Editorial
Stern Editor-in-Chief
Is Elon Musk’s career just a nerd’s revenge? Gregor Peter Schmitz on the current stern title
star-Editor-in-Chief Gregor Peter Schmitz
© Daniela Kreisl/Stern
Editor-in-Chief Gregor Peter Schmitz takes a look at the new starmagazine – and in the face of a new biography, wonders what demons the brilliantly dangerous visionary Elon Musk has been carrying around since childhood.
Elon Musk, currently the richest person on earth, also has many facets. So it was a bang when Isaacson announced a while ago that he was going to write a book about Musk. He was allowed to accompany him, he was allowed to talk to him again and again, talk to his friends and his enemies, he could look at private photo albums. But one thing Musk wasn’t allowed to do the other way around: determine what Isaacson writes about him.
The book is now being published by C. Bertelsmann, which like the stern belongs to Bertelsmann, and we are publishing the first excerpts exclusively for the German-speaking market. In it, Isaacson describes, for example, how Musk’s childhood in South Africa went, what his relationship with his no less eccentric father was like – and what demons he has been carrying around with him since his earliest youth. Another chapter shows how petty feuds take place in the world of the ultra-rich, for example between Musk and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
It will be interesting to see how Musk comments on Isaacson’s reviews on the short message service X, formerly Twitter, which he bought. From a first excerpt in The Wall Street Journal, we know the billionaire sees this as a continuation of the schoolyard of yesteryear — only this time the smart kids (Musk!) are made to look the cool instead of getting beat up like before. So is the whole Musk career actually a nerd’s revenge?
Söder’s struggle to retain power
When Markus Söder announced his verdict on Hubert Aiwanger, he did not act like a politician, not like a CSU boss and certainly not like a campaigner who has to defend his post as Bavarian Prime Minister in a few weeks. No, he acted like a wise judge who looked for a balance and who wanted to be fair above all. He had to keep Bavaria together, said Söder, and later even declared his decision as a service to the German culture of remembrance.
“The clever beer tent politician Markus Söder simply capitulated in front of the beer tent”
Söder has already made many bold appearances, but this was probably the boldest. Because in truth, the shrewd beer tent politician Markus Söder simply capitulated in front of the beer tent. In the days before, Aiwanger had by no means presented himself as a repentant perpetrator, but (with jubilation) as the victim of a campaign. Söder had to find out: The free voters, intoxicated by the beer tent boom, didn’t even think of distancing themselves from their chairman. And in Söder’s CSU, many didn’t think the revelation was that bad. So Söder decided pragmatically for the best chance of staying in power, as his party expects from him. However, he chains himself to Aiwanger, who not only answered Söder’s “25 questions” almost intentionally sloppily, but also railed against a campaign immediately after Söder’s “acquittal” – by the way, assisted by Söder, who also took sides with the media.
Aiwanger had even said before that the Shoah was being used against him for party political reasons. Mind you, the sentence was not said by a 17-year-old student, but by a 52-year-old Deputy Prime Minister. Aiwanger got away with a brown eye, wrote the “Taz”. A shadow of this also lies on Markus Söder.