Episode 4: Iron Man

Summary

Summary of "X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story" – Episode 4: Iron Man

Release Date: March 28, 2025 | Host: Jill Lepore | Produced by Pushkin Industries and BBC Radio 4

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Introduction: Setting the Stage

Jill Lepore opens Episode 4 of "X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story" by delving into the intriguing parallels between Elon Musk and the Marvel superhero Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man. This episode explores how science fiction has not only influenced Musk's ambitions but also shaped his public persona and branding.

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1. The Genesis of Tesla and Musk's Rising Fame

Tesla’s Early Days: Elon Musk's fame initially stemmed from his successes with PayPal and SpaceX. However, it was Tesla that began cementing his reputation as a transformative entrepreneur. Musk's acquisition of Tesla and his hands-on approach signaled his intent to disrupt the traditional automobile industry.

Transcript Reference:
[03:17] Jill Lepore: "After Elon Musk made a fortune with PayPal and launched SpaceX, but long before he bought Twitter... he was known for Tesla."

The Tesla Roadster Revolution: Tesla’s introduction of the Roadster in 2008 reignited interest in electric vehicles (EVs), reminiscent of the early EV1 by General Motors in the 1990s. The Roadster was not just a car; it was a symbol of innovation and a statement against conventional automotive norms.

Transcript Reference:
[03:36] Yak: "So when Tesla came out with the Roadster, these people who'd held those funerals... went nuts."

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2. Elon Musk as the Real-life Tony Stark

Paralleling Tony Stark: The episode draws a direct line between Elon Musk and Tony Stark, emphasizing Musk's charismatic and visionary traits that mirror those of Marvel's iconic hero. Both figures are portrayed as handsome, intelligent, and relentlessly innovative.

Transcript Reference:
[06:14] Jill Lepore: "You can hear it just there in the messianic language... Musk had begun to think of himself as Tony Stark."

Jon Favreau and the Iron Man Connection: Jon Favreau, the director of the first Iron Man movie, recognized these similarities and incorporated Musk into the film, further blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Musk’s cameo in the 2010 film served to reinforce his status as a real-life superhero.

Transcript Reference:
[09:23] Jill Lepore: "Musk and Stark even look alike. Black jeans, black T shirt, maybe a blazer. Same haircut, a little stubble."

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3. Branding and Storytelling: The Musk Phenomenon

Narrative Crafting: Musk’s ability to craft compelling narratives has been pivotal to Tesla’s success. By positioning himself as a visionary akin to Tony Stark, Musk has created a personal brand that resonates with innovation and ambition.

Transcript Reference:
[16:27] Ed Niedermeyer: "The reality is that the reason Tesla is here today is because Elon Musk is a remarkable storyteller."

Polarization as Strategy: Musk’s polarizing persona—being both adored and criticized—serves as a strategic advantage, fueling intense loyalty among fans while generating widespread debate and attention.

Transcript Reference:
[17:09] Ed Niedermeyer: "I think that Musk knows that if you can force people to either love him and trust everything he says implicitly or hate him and think he's a con man, more people will break his way."

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4. The Contradictions of Muskism

Environmental Advocacy vs. Cryptocurrency: A significant contradiction in Musk’s public image is his advocacy for renewable energy juxtaposed with his support for Bitcoin. Elizabeth Kolbert critiques this inconsistency, highlighting the environmental toll of Bitcoin mining.

Transcript Reference:
[21:32] Elizabeth Kolbert: "Bitcoin is a terribly energy intensive cryptocurrency... Bitcoin mining nowadays is using up roughly 130 terawatt hours of electricity per year."

Strategic Shifts: Musk’s shift from championing climate change to focusing on political and financial matters marks a departure from his earlier environmentalist image, raising questions about his motivations and strategies.

Transcript Reference:
[29:12] Jill Lepore: "The less Musk talked about renewable energy, the more he talked about politics and especially about money."

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5. Tesla's Milestones and Strategic Initiatives

South Australia Battery Installation: One of Tesla’s significant achievements discussed in the episode is the rapid deployment of a massive battery system in South Australia. Despite not having the sensational flair of Musk’s other ventures, this project demonstrated Tesla’s capabilities in renewable energy solutions.

Transcript Reference:
[28:22] Ed Niedermeyer: "Tesla delivered in 63 days. The system's still working fantastically well for South Australians."

Financial Struggles and Successes: Tesla’s journey from near-bankruptcy in 2008 to sustained profitability showcases the precarious yet triumphant path of the company under Musk’s leadership.

Transcript Reference:
[19:14] Jill Lepore: "Tesla almost went bankrupt in 2008... In 2020, it had its first profitable year, and those profits have continued."

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6. The Future and Musk's Evolving Focus

Space Exploration and Colonization: Elizabeth Kolbert discusses Musk’s aspirations for space colonization as a survival strategy for humanity, critiquing the feasibility and underlying motivations of such grandiose plans.

Transcript Reference:
[21:10] Elizabeth Kolbert: "Elon Musk is constantly telling us... there is no geophysical limits here that we can't overcome."

Shift Towards Politics: By 2024, Musk’s public discourse shifted significantly towards political arenas and financial ventures, moving away from his earlier focus on renewable energy and climate change.

Transcript Reference:
[29:12] Jill Lepore: "The less Musk talked about renewable energy, the more he talked about politics and especially about money."

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Conclusion: The Complex Legacy of Elon Musk

Jill Lepore concludes the episode by reflecting on the multifaceted legacy of Elon Musk. While Tesla’s advancements in electric vehicles and renewable energy are undeniable, Musk’s persona—shaped by science fiction narratives and strategic polarization—adds layers of complexity to his impact on technology and society.

Final Thoughts:
"I loved driving the Tesla Roadster... sustainability will require more than just switching out every petrol powered car."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Jill Lepore [03:17]: "After Elon Musk made a fortune with PayPal and launched SpaceX, but long before he bought Twitter... he was known for Tesla."

• Ed Niedermeyer [17:09]: "I think that Musk knows that if you can force people to either love him and trust everything he says implicitly or hate him and think he's a con man, more people will break his way."

• Elizabeth Kolbert [21:32]: "Bitcoin is a terribly energy intensive cryptocurrency... Bitcoin mining nowadays is using up roughly 130 terawatt hours of electricity per year."

• Ed Niedermeyer [26:08]: "Better living, robust health."

• Jill Lepore [29:12]: "The less Musk talked about renewable energy, the more he talked about politics and especially about money."

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Final Takeaway

"Iron Man" serves as a metaphorical lens through which Jill Lepore examines Elon Musk’s rise to prominence, highlighting how his ambitions and public image are deeply intertwined with the narratives of modern science fiction. The episode underscores the duality of Musk as both a pioneering technologist and a polarizing public figure, inviting listeners to ponder the real-world implications of such a complex persona.

Transcript

[Jill Lepore]

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[Justin Richmond]

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[Jill Lepore]

PUSHKIN all right.

[Justin Richmond]

Okay. So getting in, it's really, really low.

[Jill Lepore]

Yeah.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

So what you want to do is.

[Jill Lepore]

Actually a friend of mine owns a Tesla Roadster. Black, like the Batmobile. You can kind of slide in. Okay. Whoa. Welcome to X the Elon Musk Origin Story. A special report on the relationship between science fiction and the worldview of Elon Musk. I'm Jill Lepore. Okay, so that was the ignition? Yeah.

[Justin Richmond]

All right, you want to go?

[Jill Lepore]

Yeah, I do. All right, let's go.

[Justin Richmond]

Let's go.

[Jill Lepore]

After Elon Musk made a fortune with PayPal and launched SpaceX, but long before he bought Twitter, when he was famous, but not half as geopolitically influential as he is now, he was known for Tesla. So I decided to go for a ride. Wow.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Oh, my God.

[Jill Lepore]

That's cool. A century ago, in the early days of the automobile, petrol powered cars won the battle against electric cars. In 1996, a few years before Tesla got started, GM developed an electric car called the EV1. California had just adopted a new zero emissions law. But then after California Revised that law, GM seized its fleet of EVs. All of them grieving owners held funerals for their cars.

[Justin Richmond]

Some might say that to be here gathered today to mourn the loss of a car would be going too far. We are here to say goodbye to more than a car. It is difficult to know what to say at a time like this. I consulted my rabbi's manual and there was absolutely nothing in it for the.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Burial of the car.

[Jill Lepore]

So when Tesla came out with the Roadster, these people who'd held those funerals, these people went nuts. The Roadster was sleek and fast. It had a range of something like 200 miles. True, it cost about $100,000, but that was supposedly part of the plan. Make electric cars sexy, sell a bunch to very rich people and use that money to build a more affordable car. Hollywood a listers signed up. As Musk told npr, George Clooney, the.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Founders of Google, Larry and Sergey. What's his name? Flea. Flea from the Red Hot. Charlie Peppers bought a car, Tesla.

[Jill Lepore]

When it launched that first car, Tesla was a great story. Something genuinely new and not some ethereal thing like Facebook. A physical thing, an engineering marvel. But Musk was a better story. Young, handsome, dashing, Thomas Edison meets Henry Ford meets Elvis Presley. He'd already disrupted banking and aerospace, now the automobile industry. He wasn't just selling cars to celebrities. He had become one. Or no. Or he was becoming something more. Here's how he talked about himself then.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

What I'm good at is, well, I think I'm good at inventing solutions to problems. Things Seem fairly obvious to me that are clearly not obvious to most people. So I'm not really trying to do it or anything. I just seem like. I don't know, I just can see the truth of things and others seem less able to do so.

[Jill Lepore]

You can hear it just there in the messianic language. When I started this series, I talked about Musk as Batman. But long before that, in his tesla heyday, Musk had begun to think of himself as Tony stark. This episode, Elon Musk as iron man.

[Justin Richmond]

He's the real life Tony Stark.

[Jill Lepore]

This guy. Please welcome Elon musk, the silicon valley entrepreneur. As superhero is an interesting historical turn. One more way in which musk's brand of capitalism is tied to science fiction. But this episode, I want to begin by taking a look at iron man's origins with the US Military during the cold war.

[Justin Richmond]

Who or what is the most breathtaking, most sensational superhero of all? Iron man.

[Jill Lepore]

Marvel comics introduced iron man in 1963 during the Vietnam war.

[Justin Richmond]

Rich, handsome, known as a glamorous playboy, Constantly in the company of beautiful, adoring women.

[Jill Lepore]

Look, there's Tony Stark. He's the dreamiest thing this side of rock Hudson.

[Justin Richmond]

Yes, Anthony stark is both a sophisticate and a scientist. A millionaire bachelor, as much at home in a laboratory as in high society.

[Jill Lepore]

Stark travels to Vietnam to test some new tech. In the jungle, he trips and sets off an explosive and wakes up in captivity to a communist. Aided by a fellow captive, an elderly physicist, he sets to work building a device to save his life.

[Justin Richmond]

I've done extensive work with transistors. I can design them in any size to perform any function.

[Jill Lepore]

In the world of iron man, you take technology on faith, it works.

[Justin Richmond]

But this man, who seems so fortunate, who's envied by millions, is soon destined to become the most tragic figure on earth.

[Jill Lepore]

Stan Lee, who created the character, said later that comic book readers hated the vietnam war, so he created a superhero who was a military contractor on a kind of a dare.

[Justin Richmond]

So I said, I'm going to come up with a character who represents everything everybody hates, and I'm going to shove it down their throats.

[Jill Lepore]

But earlier, he'd told a different story. In 1963, Lee said most americans thought that what was going on between north and south Vietnam was a pretty straightforward good versus evil story and would have thought of Tony stark as the good guy here. Still, Tony stark was a tragic figure, Invincible, but trapped in a machine of his own making. In 2008, Marvel reimagined that tragedy when it brought out what would become some of the highest grossing Marvel superhero movies of all time. The Iron man franchise. Produced by Paramount and starring Robert Downey Jr. Tony Stark.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Visionary, Genius.

[Jill Lepore]

American patriot.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Even from an early age, the son of legendary weapons developer Howard Stark quickly stole the spotlight with his brilliant and unique mind. Today, Tony Stark has changed the face of the weapons industry by ensuring freedom and protecting America and her interests around the globe.

[Jill Lepore]

The Iron man films were written by a guy named Jon Favreau. While Favreau was developing the character of Tony Stark, he met with Elon Musk. At age 4, he built his first circuit board.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

At age 6, his first engine. And at 17, he graduated summa cum laude from MIT.

[Jill Lepore]

Musk received delivery of the very first Tesla Roadster. In February 2008, Jon Favreau bought a Tesla too. The first Iron man movie hit theaters three months later. Iron man and the Tesla rollout. It was like a double feature. Boy wonder grows up to save the world by building new machines and revels in his own celebrity.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Is it cool if I take a picture with you?

[Justin Richmond]

Yes, it's very cool.

[Jill Lepore]

This, too, seems to come from Musk's Backstory. Back in 1999, after Musk made his first millions from X.com and PayPal, he was already keen to become a celebrity.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

I'd like to be on the COVID of Rolling Stone. That'd be cool.

[Jill Lepore]

After Iron man came out, Musk was on the COVID of Rolling Stone. The headline read, elon Musk, AKA Tony Stark, wants to save the world. Musk and Stark even look alike. Black jeans, black T shirt, maybe a blazer. Same haircut, a little stubble. In the movie Reboot, Stark Industries is manufacturing weapons to be used not fighting communists and in Vietnam, but fighting terrorists in Afghanistan. Tony Stark is super flashy.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Tell you what, throw a little hot.

[Jill Lepore]

Rod red in there.

[Justin Richmond]

Yes, that should help you keep a low profile.

[Jill Lepore]

If Elon Musk influenced Tony Stark, pretty soon Tony Stark seems to have begun to influence Elon Musk. Before Iron Man, Musk in interviews was modest.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

The things that worry me are, are we going to make a mistake? Our own foolishness, our own errors can hurt us. There's a reason why there's an idiomatic expression about rocket science being hard. It really is really hard if you're.

[Jill Lepore]

Not a musketeer, if you've always scratched your head at what people could possibly find appealing about Elon Musk. Listen to some of these early interviews. He's a smart, fascinating person with interesting, if grandiose, ideas.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Well, I Think what I'd like to do is help solve some important problems. So I think in a small way helped build the Internet. And then with respect to the global warming problem, the transition away from oil and other hydrocarbons to something which is clean and sustainable, I hope to have an impact there. And then with respect to space, I hope to have an impact in helping make humanity a multi planet species.

[Jill Lepore]

But after Iron Man, Elon Musk seemed to become more like Tony Stark. Flashier brasher. In 2010, in the second Iron man movie, he had a cameo as himself. Mr. Musk, how are you?

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Thanks.

[Justin Richmond]

Those Merlin engines are fantastic.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Oh, thank you. Good idea for an electric jet.

[Justin Richmond]

You do, then we'll make it work.

[Jill Lepore]

Elon Musk became a character in the Marvel universe. And on the celebrity circuit, it seems sometimes as if Musk was resisting this role. For instance, in an appearance on the Colbert Report, on Comedy Central, people have.

[Justin Richmond]

Called you the real Tony Stark. You're trying to do good things and you're a billionaire.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I mean, yeah, that seems a little.

[Justin Richmond]

Bit like either superhero or super villain. You have to choose one.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

You're trying to do useful things.

[Jill Lepore]

After a while, though, he settled into the role. Okay, I am Iron Man.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

But eventually you can transform Mars into an Earth like planet.

[Justin Richmond]

How would you do that?

[Ed Niedermeyer]

You'd warm it up, drop thermonuclear weapons over the poles.

[Justin Richmond]

You're a super villain.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Yeah.

[Jill Lepore]

Still, I think there's another way to look at this transformation. Maybe Elon Musk becoming Tony Stark had been Tesla's plan all along. Science fiction as a business strategy.

[Justin Richmond]

You have to drive it.

[Jill Lepore]

I'm not really a car person. I'm more of a bicycle person.

[Justin Richmond]

Yep, just push. Foot on the brake and push D. Okay.

[Jill Lepore]

But when I went for a ride in my friend's roadster, I'll admit I was super excited to take a turn at the wheel.

[Justin Richmond]

So low. It literally feels like you're on a roller coaster track.

[Jill Lepore]

Yeah. Well, did you ride go karts as a kid? Yes. It's like riding a go kart.

[Justin Richmond]

It's a high end go kart. I think it's a good way to think of it.

[Jill Lepore]

It's a really, really fun go kart.

[Justin Richmond]

Yeah.

[Jill Lepore]

Driving the roadster was a blast. But I wanted to learn more about Tesla's history, so I called up Ed Niedermeyer, a longtime auto industry analyst and author of Ludacris, the unvarnished story of Tesla Motors.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I think a lot of the very earliest investment in Tesla was not really an investment In Tesla, it was an investment in Elon Musk.

[Jill Lepore]

Musk didn't start the company. The earliest news stories about Tesla didn't even mention him, or else they talked about him only as an early investor. Musk seems to have set about making sure stories about Tesla were stories about him. In 2006, on the Tesla website, he posted the Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan, a clever manifesto that explained the company's strategy. Build sports car. Use that money to build an affordable car. Use that money to build an even more affordable car. While doing above also provide zero emissions electric power generation options. But it was also a very canny bit of self puffery. Call it the secret Elon Musk master Plan. He introduced himself this My day job is running a space transportation company called SpaceX. But on the side, I am the chairman of Tesla motors. And in 2008, when both Tesla and Iron man made their debuts, Musk left the conventional mold of the Silicon Valley entrepreneur behind. He moved to Los Angeles, which is also where Tony Stark lives. In 2009, one of the guys who started Tesla sued Musk for, among other things, slander and libel. He said that Musk set out to rewrite history by claiming he'd founded or created the company. The suit was later settled out of court in a resolution that acknowledged five co founders of Tesla, including Musk. Meanwhile, though Musk Musk's PR stunts generated just the buzz the company needed.

[Unnamed Speaker]

A big part of Silicon Valley is not just making money. Another big part of it is the idea of changing the world and making things cool. The reality is that the reason Tesla is here today is because Elon Musk is a remarkable storyteller.

[Jill Lepore]

In some ways, what Musk was doing, a man becoming a brand, is an old game. Colonel Sanders is Kentucky Fried Chicken. And then there's this guy, Trump. Steaks are the world's greatest steaks.

[Justin Richmond]

And I mean that in every sense of the word.

[Jill Lepore]

But Musk did something different. Musk as Tesla was irreverent and he was witty, ironic, whip smart. The cheekiness of Musk's online Persona was new then, even if the Swiss has since become ubiquitous online. Tesco's sassy Twitter personality say Musk was sassy and messianic all at once. Not the greatest stake in the world, but the stake that will save the world. Niedermaier has gotten a lot of harassment for writing about Tesla.

[Unnamed Speaker]

I've been labeled by the fans and the company itself as a hater or, you know, someone with potentially nefarious motivations for writing about Tesla. The way that I do. The reality is I wanted the book to capture what I saw as the complexity underneath this very polarized discourse about it online. And I think that, you know, a lot of that polarization has been a conscious strategy. It's absolutely not a coincidence that this very polarized culture has sprouted up around Tesla and that the fan culture, you know, people call it a cult. I think that Musk knows that if you can force people to either love him and trust everything he says implicitly or hate him and think he's a con man, more people will break his way. And so polarization is a strategic advantage to him.

[Jill Lepore]

Long before Musk bought Twitter, he seemed to be tweeting all the time, getting into spats, cultivating a following, Iron Manning. His millions of followers began to gang up on his critics, especially women. Why did he need fans? Why did he need to be so online? Ed Niedermeyer has a theory.

[Unnamed Speaker]

Musk's fans need him to promise the impossible, and Musk needs them to give him adulation. Even if he doesn't actually deliver on the impossible. He needs them to tend and nurture and grow again. What I think ultimately is the most important thing about Tesla, which is the narrative and the image.

[Jill Lepore]

For Niedermaier, this relationship is a consequence of the sort of speculative capitalism that involves more speculation than capital.

[Unnamed Speaker]

It's a natural outgrowth of the venture capital culture of betting on the jockey and not the horse. You know, for a venture capital investor, you don't always have to build a really sustainably profitable business. What you have to do is make sure that at some point down the road, you can pass your investment off to someone who thinks it's worth a lot of money.

[Jill Lepore]

Tesla almost went bankrupt in 2008, the year Ironman came out. In 2009, it received a $465 million loan from the US government. It raised $226 million at its IPO in 2010, and in 2013, paid back its government loan 10 years early. In 2020, it had its first profitable year, and those profits have continued. But despite the company's incredible success in 2024, profits seemed to have slumped. There are no guarantees in the auto industry. And for Niedermaier, the story of Tesla, which is one of engineering virtuosity and against the odds, success, is also a story of precarity for Tesla and for Musk.

[Unnamed Speaker]

His position has always been incredibly precarious. And it's because fundamentally, you know, a lot of why he's there is it's not just the narrative, but also it's his risk tolerance. So is an incredibly risk tolerant person. And you can look at a lot of different decisions the company's made and see that. And you know, with risk comes reward, but risk is also risky.

[Jill Lepore]

As far as risk goes. The striking thing about Tesla to me was how for a long time Musk described it as a company out to save the planet from existential risk. Buy a Tesla, avert human extinction. In 2021, on Earth Day, President Biden was at the White House chairing a summit on how to avert climate disaster, while Elon Musk was at the launch of a SpaceX rocket carrying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. The astronauts drove to the launch site in Teslas. They each had their own SUV with license plates that read reduce, recycle and reuse. A key story for Musk as a brand for years was that he was saving the planet by fighting climate change. But was he?

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Elon Musk is a really difficult one to parse. He's been very open in saying that colonizing space is a sort of a survival strategy, which I think is a thought that has a weird amount of currency out there in the world and when you think about it, you know, in my view, just makes no sense whatsoever.

[Jill Lepore]

Elizabeth Kolbert is a New Yorker staff writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for her book the Sixth Extinction.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

There are a lot of these tech billionaires who are interested in space, obviously, as you know, and who also see it as a big business. And it's hard to pull that apart too. How much of this space exploration hype I'm going to call it is on behalf of potentially very profitable businesses, and how much of it is really this kind of sci fi escape from Earth fantasy, I really don't know.

[Jill Lepore]

So then why do you call it hype?

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Well, I mean, Elon Musk is constantly telling us, you know, when we're going to colonize Mars. But if you ask any person seriously involved in space exploration, are we colonizing Mars? The way Elon Musk is constantly proclaiming that we will, and within a very short time frame, they will say, absolutely not. There's absolutely no way that's happening.

[Jill Lepore]

So then there's this other line of thought that I confess myself totally perplexed by, which comes from the people who talk about human extinction scenarios. And their calculation is, sure, there's suffering here on Earth, but if we don't go to other planets, then humans will become extinct when our planet dies. And so against your global suffering of people enduring Poverty and disease. We count the untold numbers of our human descendants whose human potential will be lost if we don't go. Like, it's almost a kind of extraterrestrial economics. Have you encountered that existential risk argument?

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Every species that we have in the fossil record eventually does go extinct. I'm not really predicting human extinction here, but if you look at the record, it's pretty much 100% over time. So the idea that humans, Homo sapiens, are going to be around for the end of planet Earth as a habitable planet, that's so crazily at odds with, as I say, what we know about the history of life. So embedded in that is this notion of humans as completely separate, completely divorced from evolutionary history and facing this shining future on other planets. And that is a really interesting idea. It's not one that I find very plausible.

[Jill Lepore]

I called Colbert to ask her about Tesla, but we ended up talking a lot about SpaceX. Since it can be difficult to pull these two visions of the future apart. What struck me most talking with Colbert were her observations about the internal contradictions of Muskism. In 2021, Musk announced that Tesla would accept bitcoin from people to pay for their Teslas, and that Tesla itself had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin. The price of bitcoin jumped. Musk has been an incredibly avid proponent of cryptocurrencies.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

Bitcoin is a terribly energy intensive cryptocurrency. Bitcoin mining nowadays is using up roughly 130 terawatt hours of electricity per year, and that's roughly the energy consumption of a country like Sweden. So the internal inconsistencies here, I think, prevent him from being a particularly good spokesman for environmental causes.

[Jill Lepore]

In 2021, Colbert published a piece in the New Yorker about Tesla's bitcoin polluting. Days after it was published, Musk announced that he'd changed his mind. You could no longer buy a Tesla with bitcoin. Still, a lot of commentators pointed out that there really was no excuse for Musk's decision to accept Bitcoin in the first place. How could he not have known that Bitcoin is mostly mined in China and mostly on servers fueled by coal? A writer for the Washington Post pointing out how well known it is that Bitcoin is practically designed to waste power, asked had Musk been on a multi year news fast? In any case, the essential tenet of muskism remains. Every problem can be solved with technology. It's the reigning philosophy of Iron Man 2. The motto of Stark Industries.

[Justin Richmond]

Everything is achievable through technology.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

Better living, robust health.

[Jill Lepore]

Everything can also be wrecked through technology. Elizabeth Kolbert's book Under a White sky asks whether we have engineered ourselves so deeply into so many problems, especially climate change, that at this point the only way forward is to try to engineer ourselves out of them. Stopping carbon emissions is essential, but it's not going to be enough. Maybe we need to invent machines that can eat carbon. Environmentalism used to be largely anti tech, but it's not anymore because maybe there's no longer a choice.

[Elizabeth Kolbert]

I don't think there is really a sort of anti tech environmentalism these days, but there are different strains and Elon Musk is the avatar of the strain that says, well, humans can just do anything that we put our minds to. We can colonize Mars, we can suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. There's no geophysical limits here that we can't overcome. Unfortunately, I think that's just not true.

[Jill Lepore]

We approached Tesla for response to several points raised in the series, but at the time of this recording, we hadn't received a reply. I loved driving the Tesla Roadster, but as I say, I'm more of a bicycle person. So was H.G. wells, who once wrote, cycle tracks will abound in Utopia. Alas, Utopia's never coming. I'll settle for sustainability. And sustainability will require more than just switching out every petrol powered car. For an electric car. There will need to be fewer cars and more bicycles, pedestrians and public transit, and more renewable energy. But Tesla is pioneering that too. Beyond producing electric cars and making them thrilling, Tesla has done a whole lot for renewable energy, especially with its battery technology. After all, the last part of the company's secret master plan had always been provide zero emission electronic power generation options. In 2017, after a statewide power outage in South Australia, Tesla won a bid to design a battery system for the state and promised to install it in 100 days. As Musk explained at a press conference.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

This is going to be the largest battery installation in the world by a significant margin. We actually insisted in doing the contract that we be held to the 100 days or it's free. This system will be three times more powerful than any system on Earth. This is not like a minor foray into the frontier. This is like, you know, going three times further than anyone's gone before.

[Jill Lepore]

Tesla delivered in 63 days. The system's still working fantastically well for South Australians. Energy is cheaper and more reliable. Somehow this sort of thing never gets the ironman treatment. It's not sexy. It didn't involve Hollywood or celebrities. It didn't turn on Reddit, it didn't end in a Twitter feud. It wasn't even a science fiction fantasy and it did not save the planet. It was a smart renewable energy partnership that went well.

[Ed Niedermeyer]

There was really this opportunity to make a significant statement about renewable energy to the world, to show that you can really do a heavy duty large scale utility level battery system and that South Australia was up for the challenge.

[Jill Lepore]

A public minded infrastructure project. It might well be the most significant thing Tesla has ever done. It is not, however, what Elon Musk will be remembered for because he pretty soon stopped talking about climate change as humanity's greatest existential threat. Global warming risk is overblown, he posted on Twitter in 2023. We don't need to rush to solve climate change, he told Trump at the end of 2024. The less Musk talked about renewable energy, the more he talked about politics and especially about money. Next time on X Men, Bitcoin and Dogecoin and Doge, the Department of Government Deficiency Muskism under the newly reelected Donald Trump. This is an iHeart podcast.