Elon Musk is one of the greatest entrepreneurs and raconteurs of our time. He achieves the seemingly impossible on so many different fronts it seems beyond human capability.

Yet he also is one of the more reviled figures of our time, attacked by Democrats, regulators, liberal NGOs, and other critics—and he fights back without a flinch.

How does Elon do it? How does he thrive in myriad fields, and what can we take from him and apply it to our own merely mortal lives? Therein lies the mission of my new book, The Leadership Genius of Elon Musk, published by HarperCollins on Tuesday of this week.

It carries a back-cover blurb from Chris Ruddy, founder and CEO of Newsmax Media, who writes: “(Musk) is a force of nature, and this book’s eleven lessons reveal how you can tap into the power of Elon Musk.”

Eleven Lessons of Elon that fuel his success — and which can help us build a better life. Or feel better about the life we have.

Rather than start with Lesson 1 — it is too weird — let us jump to Lessons 3 and 4, which are pertinent given the latest contrived controversy over Elon’s supposed Hitler salute at a Trump rally last week.

Lesson 3: “The Highest Nail Gets Pounded Down First. So Strap on a Helmet.” Elon does. Lesson 4: “Tease your critics and torture your enemies.” He thrives on this. (Hear more on Lesson 3 and Lesson 4 on my podcast, “What’s Bugging Me.”)

At the rally, Musk expressed his love for the crowd by putting his right hand over his heart and then thrusting it outward, palm to the audience. Cue phony outrage from much of the media (see CNN anchor Erin Burnett, here) and Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the vacuous social media star who pretends to represent the Bronx in Congress (here).

On Musk’s X, defenders posted past photos of Democrats who have made a similar gesture: President Obama, Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, and even AOC herself. The media made nothing of this because, in their view, President Trump and his supporters are the Nazis.

Now it is Elon’s turn.

It is a silly accusation against a man who said he is, if anything, pro-Jewish. He visited Israel after the horrible Hamas terrorist attack that killed 1,200 Israelis, and he wore a medallion around his neck for over a year in honor of the hostages taken by Hamas.

Thus, Elon responded with derision for the media, posting: “It was astonishing how insanely hard legacy media tried to cancel me for saying ‘my heart goes out to you’ and moving my hand from my heart to the audience. In the end, this deception will just be another nail in the coffin of legacy media.”

And this: “Legacy media sucks next-level, especially in Europe.” When a post showed Joe Rogan saying that CNN uses a freeze-frame image of himself holding his hand overhead to make him look like a Nazi, Elon chimed in: “Standard practice for the lying legacy media.”

This leads to Lesson 6: “Free speech is everything. Stand up and be heard.” Elon surely does this. And Lesson 7: “On the media: to hell with them. They are shameless shills.”

Elon is a champion of free speech at the same time he is a vehement critic of the mainstream (liberal) media. He bought Twitter to restore free speech after it had censored thousands of (conservative) accounts, and he exposed rampant government interference.

Now Musk says X can supplant the mainstream legacy media with citizen journalists, experts, and influencers, rallying them to his cause: “You are the media now.”

My new book offers other Lessons of Elon — work harder than you ever have before (Lesson 5), dream huge and spend decades in pursuit (Lesson 8), always bet on yourself, and double down (Lesson 9). As for the strangest one, Lesson 1:

“This all may be fake. So just go for it.”

Suffice it to say that Elon thinks the chances are billions to one in favor of the idea that we are, right now, living inside a giant computer simulation. This frees him to take on huge risks in pursuit of achieving incredible things because, what the heck, all of this may be just a game.

It is kind of fun to think about it. What if the simulation theory were true — how would you change your life?

Dennis Kneale is host of the podcast "What’s Bugging Me" on Ricochet and author of "The Leadership Genius of Elon Musk." Read Dennis Kneale's reports — More Here.