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

(newyorker.com)

47 points | by samizdis 1 hour ago

6 comments

  • netsharc 56 minutes ago
  • tschellenbach 45 minutes ago
    how did we go from growing up with star trek, sci-fi, apollo program to this boring constant negativity. ugh.
    • Avicebron 31 minutes 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.
  • sfjailbird 1 hour ago
    I thought Isaacson's biography was good and balanced.
    • Conscat 35 minutes ago
      Besides lamp shading what are arguably Elon's biggest/most interesting flaws, it contained factual errors that he had to retract later.
    • freerobby 1 hour ago
      Agreed. Also pretty telling that Ashlee Vance refused to collaborate or share his recordings with Gibney.
  • jumpinjack710 1 hour 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.
    • shmoil 37 minutes 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 23 minutes 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 39 minutes 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.

    • okuntilnow 51 minutes 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.

  • small_model 1 hour 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 52 minutes ago
      > Hit piece

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

    • netsharc 45 minutes 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...

    • dada216 37 minutes ago
      business genius: yes unhinged: also, yes

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

    • gigatexal 54 minutes ago
      Some people, like Elon and Nazis, deserve to get punched in the face. One man’s hit piece is another’s well researched biopic.
      • freerobby 47 minutes ago
        You don't have to like Musk but words do mean things.