An Open Letter to Elon Musk

Come Back to Earth. It’s Not Too Late.

Elon,

I know we’ve had our differences, and still do. But I’ll be honest: I’m worried about you.

A few years ago, you were the innovator, the visionary, the champion of freedom. A near-perfect Randian hero—an uncompromising genius tackling high-speed internet in remote locations, electrifying transportation, and promising to take us to Mars and beyond.

And you weren’t just smart; you were cool. The fun guy. The meme king. The billionaire at Burning Man. The one who embraced psychedelics and still launched rockets.

Now? You’re someone people take jabs at—literally. Onetime friends and lovers come out publicly against you. Your brands have taken a hit—by association, and by your own behavior.
And so have you.

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You were Icarus, flying higher with each launch, each promise. Prometheus, bringing fire to humanity. Now, you’re chained to the consequences, and the eagle you once fed is coming to gnaw at you. The wax is melting, and the Earth is calling you back.

And I can’t imagine that’s easy on anyone.

You used to be bold. But now? You’re rehashing the same tired lines about government being an overgrown DMV. You’re hailing an encrypted chat app as your next great innovation.

Deadlines keep slipping. Cybertrucks get recalled. The affordable Tesla gets quietly canceled. And even turning the White House into a Tesla showroom didn’t do much for sales.

You’ve invested so much in an administration, a project, only to end up feeling betrayed.

Maybe you expected they were really about small government, about reducing the debt burden and making America great again; not about keeping the party going—at least through the midterms, maybe the next election—and making sure the ‘right’ people come out on top. That they would root out corruption, not amplify it by orders of magnitude.

Maybe you expected they would go your way, protect your companies, understand your vision. That your support would shield you from negative consequences. And for a while, it almost looked like it would; promises to bring about a multi-planetary civilization meant even more billion-dollar contracts for SpaceX, and you had the President of the United States for a sales rep.

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But then you went from being “one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced” to “50 percent genius, 50 percent boy”, with Trump openly asking if DOGE was all bullshit and rescinding nomination for your Head of NASA candidate.

This is quite a lot, and it’s obviously taking a toll.

There were rumors for a while. About the drug use, the downward spirals. Now it’s no longer whispers; it’s coming from people close to you.

You said ketamine helped you get out of a dark mind space, soothed the negative feelings when they came. That it was occasional.
Now, it seems it’s constant—an escape, whenever your conscience shows up.
And I don’t know many positive outcomes for a man trying to escape himself.

Maybe this is your low point. And it may not feel like it, but this is also your opportunity—to realize the party’s over, the trust is gone, the mirror is cracked. And maybe you’ve begun to see it.

Lately, you’ve expressed something close to regret. That you’d done enough political spending, that you didn’t agree with everything the administration is doing, that the tax bill was not only undoing your efforts at DOGE but bad policy.

And that is good. Because regret—real regret, contrition—is the beginning of clarity.

Not everyone believes you were really about slashing government spending. Maybe it’s time you prove them wrong; time to stop relying on juicy government contracts for SpaceX, on subsidies to make Tesla’s business model viable, on tax gymnastics to stay ahead in a silly Forbes ranking.

Some argue it was about getting rid of inconvenient lawsuits (and surely that will save the government a bit of effort). Maybe you can prove them wrong, and let justice run its course.

But the scarier claim is that it was all about the data, about building a digital panopticon to keep Americans and their ‘free speech’ in check.
Well, maybe you can prove them wrong and undo that, too. Press DELETE on that big database of Social Security, IRS, and federal employee data. And if you can’t, at least you can reveal the extent of the damage so the First Amendment doesn’t just sound good in theory.

But speaking of data... Maybe it’s also time you come back to the man who thought in first principles.

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You didn’t just sell electric cars and rockets. You sold hope, a future.

That future was never meant to work. First principles say we’re not going to Mars anytime soon, and a colony there will probably never happen. They say Tesla batteries aren’t exactly a gift to the environment if they can’t be reused or recycled, and leak hazardous chemicals instead.
They say Optimus robots, robotaxis, and full self-driving cars aren’t just around the corner, just like they weren’t the previous time around or the ones before that.

You sold lies—but you made people believe again. And that is powerful.

Not as powerful as the truth, though.

Let’s be honest: that black eye didn’t come from a toddler. And I’m afraid it came from someone you can’t afford to name.
But it’s not that important.

What’s important, Elon, is for you to know it’s not too late.
It’s not too late to change course.
It’s not too late to come clean.
It’s not too late to redeem yourself.

I don’t believe billionaires are just cartoon villains. I think many, including you, genuinely want to do good.

It’s difficult for anyone to not get caught up in our own beliefs and narratives, to strive for doubt and nuance over the comfort of certainty. Plus, you don’t build rockets, electric cars, or global companies second-guessing yourself at every turn; doubt and nuance just don’t scale so well.

And the higher you rise, the less those stories get challenged. When you live in a world of curated information, flattery, and filtered dissent, when most people want something from you, it’s easy to become disconnected, to believe your vision is the vision and those who disagree are just in the way. It’s easy to write off concerns as ignorance or envy, to believe the ends justify the means, to lose touch.

But unchecked belief in your own vision can build something monstrous. Good intentions don’t erase the harm they leave behind. They don’t absolve you from the responsibility to undo the wrong.

You could start by telling the truth: we’re not going to Mars. We don’t have an escape plan.
A car won’t save the world just because it’s electric.
And free speech isn’t about swinging the pendulum very hard in the opposite direction.

I know that might piss off some of the people who financed you and helped you get where you are now, some of them not exactly known for transparency or freedom. But that’s where courage comes in.
And the window is closing, not just on your reputation, but on the systems we have all come to depend on.

We don’t need another distraction; we need a reckoning.

Think about the future. Think about your children.

You may not like them all. You threw Mini-Me under the bus to protect whomever punched you. One disowned you. And your ex-partners say you’re not exactly Father of the Year, that you’re more present in lawsuits than in their lives.

But I believe that, deep down, you care. And surely, your children do too.

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So think about your legacy. It’s not just about making a dent; it’s about what that dent is. It’s about what you leave behind. It’s about whether the world they inherit will be livable, or wrecked.

They won’t remember the memes; they’ll remember if, with all your power and influence, you made things better, or worse. They’ll remember if you worked toward a desirable future, or just one where you felt like the hero.

You have a voice.
You have a platform.
You have more money than anyone could ever count, or should ever need.
I don’t know what else it would take to actually change things.

So hear me out, Elon: this is an open hand.
Come back to Earth.
Everyone loves a good redemption story, and you could write one of the greatest of all time.

You wanted to change the world.
Now’s your chance to change it—for good.

The world doesn’t need another god. It needs someone like you, coming down from Olympus and remembering what it means to be human.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.