Why Elon Musk is hard not to like

By Tim Smith-Laing

To paraphrase Voltaire on God, if Elon Musk did not exist, one would have to invent him. I am, to be honest, not entirely confident that the man who has just re-entered the front pages for calling the diver behind the Thai cave rescue a “pedo” is not an invention. Can “Elon Musk” actually be a real name? I suspect not. It belongs to some kind of late-night drinking game played by Hollywood scriptwriters trying to create a name that could work equally well for a villain in a James Bond film, a model in “Zoolander 3”, and an aftershave in the universe of “Anchorman”. Ernst Ubermann? Fine for franchises one and two, but it doesn’t fly as a perfume name. Christophe Lynx? Great for aftershave and models, but too silly – even by the standards of Bond – for a proper villain. Leon Waft? Close, but no cigar. Elon Musk? Tick, tick, tick.

Could an “Elon Musk” plot to take over the world? Yes. Could an “Elon Musk” wear a leather kilt and towelling sash at London Fashion Week? Certainly. Could a 17 year old douse himself in “Elon Musk” in hopes of a pheremonal boost come disco time? Indubitably. But better than this, I would not be surprised if these things were true of the real Elon Musk, a man seemingly determined to go above and beyond even the wildest notions of what a billionaire inventor might be like. I would not be surprised if he did plot to take over the world, or if he strutted his stuff in a genuine calf-leather mini-kilt. Perhaps least of all would I be surprised to see him marketing his own glandular essence in the Christmastime perfume ads. At the end of the day none of these is more extraordinary than things he has actually done, or plans to do.