Even for a year that seemed to constantly eclipse itself with ever grander moments, the morning of November 14 will forever stand out in the minds of the Imagineers who ply Elon Musk's cavernous Labs in Fremont, Calif.
Musk sailed into work just before dawn that morning and summoned his team for their gazillionth impromptu meeting.
“I have found a hole in it,” Musk announced, halfway feigning an effort to keep cool.
The assembled cast was not informed what the “hole” was, nor how it was “found,” although the speaker made no effort to dampen speculation that his epiphany might have been somehow related to the tousled state of his hair or the red smudges that adorned his shirt collar. What the onlookers knew beyond doubt was the identity of the it to which Musk referred, for there was really only one possibility.
Electricity permeated the air in the Labs, and not just because nearly every surface in the building was fashioned out of some newfangled material capable of converting light, friction, or God-only-knows-what into harnessable energy
A week earlier, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had announced that billions of ostensibly sun-like stars were orbited by potentially earth-like planets set off by distances believed to engender conditions fit to sustain life. The scientific community was abuzz. But this Siren’s call had only left Musk more tormented—and obsessed—than usual.
The it to which Musk referred was the Goddamn speed limit.
For most of his 42 years on terra firma, Musk had chafed at the injustice of Albert Einstein’s 1905 theory of special relativity, which purported to slap a creeping 186,000 miles-per-second governor on interstellar travel. “How could God do this, and that?” Musk had wondered whenever he gazed at the heavens ever since his poverty-stricken, preteen years in Pretoria, South Africa. (Musk’s animus toward speed limits can verge on the irrational. At an Oscars after-party in 2003, after Musk had pocketed his Pay Pal billions, Musk threatened to deck Sammy Hagar if the rocker ever again reprised his 1984 hit “I Can’t Drive 55” in the inventor's presence. “No, it is not f----g funny,” a drunken Musk bellowed out at a slightly bemused Hagar.)
But now, at the dawn of this anointed morning, Musk informed his legions that he had figured out a way to fire the policeman of the skies. From now on, it would be nothing but Montana rules from here to . . . everywhere—and maybe even every when. (Details are elusive, not for a lack of disclosure, but to a dearth of comprehension. Only a few people in the world, some of them assigned to the job at the Los Alamos National Laboratories, are believed capable of grasping the Musk's purported discovery.)
Musk went silent. He closed his eyes and allowed his mind to wander as the first morning rays penetrated his Labs’ translucent epidermis and bathed him in natural light.
For so many years, Musk had been hamstrung by decidedly earthy priorities—his monthly alimony payments alone stretched well into the seven figures—that kept him from chasing the Really Big Thing. Obligations and an acknowledged addiction to “challenges” had consigned him to devoting the majority of his daylight hours to the comparatively prosaic tasks of reinventing the world’s auto industry, furnishing next-generation rockets to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and slathering solar voltaic cells on the nation’s rooftops. Plans for an electric spaceplane, a supersonic railroad-like thing and myriad other “sides” had to be tabled, due to a shortage of buy-in from those whom Musk inartfully calls “20th century, Neanderthal industrialists.”
On this morning, Musk took it as an article of faith that his discovery of the keys to the universe would be sufficient to shake free the capital needed to unfasten the lock. “The staff of the Mars team is cut by 75 percent,” Musk declared, snapping out of his brief daydream. “And the Mars timetables are now divided by 12.”
Chills swept down the spines of the arrayed staffers as they realized that their longstanding dream of colonizing the Red Planet was now merely a dress rehearsal.
Musk permitted his lips to curl into a rarely observed smile.
“We’ve got places to go,” he said, pausing for effect . . .
“And people to see."
