2022 winning submission – “The Cult of Personality of Elon Musk” by Quincy de Vries
The Cult of Personality of Elon Musk
Elon Musk is a CEO unlike any other. He engages in Twitter battles and is close friends with A-list celebrities; he has hosted SNL and attends the Met Gala. He has also built a cult of personality so strong, not even definitive proof of his questionable morality and blatant disregard for employee safety can sway his loyal followers. Musk has become the venerated idol of a generation of young self-starters hoping to reach his same level of success. His supporters take his offhand memes and occasional offensive tweets as proof of his finger to the man attitude, and the loyalty he demands from his disciples has made him seemingly invincible to cancel culture.
To his loyal followers Musk represents their unbridled dream. A man who, using pure intellect (at least according to him), has bettered the planet and become the world’s richest man in the process, valued at more than $250bn in 2022. He says what he wants when he wants it, who cares if he offends a few ‘snowflakes’. The message seems clear: if you have enough money and cultural sway, you can do whatever you want.
The dream of meritocracy is alive and well within his cult: if you want it badly enough and push hard enough, your success is inevitable. Musk’s tweets are commonly featured on social media pages encouraging entrepreneurs to ‘grind’ for his level of success. He represents the pinnacle of capitalist achievement and has become the idol of this generation of young entrepreneurs.
Musk stands in stark contrast to another man who represents the same unbridled capitalism, Jeff Bezos: the founder and former CEO of Amazon. In opposition to Musk, Bezos is a hated and ridiculed figure on the internet. Far from having a cult of personality, it is not uncommon to hear him referred to as evil by right and left leaning people alike, whether for his monopolies and aggressive pursuit of small businesses, or the attempts to stop unionization in his warehouses. While he surely has some fans, their voices are drowned out by the legions of others attacking him. While Musk succeeded as painting himself as the earth’s saviour, the other is a meme-able villain at best.
The critical difference between these two men is that Musk has carefully cultivated the image that his endeavours are for the betterment of humankind. This idealized picture shields him from criticism and inspires praise and worship. Even Musk’s participation in the so called ‘billionaire space-race’ is explained away as his restless pursuit to better humankind’s understanding of our universe. However, scratch even slightly below the surface of Musk and you will find that he is no altruist. There have been numerous reports by employees of workplace safety violations and atrocious working conditions. Musk attempted to sue a Tesla whistle-blower for over a million dollars and then publicly went after the reporter who first broke the story. His so-called earth bettering endeavours, like Tesla, are driven by the same forces as any other business. His electric charging stations allow Tesla cars only, a blatant attempt to drive other car makers out of the electric car space.
What makes Musk so dangerous is that none of this information is secret, yet his followers either do not seem to care or are so enraptured with myth of heroic Musk that even direct evidence as to his misdeeds is unable to sway them. Unlike many individuals who have created cults of personality, Musk does not attempt to hide from or apologize for his errors. He embraces them and laughs at those who criticize him.
The global nature of his operations makes it difficult to hold him to account and is symptomatic of the larger issue of regulating companies that operate in multiple jurisdictions. All these difficulties are only exacerbated when one singular and idolized individual has come to represent the company, as is the case with Musk and Tesla and SpaceX. An attack on one of his companies, such as the recent allegations of animal abuse by Musk owned Neuralink, was perceived an attack on him personally. His followers quickly flooded to Twitter in his defence.
The New York Times best-selling biography of Musk by Ashlee Vance, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceEx the Quest for a Fantastic Future, was adapted for young readers in 2017. A children’s book portraying Musk as a hero is a shining example of the cult like devotion he enjoys and his portrayal as a hero undertaking a noble quest. The book promises a ‘fantastic future’. The question should be: who for?
Quincy de Vries 2022
Reflection on how the piece is informed by Orwell’s influence
My first encounter with Orwell’s work was 1984 in early high school. I was immediately enraptured by ‘double think,’ and believe it plays in important part of the formulation of this piece. Double think is a key coercive tool in any cult, including cults of personalities like the one I describe. Elon Musk’s followers are both aware of his ethical misdeeds and believe he is the earth’s saviour.
I became familiar with Orwell’s journalism and essays during my undergraduate, and they have become as influential in my writing and in the stories I pursue as 1984. While I share with Orwell an opposition to totalitarianism, the twenty first century has created conditions where the threat of authoritarian rule and coercion comes not only from governments but from cultural icons and figures as well. Elon Musk is only one example of such a figure. It is the intersection of non-political icons and political thought that I am particularly interested in and that this piece examines.
I was especially influenced by Orwell’s piece ‘Notes on Nationalism,’ which I first came across about two years ago. Orwell’s argument that ‘nationalism’ can attach itself to anything, especially in opposition to another group, is extremely poignant today. I argue that nationalism as he conceptualizes it can attach itself to a person and blind their followers to any flaws. It is this cultish devotion to figures of capitalist success that I find especially interesting yet disturbing and that influenced me to write this piece.