Couverture de X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story

De : Pushkin Industries and BBC Radio 4
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The story of Elon Musk, the way it's often told, makes him sound like a fictional character, a comic-book superhero – or, especially lately, a supervillain. As the world's richest man, the US President’s right-hand man, and the owner of X, he’s possibly the world’s most powerful man.

Musk wants to build robots and colonise Mars and appears to be dismantling sizable parts of the US government. His vision of the future seems to stem from the science fiction that has fueled his imagination since he was a boy. But what's the real story, the true history, behind Musk’s sense of destiny?

Back in 2021 Harvard history professor and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore became fascinated by this question. So she made a podcast that tried to explain Musk through the science fiction he grew up with. A lot has happened in the four years since. So she’s gone back in to bring the story up to date.

“X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story” is a production of the BBC and distributed by Pushkin Industries.

2025 Pushkin Industries and BBC Radio 4 2023 Economie
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    Épisodes
    • Episode 1: The Dark Knight

      Episode 1: The Dark Knight
      Mar 27 2025

      Elon Musk’s origin story keeps changing. First, he was Tony Stark, or Iron Man. Not too long ago, he compared himself to Batman. Arguments started online over whether or not Musk is a real-life Bruce Wayne. In this episode, Jill Lepore looks at the original ‘Caped Crusader’, created back in 1939. Batman’s origin story is bound up with fascism. And every time Musk is compared to Batman it raises a very old question about the Dark Knight: is Batman fighting fascism, or is Batman — a brooding, fabulously wealthy vigilante — somehow, himself a fascist?

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      28 min
    • Episode 2: Dimension X

      Episode 2: Dimension X
      Mar 27 2025

      Elon Musk is reinventing himself as a kingmaker for the United States and the world. He wants to shape the future. But in this episode, Jill Lepore goes back to his past — to his childhood, his strange family history, and his fascination with Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

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      28 min
    • Episode 3: Planet B

      Episode 3: Planet B
      Mar 28 2025

      Elon Musk is a rocket man. He wants humans to become ‘a multi-planetary species’ and talks about establishing human settlements on Mars. As President Trump talks up the Mars program while dismantling aid initiatives around the globe, Jill Lepore traces how Silicon Valley's existential catastrophism led to Musk’s extraterrestrial vision of capitalism.

      See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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      28 min
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