Elon Musk Back in the News Everyday

“I think it’s possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary.”

— Elon Musk

Throughout history, there have been rare individuals whose extraordinary minds changed the world. Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, men whose genius reached beyond the boundaries of their own times, leaving discoveries, inventions, and ideas that continue to shape our lives centuries later.

We recognize their genius now. History has given them their rightful places among the remarkable minds who helped change the course of civilization.

But what happens when such a person is living among us?

What happens when we can hear his voice, watch him being interviewed, see him with a child on his shoulders in the Oval Office, and follow the extraordinary things he is bringing into existence?

I am thinking, of course, about Elon Musk.

Consider for a moment what this one man has helped set in motion. Electric automobiles that have changed an industry, rockets that return to Earth and can be launched again, satellites bringing internet connections to distant corners of the world, pioneering work in artificial intelligence, and technology that may allow the human brain to communicate directly with computers.

His work with PayPal helped advance electronic commerce. SpaceX has changed the possibilities of space exploration. Tesla helped prove that electric automobiles could become desirable, practical vehicles for millions of people. Starlink has brought communications to places where connections were once difficult or impossible.

These achievements are the work of thousands of gifted scientists, engineers, and others, but they also reflect the imagination, determination, and leadership of a man who repeatedly challenges what the rest of us believe possible.

And still he is imagining, experimenting, taking risks, and reaching beyond the boundaries of what most of us consider possible.

I find it astonishing.

Then, after the election, I watched a video of Scott Galloway, a professor at New York University, calling Elon Musk a traitor to the West and invoking Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for espionage in 1953. Galloway went on to say that Musk should be held to the same standards as other traitors.

I was appalled.

Whatever one thinks of Musk’s political views, how have we come to a place where such language is used so casually about another human being?

Have we become so consumed by our differences that we cannot distinguish between disagreeing with a man and recognizing his extraordinary contributions to the world?

I am not suggesting that genius confers sainthood, that great accomplishments excuse poor judgment, or that a gifted person should be beyond criticism. History teaches us otherwise.

But surely there is room for wonder.

There is room to stand in the presence of extraordinary human achievement and say, Look what has been accomplished. Look what one remarkable mind, working with other gifted people, has helped make possible.

Through my writing project, Passwords — Understanding Our World Through the Lives That Shaped It, I have been reading and reflecting on the lives of remarkable men and women whose decisions, accomplishments, and influence helped shape the world we inherited. Their biographies, their own words, and the judgments of history have become passwords opening doors into times and circumstances I could never otherwise experience.

I have spent a great deal of time in their company, considered their decisions, admired their courage, and learned from their mistakes. In the process, my own life has been enriched beyond measure.

One of the great pleasures of growing older is discovering how much there is still to learn, how many extraordinary people there are to meet through the pages of history, and how much we owe to those who came before us.

But surely we should not have to wait until someone is gone to recognize the gifts he has brought into the world.

When I listened to Scott Galloway’s condemnation of Elon Musk, I wondered what we have come to when political disagreement can so completely overshadow extraordinary accomplishment.

What a missed opportunity to recognize something remarkable happening in our own lifetime.

I do not have to agree with every word Elon Musk speaks or every decision he makes to be grateful for the reach of his imagination and the achievements he has helped bring into being.

There is something profoundly enriching about recognizing greatness in others. It does not diminish us. It enlarges us.

And perhaps that is what troubles me most about the willingness to vilify a man of extraordinary gifts. In our eagerness to condemn, we may lose our own capacity for wonder.

I believe God occasionally pours His light into a human being in such a remarkable measure that the world is forever changed by what that person brings into existence.

I see that light in Elon Musk.

He is not a figure in a history book. He is here, living among us, still imagining what the world might become.

I would rather spend my time marveling at what he has helped accomplish than joining those determined to diminish him.

Why should we leave it to history to be grateful?

Why can’t we be grateful now?