Elon Musk: The Excitement is Here Again

I never expected to see another businessman as important or as lionized as Steve Jobs, but ten years after Steve's death Elon Musk has filled that role.

The richest man in the world does not own a house and has recently been selling off his fortune. He tosses satellites into orbit and harnesses the sun; he drives a car he created that uses no gas and barely needs a driver. With a flick of his finger, the stock market soars or swoons. An army of devotees hangs on his every utterance. He dreams of Mars as he bestrides Earth, square-jawed and indomitable. Lately, Elon Musk also likes to live-tweet his poops.

Like Steve Jobs, Elon Musk nearly bankrupted his companies in pursuit of a vision that very few could see, much less believe in. Like Steve Jobs, he achieved extraordinary success, disrupting major industries, making himself a multi-billionaire and enriching many thousands of employees, investors, and suppliers. Both men also pushed people out of the way, thereby earning criticism for their acerbic ways and personal eccentricities.

Bill Gates, who knew both men, sees major differences:

“Elon’s more of a hands-on engineer. Steve was a genius at design and picking people and marketing,” Gates said. “You wouldn’t walk into a room and confuse them with each other.”

Indeed, Musk often talks about his demanding schedule and his hands on approach. For example, on a Tesla earnings call in November 2017, Musk said he was spending all hours in the Tesla battery production factory, even sleeping on the floor and skipping showers to catch up on Tesla 3 production in 2018.

“I am personally on that line, in that machine, trying to solve problems personally where I can,” Musk said on the call. “We are working seven days a week to do it. And I have personally been here on zone 2 module line at 2:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning, helping diagnose robot calibration issues. So I’m doing everything I can.”

As for Jobs, he “was such a wizard at over-motivating people ... I could see him casting the spells, and then I would look at people and see them mesmerized,” Gates told podcast host Dax Shepard Aug. 20.

As of this writing Steve Jobs has touched many more lives than Elon Musk. Over one billion people have an Apple device, while less than 1% that number have owned or will own a Tesla.

But with his single-handed revival of the space program, Elon Musk may very well have changed the course of human history. Ten years ago many asked, somewhat plaintively, "Without Steve Jobs, Where's the Excitement Going to Come From?" Time's Person of the Year has the answer to that question.