Don’t Fall For Elon Inc.’s Press Campaign

We’re in the midst of a storm of articles — variously encomiums, valedictories, friendly morality tales — about Elon Musk’s purported departure from service in the federal government. I’m going to note a couple quite unflattering pieces in a moment. But for now, I want to focus on the bulk of them, which tend to portray Musk as someone who tried to tame government spending but was simply over-matched by “Washington’s ways” and finally failed. You get the image of a guy who is chastened, heading back to his regular life, no match for Sodom any more than most of us would be.