Time for Elon to grow up, lift up tomorrow’s scientists
We need to have a conversation about Elon.
You know who I’m talking about — one of the rare few in pop culture who are widely recognized by just one name. Like Lebron, Madonna and Oprah, there’s only one Elon.
Having recently hosted “Saturday Night Live,” the Spacex and Tesla CEO commands an enormous online audience of legions of devoted fans with more than 67 million Twitter followers. He was just named Time’s 2021 Person of the Year and even made a cameo in “Iron Man 2.”
He also happens to be a massive jerk.
It’s possible you don’t care about any of this, but trust me when I tell you that the kids deciding what they want to do when they grow up have taken notice. The man is a celebrity and, like it or not, he’s the most recognizable face of the global space industry. I’d wager not many 16-year-olds could name the current NASA administrator (it’s former U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, by the way) but almost all know of Elon Musk.
Elon could use his fame and popularity as a platform for good. He could be working to get our kids excited about rockets, and educate them about space science and its related engineering challenges. Better yet, he could engage women and other traditionally underrepresented groups by encouraging them to pursue STEM careers.
Research has demonstrated that diverse teams produce more novel, creative and effective solutions to complex engineering problems. Diverse companies are also consistently more profitable than their peers. In a field like aerospace — a woefully homogeneous field where currently only 25 percent of employees are women and 30 percent are minorities — improving diversity will be critical toward achieving lofty goals like interplanetary travel, hypersonic flight, electric aircraft and low-emission propulsion technology. This isn’t political, this isn’t “wokeism,” it’s just good business. But it isn’t Elon’s focus.
Instead, he prefers to tweet memes and tasteless jokes in a way that showcases a disappointing level of immaturity. He half-jokingly proposed founding a “Texas Institute of Technology and Science” citing the “epic merch” that would be possible. He recently referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Senator Karen” and compared her to an “angry mom.” I don’t care about politics, but you shouldn’t talk to people that way.
When he’s not trolling on Twitter, the billionaire is requesting his employees cancel their holiday plans to return to the factory floor, implying in emails that the extra hours may be the only thing preventing Spacex from filing for bankruptcy.
Musk’s penchant for tantrums and petulant outbursts directed toward employees at both Spacex and Tesla are welldocumented. Recent reports also detailed toxic workplace cultures at Spacex and Tesla that are rife with sexual harassment.
It’s all such a shame and a wasted opportunity. The progress Spacex has made since its inception is astounding and should be an inspiration to all. Unfortunately, the entire operation — and, by association, our entire modern space race — is often overshadowed by Elon’s bad behavior.
I fear that for every cryptocurrency-hawking tech bro that Elon inspires to watch a few Youtube videos about rockets, there’s a young girl out there who has her preconceived notions about engineering confirmed by Elon’s antics: Aerospace is a “boys club.”
Aerospace needs a seismic cultural shift if we truly want to innovate through the 21st century. Maintaining the status quo and allowing aerospace to remain a “boys club” will hold us all back.