Meltdown May #3: I Was A Teenaged Elon Cultist
Musk's move toward culture war politics is all the more terrifying when you realize he's more cult leader than entrepreneur.
In the nearly four years since Ludicrous came out, I’ve worked with a handful of documentary film productions in some form or another. Some appear to have not used my material at all (BBC2’s “The Elon Musk Show”), others are unavailable in this country (BBC4’s “Elon Musk- Superhero or Supervillain?”), and one went as far as to take a significant amount of my volunteered time and then didn’t even offer me an interview, let alone a credit (NYT’s “Elon Musk’s Crash Course”). More happily, VICE’s “The Cult of Elon” is available in the US, it does feature a considerable amount of my commentary, and you can watch it right now on Tubi.
“The Cult of Elon” was the most recent of these films, the entire thing having come together since about August of last year. In light of the ignominious decline of VICE media, it was fascinating to see the kind of pressure and timelines that their documentary film teams were under and under the circumstances I think they did quite well. As I told the producer the very first time we spoke, approaching Tesla as an automotive story was the biggest mistake I made. The real story is the cult, which extends to some disturbingly powerful places.
The film does still suffer from the urge to both-sides things, but because it was made more recently it’s not as pronounced as some of the earlier documentaries. Say what you want about the Twitter situation, it’s done wonders in terms of waking up the normies. Still, “Cult” does ultimately fail to identify why its subject matter really matters: the vapid technophile vibes it focuses on are merely the gloss on a ruthless, radicalizing, misinformation-pushing, stock-pumping personality cult. There are hints of this reality for the perceptive (or already woke) viewer to catch, but it’s altogether too subtle.
After all, we’re talking about a group that has gleefully attacked hard-working journalists on a thankless beat, doxxed critics, pushed the most blatant misinformation, minimized horrifically unethical and illegal acts, poisoned public discourse about extremely important topics in mobility technology, and empowered an out of control ego whose trajectory is increasingly putting real people in real danger. Voltaire’s quote that anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities is terribly over-applied, but the more Elon moves toward broader political and culture war issues the more you can see a straight line from the way his stock promotion effort operated to where his politics are headed.
Even now, people who were gleeful participants in Musk’s Tesla-pumping mob are trying to distance themselves from him, as if they didn’t directly contribute to his rise. They just believed in Tesla, they tell themselves, and Musk’s “heel turn” has been a hurtful surprise that makes them The Real Victim. If you’ve spent time in Austria like I have, and heard people talk about how they were actually Hitler’s first victims, you know what you’re dealing with.
Here’s the thing though: everyone who has been sufficiently involved as a Tesla promoter for me to recognize them knows exactly what they have been involved in. They have zero problems with the radicalizing, reality-denying culture that binds Tesla irrevocably to Musk, they just don’t like that it now encompasses causes that are socially or politically awkward for them. They want to ride a self-serving narrative away from the uncomfortable reality, and pretend that they were always fighting to reform the Cult of Elon from within.
Thus far everything has gone their way: they’ve made money on the stock, earned clout on social media, and posed as people with serious opinions. Now they want to slip out the door without acknowledging that they played a critical role in setting the joint on fire. Now they want to “move on” without having to suffer a moment of introspection or contrition.
I say we don’t let them. Not when the consequences of their actions are only just beginning to be understood. If you were a part of this, you need to own it… especially if you want to move on.
I listen to the local Rightwing Radio Station when I'm driving. I've heard 4 of the broadcasters, each with their own shows, mention Elon Musk in a favorable light, just to add some tasty ingredient to the recipe they were cooking at the time. The most recent was today when a morning 2-some were chatting about AI. If they had a clue they were praising a crook, I'm sure his name would never come up. How long can he keep up the con? Does the truth always prevail? I'm not so sure anymore, especially if all the books will have to be "factchecked."