Hi Nate. My name is Andrew Kosove and I am the co-founder/co-ceo of Alcon Entertainment. I wanted to just (gently) correct a bit of the terminology you use in your article about Elon. First, Elon is what today is referred to as ASD 1, which is what was once know as “Asperger’s.” That term is not used anymore in medicine/psychiatric circles. While I generally don’t give a shit about terms per se, you might want to examine why Asperger’s is no longer used, as I think the reason is pretty valid. Also, the phrase “spiky intelligence” you use in the article is cool/descriptive…..but just fyi….the official terminology for Elon’s condition is 2E which means twice exceptional. This term is used for those who have a very high IQ and also have deficiencies in other areas of intelligence, just as you describe in your article. These type of individuals can be very valuable contributors to society and live productive lives. However, left unchecked (as is the case with Elon) they can be very dangerous individuals.
In any event, keep up the great work. I really look forward to seeing your e-mails show up in my inbox!
Let’s not generalize a self-diagnosed Elon to other Autistics. Left unchecked 2E population can be underemployed, homeless and isolated. Far more likely to face abuse and neglect than their peers. Elon is the exception, not the rule.
It is now simply Autism Spectrum Disorder (per the DSM-5), which encompasses what used to be known as Asperger's. Do we know that he is self-diagnosed?
Ah, I think this is useful terminology for understanding the Nate Silver framing of these group differences and conflicts. Notably, embracing risk and volatility vs. a more stable, structured, and consensus driven approach. I don't think this article over used the concepts and I'd expect some such analysis from Silver.
I've only met Elon in person once (I interviewed for a job at SpaceX in 2008), but I've known a ton of people who've worked closely with him. I think your assessment agrees with the data I've seen. He's obviously shown some extreme brilliance in some areas, and as you say can be a real dumba** in others. Even on the engineering side, I've heard stories from coworkers who used to work closely with him that just made you roll your eyes. He has a very well established self-esteem, and is quite willing to fire you for disagreeing with you, even if you later turn out to be right.
As a father with two kids on the Autism spectrum, I try to have patience and empathy with people with those neurodivergencies. But yeah, he's a particularly dangerous person to have running amok with unchecked power in the federal government. I don't know if he eventually figures things out enough to come up with something net positive for the nation, or if he breaks enough stuff that he eventually gets sidelined. But I think Lord Acton was right about power corrupting, especially with people who are as spikily brilliant as Elon.
I actually have four kids, and no, most of them are smart enough to do math and realize that you're not going to save $2T/yr from a federal workforce that costs $271B/yr. They're also mostly teenagers still, so are reasonably focused on things like school. :-)
There are ways to cut federal spending, it's just primarily not tied up in paying civil servants and federal employees. The problem is most of the things that would really move the needle (entitlement reform, raising taxes, etc) are painful to both sides of the political spectrum, and frankly not super amenable to unilateral executive action. So we get "deficit reduction theater" instead, that probably is going to make it harder to actually solve the real problems we face...
Another way of stating what you just said, for those who can do grade-school math is "instantly eliminate a minimum of $2 trillion from GDP". I say minimum, because there is a multiplier for money spent in the economy, and the damage will be far higher. If Elon could do grade-school math, say, like an average "genius", we wouldn't be talking about this.
Restricted and repetitive behaviors: Elons is cutting budgets and workforce and Trumps is tarrifs. They’re going to do it more and more. It’s not just unhealthy, it’s clinically. They’ll need to be stopped.
I remember watching the SpaceX gantry extending mechanical arms to grab the company's rocket booster out of the sky as it descended and being amazed. The I thought to myself "The Democrats never really stood a chance, did they?"
I suspect that's the reason behind the disproportionate amount of interest being paid to Musk right now.
Power has already corrupted Trump, IMO. That ship sailed a long time ago.
I agree watching the Booster catch on that Starship flight was pretty darned amazing. It's been cool watching their progress over the last 23yrs. They're an amazingly talented group. I do agree that the Democrats alienating Elon and a lot of the Silicon Valley tech bros was a totally unforced error on their part. Elon takes offense easily and has a huge ego, so they might have offended him even without trying, but I think the way they treated him and others likely would've made enemies even with someone less sensitive. Making enemies when you don't need to is rarely a good strategy.
My meaning is slightly different when I write that "The Democrats never really stood a chance". It's well known that when Musk took over Twitter he pulled engineers off of Tesla and SpaceX to do emergency maintenance on his new company. Basically, he had a bunch of bright techies working for him and he gave them a new job for a few weeks or months.
You may have seen reports in the mainstream media leading up to November's election that featured Democratic campaign officials scoffing at Trump's gameplan. It was highly unorthodox, to say the least. Trump's campaign claimed that it was because they had decided to ignore traditional Republican voters (the kind you reach through door knocking) and focus instead on low propensity voters that they believed would be critical.
Guess who turned out to be right? Also remember that a) it was widely reported that Musk was in charge of campaign operations in the swing states and b) he got the assignment fairly late. It takes time to spin up a campaign operation and it takes time to spin up an analytics operation. I would not be surprised if a bunch of SpaceX engineers got another temporary working assignment.
1. Trump did better in non-swing states than swing states, when historically swing states were better for Republicans than Democrats. So hard to chalk up the election as a Democrat loss to inferior "ground game"
2. Further internal Democrat polling was consistently behind (lower numbers than) public polling on Kamala, so you can't even say they were high on their own supply here.
The only plausible way I can see someone thinking Trump's electoral strategy is better than the Democrats is if you believe electoral strategy is defined by whoever wins the election, which is both an oversimplifying view and completely denies agency in the American people.
Way back in 2016 did Trump break the blue wall in PA/MI/WI? Was that expected?
For the specific question of low propensity voters in 2024 was his campaign correct in a) predicting that they were going to swing in his direction, despite the historical precedents and b) that if enough of these voters mobilized that it would prove to be decisive for Trump?
The Democrats criticized Musk and his team because they ignored the base and tried to mobilize occasional voters. There were numerous media reports where the Democrats marveled and scoffed at the absence of door knockers.
Who turned out to be right? Despite all those door knockers Democratic turnout fell off a cliff and low propensity voters showed up in sufficient numbers to swing Hispanic males to Trump.
I am reminded of an oft-repeated story among financial traders. A trader with long-term spectacular success in one area branches out to others. Not only does he (and it's almost always a male) fail, but when he goes back to his prior area of success, he's lost his edge, at least for a year or two. This has happened so often as to be expected, it's a major surprise when someone manages to translate success in one area to other areas.
This is unlikely to be a function of innate ability. Few entry-level traders get into an area out of personal expertise or interest, they get assigned pretty randomly. But they learn in their area, and develop habits and perspectives that not only don't generalize to other markets, they're the habits and perspectives that winning traders in those other markets exploit.
Think of a top no-limit Hold'em player in his for foray into pot-limit Omaha hi-lo. He'll still have a lot of poker skill--he'll be far better than a poker beginner--but a lot of his instincts will betray him. He may never reach the top level of Omaha play, and he could taint his Hold'em instincts.
Poker seems to generalize better than trading, so there are plenty of top pros in multiple games. But I suspect venture management and politics are more like trading.
A couple of points. I wonder how much of his behavior is a result of his rumored use of Ketamine. Ketamine is a drug that is not without some serious side effects. It's interesting that Isaacson wrote bios of both Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Jobs was not well versed in the nuts and bolts about computer technology but was a preeminent industrial designer. He figured out the key was making things that were tech friendly and thought outside the box in terms of product development (iPod, iPad, iPhone, MacOS and the associated computers. He also knew not to make things that were open source so that he could always get premium pricing. Musk is similar in this way and his industrial companies have been more successful than his other ventures (remember that PayPal had a number of people involved in that). He also relied on the Federal government to get the big companies off the ground (Tesla and SpaceX). Whether he would have been successful absent that assistant is unknown.
"There’s a lot of crude pattern-matching, including a bias toward white men of certain ethnic backgrounds."
The Valley is actually disproportionately Asian, meaning that whites are actually underrepresented. I recall one statistic from years ago that approximately a third of startup founders were graduates of an IIT.
I've met Elon 2x - once in 2016 and once in 2017. On both occasions, he revealed himself to be incredibly socially awkward in group settings. His inhibitions have certainly loosened in the last several years as his public profile has raised. One thing you neglect to raise, but I speculate about is whether he is currently medicated. This could be the result of something prescribed (like an anti-anxiety or anti-depressive medication) or something else entirely. Many folks are trying to draw a straight line with Elon from PayPal-->SpaceX/Tesla-->DOGE. I don't see it that way. I think somewhere between 2017 and today, he changed radically. Maybe some aspects of his personality (his low EQ, his intelligence) are the same, but other things seem different.
"But being co-president requires a much more rounded sort of intelligence — not the type that Elon has."
Isn't this the crux of the issue? The real question is whether or not this stereotype actually makes sense. The trap that Silver is falling into is that he may be looking at a filtered data set: attaining political success probably requires a lot of glad handing and back slapping, meaning that those individuals like Musk who are socially awkward are filtered out.
Two points:
1) There are examples in history of leaders who were predominantly interested in policy but managed to reach the apex of political power by happenstance. The Roman emperor Claudius had a bad stutter and suffered from seizures. There is a myth this predecessor Caligula used to humiliate him in public by threatening him with execution and then pelting him with food as he convulsed.
Eventually of course Caligula was killed off by the Praetorian Guard who, perhaps on a whim, elevated Claudius to the position of Emperor. Historians have been pretty kind to Claudius' reign, praising for its domestic peace and prosperity as well as the Emperor's efforts to expand the empire (he kicked off the invasion of Britain for example).
2) As Silver concedes Musk isn't President, he's co-President. Some partnerships work well because each half complements the other, filling in with strengths for the other's weaknesses. Trump is probably not the most analytical guy around--instead he seems to have a feral, instinctive grasp of celebrity and public relations. Musk may be a good match because he provides that missing component of analytical, abstract thinking.
I might agree with your second point if we were talking about, say, Dominic Cummings. But Musk's current activities in public service lean heavily on his celebrity status, and he doesn't seem to be applying a whole lot of analytic rigor to them. Really, his approach seems quite similar to Trump's.
The occasion? He wrote some code to decipher some scrolls from Vesuvius that were too damaged to unroll. The individual in question was a comp sci major who, fortuitously enough, learned Latin as a child.
The people Musk has brought in are going to be of a similar vein. Their analysis is going to get passed up to the big boss who will go on to announce it to the world.
Agree with this post, but I think another factor here is Musk’s widely reported drug issues. He regularly uses ketamine, plus some amount of cocaine, LSD and ecstasy. Musk’s current erratic behavior definitely aligns with some classic drug abuse symptoms.
"Elon has deep knowledge in some areas — engineering questions, particularly — and some hobbies and interests (sci-fi, video games)."
The thing is, the more he talks on these areas, the more it is clear that he really *doesn't* have deep knowledge. For example, you mention video games as an area of deep knowledge, but anyone who has had the displeasure of watching him play video games can tell that he has little to no actual background in this area, and instead has just decided to pay people to boost his accounts so he *seems* like he has deep knowledge, even though the veil quickly drops anytime he actually has to do anything of substance.
The same is true with "engineering questions". Elon is undoubtedly good at hiring and surrounding him with good, competent engineers which makes him look competent by proxy, but when he actually talks engineering topics, he shows that he actually knows far less than your average middle level manager. Indeed, some of his "technical talks" (which he now has the sense to no longer do) embarrassingly come off as someone who desparately wants to sound knowledgeable, but lacks anything more than a rudimentary understanding of the science and engineering in play. He may have been a decent programmer in the past, but it's clear at this point that he's far out of practice in that area as well.
Do you have specific sources on Musk lacking engineering competence? People whom his biographers have talked to seem to say the opposite. See, e.g., https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-elon-musk, which our host linked to in the post. While one can't definitively rule out that they're just flattering him, the stories are consistent enough, and with specific enough details, that I'm inclined to believe them in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary.
The linked review is a good example of the Elon myth. The examples provided are either by people who are not qualified to evaluate his engineering skills, and have definite conflict of interest (director of company), or are people that have self-selected to be around him (employees). The examples given of genius are either vague, or don't apply to engineering and apply more to management or business decisions.
On the flip side, there are weekly examples of Elon's passive grasp on technical knowledge on X where Elon posts something wrong, gets dunked on, deletes the post, and then bans the user that pointed out the flaw.
There certainly may be some areas where Musk has some technical prowess (rocketry, perhaps, as that is one where he does appear to have some knowledge, though I cannot verify personally), but the areas he chooses to demonstrate publicly tend to be his weaker areas.
I've been a software engineer for a number of years and can confidently say that much of what Elon was saying on the subject shortly after the Twitter purchase was absolute nonsense. He sounded exactly like a middle manager who had heard a bunch of terms and concepts but had no real understanding of them. Many people pointed this out at the time and were quickly banned from Twitter.
Maybe Musk has deeper knowledge of hardware or rocketry engineering, I couldn't say, but he clearly has no concerns about presenting himself as an expert in areas where he has very surface level knowledge.
This exactly, but on the electrical engineering side of things. I'm an EE, and anytime I hear him talk about anything technical related to EE or control systems, it's pretty clear he doesn't know what he is taking about. Your description of him as a manager that has heard terms but has no real understanding of them is exactly what I'm talking about. It's enough to fool other managers, investors, and other non-technical people, but for anyone who actually works in the field, it's blatantly obvious.
I control F'd for "CPAC", "drugs", "ketamine", "addict" and it returned nothing. That CPAC interview, if you want to call it that, seems to suggest someone who should not be involved in the highest levels of government (though I can understand how outrageous that sounds when considering Biden and McConnell). Musk is clearly fucked up on drugs, though, and it must be discussed. You made the same point about Biden's age.
Great article, I could not agree more with your views on Elon. The distinction between insturmental and epistemological rationality was illuminating, it explains a lot of what I observe (very smart people being very wrong about the world). I sense that this goes beyond Berkson's paradox - from the evolutionary perspective, being epistemologically correct may even be a setback in some circumstances (for example, maybe to be successfull in sending people to Mars, you need to overestimate your chances). I wish your last figure included the politicians - the hypothesis being, that they are stronger on the instrumental rationality dimension (which could in turn explain why they tend to fail at governing).
I think that most challenging things worth doing in life would never be tried if the people doing them had a realistic understanding of what they were getting themselves into. Or as one of my favorite signs once said "We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy."
I fail to see any value in discussing Elon's IQ....All I care about is his political-economic behavior in support of Trump...and that's obviously dangerous, inhumane and immoral...I need to know about Elon's IQ like I need to know about his pancreas.... That information is of zero public/political value. Nate, you can't be that hard up that you can't find better topics to flail...please do so...I really value your opinions and analysis.... Elon's IQ is not worth the time of day...nor yours or mine.
Musk isn't stupid, per se, that doesn't mean all the crap he's doing at DOGE or on Twitter (or his politics) are smart. There are PLENTY of people who are quite intelligent who make moronic decisions.
Paul Krugman is a great writer but he is a guy who ignored deficits and was an apologist for most of the spending policies that brought us again Donald Trump. Why give him the time of day?
Because he understands macroeconomics better than I, and has a way of clearly explaining his reasoning to a non-economist. Bonus points for his excellent use of graphs.
To be fair, I think that Biden's spending policies were right on the economic merits. They decided it was better to err towards overspending and getting some temporarily high inflation and keep unemployment low than it would be to underspend and risk a recession and high unemployment.
The problem with this is apparently people really, really hate inflation and normal voters just won't give you any credit for avoiding a horrible counterfactual. Since Krugman is primarily an economist and is pretty good at explaining economics, I think he's still worth listening to. You just can't imagine his opinions are going to translate immediately into perfect political ideas.
Hi Nate. My name is Andrew Kosove and I am the co-founder/co-ceo of Alcon Entertainment. I wanted to just (gently) correct a bit of the terminology you use in your article about Elon. First, Elon is what today is referred to as ASD 1, which is what was once know as “Asperger’s.” That term is not used anymore in medicine/psychiatric circles. While I generally don’t give a shit about terms per se, you might want to examine why Asperger’s is no longer used, as I think the reason is pretty valid. Also, the phrase “spiky intelligence” you use in the article is cool/descriptive…..but just fyi….the official terminology for Elon’s condition is 2E which means twice exceptional. This term is used for those who have a very high IQ and also have deficiencies in other areas of intelligence, just as you describe in your article. These type of individuals can be very valuable contributors to society and live productive lives. However, left unchecked (as is the case with Elon) they can be very dangerous individuals.
In any event, keep up the great work. I really look forward to seeing your e-mails show up in my inbox!
Let’s not generalize a self-diagnosed Elon to other Autistics. Left unchecked 2E population can be underemployed, homeless and isolated. Far more likely to face abuse and neglect than their peers. Elon is the exception, not the rule.
It is now simply Autism Spectrum Disorder (per the DSM-5), which encompasses what used to be known as Asperger's. Do we know that he is self-diagnosed?
Yes. Elon has said as much.
Stop trying to make The Village and The River happen.
I kind of agree with this, but I feel like you have to put up a real argument for why it's not a useful model.
Anyone that was ever going to buy Nate's book already bought it. I wish I could sell mine but there is a glut of used copies in the market.
Ah, I think this is useful terminology for understanding the Nate Silver framing of these group differences and conflicts. Notably, embracing risk and volatility vs. a more stable, structured, and consensus driven approach. I don't think this article over used the concepts and I'd expect some such analysis from Silver.
I've only met Elon in person once (I interviewed for a job at SpaceX in 2008), but I've known a ton of people who've worked closely with him. I think your assessment agrees with the data I've seen. He's obviously shown some extreme brilliance in some areas, and as you say can be a real dumba** in others. Even on the engineering side, I've heard stories from coworkers who used to work closely with him that just made you roll your eyes. He has a very well established self-esteem, and is quite willing to fire you for disagreeing with you, even if you later turn out to be right.
As a father with two kids on the Autism spectrum, I try to have patience and empathy with people with those neurodivergencies. But yeah, he's a particularly dangerous person to have running amok with unchecked power in the federal government. I don't know if he eventually figures things out enough to come up with something net positive for the nation, or if he breaks enough stuff that he eventually gets sidelined. But I think Lord Acton was right about power corrupting, especially with people who are as spikily brilliant as Elon.
I bet your two kids haven’t shown a desire to save $2 trillion from the federal workforce.
I actually have four kids, and no, most of them are smart enough to do math and realize that you're not going to save $2T/yr from a federal workforce that costs $271B/yr. They're also mostly teenagers still, so are reasonably focused on things like school. :-)
I mean all but one of our nation is smart enough. Makes me wonder what math Elon learned in apartheid South Africa.
There are ways to cut federal spending, it's just primarily not tied up in paying civil servants and federal employees. The problem is most of the things that would really move the needle (entitlement reform, raising taxes, etc) are painful to both sides of the political spectrum, and frankly not super amenable to unilateral executive action. So we get "deficit reduction theater" instead, that probably is going to make it harder to actually solve the real problems we face...
I’m only here to reframe the Autism association as solely it’s an Elon thing.
Another way of stating what you just said, for those who can do grade-school math is "instantly eliminate a minimum of $2 trillion from GDP". I say minimum, because there is a multiplier for money spent in the economy, and the damage will be far higher. If Elon could do grade-school math, say, like an average "genius", we wouldn't be talking about this.
Restricted and repetitive behaviors: Elons is cutting budgets and workforce and Trumps is tarrifs. They’re going to do it more and more. It’s not just unhealthy, it’s clinically. They’ll need to be stopped.
And power will not corrupt Trump?
I remember watching the SpaceX gantry extending mechanical arms to grab the company's rocket booster out of the sky as it descended and being amazed. The I thought to myself "The Democrats never really stood a chance, did they?"
I suspect that's the reason behind the disproportionate amount of interest being paid to Musk right now.
Power has already corrupted Trump, IMO. That ship sailed a long time ago.
I agree watching the Booster catch on that Starship flight was pretty darned amazing. It's been cool watching their progress over the last 23yrs. They're an amazingly talented group. I do agree that the Democrats alienating Elon and a lot of the Silicon Valley tech bros was a totally unforced error on their part. Elon takes offense easily and has a huge ego, so they might have offended him even without trying, but I think the way they treated him and others likely would've made enemies even with someone less sensitive. Making enemies when you don't need to is rarely a good strategy.
My meaning is slightly different when I write that "The Democrats never really stood a chance". It's well known that when Musk took over Twitter he pulled engineers off of Tesla and SpaceX to do emergency maintenance on his new company. Basically, he had a bunch of bright techies working for him and he gave them a new job for a few weeks or months.
You may have seen reports in the mainstream media leading up to November's election that featured Democratic campaign officials scoffing at Trump's gameplan. It was highly unorthodox, to say the least. Trump's campaign claimed that it was because they had decided to ignore traditional Republican voters (the kind you reach through door knocking) and focus instead on low propensity voters that they believed would be critical.
Guess who turned out to be right? Also remember that a) it was widely reported that Musk was in charge of campaign operations in the swing states and b) he got the assignment fairly late. It takes time to spin up a campaign operation and it takes time to spin up an analytics operation. I would not be surprised if a bunch of SpaceX engineers got another temporary working assignment.
"Guess who turned out to be right?"
Surely, obviously the Democrats right?
1. Trump did better in non-swing states than swing states, when historically swing states were better for Republicans than Democrats. So hard to chalk up the election as a Democrat loss to inferior "ground game"
2. Further internal Democrat polling was consistently behind (lower numbers than) public polling on Kamala, so you can't even say they were high on their own supply here.
The only plausible way I can see someone thinking Trump's electoral strategy is better than the Democrats is if you believe electoral strategy is defined by whoever wins the election, which is both an oversimplifying view and completely denies agency in the American people.
Way back in 2016 did Trump break the blue wall in PA/MI/WI? Was that expected?
For the specific question of low propensity voters in 2024 was his campaign correct in a) predicting that they were going to swing in his direction, despite the historical precedents and b) that if enough of these voters mobilized that it would prove to be decisive for Trump?
The Democrats criticized Musk and his team because they ignored the base and tried to mobilize occasional voters. There were numerous media reports where the Democrats marveled and scoffed at the absence of door knockers.
Who turned out to be right? Despite all those door knockers Democratic turnout fell off a cliff and low propensity voters showed up in sufficient numbers to swing Hispanic males to Trump.
I am reminded of an oft-repeated story among financial traders. A trader with long-term spectacular success in one area branches out to others. Not only does he (and it's almost always a male) fail, but when he goes back to his prior area of success, he's lost his edge, at least for a year or two. This has happened so often as to be expected, it's a major surprise when someone manages to translate success in one area to other areas.
This is unlikely to be a function of innate ability. Few entry-level traders get into an area out of personal expertise or interest, they get assigned pretty randomly. But they learn in their area, and develop habits and perspectives that not only don't generalize to other markets, they're the habits and perspectives that winning traders in those other markets exploit.
Think of a top no-limit Hold'em player in his for foray into pot-limit Omaha hi-lo. He'll still have a lot of poker skill--he'll be far better than a poker beginner--but a lot of his instincts will betray him. He may never reach the top level of Omaha play, and he could taint his Hold'em instincts.
Poker seems to generalize better than trading, so there are plenty of top pros in multiple games. But I suspect venture management and politics are more like trading.
A couple of points. I wonder how much of his behavior is a result of his rumored use of Ketamine. Ketamine is a drug that is not without some serious side effects. It's interesting that Isaacson wrote bios of both Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. Jobs was not well versed in the nuts and bolts about computer technology but was a preeminent industrial designer. He figured out the key was making things that were tech friendly and thought outside the box in terms of product development (iPod, iPad, iPhone, MacOS and the associated computers. He also knew not to make things that were open source so that he could always get premium pricing. Musk is similar in this way and his industrial companies have been more successful than his other ventures (remember that PayPal had a number of people involved in that). He also relied on the Federal government to get the big companies off the ground (Tesla and SpaceX). Whether he would have been successful absent that assistant is unknown.
"There’s a lot of crude pattern-matching, including a bias toward white men of certain ethnic backgrounds."
The Valley is actually disproportionately Asian, meaning that whites are actually underrepresented. I recall one statistic from years ago that approximately a third of startup founders were graduates of an IIT.
I've met Elon 2x - once in 2016 and once in 2017. On both occasions, he revealed himself to be incredibly socially awkward in group settings. His inhibitions have certainly loosened in the last several years as his public profile has raised. One thing you neglect to raise, but I speculate about is whether he is currently medicated. This could be the result of something prescribed (like an anti-anxiety or anti-depressive medication) or something else entirely. Many folks are trying to draw a straight line with Elon from PayPal-->SpaceX/Tesla-->DOGE. I don't see it that way. I think somewhere between 2017 and today, he changed radically. Maybe some aspects of his personality (his low EQ, his intelligence) are the same, but other things seem different.
"But being co-president requires a much more rounded sort of intelligence — not the type that Elon has."
Isn't this the crux of the issue? The real question is whether or not this stereotype actually makes sense. The trap that Silver is falling into is that he may be looking at a filtered data set: attaining political success probably requires a lot of glad handing and back slapping, meaning that those individuals like Musk who are socially awkward are filtered out.
Two points:
1) There are examples in history of leaders who were predominantly interested in policy but managed to reach the apex of political power by happenstance. The Roman emperor Claudius had a bad stutter and suffered from seizures. There is a myth this predecessor Caligula used to humiliate him in public by threatening him with execution and then pelting him with food as he convulsed.
Eventually of course Caligula was killed off by the Praetorian Guard who, perhaps on a whim, elevated Claudius to the position of Emperor. Historians have been pretty kind to Claudius' reign, praising for its domestic peace and prosperity as well as the Emperor's efforts to expand the empire (he kicked off the invasion of Britain for example).
2) As Silver concedes Musk isn't President, he's co-President. Some partnerships work well because each half complements the other, filling in with strengths for the other's weaknesses. Trump is probably not the most analytical guy around--instead he seems to have a feral, instinctive grasp of celebrity and public relations. Musk may be a good match because he provides that missing component of analytical, abstract thinking.
I might agree with your second point if we were talking about, say, Dominic Cummings. But Musk's current activities in public service lean heavily on his celebrity status, and he doesn't seem to be applying a whole lot of analytic rigor to them. Really, his approach seems quite similar to Trump's.
The Free Press, by complete coincidence, profiled one of the DOGE staffers in February of last year, long before the election.
https://www.thefp.com/p/luke-farritor-vesuvius-challenge-scrolls-rome
The occasion? He wrote some code to decipher some scrolls from Vesuvius that were too damaged to unroll. The individual in question was a comp sci major who, fortuitously enough, learned Latin as a child.
The people Musk has brought in are going to be of a similar vein. Their analysis is going to get passed up to the big boss who will go on to announce it to the world.
Agree with this post, but I think another factor here is Musk’s widely reported drug issues. He regularly uses ketamine, plus some amount of cocaine, LSD and ecstasy. Musk’s current erratic behavior definitely aligns with some classic drug abuse symptoms.
"Elon has deep knowledge in some areas — engineering questions, particularly — and some hobbies and interests (sci-fi, video games)."
The thing is, the more he talks on these areas, the more it is clear that he really *doesn't* have deep knowledge. For example, you mention video games as an area of deep knowledge, but anyone who has had the displeasure of watching him play video games can tell that he has little to no actual background in this area, and instead has just decided to pay people to boost his accounts so he *seems* like he has deep knowledge, even though the veil quickly drops anytime he actually has to do anything of substance.
The same is true with "engineering questions". Elon is undoubtedly good at hiring and surrounding him with good, competent engineers which makes him look competent by proxy, but when he actually talks engineering topics, he shows that he actually knows far less than your average middle level manager. Indeed, some of his "technical talks" (which he now has the sense to no longer do) embarrassingly come off as someone who desparately wants to sound knowledgeable, but lacks anything more than a rudimentary understanding of the science and engineering in play. He may have been a decent programmer in the past, but it's clear at this point that he's far out of practice in that area as well.
Do you have specific sources on Musk lacking engineering competence? People whom his biographers have talked to seem to say the opposite. See, e.g., https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-elon-musk, which our host linked to in the post. While one can't definitively rule out that they're just flattering him, the stories are consistent enough, and with specific enough details, that I'm inclined to believe them in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary.
The linked review is a good example of the Elon myth. The examples provided are either by people who are not qualified to evaluate his engineering skills, and have definite conflict of interest (director of company), or are people that have self-selected to be around him (employees). The examples given of genius are either vague, or don't apply to engineering and apply more to management or business decisions.
On the flip side, there are weekly examples of Elon's passive grasp on technical knowledge on X where Elon posts something wrong, gets dunked on, deletes the post, and then bans the user that pointed out the flaw.
There certainly may be some areas where Musk has some technical prowess (rocketry, perhaps, as that is one where he does appear to have some knowledge, though I cannot verify personally), but the areas he chooses to demonstrate publicly tend to be his weaker areas.
I've been a software engineer for a number of years and can confidently say that much of what Elon was saying on the subject shortly after the Twitter purchase was absolute nonsense. He sounded exactly like a middle manager who had heard a bunch of terms and concepts but had no real understanding of them. Many people pointed this out at the time and were quickly banned from Twitter.
Maybe Musk has deeper knowledge of hardware or rocketry engineering, I couldn't say, but he clearly has no concerns about presenting himself as an expert in areas where he has very surface level knowledge.
This exactly, but on the electrical engineering side of things. I'm an EE, and anytime I hear him talk about anything technical related to EE or control systems, it's pretty clear he doesn't know what he is taking about. Your description of him as a manager that has heard terms but has no real understanding of them is exactly what I'm talking about. It's enough to fool other managers, investors, and other non-technical people, but for anyone who actually works in the field, it's blatantly obvious.
I control F'd for "CPAC", "drugs", "ketamine", "addict" and it returned nothing. That CPAC interview, if you want to call it that, seems to suggest someone who should not be involved in the highest levels of government (though I can understand how outrageous that sounds when considering Biden and McConnell). Musk is clearly fucked up on drugs, though, and it must be discussed. You made the same point about Biden's age.
Great article, I could not agree more with your views on Elon. The distinction between insturmental and epistemological rationality was illuminating, it explains a lot of what I observe (very smart people being very wrong about the world). I sense that this goes beyond Berkson's paradox - from the evolutionary perspective, being epistemologically correct may even be a setback in some circumstances (for example, maybe to be successfull in sending people to Mars, you need to overestimate your chances). I wish your last figure included the politicians - the hypothesis being, that they are stronger on the instrumental rationality dimension (which could in turn explain why they tend to fail at governing).
I think that most challenging things worth doing in life would never be tried if the people doing them had a realistic understanding of what they were getting themselves into. Or as one of my favorite signs once said "We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy."
BZ, Nate. Very engaging and interesting read
I fail to see any value in discussing Elon's IQ....All I care about is his political-economic behavior in support of Trump...and that's obviously dangerous, inhumane and immoral...I need to know about Elon's IQ like I need to know about his pancreas.... That information is of zero public/political value. Nate, you can't be that hard up that you can't find better topics to flail...please do so...I really value your opinions and analysis.... Elon's IQ is not worth the time of day...nor yours or mine.
Musk isn't stupid, per se, that doesn't mean all the crap he's doing at DOGE or on Twitter (or his politics) are smart. There are PLENTY of people who are quite intelligent who make moronic decisions.
Paul Krugman is a great writer but he is a guy who ignored deficits and was an apologist for most of the spending policies that brought us again Donald Trump. Why give him the time of day?
"Why give him the time of day?"
Because he understands macroeconomics better than I, and has a way of clearly explaining his reasoning to a non-economist. Bonus points for his excellent use of graphs.
Also, I admire his eclectic music appreciation.
To be fair, I think that Biden's spending policies were right on the economic merits. They decided it was better to err towards overspending and getting some temporarily high inflation and keep unemployment low than it would be to underspend and risk a recession and high unemployment.
The problem with this is apparently people really, really hate inflation and normal voters just won't give you any credit for avoiding a horrible counterfactual. Since Krugman is primarily an economist and is pretty good at explaining economics, I think he's still worth listening to. You just can't imagine his opinions are going to translate immediately into perfect political ideas.
I enjoyed the repeated suggestion that fathering 13 children is something that took a lot of his time.