His car company, Tesla, controls two-thirds of the multibillion-dollar electric-vehicle market it pioneered and is valued at a cool $1 trillion. That has made Musk, with a net worth of more than $250 billion, the richest private citizen in history, at least on paper.

He’d seen a great deal older and more seasoned men than that lot go batchy through fatigue or some inexplicable, inner nervous flaw.

This was a real kick in the balls to us because Afghanistan was going on, September 11 had just happened, and we were away from our families.

He came into the limelight during segregation when a falling goboon brought with it a shower of something else and he earned the name of Reiny and a black N five stars.