Ben Mezrich on the Musk and Zuck Messiah Complexes
Author Ben Mezrich has become a kind of dramatist for tech-world origin stories. His books, which combine facts and reporting with informed speculation, have been adapted into films like 21, Dumb Money, and The Social Network. His latest book, Breaking Twitter, is about the Elon Musk era at the now-renamed social platform. (And Mezrich contends that Twitter also broke Musk.) In the latest episode of On With Kara Swisher, Kara has a long chat with Mezrich about Musk’s rocky first year at the helm, and in the excerpt below, about how Musk compares with Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump.
Kara Swisher: There’s obviously parallels between how you present Elon and his nemesis, Mark Zuckerberg. They’re both portrayed as lonely, insecure, misunderstood billionaire geniuses. I find them very different, but I want to hear your thoughts on what do they have in common, and what are the differences?
Ben Mezrich: Yeah. Great question. So I think that what they have in common is somewhat the view that the world revolves around them and they’re going to remake the world in their image. You know, Zuckerberg created—
Swisher: Emperor.
Mezrich: Right, they wanted, Zuckerberg wanted us all to live online on Facebook so he could be the king.
Swisher: Augustus Emperor.
Mezrich: And I think Elon is similar. I think that Elon is much more, in my opinion, the dictatorial control person than Mark is. I think Mark, to me anyways, is a little bit more of the nerd, as the guy in the corner with the computer — and Elon isn’t that.
Swisher: Mark’s team has stayed around him for a decade. Like it’s the same people.
Mezrich: Yeah, and so — I don’t know. There are differences between them. I think it’s interesting. In the book, there’s a scene when Musk signs the papers to take over Twitter, the first thing he screams out is, “Fuck Zuck! Fuck Zuck!” — which I haven’t seen reported anywhere else. And I think that he definitely sees Mark as a rival. I mean, we’ve seen that.
Swisher: One time Mark asked me if he was crazy and I said, “Indeed.” I didn’t know what to say. They’re very fixated on each other in a way and I, this is just my opinion: Mark is actually a much nicer person. More stable. He obviously has a good relationship with his wife, he has kids, he’s kept the same people there. Again, I have a lot, as you know, I have a lot of problems with what he’s done at Facebook but—
Mezrich: Elon has pushed you to like Mark.
Swisher: I don’t like Mark that much. I like him as a person. I’m saying he’s a better person, like, away from all of this. He has a life that is — he’s a good father, he’s a good husband, I think he has a lot of people around him that he’s kept for a long time.
When he, when the fight happened, tell me what you think of that, because here’s two people you’ve written about quite a lot.
Mezrich: It was right up my alley. Like this should have been my next book and the movie was literally just their fight. And I think if Elon really wants to beat Zuck, he needs a Social Network about himself, so he should be supporting me and not coming against me. But I really was blown away by that fight situation. And for a few moments, I literally thought it might actually happen, which would have been spectacular.
I would have put my money on Mark, just because he’s trained and he’s young and Elon is … Although Elon is crazy, and crazy is good in a fight, I think that Mark is skilled, and he’s gonna probably win that fight. But I was blown away by the drama of it and I loved it. I would have loved to have written about it.
Swisher: Yeah. All the men — my sons wanted it. I was like, “No, no.” This is, I actually wrote Mark a note saying, “Please don’t do this. It’s beneath you. Like, you love your sport.” Whatever you think of his, like dancing around and putting up his videos. He likes it. Like it’s a real, it’s a real thing. Right? He’s earnest about it. Um, he didn’t write back, by the way. Sad. But I said, “You’re better than this.” This is a ridiculous circus by men who are not good people. So please stop. Please don’t do it.
Mezrich: I mean, it could go very bad. But on the other hand, it would be a great movie.
Swisher: Oh, all you people, all you want is a spectacle.
Mezrich: I mean, if the world is a simulation, you know, you got to make it fun.
Swisher: That’s true, it doesn’t really matter does it. But speaking of which, there are also quite a few Trump parallels in the book — being rich, right-wing Twitter trolls. They’re both surrounded by yes men. Thin-skinned, emotionally volatile, paranoid, convinced there’s a deep state, or in Elon’s case, Twitter 1.0 holdovers trying to undermine them. And they both think they know everything. Going back to this messianic thing, both talk explicitly of themselves as saviors. “I am the only one.” Trump thinks he’s just saving America, whereas Elon thinks he’s saving humanity. Is that comparison fair?
Mezrich: I mean, in some ways, look, I think Elon is leagues smarter than Trump. I think Elon truly is a brilliant man, whatever you want to say about him. And I think he, I think they both are people who take that role of being this strong man, right? The strong-man leader, the charismatic person who bends people to their will. I think that’s something that they both see themselves as, and there are similarities for sure. You can’t walk away from them. I don’t believe that Elon is a supporter of Trump. I don’t think he likes Trump.
Swisher: He wasn’t.
Mezrich: I think I agree with what’s in the Isaacson book. I don’t think he thinks highly of Trump.
Swisher: I have texts about it.
Mezrich: Yeah, but obviously there are parallels in how they, how they act and behave. I just think Elon’s way, way smarter. And it’s sad. We would never even be having this conversation if he hadn’t taken over Twitter. It never would have even crossed your mind that they’re the same people.
Swisher: Yep, absolutely. Let me ask you — your movie Dumb Money came out, during the middle of the strike of course. It’s a terrific movie. I recommend people see it. What was happening in that book was about meme stocks. What has happened from when you were writing Accidental Billionaires, which was adapted into The Social Network — what has happened to tech from your perspective?
Mezrich: Wow. I mean, that’s a big—
Swisher: I think they’ve lost their fucking minds. Go ahead, what do you think?
Mezrich: It’s a big question. It’s certainly not the brilliant college kids sitting in their dorm room dreaming up ways to make the world better. I think it became a machine. It churned a lot of people out. And then you have all these outside characters that dominated these people who became like the unicorns, right? I think the unicorns went crazier and crazier and crazier to the point we’re at today. But I think everything’s kind of shaky now. I think the meme-stock revolution that we talk about in Dumb Money is the beginnings of a revolution. I think that there’s sort of so much anger, there’s so much bubbling up in the world, and it’s coming out everywhere. So, it’s a mishmash. It’s a mess. It’s a disaster. You have someone like Elon who doesn’t want to just build Tesla. He wants to build everything. He wants to save the world, rather than, you know, make a car or whatever it is. And I think that that unicorn thinking has just expanded and expanded and expanded.
Swisher: One of the things about Dumb Money that I liked is they can’t — these rich people maybe aren’t as smart as you think they are, right? And the other part of it is that a lot of these people, including Elon, are always like, “Let’s get the man.” And I keep saying to the people that were doing the Dumb Money, you know, the people that were sort of trying very hard to make money at this stuff and play their same game is: “You’re backing the man in fighting the man. Like, they’re the man. They are the man.”
Mezrich: It’s all very confusing, right? Because Elon is somewhat of a rebel leader.
Swisher: He’s the man.
Mezrich: And he’s trying to rally the people in a way against the man, and he’s the man.
Swisher: Well Andreesen just did that.
Mezrich: Yeah, you know, that happens a lot. Like, you look at Zuckerberg’s transformation from being the rebel to being the Establishment, right? In the end, you become what you hate, I guess, is sort of the moral of all these stories.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
On With Kara Swisher is produced by Nayeema Raza, Blakeney Schick, Cristian Castro Rossel, and Megan Burney, with mixing by Fernando Arruda, engineering by Christopher Shurtleff, and theme music by Trackademics. New episodes will drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.