Dear Elon,
This is from a long time fan and I’m writing on behalf of many others like me.
I have been forever at awe by your depth of knowledge, inspired by your journey in life, both the ups and downs, by the moments of entertainments such as your appearance on Joe Rogan’s show.
You have accomplished so much.
You have reinvigorate and propel the race to space for humanity.
You have excelled us into the age of electric powered transportation to combat against climate change.
You have given so much hope to people with autism and asberger. I myself have relatives who suffered from similar condition and I hope they will grow to become as driven as you some day.
You, along with other great self-made entrepreneurs, have shown us that with some luck and unrelenting, never exhausting power of will, it might be possible to succeed.
BUT, you have problems, big problems.
Through your achievement of the above, You have, unknowingly, crafted a reputation, a role model, a real life super-hero image to many people. You have been blessed, regardless of your own admittance or desire, the power of influence. The power to affect people’s decisions, behaviors and sometimes even beliefs. Regardless of what you might think, your actions, no matter how minute, such as your tweets, can give rise to movements or cause downfall of said movements.
For the past few months, with your public acknowledgement and endorsement of Bitcoin, it has given somewhat needed legitimacy to the world of blockchain and through that, cryptocurrencies. It has given many who are long term believers in this space hope that, finally, the dawn of the new era, new way of thinking, new way of approaching and solving world wide problems through crypto-economic incentives via trustless systems. It has given institutions who were on the fence, to take a dabble. It has given government leaders and countries a reason to consider such technology and movements.
Yet, with the same power of influence, some of your messages to the world has the opposite effects. Some messages, even though highly entertaining, have caused fear of missing outs, non-sensical greed and lemmings. Some other messages have caused fear, uncertainty and doubts. These messages have given the naysayers, the doubters, the on-the-fencers reasons to treat blockchain and crypto as something much less than it deserves. It has also caused your influence, your power to affect change, your trust with the people, diminishes.
Surely we are not able to be the judge of your actions, and we do not blame your for the impacts of those actions on our lives, nor should you care. There will be many experts who can argue the rights and wrongs of different stance on things, rare minerals, dogecoin, bitcoin and energy consumption included. I will not get into that here.
What I’m writing to you for is that, you have the power to affect great change. You have the power, the intelligence, the resource, the following, to do massive amount of positive good for the world. Use it responsibility.
Wield it with great care, and I believe you will be making our dreams come true, making us “a multi-planet species, a space traveling civilization, being out there among with the stars.”
As one of my favorite super-hero once remembered:
I believe you will wield your great power for good. The world needs it, Iron Man.
P.S. Coincidentally, my 3 years old daughter today, built her first prototype of the Rocket to Mars. She just doesn’t know it yet. I should name it Sophie XVIII. Let me know if you still need some names for the Mars rockets.
I’m looking forward to the moment that I’ll wake her up in the middle of the night so we can watch the first humans set foot on Mars.
Go get ’em Elon.
Tin Nguyen