The cult of an Elon Musk or a Jack Ma has its perks—but also perils

“I AM BECOMECEO meme, Destroyer of shorts.” This recent tweet by Elon Musk struck a messianic tone that his disciples lap up. The past month has boosted the cult status of the uber-entrepreneur. The GameStop saga gave him ammunition in his long-running battle with short-sellers, while also positioning him as a champion of the little guy taking on Wall Street. This week fans were spellbound by the announcement that Mr Musk’s electric-car maker, Tesla, had invested $1.5bn in bitcoin and would start accepting the cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Earlier, a barrage of cheeky tweets from Mr Musk about dogecoin (“the people’s crypto”) had sent serious investors scrambling to learn more about a digital currency that started as a joke.Impish humour is a Musk hallmark, but the impact of his missives is no joke. They can set herds stampeding. His bitcoin announcement propelled it to new heights. Tesla’s market value briefly climbed above $830bn, near its peak. The history of business is littered with Pied Pipers but, as Peter Atwater, a social psychologist, points out, none has matched Mr Musk for the number of things he has helped turn red-hot, from cars and crypto to space travel and Clubhouse, a live-podcasting app he appeared on. That invites two questions. What makes the Musk scent so intoxicating to so many? And what are the pros and cons of being a cult ?