Why the Musk vs. Bezos space feud is probably fake
Musk v Bezos: real rivals or fake feud? Our research gives a clue
Race to the bottom?
There are plenty of good reasons to be exploring space, but we just don’t know if these billionaires will prioritize profit or science, benefits to humanity or a much narrower substratum of the wealthy. The signs don’t look good, as Musk launches thousands of Starlink satellites that riskturning low earth orbit into a junk yard. Meanwhile, the ten minutes of weightlessness offered by Bezos are aluxury affordable only to the 0.01%– not to mention being damaging for our planet.
As a group, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs present a shared belief in using technological solutions to social problems. Social media platforms are designed to better connect us by fostering divisions, and spaceships offer a way to escape a planet that may no longer be able to comfortably support us. These solutions and the problems they purport to solve have been presented to us, since the days of Steve Jobs, the late chairman of Apple, as the result of the vision of the “genius founder” – an awkward, but dazzling leader: a mythic figure who expands the frontiers of human endeavor. It started with home computers, then went online and now it is soaring into space.
Instead of dividends (another relic, like competition), these businesses are valued in headlines, tweets and “vision”. Tesla is the most valuable car company in the world based almost entirely on Musk’s celebrity inspiring a legion of fans to invest in the company. Amazon is a ruthless monopoly that secured its early market lead after aggressive tax avoidance and punishing hours for its staff. But because Bezos is framed as an inspirational CEO, a culture of overwork has been transformed into the can-do spirit of the American frontier.
These entrepreneurs tell us compelling stories about their lives, their businesses and their vision. We will never know if they are true, manicured and coiffured as they are through one of the most successful publicity machines in history. So if we find ourselves swimming in clickbait about these men, it’s not incidental that we find them alongside celebrity news: it’s absolutely fundamental to their business strategies and thus a key source of their wealth and power.
Written byBen Little, Lecturer in Media and Cultural Politics,University of East Anglia
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
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