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Elon Musk



  • 2022's Lesson? Billionaires Bad, Actually

    Tech historian Margaret O'Mara says Musk, like other tech moguls, has long been supported by a myth of the individual genius that is only now being overturned by his erratic decisionmaking, boosting of right-wing conspiracy theories, and incredibly thin-skinned reaction to criticism. 



  • Why Washington Can't (or Won't) Quit Twitter

    Tech historian Margaret O'Mara says that the social platform keeps work-addicted (and sometimes gossipy) politicos connected all the time, making it both an emotional and instrumental necessity. 



  • The Robber Barons Had Nothing on Musk

    by David Nasaw

    Like the Gilded Age robber barons, Elon Musk's self-made mythos hides the government subsidies supporting his businesses. Unlike them, he has the werewhithal to move financial markets to his advantage through Twitter. 



  • Musk: A Vapid Mind Boosted by Wealth and Ego

    by Siva Vaidhyanathan

    What happens when an unserious person has serious power over public discourse? We must take Musk more seriously than he seems to take anything himself. 



  • Musk's Twitter Bid Harkens Back to Hearst

    Richard White and Brad DeLong consider how the megabillionaire's bid for Twitter stacks up against other efforts by the ultra-rich to build media empires – is it more about attention and less about advancing financial interests? 



  • Jill Lepore Debunks Elon Musk's Futurism

    Is Elon Musk's worldview based in a singularly weird interpretation of the sci-fi books he devoured as a kid? Jill Lepore discusses the rise of the self-styled comic book hero CEO as a matter of confusing dystopia for a how-to guide. 


  • Ike Would Like the New Private Space Race

    by Yanek Mieczkowski

    Wary of government spending and the entanglement of public money with private contractors, Dwight Eisenhower would find much to like in today's billionaire space race. 



  • Stephen Mihm: New York Had a Hyperloop First, Elon Musk

    Stephen Mihm, an associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, is a contributor to the Ticker. Follow him on TwitterAh, the “hyperloop.” Elon Musk, whose track record as a technological visionary is unimpeachable, has released details of his plan for a futuristic system of transport. The basic idea is to use air pressure to shoot people-carrying pods through tubes at speeds of up to 760 miles per hour.With all due respect to Mr. Musk, the idea isn’t new. This has been pointed out by some commentators, who have noted that in 1972 Rand Corporation researcher R. M. Salter released a proposal to ferry passengers from New York to Los Angles in a mere 21 minutes, or 14 minutes less than the hyperloop would take to send them from Los Angeles to San Francisco. But at its heart, Musk’s project is even more old school: It owes most of its inspiration to ideas that have been around for two hundred years.