Elon Musk Suddenly Incapable of Not Looking Like an Ass in Public

Earlier this month, Elon Musk woke up to learn that flash floods had inundated the cave network that a Thai boys' soccer team had set out to explore, trapping them on a narrow ledge some 2.5 miles from the nearest exit. He reacted to this horrifying news in the way that all technocrat billionaires do when a story trends on their social-media timelines for long enough to pique their interest: by tweeting pictures of a custom-built, kid-size submarine that he was testing in a Los Angeles swimming pool for the specific purpose of extracting the boys from their underground confines—and then, after his contributions went unused during the actual rescue effort, by calling one of the heroic divers, Vern Unsworth, a "pedo guy."

Musk, it seems, was incensed by Unsworth's assertion in a debrief interview that the submarine was a self-serving PR stunt that wouldn't have made it more than 50 meters down the narrow, winding, obstacle-laden passageway. "Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves," the Tesla CEO wrote before challenging Unsworth to post video of tunnel conditions, insinuating that they could not have been as difficult as he claimed. Musk then rescinded that challenge, vowing to prove in simulations that the submarine would have worked if only the relevant officials had elected to employ it. For him, celebrating the fact that the boys and their coach had miraculously avoided tragedy came second to the vital task of defending his badly damaged reputation in the Subterranean Rescue Disruptor space.

Over the weekend, Musk's name also made an unflattering appearance in The Hill, which reported that he is one of the top quarterly donors to Protect the House, a political action committee formed to preserve Republican control of Congress in the November midterms. When asked about this decision, Musk—a self-described moderate who has both raised money for Hillary Clinton and demonstrated a remarkable amount of patience for our sitting president—reassured his dubious followers that this investment in Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Zombie Paul Ryan is all part of a pay-to-play master plan that we, mere mortals unencumbered by eleven-figure net worths, are incapable of appreciating in the moment.

Ah yes, because as we all know, you can't expect to change the world unless you hand over tens of thousands of dollars to the politicians hell-bent on destroying it.

Musk's submarine meltdown and his dopey, cynical, both-sides brand of political gamesmanship stem from the same fatal character flaw, which is the unyielding belief among our Silicon Valley overlords in their ability to swoop into literally any situation and use their superhuman intellects to solve puzzles that have flummoxed and frustrated everyone else who has set their minds to that task. Death-defying cave rescues? Sure! Hyperpolarized partisan politics? No problem! Stay tuned till next week, when Musk will respond to an especially frustrating breakfast-making experience by dedicating his life to the creation of a refrigeration method that will eliminate the gross layer of watery residue sitting at the top of every Greek-yogurt container.

To a certain extent, brainstorming ambitious solutions to seemingly intractable problems is just a description of inventing things, which, on balance, has been a net positive throughout the course of human history. (SpaceX seems cool. Teslas are great, and I wish I could afford one.) For Musk and his ilk, however, their reputations as creative geniuses have become more important than their participation in the creative process. When the time and energy and tweets they invest in a project don't pay off as hoped for, they don't shrug and move on to the next one—they are humiliated, and they lash out in their own defense. Musk's temper tantrum is the most compelling piece of evidence that the submarine was a shameless PR stunt, as Unsworth suggested. This was never about contributing to a global community of experts in order to save a dozen kids. It was about being their one and only savior, and if Musk can't have the credit, he'll make damn sure the other guy doesn't get it, either.

Sometimes the net result of this dynamic is a rich person looking like an ass in public, which can be funny when, as here, it is more or less harmless. But this brand of insecurity becomes genuinely dangerous when malevolent, powerful people figure out how to manipulate it. By his account, Musk donates to Republican causes in order to be seen as one of them. He is buying a seat at the table, and when he gets there, he'll use his combination of brains and vision and charm to seize control of the agenda in a bloodless, post-partisan coup, ready to solve the evils inherent in this Trump-helmed government once and for all.

What he doesn't realize is that these recipients have no interest in his celebrity, his professed goals, or his proffered bargain. To them, he is just another check, one of many that they'll cash as part of their efforts to retain control of Congress and destroy constitutional rights and auction off every last square inch of Alaskan wilderness to the highest-bidding global fossil-fuels conglomerate. Elon Musk's problem is that he vastly overestimates the importance of his hypothetical future actions, and underestimates the impact that his present, real-life actions will have on the world around him. Until someone can show him how badly he's getting played, it would be in everyone's best interests for him to log off.