The Wish for a Historical Perspective

If you are very young now, you might get to see.

I would like to do a thought experiment about the past to try and understand how to respond to contemporary events. Please bear with me as I try and imagine a tiny change in our history and the way that might change the way we remember an iconic figure today.

I’ll pick a random, much revered historic figure. Albert Einstein.

The name conjures up genius, with a smile and a twinkle in the eye. A small German man with a chaotic mop of swept back grey hair, intelligent eyes and a big moustache. We know he was brilliant, we know he advanced the understanding of physics in truly ground shifting ways, it’s really not contentious for us to hold Albert Einstein in high regard.

Now, as a thought experiment, let’s keep all this achievements as they are, working at the Swiss Patent Office, his Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922, his successful application for American citizenship in 1940, let’s keep everything about him but add one little fictitious piece of information.

In my experiment, I am going to add the fact that Einstein was a really vulgar and outspoken homophobe. Toward the end of his life he said some truly repugnant things about homosexual men which surprised even 1950’s American society. He declared that that all gay men should be castrated and imprisoned to protect society. Nothing else changed, just this horrible addition. 

My question is this, how would we view his achievements today? If we had read quotes from his public uttering about gay men, would it colour his reputation and specifically his achievements?

I am going to suggest if those were his views they would have altered how people saw him then, and how we would consider him now. Like so many prominent public figures who have said something hideous, or even more so, done something vile, his reputation would have been trashed over the decades since his passing in 1955. 

I think it’s fair to suggest that there would still be people who revered him, people with his picture pinned to their wall. Possibly he would have been popular in the last 5 years with men who strap big flags to their huge pickup trucks during an election season, big strapping blokes who ‘open carry’ and wear red hats.

Today, they would love that little German physicist. He was highly critical of gay people, he was a good ole’ boy.

Okay, so forget that, it’s not what happened, I have no idea what Einstein thought about gay men, I randomly picked homophobia out of the fear and hate bin, it could have been anything. The point is, I have no idea, or indeed, interest in Einstein’s political views.

Now let’s deal with something that happened in the last 5 years. Your man Musk.

I have written in this blog previously that I met Mr Musk back in 2009 in London, it was an ultra brief meeting at an early Tesla event, we shook hands, I said “It’s good to meet you.’ and he said ‘Likewise.’  That was it. He wasn’t well known outside the tech bubble at the time, Tesla was on its beam end, the future was looking anything but bright for both Musk and the company.

Jump forward ten years to 2019 and he’d become a very well known figure, his enormous success both at Tesla and Space X had caught global headlines. It was impossible not to be impressed by his many achievements, the one I always tried to highlight was being able to bring incredible teams of highly talented people together to help achieve the goals he set.

Through heartbreaking setbacks, enormous challenges and torrents of ignorant criticism, he was stoical and pressed on. His goal, specifically with Tesla, was to wean the world off it’s total reliance on fossil fuel as soon as possible.

I’m sure he was under no illusions as to the scale of this task, but instead of talking about it, writing an article about it, going on a march to criticise an oil company, he started making machines that worked without burning oil.

It’s hard for us to remember quite how enormous the resistance was to early electric cars and Tesla in particular, but the resistance was enormous. The outright hostility from established media and car companies, the oil industry and a massive army of reactionary pundits was deafening. 

In many ways it was this initial spasm of dismissive arrogance and ignorant criticism that inspired me to start making the Fully Charged Show back in 2010.

Musk knew the oil industry would target him and the company, and of course the oil industry were right to be concerned as we are now seeing, finally, a measurable drop in demand for their toxic product.

Space X had an equally tough and challenging development period, we all remember the remarkable landing of the booster rockets, casually forgetting the numerous disasters of the Space X earlier rockets landing badly and exploding. Again, the team behind the scenes, the incredible people Musk was involved in recruiting, moved rocket technology on to new, previously unimaginable heights.

Then, in 2022, something happened that, looking back, changed everything. I’m also going to add that nothing that’s happened since then has surprised me. 

For reasons previously hidden from the general public, a new aspect of this remarkable man was revealed. Before 2022 I wasn’t in the least bit interested in his political views, just like I don’t care about Bill Gates views, or Tim Cook’s, Jeff Bezos, Satya Nadella, or Mark Zuckerberg’s views. 

I didn’t give a toss what some multi billionaire geek thought about politics, they are literally no more interesting than anyone else. That’s where I stood. I was always critical of the extra attention they received, I understand it, I just don’t think it’s healthy for the rest of us.

But post 2022 the history of Musk era Twitter is not glorious or remotely positive, and the reason behind the seemingly stupid decision to buy the company is only now apparent. He didn’t buy it to protect ‘free speech’ as he tried to suggest in the early days. He bought it as a bully pulpit and a way to grasp actual political power.

And it has worked, well, up to now. It’s obviously only a matter of time until the orange one turns on him, he always has done, and I strongly suspect he always will. Two thin skinned narcissists cannot spend a lot of time together until one of them bruises. But for now, Musk is in a position of unimaginable power. His decisions will affect people both inside and outside the USA

I won’t live to see the historical analysis of Musk’s unelected rise to power in 50 years time. He will hopefully be living on Mars and his name will fade into history, just like presidents and business leaders from 50 years ago.

Will he be remembered positively? Will it be more obvious that a white boy raised in apartheid South Africa until the age of 17 was very profoundly affected by what he experienced there. I have really scoured for any media quote suggesting he has been critical of the hideous regime he came of age in. Nothing.

Will it become apparent that he really was a bonafide white supremacist, a fanatical right-wing fear-monger, and will that sully the incredible reputation he built up as an innovator and climate change inspired engineer.

I think we all might find out over the next year or two.