In "Musk," Alex Gibney Punctures Elon's Self-Mythology

(newyorker.com)

71 points | by samizdis 14 hours ago ago

38 comments

  • netsharc 13 hours ago ago
  • tschellenbach 13 hours ago ago

    how did we go from growing up with star trek, sci-fi, apollo program to this boring constant negativity. ugh.

    • Avicebron 12 hours ago ago

      The short answer is that those were conceived during economic boom times before the median American was sold down the river with outsourcing, financialization, and good old fashion corruption. 50 years after this crime was commited against the people, the ideals espoused in those fictions has become hollow and sour.

    • cisc 10 hours ago ago

      What's your argument? That we should put aside rationality and basic honesty for feel good vibes, no matter the lies?

      Musk lies constantly. He lies about stupid things there's no need to lie about like being better at video games than he actually is: https://futurism.com/gamers-disgusted-musk-cheats-diablo-pat...

      He lied about the Cybertruck being faster than it is. It's fast anyway. There was no need to lie about it but Musk is pathological. He simply can't help himself:

      https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/tesla-cybertruck-beast-vs...

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J3H8--CQRE

      Tesla never ran the quarter mile they claimed they did. It's pathetic.

    • sidibe 3 hours ago ago

      Some people deserve such negativity. I don't see what that has to do with star trek.

    • SpicyLemonZest 12 hours ago ago

      Neither Star Trek nor the Apollo program were popular at the time. The original Star Trek was cancelled after three seasons with no further content produced until a movie revival a decade later; contemporary polls of the Apollo program consistently showed that most people thought it was a waste of money. If (if) SpaceX and Tesla deliver on Musk's dreams, I expect people in the 2050s will wax nostalgic about the 2020s and complain that we can't summon the same spirit of adventure for the Dyson spheres Claude wants to build.

      • fluidcruft 10 hours ago ago

        (there was an animated series before the movie)

    • EA-3167 12 hours ago ago

      Star Trek is fiction, a hopeful vision of a far future and not a description of the present. ToS was also dark and verging on a horror series most of the time. The rampant optimism of the 1990's and TnG are NOT found in ToS. The Federation of ToS isn't a utopia or implied to be one, it's just more egalitarian than the present at the time which was defined by generational, racial, and economic fighting. It took place during the context of a war that claimed tens of thousands of American lives, most drafted from the ranks of our youth.

      It's very easy to imagine a past defined by fictional narratives and idealized memories of the Cold War. Don't give in to nostalgia, it's a lie.

    • BoggleOhYeah 11 hours ago ago

      Selling out all of our values to make an extra buck.

    • BoggleOhYeah 8 hours ago ago

      Star Trek was pretty negative about this period in history.

      In that universe, we had the Eugenics War/World War III during this time period. The most depraved and bloody war in Earth’s history that wiped out 1/3 of Earth’s human population and rendered hundreds of thousands of species extinct.

    • felixgallo 10 hours ago ago

      you can appreciate the work of spacex while also recognizing that Musk is one of history's greatest douchebags and civilization's worst enemies.

  • qarl 10 hours ago ago

    If it's not true I'm sure Musk will file a lawsuit against him.

    Right?

  • undefined 12 hours ago ago
    [deleted]
  • sfjailbird 13 hours ago ago

    I thought Isaacson's biography was good and balanced.

    • Conscat 12 hours ago ago

      Besides lamp shading what are arguably Elon's biggest/most interesting flaws, it contained factual errors that he had to retract later.

    • runamok 10 hours ago ago

      These podcasters (who I quite like but may be an acquired taste) call him out on how little he pushes back or does basic fact checking:

      * https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/elon-musk/id1651876897... * https://podcasts.apple.com/nz/podcast/elon-musk-part-2/id165...

      • panick21_ 40 minutes ago ago

        Isaacson is mostly interesting in selling the people the story they think the know, he doesn't care about critically examining the fact.

        I disagree with a few of the claims in the podcast, but overall they are right.

    • undefined 42 minutes ago ago
      [deleted]
    • freerobby 13 hours ago ago

      Agreed. Also pretty telling that Ashlee Vance refused to collaborate or share his recordings with Gibney.

  • BoggleOhYeah 11 hours ago ago

    I thought it was calling that diver a pedo for telling him that his submarine idea was stupid.

    Or the implicating Trump in the Epstein files and the going back to groveling at his feet

    Or the hiring someone to play video games for him.

    No, his personality cult does not care because they admire him for being able to be a malignancy while suffering no consequences.

  • jumpinjack710 13 hours ago ago

    This is really off-base with how it describes Musk assuming control of Tesla. Musk would have preferred the original CEOs worked out better but sadly they didn't, Tesla was on a bankruptcy trajectory when he took over and now they're the most profitable and highest volume EV maker of all time.

    • okuntilnow 13 hours ago ago

      They were once, but no longer. BYD has surpassed them in delivered volume and proft since 2025.

      Tesla's net income has been declining YOY since 2023.

    • shmoil 12 hours ago ago

      Would they have any profitable quarters if you subtracted gov subsidies and "green credit sales"?

      Last I checked a few years ago, they were never truly profitable.

      • porkshoe 12 hours ago ago

        Welfare is fine if it's going to the richest man in the world.

        It's only bad when it's going to the poor.

    • dada216 12 hours ago ago

      as you were already told BYD surpassed them, by quite a margin as well, and if you add the other chinese EV maker it's huge, even if you pit all the western EV car makers against the chinese one they are eating our lunch.

      On top of that Tesla never reached the scale of any other car maker, those are some of the biggest and most complicated companies and supply chains on the planet.

      I used to think we owed him the fact that EV are a thing, I then learned that China was preparing for it for a while, now I'm not so certain if he had the vision that it was possible to overcome the stagnation and resistance of traditional car makers or he just knew the chinese were also working on it.

      for sure he saw the promise in reusable rockets, as he saw it with LLMs, a business genius he is, an industrialist I'm not sure.

    • blltprfmnk 10 hours ago ago

      Tesla is ~13% of the global EV market and one of the worst values at that.

      Their total volume of vehicles sold is 15% of Toyota’s, and shrinking.

  • small_model 13 hours ago ago

    Hit piece, if you analysed anyones life, decision etc you could pick them apart. He's a human like the rest of us with same faults just magnified due to his fame and wealth.

    • cisc 13 hours ago ago

      > Hit piece

      How would you know? You haven't watched it.

    • dada216 12 hours ago ago

      business genius: yes unhinged: also, yes

      should he hold all the power he does? no, he's unhinged.

    • netsharc 13 hours ago ago

      Would you say the same if it's a biography of say, Charles Manson? He's just a human as well, like you and me, but the world cares more about all the horrible shit he did.

      You can spot that I'm not a fan...

      So maybe the book cares more about the thought process behind the destructive shit Elon has done. For one thing, Doge's probably has fatally damaged the USA, and oh yeah, Doge's there because Elon helped Trump get elected. How's your grocery and gas bill this week?

      Sam Altman said "Elon desperately wants the world to be saved. But only if he can be the one to save it.". Reading the beginning of this article about his climate fight makes me think maybe Elon's motivation is to gain the world's love to fill that trillion cubic meter gaping hole in his heart...

      He's even tried humor, but as this lady's pointed out: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/13/it-soo...

      • small_model 37 minutes ago ago

        Charles Manson!, Ok you need help, see a therapist please, EDS is real.

    • DonHopkins 8 hours ago ago

      Are you sure you're not just looking for moral justification for abusing your own trans daughter like Musk does?

    • gigatexal 13 hours ago ago

      [flagged]

      • freerobby 13 hours ago ago

        You don't have to like Musk but words do mean things.

      • jaggs 12 hours ago ago

        Nasty little snake oil salesman.