If Twitteritis were the name invented for a syndrome of itchy fingers of the rich and famous, Elon Musk would be a candidate for his name to be engraved on top of the list, maybe just behind Donald Trump. There’s something about Twitter that makes its users atwitter, particularly serial ones. The entrepreneur with a stake in the space race is also a thought leader in new technologies. His Tesla electric cars and trucks set off a buzz in a world trying desperately for fossil fuel substitution. But the innovator may have endangered himself in a recent tweet on taking his company public with Saudi money, as the Tesla board took up the issue for a second time after warning him once over the Thai cave rescue submarine issue. Stock market regulators didn’t take kindly to his tweet in the middle of a trading day.
Musk also put his job on the line with a mawkish interview to the New York Times where he lamented his obsession with work entailing long hours for days on end. While nearly missing his brother’s wedding may have got him some social media sympathy, his company didn’t seem to think much of his confessions of surviving a very tough year. The Tesla board may have wondered if its CEO was getting unhinged, so intense was his talk of an existential crisis. Musk has promised to keep driving himself to change the world. It seems he’s on an unpredictable course with destiny, like his SpaceX rockets or his $35,000 model 3 Tesla, both products of dazzling engineering but not exactly money spinners as yet, while his penchant for standing in the public gaze adds to his troubles.
