‘Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket’ explores innovation through a sci-fi lens with Jill Lepore
Pushkin Industries presents “Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket,” a business podcast about the SpaceX engineer and Tesla CEO pioneering a new model of capitalism called “Muskism.” In this system, stock prices are pushed by earnings and dreams, and Musk’s companies continue to create leading innovations. Musk was raised on a steady diet of science fiction stories and transformed ideas into businesses. In this series, host Jill Lepore will investigate Musk’s visions for the future influenced by sci-fi, his entrepreneurship, and what Musk missed in the sci-fi stories.
We’d recommend starting this series from episode one for more context on Musk’s story. If you’re already quite familiar with Musk’s career and history, feel free to drop in at any episode. The average length of episodes is 30 minutes long with new episodes posted weekly.
In the first episode, “Dimension X,” Lepore explains how on any day, Musk is one of the richest people alive and says his life sounds fictitious, like “a comic book superhero.” In the “Planet B” episode, listeners will hear where Musk received his funds to start SpaceX as well as his dream to colonize Mars and “extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
In the “Iron Man” episode, listeners hear about Musk’s role in Silicon Valley and starting Tesla Motors, launching the same year the Iron Man film was released. The film’s creators consulted with Musk when crafting Tony Stark’s character, who, interestingly enough, believes anything is possible through technology and business. The “Baby X” episode investigates the sci-fi story Baby X, that Musk’s child was named after. Lepore explores ideas from New Wave, feminist, and post-colonial sci-fi, concepts left out of “rich men colonizing space” narratives.
In the “Robin Hood” episode, we hear how billionaires earned more money during the pandemic and cryptocurrency news graced the headlines. Lepore explains the Tinkerbell Effect in economics and Musk’s hand in meme stocks like Dogecoin, when Musk jokingly tweeted a dog meme that actually impacted the market.
Lepore is a Harvard professor, journalist, New Yorker writer, and historian. “Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket” started as a series on BBC’s Radio 4 and was extended into a podcast.
Lepore also hosts the series, “The Last Archive” about truth and history, “a show about how we know what we know,” and delving into fake news.
Check out new, weekly episodes of “Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket” to hear about “Muskism,” innovations, and what we can learn from sci-fi.
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