There is probably no contemporary figure more baffling—and polarizing—than Elon Musk. Alongside his outsize entrepreneurial ventures—Tesla and SpaceX, among them—there is his public persona: charming, puckish, combative, mercurial. He has aroused admiration and scorn in about equal measure. What are we to make of him?
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Black smoke rises from the area of Gazprom Neft’s Moscow oil refinery on the southeastern outskirts of Moscow on June 18, 2026. (Getty Images)