What's wrong with Elon Musk?
The latest public interventions by the creator of Tesla raise questions about his state of mind.
Many people have been asking for my opinion on what is happening with Elon Musk today. But what they're really asking is obvious: is he crazy?
In recent months, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX: lashed out at analysts in an earnings call; he made bankruptcy jokes about the health of his companies; attacked journalists as tricksters; he incessantly provoked financial operators who bet on his ruin; and called a diver in the Thai cave rescue a "pedophile". If he did.
In mid-August, Musk revealed in a curt tweet that he wanted to remove Tesla from the stock market and that he had "secured funding."
It's no surprise - since his announcement was clearly premature - that this has sparked a scandal in the boardroom about what to do about his Twitter addiction.
And more problematic, it allegedly triggered an investigation by the US Securities Commission into the circumstances of that tweet, which sent Tesla's stock zigzagging (lawsuits are likely to follow).
Most of these shenanigans played out on Twitter, where Musk's pronouncements often hit with the force of a stink bomb. They have generated speculation as to what happens to the famous entrepreneur, who is often compared to the fictional Iron Man, Tony Stark.
Words like "erratic" - first used by those operators who have been trying to paint Musk as insane - are now being uttered by analysts and journalists to describe him.
The image being painted is of a man on the verge of a digital nervous breakdown, and the theory is that the once unstoppable Musk is now volatile and out of control. So, let me answer that question: are you crazy?
No it's not. At least not in my various encounters with him over the course of nearly two decades in which he has at times been funny, rude, convincing, obnoxious, approachable, easy to deal with, difficult to deal with, outrageously sincere even when he might be wrong, furious, charming, intense, and also impressively confident.
Which is a long way of saying deeply human, with all the positive and negative characteristics that that implies.
Your wants and needs are never unconscious or hidden; they are out there, live and in intensely bright colors for all to see.
In the strangest ways, he is transparent, so direct that it is disconcerting and sometimes even painful to those around him.
I've recently spoken to many people who know Musk, including people who adore him and people who have had enough of his abrupt intensity.
And what I found among their colleagues and former colleagues is that they really have the exact same story about an impulsive, determined boss who operates a very hot and messy kitchen and doesn't spend much time apologizing for it.
Some left, while others thrive in the blinding light. Still others left and then returned, drawn by the glare.
This is not a new phenomenon in technology, and especially in Silicon Valley, a place that needs its complicated gods.
For a long time, it was Steve Jobs who essentially was Zeus (compared to Bill Gates's Hades) in that firmament. In the early days of Jobs, he was a seeker of wisdom who used LSD to find it. Then it was the bratty tech boy with the bow tie who was banished to the desert because of his arrogance. Later still, the fallen immortal was redeemed and returned to Mount Olympus, wielding an iPod like his thunderbolt.
He also fought many times with some journalists and investors, but no one remembers that anymore. His death, very premature and very tragic, sealed his epic story for eternity.
However, that left Silicon Valley without an imperfect hero to cover with praise and view with envy and disdain. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google: Too Weird; Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook: A good guy, but, well, no; Amazon's Jeff Bezos: I suppose if necessary, but he lives in Seattle and would probably be indifferent to being someone's god.
And so Musk became the obvious choice, although the comparison to Jobs is definitely not perfect. Jobs was elegant, austere, and even discreet; Musk is pure glitz.
What they do share is a propensity for what is perhaps the most important element of all truly legendary creators of important things: creative destruction.
For Jobs, it was a "bet the company" strategy that ushered in an entirely new form of computing. For Musk, there are many great ideas, any of which would be difficult to realize on his own, from autonomous electric cars and ubiquitous solar power to landing a spent space rocket on a platform in the ocean. Yes, he did that too.
This is not to say that I am a staunch fan of Elon, as I find the hagiography around him tedious and even toxic when it comes to some of his followers, who cannot accept a valid criticism of their leader without descending into The madness.
However, I will say that this whole debate reminds me of something that an angel investor named Pejman Nozad told me many years ago, when he was complaining about all the silly startup ideas he saw polluting the landscape.
"Silicon Valley is many great minds chasing small ideas," he said.
Without a doubt, Musk's mind and ideas are great. He has said publicly, and others agree, that he is simply exhausted and under intense pressure, and these recent mistakes will soon be forgotten. But he hasn't been careful and fewer people are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
He tarnished his reputation by going after imaginary enemies, righteous critics and those who wish him ill with the same daggers on Twitter.
What you have to do to seal your status is, in fact, build a strong and stable company that isn't just revolving around your aura, and a team that does its best with or without it.
And of course, remove that Twitter app from your phone. After all, can you imagine Steve Jobs tweeting? No, me neither.
