Man Has Questing Spirit and Hairless Arms

Elon Musk, who looks a lot like the villain from “Casino Royale” who kept weeping blood, wants to start a Martian colony, and, based on all the weird, delightfully over-the-top things people say about him, maybe he will? Entrance us, Tom Junod!

1. “And that is the key to Elon Musk. He has the will. “Elon is not afraid of breaking things — he will break himself if he has to,” says Justine Musk, his first wife and the mother of his five children.”

2. “In the spring of 2008, Justine told him how unhappy she was. They went to counseling for a month, and Elon delivered an ultimatum: accept the marriage as is. When she said she couldn’t, he filed for divorce the next day, and six weeks later he announced his engagement to the British actress Talulah Riley.”

3. “He has brown hair, reddish lips, and nearly hairless arms.”

4. “He laughs readily at his own most obscure jokes, smiles faintly in equal parts amusement and disappointment, and indeed acts as though only he can see the membrane that separates him from the rest of the world. Although it would be an exaggeration to say that there is something alien about him, it would be no surprise if he lifted his shirt and revealed that he had no navel.”

5. “If the Musks had arisen from literature, they would come off as an unlikely combination of Salinger’s Glasses and Faulkner’s Snopeses — a combination of insular giftedness and rude commercial energy.”

6. “”I listened, and he said, ‘Can we meet this weekend? I have a private jet, I’ll fly to your house.’ Well, that rang my alarm bells, and I said, ‘No, I’ll meet you at the airport in Salt Lake.’ Tell you the truth, I wanted to meet him in a place where he couldn’t bring a weapon, so we met in the Delta Crown Room.””

7. “He will ask you to leave everything you own and everything you know. He will ask you to start a colony on a planet that exists as a red star in the night sky. He doesn’t want you to come back. But he doesn’t want you to die, either. For a long time he thought you would have to risk death to accomplish his dream, but now he’s decided he doesn’t want you to. You don’t have to die for Elon Musk. For you to be willing is more than enough.”