But there are lots of sunk costs to pay for: getting to Mars ain't cheap, and he can't count on a government paying his bills (well, not every time). Everything then feeds into achieving the means to get there. Emperor of Mars is merely his most-publicized, most outrageous end goal. Reportedly he sat down some time around 2000 and made a list of the challenges facing humanity within his anticipated lifetime: roll out solar power, get cars off gasoline, colonize Mars, it's all there. This we know: Musk has goals (some of them risible, some of them much more pragmatic), and within the limits of his world-view-I'm pretty sure he grew up reading the same right-wing near-future American SF yarns as me-he's fairly predictable. Because I think he may be on course to become a multi-trillionaire-and it has nothing to do with cryptocurrency, NFTs, or colonizing Mars.

So, I'm going to talk about Elon Musk again, everybody's least favourite eccentric billionaire asshole and poster child for the Thomas Edison effect-get out in front of a bunch of faceless, hard-working engineers and wave that orchestra conductor's baton, while providing direction.

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