Elon Musk arrives at court in Wilmington, Del., on July 13, 2021. (Samuel Corum/Bloomberg )
WASHINGTON — Between launching four astronauts and 54 satellites into orbit, unveiling an electric freight truck and closing in on taking over Twitter this month, Elon Musk made time to offer unsolicited peace plans for Taiwan and Ukraine, antagonizing those countries' leaders and irking Washington, too.
Citing Musk's public ridicule of those who snub him — the billionaire has called President Biden a "damp sock puppet" and said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) reminds him of "my friend's angry mom" — many of the two dozen top government officials interviewed for this article would only speak about Musk on the condition of anonymity. But nearly all described him as being as erratic and arrogant as he is brilliant.
These days, the eccentric entrepreneur rarely visits Washington and is increasingly critical of the federal government. He does talk to foreign presidents and prime ministers, according to people who work directly with him. Musk sells his state-of-the-art rockets and aerospace technology to South Korea, Turkey and a growing list of other countries. He has Tesla factories in Germany and China. He also owns and controls more than 3,000 satellites circling the Earth — far more than any nation, including the United States.
Two people who know him well said Musk is impulsive and that makes him say things that harm his own interests — a tendency that makes it difficult for government officials to count on Musk. Musk himself has said he has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism, and no one should expect him to be a "chill, normal dude."
Musk set his sights on D.C. 20 years ago. A South African who moved to Silicon Valley, Musk became a U.S. citizen in 2002 — the year he used his payment from the sale of PayPal, the electronic payment firm he helped found, to start SpaceX. It was a big risk, and he needed high-dollar government contracts to survive. In early 2003, Musk announced he would have a "significant presence" in the nation's capital so that he could build a "close working relationship with the federal government."
