Tough words from author, NYU business school professor and podcaster Scott Galloway on Elon Musk, speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and starting at the 4:55 mark:
“I don’t think we’re seeing the unwinding of a company (Twitter), but the unwinding of a person (Elon Musk). Which I believe is part of a larger trend. As our society has become wealthier and better educated, the reliance on a super-being along with church attendance goes down. but people still look for idols. Into that void has stepped technology leaders, because technology is the closest thing we have to magic. [For a while] our new Jesus Christ was Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk has taken on that mantle. And every ridiculously mean, nonsensical, irrational move he makes is somehow seen as chess, not checkers. We’re just not privvy to his genius yet.
“I think [Musk[] is an individual who has demonstrated a total lack of grace, has no guardrails around him, and is going to see his wealth probably cut in half. Just a week or two after the close, this is already the second worst acquisition in history. This is someone who in my opinion shows a bit of a God complex. Someone who vastly overpaid in a fit of mania or seeing something we don’t see. Twitter is a company probably worth 10 billion, [and] Musk paid 45 billion for it. He thinks he can lay off half the staff and treat them poorly and disparage them and not [suffer] any ramifications. I think he’s a terrible role model for young business people. You can’t deny his incredible accompishments, but now he’s running three different companies.
“So this notion that we need superbeings…I have found that this notion never proves out. The Roman warriors who returned after a triumphant battle, and they would have a huge parade for them, and they would hire a slave to follow and whisper in the conqueror’s ear ‘all glory is fleeting, and you are only a man.’ I have never met a person who is infallible, Christiane. They all eventually screw up, and a universal pillar of truth is that the universe doesn’t want a consolidation of power among any country or any society or any individual.”
