David Runciman wrote last year that Richard Branson portrays himself as ‘a plucky David in a world of corporate Goliaths’ despite having ‘made his fortune out of the regulated parts of the economy, which he has milked to extract government subsidies, tax breaks, licensing agreements and protected income streams’ (LRB, 20 March 2014). Elon Musk, whom John Lanchester wrote about, isn’t so different (LRB, 10 September). Musk, like Branson, encourages his followers to see him as a paragon of Randian individualism and enlightened futurism. As they see it, Musk’s success can be chalked up to his hardy upbringing in the wastes of South Africa, where the government’s only use was as a helpful antagonist spurring Musk’s development into today’s virtuous ‘disrupter’ of the calcified status quo.

Lanchester emphasises Musk the individualist and ignores Musk the cynical entrepreneur. No mention is made of the Department of Energy’s $465 million direct loan to Tesla, or to the State of Nevada’s $1.5 billion package of tax refunds and other direct subsidies to Tesla to build a battery factory, extracted with promises of jobs and classic Bransonian threats to accept another state’s offer if Nevada didn’t give Tesla all it could give.

To be fair to Lanchester, Musk has a proven ability to deliver on his promises, unlike Branson: governments can expect more than just empty tarmac in the desert when they throw money his way. Musk may well usher in a future of electric roadsters instead of filthy internal combustion engines; privately constructed pneumatic tubes instead of taxpayer-built high speed rail. But to paraphrase Barack Obama: Musk, you won’t have built all that.