Elon Musk, Tesla and SpaceX CEO, was recently mired in a scandal when Washington Post reported that the world’s richest man had had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. After denying the reports, Musk also tweeted that the “amount of attention” on the entrepreneur has gone “supernova”.
“Unfortunately, even trivial articles about me generate a lot of clicks”, the 51-year-old added, saying he’d henceforth attempt to focus on “doing useful things for civilization”.
Musk, the entrepreneur, has varied futuristic interests like Neuralink, which works on implantable brain-machine interfaces, and plans for colonies on Mars. However, he is also in the spotlight for his many tweets which become the news, including those on cryptocurrency that has often played havoc with the valuations.
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Recently, the South African has also been in the news after backing out of the Twitter deal. The social media company is now suing him after Musk offered to buy it out for $44 billion and then reneged over the number of bots on the platform.
From his statements on population collapse to opinions on how the current political clime silences certain opinions, Musk has remained a polarizing figure and one very much at the centre of things. During the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Musk helped the eastern European country by setting up Starlink satellites and then went on to challenge Russian President Vladimir Putin to a fight.
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His Tesla factory in China has been labelled a sweatshop, and despite calling himself a “free speech absolutionist”, Musk has been known to make his employees sign non-disclosure agreements, preventing them from speaking against the company even if they quit. The businessman’s views on working hours have also raised questions, as has his stance on LGBTQ issues.
However, it can’t be denied that Musk has also gone out of his way to help people in the world, like giving those in Tonga immediate internet access after an earthquake destroyed connectivity.
While ventures like SpaceX allow Musk to actually focus on the final frontier and attempt to help the civilization, his proclivity for tweeting, unique lifestyle choices and the “edgelord” sense of humour are likely to keep the billionaire in the spotlight despite his best efforts.