Elon Musk, Chaos Monkey
Back in 2017, when Elon Musk was under great pressure to get Tesla on firmer footing after a series of disappointing earnings, he took to Twitter, where he showed a great deal of vulnerability — highly unusual for a tech overlord like himself.
“The reality is great highs, terrible lows and unrelenting stress,” he tweeted. “Don’t think people want to hear about the last two.”
His ability to articulate the emotional challenges of high-level innovation is why it’s always been so interesting to interview Musk. He goes there, as they say, in ways that are sometimes funny, sometimes juvenile and always revealing, even as he pulls off what are clearly astonishing feats of digital wonder. Musk, through Tesla, has single-handedly pushed the electric vehicle sector into the mainstream and, with SpaceX, has moved space tech into a new age with reusable rockets.
In this way, Musk would be the perfect person to transform a sad violin of a company like Twitter, a serial underperformer that has become the Silicon Valley’s little engine that couldn’t. For Twitter, leaving the company in the hands of a creative mind with near-limitless resources and a clear enthusiasm for its product to possibly remake it as a private entity is perhaps the best outcome. (That is if the deal even goes through. The severe downturn in the stock market has made Musk’s $54.20-per-share offer far too high, and he’s indicated he’s re-evaluating the deal, potentially for less money.)
