Why so many people think Elon Musk is a hero — or a villain

 

Why so many people think Elon Musk is a hero — or a villain

The overwhelming newsflow that comes along with Elon Musk and his companies is perhaps most apparent to me when I come back from a vacation. And it’s weird to come back to a group of people who just all scream at each other constantly! Like, the Tesla bulls and Musk fans vs. the Tesla bears and Musk haters — they’re always doing Righteous Combat online and your girl just wants to look at some cat photos, you know?

There are essentially two distinct narratives when it comes to Musk generally and they are, in their simplest terms: (1) Elon Musk is a hero and (2) Elon Musk is a villain. To be clear, I subscribe to the far-less-interesting narrative that Elon Musk is, like, a guy, but with more money than usual.

ANY TIME YOU TRY TO TAKE A BIG-PICTURE LOOK AT MUSK AND HIS COMPANIES, YOU’RE INEVITABLY GOING TO LEAVE STUFF OUT

One consistent thing, though, is that any time you try to take a big-picture look at Musk and his companies, you’re inevitably going to leave stuff out. “Musk is a hero,” “Musk is a villain,” and “Musk is, idk, rich” are narratives that all work with the same basic sets of facts. To support any of them, you choose to emphasize certain facts and de-emphasize others. You can accuse literally anyone writing about Musk in a big-picture way of cherry-picking and be absolutely right.

I’ve wondered for a while why the narrative divide between “genius” and “villain” is so large and in trying to get back up to speed after two weeks off, I think I’ve hit on it. These are probably the two simplest ways to sort the dude out, and because the news flow is so intense, it doesn’t really matter which one you pick because there will always be something happening that supports the narrative. For instance: if you think Musk is a hero, well, so does Neil deGrasse Tyson, a known Science Guy. If you think Musk is a villain, well, you have your share of lawsuits to pick and choose from.

The more news that comes out about Musk and his companies, I figure, the likelier it is that anyone who is paying attention will sort into one camp or another to decrease their cognitive load. Which means that if, let’s say, Tesla abruptly files for bankruptcy, or we wake up tomorrow and Neuralink has allowed someone to regain use of their legs — well, it won’t make a dent in the preconceived narratives people already use to help make sense of all the news that’s coming in.