Welcome to Bw Daily, the Bloomberg Businessweek newsletter, where we’ll bring you interesting voices, great reporting and the magazine’s usual charm every weekday. Let us know what you think by emailing our editor here. If this has been forwarded to you, click here to sign up. It’s a day of the week, which means Elon Musk is making headlines somewhere—and it also means Businessweek will be bringing together the smartest reporters around to discuss what’s really happening, behind the tweets (sorry, X posts) and hyperbole. We’ve released the first two episodes of a new weekly podcast, Elon, Inc., in which a panel of Musk experts will dissect and sometimes argue about Tesla share prices, geopolitics, the long-awaited cage match with another one of the world’s richest men and more. Smash that subscribe button! The podcast comes out every Tuesday, just in time for the commute home. To help celebrate the launch, one of the show’s panelists, Max Chafkin, has taken a stroll through the Businessweek archives to understand how the magazine has covered him in the past. Here’s a taste of that rich tapestry of Photoshops, A+ headlines and trenchant reporting. Here is a look at Elon Musk’s Eras … DREAM WEAVER, 2015Tesla was bleeding money and SpaceX’s near-bankruptcy was still recent history, but neither of those things seemed to matter to Musk’s rapidly growing customer base, as Ashlee Vance reported. If anything, Musk’s manic intensity and risk-taking were becoming central to his myth. “The harder it gets,” a friend told Vance, “the better he gets.”
Read: Elon Musk’s Space Dream Almost Killed Tesla  A young Elon Musk, Bloomberg Businessweek cover Illustrations by Paul Faassen; Photo: Courtesy Maye Musk THE BATTLE TO OWN THE SUN, 2016Years before Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match, claiming he was an expert in “no rules streetfighting,” our art directors imagined a metaphorical cage fight between Musk and Warren Buffett, whose Nevada utility was blocking the growth of Musk’s solar company. At the time, Musk’s allies included prominent liberals, including actor and climate change activist Mark Ruffalo.
Read: Who Owns the Sun?  Buffet vs. Musk, Bloomberg Businessweek cover Photo Illustration by Justin Metz from photograph by David Brandon Geeting for Bloomberg Businessweek. Buffett: Lacy O’Toole/Getty Images; Musk: Rebecca Cook/Reuters INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK, 2017Having enjoyed a close relationship with the Obama administration, Musk seemed to seek some surprising common ground with Donald Trump. Shortly after the 2016 election, amid promises of major spending on infrastructure, Musk announced he was going into the tunneling business. The Boring Co. is still digging, but the Trump bromance lasted only a matter of months.
Read: Elon Musk Is Really Boring  Elon Musk’s Boring Company. Photo Illustration by Justin Metz; Typography by Kurt Woerpel; Photos: Getty Images PRODUCTION HELL, 2018After unveiling the Model 3, Musk’s first mass-market EV, Tesla took hundreds of thousands of reservations from eager customers. Then came the hard part: actually making the cars. Musk bragged about working around the clock, employees complained about factory conditions, and investors questioned Tesla’s viability. Musk summed up the vibe in an interview: “We were huge idiots and didn’t know what we were doing.”
Read: How Tesla’s Model 3 Became Elon Musk’s Version of Hell  Space X was easy. Tesla was hard. Photographer: Balazs Gardi for Bloomberg Businessweek (car); Source: SpaceX (rocket) For the whole walk down memory lane, go here. |
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