The Elon Musk Show offers little insight into the man behind the entrepreneur — review

“Aren’t you entertained?” asked Elon Musk — going all Russell Crowe in Gladiator — when this paper’s editor, Roula Khalaf, mentioned his market-jolting Twitter antics in a recent interview. Now that question is being put to the rest of us in the form of The Elon Musk Show, a three-part BBC documentary series.

In truth, “entertained” might not be the word that comes to mind. After three hours we’re more likely to feel overrun with weariness — a vicarious kind of exhaustion that stems from watching a pathologically restless man try to revolutionise the automobile industry, develop a private space programme and build a cult of personality all at the same time. And then there’s just the feeling of being tired of Musk himself.

Much like Netflix’s Kanye West docu-series from earlier this year, The Elon Musk Show neatly traces how undoubtable, admirable talent — or as someone posits here, Einstein-surpassing genius — can be eclipsed or even deformed by boundless ambition and self-importance. But where Jeen-yuhs was built on home videos that revealed a private side of West, this documentary relies on archive footage and the testimonies of others. It doesn’t penetrate Musk’s outsized public persona to the same degree.

As a survey of the evolution of and inner-workings at Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX companies, the show is thorough and mostly absorbing. But as an attempt to give a sense of Musk the man (as opposed to Musk the entrepreneur, the self-proclaimed visionary or Twitter troll) the series can be a little elusive and non-committal.

While illuminating biographical details — such as those about his unhappy childhood — often punctuate the career history and point at what fuels his insatiable drive and ego, they can frequently feel scattershot and rushed.

Interviews with one-time close colleagues meanwhile offer first-hand observations about their former boss’s childlike tantrums and demandingness, but they’re often then tempered by platitudes about work ethic and leadership.

Unsurprisingly, his mother Maye Musk is also at hand to gush about her son’s brilliance, without offering much of a personal perspective. More compelling are the recollections of Musk’s two-time ex-wife Talulah Riley who speaks to a lesser-seen softness and emotional intelligence. His first wife Justine (whom he left abruptly after years together) tellingly does not feature in person in a show that touches on, but largely skirts around, various controversies.

Ultimately the closest we come to any truly revealing insight into Musk comes from the man himself, in a clip from a conference where he’s asked about how someone might become him. “I’m not sure I want to be me,” he says with a sad smile. There’s nothing entertaining about that.

★★★☆☆

Episodes 1-2 on BBC iPlayer now

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