Elon Musk intends to make himself immortal by inserting himself into history books as best he can: electric cars will do, but so will a private mission to Mars. At times, it seems that he is the last subscriber to the “Great Man” theory of history.
The problem is that history tends to be written by the survivors — a heel turn late in life, for instance, will obliterate any contemporary admiration. In Los Angeles, this is most clearly borne out by William Mullholland. Mulholland — an obsessed engineer whose dream was to supply Los Angeles with enough water for generations of growth — performed an examination on the St. Francis Dam hours before it collapsed, killing hundreds in one of…