EVERY FEW days a Falcon 9 rocket takes off to ferry satellites into orbit. You might think it would feel commonplace by now. Not for the crowds gathered at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on December 1st. First came the exhilaration. The sight of the rocket blazing through the sky, then dropping its reusable first stage, with Mary Poppins-like grace, onto the launch site provoked gasps of awe, as did the sonic boom that followed. “It never gets old. It’s like being at an AC/DC concert,” a bystander murmured. Then came the realisation of the accomplishment. This spacecraft had a geopolitical payload: it carried South Korea’s first spy satellite, trying to catch up with North Korea days after the hermit state reportedly put its own spyware into orbit. It also had a scientific one: it took Ireland into the space age, by carrying the country’s first satellite, built by students at University College Dublin.

每隔幾天，就會有一枚獵鷹9號火箭升空，將衛(wèi)星送入軌道。你可能會覺得這已經(jīng)司空見慣了。但對于12月1日在加利福尼亞范登堡空軍基地聚集的人群來說卻不是這樣。首先是興奮。火箭在天空中劃過的景象，然后將可重復(fù)使用的第一級火箭部分優(yōu)雅地降落在發(fā)射場上，引起了驚嘆，隨后接著的音爆也讓人們驚嘆不已?！斑@永遠不會過時。就像在樂隊AC/DC音樂會上一樣，”一個旁觀者低聲說道。然后人們意識到了，這艘宇宙飛船攜帶著重要貨物：試圖在隔了幾天之后追趕朝鮮，韓國的第一顆間諜衛(wèi)星上去了，據(jù)報道這個隱士國家已經(jīng)將自己的間諜衛(wèi)星送入軌道。它還攜帶著一個貨物：攜帶著由都柏林大學(xué)學(xué)生建造的該國第一顆衛(wèi)星，也將愛爾蘭帶入了太空時代。

It was lost on no one that they had Elon Musk to thank for the spectacle. At the same time, the almost unwavering reliability of the engineering marvels the founder of SpaceX, the firm behind the Falcon, has fathered—SpaceX has launched and recovered its rockets 250 times—stands in stark contrast with the unhinged, error-prone remarks that in recent weeks have made him sound like a petulant space cadet. These included: appearing to endorse an antisemitic tweet on X, his social-media platform (an act he later called “foolish”); a cringeworthy trip to Israel that he said was to promote peace but looked more like an apology tour; a barrage of “Go fuck yourself”s to advertisers such as Disney at a New York Times summit, after they pulled their ads from X; and crass self-mythologising like his comment that he has “done more for the environment than any single human on Earth”.

沒有人會遺忘埃隆·馬斯克為這場壯觀景象所做的貢獻。這位 "獵鷹 "背后的公司 SpaceX 創(chuàng)始人所創(chuàng)造的工程奇跡--SpaceX 已經(jīng)發(fā)射和回收火箭 250 次--可靠性沒什么人質(zhì)疑，與最近幾周他發(fā)表的精神錯亂、容易出錯的言論形成了鮮明對比，這讓他聽起來像一個任性的家伙。其中包括：似乎支持一條反猶太主義推特（后來他稱這種行為是“愚蠢的”）；一次令人尷尬的以色列之行；他說此行是為了促進和平，但看起來更像是一次道歉之旅；在紐約時報峰會上對迪士尼等廣告商大肆辱罵，從他的社交媒體平臺撤回了廣告；以及像他聲稱自己"為環(huán)境所做的貢獻比地球上任何一個人都多"。這樣的的自我夸贊 。

One attendee at the rocket launch sighed that Mr Musk, for all his genius, now reminded him of the messed-up Tony Soprano, from the mobster TV series. But another, a young British physics buff, put his finger on why the entrepreneur still enjoyed a cult following. “He’s clearly a very troubled man. But being strong and turning a troubled past into a successful future is attractive. He’s a mega-leader. He has to make people believe he can walk on water.”

在火箭發(fā)射現(xiàn)場的一名參會者嘆息道，馬斯克先生，盡管才華橫溢，但讓他想起了電視系列劇《黑道家族》中的托尼·索普拉諾。另一位年輕的英國物理迷卻指出了為什么這位企業(yè)家仍然受到追捧?！八@然是一個非常麻煩的人。將困難的過去變成成功的未來對人們來講是很有吸引力的。他是一個超級領(lǐng)袖。他讓人們相信他能行“神跡”。”

This points to the quandary at the heart of the Musk phenomenon. Is the braggadocio just the showmanship of a business pioneer? Can a man who has challenged conventions of engineering, energy and economics to revolutionise land and space travel get away with defying rules of human decency because of the importance of his mission? Or has the mission itself gone to his head, creating a saviour complex that could eventually bring him down?

這指出了馬斯克現(xiàn)象的問題所在。這種自夸只是一種商業(yè)形式的表演嗎？一個挑戰(zhàn)工程、能源和經(jīng)濟、以改革陸地和太空旅行的人物，這種使命重要性能否凌駕于他人尊嚴(yán)規(guī)則之上？或者崇高的使命已經(jīng)讓他沖昏了頭腦，產(chǎn)生了一個救世主情結(jié)？

The answer is a combination of all three. Mr Musk’s provocative humour, from boyish fart jokes to pranks like smoking pot in public, have helped burnish his reputation as a business maverick. Often he goes too far, riling regulators and raising concerns about the state of his mental health. But his rule-breaking also thrills his fans and, though his main marketing technique has been to sell great products, helps his brands get noticed; until this year, Teslas sold themselves by word of mouth, rather than by advertising. His showmanship has a Willy Wonka quality to it; it is hard to know where the magic ends and the madness begins, but you can hardly tear your eyes away.

答案是三者的結(jié)合。馬斯克的幽默風(fēng)格，從童趣笑話到在公共場合抽大麻等惡作劇，都幫助他樹立了作為特立獨行者的人設(shè)。他經(jīng)常做得過火，激怒監(jiān)管機構(gòu)，引發(fā)對他精神健康狀況的擔(dān)憂。但他的違規(guī)行為也讓他的粉絲興奮不已，盡管他的主要營銷手段是銷售優(yōu)質(zhì)產(chǎn)品，但這也有助于他的品牌獲得關(guān)注；直到今年，特斯拉一直是有口皆碑，而不是通過廣告營銷。他的表演具有一種威利·旺卡的特質(zhì)；很難分清魔術(shù)和瘋狂的界限，讓你幾乎無法移開目光。

To be sure, now that Tesla, worth $750bn, is the most valuable carmaker in the world and SpaceX is reportedly valued at $150bn, his motives for continuing to behave obnoxiously are murkier. An anecdote in Walter Isaacson’s recent biography suggests they may be compulsive. Mr Musk’s friends once took his phone and locked it in a hotel safe to stop him tweeting overnight. At 3am he ordered hotel security to unlock the safe. Yet however toxic his tweets are for X, which lives off ads, they do not matter much to customers and investors of Tesla and SpaceX. Though his X antics have caused periodic drops in Tesla’s share price, over the years it is up spectacularly. If SpaceX goes public, investors will dive in, even if some hold their noses while doing so. For all his flare-ups, it is mostly thanks to his vision and drive that the company has such a head start in both rocketry and satellite communications.

可以肯定的是，現(xiàn)在特斯拉價值7500億美元，成為全球最有價值的汽車制造商，SpaceX據(jù)稱價值1500億美元，他繼續(xù)表現(xiàn)得令人討厭。沃爾特·艾薩克森最近的傳記中的一個軼事表明，他的行為是這樣的。馬斯克的朋友曾經(jīng)拿走他的手機，把它鎖在酒店的保險柜里，以阻止他在夜間發(fā)推文。凌晨3點，他命令酒店保安打開保險柜。然而，無論他的推文對以廣告為生的 X 公司有多大影響，對特斯拉和SpaceX的顧客和投資者影響不大。他的行為偶爾會導(dǎo)致特斯拉股價下跌，但多年來股價卻有了上漲得更多。如果SpaceX上市，投資者將會蜂擁而入，即使有些人在這么做時還要捏著鼻子。但正是由于他的遠見和行動力，公司在火箭技術(shù)和衛(wèi)星通信方面擁有如此大的領(lǐng)先優(yōu)勢。

Most troubling is the messiah complex. From Tesla and SpaceX to artificial intelligence (AI), Mr Musk acts as if he is on a mission to save humanity, by preventing climate catastrophe, providing an exit route via interplanetary travel, stopping machines from out-thinking man, or averting nuclear Armageddon (last year he stymied Ukraine’s efforts to strike back against Russia by refusing to extend its access to his Starlix satellites to Russian-occupied territory, on the grounds that such an attack might lead Vladimir Putin to retaliate with nukes). At times he sounds like a capricious Greek god who believes he holds the fate of the world in his hands. “Finally the future will look like the future,” he bragged when launching Tesla’s Cybertruck pickup on November 30th.

最令人不安的是救世主情結(jié)。從特斯拉和SpaceX到人工智能（AI），馬斯克的行為就好像他正在拯救人類，防止氣候災(zāi)難，通過星際旅行提供一條逃生之路，阻止機器超越人類思維，或者避免核災(zāi)難（去年，他通過拒絕向俄羅斯占領(lǐng)的領(lǐng)土提供其星鏈衛(wèi)星的接入，阻止了烏克蘭對俄羅斯的打擊，理由是這樣的攻擊可能導(dǎo)致弗拉基米爾·普京以核武器進行報復(fù)）。有時，他聽起來像一個難以捉摸的希臘神，相信自己掌握著世界的命運。他在11月30日推出特斯拉的賽博皮卡時吹噓道“未來終于變成了未來。”

Saving humanity is in vogue right now. It is a dangerous fetish. Last month a charter to protect the world from the dangers of rogue AI almost destroyed OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. A year ago Sam Bankman-Fried, now a convicted fraudster, claimed that the disastrous risks he took with his FTX crypto-exchange were in service of humanity. Such missionary zeal is not new in business. It pushed Henry Ford, inventor of the Model T, to raise workers’ living standards. But his saviour complex got the better of him and he ended up spewing antisemitic bile.

拯救人類很時髦。這是一種危險的癖好。上個月，一個旨在保護世界免受人工智能失控危險的憲章幾乎毀掉了ChatGPT的OpenAI。一年前，現(xiàn)在已被定罪的欺詐犯山姆·班克曼-弗里德聲稱，他在FTX加密交易所上承擔(dān)的災(zāi)難性風(fēng)險是為了造福人類。這種傳教士熱情在商業(yè)界并不新鮮。正是這種熱情推動了T型車發(fā)明者亨利·福特提高工人的生活水平。但他的救世主情結(jié)最終戰(zhàn)勝了他，最終他發(fā)表了令人反感的反猶言論。

Mr Musk’s hubris, too, may end badly. For all the futuristic twaddle about the Cybertruck, drivers struggled to find its door handles. Yet in the grand scheme of things, his technical accomplishments will probably outweigh his all-too-human imperfections. For pioneering electric cars and reusable rockets, he has earned his place in history. Future generations will probably judge him the way today’s judges Ford: a handful will decry his flawed character; most will remember the majesty of his creations.

馬斯克的自負也許會帶來不好的結(jié)果。盡管對于賽博皮卡的未來主義夸夸其談。然而，從長遠來看，他的技術(shù)成就可能會超過他那些人性上的缺陷。他開創(chuàng)了電動汽車和可重復(fù)使用火箭，因此他在歷史上占據(jù)了一席之地。未來的一代人可能會像今天對待福特一樣來評判他：少數(shù)人會譴責(zé)他的缺陷性格，而大多數(shù)人會記住他創(chuàng)造的偉大壯舉。