Mitchell_Porter

“Veppers… is based on Musk”

If this is true, then it’s a remarkable bit of SF foresight, because in 2010, Musk was nowhere near what he is now. He wasn’t even in the top 100 richest. He was rich, but not even a billionaire. It was such a different time that even Jeff Bezos was just #43 in the world (this is from Forbes 2010). We didn’t yet have our current technofeudalism centered on Internet tycoons; the tech tycoons in the top 10 were Bill Gates and Larry Ellison.

Regarding the main topic of this thread, I too had wondered if the name is a clue that Elon was the golden child of some secret cult of upper-class Space Nazis, their anointed one destined to realize the Iron Dream. But if one is to entertain such thoughts, you should be aware that it was also the middle name of a maternal great-grandfather, John Elon Haldeman, who was apparently a Minnesota school teacher who emigrated to Canada with his chiropractor wife.