Bob Schwartz

Tag: Elon Musk

October 8, 2026

Elon Musk: “Let me sell you a dream”

“Musk has the sobering effect of a corruption exposé and the fear factor of a ’70s conspiracy thriller.”
–Hollywood Reporter

Alex Gibney’s long-awaited documentary Musk will be released in theaters tomorrow and will eventually stream on HBO (if it’s not blocked).

Musk will do everything the world’s richest man can do to stop you from seeing it or hearing about it. X/Twitter will not carry anything about it.

Even with the seemingly unstoppable power of Musk and media monopolies, information wants to be free. So do we.

David Byrne created a song, Let Me Sell You a Dream, for the film. All the lyrics are taken entirely from Musk’s own words:

I’m extremely hardcore
You know my mind is a storm
And I would not even eat
If I could get my work done

I’ve been burning the candle
Burning at both ends
And I’ve been killing those demons
For a long, long time

Let me sell you a dream
Baby, that’s what I do
How the future could be
I can make it come true

Now I’m running human in imitation mode
I’m a chill normal dude
I just have to keep going

Let me sell you a dream
Do you think I’m insane?
I eat a glass sandwich
I eat them every day

Algorithmic distillation
Multi-planet exploration
I’m a human emulation
I’m a total simulation

Lеt me sell you a dream
Baby, that’s what I do
How thе future could be
I could make it come true

You don’t want to be me
You know, the problem…
The problem is empathy

Let me sell you a dream
My daddy used to tell me
Let me sell you a dream
Tell me I was no good

Let me sell you a dream
I said, “Hey, daddy!”
Let me sell you a dream
What’s a poor boy to do?
Let me sell you a dream

–Elon Musk

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January 24, 2025

Unhappy Americans are leaving the country—for Bedrock and Orbit City

Will Elon Musk run against Cosmo Spacely for mayor of Orbit City?

There are many Americans unhappy with the return of Trump to the White House. While it is an extreme response, a small number have decided to leave the country to live elsewhere, or at least claim they will.

Surprisingly, two of the destinations for refugees may be Bedrock and Orbit City. These places are best known from the reality shows The Flintstones and The Jetsons. These popular programs followed the day-to-day lives of typical families in different eras—the Flintstones in a time when most things involved rocks and dinosaurs did much of the heavy lifting, the Jetsons in a time when people traveled by flying cars and both maids and dogs were robots.

Will it be better in Bedrock or Orbit City than it currently is in America? Only time will tell. However, it is thought that presidential advisor Elon Musk is seriously considering not only moving to Orbit City, but becoming its mayor. Is Musk unhappy? Will he end up running against Cosmo Spacely, George Jetsons’ boss and the wealthy CEO of Spacely Space Sprockets, Inc.? Once again, time will tell.

© 2025 by Bob M. Schwartz

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November 14, 2024

The bluebird of happiness left X. Now The Guardian, other media, and many people have. You should too.

The Bluebird of Happiness

“We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our content elsewhere.”
The Guardian

The Guardian newspaper announced that they are no longer posting on X. In part:

We wanted to let readers know that we are no longer posting from any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X (formerly Twitter). We think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our content elsewhere.

This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform, including far-right conspiracy theories and racism. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.

The Guardian isn’t alone. Other media organizations and X users are also leaving.

You should too. It won’t seem easy. Twitter (its brand before Musk killed the bluebird of happiness) developed into a social media platform that was simple to use and had global reach. The current alternatives have not yet reached its utility. But, and this is the watchword of the moment, we have choices and we can choose. No one said it would be easy to stand up and be counted.

Elections make us think that voting at the ballot box is the only way we can have our voices heard. Every movement that isn’t about elections would beg to differ.

Make a difference. Join the bluebird of happiness and leave X today.

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November 1, 2012

Losers and Winners

 


In the first Presidential debate, which Barack Obama lost, Mitt Romney directly attacked the President on government support for energy innovators:

“Now, I like green energy as well, but that’s about 50 years’ worth of what oil and gas receives. You put $90 billion — like 50 years’ worth of breaks — into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tesla and Ener1. I mean, I had a friend who said, you don’t just pick the winners and losers; you pick the losers.”

Today, that “loser” Tesla won. The Tesla Model S was named by Automobile Magazine as the 2013 Automobile of the Year:

The auto industry is tough enough for a giant like General Motors. What we can say with this award is that Tesla deserves to succeed. It has managed to blend the innovation of a Silicon Valley start-up, the execution of a world-class automaker, and, yes, the chutzpah of its visionary leader [Elon Musk]. The result is the Model S. It’s not vaporware. It’s our Automobile of the Year.

Sometimes picking winners and loser is difficult. Sometimes it’s not.

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