Suggesting that Elon Musk’s dedicated, juvenile, and frankly depressing attempt to turn himself into a real-life Tony Stark figure has now reached the “burnt-out Civil War era” of Robert Downey Jr.’s celebrated character arc, the New York Times ran an interview late tonight with the online celebrity/car company mogul, painting a portrait of a dude whose life and public image have now spiraled so out of control, he can’t even make a simple fucking weed joke without people yelling at him all the gosh dang time.
You might remember this one: A little more than a week ago, Musk announced that he might be taking Tesla private, at a very deliberately picked price of $420 a share. (Musk: “It seemed like better karma at $420 than at $419. But I was not on weed, to be clear. Weed is not helpful for productivity. There’s a reason for the word ‘stoned.’ You just sit there like a stone on weed.”) That not-actually-about-weed-apparently decision didn’t go over super-well with Tesla’s board (or the SEC, which immediately began asking questions, because companies don’t usually announce market-affecting news in the middle of the day while tweeting from their car). That latter investigation is reportedly ongoing, and the pressure has apparently begun rising for Musk for months.
Now, the Times piece paints a portrait of a guy who’s pushing himself to some kind of weird, nobody-asked-for edge, so hooked on his own Kool-Aid (but not, again, the devil drug marijuana) that he’s borderline killing himself to keep his “genius” label intact:
In the interview on Thursday, Mr. Musk alternated between laughter and tears. He said he had been working up to 120 hours a week recently—echoing the reason he cited in a recent public apology to an analyst whom he had berated. In the interview, Mr. Musk said he had not had taken time off of more than a week since 2001, when he was bedridden with malaria.