The story of Elon Musk, the way it’s usually told, makes him sound like a fictional character, a comic-book superhero - or supervillain. He’s the world’s richest man, and now an adviser to the US President. He uses X - his social media platform - to berate politicians he doesn’t agree with around the world.

He plans to put chips in people’s brains, and to save the world by colonising Mars. Musk’s visions of the future seem to stem from the science fiction that has fired his imagination since he was a boy. But what’s the real story, the true history, behind the comic book? Back in 2021 Harvard History Professor and New Yorker Writer Jill Lepore became fascinated by this question.

So she made a Radio 4 podcast which tried to explain Musk through the science fiction he grew up with - tales of superheroes with origin stories that seemed to influence how he understands his own life. So much has happened since then that we decided to update that series - and add three new episodes, too. Because Musk keeps changing, and so does what Lepore calls ‘Muskism’ - his brand of extreme capitalism and techno-futurism. And strangely, his origin story keeps changing, too.

How can understanding these fantasy stories - some of them a century old - help us understand the future Musk wants to take us to?

Well worth a listen, especially episode 2:

Musk is reinventing himself as a kingmaker for the United States and the world. He wants to shape the future. But in this episode, Lepore goes back to his past - to his childhood and family history. As a boy growing up in apartheid South Africa, Musk developed a fascination with science fiction - especially Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. One of Musk’s grandfathers was the leader of a strange sci-fi inspired movement known as Technocracy. Technocrats found democracy in adequate to modernity, and wanted engineers and scientists to run governments. Lepore argues Technocracy bears an uncanny resemblance to some things going on today in Silicon Valley and Washington today: from de-regulation of the economy to the rise of crypto-currency.