Hey Elon. It’s me, Aaron Vegh.

You won’t read this, but I’m going to write it anyway. You are the wealthiest human on the planet. You will appear in history books. I am a modest technologist living a normal life in a mediocre country. I will be forgotten shortly after I die.

So this is a silly exercise; the asymmetry between us is colossal.

But here’s the thing. You were doing so well! And now, you’re just not.

I remember the old days, when you seemed so incredible, so superhuman. You bought Tesla, and made electric cars real. You bought SpaceX, and you made space so much more accessible. You clearly felt the mandate to improve humanity, fighting climate change, and giving us a vision for a future beyond the earth. You were doing something almost nobody else gets to do as a private citizen: you moved the needle.

And I admired you for it. You don’t know this about me, but I resist admiring people I don’t know personally. But your work is too great to ignore. Technological optimism, whether we were ready for it or not. I am always ready for it. Bring on the future! You used to do that.

I don’t know what happened to that Elon. Tesla’s stalled. Tunnels weren’t a thing. Hyperloops were a pipe dream. SpaceX seems to be doing well, though. I think that’s Gwynne Shotwell running things there now.

But you’ve been focused on other stuff. You turned into an online presence, I guess. Maybe there’s something corrupting about all that money, and all the adulation from people like me. Maybe you’re surrounded by people who never push back. Maybe there’s a part of you that wants to see how crazy you can sound before someone waves you off. Maybe you’re finding there is no end.

You shouldn’t have purchased Twitter. That’s a distraction from your important work. You shouldn’t be online shouting about conspiracy theories. You shouldn’t be on Joe Rogan smoking pot. You shouldn’t be slagging trans people, especially and including your daughter. That’s vile.

You should most definitely not be connecting yourself to Donald Trump. He’s a narcissistic fascist, and you don’t need to be a commandant in the White House to get what you need to do the important work. I don’t know why you think you need to spread hate and sow division.

You need to be back at Tesla, making the next generation of electric cars. Figuring out the chemistry for cheaper batteries. Ramping up assembly lines of thorium-powered molten salt fusion reactors. Midwifing the green technlogies that are actually going to improve things on this planet for the most people.

So I don’t know who you need to hear this from, but you need to shake off the sickness and get back to work.

Cheeers,

Aaron.