Toxic Work Ethic in America, Part Two

This essay follows from Toxic Work Ethic in America, Part One.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk, currently likely to become America’s first trillionaire, has a conflicted history with his father, South African entrepreneur Errol Musk. Elon tries to deny Errol’s part-ownership of an emerald mine, for instance, but Errol calls that pure mythology. Even if Errol didn’t bankroll Elon’s earliest ventures, his wealth allowed Elon freedom to pursue an education, experiment with technology, and start several businesses in his early twenties.

If, as I said previously, people arrogant enough to become billionaires and presidents aren’t conditioned in childhood to be self-effacing, that doesn’t mean they’re unconditioned. And like me, their conditioning comes heavily from fathers. My father conditioned me, mainly by yelling, to maintain a self-destructive work ethic, pushing myself to the brink of collapse, then returning home too depleted to do housework. Elon’s father conditioned him to… well.

Like Elon, Errol was a serial entrepreneur, who also used his wealth to buy out enterprises that piqued his interest. Like Elon, Errol married a glamorous, accomplished wife, but seemingly paid her little attention, letting Maye Musk pursue her interests without support or awareness. Like Elon, Errol is sexually voracious: Elon has fourteen children by four women that we know about, while Errol had a child with his own stepdaughter.

Where my father taught me to deny myself and disappear entirely into my role as an employee, student, battalion member, or whatever, Errol Musk taught Elon to elevate himself, and his desires, over other people. Errol conditioned his son to be constantly self-seeking, always aware of ways he falls short or looks small. My father conditioned be to be self-abnegating, while Errol conditioned Elon to be self-centered.

I don’t know Elon’s full story, partly because Elon often contradicts himself regarding his biography. So I’ll draw an analogy. Joe Plumeri, former CEO of the Willis Group, opens his memoir by describing his father showing him the luxurious houses around his New Jersey hometown. Describing himself later as a “workaholic” who loves showing his father around his accomplishments, it becomes clear: Plumeri has spent his life appeasing his father.

Sigmund Freud

One could extend the comparison. Consider the American Presidents and presidential candidates who considered the Presidency their birthright: John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison, George W. Bush. George H.W. Bush and Al Gore were both sons of senators. The Kennedy family exists. John McCain, whose father and grandfather were both four-star admirals, had his military career stall because of his POW status; he ran for President partly to outrank his ancestors.

Developmental psychologists describe human behavior as “highly conditioned.” In plain English, this means our past circumstances shape our present options. We cannot make a completely original decision, but rather see our opportunities defined by our life experiences. Many of the conditioning agents that shape our ability to see fall into two broad categories: standards we want to live up to, and mistakes we want to live down.

Again, for many of us, fathers (or father figures) shape our perceptions. My father taught me to see myself as part of a unit: whether a workplace, a classroom, or a military battalion, I needed to diminish. If I took an unscheduled break, yawned loudly, or even slowed down notably, my father volubly reminded me that I wasn’t just shirking my individual duties. I was letting the entire group down.

Meanwhile, billionaire fathers teach their sons to seek themselves. Sometimes this self-seeking is a doom spiral, as Cornelius Vanderbilt failed to teach his sons business acumen, and the Vanderbilt fortune eventually disappeared. Other times, this self-seeking accrues wealth and power. We can see this in how billionaires treat others: Elon’s multiple divorces and President Taco’s Epstein Island adventures show they see women as consumable resources, not people.

My military analogy recurs. Rank-and-file soldiers internalize an ethos of self-sacrifice, and learn to see heroic death as the ultimate virtue. And I do mean “learn”: cult expert Daniella Mestyanek Young writes that basic training doesn’t teach military skills, it teaches self-abnegation and the primacy of the unit. As a collective, the military survives by teaching its members that their individual lives aren’t worth saving.

Elon Musk claims to work 100 hours per week. This feels specious, since he also claims to be a world-class competitive videogame player, while recently tweeting nearly 100 times per day. But even if it’s true, Musk doesn’t work those soul-breaking hours because he’s disappeared into his job. Instead, he’s made his companies an instrument of his ego, something to inflate himself, though it will never leave him full.