Elon Musk is a fan of the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. When his spacecraft company SpaceX successfully sent its Falcon Heavy rocket payload into orbit around the sun in 2018, the cargo included a digital copy of the author’s classic work: the Foundation trilogy. One of the main protagonists in that series is the Mule, a mutant, megalomaniacal telepath who uses his powers to inspire fanatical loyalty, upend history and conquer the galaxy. No one could miss that Mr Musk has a Mule-sized desire to own the future.
His plan to make humanity a multiplanetary species includes nuking Martian polar ice caps to release carbon dioxide, warm the red planet and make it more hospitable for human life. Yet Mr Musk has a history of making promises he has never delivered on. His disease-curing “brain-machine interface” is way behind rivals. In his defence, the billionaire inventor has disrupted the car industry with his Tesla electric vehicles to save the planet. He has become an iconoclast in the public imagination.
