Elon Musk’s year of extremes

For the common desk jockey, the past year can be measured out in sourdough scarpette, loaves of sub-par banana bread, Andrex rolls stockpiled, the number of days appreciating the lack of tepid water-cooler chat, the number of days longing for the return of tepid water-cooler chat, the roundabout mental rally of abyss-style existential crises, the rise and fall of the inglorious Joe Exotic, the rise, fall and rise (again) of chess wunderkind Beth Harmon, and the now-viral image of Rudy Giuliani’s seeping barnet.

For Elon Musk, the 49-year-old carmaker, entrepreneur, rocket science wonk and notorious Twitter addict, 2020 was less about the domestic idiosyncrasies that pervade our daily lockdown routines, and more about riding his jet engine of a life beyond Icarus and into orbit, watching the vista of Earth recede into the nether.

On the news that he is set to become the world’s second-richest person, we take a look at the seasonal changes that have taken place in the life of Silicon Valley’s mercurial bad boy.

For all his lofty ambitions to radically alter mankind’s ways on earth, save us from the dooms of artificial intelligence and populate other planets before the sun unholsters its death ray and directs it towards earth’s blue-and-green fabric, much of Musk’s year, or at least the first half of it, has been widely defined by his refusal to acknowledge the gravity of coronavirus.

Elon Musk wields an inordinate amount of power over crypto markets

Much like the Tweeter-in-chief, Donald Trump, the billionaire genius behind Tesla and SpaceX has taken the unsavoury route of challenging both expert advice and official Covid-related casualty statistics. “The coronavirus panic is dumb,” read a post to his 32 million Twitter followers on 6 March. “My guess is that the panic will cause more harm than the virus,” he said in a similar fashion, weeks later.

During an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience in May, Musk further claimed that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had inflated some Covid-19 numbers, and that the probability of death as a result of the virus is extremely low for those under the age of 60 with no serious health issues. “The mortality is much lower, at least factor of 10, maybe a factor of 50 lower than initially thought,” he falsely said.

Moreover, in response to the introduction of the US’ shelter-in-place rules – which were sanctioned at a time when the cogs of Tesla’s factory were running really smooth – the entrepreneur claimed, during an earnings call, that the lockdowns were “forcibly imprisoning people in their homes”. He denounced the orders as “fascist” and undemocratic and demanded that the government “give people back their goddamn freedom!”

Outbursts of this ilk are not novel to those privy to Musks’s earnings calls. During a meeting in 2018, in which he was seemingly irritated by financial questions, Musk, in reply to Toni Sacconaghi, an AllianceBernstein analyst, said: “Boring, bonehead questions are not cool. Next.” In response to the RBC’s Joseph Spak, who aired concerns over Tesla cars, Musk caustically followed-up with “Sorry. These questions are so dry. They’re killing me.” (By contrast, in the same call Musk catered to questions fielded by Galileo Russell, a millennial YouTube blogger, for 23 minutes.)

Musk at Tesla’s Fremont plant. Image: Maurizio Pesce

When the stay-at-home orders – which applied to all but “essential businesses” – went into effect in Alameda County, the location of Tesla’s Fremont manufacturing facility and the base for over 10,000 employees, Musk resisted closing down his company’s only US factory, posing a risk to public health. Although eventually acquiescing to suspend production activity on 19 March, (it actually ceased four days later), he declared via Twitter on 9 May that his automobile company was filing a lawsuit against the county (later dropped without explanation) and said he would move his HQ out of California and uproot to “Texas/Nevada immediately”.

Additionally, a few days after its closure, Tesla violated the county’s wishes once again and recalled a third of its workforce and restarted its assembly activity. Musk, in an extraordinary showdown with the authorities, posted, “If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me,” and even told law enforcement where they could locate him: “I will be on the line with everyone else.”

The fire that turbocharged Musk’s frenetic start to the year was further fanned by even more protean activity. In act similar to Thanos snapping his fingers, the tech magnate polished $14 billion off Tesla’s value on 1 May – and subsequently $3 billion off his own stake in the carmaker – following a series of stereotypically-erratic Tweets, which led to a sell-off of shares by investors. “Tesla stock price is too high imo,” he boldly posted.

That same day, Musk also Tweeted, “I am selling almost all physical possessions. Will own no house,” citing the reasons behind his decision to be that “Possession just weigh you down”. There was only one stipulation on the sale: “I own Gene Wilder’s old house. It cannot be torn down or lose any of its soul.” More domestic-related statements that day included “My gf @Grimezsz is mad at me”, as well as mystical profundities, such as “Rage, rage against the dying of the light of consciousness.”

Tesla’s Model S. Image: Raneko

Although fearful that the virus would “cause great harm” to Tesla – and despite Musk essentially sending out a come-cuff-me plea to the local authorities, as well as wiping out significant monetary value from his emissions-free-car company – the firm actually exceeded expectations as it produced 88,400 electric vehicles and made a profit of $16 million during the first three months of the year, its third consecutive quarter with positive earnings.

It must also be noted that during this period, Musk, a man who wrongfully claimed that children are “essentially immune” to Covid, did indeed donate 1,200 ventilators to Los Angeles hospitals in order to help treat patients who had contracted the virus.

And then came the stork that delivered X Æ A-12 (since changed to X Æ A-Xii due to Californian laws), the lovechild of Musk and Canadian singer Grimes, whom the tech tycoon has been dating for two years.

Remaining on brand with the soap opera that is his Twitter timeline, shortly after the birth of his child, whose name sounds like a code you’d punch into a vending machine, in early June Musk began following Justine Musk and Talulah Riley, his two former wives, on Twitter, before unfollowing Grimes, then changing tack (are you still with us?) and re-following her again.

To coincide with such miasmic social-media doings, in response to an informative Tweet by Grimes which explained the baby’s left-field name – which includes references to the unknown variable, Elvish, emojis of a pair of crossed swords and a rat, and the “SR-17”, the couple’s “favourite aircraft” – Musk publicly corrected the post: “SR-71, but yes”. (Grimes then followed up with, “I am recovering from surgery and barely alive so may my typos b forgiven but, damnit. That was meant to be profound”, ending with a hedgehog emoji. Musk concluded their virtual powwow with “U r a powerful” fairy queen.)

And then there was the whole debacle around the pronunciation…

Both – who clearly ignored Mumsnet editor Sarah Crown’s advice that parents should “think about whether you could yell it across a supermarket” when figuring out what to call their offspring – eventually revealed how to pronounce their boy’s name, but with each saying it differently, of course. For the singer, it is X A I, while the Tesla maverick offered his take: X Ash A-12.

Other highlights which have punctuated the first six months in Muskville include the Tesla chief being subject to a poem written by the GPT-3 AI programme in the style of Dr Seuss (“Once there was a man, who really was a Musk. He liked to build robots, and rocket ships and such”); implanting a computer chip into a pig called Gertrude to illustrate his wildly ambitious plans of creating a wireless brain-machine interface for humans (a venture that scientists hope will produce a remedy to neurological conditions) and announcing that an underground tunnel – built by his startup The Boring Company to eliminate “soul-destroying” traffic by connecting the Las Vegas Convention Centre with the Strip – is near completion.

In an ironic jab to the iris – the same punch which also thwacked Trump in October – the erratic entrepreneur appeared to contract coronavirus midway through this month. Replying to @erujabidi’s Tweet, “u got covid or nah”, Musk answered: “Am getting wildly different results from different labs, but most likely I have a moderate case of covid. My symptoms are that of a minor cold, which is no surprise, since a coronavirus is a type of cold.”

He followed up with further details about his symptoms, posting: “A little up & down. Feels just like a regular cold, but more body achy & cloudy head than coughing/sneezing.” Musk, having claimed to have taken four coronavirus tests on the same day, two of which came back positive, the other two negative, then concluded that “Something extremely bogus is going on”. But no crackpot virus conspiracy would spoil the inventor’s ebullient jamboree, as the following days would prove to be perhaps the most fruitful period of his life to date.

The Boring Company tunnel. Image: Steve Jurvetson

Last week, shortly following NASA’s successful delivery of four astronauts to the International Space Station via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule (NASA’s second human space mission to lift off from American soil since 2011), it was reported that Tesla had been selected to join the S&P 500, one of the US’ most prominent stock market indexes.

After five consecutive quarters in the black, and now with a value of over $500 billion, Tesla – which currently ranks as the most valuable car company in the world despite its output of cars being a fraction of that produced by rivals General Motors, Toyota and Volkswagen – will arrive at the index, on 21 December, as one of the blockbuster newcomers.

As a result of the news, the electric-car company’s shares have boomed by circa 34%, with Musk, who has a 20% stake in the firm, seeing his personal fortune swell to $128 billion, a fiscal achievement that places him as the second-richest man on the planet, supplanting Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ($101.7 billion) and Microsoft founder Bill Gates ($119.4 billion), and topped only by Jeff Bezos ($182.4 billion) of Amazon. Were he to nurture Tesla into a firm worth $650 billion by 2028, Musk could pocket a further £55.8 billion in bonuses.

And as for December? Who knows. Publicly trivialising Stalinist crimes of the Fifties? Inserting GPS trackers into the anal cavities of goats and roosters in order to see if their internal compass can be masterminded by a TomTom? Popping Moët corks to celebrate the first anniversary of his triumph in the infamous ‘pedo guy’ court battle?

Probably. Unlikely. Maybe.

When it comes to the master of mayhem’s world of vainglory, one knows better than to rule anything out.

Who is Jimmy Lai?

Become a Gentleman’s Journal member. Find out more here.

Become a Gentleman’s Journal Member?

Like the Gentleman’s Journal? Why not join the Clubhouse, a special kind of private club where members receive offers and experiences from hand-picked, premium brands. You will also receive invites to exclusive events, the quarterly print magazine delivered directly to your door and your own membership card.

Click here to find out more