Elon Musk as an ongoing case study in audience capture
After following Elon Musk almost religiously over the last 13 years, observing his gradual but stark personality shift from my initial perception of him has been fascinating. Since 2020, I started developing a theory to help contextualize my observations and now feel compelled to write about what I think is easily the most consequential case of audience capture in history. This will be a long one so, strap in.
At its core, audience capture describes the process by which social media users gradually modify their behavior to appeal to their most engaged audience members. While this phenomenon has been widely documented among influencers and content creators, its manifestation in someone of Elon’s stature and resources presents a unique view into how this dynamic can shape even the most seemingly independent actors.
Pre-2016: Elon Musk, the visionary engineer #
In the years before 2016, Tesla was a young and attention-grabbing player in the auto industry. The company was selling premium electric cars (the Roadster and the Model S) in relatively small volumes, yet earned itself outsized acclaim. This was not surprising. Tesla was making real strides with functional vehicles in a niche overrun by cartoonish ones. The approach of starting out with the Roadster showed what was possible while the rest of the industry continued to double down on gas guzzlers as a path to performance. By 2016, the company’s market capitalization had swelled to over $30 billion. This was rightly seen as a lofty innovation premium that reflected confidence in Elon’s vision despite the company’s modest sales and ongoing losses.
Elon’s public persona during this period was largely positive. He was seen as a visionary, engineering driven entrepreneur who was often compared to Tony Stark. In fact, he was cited as a partial inspiration for the Tony Stark character in the Iron Man films, including making a cameo in Iron Man 2, establishing his image as a real life tech superhero. Speaking of cameos, I remember being giddy over his appearance in Season 4, Episode 3 of Rick and Morty as Elon Tusk, a character he voiced.
Media profiles in the early 2010s largely focused on his bold ventures, including SpaceX’s advances in reusable rockets, and SolarCity. He was portrayed as an innovator taking the lead with futuristic ideas like sustainable transport and space travel. Amidst this, he cultivated a reputation for obsessing over engineering details and “sleeping on the factory floor” to solve problems, further reinforcing the impression of a hands on, mission driven CEO. Early followers will remember when he published a white paper in 2013, detailing the plans for a “fifth mode of transport” called the Hyperloop.
2016-2017: The rise of the Musk persona #
This period saw Elon becoming increasingly active on Twitter, using it not just for company news but for direct, informal interactions with his followers and observers. His personality and antics became a bigger part of the Tesla narrative, and effectively complemented the traditional focus on engineering. He shared technology musings, responded to customer suggestions, and cultivated an image of a quirky bold leader unafraid to speak his mind.
It was around this period that my admiration of him hit fever pitch. I had historically leveraged my Twitter account as a form of public journal of my thoughts and life in general and had no interest in devolving to boring tech executive tweets as a result of cofounding a YC-backed startup. Side note: I was often in the Bay Area during this period and booked a test drive of the Tesla Model X sometime in March, 2017.
Elon’s unfiltered personality-driven engagement helped build a cult-like following online, and unlike more buttoned-up CEOs, he wasn’t shy about making controversial or whimsical statements in public. Naturally, this candid persona endeared him to many tech enthusiasts, who saw him as relatable, but it also began to polarize public opinion.
Notably, the line between his personal brand and Tesla’s began to blur, and the latter’s valuation skyrocketed in 2017, seemingly powered by both his charisma and the company’s fundamentals. In April 2017, Tesla’s market cap surpassed that of General Motors to become the most valuable American automaker at $51 billion. This was despite the fact that the company was still unprofitable with sales being a fraction of that of its established rivals. By the end of this period, it was clear the company’s stock price was increasingly tethered to Musk’s ability to captivate an audience with his vision - an effective form of marketing for Tesla.
2018: The Thai cave controversy and “funding secured” saga #
Elon’s growing penchant for unfiltered communication soon faced a bit of turbulence in 2018, notably with two high profile incidents.
In July 2018, Elon involved himself in the rescue of a boys’ soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand, offering to help with a mini-submarine and flying to Thailand with a team from SpaceX and The Boring Company to meet with government officials. The head of the rescue operation thought the sub was technologically sophisticated, but impractical for the situation. Elon hit back, denigrating his credentials while stating that he was not a subject matter expert. When the furore resulted in a British diver dismissing Elon’s project as a PR stunt, Elon lashed out on Twitter, calling the diver a “pedo guy”. The baseless slur sparked widespread outrage. This was one of the first times his personal Twitter conduct attracted serious negative mainstream attention, and investors were worried.
As shareholders and analysts publicly criticized the behavior as immature, Elon initially doubled down on the insult before eventually deleting the tweets. Tesla’s board and major investors urged him to apologize, which he did. Tesla’s stock had dipped immediately after the “pedo" tweet, with his personal net worth dropping by nearly $300 million. This incident introduced a new narrative in the media - that Elon’s erratic online behavior could pose a risk to Tesla.
Perhaps annoyed by the shareholder outcry over a situation he deemed disconnected from the company, Elon shocked the market barely a month after with a single tweet on August 7, 2018: “Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.” This tweet implied a massive buyout of Tesla and sent the stock into immediate chaos. The share price spiked and trading was briefly halted. In the following days, doubts began to set in about whether funding was really secured and by the end of August, Elon reversed course, announcing Tesla would stay public.
The whiplash effect the tweet had on Tesla’s stock resulted in investors who bought into the hype making losses at the time, and the tweet itself landed Elon in trouble with the SEC. An investigation was launched, and by September, Elon was charged with securities fraud. Interestingly, his large fanbase remained mostly loyal, with many retail investors applauding his willingness to pushing back short-sellers with the buyout attempt.
This period marked the first significant bifurcation of his audience. Personally, this was when I started engaging in the gymnastics of “separating the art from the artist”, where I still absolutely loved Tesla and SpaceX, but lost faith in Elon’s value system.
2020: Musk’s pandemic defiance #
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 brought another inflection point for Elon and Tesla and highlighted his willingness to defy authorities and conventional public opinion, and a further shift in his public perception as he took on a contrarian position in pandemic discourse.
As the virus spread, Tesla initially had to shut down its Fremont factory under local health orders. Elon was unhappy about the forced closure and expressed skepticism regarding the pandemic’s severity. He famously tweeted that “the coronavirus panic is dumb” and throughout March and April, he frequently downplayed the risk of the virus. Later in April on a Tesla earnings call, he went on a rant against the lockdown measures, calling the stay-at-home orders fascist and forcibly imprisoning people in their homes. “This is not democratic, this is not freedom.” he exclaimed.
Critics condemned the outburst as irresponsible and insensitive, while some fans and a growing chorus of anti-lockdown groups cheered his stance. Shortly after, Elon took his defiance a step further by reopening the Fremont factory in violation of county orders and essentially dared the authorities to arrest him. This drew national attention, and local officials scrambled to negotiate with him. Eventually, Tesla and the county reached a deal to allow the factory to remain open with safety measures. His approach had worked, and it further cemented his image as a rule-breaking leader.
As for Tesla, by July 2020, its market cap went on to surpass that of Toyota to become the world’s most valuable automaker at over $200 billion. The company had posted an unexpectedly profitable Q1 although the news was overshadowed by Elon’s antics. In fact, the antics arguably kept Tesla in the news, and retail investors remained extremely bullish on the company’s long term prospects.
Elon’s expanded fanbase came with more political baggage. He had made a name for himself as an anti-establishment crusader, and was seen as a champion for freedom against government overreach. It was clear that even parroting misinformation originating from his new audience had no long term effects on his business. Instead, the level of cheer and adulation he received showed how much he could continue to leverage his fame to push back against authorities.
The self-reinforcing cycle was in full swing.
2022: “Let that sink in” #
Elon’s continued drift towards personality-driven spectacle reached a crescendo in 2022 with his tumultuous acquisition of Twitter. Initially framed as an altruistic move to champion free speech, it quickly devolved into public theater, rife with legal battles, performative antics, and increasingly polarized discourse.
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”, he tweeted. The announcement to purchase Twitter for $44 billion immediately divided public opinion and energized his growing base of supporters who have been frustrated with content moderation on major platforms, while alarming others concerned about unchecked misinformation. The former overlapped with his pandemic-era audience, and saw it as a heroic move against “big tech censorship.”
Elon’s offer to buy Twitter was a staggering sum, especially when contrasted with Tesla’s entire valuation just five years earlier. He was casually committing nearly the equivalent of Tesla’s market cap from 2017 to acquire a social media platform. This speaks to just how dramatically his capacity to mobilize vast amounts of capital to realize his personal whims and ambitions had escalated in a relatively short span.
Despite locking himself into an airtight agreement, Elon began to show signs of buyer’s remorse, claiming Twitter had misrepresented the number of bots on the platform, suggesting that the deal was “temporarily on hold” and eventually attempting to terminate the agreement. Twitter sued to enforce the contract, and after a legal drama threatening to expose potentially embarrassing private communications, he capitulated and agreed to complete the original deal in October 2022. Throughout this period, his supporters maintained their enthusiasm, reframing each development as strategic brilliance rather than impulsivity as they were convinced he was executing complex “4D chess” maneuvers. Fun fact: He had tried to get a 30% discount on the agreed purchase price but was rebuffed.
The culmination of this came when Elon arrived at Twitter headquarters carrying a literal sink. It was a visual pun to go along with his tweet, “let that sink in”, and a moment that perfectly captured how his communication had evolved to directly cater to his online supporters. This wasn’t a message for the business community, Twitter employees, or the broader public. It was an inside joke for his dedicated audience who had spent months creating memes about the acquisition - signaling a prioritization of this audience above all other stakeholders.
Upon taking control, Elon swiftly moved from assurances of minimal disruption to radically restructuring the company, firing much of the leadership along with a significant portion of the workforce. The chaotic management style, fueled by his real-time Twitter announcements, attracted both ridicule and applause. Content moderation teams were decimated, and previously banned accounts were reinstated. The algorithm was altered to reduce the reachability of tweets with links, creating an environment where sensationalist, unsourced claims flourished. The introduction of paid verification and creator incentives inadvertently turned misinformation into a profitable business model, resulting in a feedback loop that incentivized controversial engagement at the expense of accuracy.
Besides affecting the platform broadly, these changes specifically reinforced Elon’s pattern of increasingly provocative and polarizing statements, with each one generating massive engagement and further cementing his relationship with his core audience. His narrative shifted further toward victimhood, alleging political persecution and censorship from those opposed to his actions. He was now trapped in a persona crafted by audience expectations, unwilling or unable to disentangle his public image from the character he had become.
While his unprecedented combination of wealth, technical influence, and cultural reach present a particularly alarming example of audience capture, examining other known figures who have fallen prey to this dynamic can help illustrate both the universality of this pattern, and what makes Elon’s case particularly significant.
Politicians (e.g. Donald Trump) #
Few political figures embody audience capture more clearly than Donald Trump. Beginning with relatively mainstream conservative positions, he quickly learned that his most provocative statements generated the strongest reactions at rallies and on social media. After spending years energizing his base with increasingly inflammatory rhetoric, he found himself amplifying fringe narratives that his core supporters craved, never mind that it alienated moderate allies (albeit temporarily, as we’ve come to find out since 2024).
Trump’s case demonstrates how audience capture can transform a public figure into a vehicle for their audience’s most fervent beliefs. The January 6th riot at the Capitol, and the subsequent pardon of everyone involved, is the marquee manifestation of this dynamic, and a jaw-dropping outcome of a leader becoming captive to his audience’s most extreme proclivities.
Media Personalities (e.g. Jordan Peterson) #
Jordan Peterson exemplifies audience capture in the intellectual sphere. He initially gained prominence as a clinical psychologist offering lectures on mythology, psychology, and self-improvement. He found his breakout moment opposing Canada’s Bill C-16 regarding gender identity and expression, a stance that attracted a predominantly young male audience seeking a counter to progressive orthodoxy. As his visibility grew through viral videos and debates, his content increasingly focused on culture war topics that generated the most engagement, even as these moved further from his academic expertise.
The long-term consequences for Peterson include increased fame and financial success, but also damaged credibility in academia and among previous supporters who see him as having gone off the deep end into political punditry. He’s now in a position where moderating his rhetoric or returning to more nuanced psychological analysis risks disappointing the audience that catapulted him to fame. His trajectory presents a cautionary tale of how audience capture can redirect intellectual pursuits towards ideological entrenchment.
Content Creators (e.g. Nicholas “Nikocado Avocado” Perry) #
Perhaps the most visually dramatic case of audience capture is represented by Nicholas, who began his YouTube career as a soft-spoken vegan musician. As his monologues received little to no attention, he discovered eating ridiculous amounts of food on video generated significantly more views. His audience engagement grew, and so did the portions, and Perry himself. The transformation was rapid and stark, as his content evolved from health-conscious videos to increasingly theatrical displays of excessive consumption, emotional outbursts, and relationship drama, all of which triggered algorithm-driven spikes in viewership and revenue.
He added over 90kg, developed health complications, and crafted an online persona described as loud, abrasive, and spectacularly grotesque. He was, until last year, trapped in a performance that his audience expected and demanded while being a prime example of how incentives can drive creators toward extreme behavior when algorithms and financial rewards align.
The insidious nature of audience capture lies in its invisibility to the captured, and I believe Elon exemplifies this at scale. The feedback loop in place has netted him unprecedented access to capital, enough to help hold cult-like sway over a significant portion of the population, yet unwittingly stuck performing for the most vocal of his followers.
The societal consequences of Elon’s behaviors in the last two years are profound, extending beyond mere controversy or corporate drama. His deepening alignment with reactionary segments of his audience has coincided with (and perhaps directly accelerated) a troubling erosion of trust in vital institutions. His decisions at Twitter illustrate this - empowering fringe voices in the name of “free speech”, directly undermining public discourse during crucial events such as elections and international conflicts.
In seeking validation from his most fervent online followers, Elon has repeatedly prioritized immediate applause over long-term institutional stability or public good. See the $13 billion leveraged buyout of Twitter for instance, and how it somehow resulted in the surreal scenario of the company suing its own advertisers to prevent them from leaving. It highlights the real-world consequences of catering to what I once described as the “least intelligent but highly effusive” subset of his followers. His open hostility towards regulators and unprecedented political influence, as illustrated by his direct role advising the Trump administration and shaping federal policies favorable to his interests, further compounds this institutional erosion.
In essence, Elon’s story has evolved from a personal transformation into a cautionary tale of how profoundly audience capture can distort public institutions, democratic norms, and societal trust itself.
There’s something remarkable (and deeply unsettling) about the second-order effects unfolding as influential figures consciously mirror his transformation. While Elon may have unwittingly stumbled into his audience’s embrace, his imitators now willingly extend their wrists to be cuffed. Audience capture doesn’t just impact the captured; it transforms the audience, conditioning us to applaud increasingly extreme performances and gradually numbing us through a relentless stream of spectacle.
As we reward those who shout the loudest, we unintentionally warp our own expectations, and reshape the fabric of shared spaces, public discourse, and culture itself. The risk extends beyond the compromised institutions or captured individuals, and is an erosion of our collective capacity to discern truth from theater. Principles become malleable, replaced by whatever keeps the engagement metrics rising. Unless we consciously reclaim our agency as thoughtful participants rather than passive spectators, we’ll find ourselves trapped in performances of our own making.
Thanks to Mariam Omoyele for the cover art, and to Fu’ad Lawal, Kiki Mordi, Dayo Adedapo, and Toyin Agunbiade for reading drafts of this.