

X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story
Pushkin Industries and BBC Radio 4
The story of Elon Musk, the way it's often told, makes him sound like a fictional character, a comic-book superhero – or, especially lately, a supervillain. As the world's richest man, the US President’s right-hand man, and the owner of X, he’s possibly the world’s most powerful man.
Musk wants to build robots and colonise Mars and appears to be dismantling sizable parts of the US government. His vision of the future seems to stem from the science fiction that has fueled his imagination since he was a boy. But what's the real story, the true history, behind Musk’s sense of destiny?
Back in 2021 Harvard history professor and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore became fascinated by this question. So she made a podcast that tried to explain Musk through the science fiction he grew up with. A lot has happened in the four years since. So she’s gone back in to bring the story up to date.
“X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story” is a production of the BBC and distributed by Pushkin Industries.
Musk wants to build robots and colonise Mars and appears to be dismantling sizable parts of the US government. His vision of the future seems to stem from the science fiction that has fueled his imagination since he was a boy. But what's the real story, the true history, behind Musk’s sense of destiny?
Back in 2021 Harvard history professor and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore became fascinated by this question. So she made a podcast that tried to explain Musk through the science fiction he grew up with. A lot has happened in the four years since. So she’s gone back in to bring the story up to date.
“X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story” is a production of the BBC and distributed by Pushkin Industries.
Top mentioned books
Here are the most frequently recommended books on the X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story podcast:

#1 Mentioned in 3 episodes
The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy

#2 Mentioned in 1 episodes
The Foundation Trilogy

#3 Mentioned in 1 episodes
Under a White Sky
The Nature of the Future
#4 Mentioned in 1 episodes
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

#5 Mentioned in 1 episodes
Nineteen Eighty-Four

#6 Mentioned in 1 episodes
The Parasitic Mind
How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense
#7 Mentioned in 1 episodes
Moon Metal
#8 Mentioned in 1 episodes
The Space Merchants
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#9 Mentioned in 1 episodes
The man who sold the moon

#10 Mentioned in 1 episodes
The Sixth Extinction
Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind

#11 Mentioned in 1 episodes
The Instability of Truth
Brainwashing, Mind Control, and Hyper-Persuasion

#12 Mentioned in 1 episodes
The case for Mars

#13 Mentioned in 1 episodes
R.U.R.
Rossum's Universal Robots

#14 Mentioned in 1 episodes
Ludacris
The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors
#15 Mentioned in 1 episodes
Ex-Risk: How Humanity Discovered Its Own Extinction
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#16 Mentioned in 1 episodes