Tesla CEO and all-around real-life Iron Man Elon Musk has been on quite the roll, making various verbal swipes at Apple as of late — and a new interview he gave to GQ doesn’t break the mold.
Describing Steve Jobs as “kind of a jerk,” and saying, “It’s not that I care about currying favor with Apple” before backing off his answers, the parts of Musk’s interview concerning Cupertino read like a textbook case in passive-aggressive behavior.
Whatever happened to the guy who thought an Apple Car was a “great idea?”
“[T]he one time I met Steve Jobs, he was kind of a jerk,” Musk tells GQ, when asked about the oft-made comparison between himself and Apple’s late CEO. “And everyone I know who met him…”
According to Musk, his introduction to Jobs took place at a party, and Jobs was unaware of who Musk was.
In the GQ interview, Musk then stopped talking about Apple and said he wanted to withdraw his answer, saying, “The last thing I need is to generate animosity, you know. It just is not helpful.”
That doesn’t stop the subject of Apple coming up again, though, with Musk clarifying his previous comments that, “We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard.’ If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding.”
Musk says, “You know, it’s better if I don’t say anything on [the Apple] front. My point is, there’s no upside in generating animosity. It’s not that I care about currying favor with Apple or anything like that, but I don’t care to generate animosity.”
You mean, like putting out an April Fools’ Day joke about Tesla getting into the smartwatch game?
Despite this, if you’re a fan of Tesla and Musk (and, with the exception of his slightly baffling comments about Apple, I certainly am), the whole article is well worth a read — which you can do right here.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
24 responses to “Elon Musk: I met Steve Jobs and he was a jerk”
Yeah… Jobs was a jerk… who cares? Franklin was an alchoolic… who cares? Da Vinci was extravagant and had a difficult personality…who cares? Einstein was argumentative… who cares?
As with all figures that mark the collective, shadows lurk beneath them. I cannot name 1 individual that doesn’t have a quirk of some sort. Seems to me that for the sake of being taken seriously, certain people need to interject into their sentences and declarations that they met this famous guy…or that famous woman. Only to bash on them in the next sentence.
I like what Tesla does… doesn’t mean I like Musk. I like what Apple does… I never met Jobs… what difference does it make to people buying the products (because they fit the need he/she has) if the now deceased CEO and co-founder of the company was a jerk?
Next…
So…no one was taking Musk seriously before this article and that statement?
No… just that I never really paid attention to his sorties… not because he’s not a key player in the auto industry … just because I am more interested in the products than the guy leading the company…
Musk is on the same spectrum of psychopath that Jobs was. Same as most CEOs
Sociopath. Psychopath would be someone like Charles Manson.
Psychopath doesn’t necessarily equate to a murderer. There was a quite well publicised study showing the majority of CEOs display traits of psychopathy.
I believe Musk was angry that Jobs didn’t recognize him – thus he was a Jerk. “How dare he not recognize the great and all mighty Musk!”
I’m wondering if he’d say the same thing is Jobs was still alive? It seems that a lot of other people are trying to get public attention since Jobs isn’t around anymore. I’m wondering how much jealousy there is with Elon because with all of his so-called intelligence, his company has yet to break profitability and I don’t know if they ever will.
It’s been well established that Jobs was a massive jackwagon. What I want to know is why I should care.
All I care about is that Steve Jobs is much of the reason why Apple is what it is today. And I must say I find big pleasures in using Macs and reading about whats going on in the world of Apple. And since my daily job is doing visual work in front of a computer, a pretty and reliable computer doing all I want means more to me than it just being a computer – and of that Im grateful to Steve Jobs. Whos a jerk or not doesnt matter, since I will never meet any of these huge corporate bosses anyway….and btw, I have yet to own a Tesla so Elon hasnt done anything for me personally.
So we are all in agreement, Steve Jobs was a jerk. The End.
I love Tesla. I love Musk. This has no relation with my love for Apple. Or love for Jobs. Musk is Musk. Jobs is jobs.
Musk seems to be dragging Apple and Jobs through the mud lately. Maybe he should just shut his trap. I believe his deriding Apple/Jobs shows that he is not mature enough to run his business. Focus on Tesla/SpaceX/
he is mad because quite a few engineers from both spacex and tesla have been jumping ship to apple and Blue Origin
I think Elon is bi-polar.
This tells me more about Musk than it does about Jobs.
So.. the Apple car is coming, right? And Musk is pissed off because it’s going to kill tesla. Got it.
I actually created an account to post this, because apparently none of you are aware of the context of these comments by Musk; please read the actual article where this was published… these statements are all taken out of context from an article where he said many good things about Apple and Jobs, and the article was written by an interviewer that was pro Musk. But apparently all you have to do now a day is publish some bull and people will eat it up, it really is upsetting. I’m ashamed of everyone commenting here for eating this up… do your research.
Most of us commenting here are doing so half in jest knowing that it doesn’t really affect anyone’s life and that there’s a running joke among the posters over who can write the most subtle yet outrageous things. Elon Musk doesn’t care one bit what is said here and rightly so since it won’t affect his life at all. Not one bit.
But you seem to take things very seriously. Don’t. Life’s too short.
You can always say something to get people’s attention, and what’s the intention?
And most importantly, one should learn “respect the dead”.
I met Elon Musk and he was a whiny baby.
Well I’ve never really met him but he does seem to be a whiny baby.
A jerk who set in motion the abusive margin scheme that dumbed down America.
Calling a genius ‘a jerk’ posthumously has got to be the lowest pedigree mind. If anything, Elon Musk has proven that he is a jerk; and granted all his great work, he’s going to fail big time. A**holes with motormouths usually do.
And i’ll bet anything, if he’s psycho-analysed, one would find, the source of his animosity towards Steve Jobs and Apple lies exactly here –> “According to Musk, his introduction to Jobs took place at a party, and Jobs was unaware of who Musk was.”
*Jobs was unaware who Musk was*. That can hurt petty ego-slavish minds like Elon Musk. Instead of taking it at face value and being classy and mature about it, he let it upset him deeply. D**kwad!
There are lots of jerks in this world. Steve would have been one jerk in a list of millions if in fact he was one. Musk also sounds like a jerk if he’s bad-mouthing a dead man.