But as a benefactor. Dear Gramellini, Elon Musk is the essence of the creative destruction of capitalism

On Corriere della Sera, in his usual Caffè, which is probably ginseng and certainly not a robust blend, Massimo Gramellini gets angry with Elon Musk and invites him to throw off the mask. He defines him as the contemporary version of the old iron masters, but a sixteenth version because he does not even have the courage to show himself for what he is: a snake charmer who tarnishes entrepreneurs who are much more “human” than he is. And that’s because he bought Twitter and has decided it needs a makeover and a series of cuts; that is, it does its job of business ownercertainly a libertarian, sometimes a bit Trumpian, who lives and falls to the sound of his own music.

Steve Jobs was like Musk in terms of toughness at work, but he certainly had more hippie allure, so much so that at his death Gramellini invited us to awaken the little Jobs who is dozing inside each of us. Our sublime Marchionne (whom Gramellini celebrated recently in a nice article), arrived in Turin in August, finds the executives of Fiat, in black crisis, on vacation. Indignant, with his finger already on the red dismissal button, exclaiming “on vacation from what ?!” he would probably have done like Musk had he had his hands free.

Now, the temptation to write that it is Gramellini with his lukewarm left-wing and humanist-like thinking who takes the company for a non-profit association to throw off the mask, would be strong but we want to contain ourselves. And we don’t even want to notice how this type of attack, gross for the sometimes subtle Gramellini, has the crude smell of populist propaganda.

What Gramellini exposes, more simply, is the thought of the western anti-industrialist progressive, with all due respect to the left of yesteryear. That progressivism that seems to believe that the formidable advancement in living conditions in recent decades not only of those who are better off, but above all of those who are worse off, is the result of good intentions, of providence or, to the limit, of Franciscan entrepreneurs, and not simply of ingenious activation of animal spirits made rational within an efficient production process. That progressivism that does not want to see how much the conditions of the workers have improved, that the comparison with the bosses of the ironworks is pure ideology. And in any case, it is in the ironworks that the steel with which the world has built, for example, better, stronger and safer, stable and lasting buildings in which to lead more dignified lives has been forged.

Musk is then mocked as “a myth because he trades in dreams and the future”. And what else should one trade in? What would the great enterprise be, in the double sense of the act of production and of the human adventure, if not always also a dream and a future? Should we simply limit ourselves to gray products without brands, to the triumph of the generic? Each product (be it shoes, electric cars, Martian missiles) it is always also a storybut it is not today, with the silly marketing rules, but always. And the very word “product” is not a bad word, but it is one of the most human concepts there isbecause it represents man’s creativity, his ability, to put it in modest terms, to carry on the work of God.

Fortunately, Musk does not want to be a benefactor of humanity at all. He wants to be a benefactor of himself and to show and practice his skills. But with its creative power, sometimes ingenious, sometimes scoundrel, it is the essence of the creative destruction of capitalism, of progress and of the beauty of the enterprise.