When the third SpaceX rocket exploded, Elon Musk was edging toward a meltdown. The company was on the brink of failure, his entire net worth had been poured into money-losing ventures like Tesla and SpaceX, and this explosion could have been the thing that made it all come crumbling down. Everyone knew it. The mood at the launch sight was sober, perhaps even depressed. The company could be done.

After a minute-long pause, Elon looked up, a glint in his eye. “Pain is not bad, it’s good,” he said. “It teaches you things. I understand that.” 

Engineers around him nodded their heads. A manic, industrial energy started to build in the room. As usual, he went back to the purpose of why they were there. The mission. “What the hell do I wanna go off and go to work for? Work for what? Money?” They were going to Mars—who cared about the business?

Elon Musk, the new biography by Walter Issacson, reported on what followed:

“‘I think most of us would have followed him into the gates of hell carrying suntan oil after that,” said Dolly Singh, the human resources director. ‘Within moments, the energy of the building went from despair and defeat to a massive buzz of determination.’”  

The next time, they pulled it off, making SpaceX the first privately built rocket to launch from the ground and reach orbit. They had done it with 500 employees, compared to the 50,000 that Boeing had at a similar division. It was the launch that set the company up for the roughly $150B valuation it enjoys today. 

So, a confession. This story is a bit of a lie. 

The rockets did explode. Elon did make a rousing speech. The engineers did come together and build an incredible company. The only difference is that these quotes are not from Elon Musk—they’re from murderous cult leader Charles Manson. Musk actually said, “There should be absolutely zero question that SpaceX will prevail in reaching orbit. I will never give up, and I mean never.”

And honestly? There isn’t that much of a difference between the two. They both have an ability to make you do crazy things in service to the divine mission.

The cult of Elon

Musk’s terrible, wonderful magic is that he makes you want to go all in. Even me, a person who very much enjoys not working for Elon Musk, finished the book and thought, “Hmm, I kinda work for that guy.”

Do you realize how sick of a thought that is? How utterly deranged of a reaction? 

Musk is demonstrably, unequivocally an asshole. When I started the book I stuck a Post-It note on the page every time I thought he acted reprehensibly. I soon realized that for the 615-page book, I would need 615 Post-It notes. He fires dozens, if not hundreds, of people based on his mood. He is more than somewhat unstable: constantly self-medicating with Ambien or ketamine, smoking joints on Joe Rogan’s podcast, pounding Red Bull after Red Bull, and barely sleeping. At various points, he diagnoses himself as having Asperger’s or bipolar disorder. He plays video games until 5 in the morning. Between the three mothers of his 11 children, his personal life is conflagration in a waste container (i.e., a dumpster fire). 

It is not my place to judge how people conduct their personal lives, but it is his employees who pay the price. The book frequently describes him going “demon mode,” where he fires anyone who disagrees with him, even if they’re innocent. Two to three times a year, he does a “surge”: he sets an arbitrary, totally unrealistic deadline, and forces his employees to work 24/7 until that deadline is met. Anyone who annoys him or underperforms to his standards is immediately fired. 

I cannot overstate how bad of a boss my analytical brain would tell me this guy is. Yet I still found myself vaguely wanting to quit the content business and go work with him to be a part of something bigger. 

And I’m not alone in this feeling. There are legions of Muskinites. He has a supernatural ability to get the best engineers in the world to pour their souls into his companies. Part of the reason he can fire so many people is because so many other talented technical staff want to come work with him. It is, frankly, a bit spooky how powerful his magic is.