Tech bros are not famed for their fashion sense. Mark Zuckerberg wore a plain grey T-shirt every day for years on the grounds that it reduced his “decision fatigue” and streamlined his pathway to world dominance, or as he put it: “I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community.” Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos favours a sleeveless gilet over a polo shirt, and OpenAI founder Sam Altman is partial to a pale turquoise fitted long sleeve which looks like the hottest item sold in Topman circa 2009.
However, king of the brogrammers Elon Musk has done away with the cotton loungewear convention and is rarely seen out of a suit. And not just any old thing – the SpaceX and Tesla founder is partial to bespoke suits from London’s golden mile of tailoring, Savile Row. They are secretive about their clients, but we can reveal Musk has his suits made by Henry Poole, the oldest and most prestigious tailor on the street.
Henry Poole set up shop on Savile Row in 1846 and has been dressing the noble and the notable ever since. They are famed for inventing the dinner jacket in 1865 for the future King Edward VII. Before that, men wore longer tailcoats in the evening, but Queen Victoria’s wayward son wanted something shorter and less formal to mince around Sandringham in. Poole made him a midnight blue silk dinner jacket and the trend quickly made its way to a gentlemen’s club called the Tuxedo in New York, via an English lord. The Tuxedo’s members began asking for similar jackets to be made, giving the dinner jacket its American name.
Over the last three centuries Poole has had some notable customers, including Winston Churchill, J.P Morgan, Charles Dickens and Napoleon. A typical Poole suit is “timeless”, according to the tailor’s current owner Simon Cundey. “We disregard fashion and let ourselves be led by the client’s physique,” he told the FT in September.
More recent customers have included actors Daniel Craig and Jason Momoa, and model David Gandy. The suits usually take around 10 to 12 weeks to make, with a consultation and two fittings. They don’t come cheap, with a two-piece starting at over £6,000.
The hefty price tag is pennies for Musk though, whose net worth is estimated to be around $300 billion. Plus, the tech mogul is more sartorially minded than his counterparts. “I love fashion. I do, actually,” he said at the Met Gala in 2022. “I think beauty is very important, and style and things that move the heart.”
Silicon Valley’s laidback uniform dates back to Steve Jobs, a real life Homer Simpson who had hundreds of the same black polo neck from Issey Miyake, blue Levis and New Balance sneakers in his wardrobe. But perhaps a sea change is coming, where tech bros start dressing to reflect their net worth. Even styleless Zuckerberg had a glow-up over summer, growing out his hair into cherubic ringlets, wearing baggier, skater boy tees and throwing on a Connell from Normal People style chain.
Admittedly, Musk is still often seen in some questionable looks, teaming up blazers with a MAGA hat and a slogan T-shirt that will say something like “occupy Mars”. But he has started looking snappier in the last year and is more often than not seen in a suit. Will his predilection for Savile Row usher in a new era of sharp tailoring for the denizens of Silicon Valley?
