Elon Musk, billionaire founder of PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla, and poster boy for the most extreme form of definite optimism, got in trouble a couple of weeks ago after
tweeting about taking Tesla private. This prompted an SEC investigation and this
extraordinary interview with the New York Times that in parts seemed like a cry for help.
How should we think about Musk? On the one hand he seems to embody lots of what we valorise in founders: huge ambition, absolute determination and, of course, repeated success. On the other, his behaviour over the last few months has been
erratic, bewildering and perhaps even illegal.
The two best takes I’ve seen are from
Matt Levine, who says that Musk is incapable of
not making life hard for himself, and
Morgan Housel, who argues that something like that is unavoidable for the “natural maniacs” who chase the biggest outcomes.
But I’m not sure. Saku rightly
points out that this is a classic (and so seductive) narrative. And, as Housel himself notes, we do have very prominent
boring billionaires. They’re just less interesting on Twitter.