Elon Musk: The Man Who Fell to Earth

Uncovering the hidden histories of concepts, people and events you thought you knew. 

In a first for Origin Story, Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt focus on a living figure: the ubiquitous and divisive richest man in the world, Elon Musk.

In the past two years the public perception of Musk has changed dramatically, from Time's Man of the Year and “real-life Iron Man" to radicalised right-wing troll and destroyer of Twitter. Ian and Dorian trace his journey from sci-fi obsessed child prodigy in Apartheid-era South Africa to dotcom entrepreneur to the self-appointed techno-messiah at the helm of SpaceX and Tesla, and ask what happened to the man who said he wanted to save the world. They discuss what his career says about the arc of Silicon Valley and 21st-century capitalism, the cult of technocracy and the dangers of believing your own hype.

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• “He doesn’t seem that interested in money. The choices he’s made have not been your regular ‘rich guy’ choices.” – Dorian Lynskey
• “On Twitter some of the disinformation has been morally abysmal. You think, how could you be a person who would even write these words?” – Ian Dunt
• "He said it was the duty of the educated to reproduce so ‘we don’t devolve into a not very literate, theocratic and unenlightened future.’ It’s low-level eugenics.” — Dorian Lynskey

Reading list:

Eric Berger – Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate Early Days That Launched SpaceX

Agustin Ferrari Braun – The Elon Musk Experience: Celebrity Management in Financialised Capitalism

David S. Kidder – The Startup Playbook

Hamish McKenzie – Insane Mode: How Elon Musk’s Tesla Sparked an Electric Revolution to End the Age of Oil

Ashlee Vance – Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Is Shaping Our Future

Douglas Coupland, ‘The smartest person in any room anywhere:’ in defence of Elon Musk, The Observer, 2021

Tad Friend, Plugged In, The New Yorker, 2009

Jordan Liles – What We Know About Elon Musk and the Emerald Mine Rumor, Snopes, 2022

Linette Lopez, Elon Musk Doesn’t Care About You, Business Insider, 2018

David J Roth, Burning Down the House, Defector, 2023

Neil Strauss – Elon Musk: The Architect of Tomorrow, Rolling Stone, 2017

Matthew Sweet, Why Jeff Bezos and Elon’s Musk real business inspiration is science-fiction, The Times, 2021

The Elon Musk Show, BBC documentary, 2022

I Do Not like Elon Musk Very Much, Behind the Bastards podcast

Elon Musk: The Techno Shaman, Decoding the Gurus podcast

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Audio production and music by Jade Bailey. Logo art by Mischa Welsh. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production.

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