The shame of Elon Musk

at no longer being entertaining

Mr Robert Reich, over at robertreich.substack.com, has written an entry headed up: The death of shame: What do Marjorie Taylor Greene, George Santos, Jared Kushner, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump have in common?

In his exposé, Reich writes this:

Elon Musk’s concern about the dwindling number of people seeing his tweets prompted the zillionaire to convene a group of engineers last Tuesday to discover why his engagement numbers were tanking. When one of the company’s two remaining principal engineers explained it was likely due to waning public interest in Musk’s antics, Musk fired the engineer.

To this, a response by me.

Mr Elon Musk (vanityfair.com)

Mr Elon Musk is an innovator. There must have been a time – forgive me if I speculate – when, like all mortals, Mr Musk’s mind was filled with ideas, and ambitions, and hopes, and desires, to which he will, like us all, have applied the thought, “If only!”

He worked – hard, of that there is no question – and he realised, not epiphany thoughts, but things. Cars, batteries, driverless vehicles. He made things, and things made him – rich.

With riches comes a tournure of viewpoints: from “If only” came “Why not?”

If only I owned Twitter! Why not BUY Twitter? By all accounts, Musk had the means to buy Twitter, or at least to service the debt to buy it, and so he bought it.

For several months, Mr Musk was the news of the hour and, by hook or by crook, he did buy Twitter. And post-purchase, his posts shocked, informed, gave insight and above all, to the vast majority of those who barely allowed themselves an “If only” in all their lives, let alone a “Why not?”, not, that is, without some measure of regret, Mr Musk transmuted, slowly but surely from “News” to “Entertainment”. Mr Musk became a circus juggler, a trapeze artist with his death-defying feats, a mountebank ringmaster with a booming voice. Entertainment. But, after entertainment, entertainment that ain’t: enter taint.

Can you fire 18,000 workers and not cause hesitation among your millions of fans, those who, at least, are themselves workers? By drawing controversy to him, Musk started to take on a cloak that has shrouded the likes of Jerry Lee Lewis, or Bing Crosby, Bill Cosby, O. J. Simpson. An entertainer who, behind the scenes, indulges in less than honourable behaviour. Well, that’s what the word “scandal” was coined for.

If Mr Musk wishes to know why his following has waned, part of the answer lies in his lack of newsworthiness. And part, to be sure, lies in the fact that he simply doesn’t entertain as well as he once did.

He need not mourn. His is the path followed by many entertainers, and in that he is himself a follower bone et fidelis.

Comeback? Tell us, Mr Musk, what you can now do that we haven’t already seen. To entertain us.