. Duh*.

Third: Man, is the dude a freakin’ lighting rod or what?! Apparently, he has played the role of lightning rod for much of his life (must be fun), but he is now a lightning rod that shoots all the way out into space. There are millions upon millions of people who adore him, who revere his tremendous intelligence and perseverance, and who appreciate the refreshing honesty he has brought back to big business. (Well, maybe “brought back” is the wrong phrasing. Was big business ever refreshingly honest by default?) But there are also a ton of people who hate, despise, and obsessively ridicule him. As much as you may think, “Hey, he’s super popular and super successful, so he should just get over it, remember that he is human and the incessant attacks he receives and absorbs must touch him to some degree.”

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Also, before we keep rolling, here’s a quick editorial note: If you don’t want to read another article about Tesla or Elon Musk, please, close the tab and move along. You shouldn’t have even read this far. The recently published New York Times articles is a troublesome piece about the premier Jedi Master of cleantech, so I happen to think it’s fitting enough for a cleantech blog to run pieces of reflection in response. If you don’t think so, maybe this isn’t the blog for you. Also, by the way, what societal purpose did that National Inquirer–styled gossip piece serve? (Meh, who cares — clicks, sensation, exclusive, exposing a tech billionaire as a struggling human — it’s all great!) Yes, such an article is a “massive score” in an industry that often seems less focused on serving a useful purpose than starting a flame war. But since the New York Times decided to roll out a gossip piece on a top cleantech CEO, I feel compelled to put the conversation in broader perspective.

In any case, if you’ve read this far and you are tired of reading about Tesla and Elon Musk, just close the freakin’ tab — and stop opening stories about Tesla and Elon Musk. It’s not that hard.

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Let’s get back to Elon now. The dude does have a kind of “hero syndrome” … except that he doesn’t. He doesn’t create problems in order to solve them, in order to come across as a hero. He solves real problems, big problems, and sometimes little problems as well. The thing Elon has is a propensity to tackle challenging problems of all sorts. The other thing he has is a tremendous wealth of knowledge, mental acuity, and perseverance to get the job done. Multiple times that I’m aware of, he has accomplished things that were by and large considered “impossible” — and, surprising as it may seem, I’m not an Elon stalker and I imagine he has succeeded in many other “impossible” situations that I’ve never read about. When you take into account his history doing the “impossible,” perhaps he has more of a “hero feature” than “hero syndrome.”

All of that said, yes, he could apparently use a bit more sleep. He does have the tendency that a certain portion of our population has of taking on more than is good from a personal health and well-being point of view. (Don’t look at me as I type this between 2:00 and 3:30 am.) It may seem like the right way to approach life to those of us afflicted by the desire to do more than we can. It might be the right approach. Or it might not. For sure, though, he wouldn’t have done so much for humanity if he didn’t have this drive. We probably wouldn’t even know who the guy is if someone tossed us his name. “Elon? Is that a real name? No, I have no idea who that is.” But the challenge in life is balance — a balance between trying our “hardest” and not actually collapsing on the track.

Some people think Elon needs to scale it back. Elon apparently doesn’t.

Ford & Tesla are the only 2 American car companies to avoid bankruptcy. I just got home from the factory. You think this is an option. It is not.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 19, 2018

When does a hero need to be a hero? When does a hero need to recognize his humanity?

Well, actually, I think it is Elon’s deep humanity that drives him so much. So, perhaps the better way to phrase that is, when does a hero need to calm down, step back, and rely a little more on his sidekicks?

It’s an open question in the case of Tesla.

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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Elon could benefit a bit from dialing back his attempts to collapse on the track. And since “what’s good for Elon is good for Tesla,” I’m going to assume that would end up benefiting Tesla as a whole as well.

But what purpose did it really serve for the New York Times to write a profile of Elon that portrayed him as a broken figure? What goodhearted, well intentioned aims did the writers have, writers who apparently gloated on Twitter about Tesla’s stock price sinking after their piece went live? (More on that coming in another article.)

The media is a core 4th leg of a healthy democracy. But my goodness, some of the fuckers are really trying their best to get people to ignore or even hate them. I don’t actually think there was malice behind the story. I tend to assume the best of people. My brother often had a very different way of framing human actions and motives — even when our comprehensive views lined up perfectly — and would have put it in different terms. He likely would have said something about the writers’ envy and idiocy. He was no fan of highly educated individuals who had a habit of missing the forest for the trees. But it doesn’t really matter how a couple of individuals would view this story. What matters is how views of the New York Times and the media as a whole are shifting as large masses of society read junk gossip and can easily spot blatantly massaged “investigations” on top of off-the-wall op-eds.

But how did we get here? Very successful people and even more so very popular people are not loved by everyone. Indeed, the most popular people in the world are often the most hated as well. Not everyone loves strawberry ice cream, but almost everyone has an opinion on it. Justin Bieber became extremely popular as a teenage heartthrob, and how nasty were the millions of people who smeared him because … well, why? Because he wasn’t their type? Because they were envious? Because he wasn’t a perfect human being in their eyes? I couldn’t name a single song of Bieber’s and I know almost nothing about his life, but I know that he has been the target of countless nasty comments and smears since he was a teenager. It is disturbing. I have never enjoyed how normalized that kind of thing becomes.

Elon Musk achieved “the impossible,” and then did so again, and then again. With each “impossible” accomplishment, his legend grew, he became more and more a “hero” of modern times. He actually became one of the most admired, respected, loved people on the planet. But as I said, where someone is greatly loved, they are also greatly hated. It was actually more than two years ago that I wrote long pieces on why Elon is loved so much and why Elon is hated so much. It was also in 2016 when one of our other writers explained beautifully (in what is still one of my favorite articles) how Elon fits into the hero archetype.

But the thing is — as many a Hollywood star or politician has found out — the higher your profile rises, the more serious, organized, and challenging the attacks on you as a person become. As Elon rose to the top of the world, I knew that the forces of society were already in motion to take him down. That’s what the demons on our shoulders do.

The mass media — as crucial as it is to democracy, and in fact related to the essence of its importance — is obsessively intent on unveiling the problems and the faults of the powerful and the popular. One of its roles is to deconstruct the fanciful and bring it down to reality. Many of us complain about the harsh, critical tone and tack much of the media now takes on Elon Musk and Tesla, but it wouldn’t do so if Elon and Tesla hadn’t become so insanely popular. Tesla’s competitors were bitter about the flashy coverage Tesla got on a daily basis for years before the Model 3 was an actual car you could touch or see. Much of the media built up a fairy tale about the company, and now much of the media is playing the role of destroyer for that very same fairy tale. Since the fairy tale of Tesla is inseparably intertwined with the fairy tale of Elon, that also means a kind of unspoken network attack on Elon. Both the fairy tale and the destruction of the fairy tale have gone overboard in their hyperbole and color palette, so who can complain?

Well, I actually will complain, because I think many in the media have shirked their more fundamental task, which is to do the best job possible unveiling the complete truth. Of course the media can’t convey the entire truth of the universe to us, but members of the media should remember that their core aim is to bring to light as much useful info as possible and to put it in the most complete, honest context as possible. It is not their job to simply publish all the spicy data they collect and it is not their job to simply manipulate the data they collect for maximum entertainment value.

In story after story — including in this most recent New York Times one — I think the media has dropped the ball when it comes to Tesla, and that also means when it comes to Elon Musk. In the time of Trump, that is an absolute shame. It is a pity — a harmful pity — that some members of the editorial team publish yellow journalism while other members of the editorial team are putting a check on power in one of the most useful ways possible. There is a vast library of misinformation out there about Tesla — completely false information as well as misleading context and framing. The New York Times should understand the big picture of any story it is covering, and it should reflect on the purpose of the article in that context. It should not run a hit piece horror story that ignores core context and thus misleads readers as a result. We have another article being drafted right now to provide more detailed advice and a proper example of how a good editorial board at the New York Times would have handled the information they were granted by Elon Musk and Tesla.

In total, I’m sure millions and millions of people have at least one warped or completely inaccurate piece of “information” in their heads about Tesla that they collected from media coverage. We also have a project underway to attempt to address this problem.

I will put some blame on Elon, though. I do think Elon’s approach to some of the media criticism and many, many, many media mistakes has been a major unforced error this year. I wrote about that at length in May, so I won’t rewrite my thoughts on it all here. Also, I am confident Elon changed course on several of those points. However, I think he has now swung too far in another direction, and he seems to have made yet another big unforced error — completely unnecessary error — in opening his doors to the New York Times in the way he did last week. While this unforced error was on the opposite side of the court as the unforced errors of a few months ago, in general, my reading is that he has struggled a great deal with the media for years due to a reactionary communications approach. Tesla would do well with a much more comprehensive and proactive approach to messaging, information sharing, and public relations. No way in hell I would drop the candid, honest, real approach that people appreciate so much about Elon and Tesla, but public communications should be much more proactive, thorough, and cohesive.

But before any of us judge Elon, the dude, too arrogantly, let’s just consider a few things one more time:

How would you respond if faced with deeply personal and often misleading or completely false attacks on your intentions and abilities … dozens of times a day?

How many “impossible” goals have you achieved, and would you be cool if people continuously considered you an incompetent idiot even after you achieved as many “impossible” goals Musk has achieved?

Who would have gotten Tesla to where it is today if not Elon Musk? (Hint: no one would have.)

There’s a wonderful fable about an elephant that I think is useful to end with here.

Blind Men and the Elephant – A Poem by John Godfrey Saxe (1816–1887)

It was six men of Indostan,
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approach’d the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, — “Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear,
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!”

The Third approach’d the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” — quoth he — “the Elephant
Is very like a snake!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee:
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” — quoth he, —
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said — “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Then, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” — quoth he, — “the Elephant
Is very like a rope!”
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

MORAL,

So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean;
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

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*Admittedly, there has been joking about whether he’s an alien or a robot, but I have to hope no one took that beyond some simple joking.