Elon Musk god-in-making

An original article by author

Elon Musk is an incredibly accomplished individual. If there's anybody you wanna be, he should probably be up there in your list.

Now with that out of the way, I'm sensing a disturbing trend. I have an unhealthy hobby of watching too many movies, and so far I've seen Elon Musk in...

  • Iron Man 2
  • Silicon Valley
  • Machete Kills
  • Transcendence

And SpaceX was mentioned in a few other titles.

At this rate, I'm convinced that's not because filmmakers are so impressed with the fella it'd be an honor to have him grace their screen.

For you to appear in multiple movies as yourself, you've got to be a character in and of itself. Elon Musk's character is (to simply put) Tony Stark.

But this doesn't happen because it suddenly occur to people that he is Tony Stark. The publicist(s) left subtle clues in the mind of filmmakers and the business news-reading public.

Elon Musk's character is designed to appeal to the inspired mass; the kinda people who thinks they can be him one day. Pitbull's fans for instance, generally don't fall into this circle.

I have no proof here, but such character can only be engineered and executed by well-connected publicists. And the result is admirable.

If Musk so much as hint at the notion of having inspired a fictional playboy billionaire himself, me and everyone else woulda call him bullshit. But having other people say it, he only needs to show some humility, deny it a little bit and then receive the recognition.

Brilliant PR.

So at some point you gotta question this: he is a god because good PR makes you think so; well does that mean he is truly as awesome as you think he is?

If he is, why does he need to engineer this image?

If it's for fame per se, won't you look down at the motive?

If it's more than fame, is it meant to gain political capital for socially questionable projects down the line?

I'm really not as interested in Musk the idol, but what we can learn from the process and consequences of god-making.