Elon photo: Getty Images

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Elon tweeted last week, “Time is the ultimate currency.”

Please let me know where I can buy some.

There are some challenges even Elon Musk can’t solve — Afghanistan, the Delta variant, sluggish job growth — and that’s why I haven’t written about him for a few weeks.

But for too long, I’ve ignored the world’s most fascinating billionaire. There’s always a lot going on in the Universe of Musk, and I spoke with someone who’s been following his every move.

You’ll meet that guy in a minute.

First:

SpaceX cleared to launch first tourism flight.

The first all-civilian SpaceX crew will take off from Florida next week and circle the Earth for three days before splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean.

(Three days is a long time to repeatedly circle the Earth in a small space capsule with three other people. I mean, it’s cool and all that, but… )

The flight was purchased for an unknown price by 38-year-old Jared Isaacman, a veteran jet pilot who will command the capsule. Isaacman is worth an estimated $2 billion because of the payment processing company he founded at age 16 called Shift4.

I never heard of it, either, but this is how you get rich, people. It reminds me of how Elon Musk got rich with PayPal. Find something boring which can be done better, do it better, get fabulously rich, and then go have fun.

Isaacman is using the trip to raise awareness for St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, and one of the three people he chose to go with him is a childhood cancer survivor.

All this is happening as the FAA grounded Virgin Galactic for its first space tourism flight in July carrying Richard Branson. That flight is being investigated for going off course, and “off course” is a good way to describe how Virgin Galactic shares performed after the news broke, falling as much as 11% before recovering some lost ground.

The Texas Conundrum

Texas has made it okay for anyone in Texas — including Elon Musk — to sue anyone else in Texas who may be performing abortions past the six-week point in a pregnancy. Those who sue successfully can win damages (which are tax free!).

Will the new law put the “lone” in the Lone Star State? Will businesses flee? Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told CNBC that the state remains very business-friendly, and that taxes aren’t the only reason entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are moving operations there. “Elon consistently tells me that he likes the social policies in the state of Texas.”

Well…

After the Abbott interview, Musk commented on Twitter that government “should rarely impose its will upon the people… That said, I would prefer to stay out of politics.”

#Awkward.

Tesla (allegedly) will have a $25,000 car by 2023.

… and Elon “hinted” it might not even have a steering wheel. In Elon-speak this probably means the car will be released by 2025, cost $35,000, and have a removable steering wheel in the hopes that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ever agrees to such a thing.

And the long-delayed Tesla Roadster is supposed to be released in 2023 “at the earliest,” as supply chain problems persist.

Tesla is also rolling out an updated test version of its autopilot system, while the above-mentioned NHTSA is demanding a lot more data on the system and its potential involvement in a dozen crashes. Not that investors care. Tesla shares have been on a tear in the last two weeks.

Also, did you see the video of the guy pretending he was hit by a Tesla? Hilariously, the car’s rear camera recorded the whole scam. Know your technology, dude.

You know I like characters, and the Musk universe is filled with them.

Warren Redlich is one of Elon Musk’s most popular fans.

Redlich runs a successful YouTube channel dedicated to Everything Elon plus other tech stuff. He’s a lawyer and realtor from Boca Raton, Florida, but he’s also a Stanford educated, two-time Congressional candidate and former Libertarian nominee for governor of New York who sued Trump ally Roger Stone for defamation (he lost… it was ugly).

He’s funny, passionate, smart, and admittedly a little nutty. Warren dressed up for our Zoom interview in Elon Musk merch, some of it homemade (and for sale!).

“I started using PayPal in 2003 as an attorney taking payments from California,” he says of his first encounter with an Elon Musk company. “Somebody in California [would get] a traffic ticket in New York State, and they would pay me online.” Gosh, remember when online payments were new?

But he didn’t become a Musk super-fan until a dozen years later. In fact, he remembers the exact date. “December 21, 2015,” he tells me. That was the day SpaceX successfully landed a rocket booster, ushering in the era of reusable rockets and lower space flight costs. “I think it should be a global holiday,” Warren says. “It’s probably the biggest moment in history of turning science fiction into reality.”

In 2016 he started buying Tesla shares as the stock price hovered around $40 (it’s now over $700).

In 2019, Warren made his first Musk-related YouTube video. “That video did really well.” More videos followed, and thus began an online adventure which is part-obsession, part-moneymaker for Warren Redlich.

Warren absolutely loves everything Elon Musk touches. “No one in history has achieved as much in terms of making our lives better.” SpaceX will get us off “this rock in space,” while Tesla and The Boring Company will make life on Earth “more efficient, more convenient, more comfortable, less expensive, and improved.” Neuralink will expand human consciousness and may solve problems like Alzheimer’s as we live our lives “in the simulation.”

Hold on.

Did he just say consciousness is a “simulation,” a game, the Matrix? Well, Elon has said it more than once, Redlich jokes… mostly. “If it is a simulation, there’s nothing we can do about it,” he adds.

However, Warren doesn’t think Musk is perfect. Elon is overly optimistic on product timelines (critics call this “lying”). Then there’s a flaw every reporter who’s ever interviewed the billionaire entrepreneur knows well. “He’s not really that good of a speaker,” Warren admits. “I make videos with him speaking in them, and I have to edit out so many ‘uhs,’ and stutters, and ‘ahs.’”

But Warren Redlich believes flaws make heroes more interesting.

Some think Warren has a few flaws of his own, but he has no problem pushing back. I mean, this is a guy who ran for governor of New York.

For example, Jalopnik’s Jason Torchinsky called him “combative and delusional” last spring after Redlich tweeted that a guy arrested for sitting in the back seat of his self-driving Tesla was not guilty of reckless driving.

“What he was doing does not meet the [legal] standard of reckless driving,” Redlich tells me. As an attorney who’s handled a lot of reckless-driving cases, I guess he should know. He points to New York law in particular. “It has to be alleged in the complaint that you put someone in particular in danger.” If there’s no one else around (except the driver himself), Warren argues it’s not reckless driving.

Nevertheless, Redlich says the driver made a bad decision which violated Tesla’s terms of service and reflected poorly on the company and the Tesla community. “I don’t think he should’ve done it.”

In the meantime, Warren Redlich is #winning in Elon’s shadow. His shares of Tesla have secured his retirement, and he makes a “decent middle-class income” off his YouTube channel and Musk merch.

So now he feels obligated to do something with that success, to make life better for others, to be like Elon. After all, he says, Musk took his profits from the sale of PayPal and began investing in revolutionary new companies. “He didn’t just go buy a yacht.”

Warren first thought he might do something in housing.

He started small.

Very small.

He was in the doghouse.

Redlich built a prototype doghouse with insulation to cushion dogs from the shock of thunder or fireworks. He figured this could make a huge difference in the lives of millions of pets and their owners. The first attempt failed. “I put a microphone inside it, and some sounds were quieter, but the thunder, the base level sounds, were actually louder.”

He hired an acoustical engineer, but so far, no luck.

Warren Redlich is not giving up, though, because Elon Musk never gives up! “Currently I’m working on a new project, a single passenger electric vehicle.” He’s brought in a couple of engineers to design a prototype, though he has no illusions. “95+% chance this fails.”

At least he’s trying.

That’s the Elon Musk Effect.

Comments? Criticisms? Compliments? Let me know in the comments section or email jane@janewells.com.