Elon Musk's Tragic Deficiency of Wisdom
In an age of algorithmic dominance and synthetic brilliance, it's fashionable — almost mandatory — to genuflect at the altar of Elon Musk.
The man sends rockets into space, reimagines transportation, engineers artificial intelligence, and recalibrates capital markets with a single tweet.
One marvels at the magnitude of his intellect, which flares with the white heat of Promethean fire.
But as any classically trained thinker — or a grandmother with common sense — might caution, intelligence is not wisdom, and indeed, the two often travel on parallel tracks which never meet.
Let's begin with the age-old adage that a smart person knows that a tomato is a fruit, but a wise person knows not to put it in a fruit salad.
Musk, dazzling in his intellectual feats, appears to have no taste for salad — or for restraint.
His latest foray into public absurdity involves an unprovoked and highly public assault on President Donald J. Trump, who, whatever one’s political inclination, commands a formidable and devoted base, many of whom are also Musk’s customers, allies, and defenders.
In lambasting Trump, Musk doesn’t just thumb his nose at the most politically explosive hornet’s nest in America — he kicks it while wearing attractant cologne. This is not strategic brilliance; it is social idiocy dressed in a bespoke suit of hi-tech arrogance.
Academic literature has long established a meaningful distinction between cognitive intelligence and what is sometimes referred to as "practical wisdom" or phronesis — a term Aristotle used to describe moral and situational judgment.
Robert Sternberg, one of the preeminent scholars on intelligence, has defined wisdom as "the application of intelligence, creativity, and knowledge as mediated by values toward the achievement of a common good." It's in other words, the ability to utilize intellectual gifts in a manner benefitting both the individual and the broader community.
Musk, it seems, has the raw tools but frequently misplaces the toolbox.
In a now widely circulated 2005 study published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers Baltes and Staudinger identified five key criteria of wisdom: rich factual knowledge, rich procedural knowledge, lifespan contextualism, relativism of values, and recognition and management of uncertainty.
Musk scores impressively high on the first two — but appears to stumble, if not plummet, when it comes to the final three.
One cannot call a man wise who engages in impetuous, scorched-earth management of his own public image and business relationships.
Consider his chaotic acquisition of Twitter (now rebranded as "X," for reasons that remain more opaque than prophetic), where he performed the corporate equivalent of performing open-heart surgery while skydiving.
Mass layoffs, inconsistent content policies, and rhetorical flame-throwing at journalists and politicians alike — this is not leadership steeped in reflection.
It’s high-octane brilliance with no moral governor.
To Musk’s defenders, who are legion and loyal, I offer this: yes, he is brilliant — brilliant like a child who builds a working nuclear reactor in his garage.
And yet, if that same child uses it to boil water for ramen noodles, one wonders whether brilliance alone is enough.
We must ask not only if something can be done, but also if it should be.
Wisdom — true wisdom — takes into account timing, tone, and the temperament of one’s audience. It is less about what can be shouted from the mountaintop and more about what is left unsaid in the valley.
And that is where Musk fails most dramatically.
His attack on Trump — an act so ill-considered a Twitter bot could have drafted it with a bad hangover — underscores a chronic lack of discernment.
In a nation sharply divided and teetering on rhetorical civil war, he chose to pour gasoline on a bonfire already fueled by distrust and rage.
It's essential to note, as psychologist Howard Gardner did in his "Theory of Multiple Intelligences," that intelligence is not a monolithic concept.
Logical-mathematical intelligence may get you into MIT, but interpersonal intelligence helps you navigate Thanksgiving dinner without sparking a food fight. Musk’s genius, while awe-inspiring in technical arenas, too often collapses in interpersonal spaces.
The tragedy is not that Elon Musk is unintelligent — far from it.
The tragedy is that he does not seem to appreciate how much he doesn’t know about people, politics, and prudence.
This is the man who named a child X Æ A-12 and expected the public to embrace it as an act of originality rather than a cry for help.
In a world awash in data and driven by speed, wisdom has become the rarest and most undervalued commodity.
Musk could benefit from reading less Nietzsche and more Ecclesiastes.
For all his monumental contributions, his legacy teeters — ironically — not on the failure of a rocket, but on the volatile combustion of a poorly timed thought.
So, let's celebrate brilliance, yes, and marvel at rockets, electric cars, and brain implants.
But let's also, quietly, and persistently, ask our culture to re-learn an ancient truth: that wisdom, not just intelligence, is what sustains civilizations.
And as for Mr. Musk — he may reach Mars, but whether he finds maturity is still uncertain. One can only hope.
Michael Levine is an American writer and public relations expert. He's the author of books on public relations including Guerrilla PR. He's represented 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, and 43 New York Times best-sellers, including Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, and George Carlin, among others. Mr. Levine also appeared in "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold," a 2011 documentary by Morgan Spurlock. He's provided commentary for Variety, Forbes, Fox News, The New York Times, and USA Today. Read More of Michael Levine's Reports — Here.
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