One frequently comes across a question like this: Who is your hero? Or: Of all living persons, with whom would you like to share a conversation? Or this: Who is now doing the most for the world? Or: Who should be Time’s person of the year? (or the decade, or the century.)
Years ago I used to answer “Winston Churchill”. After all, you can make a good argument that he not only saved the world, but created much of what it now looks like—and his writing is superb. Later on I used to answer “Al Gore”—a man trying to save the world despite itself, though not having too much success. But most recently I’ve been answering “Elon Musk”.
Often when I say the words “Elon Musk”, I get a blank stare, or “who’s that?” or even “what’s that?”. Unlike Churchill and Gore, Elon Musk is not a household name. He should be, though perhaps he would prefer to remain in the background. He doesn’t hide, but he certainly doesn’t promote himself as a celebrity. The cult of personality is clearly not for him. Rather, he seems focused on achieving his goals, or perhaps more accurately his single goal of saving the human race from extinction.
So, who exactly is he? He was born in South Africa in 1971 (which one would hope means he still has 40 or 50 years of productivity ahead). Eventually he became a U.S. citizen. Politically he’s sort of a Democrat, and donates to the party, but also sometimes donates to Republicans.
No amount of reading about him seems to pin down exactly what he believes. He has said that the human race is vulnerable to extinction, from several different causes, as long as it is confined to one planet, so he promotes interplanetary colonization. He is also overwhelmingly concerned about global warming, so is trying to ameliorate that.
What distinguishes Elon Musk from all the other people who are concerned with these problems is that he isn’t just lobbying for government action, or getting together a ”group” to promote this or that, or setting up a foundation to help finance some other group who might do some good…..or……..No. He’s actually working himself to solve the problems he perceives.
He became wealthy at an early age through Internet ventures. (He sold his first game at age 12.) It was clear that he was a genius at this type of enterprise. The most obvious course for his life to take thereafter would have been that typified by Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg: continue to get wealthier and wealthier doing what he is good at, then eventually become a philanthropist, supporting causes with which few could quarrel: suppressing disease in Africa for example.
That would have been his normal course, but it’s not what he has done. Instead, as soon as he had the funds to do so, he began to buy or found enterprises that would DIRECTLY impact his issues. His first venture, and probably his least known, was Space-X, which he still owns. Its function is to do non-governmental space exploration. At one point his stated goal was to found a Mars colony by 2040—I don’t know if he is still on that timeline.
His two best-known ventures are Tesla and Solar City. The function of both is to put the country totally onto renewable energy. He was earlier ridiculed because Tesla cars were too expensive for all but the very wealthy to own, but he said that was only a temporary way of making it economically feasible for him to produce a generally affordable electric car, and recently he has begun doing so.
Solar City makes rooftop solar affordable by anyone who has a roof. My husband and I got our Solar City rooftop system several years ago. What did it initially cost us? $0.00. We even made a little money by recommending it to a few friends who then signed up. All of us are now saving money every month compared to what we had been paying. I tell people it’s the only way I know to feel virtuous while saving money. Solar City is slowly expanding into more and more areas of the country. Its leasing model has now also been copied by other companies.
Of course, the petroleum interests are not taking all this tamely. They are fighting back as well as they can, but their options are limited because it’s all private enterprise with little or no government involvement. Here in AZ they managed to get an ALEC-written bill through last year which allows power companies to charge a steep extra fee to anyone with rooftop solar connected to their grid. (After some foofaraw they grudgingly admitted that our lease exempts us—in other words we are grandfathered in.) This has temporarily brought new installation almost to a standstill. However, I believe Elon Musk is now suing.
Originally Elon Musk apparently stated that he believed the world should be saved purely by entrepreneurial private enterprise, with no involvement or subsidies from government. Later he did accept some subsidies. It should also be noted that the Solar City model works the way it does partly because of the federal subsidy to those installing renewables. (The householder signs the lease and pays a fixed amount every month, while Solar City collects the subsidy.) So he is not quite as “pure”, in terms of doing it all on his own, as he might like to think he is.
Nevertheless, what he is doing is remarkable. Basically, he is acting while everyone else wrings their hands and dithers. Moreover, he is doing it while actually making money doing it, rather than depleting his fortune by spending it on “worthy causes”. This of course will allow him to carry on indefinitely, or at least as long as he lives. May his life be long.